Game Art Buddies

 Haven’t been on this thing in about a decade now I think. Im hearing that the process behind the work is almost as important as the work itself so I thought I’d give it a go. 

I’ll start with my latest piece and decide on how to proceed later.

The title of this one is “Tally ho”. I came up with this imagery, as I do with most of my recent work, from morning pages or stream of consciousness writing. This is where you wake up and start writing without stopping for around 20 minutes. I never last that long but it’s a good base. I wont include the writing because it’s embarrassing as hell and the end purpose is not to have good writing but to get past the conscious judgy part of your brain. It never makes any sense, at least as Im doing, After this I go over it and see what inspires me visually. In this case the writing included references to Minotaurs, fox hunters, and japan. I began drawing on my iPad. As i draw I start looking for reference, Its my illustrators side taking over..reference is big in this world.. this is where i decided to take it to canvas:

At this point I had some solid ideas and had found some meaning in the words I wrote. Elliot, my older son, recently moved out. I had designed his room with a mural of the Japanese painting of the “The great wave off Kanagawa” I had imagined at the time that this was going to be a place he would spend at least the years left until he had a career and was ready for an adult life. It didn’t turn out this way though. Earlier this year he sprung the news on me. He was moving in with his girlfriend and I was given a months notice. I never imagined how hard it would be. I cant go in that room without feeling the loss. The Minotaur came after. I never really payed much attention to Greek or Roman mythology in high school but this character made me curious. Why did that word come up? When I read about the Minotaur, I read about how he’s trapped in a labyrinth and It felt like me. Trapped in a world that I didn’t and still dont know exactly how to move on from. I’ve spent so many years as a father now that I can hardly remember being excited about life without my boys. There’s a secondary fear that Elliot will move to Japan. He loves everything about it. It reminds me of myself and my romantic vision of Spain. Im happy for him and will be excited for him when he does finally manage to find a way to make some kind of livening there but its still scary as hell. The skull came later. I didn’t like the way the head looked. It looked kind ove evil and kind of cartoony for what I was wanting. Texas tends to be represented by bull and cow skulls so this cam out of the idea. A Texas Minotaur. In the end is the fox hunter. This is my future. It’s a fox that represents a few things to me. Art, Adventure, Sexuality, etc. It’s out there but following it will be a scary venture. So Tally ho!