NAPARL: A Reflection and Year In Review
I specifically targeted Division 2 to release yesterday because, as far as I can tell, today is the anniversary of the day I opened my NAPARL series planning document. In a way, my planning existed long before this. Something people likely don't know is that this is technically the second iteration of the NAPARL, the first being a failed attempt at a community carset from when I was first getting started in NR2003 at just 14 or so. As a college student now, who's been trying to become a freelance designer on the side, I knew I needed to have some sort of cohesion, and a bigger thing under my belt to show my vision and truly be distinct from the rest. A year ago, I realized doing something with the ICR mod gave me my best chance yet to make the NAPARL into what I wanted to be. This time, I took things under my own hands, and made almost all the teams, drivers, events, and lore by myself with a few exceptions to include character drivers from a couple friends of mine. This time, I really did go all out, by making a whole new timeline of all fictional drivers and teams where NASCAR either didn't exist or failed, and a new group took over the growth of stock car racing in North America and took an approach unique to that of NASCAR's. That's not to say I don't love NASCAR, because I do, even with modern changes to the sport, but things always feel best when you do it yourself, and I've never seen anything quite like what I was trying to accomplish with the new NAPARL. In fact, the next project promises to be even more unique than what the first four NAPARL series already accomplished.
I tend to have a focus on narrative in a lot of the things I do, which I've talked about more on my twitter page, and also plan to talk about more when I relaunch my Google site some time before new years. In this case I've created a literal narrative, in the sense of a whole new history of motorsports, and a personal narrative, in the sense that my painting has evolved, and I laid out my own vision of greater diversity in the racing world through my designs, much as I dream of doing in my own work. Again, this is an NR2003 showroom so I won't go on about it for too long, but it is a mission of mine that I hope to achieve through work in the racing world, even if it's at the organizational level instead of the competition level.
I also need to give a pair of special thanks.
@ItsAJG deserves a lot of credit for making an ICR render scene in the first place, as well as handling renders for me until I got a new computer earlier in the year, allowing me to render much easier myself. You were a big motivation for completing the project at all as well. I also need to thank
@Sonicrules831, who's been connected with me since the days of the original NAPARL, and is also the reason I do many of the paints outside NAPARL things, since he has his own NR2003 projects he doesn't share here as much.
As I touched on before, this isn't the end of the NAPARL. I plan to release some additional content eventually, including special paint schemes and number sets. For the latter, please let me know if there are any in particular you're interested in. More notably is that the next project of mine will take place in the NAPARL Universe as well, so I will continue to use this showroom. I also do have one more thing for this section of NAPARL, but since it's not an actual NR2003 thing, I'm not sure if I'll show it off here or just leave it on my Twitter for people to see, but it will coincide with my Google site relaunch in the next week or so. I'm not entirely sure when I'll be able to show things off with my new project, but I don't think it'll disappoint.
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In one year, I created a brand new stock car racing world. 114 completely original drivers and cars, on new teams with new assets, and an original lore across 4 series. And this timeline still isn't done, even if it's finally the end of the first project in this universe, since I had the four series in mind from the start. There's a lot more to explore, and I encourage you all to make your own narrative, whether based on real life or completely from scratch. The carsets are available to use anyway, so you can even create your own NAPARL narrative with custom cars and schedules. Even if I have my definitive lore for my canon, nothing stops you from being creative. Only you can make something truly yours.
Thank you!