In the beginning, there was no Blox. Although the name BloxMaster had already become established as my go-to for online interactions, there was no real character to represent it whatsoever. So originally, for a while, this was the avatar and banner I used for sites and forums. The avatar is actually a distorted, blue, ghost-shaped version of a site's mascot I was originally a part of; which made sense at the time seeing as that's the main place 'Blox' was at the time.

At this same time, the "Master Of Bloxes" slogan/tagline/fullname was born; mostly used whenever I needed to put a line of text in a banner or forum signature. It was there from the beginning.

Eventually, my internet travels took me away from that site, and I needed a more general avatar that wasn't associated with a specific place. At this point my ability to make digital art was quite in infancy, but I decided that it would be simple enough to make a cartoonish Blue box to represent what a Blox could be. I made several facial expressions for this version of Blox.

As an early stab at how I wanted Blox to look, these weren't widely used by me online. Some interesting features of these Blox are their eyebrows, a marking that says "Blox", and their slightly taller appearance, which don't appear in any other Version of Blox. Notable also is that in almost all other appearances of Blox, they have a simple smile as their expression.

With increased focus on making pixel art (specifically tiles for a 2D game), along with experimenting with abstract art, I made a new series of small icons showcasing Blox and new banners for forums. One of these icons would feature in an avatar I used much of that year.

Credit: A. A.

Credit: A. A.

As the year went on, I also joined IRC (Internet Relay Chat), and, they too liked the idea of Blox. One of them, an artist, liked to draw Blox as well. At halloween, I made a ghostly version of Blox. Later in the year I made a new avatar, this time a much bigger version of Blox, and it featured on my vechicle in TrackMania United for a time. At the end of the year, a hat was added for the holidays. During this time, nicknames such as "Bloxy", also emerged.

Credit: A. A.

Credit: A. A.

Owing to my increase in IRC activity, where avatars and pretty forum profiles don't exist, my own art of Blox declined quite a bit in 2010, save for new takes for banners and signature lines, such as one that looks like it's engraved into the page.

However, my friends still enjoyed Blox as a character; one who would eventually become as dry humored and sarcastic as I would. One of my friends had a short-lived webcomic, whereby myself and several other friends would be portrayed as cartoon characters. Of note is that Blox has finally evolved from having blank, soulless pupils, to green pupils, akin to Sonic's transformation. My birthday was also awarded with original art of Blox.

Credit: A. A.

Owing to both interpersonal issues and life issues, much of the band of friends grew apart quickly in 2011, although I lucky enough to get another peice of art from my friend even though the comic died. With less focus on IRC, I returned to making rapid changes to forum banners, most of which only stuck for a month or two. Eventually I made a new avatar as well, which has stuck to this day.

With a new year comes more banners and a new avatar, but I was largely unsatisfied with them, so they were all reverted back over time although the last banner has survived on some forum profiles, and the avatar was used on Steam for several years.

Due to increasing difficulty over the years with both motivation and interest in places that would even need avatars or banners, or any sort of Blox-related art, only one peice of art emerged of Blox at all; Blox sitting on a hill in the rain. It's unfortunately very reflective of the difficulty I was having at the time, and it's a shame it's the only art of Blox I've made that has a real background of any type.

Eventually, I found a desire to update my steam profile; having used the same image of Blox for over 4 years. Originally a simple recreation at a higher resolution, I eventually opted to remake it again so that to lines were not so thick and Blox itself had more life to it.

A new year, a new version of Blox. This one keeps the thicker lines, but gives Blox more lively shading. Who knows, there might be a thin-lined version of this in 2018.

As previously hinted at, I decided to push the art style a little further, giving the first version of Blox in 2018 a smoother, less cartoony shading. Although an interesting experiment, I ultimately decided not to use this version on any online profiles. A few months later, wanting to push an entirely new stylized direction, I made an abstract, neon-inspired Blox, featuring bold colors and more texture to Blox's skin than is usually the case. This version of Blox is also grinning, as opposed to the simple lined smile normally featured.

This time around, I tried to make a new avatar for almost all Blox-related sightings, one that was fresh and identifiable at a larger range of resolutions (some sites having widely variable avatar sizes), and even worse, many sites deciding to completely round off the corners of avatars, ruining the general look of the slightly-rounded cube that Blox normally is. This is the result. I felt that it worked pretty well, and with the added strips of color, allowed for further modifications later for things like holidays and so forth, so it continued to be used well past 2019.

Even though the art from 2019 continued to be used as the main face of Blox, several other pieces of art for Blox were made, not including various holiday variations. First, as sort of return trip to avatars from over a decade ago (!), and as a demake of the 2019 avatar, a pixelized version was handcrafted. Although it didn't look very good when actually used as an avatar, I enjoyed the difference in challenge from what most art of recent years presented. Secondly, as a very abstract representation of Blox, I made a sort of geometric shape and shadow play piece, roughly representing Blox in colors and shape. It too was a cool piece, and I'd love to make more like that in the future. The shading and artistic nature of it was a lot of fun! These pieces have helped me a lot in getting back into doing more art towards the latter half of the year, and I hope to spice things up more when I feel stuck doing art. Thanks, Blox!