This summer has probably been the best since the summer of 2012. For the majority of 2012 and 2013, I feel like I had been functioning on auto-pilot. Raiding in WoW, watching SC2, going to church/worship team, Army reserve, and lastly, making art… I did not spend enough time with the people in my life and work to maintain the relationships I have built over time. I’m really grateful for the people who I got to hang out with in the summer of 2012, and the people I met at the beginning of fall in 2013.

Mostly, the pressure of Raiding and also the tuition fees from TAD were a total buzzkill for my life. Raiding had some good points because it kept my general level of professionalism and competence high. Learning and executing heroic difficulty fights was very demanding.

TAD, I still consider an overall loss. I wish I had stopped after the first semester. That’s pretty much all I have to say about that.

I completed three commissions in July this year, and am currently working on a terrain model for my Army unit for a training exercise in January 2015. Once I finish this project, I plan to get back into doing oil paintings. In addition to all of this, the best part of my summer has been just spending time with friends, both new and old. Taking time to simply enjoy people’s company is something I find valuable. One of the core things to learn through this is how to do life in relationship with other people, and how to do community well.

Here are the commissions I did, a CLG fan-art poster for a friend, and two stylized portraits of an Army buddy that came back from Afghanistan this year.