Hi Reader! 👋

I’m writing to you from my bed, because this weekend I sadly got sick! A lot of people are recently with the change of season, so I hope you’re doing good on your side!

Thankfully I didn’t catch anything too bad, and I was still able to make art this week that I’m excited to show you :)

Let’s start!

Drawing Imaginary Video Games

As you might remember, me and my partner are preparing to attend Łódż’s 37th International Comics and Games Festival this weekend, and time is running low!

But I still wanted to have at least one new illustration to show there; and I showed you some sketches last week of drawing of imaginary video games!
I wasn’t sure I would have the time to finish any of those, but an unexpected event came at exactly the right time 😄

On Saturday, as I got to my laptop to start drawing I noticed somethings strange: my wifi wasn’t working anymore! We didn’t had any internet!

Well good thing that I don’t need any internet to draw, but that’s where I’m getting at: I had an incredible opportunity to focus fully and finally get things done!

It’s crazy how much more focused I can be when I don’t even have the option to look up something, have a video in the background or check my socials. Who would have thought!

And that’s how I managed to push through the ink, color and shading of this illustration in just an afternoon :) It felt so satisfying to get this done quickly!

Granted, it’s not my most detailed work ever, but when an illustration drags on over multiple weeks it can feel sooo demotivating. It almost makes me wish I had internet outage more often.

Anyway, here is the final result!

I really love how it turned out: I wanted something warm and cosy, with colors similar to Super Nintendo and Game Boy Advance games, which I adore :)

I always have my previous illustrations on the side to pick colors from!

This scene is meant to be a similar to a Stardew Valley but a more fantasy twist Now I really hope I’ll get a second illustration done this week, but worse case I’ll have at least a cute new print ready!

After finishing the illustration, I felt very tired and a bit of tension in my body -- I was worried I had pushed a bit too much, but it turns out it had nothing to do with this: I was just starting to get sick!

Making stamps! And listening to my own advice for once

Alright I’ll go on a tangent for a minute, but I promise you it will makes sense in a few paragraphs!

Did you see the Ocarina of Time remake? If you don’t know, Ocarina of Time (OOT) is one of the early Zelda games, and a remake with completely new graphics has been showcased recently!

It looks very impressive in my opinion, but let me tie it back to today’s subject.

You see, the original game is actually ~6 months older than me, but I still have found memories with it; as a kid I played it on emulator, and much later I went deeper with the decompiled, unofficial PC port, which is probably the best way to enjoy it nowadays!

It was my comfort game when I had covid :)

And in May 2023 I was inspired to do a series of fanart of the starting village, where I would have the game running while drawing for maximum immersion!

Okay now back to my weekend 🙂‍↕️

I was feeling alright on Saturday, but on Sunday I was definitely sick; not too bad, but I didn’t feel like sitting at my desk to draw more.

My wife on her side had the amazing idea of reusing some of her illustrations to make stamped-themed sticker sheet, and it looks stunning! :)

So, that's where I thought about making a Zelda themed version with this old illustration series I just mentioned, but I was a bit shy to do it:

Those were made years ago, when I was still trying to learn how to draw backgrounds and finding my style. I can do so much better now!

But that’s very incoherent from what I always preach!

In articles I’ve made in the past like “How to post more without making more art” I often argue that artist should not be afraid to reuse and repost older artworks instead of grinding to always have something new. Because I truly believe that if an artwork resonated with people years ago, it can still do that now :)

Sounds good, but now I need to listen to this advice more often!

I quickly shared those on socials, and seeing the warm reception from people gave me the confidence to make a sticker sheet out of them. Here it is!

The magenta lines are there to mark were the machine should cut!

In addition to the Kokiri Forest, I also did Emerald Coast, the first level of Sonic Adventure; another of my childhood game!

And finally, I got a bit carried away and also did some stamps with details from my previous illustrations! I have no ideas if those will be popular or not, we will find out this weekend!

Maybe you’d be interested in having some of these as well? I will certainly have some extra stock left after the event, so maybe they will be listed on my site later on!

In any case, it was very fun to put them all together! I have many more ideas of things to prepare before the weekend, let’s hope I can do most of them :)

Oh and also important to note that they are not actual postal stamps, we will need to make it very clear at the festival 😄

This is it, thank you for reading! Sorry if it was a bit short and rambly, it's hard to get the energy to write while being sick :)
I really look forward for next Tuesday to tell you all about how the event went!

See you very soon,

Take care (and don't get a cold!),
- Nighten