luciform writing

The writing blog of K (LS).

[luciformwriting]

One morning I woke up and saw my little plant pot, usually beside my bed, slowly floating out the door. I rubbed my eyes and blinked twice, thinking about whether I was still dreaming.

I lunged out of bed, almost jamming my toe on the corner of my wooden bed frame on the way. I ran up to the floating pot and grabbed it, putting it back on my nightstand. Odd, I thought. Maybe it’s just residue from some magical work they’re doing around town. Nothing big.

As I put on my slippers, I felt moisture hit my feet. They were completely soggy. This was no magical residue. I went downstairs to make breakfast and found my spoons forged into forks; the bread in the cupboard had turned into a thick glutinous mess; my roommates had left the sink and surrounds completely spotless, with our plates and cups put away in perfect order.

I was tired of it all. This wasn’t supposed to happen in a town like this, and besides, I had to buy and prepare a spelswazle cake for my aunt’s birthday that afternoon. I didn’t have the time for nuisances like these! I grabbed my house keys and my leather satchel, which had been turned a gaudy shade of green, and headed out the door. Walking in the street I saw a strange man in a top hat and a tuxedo, levitating things nearby. He has to be a wizard, I thought. Maybe he can help me.

“Are you a wizard?” I shouted to him. “Are you responsible for all the strange things happening?” “Sorry, sir, I don’t understand,” the magician called back calmly.

“You know,” I shouted, “magic!” “Oh yes, I do know magic, but magic sometimes has a mind of its own, you see. It can help one person one day, then another person the next,” he responded peacefully.

“So it’ll stay here for today and definitely be gone tomorrow?” I asked, exasperated. He nodded, and raised his shimmering, jewelled walking cane towards me.

Afterwards, I’m pleased to say, the rest of the day was ordinary, except for the fact that I’d gotten home to change and realised I’d forgotten to order the cake. Swearing under my breath, I was about to head back out when I noticed a perfect, creamy white delicacy already prepared on the bench. The spelswazle routine, my aunt’s favourite, the cake of the old king and queen - right here for me! I thanked the wizard quietly and profusely under my breath, taking the cake and locking the door behind me.

I swear that when I went to bed that evening, outside my window, I could see a tiny, luminous, spark of magic floating through the air.

It twinkled once, twice, then it was gone.

[luciformwriting]

I’m grateful that Andy came in before me this morning to turn on the heater. I’ve had a look before, and I can’t work out the complex knobs on the inside wall of the library office. It’s empty this morning; the cacophonous herd of children eerily absent. As per protocol, I sanitised my hands and the doorknob before sitting myself at my perch. We can’t risk cross-contaminating the haven.

The library is made of an arched wooden frame with a high ceiling, a rooftop window letting in ample light. Swamp green metal construction beams, weighed down at the bottom by blocks of concrete, support up the ceiling. Between the beams are the shelves of books - in total, eight of them - what I feel is a paltry number for a library this big. The carpet is thin and pulling up in wrinkles, spotted with black blobs of chewing gum like an ancient pox. The ceiling plaster itself is cracked here and there, and though it was built over thirty years ago, it has the feeling of something unfinished. Construction beams and unfinished concrete blocks don’t make for a cozy environment. The beams are cracking their knuckles in the heat. It sounds like footsteps, and I don’t like that.

I can’t sit in here for long. The children, or child, as it turns out, hasn’t arrived yet. For whatever circumstances, she can’t be absent like the others. I understand that. Looking out beyond my makeshift desk, there are six tables each with a green computer chair covered in fabric. Ominous tape, striped yellow and black, presents a clear boundary between tables. There goes the popping and shuffling noises again. I turn around, and of course, nothing. I don’t like how edgy it makes me.

“They’re going to call the office to see where she’s gone,” said Andy’s voice. I jump, and instinctively scroll down on my screen.

“Sure,” I said, my heart still beating. I tried to make conversation to beat the silence and the strange look he gave me. “I saw on the schedule that she-”

He was already gone, out the door, moments after I’d spoken to him. I didn’t think a man’s footsteps could sound like that.

[luciformwriting]

The Spelswazle Routine

Soft, cold water under a pink sky lapped at my legs. It cooly spread up my thighs to my waist then back out again with the rhythm of the tide. I looked back at the beach for anyone else, just double checking they hadn’t somehow made their way into this dream.

The island was small, barely larger than two football fields together, and there was nothing else to see on the horizon but a never-changing pink and blue gradient. Those were the colours that made me know where I was, an almost perfect imitation, amalgamation of all of the beautiful skies I had seen in pictures before in my life. I wished I could be a seagull in the endless expanse of ocean and sky. Why? I couldn’t tell you. It didn’t seem to stem from any particular desire to be free or like a bird. It just felt right.

A forest of palm trees and others I could not name made a semicircle around one half of the island. Normally they would provide shade, but here there was no discernible sun in the sky, more like a perpetual twilight. In general there were few shadows. After all, it was a composite stitched together from many different images, and my skills were not enough yet to fix it. A distance away to my right was a small, old boat moored in mangroves. It made me curious since I had never ridden on a boat before, and wouldn’t have the slightest clue where to take it.

I got up out of the water, my shorts sticking to my legs. The feeling of realistic water was something I could stitch up, and I was proud of it. What now? I thought. I could choose anything, and nobody else would know about it.

“Beebus!” a voice called from the distance. “Beeeeeebussss!” It echoed through the trees, loudly enough to make the coconuts thump to the ground. Surely not, I thought. That blasted, dumbus imbecile!

“I seem to have a problem, Beebus,” said the wavering voice. And just like that, my concentration was shot. The water, the beach, spun away into a void of black. I opened my eyes.

The inside of the dim laboratory swirled into view, and I could feel the hot breath of my ruddy-faced partner on my face. He had the gall to shake me awake?

“I will kill you one day, Tellius,” I whispered hoarsely. “I will not hesitate.”

“Oh, thank god!” he responded, loosening his grip. “I don’t have the ingredients for a full spelswazle routine. A client came in asking for one and the boss approved it, but I don’t think he’s taken inventory in a long time. And they’ve already paid,” he hissed through his two, wobbling cheeks.

“Coconuts are an ingredient in a spelswazle routine,” I muttered. “I could have gotten you some coconuts just a moment ago, but alas, here we are.”a

“That doesn’t help, Beebus!” he whined. “Where are we going to get coconuts from at this hour of the morning in Elbelston? Not to mention the cinnamon and.. Oh, the lizard tails we have in abundance. But…”

I got up off the dusty cobblestone floor and dusted myself off while listening to Tellius babble. Frankly, I wasn’t sure why he was so bothered. The worst thing that could happen if a client request was unfulfilled was a refund and potentially a bad word of mouth review. If he paid in gold, then that was easy. Payments in blood were, as you can imagine, not so simple.

“I’ll go see what the boss wants to do,” I yawned, heading up the stairs past all of our equipment.

“He wants you to stop trying to magick up that nonsense,” huffed Tellius, squishing something to powder in a pestle. “Just stick to physical alchemy for now. I can’t stand seeing you lying comatose in a corner pretending you’re waltzing around a forest.” He paused. “Also, I think your… thinking might be doing things again. While you were out I found all the cake spoons had cleaned themselves again.” He wagged his finger. “Useful today, but if we have the lizards crawling out of the ceiling light again you’re in trouble.”

I got up, restraining my tongue. What right had Tellius, my underclassman, to be wagging his finger at me? Me, Beebus Bimbel, one of the finest graduates of the Elementary Alchemy School and one of the few who could do astral alchemy, the finest skill of all. And yet alchemy labs had become far and few between in recent times. I used to be praised and encouraged as top class, and yet I ended up working in the same place, in the same position, as my junior who came into the job a year after myself because of the fact he failed basic physiological alchemy. He was lucky to find a position here, but apparently the customers find him very agreeable. All labs, even our lab, were struggling; potions no more were in demand, and now our business was in very, very fancy cakes.

“A spelswazle rush order,” I mumbled. “Tellius, I’m going to market to find some coconuts. I should return shortly. In the meanwhile, won’t you get started on grinding the cinnamon, tails, and flour together?” “Already on it,” he huffed. Sure enough, I turned around and there he was; throwing his weight into the huge pestle. Despite everything I was grateful that his large size meant the boss gave him all the physically exerting tasks to do.

I put on my raggedy leather boots and stepped up the creaky basement stairs. Light flooded in as I opened the door to the front of the shop. The glass counter shimmered with holographic, magical visions of our cakes, a price and name below each. Magical ice on the shelves nearby kept our ready-made concoctions cool; drinks and rare sweets from the frosted lands imported through our astral alchemy service. Truly, this was the power of our boss - like me, an incredibly talented man doomed by the economy to make cakes in a corner of Izle Town.

A man in a very fancy dress suit was standing aloof at the front of the shop, examining the shelves. He rested on a hardwood cane, decorated with all manner of charms and jewels. Certainly not the usual client. I nodded to him respectfully on the way out.

“So you’re one of Haleron’s ‘lab rats’, as he says? Sitting in that basement all day making up his magic!” the man called to me as I passed. I stopped. Lab rat? Our boss called us that as a joke, but it sounded awfully offensive coming from someone else.

“I don’t prefer to be called that, but yes,” I said uncomfortably. The man’s face was unusually kind and soft, a large grey moustache and beard poking out from under his kind eyes. It seemed impossible to be mad at him.

“My apologies then, friend. I’m sure you do lovely work.” He looked around naively. “I don’t ever usually come by this end of town. I’m ordering this spelswazle cake, how shall we say, for a friend?” he added, rubbing his chin. He seemed enamored with the red candies on the shelf.

“I could tell,” I responded jokingly. “Men dressed like yourself rarely come here. Why not go to one of the fancy ateliers up the hill? Though of course, we are thankful for your business.”

“I think, he specifically implied, he wanted one from Haleron,” the man said carefully.

“Well, that’s very flattering,” I said, rubbing my hands together. I’m right about to go find some coconuts to start the cream on your cake. It should be done by tomorrow.” The man’s eyes widened. “Tomorrow?!” he blurted. “It won’t be done now?”

The man’s shock at realising a cake could not be made within minutes seemed genuine. I eyed him carefully. “Yes, when we run out of ingredients we must get more. Then we need to… you know, cook them. It takes time,” I explained.

He raised his staff and closed his eyes. Suddenly, there were a series of thumps. Looking down, I saw three perfect, round coconuts, sitting on the tiled floor.

“Will this help?” he said. “It must be done quickly.”

I looked back up at him. Who? Who was this man, and how could he have magicked those coconuts so quickly? “Astral alchemy?” I whispered, stunned.

“Almost, kind of, basically,” he responded. “I need the cake soon and I’m willing to pay extra to have it done fast. You’re a lovely fellow, you know,” he added, running a finger over the icy cold cake cabinet. He seemed to have a real problem making eye contact. “What’s your name?”

I stared at him for a moment, feeling a mixture of awe, admiration and fear. Knowing what he could do, I would let him call me a lab rat. “Beebus,” I responded, wheezing. “Beebus Bimbel. Pleased to make your acquaintance, mister…?” “Ponybrown,” he said, characteristically aloof. “Please call me Ponybrown.” He reached out a hand, and I shook it vigorously.

“I’m going to take these down now to go make your cake.” I grabbed the heavy coconuts, eyeing him as I walked backwards. I slinked down, through the door, into the basement.

[luciformwriting]

The snow glistened, softly piling onto his still horns. The lone figure sat hunched, head craned forwards, under the dark light of the moon. The snow’s previous hurried insistence had slowed, instead growing in a mound around his legs.

The night was still, glassy silence. Cradled in the man’s hands was a vaguely human-shaped corpse, but it was hard to tell under the thick snowy layer that had fallen upon it.

Stars flickered above. With almost imperceptible movement, the man’s head rose, white powder falling from his horns and hair. Like a statue, animated for the first time, he lowered one arm and then the next, delivering the body to the ground.

He rose up, and began to walk.

---

On the first day of the Winter Moon, it was the young women who smiled all across the land of Upper Fridhan. Eager to once again don their thick, wolf-skin coats, they sat with their grandmothers and children to brush, clean, oil the pelts. It was a beloved custom that represented the eager internalization of warmth, so they could feel the sun burning within them. It was always cold in the mountaintop city, but the frost was most beautiful under the light of the unusual, permanent moon.

The wolves that surrounded the mountaintop city were huge and hardy, chasing the smaller rabbits with precision and ferocity. To kill them was not a necessity, but in spite of their ferocity, they knew their place under the ancient citizens of Fridhan. They were afraid of the lamps, and warned their cubs eagerly to stay away from the gargantuan frosted marble pillars, rising majestically out the side of the corpse-mountain Yun’dalena.

Yenha sat with an older, white haired woman, fingering the pelt in her hands. The pair, young and old companions, sat beside each other with a silent sense of knowing. The older woman’s hands deftly pulled thick thread through the pelts, while Yenha brushed them carefully, their grey-black patches creating a mosaic of fur.

The open white marble plaza was glittering under a thin layer of frost, bright sun overhead. The pair sat to the side, under an enclave between two pillars five times their height, with other women of trades; some sat and made dye from berries, and others were pulling sinews into long, thick string. The wolves’ pelts, though, were to keep their natural hues - the dye was for the pennants to be hung for the soon-to-be-held festival. Though noise from foot traffic and merchants echoed out into the open space, it was not cacophonous. Much like any aspect of Yun’dalena life, there was a peaceful grace to it, the reassuring comfort of lively movement.

Yenha smiled, her cheeks visibly rosy against her pale skin. Her thick, black hair was tied in a plait, pulled away from the black horns protruding from her forehead. She looked over at the older woman beside her.

“Tyli,” she said softly.

Like usual, the woman ‘s tired eyes did not move from the pelt she was cleaning. If she didn’t know better, Yenha would have assumed deafness. But it had been the same every day recently, for years. Her caretaker was not the bright and sunny woman she had grown up with. To see her mother so exhausted made her feel tired too. Though she understood that age caused one to slow and dampen, she could not help but wonder what has taken over her mother’s mind. She intuitively felt it was not just age.

“Tyli,” she said again. “Hello?” Tyli lowered the pelt onto her lap and turned to Yenha. “It’s colder than usual today,” she murmured. “My body hurts.”

Day after day, for years. “Have you eaten? Slept?” Yenha responded.

“Always,” Tyli responded. “I wish you could use your vision to see what was wrong with me as well as you can with the other women. I wish I could use my vision. But perhaps it is knowledge that brings the worst dreams.”

Yenha hesitated, unsure how to respond. “Dreams? You have dreams again?” She paused. “You know I’ve tried to vision you, ever since I was little and you taught me. Perhaps it’s because we’re so close. I love you so dearly I don’t even need to use magic to know.” She leaned over, and kissed her mother on the head. “You’ll be fine. Would you like to go stretch your legs? The pelts can wait.”

There was the smile she missed. “Yes, I’d love that, actually,” Tyli replied. She handed the pelt to Yenha beside her to hold, and got up slowly. She walked off towards the merchant quarter’s alleyway.

[luciformwriting]

They’d all left too early. I could hear it in my mind - the roaring, the slamming, what would happen after being summoned to the musty office again for negligence. I’d be too scared to respond, like last time they ran out. Where did they go? Hopefully straight home. Nobody knew, and that was the problem.

In the corner of the classroom I noticed a bag. In their haste to get to the holidays, one of them must have left it behind. I grabbed the deceptively light sack, and lifted it up. Out rolled, onto the carpet, the rotten head of a small dog.

[luciformwriting]

Nowhere does the sun shine brighter than in Everill. The hot air permeates one’s skin; even on the coldest day of the year, it possesses a distinctive dryness through the rain and fog. Gum trees loom over, minding their own business as much as they can. Occasionally, it is said, the gums blink. Birds sing like crickets in the thick air, waiting, restlessly calling to each other or bargaining with an unseen presence through their cries. Summer is a season that rings heat and dehydration, dust and wattle branches, chip packets and dirt. Even the water is tainted with a strange quality; upon my first day I was told never to drink it. The unrelenting dehydration in the air is enough for my nose to bleed, drip, pour, as though the air itself were trying to pull the life out of me.

The walls are calloused and unabashed in their green-ness, sickly blinds caked with dust that haven’t been touched since the dawn of the first summer here long ago, twisted and crooked like thin metal fingers. Names adorn the poorly welded table frames, commemorating those who have left. It’s never truly silent here, not while the voices of long ago stay in the walls, the unchanging layers of rotten wood upon paint upon voices upon dry heat. Wall panels of unidentifiable purpose are covered with layers of sticky-looking paint, though they dried years ago. Doors leading to nowhere are boarded up with their doorknobs removed. In the silence, through the wood and the paint, if you close your eyes and hear with your mind, you can sense into the pale heartbeat that lingers in the walls, under the wells and piping.

A black fungus, exploded and rotten, swelters in the sun. Flies tentatively swarm to it, though even they keep their distance. The flies do not have a choice.

[luciformwriting]

Feature Review: Ever Oasis

I recently had the opportunity to review Ever Oasis for Nintendo 3DS, courtesy of New Game Plus TV! Help me spread the word about how charming and wonderful this game is by re-blogging this post!

Link for the full review is at the bottom of the post. Ever Oasis is an action-adventure RPG game developed by Japanese developers Grezzo for the Nintendo 3DS. You may or may not have heard of Grezzo, but they’re the people responsible for developing several notable titles for 3DS, including the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of Time remakes for 3DS, as well as the more recent title Triforce Heroes. Ever Oasis is a brand new IP from the developers, led by director/producer Koichi Ishii, creator of the legendary Mana series. Ever Oasis is firmly rooted in the action-RPG genre, but with added life-sim elements. You, a Seedling with the magical power to create an Oasis, must attract residents to your Oasis, encourage them to set up shops and keep them happy to ensure the wellbeing of the desert’s residents. A significant portion of the game’s themes explore the importance of friendship, teamwork and cooperation, with the action itself taking place in a lush, Egyptian-themed fantasy world, with sprawling deserts and unique inhabitants.

I didn’t know exactly what to expect, though I had been anticipating this title since the first reveal trailer at E3 2016. I’m a sucker for RPGs and life-sim games, and this seemed to have both of those things wrapped up in a gorgeous, cute art style.... To read about my thoughts and criticisms, check out the full piece at the link below and let me know what you think! 

http://www.newgameplus.tv/blogs/newgameplus/Ever_Oasis_review_Wondercrawl

[luciformwriting]

Review: Archetype:next Figma

By K. on April 10th, 2017 

Last year I had the opportunity to purchase the brand new Archetype:next Figmas from Japan’s Good Smile Company, abbreviated hereon as GSC, and I’ve had quite a while to test them out. For those of you who are on the fence about these awesome - albeit pricey for some - figures, I’ve written this review to help you decide whether you need them (if you’re anything like me, you probably do).

(If nothing else, they’re a fun little novelty to have on your desk.)

Firstly, I saw these figures and wanted to buy them because I need a lot of help and inspiration when it comes to anatomical poses - although I’ve done a few years of life drawing and am somewhat competent at drawing the human figure, I still have difficulty getting ideas of what to draw in the first place. Sifting through hundreds of reference images to find the pose or lighting that’s just right for your image is a real drag, at least for me. It’s part of what causes artist’s block in my practice, and I felt like I needed a more immediate source of inspiration. That’s where these beauties come in. Figmas, a line of anime figures by GSC featuring hundreds of characters, are small (15cm or so tall) figures with articulated joints and replaceable head and hand parts. Generally for collection or display, their articulated limbs allow for many more fun combinations than a regular figure, and they are always made and painted to an exceptional level of quality (unless you buy a bootleg, so be careful of knockoffs). The format of the Figma figures make them perfect for posing - enter the ‘Archetype’ line.

These aren’t the first drawing pose Figmas that Good Smile Company have released. In 2012, GSC released the first Archetype Figmas, aptly named ‘He’ and ‘She’, to assist manga artists with pose referencing. Although useful in terms of their basic posing potential, the anatomy on these figures was hardly anything to praise - their large heads and cartoonish bodies are clearly aimed at the manga artist. Though useful for some, these figures leave great room for improvement in terms of being useful for any other drawing purpose. Even for manga artists, I feel that these figures fall short of being useful as primary anatomical reference - especially when it comes to the bizarrely proportioned hips and torso on the male figure. Take a look for yourself  - compared to the old Archetype figures, GSC have done a fantastic job of updating the line to make the figures more anatomically accurate, and thus more practical in use.

Older Archetype Figmas

New Archetype:next Figmas

Anyway, let’s get to the real stuff - the figures themselves. I bought both the male and female figures in flesh tones; the figures are also available in grey and GSC exclusive orange. The packaging itself was surprisingly pared back for the Figma line; they do not come in a cardboard box with plastic insert, but in a plastic display box similar to lower-end action figures. Though somewhat visually disappointing, it made sense to me for GSC to choose more economical packaging, as there are no extra parts in addition to the figure and stand. The male figure has a far more pronounced tan than the female figure, which might be useful in some way that I haven’t discovered yet. Each Figma has articulated joints in the limbs, neck, and spine, which allow for a diverse range of motion. They are also connected to a stand by an articulated plastic rod, standard for Figmas, which allow you to pose them lying down, standing up, kneeling and even mid-air, good for fighting poses. I was very impressed with the range of articulation of these figures bar one small issue, being the fact that they are not designed to have their knees positioned above waist level, meaning no tuck-and-roll for these guys (but that’s what making your own reference shots is for, right?). I also feel that the female figure’s head/neck has less articulation than the male figure, although this could be my particular set rather than a widespread issue. Not too big of an issue, as you can always use imagination or other references to fill in any gaps.

As mentioned before, the figures' ease of use was the real attraction point for me. Whether you’re an artist who uses physical or digital media, it’s very convenient to be able to pick up and adjust your reference figure as you go, as well as allowing you the freedom to adjust and create your own light source using a desk lamp; often with saved reference it’s tedious to find a reference image that’s just right, and the Archetype Figmas provide a refreshingly simple alternative. Personally, I found the figures most useful when used in conjunction with visual image references, as opposed to using them on their own. Though they are no replacement for learning figure drawing and anatomy from life, the Archetype Figmas are a great resource for any artist who draws the human figure. I don’t use them as much as I thought I would, but it’s been very refreshing to be able to grab them, pose them into something random and just draw it, taking a lot of the tedious planning out of sketching.

In Summary…

Pros

+ Joints are easy to articulate in a wide range of motion

+ Proportions are, on the whole, anatomically correct

+ Easy to manipulate into different poses and lighting conditions

+ Great, durable build quality

+ Suitable for novice and professional artists

+ Most appropriate for comic/manga character artists

Cons

- Packaging is somewhat disappointing for the Figma line

- Price point may be excessive for some (I paid around $30~ AUD for each figure from a Japanese store, though many local shops resell for double)

- Need to be used in conjunction with other reference material to be most beneficial

- Not a perfect replacement for live, human reference - make sure you still learn your anatomy and figure drawing skills!

[luciformwriting]

Lilah - Short Story

This piece is a writing sketch inspired by a painting I did a few years ago. Enjoy.

~

That night, I couldn't sleep. I asked for another story, but instead my mother took me to the fields. In the distance, against the cold blue backdrop of the naked evening sky, I saw a robot that looked different to the rest of us. For one thing, it was massive; fine misty steam rising from its head. It made a quiet, low clinking noise as the pistons in its legs and arms moved it along the plain.

My mother told me her name was Lilah, and that she was an old robot, maybe millions of years old, older than the stars and the animals that ran through the bushes and flew through the sky.

She walked over the misty moor, barely visible in the violet radiance of sunset. A colossus of steel and rust, nobody knew where she came from, or where she was going; the only certainty was that she would be there, and that nobody must stop her from reaching her mysterious destination. Her name was given by the Father residing over the overgrown church in the small township of Bricke. She was God's gift, he said, a patient watcher. We must pity her, so bulbous and misshapen, and give her sanctuary as Jesus protected the lepers.

Lilah was not a leper, but one could hardly call her beautiful. The residents of Bricke found her equal parts awe-inspiring and terrifying. She made them feel simultaneously safe and nervous, her mysterious purpose and origin lending her a mythical status emphasized by the rumours that weaved their way into the collective conscious of the town. She was a demon, said the baker, and one day she will stomp straight through our houses. The tailors said her massive hull was filled with golden coins, and the artists said the secrets of an ancient world were engraved into her shell. She fell from the sky one day, she had risen from the dirt on the next, depending on who you asked.

During the day, she existed simply as a pile  of scrap metal wherever she set herself down, as tall as two houses and as immovable as a mountain. She had a penchant for the farmers' fields alongside the moors, much to the curiosity of the farm cows and horses, who would graze beside her without fear. At the drop of the sun, she reanimated with a cacophony of screeching and grinding. Lilah's round, steel body pulled itself together into a ball, two immense legs lifting her off the ground, dirt falling from her joints like rain. Something within her hull would ignite, and steam would begin to pour out from atop the chimney crowning her round head. Her eyes began to glow with a gentle yet determined fire, and she moved, picking up one colossal leg and placing it down upon the wild grass.

"Is she maybe looking for something that was here a long time ago, and has long since disappeared?" I would ask my mother on these violet nights.

"Aren't we all?" my mother would respond.

Her steam drifted peacefully in the cool night air, nothing but grass plains and rocks for miles. And Lilah, gently grinding along and lighting up the moor, searching and seeking. A wistful colossus of steel and rust, nobody knew where she came from, or where she was going; the only certainty was that she would be walking, and no word could stray her from her invisible path.

[luciformwriting]

Short Story - Part 2

Here’s the second, extended part of the short story I started earlier. Basically, this version is the beginning of the proper novel I intended to write originally - so it takes place in the same way as the original draft, but has a different ending and continuation. Again, please offer your constructive criticisms and feedback. Read on!  The second time the gust hit Saria, it was with the power of a wound-up punch, almost knocking her clean off her feet. The sunny day in her memories had quickly been replaced with the reality of hailstones and white fog - she gripped the rock beside her for balance and caught her breath briefly before looking behind her. The fog had thickened as she climbed down - all that was visible up the cliff were two headlights, floating in the fog like dim lanterns. They reminded her of the dim lanterns at her aunt’s house in the nearby town, the reason the pair had come to visit the seaside again. She lived in an old wooden house with vines covering the aged garden archway, dimly lit lanterns hanging from above. Her aunt was a gentle woman who always seemed concerned about something, an ever-present furrow in her brow crowning her large, round spectacles. Take your daughter to the beach tomorrow, she said to Saria’s father, you must, you must. Her father lit a cigarette with a gesture that seemed solid, gawky in comparison to her aunt, who dipped her tea strainer with hurried elegance, one, two, three times, before taking it and leaving it on her saucer. Saria lay in her dark bedroom, capturing their conversation in fragments, but failing to piece them together in a coherent way. Instead she sat and stared at the ceiling, at the glowing stars she had stuck on the roof as a child after her days at the beach, until her eyes demanded closure from the day. 

Regaining her composure, Saria continued her descent down the cliff face, leaning on the porous rock beside her for stability. Down the stairs, she saw what appeared to be a pile of boulders leaning against the cliff face she was traversing. Saria frowned.

‘How unusual,’ she whispered, only to remember her aunt’s discouragement towards her habit of thinking out loud. Well, it’s not like anybody is here to listen to me anyway, she thought, rolling her eyes. Moving against the wind, Saria stepped down towards the boulders and the rocky pier that jutted out beyond them a short way. Her sudden curiosity caused her careful footsteps to hasten in their pace, a wide-eyed enthusiasm taking her by the reins. ‘Why am I so excited? They’re just rocks,’ she panted breathlessly. As if on cue, the wind rose under the flaps of her coat, threatening to pull her up and towards the pier - if she were to let go, she would be taken unto the air like a seagull in flight. Saria’s eyes widened yet again in shock, her delicate hands gripping the rock face with as much strength as they could muster. Looking up, she suddenly felt very small and fragile compared to the the towering cliffs - she had already almost reached the bottom of the steps.

Throwing her foot from the bottom step over to the slippery sand, she shook her damp body back into alignment. Turning her head to the left, towards the pier, something caught her eye. A large, black blob of indiscriminate shape was seated on the pier. Saria squinted and leaned forward in hope the shape would reveal its identity, but to no avail. That wasn’t there just a moment ago, Saria bemusedly thought to herself. Am I crazy? 

She paused in thought. ‘Well,’ she murmured, raising her head, ‘I guess the only way to find out if I am… is to go see what that thing is.’ Her nervous steps had turned into a confident gait as she moved along the rocks, like an animal stalking its prey. Many days as a child had she adeptly navigated the jutting boulders, dancing along their slippery tops with precision, and it was with this same precision that she danced along them as a young woman. After all, these were her cliffs, her beach - she had doubts that there were any other little girls who had loved and visited them as she had. 

Saria was so lost in thought that she didn’t realize she had reached the pier until she heard a grunt emerge from the spitting rain.‘E- eh?!’ Saria let out a startled squeak as she stopped and looked out at the pier - not made of wood, but of a single, giant stone, twenty meters long, stuck between the shore and the sea. The black shape she was so eager to discover was sitting two meters away from her. It appeared to be a broad-chested lump of a man, veiled in a large, tattered black cape. From the side, Saria could not discern a face; only a large, grey, matted beard emerging from the collar of the cape, as well as similarly matted grey hair peeking out of a black tricorn hat. The man grunted again, and tugged lightly on the fishing rod he had thrown a way out to sea. 

Saria stared at the figure, clutching her jacket close to her chest. “H… hello?” she stammered, simultaneously terrified and curious of the bizarre figure who had, at least in her eyes, emerged out of the mist.

Several moments of uncomfortable silence passed as Saria held her breath. Without having moved a single muscle, a low, defeated voice emerged from the man.

“Behind me….” he murmured, “...there is a cave.”

Saria stared at him for a moment before slowly turning her head to look at the cliffs. Sure enough, in the center of the mysterious boulder pile leaning against the cliff, there was an opening. A cave.

“That most certainly wasn’t there before,” she muttered, before realizing she had spoken out loud.“And... neither… was I,” responded the man. He turned his head around like a rusty gear to look at her.

Pale, ghostly skin shone against his black raiment, with two droopy eyebrows framing a tired, bearded face. Saria surveyed his face, with each of its wrinkles and spots, and decided that the man appeared, quite entirely and simply, sad. His blue eyes carried melancholy in their waters, thought Saria - no, that’s the sort of comment my aunt would make. To me, his eyes are just blue. To her, everything is about water….“Was I…. correct?” grunted the man again, jolting Saria out of her thoughts.“I.. ah….” she stammered, huddling against herself. “Yes, in those boulders. Did you… did you put them there, sir?”

The figure let out a startlingly hearty laugh. “Sir. Sir! Oh…. it has been… the longest time since anyone would… address me as a sir... “ “But it would be polite manners to address a stranger as ‘sir’,” said Saria, feeling slightly more at ease with the odd circumstances she had found herself in.

“Well… you have…. been raised properly… I suppose.” The man swished his fishing rod around in the water absentmindedly. “If you go into… that cave… nobody will remember you.”

“Nobody? Well… I mean, I don’t plan to go in there-”

“No… need… to lie. I know you do…. it is written in your… heart.”

Saria looked back at the cave, feeling a mild unease at the accuracy of his words. “Well…” said the man, “I.. can’t blame you… it calls, doesn’t it…? For people like you and me… the adventurous in spirit… but…”

“....But what?” said Saria.

“Nobody… will… remember you.” 

The spitting rain had picked up, and the tide began to crash against the man’s feet, hanging off the pier. The end of the fishing string bobbed around in the water nervously, catching Saria’s eye. “Go…” he grunted with conviction, completely changed from the defeated inflection in his voice moments before. “Go…! But…!”

The man raised a creaky arm to the hat perched atop his head, carefully pulled it off, and held it in her direction. His eye met hers, filling Saria with a strange combination of fear and awe. “Nobody.. will… remember you. Wear… this into… wherever you go. May the wind… forever… be behind your sails.”

Saria gingerly took a hand out of her coat, and reached out towards the hat, gripping it gently in one hand. Taking her glove off, she traced the soft felt, the thin, gilded gold rim; running a finger over the pattern etched into the inside, she felt a strange conviction, and placed it upon her small head. The old man looked at her with pride and knowing, almost kinship, and turned back around to the sea.

 “Goodbye, and thank you,” Saria shouted over the wind as she stepped nimbly towards the cave. The man did not move from his position, but she knew he had heard her. She felt comfort from holding the hat to her head to ensure it did not blow off. 

“Here I go,’ she whispered, as the wind blew firmly at her back.

[luciformwriting]

Article: Top Arts and the Rest

Image credit: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/start-up/ By K. on March 20th, 2015 Every year, from roughly autumn through to winter, the nationally-renowned National Gallery of Victoria holds what is officially described as ‘one of the liveliest and most visited exhibitions on the NGV calendar’. I am talking about, of course, the purported holy grail of secondary school art studies in Victoria - the Top Arts exhibition (now known and referred to as ‘StArt Up’). Each year, as they have done for decades, a selection panel sifts through hundreds upon hundreds of entries to determine what makes the best fit for the program, with a key selection criteria based on ‘interesting conceptual focus, use [of] visual language in an exciting manner and...technical skills relevant to the particular media in which the students...work’. The quality of the development folio is also a key factor, alongside the degree to which the work aligns with the official subject guidelines set out by the VCAA. The concept of Top Arts is, in theory, a productive and exciting one - rewarding the finest artworks and hardest working students with a place in a prestigious exhibition dedicated solely to their achievements.

However, has anyone stopped to consider the message Top Arts is really sending the next generation about the purpose of art?

Often, students studying VCE art can be quite lost for direction - art is a beautiful, complex and infinite thing - and are frequently encouraged to turn to ‘the best of the best’ as a guide for the direction they should take. Therefore, many students feel pressured to emulate the styles and working processes of those who they believe to be the ideal to work towards - through this model, we stand the risk of endlessly replicating a certain social standard for ‘good’ art, which inhibits the creative and exploratory processes of young artists. For an example, a student may believe that the ‘correct’ way of doing VCE art might be photorealistic drawing, a photography series about identity, or conceptual artwork they do not necessarily feel passionate about, as these are the examples of the ideal. (I speak from my own experiences as a VCE art student, as well as a VCE art educator.) A student I had felt like exploring his passion for tattoo art was not appropriate, and another felt as if her intricate comic drawings were not ‘real art’ as neither of these practices were represented in Top Arts. I believe it is the duty of institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria to encourage artmaking as a passionate, complex and community-based practice, rather than give the students the impression that art is about competition, technicality and fitting into a subjective criteria for selection. Although efforts have been made to diversify the artworks in Top Arts, and it is not realistically possible to represent every style and method, further emphasis should be placed on the idea that personal artistic exploration is good, no matter what form it takes.

In secondary schools all across the state, Top Arts is frequently encouraged and pushed by teachers as a form of motivating their students to achieve. The message is there, whether we realize it or not: if you work hard and pour all your love into your creative endeavor, you will be rewarded with your own dedicated exhibition and the chance to get your name out there. Now, imagine, all of the students who poured absolute love and attention into their work, only to be rejected from what is deemed to be the ‘best’ of the cohort - the loss of self-esteem for these students can be phenomenal, and have a definite impact on their desire and ability to pursue artistic practice and education in the future. It is highly possible that a student who may not be the most technically proficient interprets this rejection as being useless to the only thing that matters in the arts - being celebrated and better than your peers. Imagine - we may never know how many potentially brilliant curators, critics, gallery administrators and historians are being discouraged from the arts because they do not meet the ‘ideal’ of admission into a highly subjective, technical and prestigious exhibition. (And while it is true that students learn about these roles in their classes, very rarely are students given the chance to experience and value the skills necessary to fulfil them.) Although Top Arts is not problematic in concept, I believe that there should be broader artistic ideals and education for students to aim for, complementary to the Top Arts program rather than outright replacing it. Perhaps it would be a good idea to do a yearly exhibition and retrospect on VCE arts students and the artistic careers they ended up in - not limited to those who received a high study score or ATAR either. Sending out a positive and hopeful message to the artists, curators, writers and historians of the future is an important aspect that we should be encouraging in the arts to ensure the survival of a fruitful, exciting and diverse artistic scene.

[luciformwriting]

Short Story - Draft Copy #1

Hi everyone! This is the first full draft of my short story. Please send me any criticisms and draft edits, and general feedback you feel is constructive and appropriate. Enjoy!

The wind was chill, blowing froth up from the surf that beat at the rocks.

A small, dusty burgundy car drove slowly through the spitting rain and fog, its headlights penetrating the droplets and illuminating the cracked asphalt before it. The road it was driving on was surrounded by a beach on one side and a rocky hill on the other, whereupon expensive, white-washed holiday houses sat wistfully, staring eternally out at the crashing waves. Ownerless in the cold and wet winter, the houses dotted the hill like animals waiting eagerly for their owners to return, watching over the coast with windows like wet eyes. The car rolled to a gentle stop in front of the log barrier that separated the carpark from rocky greystone cliffs, as well as the grey-gold beach at their base - the drop down was steep, perhaps two storeys down, barely visible in the mist. The driver, a middle aged man with a large beard and kind eyes, raised his hand to the old car’s window lever and turned it, the window squeaking and creaking as it jerked downwards. The man turned his face to the passenger seat, where a young girl sat and stared out the front window into the waves. He watched her for a moment, in admiration of the way she was mesmerized by the waves and wind, and did his best to try and figure out how she had managed to grow up to be so similar, yet so different, from himself. Like father, like mother, like daughter. He brushed his hand against his jacket’s leather lining, and raised a cigarette to his mouth, lighting it with an aged metal lighter.

“Saria,” he said, raising a gentle eyebrow. The young girl turned around to look at him, her two chocolate brown plaits swinging against her shoulders as she did so. Her normally pale skin and large grey eyes looked even paler and grayer in the light of the overcast afternoon, but no less observant and alert than usual. She smiled, lifted a lithe arm and pointed in the direction of the front window, her eyes brightening as she spoke. “I want to go down there, dad,” she said enthusiastically, pulling her navy raincoat closer to her round yet nimble body. She opened the glove box of the car and pulled out a pair of leather gloves, carefully yet firmly placing them over her cold fingers. Her father sucked on his cigarette and sighed, not in disapproval, but in thought about how dearly he wished he was fit enough to join her in exploring the slippery cliffs - he stared mindlessly, stuck in memory yet in the present, out at the waves. He wondered whether they represented the same things for his daughter as they did for him, told the same stories, reflected the same fears.

“Sure thing, kid,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ll be sitting here when you’re ready to come back.”

Saria pulled her hood over her head and opened the creaky door of the car, closing it behind her with a thud. She huddled into her coat, bracing herself against the cool air, and carefully placed on foot in front of the other, walking briskly towards the break in the log barrier where the asphalt met the steps, down the cliff face. And the moment she placed her right gumboot on the ramp, that was the moment, the moment the wind blew against her the first time.

Saria turned her head up and slowed her pace as a gust blew against her - one, two, three seconds, and it stopped, resuming its whisper-light breeze. She listened and looked out towards the crashing waves, which only appeared to have become more insistent in their beating at the shore. She pulled her right glove back to reveal a small, gold-plated watch crowning her wrist, with a simple clock face and aged leather band. ‘Five sixteen,’ she whispered to herself, and rolled her glove back up.

The steps lying before her led down towards the shore in a curved shape of a half-heart. Barely halfway down, the spitting droplets ceased their assault, although the fog and gentle breeze remained. Placing each foot carefully onto the slippery rocks, Saria made her way down the steps. Pat, pat, pat, spoke her shoes against the stones, telling of her childhood memories at the beach with her father; pat, pat, pat, went her small feet in the golden sand, as her father stared out at the sea and spoke to the waves. The sun shone in her eyes on that morning in the middle of May, her sixth birthday, scooping out and watching sand fall from her nimble hands. The small Saria walked to her father and watched the waves as he spoke - of what, she could not remember - and wondered, in her own childish mind, what had enraptured him so. Her chocolate brown plaits, shorter then, waved around in the breeze as he shouted to the ocean, whose tides raised a powerful hand and crashed back at his feet in return. A wave reached out to her feet and covered them in white froth, muttering something before washing back out to shore. He looked down at her with an indecipherable expression and picked her up, walked away from the sun, walked away from the ocean, with a small glimmer of water collecting in the corner of his eye.

The second time the gust hit Saria, it was with the power of a wound-up punch, almost knocking her clean off her feet. The sunny day in her memories had quickly been replaced with the reality of hailstones and white fog - she gripped the rock beside her for balance and caught her breath briefly before looking behind her. The fog had thickened as she climbed down - all that was visible up the cliff were two headlights, floating in the fog like dim lanterns. They reminded her of the dim lanterns at her aunt’s house in the nearby town, the reason the pair had come to visit the seaside again. She lived in an old wooden house with vines covering the aged garden archway, dimly lit lanterns hanging from above. Her aunt was a gentle woman who always seemed concerned about something, an ever-present furrow in her brow crowning her large, round spectacles. Take your daughter to the beach tomorrow, she said to Saria’s father, you must, you must. Her father lit a cigarette with a gesture that seemed solid, gawky in comparison to her aunt, who dipped her tea strainer with hurried elegance, one, two, three times, before taking it and leaving it on her saucer. Saria lay in her dark bedroom, capturing their conversation in fragments, but failing to piece them together in a coherent way. Instead she sat and stared at the ceiling, at the glowing stars she had stuck on the roof as a child after her days at the beach, until her eyes demanded closure from the day.

Regaining her composure, Saria continued her descent down the cliff face, leaning on the porous rock beside her for stability. Her breathing was staggered and shallow - the further she went, the more she felt as if she were breathing water and thick fog instead of oxygen, entering her lungs, her veins, her mind. There was very little separating the fog from the ocean; the sand, when she reached it, sank and parted beneath her boots like thick sludge. The sharp coughing of the wind was intertwined with the groaning of the sand, the pat pat pat of her boots, the twinkling of the droplets, the shouting of the waves; there existed nothing to Saria but the cacophony of sounds that grabbed her and relentlessly squeezed her mind. She held her eyes closed tightly and screamed, her own voice joining the chorus, when a voice rang through her mind, as clear as a bell.

“You have come home,” it said, softly.

“No,” whispered Saria.

“He promised me, he promised you to me,” the voice murmured tightly.

“No,” choked Saria. “I’m afraid. I’m not ready.” “You have come far, and you are ready to come home. To me. Open your eyes.” Saria reluctantly did as the voice advised. In front of her was the cliff face - the stairs, the porous rocks, the sand, the log barriers, and very faintly, two headlights in the distance. Am I standing in the ocean now? she thought, and heard a violent crashing behind her. Water swept over her body, filled her, knocked her over until she was weightless under the sea.

My father, my dear father, she thought.

He will understand and I will look after you, thought the ocean.

Saria felt a strange kind of peace in her heart as the hands of the water carried her off into the unknown the dark, the deep realms humans never saw, and filled her with a feeling she had known and waited for her entire life.

Extinguishing his cigarette, Saria’s father sighed and looked out the dusty windscreen. A wave was coming, a gigantic, powerful wave, that dragged itself out to sea and crashed at the top of the cliff where he parked, throwing itself into the log barrier and retreating back out. He looked longingly out at the sea, reflected in the droplet of water seated at the corner of his eye, and turned off his headlights.

[luciformwriting]

Writing practice - Story Paragraph #1

A short piece of writing I did on holiday to get back into things. The wind was chill, blowing froth up from the surf that beat at the rocks. The wind was the one thing that Saria would remember about her last day on the coast of her world, ceaselessly blowing as if to warn her that stepping down onto the rocks was something that was very, very wrong. But whether it was warning or, in fact, beckoning her forth with its insistent huffing was something she would come to consider well beyond those minutes.

A small, dusty brown Ford drove slowly through the spitting rain and fog, its headlights penetrating the droplets and illuminating the cracked asphalt before it. The road it was driving on was surrounded by a beach on one side and a rocky hill on the other, whereupon expensive, white-washed holiday houses sat wistfully, staring eternally out at the crashing waves. Ownerless in the cold and wet winter, the houses dotted the hill like animals waiting eagerly for their owners to return, watching over the coast with windows like wet eyes. The car rolled to a gentle stop in front of the log barrier that separated the carpark from rocky greystone cliffs, as well as the grey-gold beach at their base - the drop down was steep, perhaps two storeys down, barely visible in the mist. The driver, a middle aged man with a large beard and kind eyes, raised his hand to the old car’s window lever and turned it, the window squeaking and creaking as it jerked downwards. The man turned his face to the passenger seat, where a young girl sat and stared out the front window into the waves. He watched her for a moment, in admiration of the way she was mesmerized by the waves and wind, and did his best to try and figure out how she had managed to grow up to be so similar, yet so different, from himself. He brushed his hand against his jacket’s leather lining, and raised a cigarette to his mouth, lighting it with an aged metal lighter.

“Saria,” he said, raising a gentle eyebrow. She turned around to look at him, her two chocolate brown plaits swinging against her shoulders as she did so. Her normally pale skin and large grey eyes looked even paler and grayer in the light of the overcast afternoon, but no less observant and alert than usual. She smiled, lifted a lithe arm and pointed in the direction of the front window, her eyes brightening as she spoke. “I want to go down there, dad,” she said enthusiastically, pulling her navy raincoat closer to her round yet nimble body. She opened the glove box of the car and pulled out a pair of leather gloves, carefully yet firmly placing them over her cold fingers. Her father sucked on his cigarette and sighed, not in disapproval, but in thought about how dearly he wished he was fit enough to join her in exploring the slippery cliffs.

“Sure thing, kid,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ll be sitting here when you’re ready to come back.”

[luciformwriting]

Article: The Esperanto Guide to Digital Art

By K. August 30th, 2014 Originally written for & published in Esperanto Magazine.

‘You mean, you did all of this?’

The older lady gestures towards the picture I have loaded up on the screen. It’s a digital painting, a fantasy illustration of a bird in a charred landscape, like those ones you see on fantasy trading card games.

‘Yes, all of it. I painted it with Photoshop.’ I’m greeted with a blank expression. ‘So you...drew it on paper, scanned it in, and then put colours on it?’ ‘No, no, I drew it in Photoshop, and used paint brush tools to paint it. Using a graphics tablet. For the textures, I used overlaid photographs... ’ ‘A what? Tablet? Like the touch-sensitive iPad ones? ’ She leans over. ‘How much of this is yours, anyway? I know it’s easy to take pictures of the internet and trace them, but really?’

The dialogue above is one that most artists who work digitally have received at some point or other in their life, whether from a teacher, family member, or friend. Most people in our generation seem to get it – after all, a lot of blossoming digital artists are hugely inspired by the cartoons, popular media and games we were lucky enough to grow up with – but there always seems to be distinct discrepancies in the way the non-tech-savvy tend to interpret what we do. And that’s why I’m here with you today, on behalf of Esperanto Magazine – to guide you and introduce you into the seemingly-baffling world of the digital artist. Digital art, especially in fine arts, is something that is rarely discussed and touched on, and is subject to a number of awful misconceptions that can (and will) just make everybody sad. So here I am – whether you’re an artist, art student or you’re just curious, we need to talk about those pictures you see on the internet.

So... what exactly is it?

Wikipedia’s glorious definition of digital art is as follows – “Digital art is an artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as an essential part of the creative or presentation process”. While this can apply to a very wide range of artworks, I will mostly be addressing digital 2D illustration and painting in my article. (There’s so many more types of digital art – I encourage you to do a Google search if you’re interested!) I am referring to the specific process by which an artist, presented with their digital canvas and tablet pen, draws and paints as if it were paper or canvas in front of them – that is, making works from their own artistic intuition and experience much in the way that a painter or other artist would.

The way that a lot of digital painters and artists work is fairly intuitive to us, but fascinating, confusing and complex to those who are not acquainted with the process. Our studio is the computer, the program we work with (usually Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, SAI or others) is our infinite toolbox, our canvas is the blank space the program provides, and our pen and paper are the digital tablets we physically manipulate to get results on-screen. In a way, the artist can act as a God using a number of advantages we have over physical mark-making - we can undo mistakes at the touch of a button, we can save and re-work later, we can access thousands of tools and infinite mark making options with a single click, we can add textures and minute details using the resources available at our fingers. The first myth I want to debunk is this - the fact that we have access to these features tends to lead to the idea that digital art is ‘easy’ work that ‘doesn’t require skill to carry out’. The truth is, picking up a tablet pen and opening Photoshop, contrary to what many will believe, will not instantly make you a master of anatomy, colour theory, tonal theory, composition or anything else (unfortunately).

I want to try it out too!

Fantastic! There are a number of different avenues to getting into digital art – but first and foremost, you’ll need a computer and a program to use. A lot of beginners don’t use Photoshop as it is quite pricey, but there are alternatives that are cheaper and more accessible – Photoshop CC, Paint Tool SAI and the Corel programs are generally much cheaper, but there are also some programs that are totally free, such as GIMP (and can’t forget good old Microsoft Paint). I suggest looking up and accessing the huge wealth of tutorials available on the internet as a start – and once you’ve familiarized yourself with your program, start working on the skills that you want to master the most (this is where it helps to have prior artistic experience, because a lot of it carries over to digital working). Websites such as DeviantArt, Tumblr, Gumroad and ConceptArt.org all have fantastic resources, and are places to share and get feedback on your artworks. If you have the chance to borrow or buy a graphics tablet, it is a very worthwhile investment – there are a lot of things that are just impossible to do with a mouse. (The artists who paint for movies sure don’t use mice!)  

Why It’s Not What You Might Think It Is – Digital Artists in Contemporary Art

Understandably, as with any relatively new method of artistic working (digital art and illustration, in its current capacity, has only really been around for a bit over twenty years now) there is a lot of confusion about whether what we do is ‘art’ at all, bringing me to my second discussion.  Over the decades, many different ideas about art and its definition have been challenged and subverted. Digital art has always been delegated to the realm of illustration, graphic design, and media/game illustration, and as such, may not immediately seem to belong in a gallery or art establishment – but, I assure you, there is an immense amount of potential artistic value and beauty in digital art. One needs only to look at the breathtaking, otherworldly lands painted by Feng Zhu and Jonas De Ro, two very noteworthy digital painters, to believe that there is something beyond these works than mere depiction. While galleries featuring digital work are popping up more and more frequently – as well as small galleries that specialize in illustration and graphic art, such as Tara McPherson’s ‘Cotton Candy Machine’ – they’re not quite mainstream enough yet.  But look to the future – because soon enough, digital artists will be everywhere. Maybe one day we’ll even hit the Louvre.

[luciformwriting]

Review: Glitchmark's 'Game Art Melbourne'

By K. on September 5th, 2014

It’s a busy Tuesday night on Elizabeth Street, and I’m keeping my eyes on the building numbers I pass in case I miss my destination – the E55 space, which is, as its name suggests, located at number 55. And easily missable it is – beyond a small crowd congregated on the street I can see a staircase leading downwards, underground, into what appears to be a small bar filled to the brim with energy, experimental music and chatter. And of course, people. The exhibition I am here to see is the Game Art Exhibition, hosted by Glitchmark, a local group of (mostly emerging) interdisciplinary artists, game designers and creatives with a specific interest in exploring and dissecting the way we relate to and engage with the idea of ‘play’, through video games or otherwise. The exhibition itself has been put together with the intent of showcasing visual art from and inspired by video games made in Melbourne; a display of the fresh, home-grown talent that remains perhaps unseen and unexplored in the wider picture of contemporary art and design. Undoubtedly, video games are not something that your usual art aficionado, much less the general public, would associate with the unusual world of contemporary art, and that’s what makes this exhibition’s concept so fascinating. While other institutions such as ACMI have held numerous shows and exhibits to celebrate the intrinsic fun and talent within the gaming phenomenon, very few in Melbourne have endeavored to such a task in the name of contemporary art. Unlike these larger, blockbuster exhibitions, there is less of a focus on the games themselves and more of a focus on displaying the work of local artists, the equivalent of preferring to experience local home-brew instead of widespread commercial product. With this in mind, I move through the throng of people to examine the works hung upon the bar’s red walls.

The works on display instantly give off an impression distinctly similar to the visual style of contemporary cartoons, with series such as Adventure Time and Steven Universe being clear sources of inspiration for a number of works. Colorful, wide-eyed cartoon astronauts with jovial expressions permeate the work of Madison Palmieri, standing atop and barely clinging to Tetris-eqsue blocks. The artworks of Ngoc Vu share a similar style (both artists have work designed around and inspired by a local game called ‘Turnover’), but also features digital artworks for a game called ‘Emma’ – highly emotive, black-and-white drawings designed to explore the experience of a second-generation Asian-Australian that carry a strong sense of visual weight and depth. Richard Adem’s fractal digitally generated geometric line works provide as a clear and refreshing departure from the candy-richness of many of the other artists’ works, and are the only distinctly abstract works on display. However, the standout works of the show are those by traditional artist Marco Ryan – drawn directly onto card paper with a biro pen, the incredibly meticulous and detailed mechanical creatures come to life on the walls more than any other work on display. Each one inspired by a different aquatic animal, Ryan’s works are purportedly inspired by games such as Abe’s Exodus and Bioshock, names that are well-known to many gamers. However, this is as far as the effectiveness of the exhibition’s works go – despite intentions that are effective in theory, a number of ineffective and confusing curatorial decisions prevent the exhibition from fulfilling its immense potential.

The first and most notable poor decision is the inconsistency in the display of the works themselves – works from each artist are framed so significantly differently that it becomes distracting in the overall scope of the exhibition. A worryingly high portion of the works are let down by their poor presentation – cheap-looking inkjet prints and tacky pseudo-metal frames are frequent, taking away any aspect of professionalism that would otherwise have been attained. Some works were also framed crookedly, or came off the wall in a lopsided way, preventing the charm of many smaller prints and works from shining through. (Indeed, part of what makes Ryan’s work so outstanding is the meticulous and clean framing of his work, which is topped off by a beautiful red wax seal.) While a clear and consistent theme was evident in the event’s catalog description, I sometimes struggled to see the relevance of the work to the topic – were these designed to be a wide and diverse representation of the art from games made in Melbourne, or were they just digital art pieces from artist who happened to be somehow related to game design? While some works had a clear inspiration and purpose, others had seemingly little relevance to a specific game or project, instead being more like ‘an artwork done by a game designer’ rather than ‘a piece of artwork done from or inspired by videogames’. Another question that is brought to my mind is whether the exhibition truly is representative of the in-depth aesthetic and cultural concerns that Glitchmark aims to explore – I personally believe that the exhibition would have benefited from having less works from more artists, perhaps one or two from each, instead of large volumes of prints from only a select few (and this, I believe, would be better representative of the enormous talent and diversity of the Melbourne community). On the more positive side, the exhibition’s homely and inviting execution lacks the impersonality of larger commercial exhibitions, which gives the viewer an opportunity to interact with game art and its creators in an intimate and positive way.

While the worlds of contemporary art and videogames are, in a wider cultural context, very separate, independent groups such as Glitchmark are attempting to slowly bridge the gap and create works that challenge the very definition and boundaries of ‘play vs. art’. The Game Art Melbourne Exhibition is, despite its shortcomings, a very good step in this direction – indeed, this ambitious first attempt for the group signals intentions that can only improve in the future, and offer the potential to breathe new life into the way we, as consumers, see video games.

Although the Glitchmark exhibition is now finished, you can still browse their website for information and a catalogue: http://glitchmark.com/game-art-melbourne-exhibition/