Ryan Benno  ⚾️

So by themes I mean central idea or emotion. These are concepts that drive a strong emotional response. They should be easy to pick up. Once you have that it's easy to build everything else around it.

Some ideas would be: Losing your mother. Financial anxiety. How dudes who make good intentioned circular arguments on the internet help enable the people with really bad intentions. Any sort of injustice Longing for something nostalgic

These work for me but you have others that might work. But once you have that theme you can put context and settings around that. What does that financial stress look like in a fantasy setting? Or losing your mother look like in ancient west africa? It really does open things up

As an artist you can make anything that is "cool". Use that to help illustrate a point you want to talk about. Itll help give you direction in every aspect.

Theme isnt matching an aesthetic. It is a core, raw emotion that is the foundation and gut check you need when making a thing. Everything is derived from it. Instead of building a story off of setting or plot ideas, start with this first and see where it takes you

I go back to this and preach about it because I've found it rings true. Anytime I've struggled to come up with things for my own scebes like a setting, look, asset list, lighting and color direction, it's because I lack direction. These concepts really helped push past that

Lacking direction is really lacking confidence. It's something we all need is the confidence to understand what we are making. Once you have that you can go off and make it. Not only that but you can build from it and make decisions to improve the scene because of that confidence