TheFelineAlchemist

My next big project is one I have been working on in the background for a bit, a multimedia horror story called "Hopeless" which I will be including some ARG elements. Now without wanting to spoil anything about it (and a few friends have already had some elements spoiled for them) I will say it contains a lot of TF content, a few different kinds of horror content, and if it had a film rating, definitely an R. Now given its nature as multimedia some of the content will not be DA friendly so this leads me to wonder if I should host it across several sites (here, youtube, twitter/tumblr) or if I should just try to make a site for it?

Currently this is going to be the most ambitious project I have attempted to undertake, and given the sheer scale I am going to release it in stages, or story arcs. I will eventually need to get some Voice Actors and possibly other artists to assist with elements I am not familiar with but I will put out a casting call or look into that when I get to that stage.

This project will have a little of everything from an art form angle: Physical Props (which will be photographed or scanned), Drawings, Audio recordings, Videos (Im hoping), photomanipulations, written aspects (logs, journals, etc), and maybe some other interactive elements (like a phone number or email addresses to contact). I have done a bit of world building and I plan on launching the first Arc in October.

I do have a few questions I would like to gauge information on if you are willing to answer:

1) Do you prefer more direct straight forward timelines (most events happening in sequence) or do you prefer indirect timelines (seeing some elements from the future and the passed more freely sprinkled through the story)? 2) Do you prefer more gory content in your horror or more implied gore (like blood streaks but no visible or only minor damage)?

3) Do you prefer having things more directly laid out or doing a little leg work to see the full picture?

4) Would you rather see this posted to a different account rather then my current one?

5) Are you a fan of any of the following: Gemini Home Entertainment, Local 58, The Mystery Flesh Pit, Cthulhu Mythos, Island of Dr Moreau, The Fly, Mimic, anything written by Robert Bloch or Clark Ashton Smith?

I thank you for your time reading this and hope you are looking forward and will enjoy what I got in store.

As some may have noticed I didnt go posting much of my horror project or a manip madness this October. The main reason is I plan stuff out in advanced then typically a day or two before I will often try to do it (most of the manip madness I've done have been a few days before posting) and due to work and my own health I found myself at a lack of free time. There has also been some events in my personal life I am not going to dive into but needless to say they kinda shook me up and almost had me quit the project and possibly art in general, but Im a stubborn one and will stick around till the mob comes with pitchforks and torches,

With work I have been averaging going in at 5am and not getting out till 7pm (a few nights lately 8pm or later). I work salary so no overtime in that respect and in the last 3 months I have hired and fired around 20 people, I wish I was joking. Plus there have been a number of computer/server issues that have been a special kind of fun.

Given the hours, my chronic migraines and having food poisoning this month (Damn you Dennys) my free hours are torn between rest, vomiting and trying to unwind. I am thankfully over the food poisoning though, that was earlier this month. But I haven't gotten much really done (I still am in act 1 of Baldur's Gate 3...)

That being said I am going to post more of Hopeless here soon (might be a week or so out) and for the first part of it I am going to try to have at least one weekly post here. December time permitting I might also attempt to do some manips for each day of the month, no theme in mind yet. I am going to put a small discord server together for Hopeless that will be in two parts: One part will be for a few people I have talked to that want to help the project (so things like voice acting, videos, collaboration pieces) and the other part for elements that will not be DA approved. Might try doing a website instead but not sure yet on that part.

But yeah, Im not dead, and I do have the basic story of Hopeless outlined (as well as some possible spin off stories) I just need to buckle down on it more.

And given how I dont want to flood DA with some failed pieces made with Bing but I still like and some of you might enjoy, here is a stash link for your own viewing pleasure https://sta.sh/21au5at8f2y3 catgirl's and cat tfs.

And a little preview of what is to come.

Yes, I have plans for 3 Manip Madness (Madnesses?) this year, but they are going to be a little different in a way from the norm, granted several have been different so what else is new. Both 8 & 9 are going to be Mini Madness, not going over 30 pieces each I think, while 10 will be the more larger standard fair, so what are the themes for these?

Next month, MM8 will be 'Retro Rebirth' or in other words Im taking about 30 old pieces of mine and remaking them with the skills I have now, so will things look the same, will they be vast improvements, or will they be pale comparisons, who knows but it will be interesting to see how I have changed over the years.

July, MM9 will be 'Whoops, All Catgirls' which as the name implies will be a month of catgirls... maybe with some catboys or paired with some doggirls. This will just be The Feline Alchemist living up to the name :P Finally in October will be MM 10 '1000 words' in which there will be a collection of stories each week told through a collection of manips to show the events transpiring but through using environmental story telling will paint a collection of tales. This will include a preview for a horror project I have been working on as well :3

I was going to do just the one Manip Madness this year but I couldnt pick on which theme so in true madness why not go with 3

Non DeviantArt Edition, though some can be found here:

* *Poof* TFs, This is one of the stupidest things that annoys me but damn does it annoy me. The point of Transformation to me is to see that journey, be it quick or slow, pleasure or painful, resisted or willing, I dont really care so long as there is a journey, or even a hint of one. That to me is half of the excitement of Transformation content, the familiar becoming foreign, the path that leads to an unknown. To just rip that away with "*poof* you are a dog now" seems like such a slap in the face. Now dont get me wrong, there is a lot of interesting events and moments to be had post TF in stories, art and the like, but its like paying for a 5 course meal, you eat the salad, then POOF, there is the dessert, were is the rest of the meal?

* 4 eared catgirls (and anything in the realm of animal eared characters), Like, if you are going to give a character cat ears, cow ears, fox ears whatever, dont add human ears too, why do they need 4 ears, what is the reasoning behind it. I know its a dumb thing but it just has no logic behind it.

* The fact Capcom has't put out a good new Megaman game in years (though I do like X Dive, but it's not the ideal substitute). Just give us Dash/Legends 3, X9, Some new spin off, Hell, I'd take a Remake of the original games (say up to 7) but add in some story elements. Or give us a dark gritty Megaman game in the style of Act 1 from The Protomen

* That whole OGL crap that happened at the start of the year, Now I havent touched DND since 3.5, but still, the way they treated their community is just BS

* Horror or Scifi films with very limited print runs. I get if there isnt a lot of demand for a film, but when there are films not on any streaming service and a DVD or Bluray cost 50 USD and up, that is insane. & Yes, I know when VHS first came out a single film could cost over 100 a pop (my VHS copy of C.H.U.D. still has its 99 dollars marked down to 49 dollar price tag on it). There are movies I would love to see but getting a copy legally is a royal pain, speaking of which...

* Video game companies not offering older games at a fair price (looking at you nintendo), there are so many old games that are hard to come by but emulation is an option, and some companies do embrace that and offer old games on digital download or in compilations (to be fair, Sega has been mostly the best at this offering though there are a few games, often poorly reviewed ones that they removed from digital downloads) But lets be honest, Some of these games are being sold at way to high a price, Like I can see dropping like 5 dollars on an old gameboy game download like pokemon red, but when some games like that go for 15, 25, 60 dollars, its just insane. Now sure, new game I can get the larger price tag, but something you made millions on already, just drop it for a few bucks and get some extra cash, no need to nickle and dime those that are willing to give you money.

Some random pet peeves of mine as they relate mostly to DA:

* Pieces with names that are just a random sequence of letters and numbers like "216816841516g65451wss- 5416516" like dude (or dudette), I know sometimes coming up with titles can be a pain, and one of my all time fave artists never named any of his work, but you can just do a normal number chain like 1, 2, 3, or even call everything "untitled" but these random number chains with random letters is just oddly annoying. Now I see it a lot with AI generated work now, however before people say only they do it, I've seen other people doing this stuff since I joined DA on my old account so its been an ongoing thing.

*People trying to RP on someone else's profile or in the comments on a piece, like keep that to DMs, notes or private messages/forums, its just cringy to come across.

*Overly sexually charged comments on clean pieces. Sure, if a piece is mature and sexual in nature It seems like a fitting place, if not cringy, but there is an odd logic to it, but when you have people going to their sexual fantasies on a clean/non sexual in nature piece, like dude, self control.

*DA having a 5000 people you can watch limit. Im sorry, there are over 5000 amazing artists I would like to watch, I dont care if you remove that limit with something like a core membership (would give core more of a purpose), but just capping it at that is annoying, and yeah, I get most people will not watch that many people, but for some of us, we enjoy art, we enjoy the different communities we are in and get hyped when we find new artists, why take that way from us?

*DA having a really poor way to report stolen work, as well as violations to their own TOS. I have seen people stealing others work with proof easily at hand to show it, yet DA wont do anything unless the original artist does a DMCA. That takes away from the community, not adding to it. Also when DA has rules against sexual acts, sexual fluids, etc yet lets people post tons of these things and rarely seems to act on reports. To be fair, this is one of the points I will bitch against AI art as there are a lot of these rules being broken by these (granted, not everyone, maybe like 30% at max).

*Spending and hour or more on a piece and it tops out at maybe 30 faves, spend 5 minutes or less on a piece and it hits 150+ faves.... Gives me mixed messages on how much effort to put out Granted there are times less is more.

There are some more but this mild pointless rant is becoming even more pointless