Thursday, January 28, 2010

Artwork - Campaign Banner

I sat down yesterday afternoon to create a banner for my D&D campaign's website, this was the quick and dirty (B&W) version I whipped up just to lay things out:

Now that circle on the right I really wanted to appear like a black, oily liquid sphere, and the left is a horizon of stars, so I continued to work on a more finished version but in the end I think the black and white is still more evocative and interesting to look at. Here's the progress on the more detailed / color version:


I'm pretty happy with how the left side has turned out, though I may add some more haze in the blue areas, but I just don't think it has the same interest and feel to it as the B&W version.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Course of Life Recently

It's ironic that I recently wrote a guest blog article about getting a D&D campaign that has strayed back on track when my life has seemingly done the exact same thing. Unfortunately, it's not as easy and in my control as to how quickly I can get my life back "on track".

So I graduated from college, got a job in the career I wanted to have, got married, bought two cats and a dog, then last November got laid off because the construction industry (and the firm I was working for in particular) hit the crapper. Part of me is extremely relieved, because there were people who graduated and then worked at that firm for the next 25 years and that's never really a good career choice. All of that is behind me now, and I find myself with an overabundance of spare time and a plethora of hobbies which I'm slowly getting back into. The best hobby, which is also essentially a job (I put it on my resume) is writing for Critical Hits, which I have to say I'm very happy I'm getting back into. It helps that we have a handful of excellent new guest writers that just came on board and so if I don't contribute then I'd be lost in the crowd.

So I'm unemployed and even still having trouble getting my ass in gear with producing artwork. I need some solid goals, some discipline, and something that I still don't know what it is to get going. The good news is that I've drawn some things in the last couple of days, and I'm hoping to keep that going. So enough bullshit:

Goal #1 - Draw something and post it here every other day.
Goal #2 - Keep writing for CH at least once a week, but preferably 2-3 times a week (going well so far)
Goal #3 - Organize my art supplies to help with the drawing and to get into painting again
Goal #4 - Create one painting in February
Goal #5 - Read the books I want to read, finish Shadow Rising in February

There are some goals, we'll see how I accomplish them and what needs to change with me or my life to get my goals done.