Back to Basics
This month, I honed in on the basic skills that I figured I should have as a baby-artist. I drew a page full of straight lines, one filled with curves. I plastered pages with a variety of oblong, round shapes, and some with rectangles.
Something magical happened in my brain as I was drawing line after line… after line. I began to see the shape I wished to make on the paper. Faint and fragile, like a ghost of a memory, vanishing quickly, but it was still enough for me to use it as a stencil. My shapes got rapidly better after that, and my strokes got more confident.
I realized that this is how it must be for at least some of the great artists. They hold the image in their mind’s eye, tracing it on the paper or whatever medium they use. It was quite the revelation, and made me curse the fact that had I started earlier, I could be blasting through art at this point in my life. Sadly, I think I had some sort of an inferiority complex. One of my old friends went to study the arts, and even animation, after all. How come I didn’t join in, then?
WIP: DA!
The sketches are done, so there’s that, at least. A few pages have their lines done, too. But that’s about it. Between telling myself that I’m too tired to work on the project and gaming for over 100 hours, I feel disappointed in myself. In the small progress I have made.
Many of my peers over on X talk about their burning out, the discouragement of not selling their work, or other things like impostor syndrome. Interestingly enough, I am not procrastinating due to any of those. Not even bad reviews would make me think that it may be time to hang up the ol’ pencil. No. My problems are internal.
Struggling with mortality – and time
Once I got rid of my fear of failure (more or less), a new realisation took its place: considering how I’ve lived my life thus far, it may very well be impossible for me to achieve what I wish from this life. I may never be able to bring out the grand story that lives inside me, there’s just not enough time.
But then again. Everyone dies. All the great ones left us, some fighting till the end. I wonder if any of us actually get to reach that final, ultimate goal we have for ourselves. The more I think about it, I doubt it. There is always more to do, more stories to tell, games to make, paintings to bring to life… There’s no way creators get to ‘finish’ their story… right?
I suppose the next step for growth would be to let go of the dream of perfection, of the grand finale. To tell as many stories as I can, and learn to be satiated with that. Whatever stories they may be, even if they are not The One. I mean, if people thought like I have, we would certainly miss so many great creative works. I am sure of it.
July, when I was born
My birthday is coming up, how exciting! Even more reason to step it up one notch, as much as I can. My realms have always been a place of comfort and wonder for me, despite the often gruesome happenings in them. I hope I can bring you something nice for my birthday, maybe even a pixel art. You know, take a load off and do something just for fun!
And while I may not have gotten as ‘deep into the inking’ as I so boldly claimed I would go, I am still here. Still kicking, and the voices in my head are still screaming for me to do something, anything, about this project. To finish it and move on to SCaN.
June was a month of reflection, in many ways. Reflection and also plenty of freelancing work, which surprised me. Summers are usually not this busy in my niche.
Anyway, if you’d like to read about why I got stuck playing games for so long, go read this month’s DevLog. I will be doing a brief analysis on Army of Ruin, which is the game I got obsessed with. Figured it would be a good use of the time I sank into it, to learn some design.
Have a great July, everyone!