Delta-gambit - Tumblr Posts

"In the beginning...

...only the haze of dead decaying computers was his only company."

Just setting up the account where I should publish updates on the progress of this AU.

Don't mind the current emptiness. I can only work on it on my spare-time, which nowadays is scarce because of crippling pits of debt.

Be patient and hope you will like what I post in the future.

This is one of the first concept arts I made for the Swatch in my AU. When I get an idea I usually tend to draw it and while I draw I fleshen out the story behind the idea in my head before actually writing about it.

For context, in my visual novel, many Darkners has creative in-depth backstories, and Swatch and the Swatchlings are not an exception. In this case here he is seen at the beginning of his career before becoming the head butler of Queen. All the Swatchlings were "born" from him (by means explained in the plot). He took good care of them and made sure to turn them into well trained butlers before they became the strapping servants other people grew to love to have around. They are like 28 Swatchlings, all with their own personalities, their own names, boons and flaws. Though they still change colour depending of the mood and other external factors, they all have fixed colours for their personalities. Their names are:

🟥 RED (Marama, Merlot, Carignan, Tempranillo) 🟧 ORANGE (Tartufo, Profiterole, *Tiramisu, *Zuccoto) 🟨 YELLOW (Ricotta, Caciocavallo, Ericino, Gorgonzola) 🟩 GREEN (Renet, Poirot, Chou, *Fenouil) ☄️ CYAN (Pierrot, Arlecchino) 🟦 BLUE (Frisco, Glace, *Ciel, *Brise) 🟪 VIOLET (Adonis, Patroklos, *Tartaglia, *Antipatros) 🌸 PINK (Pulcinella, Colombina)

((* the ones not shown on the picture because of being an early concept picture and I was still wondering about each of them))

The rainbow marks on Swatch's body are the scars left by the wires of Queen from the time she managed to "tame" him... The masks were created by Tasque Manager to curb their feral natures, as per orders of Queen.

For everything else, at least it was a first step into turning my AU ideas into a more visible form. It motivates me to go forward, and to practice more digital art. I still have one more concept art of Swatch to share. Will post it later.

This was another concept art of how Swatch looked without the mask. He still retains some of his former feral traits, but are more tame compared to his original EXCEPTION form, monsters that were queued for deletion as they were driven mad by pure undiluted Chaos when the Dark Fountain turned their original forms into Darkners.

This time it just shows how the mask (created by Tasque Manager to curb the feral nature of Swatch) actually hides a more fearsome countenance. His body is Darkness (as all Darkners are) sequestering all the colours of the light inside his body. With the mask on, all that storm of light gets balanced and his thoughts gets clearer, returning him to a more polite and suave demeanour (or as Tasque Manager would say, to a more "ORDERly manner"). Tasque Manager is charged to keep an eye out for him all the time, and to perform maintenance on the mask now and then to make sure the virus inside Swatch didn't manage to damage it.

I also learnt a little how to make the rainbow in him to look more hand-made and less procedural. At first I was using gradients, but it didn't look right to me so I made the stripes by hand. It was a nice experience to have 😊

I drew this like this past month. A friendly gift given to a good friend of mine I fatefully met in the Undernet fandom group, featuring them as Kris next to my MC, with a motivational message and a generous cupcake of Oreo (because we both love Oreo). Was practicing a new style of painting that I wanted to use for my visual novel, at least for the illustrations and background parts. It took me a while to figure out how to make it to look eye candy enough but guess I managed to pull it out despite being the first time not using my original style, which is more "painterly" I thinks 🤔

Anyhow, I need to keep practicing drawing more or I'll never get the hang of drawing Spwatchton nor anybody else. I also notice that this depiction of him is not accurate to his real height I brainstormed this past weekend (which should be 278 cm ~ roughly 109.44 inches). It's a bit "funny" because Swatch was taller originally, but after the forced hijacking of his data, the final amalgamation got him "compressed" and thus the height and bulk is now less. That reminds me I still need to draw the character sheet of Swatch and the rest of the characters. So much pending work OTL

I apologize if I don't have anything new to show. With my current schedule I barely have time to even stop in front of my tablet to create something new or that would advance the progress of the visual-novel. I hope things get lenient with me before the end of this month, but these RL deadlines are destroying my Darkner soul... and just this past Friday things got awful as I got hit by a sunstroke so badly that it made one of my neighbours to pick me up with her car to leave me at home or I'd just have collapsed in the middle of the street right there. That left my brain fried and in pain up until today, when I feel much better to resume work and check the socials for DMs and whatever else on my mail.

Well, enough of the unpleasantries. During my sun fever thing, I took notes to fleshen out a little more all of the Swatchlings, the 28 of them. With that I only need to draw them all to settle on stone their designs. At least that was some modicum of progress forward...

It's been a while since I posted something. I'm still beset by bureaucratic procedures that make me go like a boomerang and waste my stamina so much I just have strength to eat and go to sleep.

So that there is something of an update, here is a teaser of the prototype designs for 2 of the BLUE Swatchlings when they were young, Glace and Ciel.

Glace is your typical cold blooded stoic character that has 0 empathy (the polar opposite to his ORANGE brother Tartufo) and takes everything literally, so you need to give him a ton of details when ordering him around. His name literally means "glacial" as if devoid of feelings.

Ciel is the sworn rival of his RED brother Marama, who was appointed as leader of the Swatchlings by their father, thus he's in charge of managing the flock when Swatch and Tasque Manager are not available. Ciel and Marama had a quarrel when they were hatchlings as Ciel thought he was more fit to be the leader of the siblings. Marama was forced to blind one of the eyes of Ciel to make him stop fighting and Ciel will never forgive him for that. Ciel loves action movies and war games, and his skillset spins around handling explosives and bombarding the foes. Because he would never cooperate if Marama is around, Ciel is usually sent outside the palace for different tasks, pairing him with his closest "rebel" siblings who follow him more than Marama, the Swatchlings Fenouil, Chou and Pulcinella. Ciel is the only one that finds Glace easy to move around, so Glace is often seen following his orders, and trains with Ciel to polish Glace's skills with firearms in secret. Ciel hopes to turn Glace into a "sniper" of sorts, to complete his personal "brigade". Ciel was also one of the first Swatchlings to suggest bringing war to the doorstep of Castle Town to prevent any more unwanted invaders to target their Dark Fountain.

And that's a small glimpse about 2 of the 28 Swatchling siblings. Their chosen accessories and general design carries over onto their adult forms, and while Ciel's looks like a grizzled war-veteran of sorts (too many action movies in his noggin'), Glace's reminds me more to the calm and collected hitman that obeys orders to the T. It's funny because Ciel would also be called by his brother Ericino (the Swatchling in charge of the Amusement Rooms) to play FPS games with the guests by request of them, and he literally takes no prisoners while playing those games 😅

I hope to one day finish these. There's a ton of stuff to be done but RL is relentless with me for 2 months now, and May feels like it will be more of the same because bureaucracy is slow as molasses when dealing with civil affairs. Here hoping for better days. I need to practice animation too and I had an idea for the EXCEPTION form of Swatch before he was put on a leash by Queen. I hope to one day do just that if I get a couple of days free in a row.

Not much to say today. I'm making a small ad for my commission panel because I need the money very badly, and this is a WIP of the Spamton that appears on it. It's the Spamton from my AU (I don't know how could he be called... ΔSpamton? GambitSpamton? DG!Spamton? 🤔), with particular details like the missing finger on his right hand (because of the "commemorative ring") and the particular coat that is his "Lucky Jacket", a gift from his old roommate (certain Blue Addison that goes by the name of Sears S. O’Reilly in my visual novel). Spamton might be half the Addison he was before but will still push forward to change his lot in life and recover all that was lost, including himself, before it's too late... I still can't believe into what he will become because of his Determination to keep on living. Well, I believe he deserves such <evil grin>

In a sense we both are alike, desperate for kromer all days every month all year, and we passed by similar circumstances (including being born the runt of the family, being unlucky, betrayal by people we thought we knew well, eviction, phone-ring anxiety and crippling disease). Guess that's another reason why I pity and respect Spamton so much because I see a lot of myself on him, and neither of us deserved the fate we were wrapped in... I don't like to reflect myself on characters but I dunno, Spamton has turned into some sort of "animal spirit" for me, an inspiration to keep pushing forward against all odds in life 😅 At least it's a positive projection, me thinks 🤔

Anyways, enough of that. It's late and I need to head to sleep 😴 Hope I can finish the ad this Monday if bureaucrazy doesn't have something to say about it, as Mondays are very scary days with the damn ring of the phone always with bad news behind... To heck with it, sleep is important and I shouldn't worry about the wound before I get it on me first. Have fun and good night!

It's been another while since I uploaded something. The animation is going slow as I'm also multitasking with commissions, and I just wanted to burn steam doing something else that sprung in my mind. Just an overly-stylized Spwatchton with a weird background experiment, nothing too fancy. I'm still brainstorming about how to represent the Creation powers he shares with Swatch 🤔

((edited because I forgot a few tags -- you know what? let's add something more in-line with the visual novel conceptualization -- Spamton after the data hijacking still can't forget certain things from his past (like the Angel) and that still haunts him and produces monsters inside his dreams and sometimes by accident during their waking hours. Good thing that the head butler is there to pull the leash on Spamton in order to avoid him to fall to the amounting ruin of his past self, least they both fall together into the abyss, and Swatch the last thing he wants is to lose the only thing that keeps the monster inside himself at bay 👀))

(([[SACRÉ CUNGADERO]] today I can't type apparently -- corrected typos))

About creating a community...

Someone motivated me to create a Locals page where to publish and tidy up all the stuff about my AU visual novel. The community is still waiting for approval though...

So far is a good way of keep things tidy and see who really is interested in this AU, and to engage with them in a more personal manner. I don't like Patreon because of how sketchy they have been in the past with people I know, and I don't want to go through the same ordeals as them. That's why my friend suggested me to use Locals now that it supports international communities.

The link to the community is this one but will not be active until Locals deems my community worthy of being published 😅 Is my last card at trying to engage with like-minded Spamton enjoyers that would also like to see my visual novel lifting from the ground.

It also has some sort of FAQ that members can check to get theirs questions about the AU and its development sorted out. I've a mind of posting the FAQ here so that anyone who wonders about my AU after stumbling with my Tumblr can get some things straight without asking me directly.

My community got approved!

Well, good tidings for me at least, but now I need to test things out now that members can enter and help me ironing some crinkles.

One of my friends who lives on France said that he had trouble becoming a member because Rumble is banned on France. You can still make a Locals account by going to the Locals' homepage and clicking the "Log In" button and choosing to log with a Google account (if you have any). Apparently the landing of the community will not show the Google log-in button, I don't know why 🤔

A few things have unlocked on my admin side after the approval and I'm trying to see if I can make it so that new members can still post without the need of paying for that (which is a Locals default setting). It will take a little while on my end but I hope I can get things fixed before midnight (I also want to paint something for my art training today before going into the sac). I also might start to add some written AU content and might upload my old art there for good measure, so I apologize in advance for any reposting in there.

"So, this is the person that fuels your determination to go on... Knowing it sooner and you could have been spared the anguish that consumed your sanity... The blame falls on me for breaking something so precious..." - Swatch

Well, I think my training painting glass and practicing other stuff was worth the try. This time I tried to start painting without making use of outlines but I still had difficulties leaving behind the lineart crutches 😅

For context, this scene is a representation of the common mindscape that Spamton and Swatch are sharing. During the waking hours Swatch can do very little but to peruse the memories of Spamton while his ally drones about the mansion's chores. He was curious about if Spamton had a person he regarded in high esteem as this was the thought that kept Spamton determined to survive deletion. After finding that memory, Swatch realized that he knew that person too, but never paid too much attention to the pleas of the Addison that scrambled to find the missing ruined salesman back in then. In consequence, he feels guilty for not helping them sooner. The blue Addison is called Sears by the way, and is the old room-mate with whom Spamton lived with because he couldn't pay his own flat with his waning budget. Sears allowed him to crash in their house, thus sowing the first seeds of a wholesome relationship that will save Spamton's life in the future 😁

And that's enough gabbing from me. If you are interested into more about my AU visual novel, you can ask me or join my Locals on this link and use the promo-code "FIRSTMEMBERS" to get 1 month free access to my content and to speak directly with me 👀

[[SUPPLANTATION]]

Desperation produces [[THE STRANGEST OF BEDFELLOWS]]… — Spamton

I keep practicing art, against my own best judgement, as it is 3:35 AM already as I type.

If there is something I know is that I need to keep practicing how to convey the concept of the protagonist of the AU. Spamton and Swatch work together in the same body in an uneasy truce, but all the other characters only see the head butler, which is a very convenient disguise for someone who will do everything to survive deletion.

<plops on bed>

SWEET BUT BRITTLE

“(…) Like an arrangement made in Heaven, not even drudgery was able to choke our spirits. (...) However, even that would be sent to the chopping block, as my obsolescence loomed closer while my bottom line took a big dip into the reds…” — Spam

Well, it's a me again. I couldn't finish the pic on time yesterday so I tried my best to commit to learn how to paint glass today, and wanted to turn the practice into a concept-art of the characters of my visual-novel (even if it's just symbolical in its cute stylization). I think my glass material didn't turn out too shabby 🤔 It was worth the attempt though! 😅

If you don't know yet, is Sears (Blue Addison) and Spamton from before when they both lived together as room-mates, because Spamton back in then couldn't afford his own flat with his dwindling savings and Sears allowed him to crash in his apartment, up until the day their circle of co-workers/friends split with Spamton, prompting him to leave behind that part of the city and one of his best friends forever 😬

The rest is history.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same... Except you don't exist? Everything functions perfectly without you... Ha, ha... The thought terrifies me.” — Goner Monster Kid

Another abstract experimentation. I'll explain why.

Monday we got warned about being laid off by the end of this month.

That day I only wanted to lay down on bed, depressed, 19 days left to land something. I needed to sleep that depression off... When I woke up, my mind's eye was hyperfixated on a picture, and so after having some water, I started to sketch and work on it. It was so long since I made "mood" art, something that just comes as inspired by your current mood and the turmoil of emotions and other misgivings inside of you. As it's my current trend, the theme revolves around Spamton and his pitiful fate (or at least my DG!Spamton, the one with the missing pinkie finger and the blue bandage).

It's just an art I wanted to gouge out of my mind. I don't even know if it's good enough to show, but at least I took that weight out of my brain and the hyperfixation is gone.

Hope you forgive me for making this... (because it looks macabre or something idk). I wish I could return to the character sheets of the AU, but as things are going now, this June is going to be a hell, what with the interviews and ghosting they do to you after they smile at you and say that you are a good candidate, but then the phone nor the inbox received any confirmation for weeks...

I shall persevere... I don't want to lose this. I'll keep climbing forward, even if my mental state only pukes lousy art until I can get some peace and focus to work on my AU...

I might end adding these illustrations as unlockables for the gallery of the visual-novel, if everything goes well. If not, well, let's not say I didn't try.

I also worked on a different pic that I use as an advert for my commissions, but I don't want to put the ad on this blog, and will just cut a close-up of the DG!Spamton that appears on it.

It's not much but at least it's him, that weird familiar that keeps encouraging me to keep moving forward with my ideas, and to keep squeezing the lemons life gives me until I can make a lemon juice company with them (at least is not Cave Johnson, the one who said that you should make bombs with the lemons and return them back to the sender lol).

This was an old pic I did around the end of February, to thank people for pushing my Ko-Fi milestone up beyond 50. I had the idea of doing a "thank you" commemoration pic every 50 coffees... Oh well.

There is my amphysien-cockatrice phantom bird digital monster and the guy himself, who adopted her by accident when he found an odd stray egg bobbing on one of the acid fountains of the Queen's palace gardens. It's just an spin-off story not really tied with the main plot of the AU, but I liked the idea of Spamton and Swatch taking care of an abandoned v-pet that in the Dark World it becomes more close and personal (and Swatch couldn't resist to adopt yet another birb to the family 👀) (she calls Spwatchton "papa" and she evolves into some sort of witch phantom knight digimon if someone was curious).

If you don't know what an amphysien-cockatrice is I'll leave this here for the record.

STRESS-BALL

“And there he was in my mind. Always there, no matter how many times I was asked to forget, my anxiety of not knowing where he went put my performance to test. And I was losing it, mortified by my apprehension and guilt, that he was gone because of me...” — Sears

[[I'M N0T A STR3SS-B4LL]] oh yes pls

I wanted to do something happi because this month is being ruthless with me so I must keep happi thoughts to keep the stress at bay. Also I wanted to practice a lil of vaporwavvy style because that style is beautiful to my eyes 👀

It has a bit of story behind. It's about how Sears (a Blue Addison) kept missing Spamton and even when the other Addisons told them to stop thinking on him already and move on, Sears wasn't able to lift from themself the guilt and remorse they felt inside after abandoning their partner because of the peer-pressure of the others, who forced Sears to pick sides during the awful row that happened at the cyber-grill with Spamton, who was starting to become a successful salesman.

Also yes, articulated joints ftw 😁It's a bit of canon in my AU that all Addisons has like mechanical hands because they use them to interface with terminals and their floating windows. If they deteriorate physically they devolve into articulated mannequins not unlike Spamton, which makes reference to the fact that they are all bound to and being puppeteered by the companies they work with (but still retain some of their free-will for as long as they keep themselves in sound mind and body).

So, yeah, expect more art about the relationship of Sears and Spamton pre-break-off because it's mandatory for me to practice and research their designs. Also, I need to think on the designs of the other 12 Addisons that are part of their co-worker group as they all work on the same company and share the same office premises (yes, so many colours, though there is only a Blue Addison duplicate because he replaced Sears when they promoted within the company and changed job roles).

Going to have some rest now... <pets Spam in all directions of the wind-rose>

(also the pic was inspired by this GIF -- I wish I could animate it but a still picture is all what I can do with the time I has 😭)

SYNERGY

“We were a good team. They knew the best strategies and they listened to my ideas with an open mind. It was the recipe for their success, earning a nice promotion within the company and making me proud. Being the talk of our co-workers was the cherry on top.” — Spam

It takes effort to create something that was never seen before. It takes guts to keep pushing forward with that never before seen idea that is not aligned with any of the current trending standards. You know that people will not take it seriously, but that shouldn’t deter you from delivering more and more of it. In time everything will click into place, and you will be glad that you haven't stopped when you started to hesitate along the way. It’s daunting, and at the same time, discouraging. But moving forward is the only way, the only path. I think the Addisons of my AU has shown me a lot of that, that ideas can’t bloom if they aren’t sown before, even if they look ugly and dull at first. To keep nurturing them alone is very hard, but one day the effort will pay off and no regrets will come to bite you back.

Anyway, the backstory of Spamton and his Addison co-workers has a very storied past. Slowly I’m gleaning some of what he was, how he got to know his friends, why the White Addisons are a dying breed and why he was forced to change his name and his own archetype to stick it to the system. You might be surprised of all the stuff Spam needed to do in order to survive, but for now, concept arts of ideas and research is all what I have to share about that.

I’m weaving a very deep story behind the origins of Spam and the forces controlling the market of Cyber World and the life of the Cyberians, and why the law forbids any direct contact with Lightners (that was before Kris and friends dropped by). Spam here is just a number, subject #451, one of many. All look the same. All do the same. All have no interests beyond the success of the company in which they grew up to become another white-collared walking utility. Everything would change when he receives an invitation to a cyber-grill to meet with one of the marketing groups he was assigned to. It was the beginning of change, and the start of his voluntary corruption. That's as much as I can say 👀 Oh, also I found out while sprucing their profiles that Sears and Spam share the same birthday day, 3rd of May, though Sears is 5 years older than Spam as they were born in 1973 😅They are the oldest of the Addison group, and that makes them the butt of jokes sometimes.

I need to explore some art-style in order to give substance to this part of the plot and tweak its world-building, which will be unlockable flashbacks in the visual-novel. There's also a new character villain I'm trying to breath life to who appears during the epilogue of the first season. I hope people will like to see a new villain Darkner. He's also another walking DAEMON like Spwatchton but this one works for the LOCAL-SYS whereas Spwatchton is one of the undercover rebels.

Sorry if my content is coming out slow or half-baked. I'm still concept-arting and being nagged at the same time by RL more often than not. Yesterday I had yet another doctor appointment to go to and this week should be my ophthalmologist...

I also... joined the Art Fight of this year... My first time doing this. Though I'm not sure if I'll be able to be very active, I'm going to fill everything with Addisons and other Darkners from my AU to force myself to make their character profiles and see if anybody would do fanart of them (who doesn't like to get fanarts of their OCs? 😅)

As of other updates, we are expecting a final interview with a good company next week that seemed pretty interested in us as we fit their profile well. Fingis crossed! 🤞

Phew, here he is, at his own Genesis, the poor ol' Spam (or subject #451). The ordeals he's going to go through on my story... <grins>

This is one of many, as the other characters will receive the same treatment. You may want to zoom in or open it on a new tab to read the spam of info-boxes (I'm sorry if it looks so HUGE but I needed space for the rest of the characters as they will be presented at real scale). This also will go to my Art Fight profile where I plan to put all my characters for others to draw fanart from IF so they want, or to help peruse the characters easily in the gallery over there.

And yes, the legs end in nubs but they curve slightly at the tip. Teeny-teensy-footsies that will never win any FIFA but they are cute.

Not much to say but that it took way too long with my damn low self-esteem crippling me. It's 3 AM already? [[TIME ! STOP YOUR CAVALCADE THIS INSTANT ! ]]

ajkfhgadfjkh zzzz.... 😴

(zoom on the preview and open in new tab to be able to read the info-boxes) Finally, after a lot of back and forth and interruptions, this should be the most updated depiction of Sears, one of the Addison co-workers for which Spam is going to work with on behalf of the conglomerate. Because they were the last one to join the office, Sears is often used by the others as the "legman". Sears doesn't mind this though as they love to be useful to others and doing errands is not much pressure on their schedule.

Sears is a very storied character, so I apologize for the spam of info-boxes 😅Also because their pet has some mild relevance for the plot, I needed to add him within the same profile because they are kind of inseparable (though Sears never notices the creepy side of the glitchy cat they adopted because MIKE tries his best to keep it a secret). Sears gave him the name MIKE because of the "M" the kitty had branded on his back. They are very clueless about the origins of that stray kitty but loves their pet regardless, as MIKE keeps his side of the relationship by acting like the walking anti-depressants cats are known to be 😸(yeah that fur is very fluffy by the way thick short coat but fluffy). Lastly, MIKE is a homage to a real cat and to old data storage devices (punch-cards and floppy disks). There are other more interesting engineering details about him but I'll reserve those for the game when the time comes 👀

As for the logo of PRODINAMI, it should represent the increasing revenue of your company after using the marketing services they sell. It also represents a very stylized Addison and it's inspired by two important companies from the past (I dare anyone to guess which ones when the clues start to appear).

Not much else to say but that I need to keep practicing painting (if RL stops nagging me so much). Gah, I'm [[SO HUNGRY]] I could eat an octorok now...

I've been holding this idea in the back of the head ever since my tablet stopped working this past week. I didn't commit to it until today and it took me many hours to understand how to do the animation properly and drawing Spam with pixels with the mouse and nervous clicks, and then doing the case... I was hyperfixated on this all day and it's almost 5 AM now sdkjhadfkhfgd

It's a charm of good luck, to attract love and kromer 😁 Use it wherever you want and might it bring you riches and affection 💌

I'll head to sleep... feeling so wasted but I guess this practice was worth it. Who knows, maybe I can make one for Swatch some day, but first I need to recover from this work hyperfixation 😴

(I saw a new attack on my Art Fight -- I'll get back at you when I get some rest)