“The Artist is Absent” artwork for JS’s GDC2019 talk

Edit 17th Sept 2021: Please read Noni’s account (and many more) on being emotionally abused, isolated and manipulated by Jenny here. Please listen to their voices.

Original post that didn’t age well:

I worked with the lovely, supportive Jenny [her website] for her part in the GDC lightning game design talks! I’m sure her talk did wonderfully yesterday! 😀

She was super understanding as I’ve been getting used to freelancing and the whole process again. I need to make things more efficient. I’ll slowly get my head around freelancing in several months time :’)

It’ll just be my silly commentary here so I’m afraid you won’t get the real context of Jenny’s talk here. So please do check out her talk once it goes online at the GDC Vault! 😀 Edit: I think this is is!

I also did her slides during the last time she did a talk in 2017 here.

Jenny pondering on important questions.

Puppies! <3

Talking and collaborating through cool ideas and feelings. :0

Subjective opinions everywhere? :0 Find out in her actual talk ;P

Game Designer dances!

Game Designer dancing at high levels! She said it was her favourite slide hehe.

Being alone in Journey.

A like-minded friend appears! <3 I played this game personally at least ;P

Splicers gonna get ya!

I’ve watched the Bioshock series being played before but characters themselves are not really clear due to the dark lighting of the overall game – I had to depend on concept art. :0 This depiction is probably not accurate but I did the best I could :’)

Splicers missing their shots!

Nathan Drake doing intricate and lifelike movements as he climbs. I didn’t know this – it’s so cool! [Uncharted series]

Yay you’re getting there Nathan! I watched some Nathan Drake climbing videos haha

Rooftop moment [Assassin’s Creed].

Gosh need to regain some health right now! I watched someone play the first game of the series for a bit to figure out how to approach this one.

Let’s come together and catch’em pokemon! [Pokemon GO] I only played this when it first came out and was doing it alone in contrary to what’s depicted here :’)

Psst! Whispering creative, game development secrets.

Points are being made!! You will find out in the recording if you weren’t at the talk [like me]! ;D

Go watch her talk if you’re confused ;D

Process & freelancing thoughts

I spent too much time on these than I should, as usual with almost all of my freelancing projects so far. Ah well, I want quality in my work!! :’)

I sketched and then illustrated over these with two passes and then I saved them out. I didn’t add colour because that’s what it’s supposed to be! Last time I did slides, I had some colour but I went overboard, crunched, deprived myself of sleep, powered through and overworked myself back then. And I’ve crunched myself hard during my last Mighty project too, of my own accord mid last year.

Trying to avoid doing that where possible nowadays. I’m too tired and I don’t do my best work anyway. It’s not worth hurting your mental and physical health for an illustration project. Striving to do my best rather than pushing myself to reach super high, over ambitious standards. All this will be a learning experience and mindful practice in itself since I’m quite stubborn at times to my own detriment.

It’s super hard for me to discern whats “good enough” and pace myself better. Allow myself to take my time and do my best work. And learn to quote higher if/when more commissions come in so I’m not underpaid. Well if they ever do!

I had a mix of fun and challenge doing this project as I drew tricky things like splicers, assassin’s creed art and dancing! Plus I got to have fun drawing Jenny, puppies and the Pokemon Go trainers 😀

Thank you so much again Jenny for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to work with you. <3

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