General Creative Pursuits - What are yours?

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I figured it might be cool to have a thread where people can talk more generally about any creative things they might do, have done, or wish they could do. Doesn't matter what it might be, even if it's something not traditionally considered creative. Love welding, and want to go into detail about why you think a weld can be beautiful? Go for it!

To start I suppose, I don't do anything particularly unique; I just like to do a lot of different things. I'm an illustrator, so obviously I love to draw. Mostly I work within the manga style. But I'm also an avid musician whenever I can find the time. I play guitar, bass, drums, and sing, but I've also dabbled in piano and violin. I'm much better at coming up with ideas for music than actually playing it though, lol. I also write quite a bit. I mostly stick with fiction, but the genre changes a ton. Right now I'm working on a sci-fi novella, set in a Brutalist near future, where androids have become a (somewhat) normal thing. It's mostly a character study, reflecting the world and culture of said world, through the main character.

Hopefully this is an appropriate thread, AuronX. I hate accidentally putting together threads in the wrong category and things like that, but I'm terrible at doing it correctly, lol.

 

[AuronX]

Yep this is just fine

Personally, my creative pursuits have grown up along with me and it's taken a while to find where they all come together. As a kid I took some drawing and piano classes that never quite clicked with me and because of that I tended to feel I wasn't very artistic. I've always been very musical but since I don't read music everything I do is by ear. I've also always been telling stories without realizing it--oddly enough I can remember a time when I couldn't read, but I have no memories of not writing. Stories, specifically. It was so natural to me to always be creating stories I never took it seriously in my younger years.

Fast forward a while and my first real creative break came when I was 15 and a few friends of mine and I started making these random dumb videos just because we could--digital cameras were still a novelty and being able to record 320x240 20 FPS video and edit it in Windows Movie Maker was revolutionary to us. Naturally it didn't take long for me to come up with a feature-length film script, which my friends then took and contributed their own ideas to until it became this bizarre mess, but the process of creating that film did something very significant for me: it got me into visual effects, and taught me the joy of creating something. I'm probably going to regret sharing this, but the finished product is actually still on YouTube if anyone wants to laugh at 15-year old me. Lightsaber fight in parts 5 and 6.

For the next few years visual effects became my focus. I got pretty good at Adobe After Effects, which is still my main video/photo editor to this day. But what I slowly realized is that my love of visual effects wasn't for the effects themselves, but their ability to tell a story and make the imaginary real, in a sense. That's when I had my 'aha!' moment and turned to writing. Novels and tech journalism mainly, on a site I still use and just this year formed as a legit company. I wrote a couple stories (not on that site), focusing on learning how to construct stories, develop characters, outline plots, and handle narration, doing research online to learn from the pros any time I had a question of how anything is supposed to be done.

At the same time, I was also slowly and accidentally learning to program. It started with HTML and CSS for my own site, but over the years I also toyed around with GameMaker and always came back to it to learn bits and pieces before dropping it for other activities. But then I got into Final Fantasy, which in turn got me into Japan and anime and opened up a whole new artistic world to me that I found I resonated with more than western art. It inspired me so much I started making a game based on the anime Steins;Gate as a passion project, and from that I learned all the basic principles of videogame programming.

And that's when I had another 'aha!' moment, actually largely influenced by .Mosh here. He suggested we could make an RPG of our own, thinking we would use RPGMaker, but after looking into it I really hated RPGMaker and wanted to do more, so I decided to make our own engine instead. Currently it only does visual novels, but an RPG may happen in the future as well. Our first project, a visual novel, is currently where I'm pouring most of my energy. I'm handling the script and game engine and generally directing and managing the project. .Mosh will be doing some of the game art and I will be assisting with that as well, but currently I only know the very basics of anime/manga style drawing, so I'll be focusing on learning that skill once the script is done.

So yeah, lots of variety and a long self-discovery to reach the point where I am now. While I do take a paycheck already for my work hopefully I will soon be able to support myself full-time. Storytelling is my real passion overall, but I'm very interested to explore it in different ways--novels, videogames, and so on--and use all my different skills in pursuing that goal!

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

Hahaha, I'm totally gonna have to check that video series out! That's one of the things I always sort of wished I could've done as a kid/teen, is video production. I never really had the equipment to do it, nor the friends who would've been into it. That's honestly been my biggest creative hurdle, is that I've never really had real life friends who're into creative pursuits in the same way as I am. They enjoy creative things, but only from a consumer perspective. So it gets rather lonely, because nobody really understands the work I put into the things I'm passionate about. And it also obviously comes with criticism for doing something that 'doesn't make real money'. I'm supposed to be focused on having a 'real' career, because being an artist is 'dead end'. Granted, that mostly comes from adults who gave up on their passions, not from my friends. But they still don't quite get it. Unlike everyone else, I've also never really found consistent artistic friends online. Everyone seems to fade into it, and then fade out. The art is the thing that keeps me going I guess, because I'm certainly not getting mad bank, mad recognition, or mad friends from it, lol.

I also like to think of critique as an artform, since so many people are soooo terrible at it. Ever since I watched the MegaMan X Sequelitis by EgoRaptor, I've fallen in love with the act of breaking games down, questioning why/how they're designed, and marveling at the beauty within even the most poorly made games. Hence why I started my YouTube channel.

 

[AuronX]

So it gets rather lonely, because nobody really understands the work I put into the things I'm passionate about. And it also obviously comes with criticism for doing something that 'doesn't make real money'.

So much this. It is nice that I already do make money even though I'm currently only selling developer products that obviously don't generate the same level of income as consumer products. That in itself does earn some respect, but it's the sort of thing where you have to prove yourself to people and ignore all the negativity until you get there. Actually, I've gotten to where I rarely go into detail about what I'm currently working on with people unless I know they have an appreciation for what I do, because it's just easier to keep my focus if I don't have negative advice weighing me down.

But the internet brings some interesting opportunities, and these days once you get things rolling it's much easier to make a comfortable living. At some point I'd like to give Patreon a try, I just need to have more work done on my current project before I will feel ready to advertise it for people's support. Unfortunately too many people who want to be artists want to be supported before they've actually done anything, and then when they try to do it for a living they find out how hard it really is and get discouraged and then they have a PR mess on their hands on top of it all. IMO learning that work ethic first and doing the hard work first and then showing up and saying 'I've already done this' is the way to get people's attention and respect, and secondarily their financial support. So that's my goal right now, to reach the point where I can say that.

Critique is definitely an art form--there's just something so captivating about a critical presentation done really, really well. I'm a very logical person, so seeing someone expose the logic behind something is very exciting and educational to me. Logic in its most basic form is universal, so there's so many ways to use that kind of knowledge.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

Indeed. I think the internet is easily the most powerful way for creative business to succeed today. It's a shame so many people -big businesses and entitled consumers alike- feel the need to rip it apart. It's that sort of "This is why we can't have nice things" type of problem. Corporations try to squeeze the life out of creators by skirting around laws, while people use ad-block without whitelisting good creators, despite this system being infinitely more fair than any we've seen before in entertainment. And then those same people wonder why creators feel they have no choice but to make more skeevy sponsorship deals in order to make a living. They wonder why advertisements get more abrasive. Entertainment works best when it's a symbiotic relationship, but a lot of people are too self-serving to do their part.

The most important thing to me when it comes to critique, is the balance between opinion and fact. Obviously, the actual act of critique can never be 100% objective. But I think good critique is always based off of facts. An unstable framerate is fact. If the poor frame-timing that stems from that unstable framerate causes control lag, in a game that asks you for high precision actions, you can then argue that this hurts the experience. I think expecting this sort of cause and effect deduction from critique is important. I'm tired of people like Spoony spreading needless hate, half-truths, misconceptions, outright lies, and overblown nitpicks as fair critique. People like David Ryatta, ShayMay, Max Barnyard... they work too hard to have their voices silenced because people like Spoony know how to exploit shock value. It's why things like Jim Sterling's 'objective' FFXIII review upset me, because it misses the point. People don't want only facts in their reviews. But they want to know that the opinions in the review are coming from a logical place. Otherwise critique only leads to two places; flame wars, or echo chambers. This is sort of the big tenant of my channel, and one thing I hope to help spread one day. One day I'd love for my channel to be able to help give people who truly work hard to create fair and honest critique, a nice shoutout and maybe another voice. That way we can all explore ideas together.

EDIT: Thanks for the comment on my page by the way. I didn't notice it until now; still getting used to the features of this place. I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to check out my channel though! It goes without saying, but I put a lot of work into what goes up there, despite having shoddy equipment, lol. So seeing it get some attention is really nice

 

[.Mosh]

Don't listen to AuronX he is just a bigoted idiot......I joke definitely haha. Kudos for you saying I was a big influence

I myself have so many things I would love to do, animation, general drawing, writing or even review blogging but I commit for like 3 days and stop in fear of succeeding. I think that is the best way to put it. My life is in a comfortable spot and a part of me doesn't want that to change. But as of late I am finally getting somewhere.

I finally have done some writing, I've done some drawing albeit it sucks but I have to keep trying. I also am planning on a blog at some point soon. When I have a spark you can tell I have passion it is just my sparks are far between.

 

[Six]

Uuuuhm.... Back in 2005 I loved writing FanFiction, even though I was never really very good at it. Then in 2008 I really got hooked on Photoshop and creating signatures/tags, and other graphics. I've always loved singing, and in 2006 (holy shit, that's 10 years ago) I finally got around to getting my own guitar. I've always been big on music. Never got any guitar lessons, but self taught worked out well, it's just a hobby anyway.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I myself have so many things I would love to do, animation, general drawing, writing or even review blogging but I commit for like 3 days and stop in fear of succeeding

Animation -at least in 2D- is really a challenge. I'd imagine I personally would have an easier time with 3D, because you don't have to repeatedly recreate the object for each frame, so object deformities are impossible unless you're using a lot of cartoony squash and stretch. But I've done some 2D animation over the past year (frame by frame in Photoshop Elements, rather than using Tweens in something like Flash), and it's definitely a challenge. When going frame by frame, the hardest part by far is pacing though, because you have to add more frames or take frames away to slow things down or speed them up. This means the motion between those frames becomes much more important, otherwise it'll look like the character is teleporting between frames. In short, it's rewarding, but not easy. My new channel intro is animated, but the music needs to get finished before I use it.

Uuuuhm.... Back in 2005 I loved writing FanFiction, even though I was never really very good at it. Then in 2008 I really got hooked on Photoshop and creating signatures/tags, and other graphics. I've always loved singing, and in 2006 (holy shit, that's 10 years ago) I finally got around to getting my own guitar. I've always been big on music. Never got any guitar lessons, but self taught worked out well, it's just a hobby anyway.

Fanfiction eh? I've done some of that. Spent probably four years or so writing fanfiction as a way to focus on getting better at writing without having to worry about developing tons of characters and such. What I did is all still up, but I think the fandoms for the things I wrote for have mostly died down, so nobody's reading any of it... probably for the better, lol.

 

[AuronX]

Animation -at least in 2D- is really a challenge. I'd imagine I personally would have an easier time with 3D, because you don't have to repeatedly recreate the object for each frame, so object deformities are impossible unless you're using a lot of cartoony squash and stretch.

I've done both 3D animation and rotoscoping and several things in-between, and I'd say the best way to go is to reference all your 2D animation with 3D. Your models don't have to be very detailed, but getting the motion done ahead of time and then drawing around it is hands down the best workflow I've ever used. Haven't used it for things like anime yet, but I actually plan to do some of that soon. Actually, I originally thought this kind of method was cheating, but I've since learned that the pros have been doing it this way for a decade or more, so I feel much better about the technique now, ha.

I also wrote a bit of fan fiction--one 50k-ish novel and a sequel that I still haven't finished but keep saying I will one day. Both aimed at a very niche group but they've done pretty well and to this day, three years after the first was completed, I still get emails from folks about it, which is nice. Now I'd rather pour my energy into something original, though. It sounds kind of lame to say, but the reality is if it doesn't have the potential to generate profit, I probably won't invest much time into it. Spending hours upon hours writing fan fics is fun and all, but not exactly a viable way to make a living. However, fan fiction will always be near and dear to my heart for proving to me that I have an audience. My first novel crossed the 2,000 readers mark before I even finished it, and they kept pouring in after. It was really exciting and motivating.

 

[Shaissa]

The things I like writing the most were poetry and fiction. I just never liked what I wrote so I mostly trashed what I wrote, and on top of that classes in High school and college don't really encourage creativity in American English classes.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I've done both 3D animation and rotoscoping and several things in-between, and I'd say the best way to go is to reference all your 2D animation with 3D. Your models don't have to be very detailed, but getting the motion done ahead of time and then drawing around it is hands down the best workflow I've ever used. Haven't used it for things like anime yet, but I actually plan to do some of that soon. Actually, I originally thought this kind of method was cheating, but I've since learned that the pros have been doing it this way for a decade or more, so I feel much better about the technique now, ha.

I also wrote a bit of fan fiction--one 50k-ish novel and a sequel that I still haven't finished but keep saying I will one day. Both aimed at a very niche group but they've done pretty well and to this day, three years after the first was completed, I still get emails from folks about it, which is nice. Now I'd rather pour my energy into something original, though. It sounds kind of lame to say, but the reality is if it doesn't have the potential to generate profit, I probably won't invest much time into it. Spending hours upon hours writing fan fics is fun and all, but not exactly a viable way to make a living. However, fan fiction will always be near and dear to my heart for proving to me that I have an audience. My first novel crossed the 2,000 readers mark before I even finished it, and they kept pouring in after. It was really exciting and motivating.

Yeah, I'd love to do it that way, making 3D animations that I can translate into 2D. But my computer is from 2008. I'm lucky I can use Photoshop and render HD video at all, lol. I definitely can't do any 3D modeling or animating. But I have no problem with using tools to make work more consistent; that's what Flash does and nobody complains. I personally prefer the look of non-rotoscoped frame-by-frame animation though. I'm really, really picky when it comes to that sort of thing, and I like the rough, organic look to something drawn from scratch.

My main fanfiction is around 165k, and took my like three years to finish. I also did a prequel story to it that I believe was like 20k. That's how obsessed I was with Azumanga Daioh. It's still my absolute favorite anime, and I really love it; I just don't watch it ten times a year like I used to, lol. But it's what drove me to try my hand at the manga style (for like the hundredth time), and it finally stuck. Anyway, I got some decent feedback for what I wrote, and made a few fleeting friendships through it. It still technically gets some views... looking at it, it seems to average about 25 a month from 5 or so unique visitors. So in other words, basically nothing, lol. Based on the lowest view count on a chapter though, only about 75 people have maybe read it all the way through. It was super fun to write though. But yeah, the reason I don't really do it anymore is the same as yours; why waste time on something that has no way of helping me make a living? Heck, why waste great ideas on art that's only half yours? I'd rather use 'em on something original.

The things I like writing the most were poetry and fiction. I just never liked what I wrote so I mostly trashed what I wrote, and on top of that classes in High school and college don't really encourage creativity in American English classes.

I generally write lyrics rather than straight up poetry. I used to love writing poetry in elementary and middle school. But it was mostly unspeakably terrible love poetry for girls, lol.

I was lucky enough in high school to have access to a super eccentric English teacher. She was -to be frank- sort of a 'nutty flower child lady', who wasn't terribly in tune with teenagers. But she was nice, and understood the importance of freedom and creativity in writing. She was also a huge fan of Yoshitaka Amano; I found that out one day when she was reading a biography about him that was also full of his illustrations. She had no idea that he did the art for Final Fantasy (she probably hardly knew what video games were), and I had no idea that Amano's work was ultra famous outside of video games. It was an interesting conversation, lol.