October Updates…

How’s everyone doing this week? Many spicy new drops on the website for website-only higher-level patrons. Spektra being her insanely sexy self as she teaches Slither a lesson about treating her with respect. I’ve dropped on Patreon and the site the Nightmare-Stalker Redemption Match and will be beginning animation for that this week. Here’s a key update. Adobe Photoshop’s last update seemed to have change the house denoiser function, making outcomes rather grainy. I tested it with various settings and can say the old denoiser is objectively lower quality now. However, at the same time Adobe seemed to have introduced a generative-AI function and a Topaz Denoiser plugin. I hesitantly tried the Topaz Denoiser knowing Topaz leaves metadata in its finished results. But I have to say, Topaz Denoiser literally makes your images look almost life-like. I’ve started incorporating Topaz-Denoiser into all render galleries for the fights and finishers and the results have been nothing short of amazing. Now when you use this and run it through for animations, it makes the 4K animations look breathtaking. So this will be part of the workflow going forward.

This has been the most active month for Finisher Theater, ever. 16 new Finishers have been added to Finisher theater.

After animation for Nightmare-Stalker is done, expect the following:

Ming Hua vs. Tamora (legendary old match, re-rendered and animated). I initially wanted to use a more risque quipao outfit for Ming Hua but none of the assets I’ve used work particularly well with D-Force, so I am opting to use her original agent outfit. Tamora’s more covered outfit will likely be switched for the dominatrix outfit to keep patrons happy. So basically the same older render set with better lighting, camera angles and posing, and this will be animated and available on Patreon and the site. I know everyone was a massive fan of Tamora-Yamoja last month.

Darian vs. Slither: This is a bracket match. Slither will be in his “Chimaera” outfit complete with armor. This match will take place in the Asian Arena (where Atzi-Ghoul happened). Winner advances in the brackets. To help narrow down the tournament and ensure it’s not endless, there won’t be any more new entrants into Redemption. If you die in upper level bracket matches, you’re dead AF. So this will be a high-stakes match.

Sandra vs. Gisela: A new legacy match on the rooftop at night. I will be using the same lighting as the stage finisher I made last month and Gisela will be in her gym attire while Sandra will be in her guerrilla warfare attire. This is a big return for Sandra since she’s not in First Blood. It’s likely this match will be animated in November, however, due to time and budget constraints.

Workflow wise there are several goals:

1) Reckoning re-edit will be finished sometime mid-October. Major delays on this front. I’m a medical professional and very busy at times so I haven’t been able to rush this.

2) Gender parity for finishers: Already somewhat achieved, I will be getting the catalogue up to 28 finishers on male fighters and 28 finishers on female fighters. Parity like this is important for the project overall.

3) Parity for matches. I’ve got 11 M-M, 11 F-F, 16 M-F matches in the catalogue so far. That’s 22 same-gender and 16 mixed-gender matches. I want to get it to 16 M-M, 16 F-F and 16 M-F. This will follow tournament rubric but Legacy Matches will round everything out. Once parity is achieved we are going to a new rubric. 3 matches per month, 1 M-M, 1 F-F, 1 M-F. That’s the goal. October will get us to 13 M-M, 12 F-F and 16 M-F. November to 14 M-M, 14 F-F and 16 M-F. December to 16 M-M, 15 F-F and 16 M-F. January we will be at 17 M-M, 16 F-F and 17 M-F. Parity will be officially achieved in February.

As always, do not worry, the fan-service aspect of Bloodblade will never, ever go away. It’s why I do this stuff. Fighting universes without fan-service are little more than Super Smash Bros.

4) Ascension writing: This is more a 2027 thing. I will be re-editing Ruin between November and January. Ascension is about 1/8th done and I will continue writing this throughout 2027 as since it’s the final installment of the main canon, it needs a lot of thought and planning.

5) Enhanced social media presence: Instagram, DA, Rumble and Twitter promotion are now part of the budget. Twitter less so because there’s really no way you can moderate comments and spam on Twitter, it’s one of the worst social media apps to begin with, but it has a lot of viral potential. I do have a Tiktok for Bloodblade, but Tiktok treats users like kindergarteners with respect to violence, so I’m not even going to try that yet. Probably going to look at around 3,000 followers on IG and maybe 300 on Twitter by January. And probably 2,000 on DA. Those are my goals.

6) More commissions! Keep in mind my preference is to commission YOUR OC’s for fights and finishers. This is because I get a lot of requests from people who like Bloodblade characters, maybe have a crush on them or whatever, but some of these requests kind of go beyond the pale of what I want my characters associated with, and since this is a copyrighted and trademarked IP now, I don’t want to stain the project with stuff that can leak. But I’m happy to do whatever you want with your OC’s, or create entirely new characters for that purpose. As always, commissions are open and rates are negotiable.