I've really been dropping the ball lately when it comes to being a bloggy kind of person. However, there's good reason and I'll be back on track eventually, which I've no doubt mentioned too often already. In the absence of something more interesting to talk about, this week will be about future plans for this thing you're reading.
I'll also be including some progress shots from one painting toward the end of the post, but I don't have a lot to say about it. Mostly because it just shows some of the basic steps that each image goes through, even though they're not all that drastic. Scroll down and read the captions for more.
In other news I'm going to be changing up Atelier Arcade in a big way sometimes soon. Well, probably in a few months or so, because it will take me that long to have the time and effort to go through all the logistics.
Essentially I've had a big think about these art posts and I realised a couple of things. Ultimately I feel like I've achieved what I set out to achieve with the art category of this blog, so I've kind of run out of steam for maintaining it much longer.
From the beginning I had two main goals, the first of which was to practice writing by setting myself up with a blog. It's a great way to build habits around putting ideas into words. It's not all that easy sometimes to form a cohesive argument and explain thoughts and concepts in a concise manner. So writing short little blog entries has been a good way to exercise those brain muscles on a regular basis.
While these posts might not contain anything all too excellent in the writing world, they've been a really good way to practice. See, at the same time I've been writing a novel (which I started many years ago) and I've discovered that I find it much easier to sit down and bash out a few thousand words when my brain is already trained to punch out paragraphs anyway. It might seem odd, I'm not sure; but the best thing I can say to describe it is that I've been practicing and I've been noticing the positive results of that practice.
The second purpose of the art category in this blog was to give me some arbitrary reason to draw and doodles on the regular. I've already talked about this at length, but I'm happy to say that I've now developed some good habits when it comes to regular drawing and creating in general.
I'm naturally a bit of a lazy person, so I'll often get distracted by other things and forget to put time into creative pursuits. I often end up watching a movie instead of reading as much as I'd like, and drawing ends up being the same. I always have ideas and things I'd like to try, but when it comes to actually doing something I often get sidelined with something else.
So giving myself an artificial deadline via the blog has been a good way to pull myself out of the rut that we can sometimes get in when we ignore our passions. Thankfully, putting in the effort is a self-fulfilling exercise anyway, as the more I create - the more I want to. It's reminded me of just how much I love making things with my hands and I now feel like that would be hard to forget ever again.
Hence, the art category of the blog has kind of served its intended purpose, which is why I intend to get rid of it entirely. Otherwise I'll keep posting about nonsense that's a little to wanky for this particular blog. Either that or I'll have to try and talk about myself and the work I'm doing, which I already find difficult and a little awkward.
Despite my recent absence from writing about games, I still love talking about games and sharing my love for the games I play. So this will eventually be a blog about nothing other than games and gaming in general. I might end up doing some kind of editorial type stuff in the gaming space, but right now all I want is to turn this into a dedicated gaming blog.
With that in mind, the name and layout and just about everything will change along with the focus. I'll archive the art stuff away in case I ever want to see it again, and all the existing gaming posts will be migrated to the new site.
This way I get to keep practicing writing and putting thoughts into sentences, but I won't ever feel obligated to write about the creative side of my life. After all, I can feel the obligation up ahead, which is why these posts have been fairly lacklustre lately, so I'm keen to step around it and power on with a simple gaming focus.
It won't happen for a while, but there it is. Now check out these photos of a basic painting in the series I'm currently working on.
the first thing I do with any new painting in this series is block out the basic colours and shapes, which looks kind of freaky, but sets the stage for everything else
the next steps (which these photos shot) involve adding new layers of different colours to bring in details and features
this one is very similar to the previous one, but I moved the mouth a little and blended in some of the face tones
even though it still looks weird, I’m happy with the feature placement and basic shading, so in this photo I’ve just gone over the hair and background with a fresh coat to thicken up the colour
all I’ve done here is add in some polka-dots to give the background a basic pattern - the series features a range of different backgrounds on every image… just to keep it interesting
finally these are a couple of close ups to show the paint a bit better - it still looks a bit weird because it’s completely unfinished, but this is basically ready for finishing touches
I leave any black or white paint to the very end, as it’s the final part to finish off the painting - it takes a weird/unfinished block of colour and makes it pop by adding bold shadows and highlights
I would have liked to take a photo after the final touches have been applied, but I needed to let the paint dry before hitting that final stage. Have a gander at some of the previous posts if you want to see what the black and white additions do to the final piece.
One thing I do love is how painting in this style always looks weird and far from completion until those final touches have been applied. It’s like the painting doesn’t even exist until it gets outlined and toned a little. Then again, that’s kind of true for every image ever, so it’s probably not much of a revelation.
Peace.