TIAM: Catching up with some overtime

I did awesome today!  Not only did I manage to meet my quota, I exceeded it by a whole lot!  Only because of palette swap items, but that still counts.  I don't think I can really do that again simply because I spent nearly all day on it and that just isn't sustainable.

Here's a screenshot to show a little of what I've made so far.




I like to choose a subject to focus on for the day.  The first two days were all about gardening, so I only allowed myself to do plants and dirt.  Today was architecture, so I did things like windows, doors, roofs, floors, stairs and so on.  Tomorrow will probably be interiors, so there will be lots of furniture.  Choosing a subject helps me not get distracted by all the little things that might be interesting to make, it helps me know what I'm doing next, and it helps me figure out what might be missing and be sure to include it.  I don't usually finish everything I intend to do for the subject in that day, so towards the end of things I'm doing a bit of everything, trying to fill in all the gaps.  Still it's a nice way to start out.

And now, I'm going to allow myself to rest.

TIAM: Need to pick up some speed.

A1 is now done.  It's only half a sheet and it's mostly recolors, but it still has waterfalls, decorations for the water and it's all animated.  If I finish everything else I want to do with this set and still have some time I'd like to add more to it, maybe a canal or ocean or something.  I got done everything I had intended for it though, so I'm moving on!

TIAM: Getting back on the horse.

So, you may have noticed that I missed a few days.  My cold got much worse for a bit and I just wasn't well enough to do much of anything.  I think I'm finally on the mend now, so I'm trying to get back into gear with this challenge.  Powering through missing days is a bit easier when there's some momentum but having it happen so early makes it easy to feel defeated.  It was so tempting to just give in and start the challenge over with some other tileset.

I got a very late start but thanks to some encouragement I did actually start today.  Nothing significant, just a few fence posts (not quite a fence yet) a decorative ground tile and a new carpet and interior wall tile.  I found a few errors on the newer tiles that I didn't get around to checking last time, but that's to be expected.  I wouldn't have gotten anything done without people telling me it was worth it, so thank you everyone who got me going.

BTW, I used a handy program today that I think is going to help a lot during this process.  It's called MagnifyPNG and it does exactly what it says, batch processes pngs to double size.  Checking out how things work in the editor is something I do regularly but it gets annoying when working on 16x16 tiles because I have to resize everything.  This tool should simplify it a bit and make checking things a little less of a pain.

TIAM: Keeping going

My cold got worse (at least, I hope it's just a cold), making today even harder than yesterday.  Two autotiles.  Some graves.  An animated swamp tile.  No idea if any of it actually is functional, I didn't feel like checking.  I'm moving forward but no where near quickly enough to make the goal.  At this rate I'll be spending most of the month playing catch up.

The important thing is that I am moving forward, even if it is just a small amount.  Something I've learned from all my various challenge attempts is that it's less about a huge effort and more about just putting the work in day after day, even if it stops being fun.  That and your brain likes to distract you with stupid things that don't matter because it doesn't want to do something so big.

So, it turns out that Despain doesn't have an animated base, apparently the one I thought was partial is all he uses.  He just animates each sprite individually.  I can work with that but it will be harder.  I may end up dropping the sprites anyway though, since Despain's next pack was supposed to be focused on characters and he's much better at them than I am.  We'll see how it goes.  I have lots of other interesting things I could do instead.

Here's hoping I feel better.  I'll be babysitting the rest of the week so things are only going to get harder.

TIAM: Work smarter, not harder

Hello again internet!  How many of you who said they'd play along with me are still doing it?  Please, tell me all about your progress in the comments.  We'll keep each other motivated 'till the end!

I made a whole lot of trees, some other plant types, more pumpkins (3 just wasn't enough), fixed up the garden tiles I started yesterday and started on a few of the sprites.  I'm still deeply missing the presence of a good orange and I realized I don't have a base to make the sprites from.  I asked Despain for one, but if that doesn't work I'm just going to have to skip making characters for this pack.  I'll fill in the gap with something else, icons or battlers or something.  It wasn't as much as I wanted to get done, but not bad at all considering how sick I've been feeling today.  I'm glad I built in a little leeway into my plans, but it worries me to be needing it so soon.

TIAM: Slow starts and palettes

I spent most of the day camping and only came home early because I was sick.  So my first day, while early, was still very short.  All I managed to make was a few pumpkins and an attempt at a garden patch.  I mostly used the day to get myself used to the way the original pack puts things together.  That's a fancy way of saying I spent too much time messing around with test maps and not enough time actually drawing.