Hello all, sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been really busy with art and otherwise. I had a stroke of great fortune and got several well-paying commissions that are keeping me busy, and in this time of financial instability, I can use all the help I can get.
However, that does mean that personal projects I’ve been working on have slowed to a crawl, which sounds like a broken record given my personal history.
I’ve decided that I’m going to make 2019 a year of finishing things, one way or another. I’ve dragged out too many art projects for far too long. I’ve already made one decision that was long overdue: I am no longer pursuing WEAPON Combat League as a comic project. This sounded sensible to me because I went through the effort to produce comics based on the first few chapters of the story, and I shared the comics on my usual channels, and despite some direct expressions of interest (DMs and the like), no one made a purchase or even really acknowledged the work I did. And that has largely been the case with WCL since its inception. It’s time for me to accept that I’m just not that into making comics. Maybe my work was good, maybe it wasn’t, but I’m not passionate about making them, and those who follow my work are not responding to it, so it’s time to move on.
Instead, I am turning my attention back toward my true passion: making video games. I know that I go back and forth on this, and that’s why I’m declaring where I’m going to focus now. The only thing that will stop me from going back and forth is decisive action, so that’s what I plan to do.
My goal is to make simpler games, games that can be completed in a short time, games that curb my ambitions but still support my goal of normalizing black characters in all kinds of media, as well as doing my small part to bring sexy back to video games (sexy, not smutty). I intend to make WEAPON Combat League a part of this pursuit as well. However, I’m no fool and I do acknowledge that I have a history of giving up on my game projects when they become “too difficult”, so like I said, this is a year of completing things. If I fail to put out even a minor, simple game before this year is out, I’m leaving game development behind too. It’s time to grow up and move on, and focus on what I can actually make money doing, instead of what I wish I could.
Currently, I have an active book cover commission for a client. I’m unable to share the work I’m doing, so while I’m working on these commissions, I have precious little to post. But I obviously need to draw for myself as well, so I’m going to try to squeeze in some personal work. I’ve been practicing figure drawing from observation and I intend to get back into sprite making to support my game development endeavors.
Meanwhile, I plan on building up a Patreon account. It’s already established at https://patreon.com/dualmask but there’s not much content yet. My intention is to make more process videos of the work I’m doing and perhaps upload content I wouldn’t, or can’t, post elsewhere (like NSFW images…if you bought my book RPB, you know I’m no stranger to drawing a few provocative pieces.) Feel free to become a patron if you like.
It’ll probably be a short while before I have some new content to show, so if you didn’t see these on my social media accounts (links at the bottom of the page), please enjoy some illustrations I did sometime last month.
Thanks for reading!