The Walking Dead: Real Monsters

First, a bit of background about me. I recently finished my final year at an art university (which is why I stopped working on Real Monsters in general, because I was busy with school work), and the four years I’ve been there have been a complete waste of time. Don’t assume that all post-secondary art schools are useless. They’re not. But it’s a matter of which school you go to. And I, unfortunately, did not go to the right school.

Anyways, my art skills are horrible. I don’t have the fundamentals needed in order to draw without using references as a crutch. I take too long to complete projects that take other people a few minutes or a handful of hours to do. I’ve been drawing for most of my life, and not only do I have very little talent to show for it, but I also draw worse than people who have been drawing for less time than I have.

I thought the art university I was going to would help me fix all that, but it did not. This, needless to say, is terrible. Not only because I want to be a great artist, but also because I actually want to work in the art field. I would like to make my own content someday (whether they be comics or cartoons or whatever) but for now I’d like to be a character concept artist. However, I can’t become anything in the art world with the skills I currently have.

In the past, this knowledge would’ve led me to be despondent, and the loathing I have for my art would’ve keep from drawing for a little while. But, due to a mixture of panic, desperation, and hope, I’ve chosen to push on despite my depression making me want to give up, and despite wasting four years of my life at a school that hardly taught me anything.

I’ve begun working on something I’ve dubbed “the portfolio project”. Starting on April 19th and ending on August 31st, I will be creating artwork around building a portfolio as a character concept artist. If I manage to stick to my schedule, I will create 68 works by the end of August. Of course, due to my current skills, I’m expecting that the first half of the works won’t be good enough for my final portfolio. However, since I will be drawing every day for hours at a time, I’m hoping that the second half will be good enough, leaving me with 34 useable art pieces. As of today, I’ve finished 8 pieces.

This project, and my over all attempt to become a better artist and eventually land an art job, will not give me any time to do a good job at creating the Real Monsters game. I work on the portfolio project for roughly 8 to 10 hours a day. Though I still have some time to do other things (since I’m not working the entire 24 hours) I’m pretty tired by the time I’m finished working on the portfolio project for the day. If I were to work on the game, it wouldn’t be very good. Since even though I have the final draft of the script done, I’d still have to learn how to program, create even more artwork for the game, and other things that my brain will probably be too fried to focus on for long.

And as far as working on the game once I have a job, I’m not sure if I’d have the energy to work on it after fulfilling my obligations for my job. I might be able to, but I don’t know yet.

I’m trying to focus on my future right now. I want to move out of the house, pay off my student loans, and finally have the art skills I’ve wanted all my life. Because of that, I can’t resume working on the game, not if I want to make something that’s actually enjoyable.

I’m sorry. I wish I could just materialize the game right now. I really did work on the script for it. It’s sad to think of all that effort going to waste. And I’m sad knowing that people actually wanted to see the game come to life too, since that probably won’t happen now and I don’t like disappointing people like that. But that’s just the way things are now. If I want my life to improve for the better, I have to think about other things. Maybe one day I’ll come back to this. I don’t know though.