“You have so much talent, are you using it for anything?”

Posted by NIGHTEN on July 14, 2024

We were stuck in an airport for several hours now.
I was already supposed to arrive the day before, and I didn't know at the time, but I would have to wait another 9 hours before reaching my destination.

The weather was terrible, and the plane wasn't even there yet, so an elderly lady and I started to chat and help each other pass the time. I mentioned that art was my passion, and naturally I showed her my recently released gallery of illustration.

Getting direct and fresh reaction to my work is always very insightful, but as she was looking at my work she said something that particularly stucked with me:

"Oh that's so nice, are you doing anything with all of this?"

And I realized that I couldn't answer honestly without saying "Not really"

Screenshot of the website linked: A minimalist grid of different artworks I've made

I think I've been stuck for a long time on improving my skills, especially with art.

It was especially true this past year, where I did more illustration than I ever did; creating a new body of work that ultimately led to me participating in an exhibition for the first time.

Illustration of a young girl sitting on top of a water tank in the middle of a huge city, looking at the sea far away. She's sitting in the middle of a patch of flowers which had grown on top of the tank, and a cute is at her side looking at a bee flying by.

The improvement is quite massive; I went from drawing single characters on white background to crafting interesting illustration with a huge amount of details. I've completely reinvented my style and what I'm able to accomplish.

But I now realize that it also led me to not have a concrete "thing" I can show someone, apart from the individual illustrations.

I'm amazed when I look in the past, seeing that I could release a bunch of games in a single year. Those were not great by any means, but they were at least finished things, packaged and ready to be experienced.

Going forward, I'll continue to improve and push my skills further; but I want it to happen in a coherent whole.