Lookin' Fresh - Splatoon
Ever since I was a kid, I've loved drawing, but I also love other things and I've only had less and less time to spend on drawing. I've fallen out of practice and am very much still an amateur, but I've got plenty of Ideas and would love to continue to improve.
I also love graphic design, but even though I've spent more time in Photoshop than drawing in recent years, I'd still describe myself as an amateur in this way too. Regardless, it's incredibly satisfying to make my own visual identity online with my own branding. As someone who grew up in the '00s and late '90s, I've taken a lot of inspiration from the aesthetics of punk rock, classic hip-hop, extreme sports, and graffiti, as well as furries and other cartoony characters. I've been especially inspired by games like Jet Set Radio, No More Heroes, Tony Hawk and '00s Sonic games.
For a more complete gallery of my art, check out my Itaku (or my DeviantArt for older art).
Talky originally started as a simple icon for my YouTube channel, but eventually morphed into a fully fledged character. They're a sentient piece of street art that talks the ears off of any passers by who will listen. There's no doubt some influence there from brony analysts from back in the day as well as other video essayists that use on-screen mascots/drawings/etc to represent themselves.
Team Punk is a collection of Sonic the Hedgehog OCs who are members of a resistance group active around the same area of the Sonic timeline as Sonic Forces. Unlike The Resistance or The Diamond Cutters, Team Punk fight the Eggman Empire less with direct combat and more via acts of vandalism such as graffiti, pirate radio, destruction of property, e.t.c. They typically work in the shadows, preferring to avoid the limelight.
In 2016, as an excuse to get myself to draw more, I came up with the idea of creating a collage of fan art of different characters for my cover photo (or banner, or channel art, or whatever you want to call it) on YouTube and social media. I've only gotten around to making four of them so far, and making more has become a lower priority in favour of doing more art of my original characters, like TalkyPup and Team Punk. The last piece was finished in 2019, and at this point, I'm not sure whether or not I'll do more.
As a teenager, either as a part of class projects or just for fun, I dabbled with various different kinds of programming-free game making software, like RPG Maker, FPS Creator, Adventure Game Studio, and others. Some of the ideas for games I had back then have been floating around in my mind for years, changing and evolving just like I have. I'd like to do something more with the newer versions of these ideas one day. If not an actual game, then maybe more art, fake screenshots and marketing material, or something else. If I make more art of the characters from these game concepts in the future, I'll put them here. The old Weebly version of this site included some art I made in High school, but if you really want to see it, you can go digging through my old DeviantArt account for yourself. For now, I'll leave this section like this.
An idea that reuses original characters I designed for a fangame idea I had when I was a teenager. Gen One is set in a modern human city, in a world where all adults have disappeared and kids are left to form a new society without them. Gameplay would be a speedy 2D platformer with a boost button like Sonic Rush, combined with a two-button combat system similar to Yakuza and Dust: An Elysian Tail.
An idea for a 3D Metroidvania set in a zombie infested lab, where upgrades and power-ups take the form of grotesque bodily transformations, rather than equipment. Not unlike Metal Gear Rising, Dr. Mutation would combine its over-the-top action and fantastical sci-fi premise with on-the-nose political commentary.
An idea for a tactical RPG set across multiple dimensions.