Dennis Detwiller’s Post

"I raised 42 million dollars to make a videogame!" "Sounds good." "It's a crypto-based CRPG." "That's amazing, where did you get your Time Machine?"

Morning, bitches! The great artists I have met all have this in common: they don’t wait for permission to create. They make art because they can’t stop. Remember: Self-driven art is what builds your career and changes the world, work-for-hire is what puts money in the pockets of businessmen.

Morning, bitches! BEST CREATIVE ADVICE OF THE DAY: Honestly compare your art and creations to works you admire and hope to emulate. This is the most common creative “mistake” I see — an assumption of greatness or a “I AM DESTINED FOR SOMETHING!” delusion on the part of the fledgling creator (but this is an entirely normal stage for a creator to go through). A lot of times, this delusion forms a protective shell around the creator’s art, to protect their egos from external attack, and that shell has hardened over time to the point where it can deflect even meaningful feedback. Especially self-assessment. I see this a lot. Someone will show me their comic page, or TTRPG art, and refer to some other artwork and say “Well, mine is better than THAT,” when hoooooooo-boy, is it ever not. If it sucks, and you hear or see a sentiment like this, try to be honest (but gentle) with them.

"It can babysit your kids, walk your dog."

Most #videogame devs at their first real interview after 26 months of layoffs and approximately two million job applications...

Morning, bitches! Every creative industry with the ability to generate profit is discovered and colonized by a metastasizing cancer called "business". Eventually, the people that make the art don't get paid. Comics. Novels. TV. Movies. Video games. There's a reason everyone working on them are shrieking about barely getting by. All those industries make big money. The artists don't. That's by design, and it ALWAYS grows worse over time. You are better off on your own.

Video games (abridged).

Morning, bitches! Luck is the ability to persist in failure until an opportunity opens up. That's all.

Morning, bitches! We’ve entered the age of corporate autophagy, where industries feast on their own properties and talent, destroying them to shit out a slight bump in the stock price; which in the end is stock for a company that has literally shit itself to death. This is what passes for “business” now.

Morning, bitches! I remember people talking about how Jim Carey “went insane” because he stopped chasing what many mistake as success. The lesson below was the hardest I had to learn, and he puts it eloquently: THERE IS NO GUARANTEED PATH TO BECOMING SUCCESSFUL, BUT THERE IS A GUARANTEED PATH TO BECOMING MISERABLE. https://lnkd.in/gEJmvWpm