Soma's Challenge

[SomaSpice]

Some of you motherfuckers make me feel inferior. We've got guys making awesome videogames, visual novels, e-zines, websites, and music. And what do I do? Youtube (gay). But if I've already chosen this path I'm gonna work through it as best as I can, so that's why I'm beginning this challenge.

If I don't make at least an hour of progress every day on both videomaking and drawing, or don't post evidence of such, I will donate 200$ USD to the agora. The duration of the challenge is the entirety of 2022, starting today.
(Of course, the rules apply only if I'm not interrupted by outside forces or incidents that affect my health.)


On a more serious note, the truth is I'm on my last semester of college. I'll graduate soon which means I'll have to somehow get a consistent source of income and in general fully contend with the responsibilities of modern life on my own. Its not something that scares me, and I know that I'll deal with it fine, but there's a part of me that knows I could've done so much more regarding my personal ambitions. I've had heaps of freedom and I have wasted most of it meandering. Moving forwards I'll have less and less of that freedom, so at the very least I want one last hurrah before I end this stage of my life. I want to prove to myself that I can be consistent, and I want to create something awesome I can share with others. This is my way of pushing myself to do so.

Since ideally I will be spamming on this thread everyday with pictures and whatnot, I've already bought a subscription as to help with server costs. I don't wanna be a dick.

If I fail, please, do laugh at me.

 

[E R I L A Z]

oh shit man, i wish you luck on this! well, not luck, but the wherewithal to keep it up! love the content i've seen so far

 

[赤い男]

If you need a graphic designer for your videogame, i'm willing to help with the project.

 

[赤い男]

Also, much luck with the chip challenge, buddy.

 

[IlluminatiPirate]

Badass man. I hope u succeed in whatever you decide to create. And a little advice on your last semester, do whatever you can to go to job fairs or participate in business competitions so u can try to secure a job BEFORE you graduate. So you'll have peace of mind knowing that you have something right out of college.

 

[SomaSpice]

Badass man. I hope u succeed in whatever you decide to create. And a little advice on your last semester, do whatever you can to go to job fairs or participate in business competitions so u can try to secure a job BEFORE you graduate. So you'll have peace of mind knowing that you have something right out of college.

Thanks, that's great advice.

 

[Kolph]

How about you send that money to me instead, actually in fact here is my Bitcoin address: 1LiqejYhqRPzAfr7qtwxyJ8KaFFcaeP7qk
Don't even wait until you fail the challenge, just send your hard-earned cash to me right fucking now, what were you gonna do with it anyways?
(Good luck btw x)

 

[Radical]

This is a good goal to have. Creating > consuming

t. hypocrite who creates nothing

 

[SomaSpice]

Aight lads, here's how I'm gonna keep track of my progress. I'll be using clockify.me to track my time in each activity. Its a free software that's basically a stopwatch that creates charts and reports of your activity. Usefull for freelancers who need to keep track of their billable time.

Here's my work for today:

Day 1

Drawing

I am following the drawabox method, (which is free and highly recommended) and working currently through lesson 4, drawing mammals. I'm a bit rusty so I followed a step by step on how to draw a wolf, which turned out fine, and then attempted to draw a horse, which didn't turn out fine in the least, so I gave up halfways. Here are the results:

Horses are disgusting animals.

Video editing

Currently I'm making a video on System Shock 1 (one). Its a fantastic game, a gem from 1994. Anyways, since like a month ago I've had 3 minutes of footage fully edited, but I stopped progressing becasue of writer's block. While today I didn't work on the script, I set up the stage for how I'm gonna introduce concepts in video.

Look ma, I'm in space!

It was a ton of bitchwork compositing the background on that scene, I had to isolate the citadel and the space station Vergil's inside of, which required a lot of pixel-perfect work. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to dent into my writer's block and iron out what I'm actually going to say.

Also, many, many thanks for guy's support. You're all Chads with huge dicks. Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Current progress:
383 subscribers
Drawabox Lesson 4 %50 done

 

[lain is here]

On a more serious note, the truth is I'm on my last semester of college. I'll graduate soon which means I'll have to somehow get a consistent source of income and in general fully contend with the responsibilities of modern life on my own. Its not something that scares me, and I know that I'll deal with it fine, but there's a part of me that knows I could've done so much more regarding my personal ambitions. I've had heaps of freedom and I have wasted most of it meandering. Moving forwards I'll have less and less of that freedom, so at the very least I want one last hurrah before I end this stage of my life. I want to prove to myself that I can be consistent, and I want to create something awesome I can share with others.

I went through this exact phase my last semester of college as well. It's daunting to realize that a period of relative freedom is coming to an end and to feel like you've squandered it. In retrospect though, I don't think "squander" is the right attitude to have. Having and maintaining a drive to create or to work towards some goal is always a good thing, but don't disparage yourself for not always being productive.

That said, your post is really inspirational! This kind of thing is like climbing a mountain, a little bit everyday will pay off with huge results down the line.

 

[ThyOde17]

Metal as fuck dude. This is about to inspire me to do something similar. Wish you the best of luck on your journey, you got this.

 

[SomaSpice]

Day 2

Aight lads here it its.

Drawing

First I drew an antilope chilling in a pond, some proportions are a bit funky but in general it turned out pretty satisfactory.

Then I drew this very shitty moose. I'm starting to realize I have very little mental stamina in regards to drawing, when passing the half hour mark my foucs starts to wind down and I begin to regress to figure drawing. Its quite interesting to note, so I'll be observing my consistency when drawing for long periods of time as a metric for improvement.

Also, I still fucking hate horses. I hate their retarded splayed out eyes, their disgusting teeth, their weird human like hair, and not to mention the sight of their privates. Ugh. Thankfully, next week I'mma start drawing some fish and be able to move on from hooved animals.

Video Editing

Finally, a dent on my writer's block! Turns out I just had to force myself to sit and to keep pushing for about 20 mins in order to straighten out the knots in my head. This result was entirely expected, to be honest, and the reason why I started this challenge. The script is very dirty, but I believe that the raw material is good. And its something, which is infinitely more than the nothing I had yesterday.

Comments

So, today I kinda cut it really close. I think I'll have to wake up early and crank out the work first thing in the morning if I don't want college fucking over everything, There's no way in hell I'm handing over my dollars easy, so I guess this will be me for the rest of the year...

Current progress:
-383 subscribers
-Draw a box lesson 4 %60 done
-2h 10mins spent drawing
-2h 16mins making videos

 

[SomaSpice]

but don't disparage yourself for not always being productive.

Thanks for the kind words mate. There's a balance in between being kind to oneself and putting enough pressure to succeed, and I'm not sure I've struck that golden mean yet. I'll keep your words in mind and make sure to treat myself with respect no matter what.

That said, your post is really inspirational! This kind of thing is like climbing a mountain, a little bit everyday will pay off with huge results down the line.

If I succeed, I'm sure looking back on 2022 will be quite fun.

Metal as fuck dude. This is about to inspire me to do something similar. Wish you the best of luck on your journey, you got this.

Awesome. If you were to do it, what will you be shooting for?

 

[Hraelth]

Nice work. Drawabox was super tedious and I never finished it, but I am encouraged to get back to drawing again.

 

[SomaSpice]

Day 3

Waking up a bit earlier now. Today I woke up at 8am, goal is to consistently wake up at 7. I'm not quite bursting with motivation during the early hours, but I'll find a way to deal with it.

Drawing

Today I drew a little nile crocodile. The head's too big and the body's too short, but I like it anyways. I also took the extra time for some texturing.
Since this is my first time drawing reptiles I snooped around the internet to see if I could find some helpful pointers, and I found this recording from an online drawing class focused on animal field studies. Shit's pretty cash and I feel I learned a lot.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-WybR41CqU&list=LL&index=1&ab_channel=JohnMuirLaws


Video Editing

On the video side of things I cleaned up some of my script and did some research on the lore of the game through the use of official strategy guides. Tomorrow I start writing the gamplay part of the script.

Progress
384 Subscribers
Drawabox Lesson 4 60% done
3h 38 mins spent drawing
3h 17mins spent making videos

 

[ThyOde17]

Awesome. If you were to do it, what will you be shooting for?

Not too sure. I think one of them would be to at least practice Danish daily. I have been trying to learn Danish, but I have not been at all consistent with it leading to very minimal development in my ability to actually speak/read it.

 

[FlangerFobia]

Nice job man! Keep it up! Im gonna do something similar I think with my music

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Good luck, my homie! I am glad to help you out if you ever need anything! I have experience in music making, graphic design, video filming and editing, and writing! Always glad to lend my assistance to another artist looking to make something of their hobbies! I can greatly relate to the years of squandered talent and making a comeback, but I am glad to hear you are getting started on that comeback much earlier than I did!

 

[SomaSpice]

Good luck, my homie! I am glad to help you out if you ever need anything!

Awesome dude, if I ever need help with something I'll be sure to ask.

 

[SomaSpice]

Day 4

Today was hard. I had very little energy and if it weren't for the callenge I'd have missed my goals. Somehow I managed though, and that reinvigorates me.

Drawing

Twoday I dwew a cowmodo dwagon uwu. The hands were hard for me, as you can see, but I think I've developed a feeling for 3d space. I mean, there's still a lot of work to be done, but I can feel much progress on my fundamentals.

Video Editing

Not much to comment on today. I fact checked some lore, improved the flow of the script, and worked on making a framework for how I'm gonna explain the gameplay. I think I'll need to rewatch some of my recordings so I can remember what the fuck I played two months ago...
Progress is progress anyways, and my writer's block is gone, so I have that to look forwards to.

Progress
384 subscribers
Drawabox Lesson 4 70% done
4h 38mins spent drawing
4h 23mins spent making videos