I had a large and particularly ambitious Final Fantasy IV project scheduled for this month. Then, for no real reason, we bought a new TV. Which necessitated clearing off the old entertainment center and packing up all our DVD's and CD's and video games. And reorganizing half the living room to accommodate the new entertainment center. And reorganizing the den to accommodate the old entertainment center. And reorganizing the laundry room to move some things into storage. It was a bit more work than I'd anticipated.
But, the new TV is amazing. We went from a 32" screen to a 70" and the difference is staggering. I'm seeing details in old school Nintendo graphics that I never noticed before (like Princess Toadstool's disturbing pink pupils). Anyway. After I realized I'd lost fully two weeks out of the month, I decided to work on a smaller, much less ambitious project. And I didn't get that done either. But, that's okay. I decided a while ago that I wouldn't let the calendar date dictate when a piece of art is or is not finished. It will be ready when it's ready. Here's a sneak preview of what's coming soon, though!
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I don't quite have my February projects ready yet. Do I try to make excuses about working the early shift messing me up for a whole week, and having to clean my house to get ready for a television interview? Or do I just accept that I didn't hit the goal and move on? Hmm, decisions, decisions...
Anyway, here's a photo of what I'm currently working on. These guys are fairly close to completion. Probably just a few more days' worth of work. I'm so close. So I had this preposterous idea that I would start a YouTube video series in which I show off all the many projects I've been working on. It would have included my custom figures, my novels, my toy collection... it would have been amazing. Only there was a very small problem. The problem was that I spent the entire month of January filming and editing these videos, which I'd scheduled on a weekly basis, and so now I have no new projects to show for it. Okay, I'm willing to admit when I've made a completely bone-headed mistake. I was doing some reading about how every modern author needs to have some kind of author platform, an existing online presence through which they can advertise their books and such. So I think I was trying to build something like that. But it's enormously unsatisfying to spend six hours editing videos and dubbing royalty-free music instead of doing actual creative work that I love, like hacking away at an action figure with an X-Acto knife. So, no more videos. Not on a weekly basis, anyway. So, nothing new for January, unless you want to go watch a video where I talk about starting a Big Chocobo project but never actually get around to doing one. See you in a month, I guess... I'm done making excuses. There will be updates to this site come hell or high water. (And I mean that quite literally. In the past couple of weeks, I've dealt with a flooded basement as well as an upper respiratory illness that may have resulted from the mold infestation in said basement. However, whatever doesn't kill you just makes you weak and debilitated, as they say.) So there are a trio of flying, winged insects from Final Fantasy IV, namely the SandMoth (which anybody who has played the game for ten minutes has probably seen), the RockMoth, and the extremely reclusive GlomWing (who, besides having a wacky mistranslated name, is almost impossible to find if you don't know exactly where to look). I have painted all of these lovely Lepidoptera, and I invite you to let them into your home, eat your sweaters, and cover you in their multi-colored wing dust. Next month marks the conclusion of my second year of working on the monsters of Final Fantasy IV. Progress from this point on may grow increasingly more challenging, partly due to the fact that I'm saving some of the really difficult baddies for last (I'm looking at you, Zeromus), and partly because there are still a few beasties that I simply have no idea how I'm going to build. I seem to somehow have developed a following of hundreds of unique visitors a week. Stop it. Seriously, people. You're making me feel guilty that I didn't do a March update now. (I could offer excuses about how it was my birthday, and then I took some time off to paint my daughter's room, and then, uh, there was this zombie apocalypse. Two out of three of those things may actually be true.) So here's a tiny, insignificant offering by way of apology. I have a bookshelf for all my Final Fantasy IV projects now, and I envision it as being less a display shelf and more a diorama. I'm trying to populate it with props like trees and rocks and things that make sense for the environment in which these monsters tend to appear in the actual game. I might even try to print backgrounds from the actual game and use that as a backdrop. I'm not sure. I haven't gotten that far yet. Anyway, my point is that I've also been collecting treasure chests and things, because obviously those factor into the game mechanics. Cecil and his buddies find these damn things all over the place. They're in castles. They're in forests. They're in the desert. They're on the Moon, for crying out loud. Figure that one out. This particular one is from the Animal Jam series of blind-packed figurines by Jazwares. I had been planning to buy up a whole bunch of these when they went on clearance, but I mostly missed out. I've got one, at least. I guess it makes sense that there would be a lot of different-looking treasure chests if Cecil is finding them all over the world. (Selective rationalization is how I sleep at night. That and Advil PM.) Also, directly below is a sneak preview of what I'm working on right now. These guys are from the Skeleton Warriors toy line that Playmates Toys sold in the 1990's. The character's name is Aracula, and he used to have six arms. You would not believe how much people were charging for these things on eBay during Halloween. Like, I don't want to break the bank on used action figures from 20 years ago, especially when I'm just going to hack them apart with an X-Acto knife. |
DAVID GRAHAM EDWARDS
Illustrator, writer, painter, sculptor, collector of toys and cats, observer of things. Categories
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