Rest, Relax, Reset.

It's been a week since iv'e been on holiday  with my family over at Disneyland! Which was all kinds of awesome in general. But I'm not going to talk about the rides and candy floss like a regular person, I'm going to be talking about design things because I'm a nerd and my brain doesn't seem to turn off to art ever.

First thing to note, the change in scenery was weird at first. America doesn't really have any "old" buildings, especially in comparison to Europe which has century's worth of architecture that is still standing to this day. However  there are a lot of buildings that are made to stand out and advertise the shop services.  For instance I passed several ice cream shops shaped like ice cream, there was a fruit market in the shape of a orange, a  "world of wonders" building that was built to look like it was upside down,  and a really creepy wizard gift shop. This could be due to the fact that I was staying in a tourist trap location, but it's not something I've seen back home in England.

This looks worse at night

Past having an amazing time in the happiest place on earth this trip was great for helping my out with game art, since theme park design is a stones throw away from game design.  Everything in Disney's parks are built for it's theme. The shops, the signs, even trash bins are all designed with the final theme in mind, not unlike a game. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't been playing many games lately that I've just been missing this feature in them. But I think seeing all these physically made props and buildings in the context of the parks has been extremely inspiring. Especially with the level of professionalism Disney puts into it.  Walking around in the parks built up atmosphere,  made things click  for me. Fingers crossed I'll find it easier to design in the future because of this.

Information sign posts dotted around Animal Kingdom

"The Tree of Life"  the houses over 300 stunning animal carvings 

Even the lights get cool details!

During all this nerding over well designed lanterns. I realised that despite being on summer vacation for a couple of months, I haven't really taken a break in a very long time, for the fear of my art career (or lack thereof)  ending and my hands shrivelling up. I even brought the means to work with me abroad, (though I decided against working in the end.) I even took a break from basic drawing, besides some doodles waiting for the plane, and some notes, my sketchbook pages remained empty for these weeks. I'm happy to report that I did not die from the guilt, and I can still draw like I did before I left. So the past two weeks have been focusing on resting and relaxing, but the reset comes today.

For the first week I did not have access to the internet, the second week I had internet but being on holiday I limited my internet time, and my communication with work related things back home. But I found from just the single week away that I spend a lot of time going through daily subscription type sites on the internet.  Subscriptions to videos, comics, blogs, artist, artwork, plus checking emails and Facebook throughout the day.  I realised these things have really built up over the years. All this takes up so much of my day to the point of having even one week away backed up  too much content to even attempt to catch up. So i'm going to take the time to just cut the clutter loose and maybe have some more time to focus on work, now that I'm back.