The Missing Sketchbook

The Missing Sketchbook

I finally found one of my missing sketchbooks last night! Naturally, my first instinct was to take pictures and post it online, lol. It's around ten years old, so I've forgotten about nearly everything that's in here – this is a big deal for me!

This is the first page??? I don't remember the context of this sketch, whether it was by reference or whatever – but I definitely don't remember ever drawing anything this complex. The fact that I even attempted it kinda blows my mind 🐲

Holy frick it's a redraw of a super old Kirby puzzle I made... Every row, column, and diagonal has something in common – can you figure them all out? (Probably not, some of the answers are really obscure details that I could never quite capture.)

Once again, I have no memory of ever drawing something this complex, but my inner 14-year-old's heart is fluttering with excitement. The Mario vs. Donkey Kong series was my first time really sinking my teeth into level design! But that's a story for another day...

Mini golf courses! These are fairly simple, but I was always fascinated by the design and gimmicks of a particular one I went to as a kid. There's a bunch more of these in the other sketchbook I'm missing, including one with a waterfall!

WAIT WHAT??? ANOTHER BIG PAGE????? And it has a bunch of redraws from the original AAAAAAAA

Okay, okay, before I get carried away, the Big Page was something I did in my first sketchbook where I would fill in a bunch of boxes with little Kirby scenes!

Here's what the original (four or so years prior) looked like – much bigger page, but much, MUCH smaller boxes, lol. I remember it being so hard to draw that small, looks like I corrected that mistake in the newer one. Maybe I should do this again sometime...

Wait? Wisps?? Sonic Colors???

counts out the years on my hands

Yeah I guess that adds up, doesn't it...

I did a lot of perspective drawings in this particular sketchbook – it was kind of a natural extension of the mazes I drew in my graph paper notebooks (which I always did way more of than sketches).

This one was a test for the next two...

SPACE! This scene was inspired by the later levels of Thruspace, which I can't seem to find screenshots of. I really loved how the walls open up as you go, and you start seeing more outside the tunnel.

I hope I can stream Thruspace one day, it's still near and dear to my heart.

This sketch helped me map out the image on the right – one of my first pieces of digital art! I'm still really proud of the concept behind it. No two pixels touch orthogonally... although one's missing from the digital version, whoops!

This was for Mario's 25th, ten years ago.

Here's some Mario items and enemies, to practice shading with just a pencil. Honestly, it wasn't "practice" at all – I just thought they looked cool like this, and I wanted to try it out in different ways. Whether it looked right didn't matter as much.

I really miss that mindset…

Some more assorted sketches:

A few Chao in various shapes and sizes. They sure are a diverse little species, aren't they?

A Zelda dungeon room – I don't remember how it works. I just remember wishing I could make whole dungeons! (Still do, honestly.)

Finally, here's the wackiest one of all: A concept for a rotating game system! Each of the four colored sections has a control stick, two buttons, and a "paddle" at the bottom (the colored-in part). There's also an accelerometer, so you could rotate it and play from any section!

One game might ask you to put one hand on either side, like a regular controller. Another might ask you to hold it from the bottom, like a Game Boy… but four people could hold it and play like that all at once! It's a little like the Switch's multiplayer, but pre-dated by nearly ten years!

I didn't really come up with any games for it, though – and in hindsight, I think it may be a little *too* out there for anything much more than the obvious:

A Platformer But With Gravity

Steering Wheel

WarioWare: Twisted

But I'm just amazed I came up with this at all.

———

Anyway, that's mostly it! This is a tiny sketchbook with 24 pages, and I've shown all the big stuff.

Drawing was usually a way for me to express ideas rather than practice quality, but I'm surprised by how much I tried to push my limits here – only to completely forget it all.

This was the last sketchbook I kept up with regularly, before being overtaken by "I can't draw, all my drawings suck" for several years... right as I had just started looking at quality on my own terms. Luckily, I'm starting to catch up again lately ✨

I'm still missing one other sketchbook in between this one and my first, but it might be lost to time – I knew this one was buried in a box somewhere, but the other had been missing for much longer. If I find it, we'll do this again!

In the meantime, back to drawing.

Moonshot Scaffold | SSG-R79-3HF

A treacherous ascent up a space elevator that's still under construction! As you go up, less of the elevator is constructed – meaning fewer platforms to catch you if you fall. One slip could send you tumbling back through the stratosphere...

now that i'm counting out everything that happened this year… what the literal shucks was 2020??? even for there being a pandemic and having to stay indoors, this is still the most high-velocity year i can remember since college – but, unlike college, not all of it was bad.

granted, the first half of the year was pretty bad – my grandmother passed away, working from home was a rocky transition, even nearly got kicked out (that's a story for another time). yet somehow i made a ton of levels, poured my heart into Rivers, and built Cartridge Tilt.

meanwhile the second half was like restful discovery: forging an important new friendship-turned-relationship, coming out as genderfluid AND pan, improving my living situation with a new desk and other nice things…

and i've barely even scratched the surface of this year!

i may not have accomplished everything i wanted to – and honestly, who did? – but i'm happy about the fact that i not only survived 2020, but did so with grace. despite everything, i have new skills, new resources, new friends, and a new understanding of myself.

i don't keep new years resolutions well, so i have just one for 2021: finish more stuff than in 2020. not "make" more stuff, finish more stuff.

my creative energy definitely suffered this year, but now that i'm finding my footing, i hope i'll get to do some neat things soon 💖

interesting gender things i'm noticing lately that i'm maybe not totally able to put into words but i'll do my best:

i'm determined to stick with any pronouns atm, but i like she/her a lot lot LOT every time i hear it, even in "guy mode." i figured this would happen hehe~

the more i express myself as genderfluid/cat/etc, the less Other i feel, which is extremely good since my Otherness was always rooted in alienation and repression (which i knew from the start)

anything left of my Other is now just Cat. don't ask how that happened cause idk

i'm still fine with people calling me Will, but i'm more than happy to retire WillWare. i have no idea why! i expected to be more attached to it than that… it's not because i'm ashamed of my legacy though, that's for sure. in fact i'm still working to carry that with me

calling myself nonbinary was an escape from who i am not. calling myself genderfluid is an embrace of who i am.

it is weird to have effectively come out a second time and only now start having such realizations as "oh i do get to have gender euphoria" and "oh i am trans after all"

Long Desk

with a little help from twitter, i decided to get some upgrades for my streaming setup! easier streams lead to more streams, after all ✨ so i got myself a new monitor and a new router so i can stream from my room again. but the biggest upgrade by far:

how it started vs. how it's going, Long Desk edition

look at how much more space there is now!! this is literally exactly the same model of desk i've had for nearly a decade, except twice as long. thus: Long Desk.

i've always liked these cube shelves, so i made them part of the desk setup.

what used to be a completely separate entertainment center setup that i had to fumble around with every time i wanted to stream, is now a dedicated streaming/recording setup that cleanly extends my existing digital workspace – ready to go live at any time!

definitely not hinting at any future drawings here...

but far more exciting imo is that the whole other half of the desk is a dedicated PHYSICAL workspace, something i've never had before! i'm hoping this will encourage me to experiment and sketch more often, as well as practice drawing in a much more focused environment.

all i have to do to change my focus is switch the chair from one side to the other, and all the tools i need are already there – no more having to get Set Up, do stuff from my bed, clean up clutter gathered from a thousand different hobbies… less friction, more creating!

Long Desk