In this new blog series I'll be wandering off the path a little to explore creative ventures -- some related to gaming, some not! Topics range across the spectrum of cooking, crafts, writing, ranking, drawing and more. This entry's focus is my Twitch Theme.
So, the last crafty thing I wrote about was Emotes. I'm sorry to say I still don't have any of those done... but I HAVE been working on all the other elements of my Twitch channel!
What's in a Theme, anyway?
Heck if I know! I panned around in different communities, fishing for answers and advice. The most common response was that I should focus on recurring chat events or in-jokes since I play a variety of games. As I don't stream regularly enough for that, I felt that perhaps I needed to focus more on who I present myself as and the things I talk about when I'm streaming:
- I'm a nerd. I'm always reading, writing, drawing, gaming, and basking in music.
- I love fantasy. My oldest friends that I'm still in touch with are from when I was in high school, roleplaying in the AOL fantasy chat rooms.
- I love a good story. Games with a great story, even if they are utterly lacking in quality graphics or mechanics, are always favorites of mine. I can forgive almost anything negative in a game if the story is perfect.
Result: Bibliophile?
How It Started
I figured the best start would be on my panels. Since panels are smaller and specific, you have to be pickier about their presentation. By making the smaller images first, I'll be able to integrate them into larger ones and further direct the theme. That was my thought process, anyway! It seemed to work well for me.
I have long wanted to commission a logo in the manner of a heraldic style, but with a creature of my own making: a Snark Beast. But not just any... a Queen! In lieu of this, I cobbled together a crown-inlaid wax seal for my About Me panel, accompanied by a bundle of books. The rest of the panels just flowed from there. My signature aqua/teal coloration for the unfurled scrolls, and elements of gloaming purple for implied magical elements (which I want to improve later). I did try to use graphics from the same set to have a uniform appearance across all of them since I didn't produce the artwork myself (thank you, Canva). In a few cases I had to select graphics from other sets but did my best to find ones in the same art style -- like the Calendar.
How It Turned Out
Here is a picture of my new panels, my offline image, temporary logo, and my banner. I still have to work on my overlays and, of course, emotes.
So how did they turn out? I wanted to keep my channel motto, Cotidie Novus Casus Est (Every Day is a New Adventure), and I wanted to cut down on the clutter that was on my previous Offline image. What would you change? What do you expect the stream overlays to look like, based on this? You can see all of the above images on my Twitch channel already, so feel free to go take a look!
Bonus: Badges!
I did make my subscriber and bits badges before this, not knowing I'd really lean into the book theme. So, for the bits I have star-punched bookmarks in bronze, silver, and gold. For the subscriber badges we have story pages growing into a full book by 12 months and two full books by 24 months. These, also, are already live on my channel!
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