Grumpy Gamedev

A journal concerning the journey of a really grumpy game-dev trying to fulfill his dream of becoming a full time game developer, and failing completely at that.

[grumpy-gamedev]

250 Box Challenge finished!

And what a grind it was! I'm quite happy that I managed to finish it in 1 month and 3 days, so now looking forward to dig my teeth into lesson 2, organic forms.

Sadly this weekend also came with another treat, a legendary man-cold, so I've been pretty much knocked out for the past 2 days and still burdened by fever and muscle pain. So for the length of this cold I will keep with some warm-up exercises and resting.

And by the way, if you ever were interested in our cute game CARnage it's currently in the spring sale on Steam for cheap (50% discount). So it's the perfect time to pick up a copy for some old-school combat racing!

Save 50% on CARnage on Steam

A top-down arcade combat racing game that celebrates the classic 2d racing games of old. Upgrade and expand your garage of vehicles to survi

Speaking of games, I'm also "hard" at work doing some artistic research for our coming titles, we will go hard towards Dark Fantasy estetic, and with that in mind I just had to start buying the Berserk series! I started by getting the 2 first editions of the deluxe release, and now started reading the first one, it sure is a treat each page and I'm sure it'll give me inspiration aplenty going forward!

That said, I've promised myself to go 100% into the learn how to draw properly this year, so development on the next game will probably start at the early months of 2026. But we're pretty sure we will go for a Tower Defence game, and boy do I have a treat for you that can't wait to check it out! We actually did a TD game for the last Ludum Dare we joined, so if you can't wait for our next title, be sure to check out The Last Church

Now the Grumpy Game-dev will crawl back into the sick bed and try his best to get on his feet again. Super much looking forward to get back into the Draw A Box lessons. I hope ye all are doing ok!

Cherrioz!

/ Glenn the Grumpy Game-dev

[grumpy-gamedev]

First 100 boxes...

It's been a bit of time since I last posted, but rest assured, I've been hacking away at the draw a box course like an animal. I managed to pass lesson 1 and got amazing critique through the official critique program (absolutely worth the patreon membership). And I got great pointers on what I should focus on going forward.

My linework needs a lot of attention, and my ellipses are in dire need of love, and by looking at the curriculum I will get grinding on both throughout the course, so that feels comforting now that I'm in the thick of it!

As of today I finished my 100th box for the 250 box challenge! So I'm through the 2 first parts of the exercise, now it's the rest 150 of them and then I'm totally ready for lesson 2!

(Page 1 with the first box and page 20 with the 100th)

I've also started some sketchbooks, one for general sketching and one for anatomy studies. I've gone through periods of anatomy studies in the past, but I hope getting a better go at it this time around when I can add spatial reasoning into the mix and think more about the form side of things. I try to keep away from just digging into the details and something I will force myself to do is to apply lighting from imagination instead of just going with the reference (this will be hard at the beginning, but I hope I will get better at it throughout the DaB course).

Here's a sneak peak at what I've been cooking in the sketchbooks thus far:

(First out the anatomy sketchbook page 1 and 2)

(The general sketchbook, some orcsesses, goblins and Guts from Berserk, also tried Griffith, but I need to redo him as it didn't really translate here)

For the sketchbooks I go for the ballpoint pen as it's a good medium to do sketching, but still works similar to the fineliners I use in the DaB course in the way that I can't erase what I put on paper. This so I force myself to pay attention to the marks I put down and use the amount of focus needed to progress with my drawing. I expect the sketchbooks will have various quality which is absolutely fine.

Now I'm off to do some more anatomy studies! I will try to keep the blog updated as I progress, it's a great journey and after the first critique received I'm psyched to go through the rest of the course in the coming year!

Cheerioz!

/ Glenn the Grumpy Gamedev

[grumpy-gamedev]

Finally got started with the studies

Today it finally happened, I started with the first set of homework for the first lesson of Draw a cube (will show some absolutely uninteresting process in the end of todays post).

It feels good to take the first shaky steps for getting started with the foundational skills. And it's a humbling experience for certain. I've been doing artsy stuffs since I was 6 years old (I designed Mario levels in my school books, so already I had my sights aimed on game development). But I've always just gone full steam trying to do things without actually doing some serious training.

This works to a certain degree for sure. I've been able to produce things that I still feel a sense of pride over, so nothing bad there. But now I want to take things up a notch and actually get to a semi-professional level (still keepin' it indie though).

Let's take a break and look into the archives, here's a piece that I made whilst actually being at a art school (and of course they really didn't give a **** about foundation, it was just "draw what you feel like". More about producing personal expressions and some figure drawing on the side.

This is Leviathan, a postcard sized mixed media painting (I used watercolor and acrylic ink). This like the previous post has gone through some iterations starting with a graphite drawing. I do have a digital version in the works, but I laid it to the side several years ago sadly.

Anyway, back the the present. Today I have been churning out most of the homework for the first part of lesson 1 of draw a box. Still have one more page of ghosted planes left to produce. But I want to take things in a healthy pace, so will continue with that one tomorrow.

I am trying to gauge how long time it'll take to finish the curriculum and feel steady with the basics and right now I think it will take the better part of this year really. I want to pace myself in a way that gives the ol' brain time to process both the muscle memory and the theory of the course.

I do have my eyes on some follow up courses after I've finished the DaB course as well. Right now I'm really enjoying Tim Mcburnie's YouTube channels, and I really vibe with his reasoning on both a practical and philosophical level. So when I feel ready I will probably give his big course a spin!

Tim Mcburnie

This is the home of The Visual Scholar Podcast.

And now for the actual work I churned out today! It's quite horrific as expected, but I want to be transparent in my journey and give the ones that find it interesting the complete picture. I have a long way to go, but each stroke is a part of that journey, and I will try to enjoy it to the fullest.

"But Glenn! Where's the first page?" You might ask, weeeeell, the first page has the same things as the second page really, it was a 2 page thing, and I will do one more of the fourth page so I have 5 pages total for the first homework (and page 4 and 5 will get additional scribbles in the shape of ellipses at a later stage as well).

These exercises will also be put in a schedule of warm-up exercises after I've finished the homework, so it won't be the last time I will be doing planes for sure!

Anyways, super psyched to have started the course! I will be sure to you you all another update when I'm getting a bit into the thing! I hope ye enjoy!

Cheerz!

/ Glenn the Grumpy Gamedev

[grumpy-gamedev]

Finding a curriculum

Drawing boxes is amazing, but there needs to be order in all things, and when it comes to building the foundational skills for artsy things I think a strong strict curriculum is essential!

First let's look back in time and grab a piece out of the grumpy archive. Here's a digital painting I made on my first iPad i purchased. It was the first regular iPad that had support for the Apple Pen, I bought the Pro 12" shortly after as I found the plattform to be absolutely amazing.

This piece is based on several previously made pieces, I started with one in Graphite, and later made one in watercolor and one in oils, Surreal and abstract like last piece.

Back to the thing at hand. I've been checking out a lot of youtube videos about drawing boxes, and at one point I got to learn about the amazing Draw a Box website. It was exactly what I was after, and it seems to be as strict as I want this journey to be. So a perfect match!

It's also absolutely free curriculum-wise, but if you want the full experience there's a variant where you can join their patreon and get official feedback and critique through the service when going through the lessons (something I intend to sign up to).

Drawabox | A free, exercise based approach to learning the fundamentals of drawing

A free, exercise based approach to learning the fundamentals of drawing. We tackle drawing in a logical, analytical fashion inspired by conc

Right now I'm waiting for some art supplies that I need for starting the first lesson (0.5 fineliners and some printing paper). So right now I'm doing some warm-up routines on the iPad and generally plan for the studies so I can fit it into the daily schedule together with day-job and family. As mentioned in last post I will spend an hour in the morning before starting day-job with these studies so that I can build a healthy routine for the foreseeable future.

The important thing in all of this is keeping the end-goal always on the horizon. I will use time during my studies to sketch and draw and develop the style that I want for GleeMill's future games during my study times. I will also work on building up a healthy reference library so that I can start on a solid foundation when the time comes to work on that game.

I will post these pieces during my journey together with the pieces I make for the DaB studies to keep things interesting during this course. Together with general grumpy rants of course.

Now back to some warm-up practice!

Cheerz!

/ Glenn the Grumpy Game-dev

[grumpy-gamedev]

Starting from the bottom

As previously mentioned, I have restarted my art journey from the beginning. This will really be a quite uninteresting path at the basics as it involves things like drawing boxes, hundreds and hundreds of boxes...

To make something interesting out of this and to keep myself engaged in the plan I was thinking that I show some of my old art together with the process of the new start. With this I might lure some of you to pay attention and maybe I find a community here that I can grow with as well (needless to say, I crave feedback, be it harsh and realistic all the better, don't sugarcoat it, I'm a big boy, I can handle it).

Let's start with the historic piece, this one I like quite a bit, it's made in charcoal using a technique I worked out whilst in art school, working in layers with fixating the charcoal and really working in the contrast using white charcoal pencil. I present "Dawn of the Gods"

This is a typical Glenn piece for sure. But it does not have the foundational structure, just a surreal, almost abstract piece. This is something that is thick in my old catalog as you will see in the coming months.

Now for the current piece

Boxes, not hundreds, but it's a journey! I wanted to make it a bit funnier to do and went for treasure chests as an added detail. I don't know if this will help me on my foundational journey. But I hope it might. I'm watching youtube videos about the drawing of boxes to get some help on the way. And I will probably do a spread of boxes daily for the coming month or so.

Here's a selection of videos that I put on repeat for the occation

This one I will work on for a while, the first try was quite horrendous, so I understood straight away that I need to really double down on my foundations.

This one is a bit loose and goose, but helpful in my quest for mastering the box!

I'm also doing a bit of contour lines workouts in the middle of this, and also keeping my eyes on the end goal by building up a moodboard of inspirational artists as a PureRef document.

PureRef, the simple reference image viewer.

Next week I will start with my day-job again after the holidays, but my goal will be to at least open Procreate everyday and put down a couple of lines to just keep my head in the journey. I might consider waking up an hour earlier everyday to keep a regular time for foundational training and be hard on creating that routine as consistency is key to progress.

So what about game development you might ask? Well, this journeys final goal is that I can make the art that I want for the dream project that I have in mind. It'll be an extended journey as the game dev aspect of things will move to the background for the foreseeable future and all focus will be on building up foundational art skills.

I have given up on actually making it as a game developer, so I will bask in the light of being a hobbyist instead, which isn't a bad thing at all. It gives me more freedom to do exactly what I like and want without having to stress out over the financial side of things, and I do believe that this is the area where you can create true art that might make a difference, albeit tiny, in the world.

And with that I leave you for this time. Expect more boxes, but I'll sprinkle in some old stuff in the mix to keep it interesting and fun!

Cheerz!

/ Glenn the Grumpy Gamedev

[grumpy-gamedev]

During the last 3 years I've been hard at work with pixel graphics and music for aforementioned CARnage, I haven't been able to focus on much else than day-job and game-dev really (apart from family of course, I'm a father of 2 wonderful kids as well, and happily married).

What I lost during these years to a great extent is my artistic skills, it's kinda weird really, I have been pushing pixels like a madman, shouldn't my art skills level up? Well, when you aim into a style and gotten into the beat, things start to happen automatically really. You don't have to question things during the way, and you convert time into assets.

So now that CARnage is out and done I want to get back to art again. And I need to start from the bottom. So for quite some while, I will be posting shitty art and sketches. This time around I really want to journal the progress so that I can look back and see if there's any growth over time.

One important thing that I take from CARnage is that the most important skill in anything you do is consistency. As long as you keep being consistent in your creative endeavor you will gain progress, this really converts well when it comes to art.

I am going to try to squeeze sketching into most of the days, as soon as I have some free time on my hands I will have the iPad at the ready and go straight into Procreate for a healthy exploration session.

At the start I will try to loosen things up really good. I have previously gotten stuck in going straight for the details and trying to rush things to have some sort of beautiful thing that I can feel proud of. But for the last decade or so I have just burned myself out in this aspect, so now it's loose n' dirty for quite some while.

So what am I showing off today? A sheet of orcsesses, a mainstay in my drawing arsenal, ever since I saw Chris Metzens amazing orcs in the booklet of Warcraft 2 (I had the nice clunky box back in the days) it's been a constant visitor in my sketch books.

I also will try to have proper inspiration material available during the sketching sessions to keep my end goal constantly in my viewport.

What goals might this be you ask? Well it's all about game-dev in the end really! I have a dream title that I have been thinking about for a looong time. And now I don't see any reason why I shouldn't focus on it. I know that I won't be able to live off of my game-dev practice. So I will convert it to a healthy hobby instead!

The artstyle that I'm aiming for right now will be towards the amazing art of titles such as Darkest Dungeon, and of course main inspiration from Mike Mignola. I've also been reading Lone Wolf and Cub lately, and I really enjoyed the artstyle in those books. So old-school ink and graphite feel, trying to simplify form and keep a more intense shape language.

This will take some time to develop art wise, and that's why I need to keep it super loose and gritty for a while now! So expect a lot of slop in the coming months! It won't be pretty, but I hope for a quick progress towards my goals in the coming year! And here consistency will be key!

That's all for this days rant! Catch ya on the next one!

Cheerz!

/ Glenn the Grumpy Game-dev

[grumpy-gamedev]

A Grumpy Introduction

Oh hai! I have considered making some sort of blog for quite some time now, just journaling my daily thoughts and struggles within the sphere of game development.

Me and my studio partner at GleeMill games just recently released our first title CARnage with abysmal result, the week saw us rake in 12 sales, and using the standard projections for the market that will end up at around 36 sales for the first year. This will be a true loss of time, effort and more importantly moneys for us.

CARnage on Steam

A top-down arcade combat racing game that celebrates the classic 2d racing games of old. Upgrade and expand your garage of vehicles to survi

That said, our main goal with CARnage was to release a complete game on Steam, going through all the things you expect from this process. We set up a LLC and went to town, and in this we reached our goal. We both have day-jobs to lean back on, so we won't be starving artists at least. But our expectations were a bit too high.

Going forward I will contemplate on what went so horribly wrong with CARnage, I think we went for a too generic product, there's nothing special standing out in graphics, style, mechanics or story.

And for me that had ownership of the visuals and a lot of the world building, I take much of the blame for this of course.

What I will be doing in the coming year will be to try finding a neat, original and interesting visual style that I can work with to produce our next title. It might be that I go solo on the whole thing, that we work on separate games and just do what we find interesting. We developed CARnage for a niche public, and it failed quite magnificently. So this time around I think we need to develop the games for our own self interest. Not having any expectations as to if the games will be successful or not. Just for the love of making games (that we luckily have in all this mess).

I have shied away from making my dream games for the longest of times, as this is the general tips you get from hardcore gamedevs. But after releasing a proper game and creating a lot of games through game-jams I feel it's finally time to make a real Me Game!

Not worrying about monetary gains or deadlines at all. Just exploring style and mechanics as I go for the love of making games as I've had all my life!

First off I will start exploring the visual style of what I want to make. I have documented a lot of ideas for a long time, so there's no shortage of that. I have a title that I will present when I'm more certain of the product, but until then I will post art and grumpy ramblings on this blog thing. Just to get all the internal thoughts out somewhere.

Tumblr feels like a good platform for this as I enjoy a bit more longform expression rather than the cookie sized social network content of today's day and age.

And with that I leave you with this introduction. And hopefully there will be more in the coming days and weeks, let's see if I find like minded folks here that might fancy my journey of grumpy game-dev.

Cheerz!

/ Glenn the Grumpy Game-dev