Three #dungeon23 Videos

I've been cranking away at my #dungeon23 project, The Blades of Gixa (which is now rather late) and making a little video about each month as I go. I just published the latest one today. Here's a playlist:

If you're unfamiliar, #dungeon23 was a challenge proposed by Sean McCoy (of Mothership fame): draw and key a dungeon room every day for a year – each floor is a month. It was an exciting challenge, really fun, and, turns out, a lot of work.

Most people didn't finish, which is totally fine! The point was not to make a finished "product" but to get into the habit of creating something every day, to just make something without worrying about it being coherent or polished.

But somehow enough people requested that I publish my dungeon that it is becoming a product after all. I think my motivations for the challenge were a bit different, anyway. Making stuff has never been too much of an issue for me: I can't help but make things all the time. My problem has always been finishing.

I've started so many projects that I not only haven't finished, but also never fully put away: I refused to acknowledge that I would never finish them. So I've carried the weight of those projects, strange and impossible self-imposed obligations, for ages. But I'm finally learning when to put a project away – for real – and when to fully commit.

Making Warped Beyond Recognition was huge for me not just because I'm proud of what I created, but because I actually finished it. It's done: out in the world, in people's hands and at their tables. And so for me personally, #dungeon23 is about finishing. Taking on a crazy big ambitious project, and seeing it through to completion.

The Blades of Gixa, still unfinished, weighs on me, but now that weight is productive, driving me towards that goal of completion. I've come to feel it's incredibly important for creative folks to learn to finish what they start, whether that means seeing an idea through to a final product, or accepting that it's not going to happen, thanking it for its time, and letting it go.

The Blades of Gixa is coming soon to Kickstarter. Sign up to get notified when it launches!