Into the Winter Grind

One month left in 2022! Time has flown fast for me! I’ve been trying to stuff as many of my art projects into the month as I can while keeping my sanity!

New Website

The first big thing I can say in November is that there’s now a new website for Blackmask and news of its development! This is a large task that’s been taking up my time. Even if I’m getting things down on this website, there’s still much to learn about self-promotion.

Blackmask Website Debut

I will say to join the Blackmask Mailing List! It’s a direct way to get news of our progress without missing any of my posts due to algorithms. Now that the website is set up, it’ll be less confusing for anyone who’s been following my website and getting unrelated news.

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New Blackmask Website

I’m announcing the launch of the new website for Blackmask and news of its development! There, you can follow my new of Blackmask specifically without needing to wait for me to even mention if I’m actually working on the game or not.

Blackmask Website Debut

Articles on development, story tidbits, and other related info will begin on this website, then span out to the other social sites. Mailing List features will also be available as soon as I can arrange it, so you can keep up with updates!

Making Edits

I remain active with my work, working on art, editing webjunk, and doing what I do to the best of my skills! Here’s what I’ve been up to the past few days:

I’m making some new edits to this website. You’ll be seeing some rearranged pages. Links might crash or break, and you’ll see some placeholder art for where I want to put buttons.

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What I’ve Been Up To: Doing the Arting

I’m doing alright for the past few weeks as there isn’t much to report. I’m still plugging away at my ongoing freelance commissions and Blackmask.

Artwise, I wasn’t very productive. My day job is beginning to pick up again and I spent most of my week making a promotional video for my Youtube Channel.

On Saturday, October 24th, I’ll be doing the Hammond Public Library Virtual Fanfest doing a 9am livestream on YouTube about making mini comics.

HPLVFF 2020 Promo
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Doing What I Can

Staying busy with my art stuff for the last few weeks. I’m doing what I can to pack my days with activity and take my mind of things. I feel good when I’m focused on a project that I care about.

I did some “Brand Synergy” and renamed my web domain from “ryanfrancisart.com” to “mastafran.com.” Since my username on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, Artstation, and Newgrounds gets me more search results of my art than my actual birth name, I’ll just use it for my general “brand.” It’s still the same site and if I set up my redirects right, the old site name should redirect to the new names. If there are any problems, feel free to message me.

I edited together a progress video of our game tentatively called “Cole Blackmask and the Scrolls of Soleon” or just “Blackmask” It’s a Game Boy styled action-platformer about a raccoon merchant adventuring an outlandish animal world for ancient magic scrolls of cataclysmic power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mual9nuoCd0&t=4s

This is actually older footage melded together but I wanted to have a bigger elevator pitch video to show off to people. There’s still so much to do before we have enough for a playable demo. The music isn’t even ours because it’s from Final Fantasy Legend 2, so the music stuff isn’t squared away yet.

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What I’ve Been Up To: Project Blackmask

If you’ve been following my art and this blog before 2020, you know that I draw a lot of anthropomorphic animal characters. These animals were ideas for characters and world for a webcomic idea that I was thinking about for the past nine years.

Cole the Weapon Seller

It would’ve been the ongoing adventures of a plucky adventure merchant named Cole Blackmask as travels to strange lands, questing for loot to sell, battling powerful warriors and mystical forces who reside all over this funny animal world.

Cole Jacket Poses
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Project Blackmask Update 2/24/2019

I’m still writing Blackmask slowly and steadily when I have time, but I’ve been tackling some new freelance artwork and commission stuff. I’m still trying to fund printing for Incident at The Game Store in color but some car problems have come up, so money’s lacking.