did you know making things is fun?
when i was much younger, i spent a lot of time drawing. mostly i was drawing my favorite characters from manga or anime or cartoons--i cannot tell you how many times i drew Hatori Sohma from Fruits Basket but it was definitely a lot--but sometimes i drew original things. the one that comes to mind first is a small child with psychokinetic powers and who also happened to live in a very cold climate. there's also the green-skinned Hot Topic kid who, for some inexplicable reason, i named "Mark."
i don't know. it's funny that i used to think of myself as being a pretty "creative" person but i think if i were being very uncharitable, i would just call myself "derivative." it's easy to dunk on someone who can never fight back nor atone for their sins.
anyway. i was also turbo depressed at that age. well, "at that age" is perhaps a bit inaccurate considering it didn't really go away. but you know what did, in my twenties? my desire to make things. completely obliterated it. and it SUCKED. i think the worst part is that i felt some kind of shame or guilt for not drawing anymore, or for not writing (because i also wrote fanfic) or so on and so on.
and it's still hard! i still feel inadequate because i don't DO things. it's so hard to do more than exist sometimes. but sometimes i get a little inkling of a thought. a voice that says "you should do this." and this week i actually listened. i didn't wait for the interest to pass, as often happens. i just went for it. and in this case it was downloading and making things in blockbench.
i actually really like low-poly art as well as pixel art. maybe it's because of the time i grew up in and the games i was exposed to. i had always thought it was hard to break into--i remember thinking as a kid that i was shit at any type of 3D art and could only draw, maybe sometimes illustrate--and so i never really tried. but something about blockbench struck me, and i worked my way through the truck tutorial so i could get a grasp on the program. and reader, it was fun. it was SO much fun to make that silly little truck that actually has a malformed front face and is too small to paint nicely and by some mysterious coincidence i painted discord blurple.
so i made more stuff.
i have had so much fun making these things and showing them to people. i got a bit misty-eyed seeing how many people liked the master sword in particular. i want to make even more things--i have some ideas cooking in my head--but i also had a sudden inspiration to try making music. i've never really made music before; it was always a bit of an intimidating thing to me. but i followed that voice again! i made a beepbox song. i don't know that it's very GOOD, but it has some elements in it that i really like.
there are more things i want to make--more low-poly models, of course, but also some 2D pixel art and...uhh...a whole game in bitsy maybe?? and, you know. there's a short comic kicking about too, that i have more seriously thought about all this week after reading some of the original moomin books with tove jansson's incredible illustrations. but most of all, i'm just...glad. i'm glad that i can still make things. i'm glad that part of myself isn't gone forever, a casualty of mental illness.
what should i make next?
secret side note i should really write another game review for you all, maybe for klonoa or sayonara wild hearts or we know the devil. dunno yet.