Hello 2021

By | February 5, 2021

It has been a while since we posted any update. A lot of things has happened in the last few years, including something unexpected like the current global pandemic, and a group of insurgents went to storm US Capitol and threatened our democracy. I remember a few years ago, as PG and I were still living in Southern California, we saw a guy watching his car flipped and burst out in flames in the middle of I-405. I told PG that sometime things that appear in movies can happen in real life too. So here we are now. Thankfully currently we’re still healthy and still in one piece, amid all the unforeseeable events happening at this moment.

After I wrapped up with the last Oculus Launchpad project, EnlivenVR, I went back to do freelance work as 3D environmental artist. Back in 2016, I started working on MrTiredMedia‘s visual novel, dungeon crawler hybrid game titled ~Undead Darlings~ No Cure for Love. This game was a Steam Greenlight project, which went on Kickstarter in 2015 for funding and failed to raise enough fund. When I started working on this, they were trying to build the game more and run Kickstarter #2 in May 2016. Unfortunately, even the second one was not successful either. However, instead of dropping the project, MrTired decided to keep going though Patreon. I was able to stay involved with the project until all the art assets were done in 2018. The game finally launched in September 28, 2020 on PC through Steam, PS4 and Switch.

While I worked on Undead Darlings, I also started working for Study of A Commodity VR (working title), an upcoming project by a fellow Oculus Launchpad in 2018. It was an interactive VR to get a glimpse into Pikuni/Blackfeet culture and traditions. Around then, I started to burn out, although still pushing to finish my freelance work, and still join a bunch of game jams and XR hackathons. I ignored all the signals and eventually got to the point that I could not stand the thought of working on any game. Just sitting in front of my work computer and try opening a 3D modeling editor would make me want to puke.

Not until sometime in 2020, I figured out what the problem was. While I could not create any game art, I started drawing a lot. I signed up for a class on landscape painting, only to realize that I took the wrong course and ended up learning how to use gouache instead. It was a happy accident though, since it lead me to learn more about art fundamental, and get to know more about art side of things, especially dealing with art exhaustion and creative burn-outs.

So in the fall of 2020, I attended Lightbox Expo, an artist conference. Due to the pandemic, tt was broadcasted online and the ticket was almost next to nothing. There were tons of information from different faces of entertainment industry, such as animation, movies, book publishing, and of course games. There were some talk about mental health for artists, and from there, I learn about creative burn-outs. It seems to be a very common thing to happen and can be dangerous if ignored, since we can end up hating making art and just never touch it again. Through these talk, I saw myself heading in that direction with game development. Fortunately, these artists also share their experience in overcoming the burn out, which are to take breaks, consume different media, nourish creativity, and recharge. It felt liberating to hear the talks, since suddenly I don’t feel like I’m alone anymore.

So, here I am now. I have a bit of more work for Study of A Commodity VR to finish, then I’ll be away from making any game until I’m no longer burn out. Maybe I will concentrate on learning art for the time being.