Who stole my fortnight?

Good evening fellow life-onoughts, I hope these words find ye well!

It has been 2 weeks now since the last update, and I decided to update even though I dont ahve any visceral goodness to share. The reason for this is purely business - everything I have painted for the last two weeks is under non-disclosure and haven't had free time for any personal paintings. I have been doing plenty of personal train-of-thought sketching, self portraits, studies etc but these are mostly traditional and in lieu of finding my digital camera these shall have to wait.

Last night marked the conclusion of a good 7 weeks of work I have been doing to define the new art style for the flagship title at Epiphany Games (Champions is the OLD IP and not the new one!). I have found the challenge of defining 'rules' for an art style from the ground up to be quite time consuming, not to mention having to concurrently produce art that 'fits' the style.

The result of my efforts was a 250 page document accompanied by 37 paintings that provides the complete authoritative definition and guidelines for the art style of our unique IP. The advantage in having this is not limited to continuity within the game itself, but also to a broader application of the IP should it be deemed appropriate.

The 37 paintings were fun to do and I love the freedom of working in a setting of my own dictate... I am dealing with a genre and themes that I have loved since I was a child. Pursuant to this I have also been getting serious with my traditional painting (inspiration off the back of receiving Shawn Barber's DVD). I also bought Alla Prima by Richard Schmid which is a font of knowledge, and I have been soaking that up by candlelight.

I seem to have struck a happy balance between my commercial and personal endeavours, establishing a harmony that lets me pay the bills and still retain artistic integrity and develop my own visions.

In addition to the Art Style work for Epiphany, i have also been working on my other regular freelance work for the 'Lascivio Project' which is tightly under wraps, but I can tell you its scifi and it is allowing me to flex some muscles in departments outside my comfort zone (particularly, straight lines!). They are a good client.

And also more beach scenes for Popcorn Events which i can post up as i do them.

As for the remainder of my time in the past two weeks it has been pretty chilled, I have stayed away from partying so I can save up a bit of money and repay my debt to the sleep bank which has been good. Its also allowed me to maintain my drive to paint and I have raised the bar on my productivity which is a refreshing feeling of progress (knowing I can get stuff done!).

I did check out Earthdance which had a cool dub tent on a hill made out of the cockpit of a troop carrier plane... that was pretty cool but the rest of the festival sucked. Been to an exhibition or two but nothing work writing home about.

Also I met a girl (I was sketching her in a bar near to my house) from France and we hit it off and enjoyed an intense but brief week together and then made the executive decision not to get too wrapped up in each other because each of us has a dedication to our art and creative pursuits that at this time does not suit a 'relationship' lifestyle. However I have made a good friend and a deep connection with Miss Elfie Kiss and I'm sure our stories will continue to intertwine. I have found it interesting that I walk a knife edge between craving the connection and trust of a relationship with someone who understand my lifestyle and my need to paint daily, but whenever I find myself in that position I feel restricted in my ability to connect with new people (which I value as highly important to my art - similar to Marko's view on life). I think it is a matter of feeling that relationships make me 'comfortable' which is in antithesis to my need for (healthy) challenge to progress as an artist.

Anyhow thats about it for the past two weeks. Time is freeing up and I will be able to get some personal painting done which I will post up forthwith. Also sounds like last man standing 3 will be kicking off soon which will be a good opportunity to spend a longer period of time than usual on a painting and produce some finished art.

Take care, share the love etc
A xx