Stay in pursuit, always chasing, always looking, grasping at the chance until you don't know if you're still the one chasing or…
I liked that idea of 'your senses suddenly telling you there is something wrong behind you'. A bit of a cliché idea, I'll admit, and Cafe's friend is more than just a scary 'shadow', but the idea looked nice in my head. Anyway, don't mind it, it's not that deep.
For your semiannual news update now, haha… (semi-serious laugh)
I had a really hard time making it, as usual.
If you'll allow me to ramble on, I visited my father in his small-ish village. There, I met one of his friends, a painter, a hobbyist mind you and I learned some things thanks to that. I won't act like I found a master who changed my life or perception of things, nor did it make me go for traditional painting; I still don't have enough room in my life to think about that.
But you see, I'm the kind of person who finds life boring but can't help but recognize I'm too lucky to wallow in that gloom. So, I look for 'interest' the concept of 'interest', I mean or dare I say, I try to create it. I won't go into detail about the inner workings of my mind here, but all of that is to say: most things I take an interest in, I eventually stop caring about. For other things, it comes and goes. There aren't a lot of things my interest doesn't truly disappear for, which usually ends up with me forcing myself.
I probably sound like I'm trying to make something really trivial seem like deep psychology, but I hope it's just my way of expressing it that's lacking. Anyway, I'm still not sure whether drawing/painting is an interest that I'll keep. I lost motivation for a time, but that man gave me back some drive.
As to what I've been working on on the side:
I'm actually more of a reader than anything. I like music, movies, painting/drawing, and video games a lot, but the thing I always come back to in the end is books.
That's why, after dabbling in some things (like most do, I figure) never being too serious about it and deleting most of it out of shame for its inherent mediocrity I finally decided to start writing my own thing. I say this like I started yesterday, but it's been a long time… weaving in and out of my head… but yeah, I'll probably start posting it someday, likely as a web novel. I have a rough layout, very specific things, plot points, etc. But I'll probably start posting after I finish the first volume, which won't be soon. As a first piece of writing meant to be read, it'll probably be terrible, but hey.
I mention it because I'll probably post some OC designs I've had in mind since way before I even started drawing. The 2-3 main characters I have the most done for are Idyle, Violet, and Sophie. I have their designs, and I'll go as far as to say I have their whole story arcs worked out. I'm not sure about just posting their concept art; it's a little dumb, but with OC stuff, I still feel like I'm far from being good enough for it to be of any interest…
For the violin stuff: since it is hard, no surprise, I haven't made any progress yet. Getting tendonitis in my wrist literally one month after starting certainly didn't help… (It's nothing too bad, but it still sucks to suck…)
I might one day go into the whole story behind why I draw, but one of the reasons is that two of my friends and I are trying to make games. Since only doing concept art wasn't enough for a project that's too ambitious for a team of three, I tried picking up 3D modeling… Man… It's true what they say: you only come to appreciate the amount of work someone puts into something when you try it yourself. All that to say, on that front more than anything, it's not going well… but the project is still advancing! At a slow pace, but still advancing.
As for drawing, my earlier talk might have made it look like I had quit. It's more that I have the ideas and imagery, but I'm just so lacking in skills that most of my ideas end up hitting a wall so tall it demotivates me, and I go do something else…
But I still have plans, mainly for things currently being worked on in no particular order:
Lots of Umas to draw (some I already have sketched): Seiun Sky, TM Opera O, Matikanefukukitaru, Aston Machan, Neo Universe, Mr. CB, Stay Gold, Chrono Genesis, Still in Love, Symboli Rudolf, and Katsuragi Ace. That's a lot, but that's not all (woe is me, wanting to do too much when I can't even reach for too little…)
Some Uma concept art: I have a list of 2-3 horses I'd like to cook up designs for, so it'll happen when it happens.
I'd like to learn to do simpler illustrations, i.e., not taking two weeks for a single piece. That's mostly a knowledge and workflow problem on my part. I already have illustrations in mind, totally different from the Umas mentioned earlier, but still Uma Musume related, that would benefit from this faster workflow.
I still have a BlazBlue piece that I need to finish. Also, unrelated to BlazBlue, I have other fanarts started that need me to get back to them… I'll surely get back to it someday…
There are a lot of older works I need to go back to and rework, hopefully ending up with something satisfying.
I'd like to switch to Krita in the future. Version 6.0 looks neat, and I think it's time I give it another go. With this, I hope to transition to Linux full-time eventually.
And yeah, OC work. Aside from occasional sketches or little painting sessions, most of what I mean by OC work is related to our game, and the rest is about my novel. For that, it's kind of funny: when I get motivated to write, it motivates me to draw, which motivates me to write… until it doesn't. But hey, it's fun.
So yeah, a lot of things planned for a long time.
With that, I now have to come to the realization that I didn't talk about the making of this "Cafe" piece. As usual, it was time consuming. Believe it or not, it's probably the most complex piece I've made, in process at least. It started as a painting in Photoshop, then I continued in CSP, not happy with how it looked. My process is so shit I bet you could make a tutorial about avoiding everything I do in order to improve. Still, with how chaotic it is, I'm satisfied with the results.
I'm not sure, though, about the style it gives off. I have gotten used to just using a hard round brush with opacity and a blend brush, so changing that after such a long time results in mixed feelings. Overall, I think I prefer more expressive backgrounds and colors like I did in the Grass Wonder one. So this one was probably a one and done… well, not sure, but you get what I mean.
Haaa… I still have a long way to go before I make something good, heh… Let's hope it stays enjoyable!
Phew… and with that, it almost feels like I didn't just laze around doing nothing the last few months. More seriously, it feels like I caught up with pretty much everything that needed to be said.
I talked a lot, but it's because I noticed it's been so long since the last time I posted something. I felt like I should at least fill in on the whys and whats. Also, I'm just using this as a blog post of sorts to feel like I have some continuity.
I'm not sure it'll change, though. I feel that when I post on an official platform, it should be 'finished' and 'interesting' work which, as you should understand by now, I feel most of what I do isn't. And even then, the things I do post I often end up deleting because I end up disliking them. Now you can probably figure out the loop that makes it so empty of work in here… but I'm quite satisfied overall.
Maybe I just need a less 'official' platform.
Maybe I should just make a blog…
Food for thought.
On that note, I hope you eat something good today (and every other day too!). Thanks for reading my posts as always, and have a nice day!
