What's the most creative thing you've ever done? The most challenging project?

[CashMoney!]

Plenty of complex and challenging things I've done but never completed due to squirrel brain. I put a lot of effort into the "spy club" I made as a child, though. I was maybe 8 or 9.

- Created my own cipher, alphabet, and symbols
- Kept a physical and eventually digital database of "targets" with autistically detailed observations, saved onto a central floppy disc we used as a group (preparing for my future as a lolcow thread author clearly)
- Fashioned custom spy equipment for myself and my friends
- Rented a survival handbook from the library and learned how to make rafts and knots among other things
- Had several "dens" with friends to plan missions
- Missions revolved around teaching each other or practicing target observation, combat scenarios, survival methods, prank calls, disguises, interrogations, and at one point we recorded a gay mission impossible style recruitment video which thankfully never saw the light of day.

The research and tasks I undertook to be an excellent child spy were quite impressive looking back, and I think that's been the pinnacle of my creativity and passion that I still chase to this day. That project as a kid was intense for my age and I'm still proud of what I learned and accomplished with it.

 

[My Name is Ed]

Wrote a 300-page book when I was a kid about a Scottish captain accidentally discovering America in the early 1400s.

It was never published, pretty shit, geographically nonsensical and would probably offend the anti-colonialist crowd (completely unintentionally I assure you), but it was finished and that's more than I can say about anything I tried later.

 

[Flavius Claudius Julianus]

Wrote a 230 page novel when I was 22-3. Took me 9 months of almost daily work, several hours a day. And I don't mean some shitty fantasy or fanfic LARP, but a serious novel.

Painted a scale replica of Constable's Haywain in art school from a blank canvas, in oil, three months of work. When it was on display, someone stole it. We never found the painting, no leads. Still angry about that one.

I've written six books of short stories, usually a prevailing theme through each work, save the first one. On and off, ten years of work.

Not yet complete, but I spend weeks aging regular copier paper through various methods, and prepared and painted each to mimic an antiquarian folding screen in the Korean style (chaekkori.) Eight A4 panels, which I'll eventually paint someday and mount. They've further matured in the 6 years or so since I originally prepared them, so the final work should look very nice indeed.

Printed and bound my hand several scarce antiquarian texts, usually voyages to East Asia in the 1600 - 1800s. The wrappings are repurposed ink painting copies I painted several years prior, done up with Chinese seals I purchased abroad to make them look more legit.

I've kept a daily diary since early 2013, full page entries. Probably 40 or so volumes so far. A dream diary since around 2014, probably 15 volumes. It's become so monolithic at this stage that I fear stopping.

Most of my creative pursuits are either written or painted, though I have dabbled in sculpture, printing, bookbinding, and sundry other media.

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

A lot of my creative ventures have been drawing and painting, I've filled a buttload of sketchbooks over the years,make several full-color comics, and have done some big commissions for bands.
I've made some prop weapons and even a full set of armor from paper mache, recently I tried to make a wooden sword and it turned out pretty cool. I have plans for more wooden swords in the future.