I’m always going through books, albums, and other things – here’s what stuck lately:
It’s October, and of course, that means “Halloween”-themed illustrations to some extend. Halloween was another one of those terms that came up in the Spreadshirt-List of Q4 relevant search terms that I mentioned last week. So I came up with this illustration.
I am and never have been good with juggling the ball like that, but whenever I happen to be around a soccer ball I will try again – no matter how old I am. And even if I only manage to keep it in the air for a few bounces, I enjoy doing so.
While I was working with a team I learned about myself how much I enjoy telling terrible jokes and making others suffer through it. I made it a habit to look for a couple of bad jokes every weekend which I would then force myself my team to listen to throughout the week. Most often I was the only one laughing, but I got a couple of laughs out of them at least as well.
Since I don’t have a team anymore, I’m looking for new ways to indulge myself. And since I like comics, and I like experimenting, I might try combining these things as long as its fun.
Apparently one of the most-searched-for terms at Spreadshirt in Oktober 2020 was “Skihase | Skibunny”. I’m pretty certain this is referring to young women, but I’m not going to serve that crowd so I made a different kind of Skihase.
Recently a very nice lady approached me via social media and asked whether or not she could commission me for artwork. She had come across my Instagram and followed the link to my Spreadshirt-shop, but didn’t find a motif that she felt was appropriate for her 3year old grandson. We got into talking about her grandson, how he likes dogs and scared-loves big heavy construction machinery. Then we struck a deal and she commissioned me to do this motif.
I just added it to the spreadshirt-shop this morning. If you’re looking for a shirt gift for your grandchild, maybe this one works for you as well. And if it doesn’t, feel free to reach out.
Music is so incredibly important in my life. I have music that I turn to when I feel a certain way, or if I want to feel a certain way. And I always love when I get a recommendation for new music that leaves me happier. Recently a friend of mine recommended “Ryo Fukui” to me. After listening to what was available on Spotify I immediately went and bought 4 albums. And I’ve been listening to this music every week since. So if you got any recommendations for music that I should listen to, shoot. I’m happy to give anything a listen.
I felt like doing a poster illustration. It’s in german though, so … sorry for you international folks. The text simply states “very very good”.
Available in my spreadshirt shop as well.
Following last weeks post, a friend of mine surprised/shocked me by setting up a spreadshirt-shop for me and then forcing/encouraging me into uploading artworks.
I’ll make a habit out of uploading my weekly illustrations to the shop, at least if it makes a somewhat decent design for that purpose.
Go to https://smilesandgiggles.myspreadshop.net/ if you want to buy a piece of clothing with an illustration from me on it. Spreadshirt is a german print-service, so if they ship internationally then I guess it will not be cheap.
It’s been a rough week or two.
The image text is a bit deceptive though, I’ve been struggling not so much with doing something new but rather with falling back into bad habits.
I let other people’s agendas, perceptions, and perspectives cloud my own mind.
I want to see if I can build something of my own. Create art that makes people smile and makes the world a little bit of a friendlier place, even if just for a few minutes. And earn a living with it.
But what happened slowly since I left KARAKTER and more so in the past two weeks since I ended my “take it easy -vacation period” is that I let other people tell me that I won’t be able to earn money with my own art, that thus I should do something different. >> Oh it’s nice art, but I would never pay for that. <<, >>There’s no money in making people happy. … <<. That I’m such a good freelance artist, why would I not want to join their project? There’s a team that needs art direction, why not take it over since I obviously don’t have anything better lined up? I should do monsters, I should do character skins, do Riot-style, do mobile, women 50+ target audience, serious cute realism stylized military casual ….. Because I can do all of those things, other people want me to do those things and thus I should do them.
Which led to me doing “preemptive commissioned” portfolio work. Every morning I got up with the goal of creating another artwork that would catch attention and get me commission work. I was working feverishly, manically. I was doing work for unknown internet people that I had no interest in myself and I wasn’t even getting paid for it. I tunnel-visioned towards “You’re only worth something if the next artwork you do is something cool that other artists and game companies will like”.
Read that again.
“You’re only worth something if … other (people) will like”.
I’m so thankful that through therapy, personal training, coaching, and a lot of work on my part I have learned to catch myself before slipping too far down this spiral. Those steps down are so familiar though, I walked this path so often, so many times. That dark place is still far easier to get to and feel at home than to believe in me and let myself feel happy.
I need to find a way to keep my own ideas in focus, to not let myself be distracted by other people so easily. Maybe physical whiteboards or something.
Coincidentally, it’s suicide prevention week in the USA. As good a time as any to reach out to the people around you and ask how they’re doing.
On Monday I challenged myself with another random drawing exercise.
I created a list of various attributes, gave each item a number, then went online to rolladie.net to randomly select two items out of the list, and ended up with the following two attributes: Brawl Stars | Tiefling
Brawl Stars refers to the hit mobile game “Brawl Stars” from Supercell, Tiefling refers to a race from Dungeons & Dragons.
I decided to draw a Tiefling character that stylistically, complexity-wise might fit into the game Brawl Stars.
I went to donjon.bin.sh to create a set of random Tiefling character descriptions, picked one from which I took the name and some other features, and then got drawing.
On Monday evening I saw someone post title card sketches on Instagram, which then led me to do this drawing on Tuesday.
