It has become very apparent that dA is no longer a place to improve my pixel art skills. The pixel art section has declined into a place of poor quality works, not to mention miscategorisation of oekakis and dolling sprites. DDs mean nothing anymore, and responses on artworks in dA has also degraded (probably has been for years) to the point that it can easily be divided into two categories:

* Those that simply praise without any word of improvement.
* A lack of response, usually the result of either little exposure of the art to the public, or the lack of ability to constructively criticise or analyse.

Much of my pixel art activities are currently concentrated in Pixeljoint and Pixelation, where attention is paid on good pixel art techniques and comments & criticism. I will still submit pixel art here as a matter of courtesy (since dA introduced me to excellent pixel art in 2003), but there may be a few changes with regards to the type of comments allowed.

Guess the guys in Pixelation where right a long time ago (sorry `ShoneGold). dA has always been one big popularity contest.

Astonished I'm still posting five and one half's years after I joined a once humble dA. How time flies.

Anyway, that townspace is still in my mind, and I'm semi-active in the Pixel Joint forums these days; I usually hang around in the WIP section.

So, there, I'm not completely dead. Just having RL priorities like any grown adult.

4 years, 7 months and 18 days after this stupid stunt. I have given up. There, I said it. I'm starting over and there will be no deadlines anymore.

The unfinished "townscape" and a few bits are all up in Scraps now. Feel free to tear it to shreds, because it's all CC.

All these months of absence from dA hasn't really help much in my motivation in getting any pixel art done these days. Much of my time during the second half of this year was spent working to pay the bills and financing a possible reentry into college. I have to admit, it's dull as hell, but it's a necessity I have to prioritize over other non-essential activities.

I got plenty of fresh new artistic ideas for more pixel art, but I have neither the experience to speedily finish pixel art or the time to do it, even for a very short time. Maybe it's time to return to the traditional paper-and-pencil way like the good ol' days. Problem is I have neither a scanner or a tablet to port any on that into a PC.

As for the Townscape, I'm not even sure if I want to hang on to it any longer, because it has become intimidating to even glance at. To give you a picture of how large it is, it's 23.6MB large as a BMP image, and 3750x2200 pixels large, and doesn't include the half-finished supplementary materials that should go into that monster of a picture. And all that while I'm supposed to finish it PIXEL BY PIXEL, with AS LITTLE REPETITION AS POSSIBLE. I was also thinking about the possibility of releasing the half-finished work to PixelJoint under a Creative Commons license in hopes that one or more willing souls will complete it.

Maybe I need a bit more time to think about it. Clear my head.

Just to let you know, I've prepared for the coming storm. I'm on a laptop as the power has been cut. This is all that I can type in now. Will update after recovering.

Huh. Wasn't as bad as we expected.