Creation of "Do not stay in dying towns" The project thought of and executed in 8 hours only.

How it started.
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Do not stay in dying towns was an impulsive project, within 8 hours the concept, design, "Creep" image and writing was both created and uploaded.

This small (and for me personally rather mediocre) writing project was inspired from the hyperfixation that mainly got me through November 2021: Creepypasta! I have grown connection to those badly written characters most categorize in that kind of novel, the personal favorite of mine being Jeff the killer. But I have always had quite the interest in the more serious category of creepypasta without me even knowing I did. I used to listen to Creepsmcpasta (Even if with the allegations against him I do not support him anymore), and somehow I never realized he actually read creepypastas (which is ironic because his username should've made it obvious for me).

This interest made me think: what if I made my own creepypasta? For the fun of it. I was grasping onto the need to write something for a while now, yet my own character's were unfortunately just rather unentertaining for me at that moment, they still needed a bunch of development I did not feel like working on. So I thought a small impulse project would do me good.

Starting with the concept, my first instinct was to not put my full efforts in, I wanted it to stay on the boundary of it either being a bit laughable but still could be taken seriously without too much shame if the reader were to view it in such a way. I also thought to include something I have interest in, and it happened that both insects and death could be included in this story!

I also wanted to leave some blank spaces for the reader to fill up, yet give some hinted reasons how and why. Was it human? Was it REALLY to blame? What was under the mask? I just wanted to give people some space to either make the story seem more intriguing than it actually is, or to give it the 'I eat creepypasta for breakfast' treatment. I thought having gaps to fill would be fun.

This was the concept I started off with! At first I created the basic idea of it. I thought it would be interesting for something as small and generally ignored and disgusted, but yet incredibly important to just dissapear, which are arthropods! It is something small lacking would care about, yet it would have a massive impact if we did not have these tiny creatures by our side.

The main character came second. I attempted to make a fairly basic character, so I just drew whatever came out of my hand first.

When I finished the illustration I realized how odd he looked. He looked so young yet so so old. I decided he would be in his younger years, but just looked aged by the stress of living in the situation he does.

I did not want to make his personality all too interesting, mainly because I wanted it to feel like it could've been anyone it happened to. I decided not to make him stupid either, he made some stupid decisions which he verbally admits to, and a small section even shows that he is a rather insecure man. I think it made him feel a bit more human instead of only a blank sheet for the story.

I did not quite know the approach I wanted to take on the antagonist. I wanted it to have space to be drawn cute and fun, yet still make it a bit eery in its original. I forgot as for why, but I searched 'emo mask' for inspiration.

And funnily enough it worked! there was this german mask that looked a tid tad to the creepy side, so I drew the character inspired off of it! I then edited and painted all over the original image to make it fit the design I made! The original image can be in no way recognized anymore. At first I was thinking to make it a murderer of sorts, but that just did not fit to the slightest for me. So the direction of making it a stalker with no clear intention seemed like it would be more exciting.

Before I knew it I was done with the stereotype "scary creepypasta image" and I had found a decent concept, so I just wrote. I decided on the spot what would happen, and to keep things the slightest bit realistic as per the storytelling. Once I finished it was 5 am, I do in fact feel a little ashamed expecting to be able to finish a project in one sitting while it was 9pm. But I did get it done.

That was all there was too it. After sleeping and some small editing of some terrible grammar mistakes that were created during my 5 am rampage, as well as an illustration of the "official" artwork. It was finished.
Although I am not planning to add or change to it anymore, I may make some artwork here and there if I am feeling nostalgic.

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