This is my fifth illustration for Drawrch - almost done with the first week, whew!
For this one, I used a tapered pen, but instead of the Baskerville pen I used one called the Studio Pen. I didn't really like how thick it got with so little pressure, but it wasn't too hard to control.
I also utilized Procreate's ability to do bilateral symmetry, so filling out the two sides of the drawing was pretty easy, and I only had to add a few asymmetrical details here and there, mostly at the end.
I'm not super happy with the colors now that I see the image on my computer, but that's what I get for working on my iPad in the dark, I guess. It looks kinda like a character portrait from a C-list video game.
Anyway, if you want to see how this one was made, here's the video:
I've always loved the art style of playing cards, and so I thought I'd do a less conventional view of one of the queens - having a beer!
I draw this while looking at a playing card, but the profile view is entirely my own. It's not perfect, but the proportions are decent. I went with tapered lines again too, though it's a bit less obvious than the last drawing. It actually caused a few issues with the geometry of the bottle and the finer details on the bottle's neck label - I will have to find (or make) a brush to use that can handle those types of details without breaking too hard from the sharp edges of the main brush.
For my third Drawrch illustration, I wanted to try something a little different from my normal cartoons.
Usually, I don't draw with tapered lines. I love it when artists use them, but I haven't practiced it much myself, so I have a hard time controlling the width of the lines as I draw. Concentrating on regulating the pen pressure isn't something that comes naturally to me; when I work with physical materials, I almost always use a gel ink pen, and I press uniformly hard.
My lack of experience with tapered lines also means that I often have to spend a lot of time thinking about where lines should begin/end, where they should taper off, where I can get away with splitting broad strokes in two, etc.
So I thought I'd give myself a small challenge today and draw with tapered lines. I used a brush called Baskerville, which creates very sharp edges. It also has some extreme stroke smoothing that took a little getting used to.
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with this brush. It may become a part of my standard brushes.
As always, here's a time-lapse of my progress creating this illustration:
I am not going to do many drawings with this level of detail for Drawrch! But I have to do one every now and then just for practice.
I'm not particularly good at rendering lifelike faces, and I draw this one without a reference. It's not meant to have realistic proportions, but it is meant to look more real than, say, my first Drawrch illustration.
Here's the time-lapse of this one, which is probably one of the longest time-lapses I've made in Procreate so far!
I've been kind of wanting to do another month-long art project for a while, but every time I start one it immediately begins feeling like a burden every day.
It's weird, because when I'm actually doing the work, I'm in the creative zone and genuinely enjoying myself. But the brainstorming leading up to each piece - especially on days that are busy - can give me low-level anxiety.
So March begins tomorrow and I might just start a new project. We'll see how I'm feeling then, I guess!
2021 was a weird year for video games. Lots of games saw their schedules or their quality slip because of complications from coronavirus or working-from-home complications. Some mainstays were still great though, and there were some surprise hits as well.
This is a list, in no particular order, of my favorite games that I played in 2021.
Psychonauts 2
I almost always enjoy Double Fine's games, and I had (mostly) fond memories of the original Psychonauts, so I was pretty hyped for the sequel when it finally arrived.
It turned out incredible, with just about everything that made the original a good experience made even better this time - and with all the niceties I've come to expect from modern games thrown on top.
The game has the comedic tone that you'd expect from a Double Fine/Tim Schafer game, but there's also a gentleness and kindness to it that I really appreciated this last year.
Forza Horizon 5
The Forza Horizon series is consistently amazing, and the fifth game continues that tradition. I'm still having a lot of fun with this game, and being able to visit a virtual microcosm of Mexico during a time when, for various reasons, travel like that is all but impossible for me, was a treat.
Halo Infinite
I got into Xbox with the Gears of War franchise, so Halo has never really been my thing. I've mostly kept up with them and played them just out of duty of being an Xbox owner, but only a few of them have really grabbed me for long bits of time.
Halo Infinite has been a blast though. I haven't written about it much here yet, but I played through the campaign and really liked grappling everywhere and exploring the open world. Multiplayer, especially with friends, feels solid and is a lot of fun - even if we're just chilling out chatting while playing in the background.
I'm looking forward to playing the campaign again with co-op, and digging into multiplayer more in 2022.
Life Is Strange: True Colors
I've been a fan of the Life Is Strange games since the original released back in 2015. And though I'm still slowly working my way through the second game, I was taken by the trailer for True Colors and had to play it as soon as it launched.
It's a fantastic game with an interesting story, good writing/characters, and a bump in the underlying tech that helped make the experience even more immersive. It might be my favorite game in the series now - but the remastered original will be out in 2022, so we'll see how that lasts.
Myst
I think I've probably bought at least four or five copies/versions of Myst over the years. It was one of the first games I ever experienced on PC from a CD-ROM, and I have fond memories of spending many hours clicking around trying to solve the various puzzles the game offers. Seeing the game be remastered in Unreal was enough to sell me on buying yet another copy, and this one hit Xbox on Game Pass, so I didn't even have to do that.
I still remember the solutions to a lot of the puzzles, so it was neat that this game included a mode where many of the puzzles are randomized, so you have to tease out the solution regardless of familiarity.
I had a really good time wandering around Myst Island and its library of ages once more. Now I just hope Cyan Worlds can do the same treatment for Riven someday!
The Forgotten City
The Forgotten City surprised me. I knew a little bit about its history - that it started life as a Skyrim mod - and while that told me a lot about what to expect in terms of gameplay, it also made me expect it to be janky in the way only Skyrim could be.
I probably wouldn't even have tried the game out, were it not on Game Pass - but I'm glad that I did! Firing it up for the first time, I was quite impressed with things. This is a time loop game, and after running through a few rounds, I was hooked. The story is interesting and the setting is just big enough to contain things without meandering.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
As I get older I have less and less time for giant games, and it takes a lot of mental effort to really get into them. But like visiting an old favorite place, I slid right into Mass Effect with little friction, and managed to play through all three games in the original trilogy in succession.
It was a great time to run through them again, and I learned that my initial thoughts on the second and third games were pretty wrong. I had such a good time playing these games that I ended up (finally) playing through Mass Effect: Andromeda later as well!
Orcs Must Die! 3
A friend of mine, who I had played the original Orcs Must Die! with, clued me into this one, and I picked it up to play with him.
OMD3 is one of those games that you don't expect to be great, but it kinda is. Everything feels very polished (aside from maybe the menus). The music slaps. I just wish there were more!
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
There are a couple games in my list that are technically not from 2021, but they launched on Xbox in 2021, so that's when I played them. Disco Elysium is one of them, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I had picked it up on PC when it launched, but didn't have time to play it then - and I'm glad that I didn't. The Xbox version came with the "Final Cut" improvements that rolled out some time after the initial release, and it includes one massive change to the original: spoken dialogue for the entire game. Disco Elysium is very text-heavy, and so this made it almost into an interactive audiobook of sorts.
That sells the game a little short on its production, since the visuals and music are incredible as well. It was one of my favorite game experiences of 2021, and I can't wait to see what ZA/UM, the studio behind the game, does next.
Octopath Traveler
This is the second technically-not-from-2021 game on my list, but it also launched on Xbox in 2021, so here it stays.
Octopath Traveler is also another game that I knew would take many, many hours to finish, and so I was very reluctant to even buy it. I had it on my wishlist at the Nintendo Switch eShop since it was announced, but never pulled the trigger on it.
Then it suddenly appeared on Xbox, and on Game Pass, and I had to try it. It turned out to be a good game to take small bites out of, and I ended up completing a leg or two of each of the eight travelers' journeys every time I played.
I believe I stopped playing it at over 100 hours, but I still have a lot of grinding to do before I can even think about completing the really tough after-end-game stuff. I'll probably end up buying it if it leaves Game Pass in the meantime, just so I can keep it in my back pocket for a rainy day.
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Alright, now we're really out of bounds for 2021, I know. But this is a list of games I enjoyed in 2021, and I can't not mention a few.
I loved the original Mafia, even though it was a deeply flawed game. It came out twenty years ago, and I can still hum the music from it. One of my college roommates has nightmares about it.
It was a cool game, though, and I bought the remastered trilogy in 2020, but never got started on it until the following year. I'm glad I did though, because the Definitive Edition of Mafia is incredible.
It's honestly more of a re-imagining than a definitive edition. It loosely follows the story of the original game, and crosses many of the same paths, but all of the art, music, and voicework was entirely re-done. I did miss the old actors a bit, and the new music wasn't nearly as memorable. But better controls, a better save system, and all the other modern touches make the tradeoff worth it.
Monster Train
I really enjoyed Slay The Spire a few years ago, but I only managed to get to the Heart at the end a few times, and I always felt like the game was a bit too difficult for me. A friend of mine recommended Monster Train, and I ended up really liking it. It's a very similar game to Slay The Spire, but each run takes way less time and the game just generally moves quicker. Plus, I feel like I actually recognize a lot of the synergy between cards in this game, and so it's one of my go-to casual games whenever I need a little palette cleanser.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
I wrote a lot about this game during the year, but I had to mention it here again because I am so impressed by it.
Mass Effect: Andromeda was a game that I started right when it launched, got bored with it and distracted by some of the flaws, and ended up abandoning. The thought of trying it again someday lingered, but I knew I had to after finishing the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition trilogy.
I gave it another earnest try, and I'm glad I did - even though it feels much different from the other games, it's actually a really interesting experience and - especially now that many of the rough edges have been patched over the years - it's definitely worth playing for anyone looking for a good science fiction action RPG.
Well, I'm a little disappointed in myself - I had a 109 day streak going posting on my blog here, and I accidentally broke it yesterday because I forgot to post something!. It had been going since August, when I started doing my Drawgust posts!
Oh well - so it goes. Now the pressure's off, I guess!
I've got that tingly feeling again... my fingers want to do something creative! But they're currently in the middle of cranking out some comps for a prospective client in Blender.
That's sort of creative. But it's also a lot of technical problem-solving that isn't as fun.
I've put in a handful of rounds in the Halo Infinite's Big Team Battle mode now, and all I can say is that it's chaotic fun.
The maps are just the right size that you don't need to run very far to get back into the battle, and there's just enough anonymity in the amount of players that you can't really blame any one person for a bad match.
I had a blast riding machine-gunner on a Warthog as my teammate tried to run down enemy players.
I'm looking forward to more maps in the future, and (hopefully) just plain getting better at this!
