Zodiacstuck - The Goodbye to End It All

Ryudra: ...
Ryudra: ...thinking what I'm thinking?






If that first panel looks ugly, it's because I've tried my hand at Krita. Nice for animation but quite complicated for drawing.

By switching to this style I may be able to bring updates faster. I know you won't mind.

On May 17th, 2013, Zodiacstuck had started.
Happy 4th anniversary.

One year ago, I started the maintenance project: re-do all panels that were outdated, and crudely drawn, to better reflect what I wanted to do with this adventure.

*I planned to re-do the entirety of Act 1, about a hundred pages. Some pages were already fine as they were, including the latest ones.
*I planned to possibly re-draw digitally the paper-drawn panels, which existed as placeholders when I couldn't draw numerically.
*I wanted to update dialogue and text to better reflect my vision of the characters.

And, where did it end?

*I only completed one half of Act 1, including several .gif panels.
*The paper panels have been tweaked and re-taken to better the image quality, but no redraw has been done.
*Most dialogue has been updated.

Re-drawing the entirety of the beginnings of a fanventure is a task I had under-estimated. Since I put so much care in the visual aspect of Zodiacstuck, I didn't want to settle with less-than-best drawing quality, to the point where I had received some critics about how the artstyle was "too dense" and "complex" for a fanventure. I know visuals are only one aspect of the whole thing, but it is the one I wanted to change before all, so new readers wouldn't be put off by the crude drawings that were the beginnings of Zodiacstuck.

Now, I don't know what to do. I didn't complete my goals in the one year I had given myself to do all of these changes. I did what I could, but it left the whole thing looking like a patchwork. I couldn't stand the idea, but it put so much stress on me that I couldn't bring myself to do it. I saw this task as a burden rather than a task I wanted to do. In short, I was imposing myself too much, and this made me unable to reach the bar I had put so high.

I have many projects I'm currently working on, and they feel much more inspiring than re-doing Zodiacstuck and spending hours on drawing panels, without making the story progress. I didn't produce new content for it and this is what drove my slight readership away, since no commands have been given in months. Working on Zodiacstuck has become a hassle, a contraint. I'm just re-doing stuff I already did, and it's not going anywhere. That's why I decided to stop.

I'll stop re-doing panels. Since people don't care about the quality of the graphics, and most have already been done, I will leave the current panels in place. I will however try to update the dialogues and text as much as I can, so the story has a continuity. I will now try to focus on making new panels and finishing the story once I get commands and inspiration.

I hesitate as to whether put Zodiacstuck as 'On Hiatus' or not. I've already taken too much time without working on it. To not leave people with the idea that I'm not doing it anymore, I think I won't touch its status.
I hope you understand my concerns.

Thank you for following the development of Zodiacstuck.

You've never felt more alone in your entire life.
At least you get to be filled with a strange sense of wonder.

I just realized I have no idea of what I was doing anymore. It's been almost a year and I never wrote down any script save for the big lines. I'm very tempted to say fuck it and just skip a bunch of stuff, but that would be even more confusing that it already is. I'm just so lost!
I don't know what to do next, and I only lose motivation.

Tempting. But at that point I should ask the readership directly.
I will likely do some exposition stuff to make sure everything for the audience is clear, so tell me if there's anything you still don't get and I'll make it into the next scene. Tell me if there's a character you think didn't talk enough. Anything.