March of the Daffodils
I finally get around to writing some news
It’s almost the last day of March as I write this. The crocuses are already over and the daffodils are taking over their manor. The mud is still knee deep in places in the woods but the birds don’t care, they’re making a real racket down there. Ever since the New Year I’ve been meaning to actually write an update to justify people subscribing to this newsletter.
If it’s too long or boring, or if you want me to expand on anything in particular, please let me know? Thanks.
So here we go with some news. First up from the world of client work.
Teach Your Monster: Adventurous Eaters
Back, way back in the Before Times, at the start of 2020, I was fortunate enough to get involved with the people at the Usborne Foundation and Teach Your Monster Games. I joined a small development team to make a game for pre-school children that encourages them to try different kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables. The brief was, and remains, to encourage young kids to try new foods without being didactic or preach-y. If a child tries a food that they previously would not consider, that’s a success. We had to find a balance between providing an experience that is educative (with real world references) and F-U-N. It’s been a real challenge. I’ve lost count of the number of iterations we have made to the game. We had a few ‘back to the drawing board’ moments, and there were times I wondered if we would ever get the game to the point of release. We are a tiny team with limited resources. However, in January this year we released Adventurous Eaters on iOS, Android and Web. To date, the game has had millions of plays, so it does feel that we’re meeting a need. Kids seem to like it, so of ‘em love it.
What did I do?
I was the visual designer and animator for Adventurous Eating. Due to the small size of our team (a programmer, a product manager and myself were the core team) I ended up with a hand in may of the creative processes, including game design, script writing and song lyrics.
I do plan to write something in-depth about the art and animation workflow I helped to develop for Adventurous Eating and Teach Your Monster’s Number Skills. In brief, because we needed expressive monster characters that we could zoom in on (to see eating animation and the monster’s expressions) we chose to use Blender to develop a 2.5D style cut-out animation system. All the art assets were exported to SVG, imported into Blender’s 3D workspace, rigged, animated and then exported to Unity 3D game engine via FBX files. That’s leaving out all the new stuff I had to learn about game asset workflow and all the scarily technical problems it can throw up. In the end, it’s a good system which I would consider using again. I’ve also had quite a few moments of hindsight where I would perhaps do things differently. All in all the project has been an incredible learning experience.
We’ll be updating Adventurous Eating soon with a fun, much-requested feature. I am working on it now with the team, and hopefully the update will be out soon.
There are some visuals from the game over on my Artstation portfolio. Elsewhere on the portfolio are some of the 3D character tests I made for Teach Your Monster.
Other freelance projects
There have been some, one of them using Flash. Yes! Flash! But they’re subject to an NDA so I can’t say nothin’ about anythin’. Sad face.
Lecturing
I’m no longer an Associate Lecturer in 2D Animation at Falmouth University. I really loved lecturing there. I really did not love the politics and business behind the university. But hey, most of the students were an absolute delight (as were one or two of the staff) and I miss telling them repeatedly to ‘concentrate on their key drawings and timings before anything else’. And telling them to stop watching YouTube while I droned on and on.
Would I do it again? Somewhere else, if they’d have me? Absolutely!
Personal projects
Over the last few years I’ve been working mainly on one project to pay the bills. For my mental and creative health I’ve started a couple of very small personal game projects. It’s very early days on both, and I haven’t been talking about them to anyone except one or two colleagues and the dog (in the brief times he is awake). It’s difficult to maintain momentum on personal projects, no matter how small, but it’s incredibly important to keep making progress. Even if it’s tiny steps. It certainly is tiny steps for me at the moment. The good news is I think I’ve found a workflow that allows me to work on my projects while slumped on the sofa in the evenings. Essentially I try to do all my art tasks on a tablet (I was using an iPad and Clip Studio Paint, but I’ve switched to a Samsung S6 Lite for file-sharing and Apple Hatin’ reasons). Here’s a recent Insta post which is Actual Concept Art from one of the projects:
Using a tablet, I can draw concept stuff and also make 2D animation assets. Then I switch over to my laptop when working with the game engine. This workflow is dictating the tools I use to some extent. Clip Studio Paint seems to work on every single device under the sun, which means shring files is a doddle. I love Procreate. It is simply the best drawing experience on a tablet, bar none. But it is also iOS only and I just don’t get on with iOS as an operating system for Actual Work. So I’m sticking to Clip Studio Paint. If Blender ran on an Android tablet, I’d use Grease Pencil. Alas, it doesn’t.
Final thoughts, for now
One of my motivations for creating this newsletter was to record my thoughts on being a commercial artist in an increasingly crazy world. You know what I’m talking about: AI and stuff. But I think others are talking about much more coherently than I could and I will leave it to them. I’ll say this about AI, and AI art tools in particular:
AI art tools are about one thing only: Money
Commercial artists (illustrators, animators, games artists, graphic designers) will lose work to AI art software. Studios and corporations will not think twice about using faster / cheaper / ‘better’ tools than actual humans.
There will undoubtedly be exceptions to the above. The more exceptions the better.
I would not recommend anyone seeking a career as a commercial artist until they were clear what they are up against.
I am usually terrible at predicting the future. I thought the iPod was ‘pointless’.
Currently I am reading / playing / watching
Books
The History of the American Civil War: No laughs yet
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Dee Wallace): Harrowing. Amazing. But mostly harrowing
At Swim-Two-Bird (Flann O’Brien): Some great laughs between the opaque wordplay
The One Ring RPG rule book: A thing of wonder and beauty
Tamiya Remote Control Car Catalogue 2024: Ditto
Games
PC / Steam Deck
Tunic (my Game of the Decade)
TOEM (delightful)
Yoku’s Island Express (replay)
Circuit Superstars (strong Micro Machines flavour)
Vampire Survivors (everyone else is doing it)
Switch
Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Mostly brilliant, occasionally maddening. Maybe my favourite Zelda)
Breath of the Wild (I’m very late to the party. I think I will always prefer 2D Zeldas)
Films
Decision to Leave (it’s about Love and soft shelled turtles? Really good 9/10)
Avatar: The Way of Water (well, it was a lot of wet fun 8/10)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Love it, despite the saggy middle 8/10)
That’s all for now. Apologies that it’s quite long. If you got this far, well done. Here’s a picture of the dog in a rare moment of wakefulness:
