When times get tough, the tough get blogging.

The tough also may feel like they are being chased by a horrifying Swamp demon crocodile king thingy guy.

So!  My very first blogging experience and the first thing I bring to the eyes of the world is the very personification of the ugly crappy circumstances I am privileged to have found myself in.
Our creature here is the Swamp King, the main baddie for a game called Mondo Voodoo by Gallow Games, out soon (I hope) on all products Apple enough and new enough to handle the badass juju.  He is among the first of my models made for a freelance client, and I had a blast working on him. He was done quite a while ago, but since I'm testing out the blogger app for my phone, and I don't happen to have much of my newer work on it, so I thought the adorable hellion needed some attention from all you out in internetland.

 

So, to my estimation, blogging about art is also blogging about the artist's journey as well.

Mine has been a rocky one.

I fancy myself a character artist. This is inherently a bit more complicated than your average lamp post, or Boulder, or general environmental art. Now, there is not a bit of me that looks down on environment artists, they do what they do very well and are expected to push out much more content in shorter time, while taking into account level flow, occlusion culling, etc.  But I just feel like the characters are so heavily scrutinized, we have so much predisposition to how a character should look, because we see people all the time. Something slightly off, and you dive headlong into the uncanny valley. 

Much like life sometimes.

See, there are so many little details and big questions and honest mistakes of the slightest unbalanced focus in one part of our goals or priorities, that it seems incredible that anyone does life even half right once in a while.

 

But I chose harder.

I chose being an artist. An artist who tries to recreate people, the most complicated of beings. Those beings have to be believable, and run in real time, 60 frames a second, while talking, crying, running, jumping, giggling and performing the super mega ultra mega power kick of doom,  all while playing nice with the AI, sound, environmental assets, and physics.

Almost like being married to a wife with health issues that require me home to take care of her and our six month old baby girl, no car, unemployed, denied unemployment benefits, no portfolio, no bank account due to a failed company that promised a primrose path full of lollipops, rainbows, kittens, and glory, with a free trip to St Louis for HeroEngine training tossed in for good measure. All right, so there were no rainbows, lollipops, or glory. But there desperate times, and there hasn't been too much of a let up since. Add to that over 100k in school debt (Horay Brown College, thanks for the BS degree in Game Design. Its helped bucketfuls, like your promises of being great at placing people into fantastic companies after they graduate. I DEFINATELY couldn't have learned 90% of the information I was taught off of YouTube for free instead. )

Ok, perhaps I'm getting a little too negative, because I did actually learn a lot from all of this. 

Some of what was learned through all of this was lessons that were meant to be taught to me, some lessons that were gained from hardship and struggle, some from breaking down too many times, but I am a much better person, and artist for it.

Because even though there is so very much that seems entirely hopeless right now I have a few things that are entirely amazing going on in life. 

One is the knowledge that God is more faithful than my circumstances would lead me to believe. Afterall, I'm here writing this blog, so I got through somehow, and looking back, I cannot tell you how many times provision and love has come from literally no where. Some of those times I think Jesus was just showing off. "HAHA, and you thought you were drowning, here's a magical check for 400 bucks from a place you didn't know of wanting to just give you it for no particular reason" or " Guess how much I love you? Here's your long lost Mentor suddenly appearing back in your life after a long hiatus to buy you, your wife, and your daughter all who he adores a couch that you desperately needed, ON TOP of being a fantastic friend in your time of despairing." or my two favorites so far "You know that longing for the love of your life you've had aching in your very bones for your whole life? Yeah, Well you know how you never thought you were going to find here in the middle of Craptown USA? HERE YA GO. AMAZING PERSON COMING RIGHT UP! Even her flaws are going to make you a better person." and " Remember that Incredible person I gave you to marry? Yeah, Shes gonna carry this little redheaded miracle inside her for a while, then you are going to have the second most important person in your world to share the joy of life with."

The Lord is a crazy person, I have no doubts about that, but the good kind of crazy person, who is always up to some sort of mischievous goodness, but you're not usually sure whats going on until he lets you in on it some time later, and then you're all grateful even for the things you originally thought were just challenging.

I have a lot to be grateful for, because the good news is, that even when life looks like our friend up there, all mangled, scary, and gross, I've caught on to the trick that God plays on that monster. God turns the destruction and heartache and scars into weapons, armor, and insight into his love. 

Basically, things look horrible right now, and while there are times of scared, my Dad is bigger than this. 

So I'm going to keep on doing whats written on my bones, and courses through my veins. What I believe Papa (I love calling Him that) wants me doing. 

Art. 

Art about people.

Art of people. 

Art that just might show someone someday, that there is hope in the chaos. 

Art that shows the light hasn't gone out, you just can't see it.