End-of-year Art Ramblings

I just want to start off by reiterating that I identify as a computer science student, not an artist. I’m completely clueless about anything relating to art. Okay, maybe not completely clueless. I hope.

Trying to appreciate art styles⌗

Anyway, after you start to do a few doodles in your spare time, you kind of start to look at artworks a bit differently. You start thinking about how the art style complements what the artist is trying to express.

For instance, Temmie Chang’s new webcomic. Comics involve huge numbers of pages and panels, so detail is a precious resource. It’s here that I notice the comic’s art style really shine, in trading realism (even consistency) for expressiveness. I often pause my reading just to admire the art for a bit.

I also want to mention pixel art, particularly its prominence in games by small independent studios. Many people point to development constraints, budget or 20th century nostalgia for reasons why lots of indie games use pixel art. There’s also an argument to be made that pixel art works for some indie games, as the lack of detail allows the player’s imagination to fill in the gaps.

You can kind of think of these pixel art graphics as a visual aid for the player’s imagination.

Each player is going to have a different perception of the bag of pixels in their imagination, which leads to amazing variety in fan art. Just check out all the fan art of Ralsei on this subreddit! Be careful, there are spoilers for Deltarune.

Did actually doing art cause me to have these thoughts for the first time? I mean, no, but I certainly didn’t think about them as much. It kind of feels like I discovered a new language that I didn’t know existed before, and now that I can understand (parts of) it, I’m finding new meaning in familiar places.

Looking back at the start of the year⌗

It’s a weird feeling, looking back and reading the post I wrote when I first started art. I had a lot of misunderstandings, but at least I maintained enough humility to not write anything that I don’t completely disagree with now.

What I do in my sketchbook changes a lot. Earlier in the year, I did a bunch of my work in pen to prevent me from correcting myself too much. Now I’ve switched back to pencil, where the only incentive against my perfectionism is the effort it takes to get up from my bespoke drawing position on my bed or couch, head to my desk and take the eraser out of the pencil case (i know drawing in strange positions is bad for my body but ughhh it’s just like half an hour and i’m trying to relax).

I’ve varied between giving myself a strict time limit, to no time limit, between giving myself a tiny space to draw, to giving myself the entire page. I’ve also tried taking pictures of my drawings in my sketchbook and transferring them to digital media.

I’ve found that staying in my walled garden of video game fan art is getting kind of dull. I sometimes find that I want to create my own original things. Again, I won’t force myself, but I also won’t let my current skills prevent me from trying new things just because I think I’ll do them badly. I’m thinking something like this comic.

Some quote about creating things⌗

So I recently played this game called Cave Story. It’s a 2004 action platformer developed (primarily) by this one Japanese guy called Daisuke Amaya. It’s a super fun game and I like to think that it inspired a lot of the indie games that we see these days. Anyway, there’s this scene where you talk to a gunsmith after he gives you his finished weapon (translated from Japanese courtesy of NICALiS):

There remains a very delicate balance in this world…

Between those who create and those who will experience the creations of others.

I can’t say that I wasn’t aware of this. However, I had never experienced it.

Now, thanks to you, I finally have.

As long as there is someone who will appreciate the work involved in creation, the effort is time well spent.

To this end, I will continue to create for as long as I can.

Conclusion⌗

Happy New Year! I hope you found some of this an interesting read, apologies for the lack of visuals.

Actually, I guess I have one drawing to show. A little gift before it falls out of season…