There are a lot of things I can do well, and even some I can do very well. You may have noticed I don’t have a problem boasting about such things here on the blog.
So now it is time to boast about something I am really, really bad at. And that is drawing.
As an example, I was driving around on the information superhighway the other day and found this remarkable image on the website of a freelance designer:
It’s just a little something he (oil) painted in his spare time. It’s a homage to Monster Hunter, and – as you can see – it is a pretty stunning display of artistic talent.
By comparison, here’s a picture of a monster I once knocked up in my spare time:
I drew the above when I was about 19. It stayed on that blackboard (which, amusingly, was on the wall of a house we lived in) for about four years. Some of them after I left Australia. I was quite proud of this creation. It was one of the better monsters I had ever drawn.
To quote Jeremy Clarkson: ‘If I’m honest… it’s terrible.”
Here’s another piece of art I found online. To stick to a theme it’s another example of Monster Hunter art. This time the artist has lent his talent to designing a hypothetical set of armor for the character:
It’s what I would call the ‘complete package’. Egyptian themed armor, that not only looks incredible but is also accented by the sketches on the right that suggest the origin of the parts required to make it may be a scarab-inspired beast. It makes me wish this armor was actually included in the game.
I could spend a million years sketching and never rival the above. And believe me, I have tried. For instance here are two snaps of ‘character designs’ of my own. Specifically, different suits for cats:
Each of these are about ten years old. One was on our fridge for aeons, the other was a relatively recent addition after being found as a bookmark in an old book. In each case they represent the limit of my artistic ability when it comes to designing clothes for felines.
And – let’s face it – each of them is spectacularly awful.
So what of CG? Maybe my talent lies in computer assisted drawing? Maybe I can create something like this next (again, Monster Hunter themed) offering, which the artist admitted to knocking up “in a few hours” as a contest entry:
December 16 2001 was the day I began my career as a CG monster artist. It was also – not coincidentally – the day that career ended. Here are the only two works born in those fated few hours:
The top is (of course) Cthulhu. The one at bottom is… well it’s apparently Snakus Godus.
It is very difficult, as I sit here and pen this, to come up with a phrase to describe how truly sad and pathetically wretched each of these illustrations is. And yet there must have been a time when I thought otherwise. As evidence I produce the following image:
Yes good friends, that is a Snakus Godus t-shirt. In a rare moment of restraint I shall omit further details of this nigh-legendary item.
In my life I have failed utterly at drawing. I have failed at painting. I have failed at sketching. At character design. At CG art. At photoshopping. At sprite design. And at sculpting. I have nothing resembling an artistic bone in my body.
But I’m ok with that, because I like to think it gives me a greater appreciation of those that can draw. Such as my friend SFL, who created this:
A bear by a tree. Simple, artistic, beautiful. And something I myself could never create 🙂
who wears a belt with tie dyed pants!
Suspenders, you think?
Now you mention it, I wonder why he decided that those two of his eight legs would be his actual ‘legs’?
KLS says I retconned in this post. Cthulhu was originally called “Mr Octopus”, and I’m guessing he was the friendly counterpart to Snakus Godus.