I confess, I had been filling my brain with too many thoughts of business, but I draw the line at brainstorming marketing fluff in an attempt to find people who will enjoy my creations. How could we find ourselves in the next realities if we misrepresent ourselves?
There's also the paradox of needing to be seen by as many eyes to increase our chances of finding ourselves in other realities, while hiding our personalities from the public eye because we are naturally very private. I guess this is where our creations serve as a language that we do find comfortable expressing our true thoughts. By seeing our concoction of finished projects, perhaps you'll know us better.
Anyhow, I'm so excited for the next project we'll be able to release. Originally it was going to be a different art piece, but somehow we found ourselves finishing this one first. Here is the sketch, which was inspired by the Keeper's Shrine in Black Myth: Wukong.
Meanwhile, my partner started to learn how to make lofi music so that we can be our own little lofi channel that makes all of the music and art in-house. On my end, I needed to add a looping animation for the smoke, falling flower petals, candle flame, and background smoke/clouds. I used the following amazing tutorials:
Since I have aphantasia, I really do have to rely on putting the lines down to visualize what I'm thinking about. I partly believe that a lot of artists out here are almost a form of AI art, in either the designs we pump out or our design process. For example, if I was to draw this piece several years ago, in the research and inspiration phase, I would look up "Chinese rosewood furniture details" and then slap together random dragon, flower, and lattice designs because that's what's commonly seen in the search results. However, since AI art became so prevalent, I realized that I would be no better than AI. In response, I started to research the origins of the symbols and motifs. I'm out here looking up auctions items in the thousands of dollars to try and see close-up pictures some museum websites are too lazy to offer. From this journey, I reached the conclusion that even Chinese furniture makers would make the mistake of slapping random design elements together. I found myself looking into art history articles and books, as well as examining the original designs with a closer eye - there must be a reason for every decision.
After this research, I felt more confident in drawing my version of a Chinese outdoor altar. To match 孙悟空's ability to fly on a cloud, I chose cloud motifs instead of generic flower designs seen in the 红木 furniture. When I did draw flowers, it would be of peaches or lotus flowers. I chose drawing a phoenix over a dragon because the game flirts with the theme of rebirth. When the line art looked flat, I remembered that this is a drawing of carvings in wood, which would be three-dimensional, so I would fix the line art on the side pillars and add shading. Of course, I still doodled at some parts, so the overall design was not entirely meticulously crafted.
I didn't used to draw like this. I'm glad I've somehow unlocked this layer of thought.