It has been quite the year, to say the least. Like any person in the world, my daily life has experienced some form of impact from the Covid-19 pandemic, although I am extremely thankful to say that my loved ones and I have all remained happy and healthy during this time.
The world certainly slowed down during 2020, and I have done my best to make the most of this period while life is far more quiet than normal. I had plenty of time at home earlier in the year while I was only working a day or two a week, which gave me lots of opportunity to write and draw. If I wasn’t leaving the house anywhere near as much as before, I was going to make good use of the downtime and stay productive.
Of course, with having finished my debut trilogy, The Legend of Light, in early April, that means I devoted very little of this pandemic to doing any fiction writing. I am always slowly developing some other large literary works, but the vast majority of writing this year came for Zelda Universe, the The Legend of Zelda website where I am the Assistant Features Director. I’ve had a lot of fun over the last few months putting together a review of the latest Twilight Princess manga volume, editorials for The Legend of Zelda games, and even some pieces on other Nintendo series like Paper Mario, Pokemon, and Fire Emblem.
The latest articles that I’ve written are listed below. These will eventually be added to the Nonfiction Work page.
Fire Emblem’s triumphant march to its 30th anniversary
In Majora’s Mask, Link could finally be a kid
Twilight Princess’ Kakariko Village is the best Kakariko Village
Pokemon: The Isle of Armor DLC review
Kaepora Gaebora gets no respect
Twilight Princess manga Volume Seven review
The minigame you didn’t know was in Twilight Princess
Paper Mario is a timeless classic that other Nintendo franchises can learn from
With no Zelda in sight, Paper Mario: The Origami King came to the rescue
Finishing The Legend of Light also opened up my schedule to focus a lot more on my drawing aspirations than I had in the past. I’ve been learning how to draw for a little over two years now, and lately I feel as though I’ve made some good strides in the craft. I intended for these first two years to primarily be about getting my feet wet, and now that I have somewhat of a base under me, I’d like to soon start taking some online classes or in-depth courses with Udemy. I need to build my foundations a lot more, because as of right now I can’t really draw from memory or by just visualizing something in my head — I’m only able to draw with a reference right now.
The goal is to someday get to a point where I can draw a graphic novel, a lengthy web comic, or at the very least, an illustrated novel like the Dinotopia books. I have one particular story in mind that I feel like I absolutely must create in a more visual medium than just a novel. Given how much I’ve always wanted to learn to draw comics, especially in the style of manga, I may very well devote the majority of my time going forward to drawing as opposed to writing fiction.
Lately I’ve been working on drawing animals and monsters. The story I have in mind for a comic would feature a lot of fantastical creatures, so this is a subject I definitely need to become experienced in drawing. Below are just a few examples of what I’ve worked on in the last couple of months. I’ll have new drawings to include in every seasonal update on the website here going forward.
JEFFREY PAWLAK 