What is “The Anatomy of Art and Game Development”?

Before I can start making specific posts related to art and game design, I think it’s important for me to give you, the reader, a brief run-down on what you can expect from this site.

This post will not contain a wealth of information related to me, personally – although some information about me is necessary, it will not be the focus of this post. If you’re interested in who I am, you can find that information on the About page.
If you’re instead interested in finding links related to my work, or methods for contacting me, you can find that information on the Contact and Links page.

What to Expect . . .

As you may or may not already be aware, my name is Makai. I am an aspiring professional artist and game developer. I’m primarily a sketchbook artist – a limitation in medium borne out of necessity more so than preference. That said, I work in other creative areas as well, including (but not limited to) writing, animation, and game design and development.
Posts related to those creative areas are what you can expect from this site, moving forward. The balance of content, however, will not be even. That is, the amount of posts related to Art will outweigh posts related to Game Development.

Balance of Art and Game Development

Simply put, it’s far easier for me to produce art (sketchbook) related content, than it is to produce game development related content. There are a few reasons for this.

For one, I spend far more time working on my art than I do working on my game. I spend approximately 4 hours drawing, every day of the week. I do this quite consistently. Breaks in that consistency are, more often than not, related to having to spend time on schoolwork, rather than a decrease in my own personal motivations.
In contrast, I spend about 2 hours on game development, every day of the week. Now, that’s 2 hours maximum – it’s important to note that I don’t work on my game every day. I love art, and I love game development, but I’m still human. I am not a machine, and I am prone to exhaustion. After drawing for 4 hours (excluding prior time spent on homework), I don’t always have energy to work on game development.
In other words, I’m far more consistent with sketchbook art than I am with game development.

  • Art Schedule
    My daily time block for drawing.
  • Game Dev. Schedule
    My daily time block for game development.
(Click to view the full-size images.)


For another, my sketchbook art lends itself well to being posted on social media(s) and/or this blog. If I draw a hand, a person, or a character – be it a long-form artwork, or a quick 30-second doodle – I can upload that to my art account(s).
Game development work, on the other hand, tends to be hit-or-miss. At the moment, most of my game development work is related to story writing. Aside from the fact that I don’t expect people to be interested in reading fifteen pages of plain text related to the lore of a game they’ve never played, I’m not interested in sharing writing that is extremely volatile – in the sense of being subject to change.

How this will affect Posts

The effect of this balance on Posts will be quite simple – I’ll be posting about Art more often than Game Development. I will be publishing an Art-related post at least once a week, and every three to four weeks, I’ll post about Game Development instead.
In addition to sharing my own work, I’ll be frequently sharing and/or discussing the work of other artists and game developers. These artists have inspired my work, and many have provided me with a great deal of useful knowledge that has assisted me throughout the learning process. I am a student of art – and every student has teachers.

I hope that the content of this blog will appeal not only to other artists, but also to those who are not active participants in the world of art. I’m very passionate about these subjects, and I hope that this passion will interest artists and non-artists alike.

Thanks for Reading!

I look forward to interacting with all of you throughout the development of this blog. Thanks for reading.


Disclaimer

All information in these posts is my own words, unless explicitly stated otherwise. None of this information is quoted, nor paraphrased, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Any similarities between my own words, and the informative sources/hyperlinks provided is purely coincidental, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
In any case where I am using someone else’s words (or imagery), the source will be cited internally, with a link to that source provided either within the internal citation, at the end of the post under “Sources,” or both.