Growing a Creative Community

Posted by Samuel on 03-04-2026

Over the years, I have experienced and frequently heard these sentiments from my creative friends:

  • Anxiety about sharing art

  • A lack of motivation to start or complete new projects

  • Difficulty coming up with ideas they feel are worth pursuing

  • Feeling alone and that no-one cares about what they make

I always felt kind of sad that this was so common amongst creatives. I know so many talented people who wouldn't produce new art, not because they didn't enjoy it, but because motivation is hard to conjure up when you feel alone. Especially if you feel like what you're doing is pointless for a ton of hard work.

I heard this more and more as the years passed, and it became clear that creatives are really struggling. The modern day places far too little stock in art and artists. It's hard to find consistent work in any industry and people are often thrown aside with no thought after a job is done. It's even difficult to find a good group to make new projects with, something I've seen echoed in people coming away from game jams and finding nobody responds to them after they're done. This is not a good environment for fostering creativity or for engaging with big and complex projects that need an array of skillsets. Lots of people want to make big ideas. But not many have access to the connections, funding, or skills required.


The origin story

Carnyx began as a way to address some of these problems, both for myself and others. We started a little Discord server among friends and started to meet up more often in person too. People joined, talked about what they wanted to do, and shared pieces of work they were doing in draft stages. Old ideas that had been sitting on the backburner for years started coming back to life, and in our spare time we resumed development of an old video game project.

I wouldn't have had a chance to work on anything like 8-Bit Monke or any of our smaller projects over the last year if it wasn't for the community that has slowly been growing. I've done a lot of thinking about why it didn't fall apart. The reason, so far as I can tell, is excitement and joy. Not just for our own work, but for others, and for sharing that excitement as a group. It multiplies the fun many times over when there is a supportive and excited group of people who all want to share their own experiences with you too.

This was a lot of fun.

There is no reason this should be just for us.

Spreading this fun is the main goal of establishing Carnyx Studios.


What we've been up to

Let me give you a sense of what our last year looked like. Our members:

  • Completed the game 8-Bit Monke (currently undergoing final QA testing),
  • Made YouTube videos for our channel,
  • Held small game jam events,
  • Collaborated on a multi-media Inktober project,
  • Ran introductory coding sessions
  • Kept up a steady stream of work-in-progress posts in our Discord server
  • ...And much more!

These things weren't assigned, or scheduled. It happened because people were excited and felt like part of a supportive team.

For now we are opening the community in a Beta capacity to artists we know and love in our local community, and as we grow we'll be preserving this culture of kindness and support. In the future we hope to build this online presence, take on more projects, develop new skills, new passions, and new relationships. We want everyone to get the best out of it and feel safe and secure in this community.

So, what's the point?

This is not a profit making enterprise. This is a non-profit that hopes to bring people together to network, find friends, and collaborate voluntarily in a world that makes all of that increasingly hard to do on your own.

The fundamental mission of Carnyx is to create a group of artists who make things together. Develop new skills by working on projects with other members, create opportunities for one another, support each other through the hard parts, and have fun while doing it. That is why we made Carnyx, and that's the point.

If working together with other creatives, learning from others in the same or different fields, seeing exclusive content from members of the group, or just being part of a supportive group of creatives, is of interest to you, keep an eye out for future developments as we expand and grow this group.



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