My Blog
This is the place where I ramble about my thoughts, life events, etc. I hope you enjoy reading my rambles!
This Month's Entries:
7/1/26 | The current state of my OC projects
This blog will be kinda long, but it's a bunch of thoughts I've had swirling in my head for a very long time.
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I wanna start by saying that I'm entering my senior year of college next semester. I'm halfway through my summer break and still trying to figure out what my capstone film is gonna be about. I have a few concepts here and there, but nothing's fully fleshed out yet. I previously made an animated comedy short film that was very well-received by my peers. So now I'm stuck in between wanting to make another comedic film or something more serious and with a meaningful message. Only time will tell...
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Now onto the main topic of this blog entry: that being my OCs.
I'm in a really rough spot when it comes to my OCs and their respective projects. I have two ambitious worlds that I've worked on on and off over the past decade, those being Mixia and Musa. These worlds have been with me ever since I was a kid on DeviantArt, and in a way I still hold them dear to my heart.
But it's clear that I started them in middle school and they're riddled with issues. The world of Mixia was heavily inspired by closed species groups I used to engage with roughly a decade ago. It's a fantasy world populated with creatures that have their own magical abilities. On the other hand, Musa barely has any actual worldbuilding and is just a dumping ground for most of my OCs. (Even the name of the world itself is just a gibberish term that I thought sounded fun at the time.)
I liked the idea of there being an Animal Crossing-esque game based on Mixia where you interact with characters and learn more about the world's lore as you progress. And I always wanted to make a couple animated series based on the characters from Musa. But for both projects, I kept making too many characters and had no sense of direction for an actual plot or focus. Even in my current work you can tell that my OCs were just random designs I made in high school that I thought looked cool, but I had no real idea what to do with them.
Over time I basically lost interest in working on Mixia, so I draw the characters from that project way less now. And lately I've been feeling very burnt out when it comes to drawing the Musa characters. I keep doing redesigns of certain OCs to try and improve them, but that doesn't fix the inconsistencies between the colors and overall design philosophy. I'll admit I don't draw much character interaction or explore their personalities either, so to an outsider they appear one-dimensional and flat. I thought about making short comics featuring my characters so that my audience can get to know them better, but I don't have any ideas.
Also the writing is just bad. I'll also admit my OC lore is all over the place and doesn't really make sense. (For example, for some reason I decided to make my fursona an actual character in the series, which is honestly a horrible idea and very hard to work with.) I've pretty much stuck with some ideas I've had ever since middle school even though they're flawed. (Such as my characters Devon and Garrett being adopted by single parents whose designs clash with their respective kids.) The actual plot synopses I've come up with are just slice-of-life comedies, which sound pretty boring. After spending some time as an animation student and learning about the production process, I've come to realize that my OC projects just won't work as animated series.
My situation kinda reminds me of OC artists such as VivziePop and BrujoAri, where they either have so many vastly different OCs that they keep tweaking over the years to eventually create a story, or they wanna make a series but they keep redesigning the main characters and the story is nonexistent, leaving their work in production hell. Not to put down these artists or anyone who also has this type of workflow, but it's worth critiquing.
As it stands, Mixia is dead, and Musa is going on a hiatus. I have no game design experience and I haven't really worked on Mixia in years, so that idea definitely won't happen. And the animated series based on the Musa characters just aren't happening. Maybe I'll reboot the latter but with a name change and rewritten lore. I'll still keep my OC pages up, but just know that they're outdated. Sorry to anyone who showed genuine interest in these projects.
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But not all hope is lost!
Last semester I made a short film called JackAxo, and I honestly wanna do more with that project! I truly feel like I found lightning in a bottle when I worked on the film. This feels like the first time I've ever made an OC project that has an actual plot, setting, and fleshed out characters. I don't wanna just waste it all on a standalone film.
The film itself is a satirical comedy that obviously takes inspiration from Jackass. But it also makes fun of YouTubers ranging from the late-2010s to now. And the characters are pet axolotls and salamanders that live inside a college dorm building. There's so much potential to work with!
All the characters have their own profiles on my site, but to sum it up: We have Jaundice, the loud and obnoxious host of the cast's YouTube channel. His younger brother Punchy, who's based on the washed-up YouTuber to pro-boxer pipeline. Their friends Squirt, who's small, adorable, and very bold, and Mac, who's big, doesn't talk much, and is responsible for all the heavy lifting. Their camera person Dottie is a salamander who's interested in urban exploration. And then there's Greg the depressed loser who has zero interest in participating in their videos. I feel like all these personalities bounce off each other pretty well and have good chemistry.
Over the summer I've been working on the world of JackAxo. This includes drafting ideas for potential stories/episodes and creating side characters. I'd LOVE to make an actual animated series out of this project (which would most likely be a bunch of shorts). A group of pet axolotls that secrelty film dangerous stunt videos for their controversial YouTube channel just SCREAMS animated series potential.
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In conclusion, I haven't been motivated to draw or write my OCs that I've had since middle school. I dislike the current direction that my old projects are going in. The character designs are pretty inconsistent, their colors don't look good, and they're not animation-friendly. The writing and lore is just BAD as well. I still wanna revamp my OC directory and everyone's pages, but that'll take a lot of time and motivation.
I decided that I'm mainly gonna keep developing JackAxo while figuring out what I'm gonna do for my capstone project. I'm still gonna draw my other characters every once in awhile.
And that's the end of this very long blog entry. I'm signing off.