Good Day

Did some work on Rynn today. A LOT of work. Most of which is behind the scenes preproduction stuff that isn't worth showing. These are the ones that turned out moderately well. Have to make a few tweaks.

And a piece with Rynn and Sienna together.... doing something, uh, investigative?

Notice the changing ponytail, or the fact that it's missing because I got LAZY.  I haven't decided what look I want for it yet... So it just keeps changing until I settle! Fun how that works...

24 in Two

More drawings. Well, 24 of them really.

Animation practice. Sienna head turn and a  li'l 'spression work.

Definitely rough, and definitely jittery all over the place.... But I just don't have it in me to do a polish pass on this particular piece.

On with the struggle...

More  drawings for today! Go me! I think I missed a day though

It's Habitual

Habits habits habits. I think everything is about habits.

Like drawing every day...

Or on the train to and from work...

And occasionally something a bit more involved...

I just need to get into the habit of finishing things. The hardest habit of all, if you ask me. (Oh, and that skyship in the image above.... The Sapphire Cutter... Yeah, pay no mind. I've done basically no concept work on it, so that's quite random and will definitely change. It's soooo ugly!)

The Long Versus the Short, part 2

Well, after a five month period in which I tried to let my blog die of neglect, I have returned. I suppose, under normal circumstances, the previous long versus short point that I no longer remember the point of would have long since expired, but in a way, it's also still very applicable.

I mentioned at the end of my last post that I would weigh in on my point of view when it comes to long-term projects. Well, my point of view right now is THEY'RE A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF WORK. However, five months down the road, I'm happy to say my current pet project, Skybound, is still quite alive and kicking....

Though kicking very slowly due to the sheer volume of work that needs to be done. And the woeful reality that, alas, I am but one man.

But hey! Could be worse.... I could've given up or something.

As it stands, the story is still being written (and has already been through a few false starts and incomplete drafts) and has a fair bit of preproduction art behind it...

At least for the main character, anyway...

Obviously, there's still some.... inconsistencies... That need to be nailed firmly into place, but she is what she is for now. 

In any case that's just one drop in the enormous bucket of Things-That-Must-Be-Done before I can even think about the Things-I-Want-To-Start-Doing, which is actually DRAWING THE DAMN BOOKS. The short list being designing the remaining central characters, the world, and the ubiquitous sky-ships, to name a few.

Anyway, here's to a renewed attempt at maintaining a regular webbernet presence.

The Long Versus the Short, part 1

Today is day-2 of the company "Hacksgiving" - basically a 3 day marathon event for several small teams to hack together some very simple game prototypes.

I'm working on a game called "Low - G". It's basically To-Fu meets Angry Birds Space. The point is to safely guide your poor little astronaut back to his ship by leaping off walls and using terrain and gravity wells to avoid the myriad obstacles that would end his meager existence on a premature note.

It's incredibly simple, and already fun to just watch the silly little astronaut bounce around the screen. Today is the serious work day - coding, putting together art, and getting it all working for the Wednesday presentations.

There are also several other teams working on some fun ideas: Dog Vs Zombies, Kitten Quest, a Welltris take with some neat twists.

But what I find most fascinating about this kind of activity, is the energy it produces. It's all pie in the sky, but in bite-size chewy bits that you can get your teeth around. There's no chance for that initial fire of potential and creativity to wane. No chance to lose motivation over a 3-6 month dev cycle. Or a two-year cycle, if you're working in the AAA/console arena.

I, quite literally, have today and only today to put together all of the necessary assets in a nice enough way to make it look presentable. I don't even have time to think about it!

Whew.

But this has me thinking about a little something called motivation. And in this case, I'm talking motivation over the longer term - while seeing a project come to fruition over months and years. I'm sure anyone who's spent any amount of time on a creative project has recognized the pattern - 

Day/Week/Month 1 - On fire! Lovin' it. This is gonna be awesome!

Day/Week/Month 3 - Well, I guess we could drop this, let that go. This part isn't working - we'll have to start over...

Day/Week/Month 6 - Man, I'll be happy when this is over.

Many of us have our side projects - our passion projects - and they are no less susceptible to the creeping chilliness of fraying determination. There are numerous answers to this problem. Some artist friends of mine deliberately keep their projects very tiny - very fast - to enable a quick turn around before that fire in the belly peters out. They find that to be highly rewarding, and I can understand why.

But what if, like me, you crave the challenge of something bigger, more complex? More involved. More...interdisciplinary.

What do you do then? When you stare into the face of a burning idea so big and terrible and complex, that whenever you tell anyone about it, they look on in amazement and say "good luck with that..." Even your supportive artist friends and family, from their outside vantage point, look on your goal with a mixture of awe, respect... and more than a little pity and hopeful desperation.

The hopeful desperation comes from the ardent desire that you do take it to finish - because that would then mean it's possible for anyone to do.

The pity comes from the recognition that it's also highly unlikely you will make it all the way through to the end.

But what if there were a way to drastically improve the odds of making that vision happen?

I think there is a way, though I could be wrong. And I will be testing my hypothesis on this as I continue work on Skybound and the rest of the Fate-Shifter Saga. Why not?

I'm sure a lot of people have opinions on this issue. What are your thoughts?

I'll weigh in on my next post!

The "Wall" in the Creative Process, part 2

Sketches from my morning train ride to work over the last week.

'cept Mr.Zom-zom - That was this morning. VERY early this morning...

Enough art-face-rubbery.

To continue from my previous post, what I wanted to talk about today is that cold specter that looms over every artist's shoulder - the inner-critic. The voice of "reason" that kills the imaginative. The voice that says "dial it down", "This is horrible", "Why bother, it'll never work"... And the list goes on ad infinitum.

I sit here, and I listen to that same critic on my back even now, telling me that I should be embarrassed of what I posted above. That I should probably take them down, they're not even finished...

That my writing is silly and simple, and who the hell would be interested in it anyway? See, look! No one even commented on your carefully crafted posts...

And so on and on... You get it by now.

So how do you get over it? How do you beat that horrible critic and shut him up for good?

My conclusion:

You can't.

EVER.

And you don't want to, either. You must accept him.

Why? Because if you shut him up, you shut yourself up - he is you. Or a facet of you. And he isn't necessarily always the bad guy. Sometimes, in some ways, he can even be an ally.

This voice is part of what forms what I call "the Rollercoaster". Some of you just might be nodding right now, going, "yes, yes. That's about right."

Or maybe not. Could be I'm just.... breaking new ground. Or something.

The Rollercoaster is the "ups and downs" type of affair many artists have with their art. When breaking new ground, inspired, or just executing well, we're joyous. We're ecstatic! We've made it. Finally busted the well of our creativity wide open! I'll never struggle again....  Until the next day, when everything we try to execute seems like it came out of the nether-region of a hippopotamus.

Anyway, this inner critic is what forms the two, in my opinion, most fundamentally important conditions to an artist:

First, and foremost: The inability to be satisfied with our work.

Second: The necessity to improve our work.

That voice of dissent, that ever nagging itch, is also the very thing driving you to be better. To give it your all each, and every time. To strive and work to overcome the errors of the previous try.

This is what a lot of people would call "becoming friends with failure."

Yet there is a difference between listening to the critic, and giving in. The critic will tell you where you need to go to appease him, if you listen. But he will be a cruel taskmaster that crushes everything you attempt, if you give in.

You may look at your drawings and say "I do feet so horribly. I suck at feet... God I hope no one notices..."

But there is another way to look at this:

"I am weak with feet.... I need to go practice drawing feet for awhile."

Let the critic guide your steps on your quest to get better. Listen to him, but never give in.

That's the wall I refer to - when you give in to the critic. Now, the fact is, sometimes, the critic is right. Something you're working on just isn't working, it's ok. It's ok to crumple the paper, turn the page, make a new document. It's ok.

Sometimes. In truth, most times, for me.

But sometimes, something you're working on is working, but it means something, and so it's scary. It makes you afraid of it. It makes your critic revile it even more. And so we become paralyzed by our fear, and hit the Wall hard. And give up.

We must be careful to understand that while we sometimes should kill our babies, there's almost always a way to keep one alive if we want to - if it's worth beating off the hungry baby-eating inner monologue long enough to bring to fruition.  For me, right now, the biggest thing is making sure to remind myself that I can always try again. A second draft. Oh, let me try that pose again. There will always be another page, another new document.

Just. Don't. Quit.

And don't be afraid to honestly congratulate yourself when you see something you are satisfied with - even if it might just be a hand in an image of eight people. One day, you will be looking at a whole piece or project or what-have-you, and instead of saying "Oh, I did that one thing there great" you'll realize your inner critic is saying  "Oh that's all really great,  everything except that one thing, right there. "