Heya friendos! A Michael Bay movie has explosions, a Miyazaki movie has beautiful nature and delicious-looking food, a Wes Anderson movie has off-beat pacing and vintage colors. These are all components that make up their respective signature styles… But how does one get to that point? How does an artist find their own voice? Let’s think about it!

How Am I Doing?

I’m doing A-OK! I had some low-energy days last week, so I took a bit of an unofficial vacation playing Baldur’s Gate again and walking around Paris to get lunch and coffee. It was nice and quiet, and I feel energized again.

An Artist’s Voice

Last week I talked about feeling creatively antsy, and it got me thinking about what kind of art I want to make. A good friend and creative confidant of mine pitched a few story ideas this last week, and I realized most of his ideas are rooted in or parodic of either French of British historical events. His interest in history and people’s behavior of specific time periods is palpable from even the most off-hand ideas. I have a few other creative friends who have a very recognizable style, both visually and conceptually.

I think I have yet to find that signature style… that voice, for my own creative endeavors. But I also wonder if it is a conscious decision you make, or if it is something that organically connects your works through shared themes and stylistic choices.

What Am I Doing?

So, I decided to go over a whole bunch of games and stories I made, in various stages of completion, to see if I can find some kind of connecting factor. What did I find? Well, to be honest, it’s a bit of a mixed bag and it quite difficult to find any relation between them at all.

One thing that’s for sure is that I tend to start projects I’m interested in making, more than consuming. When inspiration strikes, I immediately start sprinting. I don’t do market research, study competitors or check viability. I start creating, just to see if I enjoy creating it at all. Usually, it is a new subject, technical or abstract, that catches my interest and drives this motivation. I wonder if that is particularly noticeable in the works themselves however, so I don’t believe this to be my signature specifically.

What kind of story is a Daan story? What is my signature style?

Reclamation

The other thing I noticed that has seeds throughout all of my works is Nature vs Industry. What I realized, funnily enough, is that this theme predates any actual critique I could have of ‘industry’ as something that is opposed to nature. As a young child, I had no notion that industry could be “bad actually”, but I do have clear memories of places where construction and nature faced off.

To this day, I have a fascination with man-made spaces that are left to nature’s whims. Abandoned warehouses overgrown with ivy. Graffitied walls, now rain-battered and mossy. Rusted fences through which trees have found a path to grow. A gated garden completely left to its devices. These spaces are somehow collectively deemed as unimportant enough to forego maintenance, which allows any kind of self-sustaining ecosystem to do its thing.

I’m unable to exactly pinpoint what compels me about such places, however. A couple of reasons come to mind:

1. They are often isolated, allowing me to explore and marvel in peace.
2. They are abandoned, so there’s history to them.
3. They are transformative, as they now serve a different purpose than they were intended for.
4. They are a witness to time, serving as an example of the march of time.
5. They are being consumed, slowly choked by a green inferno.

But none of them quite hit why exactly these places have been on my mind all this time. I think my fascination is with reclamation. Nature is taking back what is hers, but only after society has it negligible. It’s something of an unspoken agreement. There’s a treasure trove of beautiful metaphors in there. It makes me think of the past and the future alike. It makes me think of what happens after humanity is gone. It makes me think about how to practice degrowth. It makes me think about how marginalized people fight to reassert their rights. It also just makes me think of beautiful nature.

Hopefully, a Daan story will be a work that manages to instill these same feelings in people. I am excited to apply these findings to Clysmoids and other projects that have been percolating on the backburner!

‘Moidpendium

Ha! Thought I’d forget the ol’ Clysmoid today, huh? We’ve got Slikkiskull today. In many ways, they are the quintessential Clysmoid: they are cute and a little bit off-putting. So far, this has been the fan favourite. Goopy is also the clan that made the whole weakness pentagram click for me.

Genus	Slikkiskull
Family	Goopy
Physical Trait	As of yet, much of Slikkiskull’s amorphous physiology remains a mystery. It is thought that are closely related to colonial animals such as coral.
Behavioral Trait	They decorate themselves with bones and other hard-to-dissolve objects to seem more anthropomorphic and approachable.
Social Trait	Despite them not displaying physiological similarities to other Clysmoids or being able to communicate with them in any way, they seem to have the singular wish to be socially accepted.

Why Am I Doing? (this)

I do think learning is part of my signature. Excitement about new stuff I’m learning in particular. This newsletter is a logbook of that learning process. Perhaps that is my artist voice after all… Let me know if you have an idea what a Daan story could look like.

And, of course, I invite you to think about what a ‘You’ story is!