Its a new year, so time to buckle down hard. I was never big into maintaining a journal on here but I started a journal last July about my RTS game ICBM. At the same time I was lightly managing a small online team for another project of mine. This other project I pay some contractors for and is my goal game for 2017. I knew these projects would conflict with my time and I planned to go full-time to this other project around December/January, in hopes that I might be pretty close to done with my RTS game.

Quick Status Update
I started my LLC in July 2016. I spent roughly $4,000 on direct contract work for art. I spent about another $2,000 on all other stuff: software, administration stuff, tablet monitor etc. As stated in previous journals, business costs are deducted from your yearly income, so I will get back the taxes I already paid on $6000. So that is money coming in for me to spend on my project.

I also lost a lot of focus during the Killing Floor 2 release, both in working a little overtime, stress, and just not managing my time well at home. I'm also back to doing graphics on a tight timeline for a project at work, so I really hope to not have any crazy things happen at work. But I still have a job making money and either saving it or spending it on my LLC.

The New Project

First, I will be posting a piece of 3D art, concept art, or other interesting things every day this month on my twitter account Grenade Games @ dpadam450 or https://www.facebook.com/GrenadeGamesOfficial/. I should be able to continue this daily stuff through February as well. I'm keeping my journal here strictly to development updates.

The project is a 3rd person shooter. Design ideas are just too much to talk about/share. I've been working with about 6 people part time to produce some artwork. I give them 1-2 3D pieces a month, or a handful of 2D rough's + a final 2D concept. My role has always been unique because I have a background in every aspect games. Sometimes I will take concept art and bash concepts together or rework some ideas to give back to someone else. I'll mess with substance files a lot to change textures/materials. I'll re-topo sculpts to low-poly so I don't have to pay for work I can do. I do make some art assets from scratch well. So it has been fun working with people, giving feedback and seeing them iterate on the feedback. It's also been a bummer that a few of my contractors have picked up other bigger contract work or have picked up full-time jobs and have lost time or interest to continue on. So I'm hoping that coming on board full-time now, that I can get some work done and motivate them / get some more people interested.

With that, I will leave a couple images that I will be posting. My focus this month is to get some gameplay action. I have a bunch of random assets/characters that I want to start pulling in and mashing up for a prototype demo.