So, Um, What's Going On?

If you follow me on Twitter (hi!) or are a Facebook friend (hi!) then you know the real life stuff that's going on with me. If you don't know me from either of those places then all you need to know is that real life stuff is going on with me.

I've been quiet here because I haven't felt I would have much to say about gaming, which is the primary focus on this blog lately.

The game hasn't been going well. I think it's a combination of an ill-matched group, an ill-matched GM and group, and moving the game online. The only thing out of those three that could possibly be changed is the online part but it wouldn't fix the other two.

The ill-matched group has some odd dynamics since it's morphed so many times. There's now a husband and wife team, their friend (at least I think he's their friend, he may be the friend of the guy who abruptly left), and one person who's stuck through from the beginning. Their characters haven't meshed into a party - they're four people hanging out and doing stuff but they're not a PARTY in that they're forming interpersonal relationships. Not the players, the characters. Which is also the players but not really.

Only one player gave me enough backstory to work any of it into the game. The others gave me a little along the lines of "I'm trying to find my father but not really" and "I want to learn more magic before I go home". That's not enough for me to find a way to work them into a story. It's separate people with separate goals.

Here's where I get to vent a little. I want them to enjoy the game. I want them to try to put together larger pictures from what they gather as they adventure. I want everyone to have fun. But this group just can't see clues. I wondered if I was being too subtle so I literally attacked them with NPCs that should have spurred them into trying to figure out why they were being followed. Nope. As soon as the encounter was over they barely talked about it even though the NPCs got away. When they were attacked again, same result. How much more obvious do I have to be that there's something going on?

This is why I think the group and I aren't a match. My GM style doesn't mesh with their play style. That's not saying either one is bad. That's saying they don't work well as a game. It means no one is having as much fun as they could and should.

This leads into why my short lived "How I Roll" suddenly ended. I couldn't come up with enough things to continue it. That was an offshoot of me doing game prep and how things worked in my game. Since I no longer get any pleasure from game prep and the things that go on in my game aren't worth mentioning it ended that set of posts. Maybe in the future I'll pick it up again, maybe not. I don't know how much people liked it.

Ending a game is a difficult decision. I've done it in the past when I knew I wasn't giving them the game they deserved. I never heard from any of the players again after it ended so I know I made the right choice. That hurt, by the way. No one even thanked me for that game or the one before (most of the group was from the previous game that ended due to players moving away).

Ending a game in these times is an even more difficult decision. Everyone needs an escape. Gaming is a wonderful escape. But when it becomes something I dread rather than look forward to with anticipation then I know there's problems. Big problems.

I've tried to fix it by asking players what they wanted out of the game and got non-committal answers that didn't help me at all. They were along the lines of what I already said. Mostly they want to play and this is a game they have. It's not that they want to play MY game. It's that they want to play A game. At least that's the feeling I'm getting.

I could run a series of loosely collected pre-generated adventures to keep the game going. No one seems to be looking for a long term story arc. But that would put me in the position of reading Powerpoint slides. That's not what I want to do. Sure, it's easy to prep. Print off a map, print off the adventure, run them through it. I have plenty of those that I use for inspiration. But if that's all they want then there's a lot of other GMs to do that. I want to get engrossed in the story they weave. I'm there to support that and they're not storytellers.

This is me talking myself into ending the game, if you couldn't tell.

I am looking at Fantasy Grounds and running regular one shot adventures for people who just want to show up, grab a pre-generated character, and play for a few hours with no long term consequences. There's so much league play these days where every result is a permanent result I want to think that there's people out there who want carefree play too.

That would let me have some fun with adventures and also play with no long term consequences. Sure it might seem little different than what I said I didn't like about my current game but it's different. It's meant to last a few hours then end forever. One shots as opposed to a string of encounters.

I have a few days left before I need to make a decision. Wednesday before the game is my traditional time to contact the group and remind them we're playing. That's a way for people to say if they can't play as well. I canceled the last game due to the stuff from the first paragraph and one player would have had to cancel anyway due to their real life stuff. So we're already several weeks out from the last session.

What will I do for a creative outlet?

I can work on learning Fantasy Grounds since I like learning things and seeing how to make games there.

I can work on my hobbies.

But I know that my full creativity is blocked at the moment. It's been blocked for a while. The world changed. We're all excused for having bad mental reactions to what's going on. For me it means that I don't think I can run games right now. I can't give myself over to the fun of figuring out imaginary challenges to overcome when we're all dealing with real life challenges. That's not fun.

Anyway. I wanted to let you know that I've been feeling guilty about not posting an update. I'm still around and I hope to be posting about other things that I can do. They probably won't involve gaming as much. I have many other hobbies and interests that I enjoy sharing. Maybe switching to those will put me in a better place to be creative in general.

Drawing 101 - Class 3 of 3

The class got canceled due to the pandemic after the third session.

Anyway, here's how it went.

The instructor handed out a picture of a painted still life and told us to draw it. Then he sat back and played on his phone for most of the class. He walked around a few times, gave some mild critique, but pretty much left us to our own devices. I wasn't impressed.

This time it was just myself and MG (manga girl). PL (Pinterest lady) didn't show up and SAG (serious art guy) had said he wouldn't be there. I don't blame PL. I called the county recreation department earlier that day to find out if there would still be class and the person who answered the phone said the powers that be were in a meeting about that.

The still life he chose was dark and in my opinion not great for drawing in plain pencil. It would have been more suited to colored pencils. But we were still using regular pencils so we did our best. I only took one picture because there was no point (in my opinion) of taking more.

All in all I found this a waste of class time. We don't get the full two hours anyway since he wants to pack up and get out before the main doors close.

I think you can see where color is necessary for this reproduction. It's dark to start and the only things that stand out are vibrant in color. I went with my strengths (design work and composition) then ignored the rest.

Yes. I know the table placement is completely off. I redrew that a few times while working then decided it wasn't worth more effort. The cherries started to become black blobs the more I tried to detail them. The tablecloth design isn't spaced right. I did do hatchwork shading this time and found that it was an interesting choice that I will explore further.

On one of his few rounds the teacher complimented me on the bowl design. Honestly that was the easiest part for me so I find it surprising that other people would have trouble with it. It's basic line work. But hey, I'll take it a compliment. I just realized that he may have chosen the one non-terrible thing to compliment me on. Oh well.

At the end he started getting all excited about our next class being a grid format full human figure. That means having a grid over a smaller drawing of the figure and translating it into a larger picture. That's not 101 stuff in my opinion. Both myself and MG said that it didn't interest us. He seemed disappointed and I think that also means he didn't know what to do for our next class.

I didn't sign up for life drawing. I signed up for learning the basics of how to draw. He didn't seem to realize that the provided supply list included colored pencils and pastels so he probably didn't have plans to teach those either. He did say he needed to talk to the county about that list, reinforcing my guess.

Would I do this again? Sure. With a different instructor. I didn't dislike this guy and he did have some of the basic instruction requirements. But he reminds me of some of the miniature painters I know. They spend so much time doing advanced techniques that they literally cannot teach the basics.

And the watercolor class I had scheduled after this one is also cancelled. They closed the facility until the end of April which would have meant we missed four of the six classes. I already bought the supplies. Silly me.

Drawing 101 - Class 2 of 6

Tonight's class was about shading. As I said for the first class even though it's listed as being two hours long we're lucky to get one and a half hours of class time. That's not exactly bad but also not exactly good.

All three students were there - MG (manga girl), PL (Pinterest lady), and SAG (serious art guy). MG doesn't seem to understand the unspoken rule that once you pick a seat in the first class that's your seat forever. So instead of sitting next to PL I sat next to her. Not exactly bad but a breach of classroom etiquette.

Once again the instructor pulled out his very large pad of newsprint and gave us all pieces. I'm glad that we're using his paper for all of this because the class supply list had us buy a pad of rather expensive paper for use with pastels. I'd hate to waste nice paper on this. I'm also interested to find out if we're even going to use it. But I digress.

Tonight's class was very basic - trace shapes, shade shapes. The most complex thing was the use of a vanishing point. I'm not saying that it was bad at all. Shading is a basic technique that is necessary to learn. And I'm glad that he had a lesson plan and didn't do another "just draw" session.

Here's our first assignment - a pyramid-like shape and a sphere:

I'm not overly fond of that line on the triangle that makes it into two planes but gives no depth, which is the intention of shading. It's also not my class.

He had posterboard templates for the shapes and a ruler for the baseline. Around they went and off we went. He also handed out charcoal pencils for us to use (even if we had our own) and later in the process offered people willow charcoal sticks. I wasn't offered and I would have declined. It was too dark for me in this exercise.

My result:

Yes. I know they're not in the same order but that's because he handed out the templates in the other order. He also didn't say the line we were drawing was the baseline until I'd already drawn on the shapes. I simply couldn't deal with that triangle so I made it into a pyramid.

I think I got the concept down. Charcoal pencil, smudged using a paper towel. I know the shadow on the sphere is very light for what it should be but I also wasn't going to sit there and darken it up when I knew what the concept was.

SAG was working with all his own supplies and shading like a MOFO. He had a waning moon going on there he had such a solid black section. MG was working quite well and got excited when she saw my pyramid, saying that now she knew what had been bothering her. I couldn't see PL because she was too far away.

Here's the comparison shot of the example vs my attempt:

Overall I think I got the concepts down and while I knew it wasn't great I also wasn't going to spend a lot of time futzing on a class demo piece. That gets boring to me when there should be more to learn.

And there was! Next up was a cube and a cylinder:

Way off over the cylinder is the vanishing point for the cube.

So we're learning perspective as well as blending. Sneaky...

Anyway. Some ruler work, some posterboard templates, and off we went. Note that the cylinder is open at the top. Our template was a rectangle and we had to add the rounded bits.

Honestly the shading on the front face of the cube is something I would have to look into and figure out myself. I'm not sure how it would look with the light source and I don't know that the example is correct. But that's minor.

My result:

They're in the right order this time. You can't see my vanishing point because it's under the paper at the top but I left it and the guidelines in place. The cube looks a little ragged because I didn't use a ruler when I darkened the lines. Again, practice piece!

Here's the comparison shot of the example vs my attempt:

Yes. That's my first drawing under the example. Again I think that I got the concepts he was trying to teach even if I didn't go to the extremes in the example.

I was the only person turning my drawing board to make it easier to do directional strokes of the pencil. Why make it more difficult for myself when I can turn the thing ninety degrees and make nice, smooth lines?

I was working with trying different ways to blend the pencil while I worked. Mostly I went from light to dark so I wasn't dragging more color into areas where I didn't want it.

The handout for this class showed four different kinds of shading strokes - layers, scribbles, hatching, and blending. I did try a little of the scribbling but found it wasn't going to work for me with these strong geometric shapes. Maybe on more organic things or in different areas it would be something to try and I might do just that.

Thus endeth the class. SAG left early and won't be there for the next class. Life and stuff. It happens and he was polite about telling the instructor so we wouldn't be waiting or wondering.

While we all finish early I'd rather that he not try to pack too much into a class so we have to rush and possibly miss things. I do these exercises quickly without consciously trying to do them quickly. I just do. In this case shading such large objects becomes an exercise in tedium so practice for me would be on much smaller ones.

We'll see what next week brings.

Drawing 101 - Class 1 of 6

OK - first off this is a reminder to myself to check my camera before leaving the class. I didn't get a picture of the still life setup the teacher had us draw so there's no way to compare it to what I did draw. That's on me and I apologize since it makes this entry less useful.

The class has three other people. Let me identify them since I think they'll come into play in future classes.

Pinterest Lady (PL) - A lady about my age, taking the class to have something to do before she moves out of state
Manga Girl (MG) - A teenager who somehow makes me think she's into manga and showed up without the supplies from the list
Serious Art Guy (SAG) - A guy about my age (I think) who brought his traveling easel complete with extendable legs and a full Hobby Lobby table easel box full of supplies.

The teacher was credible if a little disorganized with his lesson plan. He also took multiple trips to bring in his supplies, delaying the class. People also staggered in after the start time so there's that.

The teacher set up a still life that had a fabric draped box background and four objects. There was strong side lighting to get some shadows and hotspots. He didn't say that part, I just knew it.

He had drawing boards for those of us who didn't and gave us big sheets of cheap newsprint to do this first drawing. Then he said to draw. No instructions to start, no help, just .. draw.

Ok. I started drawing. I guess I knew more than I thought since I was able to get the basic forms on paper in a way that they looked like the ones in the still life. Shading was more difficult due to the single color option (black) and trying to get it right.

Here's my drawing. Snicker all you like but I haven't really drawn anything in a very long time.

I guess you can see the various objects, their relation to each other, and the basic shading of what's what. He gave us tissue to blend the pencil into actual shading. The dark line in the upper right is where I gave charcoal a try and decided against it. To be fair there was a deep shadow there.

If you look closely at the drawing (your choice there) you can see I added the reflections of the three people's drawing boards in the left vase and the reflections of the other objects in the right vase (it was black). This was because I finished the thing in about an hour. Out of a two hour class.

The teacher seemed a bit unsure of what to do for me for the rest of the class time. He gave me a printout of a statue face that had strong lighting and said for me to draw that. Really? The human face is one of the more difficult things to draw and he's giving it to me in the first class?

Ok. It turns out that my reading over all the Etherington Brothers tutorials on Twitter and the linked blog paid off. I was able to at least put the features in the right place and get some of the shading right. The nose even looked like a human nose. No. I'm not posting pictures of that one at all.

I took that as far as possible with plenty of time to spare. Once again he dug into his tacklebox and had me try ochre pastel. I used an extra pitcher that didn't make it into the still life as my subject. I did all right and found how to use the pastel to make directional shading. I also learned that a little pastel goes a long way when you start blending. I'm calling that a moderate win. I'm also not showing it.

The final thing was me picking the lamp to draw. At this point PL was also done with her still life and was drawing random things. She kind of followed me with the pastel pitcher and then the lamp. She didn't get the statue picture to copy. That's how we filled out the class.

At the end MG had a decent enough picture using a mechanical pencil and regular eraser. She was still working on it when we stopped. SAG had an attempt at Serious Art and was moderately successful, in my opinion. PL also had a still life that was reasonably accurate.

The instructor looked at all of our results and took pictures. From what he let drop this was done for him to judge our skill levels and how we worked. I'm hoping that means the next classes will be more instruction and be more in line with the students. But he's got a half-and-half here. Two that seem to move faster than the others. This may or may not be a problem and I can say it is partially my problem because I'm one of the faster ones.

I'm happy with my still life and most of the extra things I did. I learned some things. I found out I knew more than I thought. These are all good things. I also wasn't nervous about drawing the still life, which was kind of surprising to me.

My style at this point seems to be "fast and dirty". I used a harder pencil to draw in the basic lines and shapes then switched to successively softer ones to shade and bulk them in. I didn't bother to erase any hard pencil lines (drawn lightly, of course) as I worked. In a more finished drawing they would have been erased or covered. I have a lot to learn about how to do pencil drawings when I don't have color to use to show various effects.

I don't choke up on the pencils and I use arm motions more than wrist for everything but the detail work. Again I think this is good when working on the bulk of the drawing. I'll find out if I'm right, I hope. But if it works for me then it's right, right?

I learned a very valuable lesson about pastels that I hope I don't forget when we move to those in class. Less is more when blending is involved. I can always add more but taking them off the paper isn't nearly as easy. To be fair I didn't expect to blend it when I was working and used the texture of the paper to help with the drawing. But again, I hope to remember that.

I'm interested to see how the second class goes. That will be a more accurate representation of how the full run of the session will be. Having the two very different speeds of artists worries me a bit but if we're doing one thing per class and have some options it should work out. If the instructor doesn't provide I can make up my own. Like drawing the lamp in the first session since I had time.

The only person I might make friends with is SAG. MG is just too damn young and PL is moving away. Maybe the instructor but probably not. For all that I said making friends wasn't a goal in the class I wouldn't have objected. Now I know what my options are and can take it or leave it.

Some Drawing

I will be the first one in a long line of people who say that my drawing skills are somewhat less than optimal. 2D has never been something I do very well. That doesn't stop me from trying. If anything working on a skill that is difficult makes the successes that much more important to me.

I'm signed up for a half day calligraphy workshop next month. That has little to nothing to do with the rest of this blog entry but it does tie in. My fascination with medieval manuscripts has been kicked into gear again by some of the accounts I follow on Twitter. Since those manuscripts are illuminated and decorated that means drawing.

Add in the interest in drawing RPG maps and it's inevitable that I would be pulling out the pencils and fighting my lack of innate talent.

I was cruising YouTube when I found a set of instructional videos on knotwork where it finally 'clicked' for me. I'd tried drawing that off and on for years but never really got the hang of it. I can grasp the theory behind it and even some of the design structure. I just couldn't (or wouldn't) get them on paper.

If you're interested this is the first of the series of videos that made sense to me. I started with his method of drawing grids but quickly moved to graph paper to cut out a level of complexity.

Here's some of the things I've done. There's failures in there, especially as I work with break lines. I tend to mess those up about twenty percent of the time. But it's better than it was!

You can see some of the progression as I keep trying different things. You can also see where I stopped filling in the negative space. 

Let's face it. These are easy designs. And I haven't worked towards the thinner lines yet or adding color. I'm working on the core concepts and until I'm happy with that I'm going to stay right where I am.

Break lines take more work both in placement and remembering not to get too close and/or cross them. I'm still working on that. I'm staying with graph paper until then.

After I'm comfortable with my ability to do slightly more complex designs then I'll probably move down to thinner lines. These are nice but not really practical when used in layouts. They're too chunky. Chunky helps with learning so I'm not complaining.

For those of you who do this regularly or can just doodle them out then I salute you. For me this is a real work of effort and concentration. I've got more pages I've been filling up with various sizes, shapes, and patterns as I practice. On every page there's a couple of failures and I refer back to them to find out what did wrong.

I know I can scan these and clean up things like lines I accidentally crossed. But that's not the point. I want to not cross those lines in the first place. The way to do that is understand the mistake.

Not too long ago the mistakes would have made me frustrated and upset. They would have given me pause about continuing. I've mellowed out about that in the last few years and can accept mistakes for what they are. Mistakes and learning opportunities.

The work I want to do in the future will only hit the scanner once it's complete. Nothing will be done to clean it up or change it. I like the little inconsistencies of hand drawn work. Looking at historical documents they're not perfect. That's part of their appeal.

In my opinion we're spoiled by perfection. Computers are a part of that. But somehow that looks 'dead' to me. The hand drawn works with all their little oddities make for a piece with life. It's more work and mistakes mean fixing or even starting over. Or changing the design. Hand drawn is certainly more demanding. That suits my personality very well.

I do plan on using these designs for freehand on miniatures and on terrain painting. The techniques will be adapted for those, of course. But the very first step is knowing I can be sitting in a boring meeting and do a fabulous corner doodle while someone is reading off the PowerPoint slides that were emailed to us days earlier. It's a personal thing and a way to keep myself amused.

As I said. Things that are difficult for me give me more satisfaction when I can do them. If it's something that is easy then the achievements are expected. These achievements are work.