So I'd been thinking about it for a long time now, even before finishing Vanilla Twilight that I'd talk about it if someone asked, well that never happened so I was just thinking that I'd let it go but that post is so important to me so well fuck it I'll just talk about it anyway.
I did it completely on a wimp like how cool would it be if I make a lyricstuck for Toumaki like I'd be the first (if anyone did this before me im sorry). The first song I intended to do wasn't VT, it was a much shorter and easier song. I saw the music video first time after a while and the lyrics gave me some scenes to draw right away, like the tones, the atmosphere, the lyrics all fit them very well, made me wanted to draw something happy but sad. The ending for it was a happy one instead of a sad one like other songs I did (I didn't post the ending for any of them, just let the viewers decide what it's gonna be)
I was very scared like what if it won't turn out ok and people gonna hate me for it or no one even gonna look at it. Also what I visualized are mostly illustrations with backgrounds, what I never done before so high chance it won't go anywhere. I thought well let's just see how far will I get and won't talk about it at all until I post it so at least I won't be all barks no bite. I was very traumatized that someone might know about what I did so I locked all the files when I shut down my PC in case someone hack into it lmao.
I started with making a storyboard(kinda) for it, this is where I first got trouble because there was some part I didn't think of when I visualized what I'd draw at first ( 'I don't feel so alone' part mostly and some in between) and it's only at this point that I realized how many I'd have to draw (over 40 images total) and it's mind blowing for someone who rarely finish a painting like me at that time, that number is more than what I'd draw in a year. VT doesn't have choruses that meant I can't do tricks like repeat some panels (I don't like this anyway). I usually painted on small canvas before that but I wanna make sure I can fix things later and some idea I had was pretty big so I used 3000x5000px canvas then trimmed them down ( I didn't know how big it was and it's huge).
The idea was to make a tumblr scroll-post like a lyricstuck (my favorites are by paperseverywhere and toastyhat/emptyfeet , they made really cool tutorials about these) so I tried to drew out compositions that would look good scrolling down panel by panel and have some connections between them (this didn't turn out so good in the end because I wasn't good lol)
Since I was scared that people might point out that I draw something wrong, it took me almost a week or something searching for references (check my pinterest board) like the streets, sky, houses, roads, outfits, poses,... I was going to draw. I got some knowledge about bikes by this too, like I can tell the differences between road bike, mtb, touring bikes,... I also see and captured bunches of screenshots and reread ywpd trivia countless time to make sure I won't get anything wrong. If you take notice, every outfit Toumaki wear in there are all canon, from anime or promos.
The first few panels was really exciting because I had never painted so many with backgrounds before, I was really happy when I almost finished the first verse even compared to the full 3:50 of the song it was only 20 seconds and I thought maybe I can pull this after all. The last panel was intended to be Makichan standing infront of his house looking at the sky but I wanted to show the sky at the end of the panel and that wouldn't work on scroll-down post so I had to leave it for later, I repainted this panel for about 3 times and finished it just 30' before posting.
The first panel of the second verse wasn't turning out alright too because that was my first time doing a 3 points perspective drawing and the colors didn't turn out as I wanted either (my intention was a green/gold dawn scene). Things kinda worked well despite that until the scene when Toudou sits in his ink, gdi I didn't know why I was so caught up in that and painted every piece of that wooden floor, it took me almost a week but turned out better than I expected so I was ok with it. I was going to make sketchy paintings for all of the panel but I did too much details on that one so it gave me the impression that I'll have to do just as much for every others.
Now I still had school to go and that semester my uni got me pretty crappy schedule that made me have to wait for classes at school frequently, I was frustrated because I didn't get to paint during that time and I might finish it too late (even though I didn't set a deadline) and when I got home I just spent so much time checking twitter and just can't pick myself up to draw and ended up feeling shitty about it.
*Side story* I was so mad because I didn't get anything done and there's still more than half of the whole thing to do and the worst part is that I had no one that I can talk to because I didn't have any friend who ship Toumaki and I also don't want to publicly talk about what I was doing, I wanted to surprise people when I'm done, I didn't wanna give people the expectation then screw it up (I literally thought I'd drop a bomb not a grenade lmao) I can't remember how long was that shitty phase but I felt like it was so long, I barely finished verse 2 at that point. I was so mad at myself and my progress so I spent a few days to look at time management threads and this helped a lot, I changed my habits completely by this and I still apply those methods now, like I used to stay up til 3am to read fics (bless you writers you fueled me with your writings bless you all) then I switch to bed before 12 and get up early for a good start or reduce working time while increasing quality*
After that I kinda got things together,I just went ahead with painting tho it's still kinda tiring, I had to work on 5 essays during this time too. At this point I was like screw all, I give no shit about what everyone thinks I'm just gonna finish this and get some good nap (I practiced power nap to get more focus time for painting but dude everyone wants a good long nap)
10 days before uploading I found out that there's a Toumaki day (I'm so sorry), I was going to posted on the first sunday of June (I did researched on which was the best time to post on social medias so I randomly picked a sunday) and Toumaki day is the last sunday of May, that meant I had 10 days left and 15 panels to paint! I was going to ignore that but I already made it big I should make it right too so I shit my pants going through those last panels.
I purposely hiding Toudou's face till the last verse to emphasize the feelz and got so relieved that I finally got to paint him (I read some tags that some viewers got emotional at this part so I'm so glad it worked). The whole things was put under Makichan's perspective so I was so sick of painting him at that point, he showed up in every panel and I can't paint him ugly because he's beautiful (especially his hair, I spent shitload of time painting them). I can talk lots about why I picked to do so but that's headcanon shit and it's embarrassing so let's just skip that.
The last day I had only 3 panels left and I was hell confident that I've got this and somehow spent the whole evening rewatch Toumaki pingpong ep (end me). Of course that didn't end well, I managed to finish those by midnight but I still had like 3 panels that needed repaint completely and all 43 needed retouch and edits. My plan was to post at 9am sunday (thats 9pm saturday est) so I had to get up at 5am and finish all that, I ended up cutting down 2 panels and simplified the instrumental panel (some tags said that was nice so I was at least relieved). Unlike other songs I did, the length of every line's quite different and the original sizes I did would make viewers have to scroll slower or faster at different parts. I didn't plan this beforehand and had to trim down some panels even the parts that I really liked and spent lots of time on. I also found out that people outside the homestuck fandom might not familiar with this type of post so I made a video too (I’m sorry I have zero skill in editing).
After posting I was terrified of people's reactions or worse, there won't be any reaction so I turned everything off and went to sleep and woke up with an unimaginable number of notes I'd got, I set the target of 500 notes and I really didn't think that I'd get past that number like maybe 2-300 (well my other songs didnt even get 200), at the end I got 5000. I spent the next week reading and screencap tags given in reblogs, I put them on desktop and they're still my motivation til now.
Vanilla Twilight is the thing I'm proud of the most even until now, when I've done other songs and projects that look somewhat better. If I have to recommend one thing on my blog I'd recommend it despite its' unskilled paneling, poor composition and muddy colors. It was the first time in my life that I'd put so much effort into something and went through such emotional roller coaster, the feelings I put into it was raw and the idea was very original compared to other songs, I improved and changed a lot during the 2 months I spent on it and never once regret doing it.
***Anyway, you sure have much free time to read it this far, here's a little game for you: I put random things in VT and HF like some characters/stuff from other series, my ocs,... (there wasn't anything purposeless in there even the logo on their cups or the bags they wear) just send me anything you find and I'll draw you something in return**
