Melancholic Zombie's 2021
- Melancholic Zombie
- Jan 6, 2022
- 4 min read
2021 is now over. This past year was full of weird and interesting projects which I'm going to go through in this blog post. Sit back. sip a drink and enjoy!
JUHO & THE JELLYFISH FROM JUPITER
Juho & the Jellyfish from Jupiter's year was an interesting one. Originally I wasn't planning on doing too much, but then I made 'Hope' and suddenly I had this idea of doing a song every month. And that's exactly what I ended up doing. My original plan was to put out an album at the end of the 2021 but I think double EP release fits this project better. And I can always release an album version in the future if I want!
I'll be talking about 'Quarantine Diaries' project in a future blog post, so until then you should head over Bandcamp for example and listen these songs. They are pretty good - best ones I've made so far.
I also released 'Ordinary Living Dead' EP which included some ''older'' Jellyfish stuff. This was meant to be the first Juho & the Jellyfish from Jupiter release but it just never came out... Anyway, it's here now.
COOKIE
I started working on Cookie as pandemic situation kept going on as I saw that as a possibility to finally make my own game with graphics and sound effects all done by me. After many months of work I was able to finish it, and even though it's very small and short thing I'm proud of it. I just wonder if Adam found that cookie to eat...
FLIGHTS OF FOUNDRY 2021
I held a virtual art gallery as part of FoF this year. Though it required a lot of work to get right it was fun and people seemed to enjoy it too. As part of the FoF I also made my first vinyl release, very very limited 'Something to Begin With', which includes few Juho & the Jellyfish from Jupiter and MZ tracks.
ALTERNATIVE ENDING & MORNING IN THE HELL EPs
In 2020 I made this album series titled BEDROOM SESSIONS which included some old demos and unfinished songs. Well, after that I decided to remix some of those songs and thus these two EPs were born. And now I am remixing even more oldies but more about that on a later date...
2021 also meant that I changed my artist name from Juho Saari to Melancholic Zombie. That has given so much creative freedom for me because as a concept MZ isn't as limited as everydayish JS. And it sounds cooler too. Though on the inside it's still the same old me.
MACABRE DARK ART GALLERY
After Flights of Foundry I decides to give a try for an another virtual art gallery, this time only meant for my digital art. As expected, it meant a lot of work but being able to walk in the virtual space with your own art hanging on the walls was surreal.
Even though Artsteps is pretty handy website for building stuff like this I came to realise its limitations. It's great for small and simple stuff but to have more atmospheric and visually interesting virtual art gallery I should maybe even consider building it with Unity for example... Hmm, what an idea!
Will Macabre Dark Art Gallery make a return next year? I'm not sure yet but I hope so.
APARTMENT
I made this short little game for RPG Maker Horror Game Jam. It's not anything special, mostly I just tried to do some nee scripting stuff that I've never done before. I could make it longer and so on but I doubt I'll never have inspiration for that. Maybe I should make a "sequel" on some future game jam?
RÄMÄN SURKEA SEIKKAILU SEKÄ MUITA KERTOMUKSIA
My first book! It's still kinda surreal. Even though few of these short stories were previously published on different magazines having them in a publication with your name on the covers is the most awesome thing.
Writing is something I'm good at and you can expect more stories in the future. I have many tales to tell. Not about Rämä though.
It's available on your local library (if your from Turku) as well as in almost any online site that sells books.
RED & BLACK
After doing more detailed pieces I decided to give a go for some simpler things again. Only few colours in each of these. Not perfect but they got a certain atmosphere.
Haven't drawn anything for a while but now I got a new tablet and a pen so just wait when I'll get inspired again!
Check them out in GALLERY.
LUNCH WITH THE GROTESKIANS
Some familiar faces can be met in this creepy visual novel I created as part of the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam. It was very different experience compared to Cookie and Apartment, but I really liked writing the dialogue for this one - it came out pretty fucked up!
People seemed to enjoy this visual novel too and even praised the disturbing atmosphere, which means a lot to me. But to be honest, as much as I love writing and game making I don't know if I want to make an another visual novel any time soon...
THIS TIME ANOTHER NIGHT
MZ album number 5 was recorded in few days during summer. Based on my old songs, this release was originally going to be a "normal" rock album with vocals but at some point I realized that I don't want to do that again. Lyrics I had were written by younger me so they were kinda... stupid. I also just couldn't sing them, they went too high! But I think recording synth lines in the place where vocals were supposed to be worked very well and gave this album an unique vibe.
Next year will be 10th anniversary of the first song I published and I have some very cool stuff coming up to celebrate that. A lot of stuff. Hours worth of stuff.
I'll try to continue monthly blog posts though sometimes I might just put together two (or three) months in one post if there's not too much stuff going on. We'll see.
Anyway, this concludes Melancholic Zombie's 2021! Thank you all for being here and taking time to check out my art. It means a lot. See you in 2022!
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