This is the beginning of what I hope will be the finishing sprint of the final few Zvery that remain to be pixeled. Today, we have a fired up trickster: Thabum.

Cards on the table: I've been thinking more about doing pixelart than actually doing it. Sometimes I just have an idea, which I feel really excited about, but which is also far beyond my abilities. In my head, I can imagine the final piece "in excruciating detail" (which is a lie my brain serves me), and I get demotivated because I "know" I cannot do it. What it really means is that it'll be hard and the end-result will be worse than I imagined. As always though, 1>0 wins by an infinite margin. Even though Thabum is far below my head-cannon, he's still pretty good! Check out the first few artworks as a comparison... 

As you can see, I gathered a lot of inspiration, which was really just an excuse to procrastinate. This might seem like melodramatic self-flagellation, but I am trying to objectively describe the process. I knew what I wanted to do, but then I just avoided actually doing it. That was because I knew it would take ages to get what I really wanted to achieve. And it did take quite a long time. I restarted it about 5 times because everything I did just wouldn't really articulate Thabum's personality well. 

The main idea was to have this Ghost Rider type skull in fire, but instead of the moody teen vibes, I wanted him to be playful. In the beginning all my sketches were some fantasy creatures with (attempted) unrealistic bodies. I struggled a lot with the perspective and anatomy because I haven't gotten around to learning those yet. Eventually, I just decided to screw it and show the main idea really big, just a close-up shot of a Zvery with a fire skull. After an hour of that, I backed out because I want all the Zvery to feel like full characters. Then I kind of stumbled upon the Philippine Eagle, and I just loved the way it looked. Then I switched to Thabum being an avian. I saw this side shot of the spread wings and I just thought, yeah that's it. I suddenly saw this pose that communicated "omg that idiot actually fell for it," laughing and pointing. After that it was just grunt work to pixel what I had in mind. 

My point is: the eventual artwork that emerged, which I am happy with, was the result of just starting it and failing upwards. Actually solving the issues as they came up instead of imagining which ones awaited. Henry Ford said pretty much everything relevant when he said: "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals." 

If you are waiting for a sign that you are good enough to attempt something: this is it!

You play Zvery in Tabletop simulator  through the steam workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2943320589
You can also print it out! It's on github: https://github.com/bromberry-games/Zvery

Zivan