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| I could use some creativity for making better thumbnails, I know. |
As a part of my incredible luck, I got sick last week and that really put me off track. It was nothing serious (just a cold), I'm feeling better now, and I don't want this post to turn into a rant about my scuffed and cyclic nature of life. Instead, I would like to take this as an opportunity to address my next steps in my quest of productivity and self-improvement in order to give me this illusionary nudge for myself to actually take action in it and not fall into miserable state of uncertainty.
I want to open my mind, sort of speak. Try out different hobbies in order to learn something, see if it would actually "click" with me and force myself to become a more active person. As with Ilko's Hall, the path of least resistance and gravitate towards things related to video games: something more familiar and appealing. There's been a few options under my radar and I would like to talk about each for a bit.
Pixel Art.
This form of digital art seems like an instant pick for an enthusiast like myself. Its pretty easy to pick up as there's no actual need for a specific software and/or hardware for beginner. I've been poking around subreddit and Lospec to slowly learn where to start, and I think it helps. Did some practice for a merch context where I was doomed to fail (I always do) and, even though the full result looked like some childish work on Paint3D, there's a couple of parts that I'm actually proud of.
Huge inspiration for pixel art are games themselves, obviously. There's a big list of games on different platforms and genres to take inspirations from: both old and modern retro titles alike. What appeals to me the most are probably simple style of work and more vibrant colors. My aim would be to just learn to do draw small sprites, icons and such: I would be happy with just that. Shading and details are certainly my main problem with this, so those are gonna be pretty tough to crack.
Going back to the topic of software and how it is not really needed... Well, it will be needed in case I'm actually serious about it. Paint3D from Windows 10 works well enough for what it is, but it's safe to assume that it wouldn't be suitable in the long run. Thankfully, there's a large range of free programs I can always try out and my top candidates are Paint.net and GIMP. Just need to do more digging overall.
In fact, I think I know some good people who are experienced in this sphere. Probably a great idea to ask for their advice, but I'm very reluctant when it comes to this type of conversations as I don't want to bug others about my stuff and problems. Just don't wanna be annoying on top of my dislike towards appearing as a pitiful entitled beggar.
Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
I guess its natural that music comes straight after the art. Often I find myself listening to soundtracks of various games in different situations. Many of these titles consist of tracks in MIDI format, so again: yet another thing related to video games. It seems that you can get around with programs and have some to choose from based on some kind suggestions from people on Internet:
However, I did embarrass myself in that field as well by attempting to create a short "composition" on Online Sequencer and it really shows that I have no idea what I'm doing. Originally I thought that at least the first part was fine for the start, but now its "Nah, this is terrible". Maybe I'm just punching myself down and it's not that bad, but I have doubts.
I believe that important to not focus on everything at once. It just wouldn't work then: I would waste too much time on planning, my weird mind will backfire and it becomes obvious that I bite off more than I can chew. So I'll put it aside for now while I'm figuring out pixelated stuff, deal with some other stuff in real life and all that.
YouTube Content Creation.
Ilko's Hall was kicked off after my failed attempt at making a YouTube video with a desire to become a content creator there. Even though I've blamed a couple of major limitations for my abandonment of this endeavor, its apparent that (in theory) you don't actually need good equipment or some aspects of it to create videos of some kind.
An idea of going back to content making for YouTube did occasionally floating in my mind like an annoying noisy fly you struggle to hit it with newspaper. There's a chance that you can make a video that lacks narration and solid montage, but could appeal to many people. There's a potential that such project related to old/retro games can also be engaging for viewers that interested in such topic.
However, this is all speculation and my faith in success is very low when it comes to me pulling off something like that. My self-confidence is low and I have a lot of doubts I would be able to make something original, entertaining and interesting for people to watch. There's also a concern of storage management: I don't have many options and desire to archive the videos and materials used for YouTube for the sake of preservation and backup plan in case something goes wrong (video gets removed for whatever reason). It is not a requirement, but to me it seems like something a lot of content creators do for their channels.
Currently, I have no specific plans or desire to revive this idea. I can potentially go back to days of making simple and scuffed dumb memes in Video Editor that comes with Windows 10. Craft various kinds of videos in familiar format for myself and others to enjoy. That's just not something I think I can actually pull off properly.
Game Mod Development.
Well... I have even less confidence in this one. Recently I've been entertaining the idea of getting into game modding without actual goals in mind. Yes, this could kick me into developer side of gaming industry, but that's yet another vague type of career I'm not confident in being successful for me. Its fair to say that aiming towards gaming when it comes to job/profession seems to feel like the right path for me.
Either way, its another field of limitless possibilities. Many games and many tools for expression of your own creativity. After all, my "Just an Idea" series will most likely heavily consist of mod concepts for various titles. There really is a lot of choose from: Warcraft 3, Quake, id Tech 1 games, Minecraft, Ion Fury, Terraria and so much more.
My closest bet as of today would be Quake as Trial of Runes has somewhat clear vision of what it could be. That could change as times goes on and I process more concepts in my blog, but I have a strong feeling that this particular mod will stay at the top of my list. You would've thought that someone like me would actually go for Warcraft 3 and its World Editor, but... You know. Let's not bring this up yet again.
All I can say about me going into modding is "One day, maybe".
Playing Video Games.
You know, this is also a hobby. The one I've been pretty reluctant about. It doesn't mean that I should drop everything and start playing games nonstop. Of course there're other things that should be my priority instead. If anything, some might say that my current struggle is a positive thing as it allows me to redirect all that focus on all that stuff.
It all goes down to one simple fact: I'm a gamer. I like writing about games, I like to read and watch videos about them. All of that is good stuff. However, let's not forget that playing games is actually the main point. So it does feel quite odd to do this and that without actually dedicating just a bit of my time towards "real deal", you know.
And there's a lot of titles for me to revisit and complete. I had progress and plans for many games, expansions and mods to a point it seems just pretty bizarre as I always just played 2-3 games at given times without spreading myself too thin. Focus on one single player title and switching things up with multiplayer/sandbox/something like that.
But not this time. Now, I have a Heretic/Hexen marathon in hiatus, only 9 maps left in Arcane Dimensions and it would've been nice to go back to many games from my Steam library I simply abandoned one way or the other, like Bastion, Rogue Legacy, Terraria and more. Don't get me wrong: its nice to have some variety and pay attention to different games, but I guess sometimes that's just a bit overwhelming.
Prime takeaway from all of this is that I should just get myself together, really. I haven't planned to be that personal in these posts, but its probably for the best if I would be. At the end of a day, Ilko's Hall is my personal blog and I probably shouldn't feel bad for embracing that.
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