7. To Many Artworks

After we wrapped the initial development phase of MAZK, the project basically hit pause. Radio silence. For a few months, we honestly had no clue if or when anything else would happen with it. The dev energy tank? Pretty much running on fumes.

Still, I couldn’t sit still. I jumped back in to breathe some visual life into the world of MAZK. I cranked out some fresh illustrations and artwork—mostly for my portfolio , but also, maybe... just maybe... they’ll end up as promo material if MAZK decides to rise from the ashes like a pixelated phoenix. Time will tell.

After picking up some 3D skills and watching my early assets just chill in their folders like unused loot, I figured—why not put this stuff to work?

So I started using those 3D bits as a foundation, slapped on some 2D rendering wizardry in Photoshop, and boom—suddenly my illustrations were looking way sharper. And the best part? The process got faster, too. Turns out combining 3D and 2D is kind of like equipping the right gear loadout—it just makes everything smoother.

A Cardgame To Motivate Myself

By that point, the sheer amount of artwork and random assets I had lying around was... well, borderline unmanageable. Enter Tobi.

Tobi wanted to dip his toes into game design and offered to jump on board to help out. Now, here's the kicker—Tobi is a hardcore board game addict. Like, shelf-bending, collector-level obsessed. So when he saw the MAZK universe, his first instinct was: “This needs to be a card game.”

Challenge accepted.

I dug through my digital art vaults, unearthed every sketch and render I could find, and turned them into about 42 cards. Just like that, MAZK got a third life—as a full-on card game. Plot twist?

MAZK COVER ART AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Here’s a small selection of artworks that hit different—pieces where I felt that extra spark while drawing or rendering them. You know, the kind of stuff that makes you stop and go, “Damn, this one’s lucid.”

Was This The End Of The MAZK Journey?

Like all great adventures, it started with a whisper—a spark, a quiet “What if…”

What followed was a whirlwind. A creative storm of pixels, code, and caffeine-fueled chaos. Artworks came to life, evolved, were scrapped, rebuilt, reimagined. Days turned to weeks. Weeks to months. Months to years. Ideas clashed like titans, and somehow, a world was born. MAZK emerged—2D, 3D, and everything in between. Always shifting. Never finished. Gloriously alive.

But even the most relentless journeys find their silence.

After all the twists, all the creations, all the hours upon hours of obsessive work... the momentum faded. The energy was gone. MAZK stood still—like a forgotten level waiting to be reloaded.

What could bring it back? What force could breathe life into this slumbering beast?

DEV LOG 8.Restart

Sometimes you have to go back all the way to find what was always there.