It Took Long Enough To Nail Everything Down, But I Think Im Finally Done With My New Avatar. Working

It took long enough to nail everything down, but I think I’m finally done with my new avatar. Working on this was quite the learning experience!

WIP1: This was kind of the mockup stage. I knew the general shape I wanted, but I had no idea what specific colors to use, how to highlight the W effectively, whether the outline would work, etc.

WIP2: I changed the outline to a shadowy effect - I wanted it to look like a window into another world. This didn’t pan out so well, so I removed it in future iterations. Tried to refine the colors a bit more, but I still couldn’t figure them out.

WIP3: It was about this time that I realized I was basically going for a Material Design look, so I researched Google’s design documentation and a few tutorials on getting the shadows and colors to look right. 

WIP4: Decided to redo the geometry from scratch - some of the objects didn’t appear to be lined up quite right. I made it slightly smaller so that it could be comfortably resized to 100px. A friend suggested that the purple was too bright, so I toned it down to match the blues more closely. I also reduced the shadows because they were jumping out at me too much.

Final: I wanted the shadows to only draw along the W, so I redid the geometry again to add some shadow masks underneath the shapes. I also changed the cyan to be more blue than green, while still keeping it the same kind of relatively bright color. The results speak for themselves!

A drawing of the Mueller PLS, from Fast RMX

I’m kind of in a state of “AAAA I DREW THIS???? WHAT”

Even though the texturing didn’t turn out quite like I wanted it to (Mueller logo etc.) I’m still amazed at how well this turned out. Drawing is still kind of uncharted territory for me, and I was working with marker for the first time, so I had a lot to work against. I’m really inspired to draw more now that I know what I’m capable of!

me: *makes thing*

me: I hope people like this thing

people: Wow your thing is really great!

me: No, you're wrong, it's terrible, I'm awful at this

Tagged by @renattheend

Rules: Tag 20 followers you want to know better!!!

Name: William Star Sign: Taurus Gender: Male Height: 5′9″ Sexual orientation: Ace of Hearts Favorite color: Any shade of blue Time Right Now: 20:53 Current Location: My bed in my room Average Hours of Sleep: 7, but it varies wildly from 5 to 12 Lucky Number: 15 Last Thing I Googled: “XAMPP”, for a project for class Number of Blankets I Sleep Under: 2, a sheet and a comforter. Why would anyone need to know this? Are you trying to stalk me? Do you enjoy watching people sleep?

Favorite Fictional Characters: Kirby

Favorite Book: The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon), although it’s been a long time since I’ve really read anything. Dream Job: Youtube What I’m Wearing: Blue jeans with light blue graphic tee with unzipped blue/gray jacket. Did I mention my favorite color is blue Random Fact: aaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaa When Did You Create Your Blog: Q4 2012 Do You Have Other Blogs: @radioww, but I haven’t posted there in months. I don’t know if I’ll ever revive it. Who Is Your Most Active Follower: @thejonymyster, who would reply to literally every post I made while replies were still a thing. What Made You Get A Tumblr: I needed a place to write/vent/blog/subtweet/slash/post stuff. Do You Get Asks On A Daily Basis: I get asks on a yearly basis. Why Did You Choose Your Url: Because it’s my username.

Tagging YOU. Yeah, you, person reading this. (I don’t think 20 people will read this anyway, and anyone I can think to tag has done it already.)

A friend and I are running the gaming satire blog @nowuknowgaming! This is a pretty large-scale project, so I’m excited to share it. There will be a new Gaming Factoid™ every day!

If you follow the blog on Tumblr and Twitter I will love u 4ever 💙

In the Zelda fan game “Shadow of the Colossus,” the titular Colossi aren’t actually that large; they’re just in the foreground.

[Now U Know Gaming] For more gamer knowledge:

Recovery

Recovery has been a steady but very slow process.

Since moving back home, I’ve had plenty of time to rest and recover from the lovely college experience I had. My parents are taking good care of me, and I’ve had time to decompress and de-stress. In fact, there’s not been much of any stress here - I pretty much have free reign to work on anything I want to.

Yet I still find myself with little energy to actually do anything. Most days, I just... sit in bed. I know that’s enviable for a lot of people, but I’m not satisfied - I got stuff I wanna do! That said, I am still doing things, just not as much as I want to. I get things done on a weekly basis now, rather than a monthly basis - which is an improvement! But because it’s not a daily basis, I feel like I’m twiddling my thumbs and wasting time.

There are things that are going very well, however. One is that my creative energy is in full swing. I don’t think there’s been a single day since getting back that I haven’t come up with some grand new idea. The problem, then, is that most of them are going to waste, since I can’t get these ideas out of my head and into reality too reliably.

The second good thing is that my interest in my hobbies is coming back to me. While in college, there was a point where I almost completely stopped playing video games for a few months! Hard to believe, I know, considering everything else I do is steeped in them. But it felt like I could only “focus” on one thing at a time, and games were not that thing. Lately, everything’s coming back to me at once - drawing, designing, levels, mazes, even writing (to an extent). I just need to do it all more and stop sitting around.

In the end, college or not, I still struggle with the same old problem: I dream too much and work too little. That needs to change, somehow.