As I have mentioned previously I’m currently learning game development.  Specifically, I’m learning game development with the Unity game engine.  Here is a tutorial series on YouTube that I’m following along:

I will record here a list of drawing tutorials and techniques shown on YouTube that I learn from.

Shayda Campbell has a number of good videos (the following demonstrates how to draw leaves of different types but check out the rest of her channel):

While learning and getting into game development I came across a video with some good insights into indie game development. The video is of a talk given at GDC 16 (Game Developers Conference 2016).

Here are the details taken from the description of the video:

In this 2016 GDC Talk, Grey Alien Games’ Jake Birkett explains how to survive as an independent game developer without having a single hit game.

GDC talks cover a range of developmental topics including game design, programming, audio, visual arts, business management, production, online games, and much more.

Came across a cool book on Chinese brush painting called “Chinese Brush Painting – A Beginner’s Step-by-step Guide” by Mei Ruo.

You can check it out on Amazon here.

I like how the art captures the essence of the subject with simple, almost minimalist, strokes.

The dragonfly71 logo

Welcome to the rebranding of the dragonfly71.com website.

I previously set up a small online shop via shopify.com on here selling t-shirts (and other assorted items). I learned and re-learned quite a bit from this venture, they include:

  • Registering for a domain
  • Setting up online shop with Shopify
  • Some marketing knowledge
  • Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator to design the prints for the t-shirts
  • Some graphic design and designing t-shirts
  • Dropshipping products
  • Drawing up a business plan

Unfortunately, revenue was not sufficient to keep the business going. So I decided to rebrand the site to use as my own personal website / blog to record thoughts on various matters and other assorted stuff that I find interesting.

Example of one of the t-shirt designs

Marketing and market research is quite important to driving and sustaining a business. I didn’t do nearly enough of either that I had wanted to because of costs – I wanted the business running with as minimal amount of financial costs as possible.

At some future date I may yet again try to setup another online shop but hopefully will go further than it has this time around with the accumulated knowledge that I now have (and maybe also with a little more money to spend on marketing).