So long 2019, here's to 2020!

Moise has somehow been swindled out of his slow dance in Zelda’s eighth floor New Years party. I’d like to invite everyone here to come celebrate at the 🔗new Vekllei discord — we mostly argue about architecture and share art and stories. No pressure, but at least you can hassle me directly about the gap between posts. Speaking of which, this one is a substitute — the one I’m working on ended up being a bit too sad for an exciting new year, so I’ll put the sad stuff off until Jan 2nd in favour of something happier tomorrow.

While Moise sits alone and feels like a cow-handed chucklehead, let’s wind up the year with some awards I’ll hand out to myself.

Runner Up: Favourite Post of 2019

🔗The Forgotten Generation

Old photographs have a certain tragedy to them. Especially considering the hardships of the past. I like the maoist elements of the uniforms and the vague sense of loss.

Runner Up: Worst Post of 2019

🔗Wallabies of the Arctic

The pademelons are cute, and were fun to draw. Somehow I managed to make Tzipora, whom I’ve been drawing since I was 15, incredibly ugly and awkward to look at. The expression I was trying to draw is fine in theory; the shape and colour of the face is wrong. You’ve got to wonder what I was thinking, posting it without alterations.

Favourite Post of 2019

🔗Absolute Grotesque

As anyone who does creative work knows, you don’t usually anticipate your favourite work. This one was made in about four hours (it was the quickest landscape I ever did).

I don’t always like the dark stuff, but this one just turned out well. The lore doesn’t waste any words, and it says exactly what I wanted to say about the subject. It’s clear and simple and I like reading back through it. The art is much better than more recent attempts at similar subjects, and there’s a brevity to the art and lore that I usually fuck up. I’ve made many posts now trying to recreate it.

Worst Post of 2019

🔗Uniform Ideology in the Arctic North

You’ll have to trust me when I say the women’s uniform is extraordinarily beautiful. Despite its capes and gold, it can be stripped of ornamentation and reduced to a white shirt and red skirt, recalling images of Taiwan in the White Terror or postwar Vietnam. It has a fundamental simplicity and adaptability that’s quite important to me.

You’ll have to trust me about all that, because it does not carry through in this post at all. It’s not that there’s one particular element that makes a post shitty; it’s just the total half-arsed effort throughout. Uniform ideology is such an untapped concept, and I wasted it here. The girls look strange. The only good thing about this post is that it introduced me to several nice fellow worldbuilders that I would go on to collaborate with.

What is your best and worst? I know my choices might be a bit surprising. If you comment that the worst is “every post”, I’ll ban you.

Finally, cheers to all of you here and at my Patreon. I’ve had a slow month for drawing, and I’ve got to find a place to live by this weekend, but we’ve got good things ahead. I’m back in Japan on the 9th, so expect some vitality there. I love drawing on the trains there. I was inspired to make this subreddit after my last visit in August, actually.

I’m trying to get back to making posts every other day — it’s the best feeling in the world to put stuff up here, but sometimes life just gets in the way. January is a time of rebirth, and Tzipora is eternal — there will be lots of Vekllei to come.

Here’s to 2020.

Hobart.

P.S. Moise did, in fact, get his slow dance.