Project: April and Friends' Update Blog!

This is an update blog for a comic project I’m working on right now titles “Steel House in the Prairie”, but I usually refer it to “Project: April and friends”.

Here I’ll post everything important related to it, but here’s the tag to my actual blog posts: #Chocco’s Logs

Thank you for visiting! -Chocco

CURRENT NOTES:

This is gonna take a while, but I’m going to change each relevant mention of the old title to its newest update

Right! So it's been ages since my last update log, but that's (once again) not to say that I haven't been working on anything since then. I've been working on more of the concepts side of my SHP project, as well as Mydan, the story that comes before that one. 

CHOCCO’S LOG #038

CHOCCO’S LOG #037

So, if it wasn't obvious enough, I've been slacking a bit with updating these weekly logs without giving any reason. And I'll apologise for that. First off, Winter School. It's doing fine, athough it *has* made me pay less attention to this project and I'm still having some trouble organising the things I want to do during the day. Y'know, especially since I'm still trying to fix up my sleeping schedule n' whatnot... Other than that, there's really not much outside-of-projects stuff stopping me.

Back to this project. So far, I've just been re-focusing the whole central themes and internal challenges so I can confidently continue writing the main scripts. I've recently finished doing that, actually. So, I guess, that means I can continue writing the actual story!

CHOCCO’S LOG #036

I don't know if I've mentioned this already, but I'm currently taking on Winter School right now for script writing. This course is pretty important to me, so it's bound to hinder my progress on this project.

Good news, though: I’m still working on the project in my spare time, especially with story planning n’ whatnot. I've especially been focusing on the more internal aspects (as in character arcs, themes n’ stuff - basically, the stuff that's not the main action) because it's pretty all over the place right now and needs some refining.

CHOCCO'S LOG #035

First off, I'll apologise for not updating last Sunday. I really thought I could complete that last chapter by then, but, course, I wasn't able to. Good news though, I completed my first draft of that chapter a couple days ago, and it's now available to read on my main comics site!

#CHOCCO’S LOG #034

I've just recently submitted my last assignment! I've got a bit of a holiday now, which means now I've got some time to work on my projects.

In between my homework sessions though, I've still been thinking about this project. For this one, I've mostly been thinking about title-related stuff. I feel like I might *actually* just make the title of this project the idea I had before (it was "Steel House in the Prairie"). I think I've grown attached to it. For the last time, let's just hope it's here to stay...

Also, bonus! I talked to my friends about the characteres of this project again! Mainly it was the rooftop robots of the main/secondary cast. I’m really happy that they like them.

CHOCCO’S LOG #033

If there's anything I want to get out of the way, I've been very busy with uni work this week. And that's due to some really, really bad homework habits that need fixing, and fast... But at least recently, I've found out my "golden hour(s)" for homework, which is good.

Now, on to some comic stuff. Because of uni, I've decided to sacrifice some time off my projects. But, I’ve managed to finally think up another title idea for this project! I'm thinking about titling it "Steel House in the Prairie". 

Sorry the quality’s not very good, but I hope you can see the basic shapes I’m trying to go for.

In my free time, I've been playing around with how it'll look on paper, and it's looking a bit like a rock band's logo. Not that that's a bad thing, though - I do recall saying at one point that (my interpretation of) rock music and its subgeneres has influenced the whole feel, aesthetics and tone of the story. I do feel, however, that I could tone down its edge. The story doesn't go all that hard.

CHOCCO’S LOG #032

I’ll admit that this week I hadn’t really been working much on my April and friends project. But! I’ve just gotten a boost of motivation for working on my other smaller projects, especially my Gone Unsupervised project (previously named “No Adult Supervision). 

CHOCCO’S LOG #031

Happy to say I've been back on working on my scripts this week. I've finally got the direction I want this chapter to go (finally!). Not so happily, I hadnn't felt that great throughout the week due to some real-life things I feel would be inappropriate mentioning, especially on a platform like this. It'd been a while since I last felt that bad, but it's a good thing all that didn't stop me from making a decent amount of progress on my project.

I've also decided to get back to working on some of my older story ideas and try turn them into comics. This is so I've got some comic content to get out earlier. It's good that I'm doing this too, just so that I can get the whole gist of making comics before I make any mistakes with the big one.

Also, I've got 7 out of 9 main/secondary character turnarounds done! It's just Wyra and Ida's left. However, I'm not gonna move on to the next batch of concept art, just yet. I want to return back to my previous character turnarounds and make adjustments or even completely redraw some of them. It's just that some of them don’t have good silhouettes, don’t work when it comes to physics, or just look off-model. Afterwards, I'm thinking about doing significant item/object sheets.

That should be all my major progress for the week ^_^

CHOCCO’S LOG #030

I'm a couple days overdue, but at least this is better than last time! Anyways, I didn't really mention much about my due dates for some uni assignments last week, probably because last update was pretty much long enough. But, they did happen, and those days were pretty intense, so I guess I didn't really get that much done with this project last week. At least those due dates are out of the way. My next one's on the 31st, at least from what I know right now.

That aside, I've been thinking about a few things... Firstly, I really wanna change how the prologue will go. All it does, really, is just hint to some major plot points and show a bit of the main location of where the story will play out. What I'm saying is, I feel like I could introduce the type of story I'm trying to tell a lot better, so I'm thinking about adding a bit more.

Secondly, I also want to change up how some of the character turnarounds are. Some of the silhouette tests aren't really clear for some of them, and I feel like I could make some adjustments to their shapes in general, too. I dunno why this happens, but whenever I try making some "official" art for my project, sometimes things just look really off-model for some reason, which is kinda funny! Oh well, I hope it ends one day, haha...

I've also made an update to my routine where I'm gonna try spend more scheduled time on this project, and other projects too, since I want to start off my whole comic-artist journey type thing pretty soon. I just feel like it's about time I actually started being properly organised with my passions n' stuff. That's all I have to say for this bit really.

CHOCCO'S LOG #029

So once again, I haven't written on this blog in two moths or maybe more... But, just because I haven't been keeping up with logs n' stuff, that doesn't mean that I haven't been really doing anything. I'm happy to say that since my last update, I've made some good progress on the project!

Firstly, I've set up a Blogspot blog for where my comics will be and I've decided to put my official comic scripts on there. I've done some final edits on them while adding them onto there, too. During all that editing, I also should mention that I’ve changed it up a little to read a bit more like a screenplay and a novel at the same time, if that makes sense. When I say “novel” I mean that I’ve tried to give the action parts a bit more “character” and tone and stuff. The screenplay aspect’s more on the whole “INT/EXT. LOCATION - TIME” thing. A link to the page has been added to the script archive.

I've also decided it was about time I started working on some actual concept art for the project, starting with character turnarounds of the main and secondary characters. I've done 5 out of 9 so far! You can view them on my projects Twitter.

I noticed I've been more active in adding actual scenes onto the storyline, too. I've got them all up on a Google document and it's 8 pages long so far, and it goes all the way from where I’m up to to anywhere near the end! I'm pretty glad that now's probably the time I'm actually taking the project somewhere.

Also, I'm deciding that the title isn't going to be "Project: Proclo" anymore. I'm still putting the whole title stuff on hold. I'm keeping it as "Project: April and friends" for now, which will NOT make the final cut. Yeah, this bit's probably the hardest aspect of it all...

That's all I've got for now. I'm hoping to get another update down next week and make this a weekly thing. I better not forget!

CHOCCO’S LOG #028

The database finally has links to all of the main 9 characters! 

You can see them, >>here<<

The majority, if not all, of them are still works in progress, but they’re filled enough to be released publicly. Excited to add more to the database!