Rambling update

Welp, I've already been set up elsewhere in the house for a full day now. The people working on our house are going to take a few days, so here I am with not a whole lot to do since anyone could easily look over my shoulder on my PC. So I'm going to simply talk about whatever comes to my mind, kinda like a Q&A I guess.


"Why Koikatsu?"
Well, it just happened to be what I picked up. I found out about KK randomly years back and would just mess around with it. I really liked the accessibility of sharing scenes and cards and I didn't find learning how to move and use things within studio to be too hard to figure out. I really didn't ever mess with it with the idea that I'd be releasing animations or anything, buuuuuuut I kept getting better and better and thought "huh, I think I might actually be starting to get good with this"

And so I started releasing stuff... back at the end of 2022/start of 2023. Yeah if you dug far enough, you might've found out I originally tried a few years back. I stopped for two reasons. I felt like while I was starting to get good, I was feeling really self conscious about how much better other people seemed to be making better stuff than I was. I also felt like I was kinda just throwing my stuff out to the void, not getting much of a following at all. I got a good amount of views, but I let my worries get to me and stopped after releasing a few animations. If you want to look at them, I put an extra folder in the free animations of my Mega link labeled "Old Animations"
https://mega.nz/folder/vzwzlCwA#WIlu6B_ZEaY7pSUwwWVP8g

You'll be able to notice some differences from then to now. I REALLY didn't know anything about shaders/lighting. I was pretty unaware at the time about mods/plugins helping with that so everything looks unsaturated and lacking depth. That's also partially due to me being kind of stupid about use of FOV as well. I always kept everything at 60 FOV which makes everything look weirdly fish-eye. I've used some higher number FOV as of late, but that only looks good with my dynamic angles, not front facing stuff, at that point I go anywhere from 20-40 FOV. I was using that FOV back then because it makes it a lot easier to move around the camera freely, but isn't that great once you're trying to actually export a video.

Speaking of exporting, that too was something I learned about. I was actually just using OBS to record everything, which meant the micro-stutters studio is prone to would show in what I was releasing. Oops.

So here I am now knowing waaaaaaay more than I did before. Plenty of stuff like new plugins for using the timeline better, or even just functions of the timeline I had to learn like double-clicking a keyframe to highlight ALL keyframes that are identical. Trust me, that one helps a lot. Some more simple stuff like "If I move this part of the body one way, what do I have to do elsewhere to make it flow right?" Stuff like that I've internalized and can get pretty quickly now. And you might have noticed that with my paizuri scenes, I have them looking properly squished and soft. At least, more than you see from a lot of Koikatsu made animations. If you haven't looked at my keyframes from inside the scene data itself, you may be surprised to learn I'm not using any sort of plugin or mod or whatever to create the effect. It's entirely manually animated.

Yeah, there's no physics or collision stuff to create the effect other than the breast physics plugin that most anyone else would also have. The boobs don't react at all to where I place the hands, that's entirely on me to move, rotate, and scale them in ways to make it look like that are. It takes some time, but I've messed with it so much over the past years learning how to make it look right, I've learned to do it relatively quick now. Here, this is a screenshot of the keyframes being used JUST for Fubuki's boobs in the last animation I did:

Another part of the process I've learned about is better penetration, which sounds silly because I think most people messing with KK learn about that early, and I "learned" about it too... I just completely misunderstood HOW to use it. I feel pretty stupid about it now in hindsight, but I was completely wrong about what you're supposed to do to actually turn it on. I both missed the options that you can simply turn on to target parts of the body, as well as what bones you can attach with constraints to turn it on too. I was trying to use that second option and was choosing the wrong stuff, so my old stuff I'd spend WAAAAAAY too much time trying to line things up right when obviously that shouldn't take much time at all. It' supposed to be automatic old me!

That said, for the sake of making things look good, I still spend some time doing a little bit to not cause clipping to happen. Another thing you might know about if you've looked into my scene data is that I still use constraints to attach a part of the shaft to the vag bone. I do that to a part of the shaft that you won't see during the animation so you don't see the constraint happening, but it helps make it so the dick doesn't randomly clip through the girl's belly depending on how I move the characters. If you're unaware of what I'm talking about, its the function to attach two things together, and I'm using that to make it so the tip of the dick doesn't ever move too far one way or another to show through the girl's body in an undesired way.

Sadly, that function likes to reset (at least on my PC it does) when replacing characters, so if you, whoever you are reading this, has gotten any of my scenes, replaced the girl, and gone "oh hey, there's clipping happening" then I'm sorry! I have no idea how I could fix that so that it'd stay no matter who you add in. The best I can suggest is using the folders in the scene to move it in a way for it to no longer happen, or do what I'm talking about and using constraints to keep it in place (I usually attach specifically shaft4 to the vag bone).

That said, please let me know if anything weird is happening with scene data if you get any of my stuff, I'd hate to know things aren't working on your end because of a dumb mistake on my part. A few things I'd tell you to figure out on your own, like updating better repack or checking to see if it's from something YOU added like from a character you put in, but otherwise I try to make sure anything I release is using mostly vanilla/better repack so that anyone can use the scene. That and of course I try to replace everything with my own OCs and sounds that aren't copyrighted in some way. I create my own mod for timing sfx and sound bits, but I think I could get in trouble for ever trying to distribute said mod, so I'm sorry that those sounds aren't in the scene data that I distribute.

Also if you're wondering, I've never really ever touched any other 3D animation programs... so uh, Koikatsu it is! When I say self-taught, I really do mean that I just picked it and got good with it purely through exposure. So if you want to get good with it, honestly just have fun with it. I never worked on it thinking about getting good, I was just enjoying my free time doing so.


"So hey, why so much Hololive?"
Me like anime girls, me like streamers, me think they cute. But no seriously, I've actually been using Youtube since almost the beginning. I found out about it pretty quickly as a kid and have stuck around since. I was always a big nerd and enjoyed watching Let's Plays, and so years later as Hololive came around I found myself really liking the hobby. I didn't get into them immediately though, I knew about Kizuna AI and such, and heard about the Holo girls, but it wasn't until a specific clip of Korone kept going around (try searching up "Korone - "Betty Botter bought some butter" tongue twister" on Youtube, that's the moment I'm talking about) I decided to finally give watching some VODs and clips a try. Coco with her English stuff really helped me get more into them, but I didn't start getting into streams until specifically Korone streamed Klonoa. I love that game! I got into watching streams since. So I've been pretty hardcore into Holo before EN even first got announced. Kiara has been my oshi since they debuted :) "Wait Kiara? You've only done a single thing with her!" Uuuuuuuh yeah, it's weird. I think I respect and enjoy who she is so much that it actually makes it a bit hard for me to think of her in such ways compared to the others. So she's a bit of an odd one out for who I really enjoy but don't try animating as much as the other girls who I like the most.

Covid helped a lot too for getting into them, I found myself laid off from my job at the time, but had money saved up, so I spent a LOT of time having holodex multiview up on one screen at all times, while doing anything else on my other screen. I was basically just coasting along the pandemic while enjoying Holo as much as I could. I really appreciate them for keeping me company in that way. I don't really watch many other vtubers outside of them, there's just sort of a feeling that I get from Holo I don't feel from anywhere else. I like cute, and other groups feel more positioned towards sexy to me. Or even if I could say others feel cute, they just don't have the same large group magic that I enjoy from Holo. No hate towards any of the other companies or indies, Holo just gets that itch for me.

I do want to use some more girls outside of Hololive over time. There's some anime girls I do like or video game girls, so expect me to release stuff that isn't Holo eventually.


"So you're making Koikatsu animations of them now because you felt good enough to make them and enjoy them?"
I guess that's a yes. I actually really debated to myself whether I wanted to try releasing stuff again. I had my doubts that this time around would be any different, but I found myself with free time after working a seasonal job. I didn't really care for it, hard sweaty work with customers that were loud and draining to be around. My coworkers were good people, but I stood out from the pack pretty badly. I dreaded the idea of doing another job like that again. So I said screw it and tried again with Koikatsu. It's a weird "butterflies in my stomach" feeling releasing r18 content admittedly, knowing how much people would judge what I make, so thank goodness this is working out this time. Really appreciate everyone's support, whether it's a follow on social media, liking a post, or subscribing to a tier. It all helps and is making this possible for me to continue.

I've been purposefully not talking about it much, because I worry it comes across as being greedy or entitled, so I know that last I really talked about it was when I got past my $500 a month goal. So if you're curious, it's only been going up. I'm almost at $900 a month PURELY from currently subscribed people across all sites. Including commissions and money from members who canceled their subscription (As I've said before, I think that's reasonable, I know about subbing for whatever you wanted and then stopping. It makes sense!) it's a bit hard to properly judge how much that would add "per month" but I can tell it's almost $2000 for this month alone all together with the monthly subs! So wow, a huge thank you to everyone!

My goal at this point since hitting $500 has been $2500 a month. While still not quite "living wage" in America, I recognize I'm not driving and paying for gas doing this, as well as eating elsewhere for lunch breaks and such, so my living wage would be lower than normal because of it. That and I'm not living alone. My original $500 goal was me really wanting to make sure I was paying my fair share of rent, so the fact I'm getting towards the point of any other expenses and that I'm actually being able to now save up money is crazy to me. I'm so happy that I can look at this and truly think of this being long term for me.

Now, this might be a bit dangerous for me to say, because I don't want to screw myself over of course, but if the growth of my pages keeps going in this direction, I'd like to stop thinking about and treating this like a job, and more like a passion where I don't think about the money in the first place. I'm only doing that right now because, y'know, I kind of have to. I would like to be releasing most things, if not everything as free. The obvious problem is that, if I were to do that, then people would stop being subscribed and I could be in trouble again.

So that's kind of the ultimate end goal, to be getting so much support that, even if I released things for free often, people choosing to stop subscribing wouldn't be a big deal. This would still realistically be many MANY months done the line from now. While I could live on minimal living wage, it would be nice to have enough to go and enjoy things I never have, like traveling! I've never been to Japan or anywhere else for that matter. It's always been pretty paycheck to paycheck with my family, so making more could really help us do and enjoy things we just never have. That and getting more work done on the house and other such expenses, there's a reason I said before this current work had to wait over a decade to finally happen 💦. I'd really like to make that a reality for us.

And as I said before, it's that feeling that is why I make the free versions that I do. Did I need to release 18 free versions and release them on social media like I did with this last animation I made? No! Did I need to make them the entire length of the animation? No! Or even release an entire full animation + scene data like I did with the Saba one? No!

But I want to, I want people to be able to enjoy my stuff, while still having a living for myself doing so. So I hope I continue to grow and get to the point where subscriptions and such aren't something I'm worrying about anymore :)

Last thought on that topic, I think I'll release another freebie once I get past these next few short animations and make the Koyori Paizuri one that was on the poll. Something like a medium length animation. You guys can let me know what you'd like to see and I'll put it into consideration :)


I think I've rambled for long enough for now. I'll still try to see if I can properly work on any animation for the time being, I do stay up longer than anyone else here does, but I'll for sure be back up to speed on New Years! Thanks for reading if you did, I know I wrote quite a lot!