Happy Pride Month to all of our CCCers! Our event this month is the CCC Pride Quilt!
Using the template provided, you'll draw your ClanGen character (or characters, if you think you can squash multiple into the space provided) inside the frame! You can decorate your frame as you please, such as drawing your character's pride flag as the background, dressing up the border with a fun design, or whatever else you'd like. These are just suggestions! Feel free to be as creative with it as you like - you don't have to draw a pride flag to participate in the event.
IF YOU ARE ONLY PARTICIPATING ON TUMBLR AND NOT IN THE SERVER, PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR SQUARE WILL NOT BE ADDED TO THE QUILT AT THE END OF THE EVENT.
Tag us with #cccquilt and @ this blog, and we'll reblog as many of your quilt squares as we can!
Oh, no – while out delivering Valentines, Cloudcaller’s satchel burst open and all of her love letters flew out! Now they’re scattered all over the place and she needs your help to spread love in the ClanGen creator community this month. Will you help Cloudcaller out by being a Community Cupid?
Hello, folks! This month we're playing BINGO!
The rules are very, very easy. The goal is simply to spread appreciation for your fellow comic makers, story writers, and creators! Select a bingo card of your choosing – any color will do – and complete the tasks on the bingo sheet to earn yourself a bingo!
This event is open to everyone, including those who are in the CCC Discord channel and anybody else on Tumblr who would like to participate.
Select a bingo card
Start completing bingo squares!
Connect 5 squares: vertically, horizontally, or diagonally
Reblog or tag us with your completed bingo sheets (use the tag #ccc event and/or #cccupid)
(You may also use the #ccc event and/or #cccupid hashtags for any fanart you make for the sake of the event)
For completing your first 5-in-a-row bingo, winners will be given a blog shoutout on Tumblr.
Blacking out your board gets you one free sketch of any ClanGen or cat character of yours that you’d like from mod Froggie!
We will not be checking the validity of your bingos. We’re operating on the honor system; cheating at bingo is lame. It is not the main point of this event to win – it’s to spread love in our community!
Despite the Valentine’s-y theme, this is a COMPLETELY PLATONIC event. Please do not send people romantic advances in the name of this event. This event is only to encourage folks to express their artistic appreciation for the creators in our community!
This is more so a question to anyone, as I want some advice with making a Clangen story. (Sorry if this isn't wear to ask)
How do y'all take notes per moon? And how far in advance is the game to the story?
This is the perfect place to ask! Below the cut we've detailed the ways we take our gameplay notes. :)
Mod Froggie 🐸: I'm pretty loosey goosey with my notetaking, but I write down EVERYTHING that happens in a moon.
I write which current moon and season it is at the top, followed by everything in the event tab, what each character is feeling in their profile, and patrol events. The more stuff you give yourself to work with, the easier it is to write your story. I've played almost the entirety of NimbusClan's story and the game is currently at moon 80, so I have everything written out up to then, split into arcs, and those arcs are split into 9 moon chunks. The story is written 3 moons at a time - it makes it easier for me to work on it by breaking it into smaller pieces.
I write an overview of what happens during those 3 moon chunks, not taking any special care for grammar or legibility, as long as I get the overall feeling of the story. Because I also include written portions of story in each of my updates, I'll then actively flesh out these parts into a cohesive, readable story. If you're just doing comics, I recommend making a dialogue script, or a stageplay-type write-out of what your characters are doing and saying!
After I've written everything out, once I'm ready to start drawing my comic pages, I'll go back and highlight (as seen above) the specific interactions I'm going to be drawing. Not everything from a moon gets included! I'll cherrypick the stuff that makes for a decent story.
Sometimes I'll change my mind! I may have written down something in the story overview or chosen a gameplay scene that I decide, once I get down to drawing, doesn't fit nicely or that I could do differently from how I originally planned it. It's okay to switch things up at the last minute! You don't have to stick religiously to your notes.
Additionally, I like to throw my thoughts into brackets/parenthesis if I think of something that'll impact the story while I'm writing down notes.
AND LASTLY, this is very specific to my creative process, but I go through each character and pick out interactions that pertain specifically to them (or would be closely related to them) from every moon and write them down in one big character doc. This allows me to more easily see patterns in their behavior, the cats they spend the most time with, and gives me a better handle on the story from their viewpoint as opposed to trying to corral all of the character's emotions and actions at once. This helps me better flesh out their specific personalities!
Mod Lucky 🍀 :
I also take pretty messy notes! I just use the notes app on my phone, and write down as many notable events as I can
I'll also write some quick dialogue if I think of something, but the more and more I diverge from canon clangen events the less notes I take. I play 24 moons ahead, in chunks I call "arcs", because it helps me plan far enough out without losing interest in characters from the past (holding onto Flicker, Morel, and Ponderosa was so hard when everyone's out here talking about how much they love yarrow/olive and cold/pumpkin). I'm Very conservative with which cats I let in the clan, keeping your population below 3 pages I think is ideal otherwise I start to lose track of cats and have lots of empty background guys. But playing a handful of moons ahead let's me know whether they do enough interesting stuff or attach to a certain clan cat to be worth keeping.
After all this, it's started going into a long masterdoc that organizes each moon into 3 or 4 events, with a handful of backup events I plan for bonusranches!! I hope this very scatterbrained process helps a bit, but truth be told, we're making free cat comics on the internet, and I started ranchclan purely as a way to get myself out of a creative rut by indulging in a childhood hyperfixation - you can do anything you want forever!
This is some advice that I've posted about before, but bulk making your pages (Doing your sketches for 10 pages, then your lineart for all ten, etc) is much more efficient and as someone who has a hard time with change, you only have to get through that one part of the art process you hate (doing all my text) once, and you end up with a sizeable backlog to have a consistent upload schedule - I also find my sketches more fluid, lineart steadier, when I've been doing it consistently for a while vs switching up every single panel. Find out everywhere you want to post! that may be just tumblr, but if you want to do comicfury, tiktok whatever, starting from the beginning is a lot easier than procrastinating uploading afterwards.
I am so so so rambling, but something Froggies talked about before is theme and general direction - Ranchclan was rather directionless when I started, but it's always been about the land and territory, the relationships between characters, and I think has a general theme of growing into yourself and finding who you're meant to be, and that's never a finished product. Ranchclan hosts a lot of directionless characters who find their passion and love, and that's not even getting into Valleyclan, animal domestication, and all the sorta spiritual stuff I want to get into. that is to say... if I wanted to just read a list of "blank did xyz today!" I'd go play my own clangen save ya know? What makes your readers want to engage? What are you showing visually or writing to make us attach and love these characters? The western theme is mostly just the aesthetic, but what sets your cats apart from any other clan? and we have clangens with cannibalism, horror, space aliens, nuclear sparklecats - don't be afraid to really push the boundaries and get wild with it. I'm really interested in the flora and fauna of the world they live in, but are you interested in crafting technology? High politics? Familial dynasties? Enter the world of mods and coding your clangen saves (pppst one of our first ever events was Smashy hosting a clangen save editing 101! the vod exists pinned in the discord somewhere)
Mod Selkie 🦭:
froggie and lucky have already given some great advice, so i'll keep my response just showing how i go from playing to drawing! spoilers for boughclan moon 3 ahead:
while i'm playing i generally write down everything that happens--used to type it out word for word, but this part's a breeze now that they've added copy-paste, haha. i write everything that happens in events, every cat's status, and every patrol event, what kind of patrol it was, who went.
i also note down whether the interactions were positive or negative and by how much, because it helps me find a pattern to positive and negative interactions and helps me track relationships. i also try to note personality changes because it can help me figure out character arcs, but i'm not always paying enough attention to catch them the moon they happen. like froggie, i also put some of my thoughts in parenthesis as i'm playing, but it doesn't happen as frequently!
this next bit is a defunct part of my creative process now that i script things out, but i used to have a separate "condensed" notes document, where i pick and choose which interactions to keep and which to ignore.
this is where i try to craft the narrative from what the game has given me. i find this very useful for finding patterns in relationships and picking out story beats, big events that can be altered to fit the narrative i want to build, and identifying possible character arcs and subplots for each cat that i want to give importance to.
my last and final step before i put pencil to paper, so to speak, is to decide how many scenes i want for each moon, then script them.
in the script, i get much more detailed with each individual scene, and include breaks where i want the speech bubbles to be broken up for long lines of dialogue. sometimes when i'm writing the script it's useful to look at multiple moons' worth of notes to set something up--you might notice that in my notes, the game gave me no "secret meeting", but i wanted to set something up for a future moon. for this reason i find it most fun to play many moons in advance. my boughclan file is on moon 35, and while i haven't played as far ahead as some folks, i don't imagine i'll be scripting boughclan for many more moons than that, so i've nearly played to its end.
some folks only play a moon ahead, and some folks play hundreds of moons ahead! it's up to your preference. like lucky said, you'll want to think about what makes your clangen blog unique, and how your playstyle--whether you play 1 or 100 moons ahead--will influence your story.
Ive been thinking about creating a clangen comic, and i would like some advice so i figured i'd just ask here
hi anon! we all took a shot at giving a little advice, so here's something from each of the mods under the cut. (if you run your own clangen, feel free to leave your own in the comments/reblogs!)
First - write/draw what makes you excited to make art! You don’t have the follow Clangen prompts 100% of the time, and you’re allowed to change things around as you see fit - it’s your story. Second - be aware of your mental health space and how much energy you know it takes for you to finish a task. Some people draw faster than they write, or vice versa, or they enjoy drawing but it takes a lot of energy out of them. As a result, starting a comic can get exhausting quickly if the results aren’t what we expect them to be. Lastly, and on topic - results! Do not expect your first few updates to garner much attention at all. That’s okay, and quite normal! Rare is it that a clangen begins by captivating a massive audience right away. An audience is created over time, when we see more character actions and personalities shine in the midst of drama and turmoil. Anticipate a small ammount of notes, or even none at all to start! Make a clangen comic for your own personal challenge or practice first, and that drive will attract an audience curious about your characters and your world with time.
-Mod Smashy
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My advice - START. Don't wait until your story is finished, your characters perfected, your art flawless. Art can always, always be improved upon, and if you wait for everything to be perfect, you'll never post your comic. This advice may not work for everyone, but as someone who is paralyzed by imperfection, the best thing for me was to just begin (I started writing NimbusClan March '24, and just figured out the ending like two days ago). Depending on how you decide to format your comic, I'll say an outline and an overall theme will absolutely help if you're going for something more story-focused than if you're planning on just drawing moon-to-moon game interactions, but don't bog yourself down with getting the whole story figured out. Bonus tip: TAKE GOOD GAME NOTES.
-Mod Froggie🐸
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advice for starting a clangen comic that I am a hypocrite about and wish I had done
MAKE A BACKLOG so here's the thing. so many clangen start, get excited and burnout. we've all been there. make 10 moons before you post anywhere. I made 24. I remade ranchclan at least 3 times, getting one or two moons in and then restarting, but once I got going with this particular round I was able to lock in.,
set up ALL the places you want to post - tumblr, comic fury, tiktok, xiaohongshu, whatever. that being said - many only upload one place! have a consistent upload schedule, and then bonuscontent, asks, polls, etc are a fun surprise.,
froggie is so right about giving yourself a theme or general direction, but I'd love to push people about what makes your clangen comic different. what are the relationships you want to explore? ranchclan doesn't have a planned end, but is that something you want for your comic/writing to tell a rounded up message so to speak? what makes people want to lock into your comic or writing vs just playing the game themself? I didn't stress about it much and now have the energy and drive to go further, don't be afraid to get started.
-Mod Lucky
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As with anything, consistant practice makes you better. Working on something for a few minutes every day for a week makes you more proficient than if you work on it for an hour once a week. That said - know how you work! Everyone’s brains break down large/challenging projects like a comic differently, so work with your nature rather than against it. For example - I draw really fast and tend to play fast and loose in the writing department so I can draw more and get it out faster. Some people like taking their time and only update once a month with really well-thought updates. Learn how you work best - this is a really important thing to know about yourself across many disciplines! Making a longform art piece like a comic can be really rewarding, but patience and dedication are key.
-Mod Rel
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as for myself, here's a couple of pieces of advice that i would've loved to hear before i started mine.
some things you have to figure out by trying to do them. i spent a few years puttering around wanting to make a comic but not sure mechanically how to go about it--what size the page should be, what size my panels should be, whether my panels should have borders, etc. and i was very confused why there weren't any tutorials out there. it wasn't until i actually tried one, for real, that i started to gain a better understanding of how i personally wanted my panels to look.
art analysis is a skill that is deeply undervalued in fandom art spaces (speaking as someone who has drifted between several different fandom/artist communities!), but it will help you improve your own art and your comic by showing you things you may want to do (or not do!). it's not strictly necessary, but i've found it to be invaluable when it comes to experimenting and incorporating things i like into my own art--i'd seen a lot of "do this thing this way because it's good to do" types of tutorials over the years but i'd never seen good counterexamples of what, for example, makes a comic difficult and confusing to read. i didn't know how to avoid it until i actually went looking for comics that were, well, difficult and confusing to read. (that might sound harsh, and i don't mean it to be! i just mean that sometimes you need examples of things done poorly juxtaposed with examples of things done well to really understand why conventions are the way they are.) so make sure you read comics you like, look at tutorials, but also make sure you find examples of things done in a way you want to avoid.
if the server is pg-16 , members have to be 16+? I know that’s a goofy question cause it clearly states pg-16 but I just wanna be extra clear so I know if I gotta leave or not
Discord is 13+, so we allow members 13 years and older to join, but the PG-16 rating is there so that younger members understand that the server is not rated for them and they may be exposed to content not designed for those under 16.
Swearing is allowed, but NSFW content is not. Sensitive content, such as animal death and injury, is kept behind Discord's spoiler tag.
All that to say, as long as you're at least 13, you're welcome to join!
I just wanted to thank you for doing the weekly spotlights! I am making it a goal to read and stay up to date with every blog that is featured in the hopes that I can read as many ClanGen stories as I can! Having a weekly goal of one (if the featured story is one I have not read yet) makes this a lot more manageable than trying to read every single one I come across naturally.
Aaah, this is such a lovely ask!! We enjoy doing the weekly spotlights (credit to mod Rel specifically, the powerhouse that she is) and it's so nice to hear that folks like you are enjoying them as well! It's a great way to discover new ClanGen stories :)
If anyone is seeing this and wondering how they can get their own story/comic/blog featured, join our Discord!
