Mutant Standard Blog

Hey! I’ve been back for a while and posted everywhere else about it but forgot the blog >∆∆<.

Here’s a roundup of the last few weeks:

Mutant Standard 0.2.0 + Orxporter

I have some pretty awesome news. Orxporter (the next generation of the script that I use to batch recolour, rename and export emoji) is finally finished enough that I can use it. So the next release of Mutant Standard will be 0.2.0 and will include things like:

– Codepoint releases!
– Better shortcode releases! (better quality releases of the versions you are already used to)
– I will start outlining Mutant Standard’s encoding plans in Unicode’s PUA!
– Some more new emoji!

Orxporter will eventually be available as open source so anyone who can use a CLI can produce emoji like I do~

Thanks very much to kiilas for developing this. Mutant Standard would not be where it is without it. 💚

One-Time Donations

You can finally make one-time donations via PayPal:

https://mutant.tech/donate#paypal

Trello

People often ask me what I plan on doing for emoji, so I realised it would probably be a good idea to set something up where my production notes and lists are open to the public so anyone can really get a sense for what I’m thinking about and where I plan on going with things.

I’ve just done that (well, working on it right now) – I’ve made a public Trello at https://trello.com/mutantstandard.

I’m currently in the process of offloading most/all of my notes onto the service (and getting used to how Trello works a bit) so it’s not all there right now. But once this is all set up, this will become my new notes system for the project full-time, so you will be able to get a totally up-to-date view of what’s going on with the project at any time!

Continue reading “Personal Update”

More merch is now available, and there’s a new store too, Society6!

• Patterns like peaches/eggplants, pineapples and paw hands.
• Cybre/tech emoji
• New pride flag
• Mugs
• Backpacks, Duffel Bags Beach Towels, Full-Print Shirts, Leggings and more!
• Mutant Standard stickers if you wanna show your support for the project!

You can find both stores at https://mutant.tech/merch.

I’d recommend checking both stores as the selections differ.

Quick guide!

• Every picture of each file is a snapshot of that file of how it is viewed in Affinity Designer (so you can see each emoji artboard and it’s title).
• You can click on each picture to get a bigger version.
• The captions underneath each picture are the filenames of that sketch file. They’re not always the most descriptive (lol).
• Dates of sketches are the date they started, not the date they finished.
• Progressions go from top -> bottom, left -> right. I often use arrows to show progression when it’s not that obvious.
• [M] means that that particular emoji design is going to the Master File (or at least that’s what I think at that moment in time).
• I do a lot of freehand notes around the emoji iterations to give me an idea of how I’m feeling about them.
• Some of the pictures might be a bit misleading because for some things (like some colour choices and CMs), I don’t actually make little iterations to demonstrate where I started and where I finished because it would take too long to copy, paste, edit, repeat, etc.. So i just iterate over the same images.

Okay, read below the cut to see all the sketches!

Continue reading “Mutant Standard 0.1.0 – The Sketches”

As you might imagine, given my current situation, I’ve been kind of scatterbrained. I was in the middle of working on some emoji that are quite close to ready a day or so ago, but then I realised that I had lost track of what I already made (which is unusual for me, but this has been a much longer release cycle than usual), so I’ve decided to get everything I’ve already done locked in place with a new release before I continue finishing more emoji.

Aside from personal things, this release is quite a bit smaller than usual because a lot of stuff in this release was quite intensive (like extra hands, new colours and extended colours). I also just had to go with what I had the spoons to create, so the kinds of emoji I’ve made isn’t necessarily what was planned, and it’s going to be that way for quite a while atm.

This is going to be very wordy because I don’t have the spoons to make diagrams explaining the CM system at the moment, so bear with me.

I’d like to thank everyone for being so patient and supportive during this really shitty time in my life. I’ve been hoping that I’d reach the end of this tunnel sooner but as usual, my spoons are in much shorter supply than I would like u∆∆u, but I am on it as much as I can be in my present capacity. 💚

Continue reading “Mutant Standard 0.1.0”

Happy new year. I wish I could say that things are going to go off to a great start, but not for me it seems.

(The next version will be called 0.1.0. Unfortunately this won’t be because it will be getting codepoints, it just means a variety of internal structure improvements and unified colour palettes. Codepoints will be 0.2.0 now.)

The bad stuff

As some of you know, my abusive parent is trying to throw myself and my enbyfriend out again, but this time it seems serious and with legal teeth, so we’re going to have to figure out what the fuck we’re going to do, plus dealing with the emotional stress the entire situation (which we’ve been suffering under for months).

I made a general plea for support, and directed people to the Mutant Standard Patreon and Liberapay if anyone wants to donate to try to help improve our options. Because of this, we will have actually broken the $100/month mark across all recurring donation platforms come February. (The total will stand at about $115/mo right now). Thank you so much for all of your support.

That money is more mixed between Patreon and Liberapay now so you wouldn’t have noticed on Patreon. I had been planning to migrate Patreon’s goals to the website for when this kind of situation happened, but I’ve had more pressing things to do. I will try to do it in the quickest way possible this week.

I’m going to be looking for really, any way to get a safe roof over our heads. Because of my situation, my options are very limited. My computer equipment is all desktop and if I find a place, I don’t know if there will be a desk, or a desk big enough to do Mutant Standard work on. Even if there is a place with a desk big enough for me to do work, time will need to be taken out to move.

So I think it’s entirely possible that whatever gets made this month could be the last stuff for a while. I’m not sure how much emoji will be in it. I will work on it when I have the time and whenever is the time to move out, will probably be the time it gets published. It’s hard to say for sure because my mother behaves very erratically and my emotional tolerance for this situation is at it’s limit.

Because we broke $100, I’ll try to give you all some sketches, either of 0.1.0 or of previous emoji that I’ve liked over the month. We have a blog now, so it’s not hard at all. 🙂

New emoji to expect in 0.1.0/soon:

New and updated pride flags

These have already been made, just yesterday:

• Updated rainbow flag to have black and brown stripes.
• Demiguy and Demigirl pride flags.

New, unified colour modifier palettes

Human, paw and claw hands will have a unified colour palette, meaning that paws for the first time will get the unnatural colours that human and claw hands have had for a while. There’s also going to be a few more unnatural colours thrown in. I’ll explain my current plan for colour modifiers in more detail later.

Generally just more emoji

This is where I generally make stuff I have in my lists based on my mood. But I do have some priorities in terms of what I want to personally do more of:

• Arts and crafts
• Fishies
• Plants
• Pineapple
• Maybe some more paw hands/claw hands