To Go Again
I'm at the end of yet another sketchpad! An interesting pattern has emerged. I meant to learn mixed media techniques, such as layering colored pencils over watercolors or alcohol markers for texture. However, as it turns out, I've been liking my base drawings a bit too much... and I almost never want to add something more on top of it for fear of ruining what I have. Perhaps it's time for me to learn how to scan properly?
I've also found my preferences in regards to toolings. Ruined a couple brushes with my coarse technique and preferences for textured paper, but I also discovered some that could stay sharp despite. I must say initially cold press paper was a bit hard to get used to, but now I prize the beautiful very-much-analogue-feel it imparts.
Fountain pen inks in waterbrushes works beautifully and makes sketching such a joy. I'm tempted to get another refillable brushpen(s?) so I could dedicate a couple for my favorite inks. However, I decide against this for now... because I want my favorite tools to fit in one case. If I get more confident, I could begin to sketch outside. Not sure if I want to do watercolor if I go on a sketchwalk, but 2-3 brushpens? Doable. I could even shove them all into a vest pocket with a small sketchbook and go without a bag. The range of hues that can be achieved with fountain pen inks is wonderful and the richness of their chromatography counteracts the flatness that waterbrushes can cause at times.
Very hectic two weeks. I chose to recharge and breathe when I could. A lot of people as wont to happen during prerelease week, several people too many perhaps, but I don't regret a single thing because the person I wanted to see the most managed to make it. It's been a long year. As I grow older, I relish in these precious low-maintenance friendships that are nonetheless very close. We talk maybe two or three times a year, but whenever we meet it's as if we never separate a single day. Some people meanwhile, could live in high school mean-bitch-style clique forever and think that's just how friendships ought to be. Madness.
Got to jam a lot of games. MtG, FaB, Duel Master, ...even Riftbound. I live in such a fortunate state, I would say. A little pocket of omnivorous card game players I could tap into at a moment's notice, pods ready to fire right at home. Totally making it up for the sickness over Dec-Feb. Wizards has to ruin the (completely awesome) Strixhaven prerelease week with Marvel Superheroes preorders, but what is new.
The game I worked on with my friends launched to great fanfare, it seems. I'm happy people delighted in many things we loved during development. Production cycle can be somewhat funny at times. It feels like a lifetime ago since we handed the script for revisions. It was a nice project to work on overall, which is not something I can say often.
A week left for me to finish my jam game. Assets are drawn and written, I just have to get them in the build. I have scripted enough games to know I would need only three days to get things done, if I could find a good time to sit down and truly work on it. Then I have to redo a commissioned animation ruined by an engine update.
Here goes the first quarter of the year.