Alright, this week has been a bit of a bust. Work has been crazy, and with Mother's Day, I haven't gotten a lot done. All I was able to accomplish was to iterate on the Hello World! program, and try out a simple calculator project, none of which worked properly. I did order a copy of the book Patrick's been mentioning, though.

The issue with the programs is that they appear to be running then shutting down so fast that I can't tell if they're working or not. The book I'm using mentions this, but it's fix involves .bat files which I also can't get to work. Did I mention that I'm not particularly computer savvy? So, without much to report, and no progress until I can find a solution, I may have to use this blog for it's intended purpose; self-absorbed babbling!

One of the reasons I decided to start this project at all, has to do with my career. I've been a professional tattoo artist for the last ten years, and even though I really enjoy what I do, I knew going in that it might not be the sort of thing I could do forever. Between long hours, back and neck pain, carpal tunnel, apathy, and feeling burnt out creatively, there are lots of land mines that a person needs to avoid in order to keep tattooing, so it never hurts to have a wide array of skills, artistic or otherwise. Luckily, artists in general have skills that can be used in all sorts of ways, on all sorts of projects.

At this point, I feel like I have another five to ten years in me, so that's five years to turn a hobby in to something that I could pretend to be competent in. Building on a lifetime of knowledge of playing games, and a lifetime of making art, I hope to put the two together and create something that I'll care about, and maybe amuse someone else too. I can't say that I've got anything more than vague ideas of what I'd like to make, but right now, I'm trying not to look too far ahead. I'm having trouble with Hello World! after all.

As for art, I really enjoy pop and lowbrow art, as well as minimalism and traditional tattoo art. I've tried to lump a lot of my interests together and wound up doing a lot of vidjagame inspired tattoos, along with taking a lot of different art styles and using them to make unusual tattoos. I hope that this flexibility and creativity might help inform a project like a simple independent game, and that's really what I intend to find out.

Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next Monday! -Blair.