For years I struggled to settle on a look and feel for my own work. I'd try a style, live with it for a while, and it never quite felt like mine. This one does, and it started with a game.
Where it started: Cuphead
My partner, an Unreal Engine developer, introduced me to Cuphead, and with it, the gaming industry. Cuphead is a run-and-gun game by Studio MDHR, the studio started by Canadian brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, and released in 2017. It's built almost entirely around boss fights, and it's famously tough.
Why the rubber hose style
What hooked me was how it looks. Cuphead is drawn in the rubber hose style of 1930s cartoons, the era of early Fleischer Studios and Disney shorts: bendy arms with no elbows, pie-cut eyes, white gloves and characters that never stop bouncing.
The studio didn't fake it, either. The animation was drawn by hand on paper and inked frame by frame, the backgrounds were painted in watercolour, and the soundtrack is live-recorded jazz.
Since then this style has captured my heart. I've learnt a lot more about the work that goes into games: the animation, the art direction and the engineering underneath it all.
The colours
Green is my favourite colour, and I always wear black. A near-black base with forest and lime greens felt more like me than anything I'd tried before.
A look that finally fits
After years of going back and forth, this is the first look and feel that fits. Cartoon me, the white gloves and the bouncy stickers around this site are all a small nod to the style that got me hooked.