For many beginning artists, it’s hard to imagine that the people you look up to were once beginners too. In addition, it’s easy for experienced artists like myself to feel a bit of impostor syndrome at our work and forget how far we’ve gone, so I’ve created this page of my growth over the years.
It’s a bit embarrassing (especially 2020-2021/22), but every artist feels that way about their old work.
This is not by any means an exhaustive list of everything I’ve made, this is just a couple of highlights that I think encapsulate what I’ve done this year.
2020
First year of Blender… for a bit of context, Songs of War was still a big thing at this time, and was one of the reasons I started Blender. Well, if I’m being truthful, I just saw a cool Minecraft rig on Twitter (Thomas Animations Rig). Didn’t know what Blender was, but I downloaded it (I’m a bit of a file hoarder, I know) to play around with it. Ironically I’m not a big fan of the rig, but I have to thank it for starting my 3D art career.
If I’m being honest however, these few pieces that I’ve selected don’t truly encapsulate my mental state at the time. In past blog posts, I’ve mentioned that around winter things for me get… depressive, but between 2020-2021, it was far worse, and that manifested in some of my works (many of which I haven’t found at the time of writing). So when I say I’m grateful for the support I was given by the community, I truly mean it, even if seem distant or critical at times.
2021
This was when my style started to develop a little more, and also when I stopped doing Songs of War related pieces since I didn’t feel motivated to make any more. There’s really not much I have to say about 2021.
2022
This was really when my style started to become more consistent, as well as use female characters for pieces. However, towards the end, I started having art-block, something that’ll play a big part of how 2023 goes.
2023
This was a year of intense art-block for me, so there really isn’t much that I have.
I began doing what I call “micro-detailing”, where I add extra details in the materials, but leave the overall render in a Minecraft style.
Sometime in the middle of the year, I finished my custom, in-house rig. Here’s some stuff using that new rig.
