Pancakes for Passion and/or Profit

Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and Merry Crimbo…Crisis…is that right? Eh, will figure it out later. The gang took a short holiday break the past few days and now is resuming pancake production. Dan’s done a few of the past streams, combining a few viewer prompts with his own choices.

Dan used part of a stream to talk about artistic passion versus production, something a lot of art producers these days often discuss during the social media era. In a time where there is pseudo-competition to get those platform numbers up alongside comparing ones’ self to others, as well as with a dash of “feed the algorithm or get left behind”, it’s easy for creators to fall into a funk when it comes to what they make. When should one ride the viral waves? Is the art one creates something that they connect with or just an empty piece meant solely for satisfying an AI that would prefer click-bait over quality? The Dancakes team loves all the creations they make, but especially during a time when events are unable to occur; doing a pancake livestream or a social media post does not compare to the reactions the crew gets live on a show floor when people react to their requests being flipped.

And this. Hard to believe this used to be a thing.

So with some of the past streams, Dan mixed it up with not only the prompts, but also in just being creative in general and making some free-handed pieces with no reference. With newer pancake artists, they’ll often rely on reference images to get started (editor’s note: there is nothing wrong with using references for any art form. EVER!), so canvases made of batter is its own infinite possibility. The STL trio of Dan, Ben, and Dana are all able to freehand, and these pieces are generally reserved for our livestreams as they’ll be long-form and of the artist’s general interest and passion. Sadly, moleskin notebooks don’t work well for pancake art, so only in studio do the artists have the chance to practice and play around. The team will keep bringing the memes fresh to events though.

Of the founding artist’s passions, creating a company that shifts the paradigm and uplifts its employees is one of them. With the recent news of Supergiant Games, maker of Hades among other award winning titles, leading the way in the game’s industry; Dan’s felt a kick in following in their footsteps as well as making a pancake piece to honor their most recent title, alongside some other fun pieces.