🧺🌳Banner art for the new official Crossy Road Central Discord (with art boss’s help)! πŸ•πŸ¦„πŸ”πŸˆβ€β¬›πŸ¦†πŸ–πŸŽπŸ“– Blender learning & anxiety with recording & streaming

Much kudos to the incredible art boss Alice Walsh for her feedback & Blender render pass!! πŸ¦„πŸ”πŸˆβ€β¬›πŸ¦†πŸ–πŸ¦’πŸ•πŸŽπŸ¦™πŸ‘πŸ‡πŸΏοΈπŸ’πŸ§πŸ¦©

And many thanks to Sara too for the support! And credits to James for the CrossyRoadCentral logo/title!

Originally I did this 3D illustration from scratch on my own with the characters and environment in MagicaVoxel (and figuring it out) but the rendering aesthetics/style didn’t work out. Originally the top and right side was more cropped out but perhaps that was too claustrophobic haha

After doing some iterations with art director Alice’s feedback, Alice did a Crossy Road-esque colour and render pass over it and finished it up in Blender (really fast) because we were running out of time! Her help was super appreciated as I didn’t/don’t have the time to learn Blender with the other things I’m juggling with right now :’)

Anyhoo I am happy with my picnic in the park voxel illustration! It took me under a period of two or so weeks of concepting and making voxel assets from scratch (noting that I’m part time) and then 1.5 weeks waiting for feedback or doing render iterations in between juggling other tasks.

Some day I’ll learn Blender dun dun dun

I need months and considerable time in the future to slowly get my head around Blender anyway. I used to be someone who avoids 3D (because I didn’t have the interest or purpose) but now I’m probably doing it in the future and when there’s time because I do have intention and the positive encouragement now haha

I will avoid rigging, rigged/puppet animation, realistic sculpting and realistic 3D art styles though as that turned me off from 3D in the past. Maybe there’s some other 3D realistic things I didn’t enjoy but I don’t remember at the moment.

Again I do plan to blog about my Blender learning journey when the time comes in the future and I might not crosspost and keep it only here instead…not sure. It’ll depend on if I want to be more discreet or not with my not so great 3D art and practice – I don’t have to post everything on platforms :’) Some artists who are learning/teaching Blender are inspiring!

Yes even if 2D illustration and character doodling is what I enjoy the most, I am curious on whether I can do cute things with Blender one day. Or just fail spectacularly at it since I remember not being happy and frustrated with my 3D Maya work over a decade ago. And wanted the semi/realistic 3D art making to be over.

3D is another beast to learn and I need to stick to ways/styles/approaches that keep me interested. I’m not sure what that is yet since I have yet to begin. I also want to learn and practice illustration, character design, anatomy, traditional art and fanart things so ahhhh :0

The full 3D illustration!

There are more characters hanging behind the title as I wanted it as a bonus thing as seen above :0!

This is just like what a positive discord community would be!

I did lots of Crossy characters in social groups and solo peeps in the park hanging out and busy with their own activities! I wanted cute picnic shenanigans and made sure to mix up both Crossy Road and Crossy Road Castle characters together. I wish I had time to add cram in more characters (like Where’s Wally/Waldo) but I didn’t have the time as the release date fluctuated.

But again happy how it turned out! πŸ˜€

The official Crossy Road discord was public last week!

Only join if you’re interested in Crossy news, sharing tips, making game suggestions & the community! [tweet IG]

Over 11k people so far in its first week whoa!!

Note I’m not “HW staff” because I can’t verify with the same phone number for my alt work discord account. I also don’t want my personal discord account to mix with work. I’m not too bummed by not being able to chat/comment though. So if you’re there, don’t expect me to say anything…because I can’t!

Instead I’ll just lurk, emote react randomly and not stress about having to comment. I’ll take time away if it becomes too overwhelming – as a chronically online, lurking hermit :’)

Thoughts so far from the server (please note my words do not represent my employer!!):

  • a lot of the fanart was cute, happy, positive and nice!!
  • chatter was mostly positive and people helping, greeting and encouraging each other!
  • a bunch of great game suggestions too where people can upvote!
  • there was a handful of trolling, toxic rule pushing/breaking, fixing/”doing better” disrespectfully over people’s art without permission and spammy stuff
    • most got and will keep getting handled and it’s not surprising given how huge the server is :’)
  • a bunch of adjustments were made/will keep being made along the way by the hard working moderation team!

Anyhoo I think the server will eventually calm down from the launch. And most are also lurkers? It’s too soon to say. It is a scary amount of people though so please know that the moderation team is doing their best! More and more people learn about the server and then talk about when they started playing Crossy or Castle and how many days, months, years it has been haha

Anxious with real time recordings, streaming and how to videos

I reflect and ramble on why it bothers me…hmm

  • I’m like a cornered, anxious cat who’s not keen on real time streaming/recording and editing myself doing art
    • Weirdly enough I’m not talking about speed art timelapses that I already do since my art program does it for me and minimises dead air and editing for me
    • Still timelapses aren’t enough if it’s not highly edited as well but I’m not bothered to do that with every video I do
    • retention, exciting, overstimulating, attention grabbing editing is not for me on a consistent basis because it’s so much work, I don’t want to watch that kind of video all the time + I’m more of a slow and boring kind of pace ;P
    • there is a point where “retention editing” is not enough or too much and I leave the video because it’s either not for me after all or it’s more “content slop” to feed to the algorithm for consumption
    • you could argue my timelapses are low effort in the same vein but that’s all I could manage on my own and I do put in subtitles and ramble a bit about my process and thoughts in them :’)
  • Streaming and recording real time process is something I have to train and densensitise myself to do more if I intend to stream or make longer videos
    • it gives me anxiety, stress and feeling that I have to perform while I’m also trying to do the art too
    • at times it may keep me on task but it’s exhausting after a while and I’m not sure if it’s sustainable
    • especially if I’m dreading getting back to a piece knowing that it’ll be recorded and how it’ll be presented, cut up and edited as valuable “content” whether it be entertainment and/or inspiration/education
    • if I’m speaking I’m too anxious so I talk too fast and I’m always relieved and glad when it’s over so whelp :’)
  • perhaps I can make something I’ve done already from scratch, record that and talk things through instead since I can focus on presentation and not worry about coming up with and making the actual art simultaneously?
    • in hindsight it sounds like too much work trying to remember and redo what silly mistakes I did along the way
  • eventually I think I should record and desensitise myself if I intend to make longer videos…eep!
    • the pressures as an artist!
  • yeah at the same time I want to selfishly protect the fun, joy and art making process for myself and my own creative/arting inner world
    • and not add to my workload in order to feed the content machine/void
    • it’s for me and my self expression, interests and learning
    • also I’m just tense and uncomfortable if I know someone is watching me slowly work :<
  • (reminder to self: not everything has to be shown/posted/public on the internet too)
  • do I really want more people to copy and analyse me directly?
    • there’s already plenty of great artist tutorials out there and I don’t feel like I have anything to add nor that I’m interested in teaching – at best I show and document what I’m studying and learning haha
    • everyone has their own growing pains, perspective and interpretations too!
    • I think people would rather learn from someone who has more of an audience and established skillset than I do
  • also I don’t want to be another hustling artist tutorial person (and I am privileged to not have to do so at the moment to survive)
    • it’s also due to my past brief teaching career and conference experiences
    • preparation, presentations and teaching take too much emotional and mental energy and time (forever/months!!) out of me and I always burn out
    • I am not even a good presenter
    • I’m always learning so who knows
  • if I’m just doodling silly things to a theme and studying then I’m more fine with that since there’s a purpose and I’m not worried about making something polished for a video or stream
    • that’s what I plan to do when I get around to streaming or make a longer video! I’ll start off with studies without a mic (as I try to reassure myself)
    • we’ll see if I slowly grow my comfort zone and if it’s right for me and my well being or not

Also I’m pooped from working in intense bursts while in the flow and not being as productive with my personal art and learning things :<

So I hope my rambling is coherent. I don’t know if people will see my art and posts though :’)