Thursday, November 10, 2022

2022 Soulsborne Collection

2022 has been a huge, inspirational year for me in the form of video games. Thanks to my brother's patience and guidance, I've finally faced my fears and began playing FromSoftware games starting with Elden Ring and working my way backwards in their Soulsborne series.

A brief backstory of my Soulsborne experience:

I started with the original Demon's Souls on PS3 but I absolutely hated the game and avoided all of the Dark Souls titles afterwards. Bloodborne then became the title that kept FromSoftware on my radar due to its incredible art direction and atmosphere. My brother encouraged me to play Sekiro but I was too scared of its parry system to give it an honest try. Then the Elden Ring hype happened this year, finally sparking the biggest interest in actually playing a FromSoft game for me. My brother finally sold me on it and the rest was history.

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These games have made a huge impact on me artistically, boasting textural detail, character and game design, atmosphere, and lore that make the worlds, stories, and gameplay of these titles so rich. I've had a fair share of tears, frustration, and anger bursts playing these games (I don't think I've ever had to play my own music to calm myself down while playing a video game before) but there's something so satisfying in defeating a FromSoft boss or figuring out a hidden secret solely relying on Soulsborne logic. Each of these games sparked an illustration to commemorate the achievement of completing the first playthrough. So here's the current collection of these illustrations in chronological order of my Soulsborne playthrough:

Elden Ring

The Crucible Knights
(The boss fight that was my first, real FromSoft struggle. It broke me so hard I had to remove my headphones and play K-pop out of my phone to calm down.)

Tarnished
(My final character build from my first playthrough.)


Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Maple Orange
(Watching my brother play most of the game was probably what helped me understand how to play Sekiro.)

Divine Confetti
(One of my favourite parts of the game was confronting the Headless. The beautiful effect of the Divine Confetti item, the super creepy music, and terrifying fight all contributed to why these enemies were the most memorable for me.)

Dark Souls
Chaos Blade and Beats
(My final build. The fictional headphones reference my need to blast music at the last boss fight because I was losing my mind and needed Pendulum to calm down.)

Dark Souls II
Alonne and Scared
(I had to re-spec my character twice and declared I hated this game in my head. Turned out I was playing the DLC too early which is supposed to be more difficult than the vanilla game. I painted this piece to remember the pain I felt upon that realization.)

Dark Souls III
Ashen One
(I was so excited to jump into Dark Souls III after the grueling effort of Dark Souls II. I ended up appreciating DS2 more because it served as a notable time gap between the DS and DS3. Had I skipped the second game I probably wouldn't have enjoyed DS3 as much as I did to immediately start illustrating my character build at early game.)

Morne
(My final build.)

Bloodborne
Blood Moon
(My final build. Also notable that I finished my first playthrough and this piece a few days after the November 2022 blood moon.)

One day I'll get back to Demon's Souls and close the Soulsborne loop.

And here are some bonus doodles of some of my playthroughs:

  

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

October Playlist 2020

 Another year of October Playlist! For previous years: 2013/2014/2015/2016/2017/2018/2019. All of these drawings can be found on my Instagram:


Left to right:
Revenger - F.O.O.L
Lazer Pink - Sunset Neon
Dusty Bugs - Opiuo, Vorso

Shirow Softworks - Eprom
Killswitch - Justin OH, Nitro Fun
Start Again - MUZZ

Butterfly Effect VIP - Koven
I See The Future In Your Eyes - Netsky
Solace - Feint, Laura Brehm

Parallel - Metrik, Grafix
Driver - Pendulum
Shouldn't - WHIPPED CREAM, Reaper


Cohesion - Spor
Day Bird Collection - Frequent, Hudson Lee
Star - Machinedrum, Mono/Poly, TanerĂ©lle


Nautilus - The Upbeats, Shapeshifter
Fogweaver - Former
Vultures - Chee

Here's To Them - Rawtekk
Can't Escape - Kumarion, LEViTATE
Three Face - Monuman


Hold Me Back - Eptic
Squids - Jon1st, Shield
Ultra - Posij, Former

Vex - Bensley
No Tomorrow - Camo & Krooked, Mefjus, Sophie Lindinger

These next three pieces were special collabs with artist @between_these_lines (Insta) / @lines_these (Twitter)! We planned out a series of scenes following a galactic explorer:

2024 - gyrofield

Hydroplane - KOAN Sound

Space Warp - BOP, Subwave


Invisible Enemies - Esseks, Tsimba
Nagow - IMANU, Buunshin

Playlist can be listened to here:


This will probably be my last year doing a blitz of drawings in October. I always feel burnt out after completing a playlist, so next year I want to spread drawings throughout the year if I can.

Once again, a massive THANK YOU to all the music artists who continue to inspire and everyone who followed my art this year! <3 

Sunday, November 3, 2019

October Playlist 2019

Sixth year in a row of October Playlist! For previous years: 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018. Probably the most steady year of the playlist (managed to finish closely on-time). These can all be found on my Instagram:

Left to right:
A Dark Machine - ShockOne, Reija Lee
Illusions - Droptek, Holly Drummond
Gravity - Metrik

You Rise - Xilent
Hella Sideways - Posij
Dark Artifact - G Jones

Untitled Horn - SpectraSoul
Muskoka - Bensley
DISORDER - The Upbeats

Beast - Culprate
Radiant - KOAN Sound
Inner Beauty - Hybrid Minds

Drone Warfare - Eprom
Violence - Eptic
Work - Bossfight

Time Stood Still - Excision, Dion Timmer
Lurker - Truth
UhaveNoIdea - LEViTATE

Near Shimmer - Proxima
When The Light Fades - Tinlicker
Untitled Forever - No Mana, EDDIE

Ghost Train [Muzzy Remix] - Knife Party, Muzzy
Dare Me - Memtrix
Renaissance - Culture Shock

Heute Nacht - Misanthrop
Spooked - Alix Perez
Monsterfy - Chee

Altered States - The Upbeats
Look to the Skies - Calyx & Teebee
Flower Veil - IMANU, HEZEN

Hotline - Ivy Lab, Two Fingers

You can listen to this playlist here:


HUGE shoutout to all of the music artists and to everyone who followed and supported me this year! <3