I’m enjoying Godless on Netflix a lot so far. Though as much as they market it as “it’s a western town full of women!”, it’s the small scenes with Jeff Daniels that steal the show. Like this one.
Back out West
This week is Remake Jam on itch.io, which brought me back to my first (finished) game project, Coyote. I’ve been wanting to make a sequel to that for ages, but I’ve got enough games I need to finish first. But in the context of this jam, I thought it might be fun to rebuild the original in Unity, using everything I’ve learned since 2011. I’m not sure I can pull it off in one week, but it’s already been fun to rebuild the town in 3D (using this great asset store package) and recreating the intro. I’m excited to work on this further.
Ocean Boy, the investigation of why I like stories at sea
I realized recently that I have a fascination for the ocean.
It felt like it came out of nowhere, but when I traced it back, it was surprised to find that it’s been something in the back of my mind for a very long time. Check this out:
Continue reading “Ocean Boy, the investigation of why I like stories at sea”Klement backgrounds
I was looking at these excellent Steven Universe backgrounds when I remembered a project I was working on a few years ago that I did some background sketches for. They show a school campus with Bauhaus and Fin De Ciecle influences in its architecture.
There’s something really cool about designing a location for games or animation. It’s different from static shots, you have to think about camera movement and making sure all the interactive things are visible at a good angle. My favorite thing is to account for the camera perspective changing when it pans around, so it seems a little more 3D than it is.
Claire Luxton
A quick portrait of a photographer I admire.
With habits like yours…
Poirot and Bouc catching up, from Murder On The Orient Express.
Had to pause this movie a few times to snap drawing reference, the colors and compositions are fantastic.
This is the first digital painting I completed in Procreate for iPad. I miss some of the finer control of a Wacom + Photoshop, but it’s definitely powerful and fun. And the great thing is it also saves a timelapse!
Swan Market sketches
I was at the Swan Market in Utrecht last weekend, and while my girlfriend was busy selling her drawings, I drew some attendees on my iPad.
New avatar
I felt it was time to update my corporate branding. My current avatar doesn’t really do justice to my hair situation anymore!
The base for the first avatar came from a daily comic I drew in 2010. I then used it to advertise my font, and soon it became my business card and website header when I went freelance. I updated it once in 2014 to add the beard. Since then I never really looked at it again. I did draw a new version of myself in my daily comics from 2015, but it wasn’t until 2018 that I felt the need to update my official avatar too.
A tradition that has snuck into these avatars is that each new version has the shirt I most like to wear at that time. This year was a bit of a challenge because it’s not as colorful as previous years, but I think the greyish-blue does contrast nicely with the orange.
2018 focus points
In 2017 I stopped meticulously blogging about all the things I do because I simply do not do all that much next to my day job anymore. But for 2018 I’m gonna start again, it’s too easy to lose a year just sort of pushing projects forwards while not really achieving anything.
But this time I’m not setting goals; I’m defining focuses for each month. This is an idea I picked up from Design Life. It’s another way of saying “do this and nothing else for this period of time”. I’ll be picking from this list during the year to set a monthly focus.
- Draw more Off-stage
- Update portfolio
- Improve drawing skill for poses and expressions
- Learn to draw with my left hand
- Release a new game
- And a bonus objective: do something incredible every month.
January has already been dedicated to Off-Stage, and lo and behold, new comic pages have started to appear online! So it’s working.
Things I learned in 2017, part 3: social life
This year I didn’t spend very much time on (new) personal projects, but I had a crazy growth in my professional and personal development, so I thought I’d write about that.
It became a very long post, so I’ve divided it up into a trilogy. Read part 1 and part 2 here. Today, we’re looking at social life:
Continue reading “Things I learned in 2017, part 3: social life”