Monday, October 26, 2009

Just look at the time!


That's right, it's dog-punching time! Evening all!

So, you may be wondering: "Whatever happened to the Stompy Blog?"

Life happened. Well not really. But I've been about and busy.

So first things first, I went on a trip to Melbourne to see what I could see for a week. I took 50 something photos of trams IN ACTION. Needless to say, they were so interesting I decided to not post any photos here.

So, then I come back, and work is beginning to pile up, and I have a party to get ready for. The plan was to fulfil a childhood dream of being a masked luchador wrestler. It was a stupid plan that involved a lot of sewing masks by hand. This naturally took a lot longer than I was expecting. I was planning on posting photos of the mask, but now the mask inspires a kind of dirty fear that wont wash off, no matter how much soap I use.

So, now we're in crunch time at work, which means non-stop testing action. I also promised my friends girlfriend I'd do a cover illustration for her law honours paper. The above picture is not that illustration. The above picture is a much superior b-side that I don't believe she'll want to use. It's there for the taking if she (or anyone else doing a paper on man-on-dog violence) wants it.

What to expect next? I can't promise anything. I will be VERY busy with work for the next 3 weeks at least, so if I put up anything it'll be pretty poor quality, if I put up anything at all. As always: Time will tell.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

I dunno... Something...


To be honest I'm just glad I got something out. I've been having a rough time of it™ recently and everything else I've tried has come out crapola.

I've got no idea what's going on here. I started out just wanting to do some freehand tablet practise. Lets just say that the little guy is a vengence devil that speaks in dimensional portals and comes out of peoples belly buttons when they can't find clean clothes. Hence why the guy seems to be pulling down his shirt.

Also: Goddamn Prinnies. Dood.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Round 2?


Self explanatory, I hope.

Side note: I'm so very over trying to draw myself at the moment. And indeed other people I know. All mountain training, I know, but that's enough for now.

Side side note: While doing this tonight I had the weirdest recallection of this old TV show called "Step by Step" that featured this surfer/layabout guy called Cody who was secretly a martial arts master or something and even pulled out the old nunchucks at some point. I'm really glad my brain has decided to remember this important stuff.

Monday, September 21, 2009

That's about enough of that.


It's done. No more. I couldn't take it anyway. Oh woe is me. Etc.

So this whole thing has taken a lot longer than I thought it would. On the other hand though, it turned out a lot better than I was planning (or indeed, expecting). And considering how sick (and delusional) I've been feeling (and are continuing to feel) these past few days I'm surprised I made it at all. Don't be surprised if I take a day or two off now.

So for those of you playing along at home and unable to work out what's going on: We have my housemates, the Orphans, in the various costumes from around the world. Clockwise from the top there's: Caitlin as a French Moulin Rouge Can-Can Dancer/Wench. James as a British Red Coat/Historical Pornstar. Sarah as an Austrian Beer Wench/Wench. And lastly me, as a Samurai/Wench. Sure, maybe they don't look exactly like us, but really, who demands realism from a cartoon?

All of this is for the "Around the world" party we're having soon. If you're reading this you're welcome to attend, providing you can decipher the hidden clues in the picture that will provide the proper address. Unless you're one of those crazy stalkers/spam bots of course...

Finally, can you also name all the famous landmarks in the background? It shouldn't be that hard, with the exception of the Washington Monument (Hint: It's in James' pants. Ladies).

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Eat your heart out Tintin...


Seriously... I can't see anything but lines right now.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

2 Mighty Warriors

OH SNAP 2 POSTS TONIGHT.

So quick update: Did the extra detailing on me and most of James, but not the faces, because I think its only right to kick down the levels of abstraction a little to match the rest of the drawings.

I didn't include Sarah tonight because nothings changed there and she was taking up too much space at present. Similarly, I got rid of Caitlin because the real Caitlin had a sad about being up the back and being a boring French stereotype. NOT MY FAULT. Anyway, she's now specified that she wants to be a can can dancer or something, so I'll be redrawing that from scratch.

But let's not deviate from the plan too much...

So just because nights are WIP time, doesn't mean the train rides are too. The rub is that I'm not going to do any colouring on this one. Rough rough sketch it is. On a side note, I know a crappy carpenter blames his tools, but the new pens I brough aren't that great :(. I'll have to keep trying new ones and buy up big when I find good ones again.

But enough of that. To the left is "The Baron", main (silent) antagonist of "Johnny Lovebaby buys the farm". He has a moustache because a) he's a moustache twirling villain (which let's face it: it's the only kind of villain worth being) and b) because he's a connesuir of 70's pornography.

The Baron is the big bad that's put Johnny in the position he's in for the majority of the story. He's the head of a large mob family, but mostly rides the coat tails of his father's previous success. As a result, he has little knowledge of how to run the family business, and spends most of his time satisfying morbid curiosities.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Work-in-progress week?..

... Is going to be what this week is until I get this done.

When finished, this is going to be an invite for a thing. I don't wanna give away too much now or else I'll have nowhere to go for the rest of the week. So, for the moment, just accept that this for what it is: A bunch of lines vaguely representing my housemates in various costume.

So where I'm at now? I've got the base line art done for all the people (some more than others, poor Caitlin up the back is like 6 lines I swear). I've added some depth to Sarah's lines, and I've started on some of mine. Hopefully by next post I'll have that, and Jame's and Caitlins finished, as well has tweaking the faces to look a little more like they should.

Then? I'm still undecided. Note that the colour scheme is only so I can clear up the line work, it's only temporarly. I'm still deciding how I'm going to colour this (if at all) and what I'll do for the background (if anything).

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Boxing's been good to me. Hoooooooowaaaaaaard.

But tonight hasn't. I was planning on having our faces on those bodies, but it appears my body is violently against that, so it teamed up with my patience and tag team wrestled with me and my intentions. I lost thanks to fatigue coming out and throwing a chair into the ring when I wasn't looking.

This whole business is in recognition of Drew getting some Rocky style montages on to match my mighty mountain training.

As interesting as a fight between James Hollis and James Wallace would be, I think we all know who would win.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

This is my boom stick.

"Shiro the Bastard" is a bastard by name and a bastard by nature. As a young orphan, Shiro was drafted into the Yakuza, where his natural bloodlust and scrupulous morals allowed him to rise in rank until he became the chief enforcer for the Shanghai branch. In public he's calm, confident and powerful, in private he's a sadistic nightmare.

His weapon of choice is a modified pump action shotgun that fires short range buckshot rounds. Rather than use it like a conventional gun, Shiro uses it entirely for melee, and will only pull the trigger when the barrel is pressed up against an opponent. His attacks with the gun are similar to conventional jo strikes, but modified for the irregular shape of the shotgun, and include the pump action mid strike when required.

Naturally, all this close action shotgunning has left Shiro with some hearing problems, which while not servere do cause him to mishear things sometimes. Not that he has to here much, since it's normally him giving the orders rather than taking them.

Shiro the Bastard is one of the main antagonists in A Fistful of Dollars. When I get around to doing something with it at least.

Also, as a side note: Those of you with math skills may have noted that according to the blog tally to the right, yesterday was only post 99. It's both sad and true that I can not in fact count. Don't tell anyone.

Monday, September 7, 2009

100 post combo!

I was pretty excited when I went to post yesterday and noticed that I had 98 posts already. However, after posting and seeing the post counts to the right I noticed it was only showing 98 still. That's the reason for the double post today. I wanted to clear that draft and get a 100 post commemorative picture up. Sure, I could've deleted that draft, done something today and posted this tomorrow, but then my schedule would've been out of wack and besides, today is Motivational Monday, and today: I am my own motivation.

I decided to kick it old school for a change and do it all in ink, like I started out. I think right now we should have a moment's silence for all the sharpies that died tonight during the course of this picturing. Looking back, theres a lot I should've done. Making sure I had enough supplys would've been a start. As would a little bit of planning. As would not doing the 100 by hand. But hey!: where am I going to go for the 1000th post if I get everything right here.

Lastly, can you spot the 100 robots* that I drew into that picture?



*Note: Several, if not most of those robots are invisible.

Don't believe Ondore's lies - First impressions of Final Fantasy XII a few months too late.

More like a few years too late. I had this saved as a draft from the very early days of the blog and in order to make the other post of today make sense I've decided to publish this one. It's kinda pointless, because it's been so long I can't even remember much about this game, but oh well. I want my 100 posts dammit. I'm not even going to rewrite or finish it, that's how little care. Mind you I should get around to finishing that game some day.

I always planned to write a little bit about what ever game I'm currently playing. Not so much from a review point of view, I'll leave that to the professionals, I mean sitting down and trying to analyze what it does right and wrong, and how I can rip it off in some future design. I have tried putting on the 'Games Reviewer' hat previously; It was ill fitting and felt dorky, but the problem is the games I play are always fit into an odd reviewing niche. They aren't new enough to be considered cutting edge, yet they aren't old enough to be considered retro. They are the kind of games people just finished playing, as I've managed to find them cheap secondhand somewhere, and so me telling them if it's good or not becomes kind of redundant.

So without further ado, here I am playing FF12 and it's not that bad. It's both Final Fantasy and Not Final Fantasy at the same time. And also part World of Warcraft. And also part Star Wars.

The obvious difference is the abandonment of the ATB (Active Time Battle) system and random encounters. In its place: Active Dimension Battle (ADB) and no world map travel. In scope, It's a lot more epic than previous games, if not taking place over a much smaller area.

The new ADB system is pretty interesting, it allows you to give AI commands to team mates. Not only does it change up the way battles are fought, but it also adds another element of collectability to the game, and thats always good for the obsessive-compulsive crowd. The downside of the new system is that it makes the game feel a lot more like an mmorpg, just where instead of friends you have a couple of robots to help you out. Unfortuntately, this only goes to highlight how shallow some of the side quests can be. Fetch quests are abundent. Item farming also feels somewhat unnecessary. Futhermore there are several points were I've felt too detached from the main plot, sometimes due to level requirements. Grinding becomes necessary just to progress with the story, and thats never fun.

Similarities to Star wars are striking...

Etc.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

In-joke Sunday?

I've typed the word "giraffe" so many times it has lost all meaning for me.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

You gotta keep the devil way down in the hole...

So on the advice of pretty much everyone on the Internet I went ahead and started watching The Wire. I gotta say, it's not bad. I'm still reserving judgment on whether it's the best show on television though. I will concede that for people with an irrational fear of sci-fi or fantasy it could very well be.For me though, the likes of Buffy, or more recently Lost and Battlestar Galactica trump The Wire in several ways.

What The Wire brings to the table is some great characters, and a massive overarching story that encompasses each seasons arcs and continuously builds on them. The characters themselves fill out more and fan out relationships until the whole thing becomes this great epic story of warring families and terrible betrayal. Actually, now that I think about it, betrayal seems to be a key theme everyone's always going behind each others backs in this show. It didn't really strike me while watching, but looking back the good guys and bad guys alike constantly screw each other. Not that there is clear cut good and bad. Sure, everyone sticks to their designated lawful/unlawful side of the fence, but all the main characters are definitely shades of gray rather than tones of black and white.

It' not all great though, while the characters and overall story are pretty great, the writing gets a little clumsy sometimes. Kima was a great character in the first season, but they had to telegraphed the crap out of everything that was going to happen to her, and then hammered the rest of her important traits every chance possible. Then they nerfed her character via storyline the rest of the show from season 2 onwards.

Furthermore, I never understood why Stringer Bell was the 2IC to Avon until much later on. In the first two seasons he's king bad-ass while Avon does very little of anything. Sure, they hint that maybe it's a Barksdale family history thing, but it's not something that gets explained until season 3.

I'm willing to forgive though. I mean, if I had to justify all the goofy stuff that happens between the good stuff in Lost, I'd need a week of essay posts. Besides, every thing in season 1 was worth it for the McQueen-being-sent-to-the-cooler style shot of McNulty on the boat at the very end. McNulty's such a wag.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

More than meets the eye.

I have a shaming admission to make: I now know more about trains than I cared to believe existed in the first place. I guess it all comes with the job, but its still embarrasing when I see a train and know what it is. And accidentally shout out its name like it's some kind of train bingo. And am naked in public except for a strategically placed train timetable.

Luckily, that doesn't happen too often, but I've often thought : What if I was in creative charge of Trainz?

Naturally I'd be merging it up with some other franchise and definitely that franchise would be Transformers (or Street Fighter, as mentioned previously). In honour of that, allow me to present what would be our main character: Turnout.

Turnout would be a noble Autobot, and while being a fine soldier, his key role would be support. Since his vehicle mode would be a SD40 Diesel engine (the current unofficial mascot engine of Trainz), he would be most useful moving shipments of supplies to the front lines and taking wounded teammates back to base.

Maybe he could be in a group, maybe The Freighterbots, that contain other kind of freight vehicles like a semi truck, and a cargo plane. Maybe they could merge into a bigger robot. Maybe that robot could be called Transportotron. Maybe.

As a special bonus What-if-Wednesday: What if Turnout was a Bayformer?

This hastily sketched mess should answer that question. Would he be the same as his original self? Hell no! No time for character development, we've got 40 minutes of military footage to fit in! And some gay dogs! Better give him a racist stereotype like the rest of the minor characters... Lets go with Mexican. So now he's always napping, carries around a giant robot sized bottle of tequila around with him for no explicable reason, and when he transforms into a train he shouts "ARRIBA ARRIBA UNDERLAY!". And probably at one point he can wear a roof like a sombrero or something.

Oh and lets give him rollerskates or something, because that's almost like being a train.

Fuck you Michael Bay.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

The new kid in town...

This luckless bastard is Johnny "Lovebaby" D'Agostino, main character of the short comic "Johnny Lovebaby buys the farm".

Johnny's got himself in some trouble with the wrong people and now he's stuck in a four way game of Russian Roulette. The only way out is down the barrel of a gun. Hilarity ensues.

Johnny's personality is somewhat based on a guy I know, just who will forever remain a mystery. Lookwise he's not based on anyone in particular. He's a womanising lovable idiot who's always been on the edge of the underworld but never dabbled into it. He's pretty clueless and totally unlucky, but he does have an innate but underdeveloped understanding of numbers and probability. Kind of imagine Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting if he hadn't met Robin Williams and just used Minnie Driver for sex.

"Johnny Lovebaby buys the farm" is another comic I have mostly written but really need to get around to drawing up one of these days...

Monday, August 31, 2009

Actually... September is the most STOMPY of all the months.

Hastily drawn thing - GO!

In my defense, I have been doing some stuff with the blog, trying to make it more in line with the website. Hopefully you've noticed. Particularly with the header image remixed from the website.

Unfortunately, this is going to require me learning more about templates for blogger, so expect a couple more little changes as this week goes on and I have more of an idea of what I'm doing.

At some point I'm going to have to get around to updating the website a little too :S.

Also, I'm getting a little bored with this "picture to the left" business, so I'm switching it up for no good reason until I feel otherwise.

What else is new? Nothing.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

...And I want my scalps.

More Inglourious Basterds. Just coz it was so good. Nothing interesting to say today I'm afraid.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

And I would've gotten away with it, if not for those meddling kids...


Often as I'm walking down the street I'm approached by complete strangers who ask me completely out of nowhere: "Hey Gareth, what if you and your housemates were some kind of Hanna Barbera cartoon?"

Naturally my first response is of confusion. "Who are you?" and "How do you know my name?" are common replies. As are "Stop following me" and "Do you wanna come back to my place, since you seem to know where it is anyway?".

So, what if indeed?

Well I know if we were we'd lie somewhere on the less abstract side of the official "Hanna Barbera Line of cartoon detail". I may be a raging misogynist, but I'm no Fred Flintstone. My guess is we'd be more like Mystery Inc. from Scooby Doo. Sure, we don't have an animal sidekick, but we do solve mysteries on a weekly basis. Mysteries like "Who's turn is it to clean the bathroom?" and "Who left all the lights on and the backdoor open after leaving the house?". You know, the mysteries that matter.

I don't think we fall into the archetypes set by the original group. Sure, I'm sometimes mistaken for a stoner AND I used to have chin hair but I DON'T drive a van, for example. And none of us are swingers like Fred and Daphne,at least as far as I'm aware. What I do think I can do is round out what skills we all bring to the group:

Caitlin - Infiltration/Undercover work.
Sarah - Critical and logical thinking? Heh... Probably interrogation.
James - Legal reasoning and YELLING.
Gareth - General indifference. And Internet detectivery.

Anyway, this picture took SOOOOOO much longer than I was expecting. Even now I still wish I'd managed to do a good background. But really, it was getting so late and it's What If Wednesdays, not What If Thursdays. I may add in the background and some text and quietly slip it in later.

Speaking of quietly slipping it in later: I remember ages ago someone explained to me why Fred and Daphne were swingers (I think it was something to do with the neck scarves? Apparently back in the day that was swinger code for "Come get it, boys!") and also why Shaggy and Velma were habitual druggos (kinda obvious there). But what I didn't realise is how Daphne's always striking these Bettie Page style cheesecake poses all the time in promo pics. All suggestive hips and come hither eyes. No wonder we're a generation of deviants. Coincidentally, don't do a Google image search for Daphne Blake.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

You could've been number one.

One day I've really gotta get around to finishing Starlight. Pretty much all the coding is done, I just need to get around to doing all the art and placing all the levels.

The main character is this guy, Mr. I'm-totally-spacing-on-his-name. I'm pretty sure it was some Muse reference though, just like everything else in this game. For instance, he's part of the military order of the Knights of Cydonia. He pilots a ship that has the universes only U.N.O. gun. There are also Super Massive Blackholes. Also revelations.

In other related news, my old sketching pen finally ran out of ink so I've been forced to move on to another one. It's a different brand and not as good in my humble opinion. I should've bought up big with the other pen, but I guess that's something to remember for the future. Furthermore last night I was well and truly wrecked so I rushed the colouring somewhat. Story over.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Bonjourno!

I saw Inglourious Basterds on the weekend. I was not let down. Perhaps it's not everyone's cup of tea but it's easily the best thing I've seen this year.

So... What do I wanna take from Tarantino? Sure, I'd love to steal his snappy dialogue or "devil may fuck" attitude but really, what I admire most is his ability to take a genre and then make a definitive movie from it.

Also, I'd steal his entire knowledge of film. To be honest, I haven't been watching as much stuff recently and its a damn shame. Well... not movies at least. I keep forgetting about all the older stuff I've totally missed. Maybe I should make a list?

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Back into trouble again...

James Julius von Roekelschtab is from a game that will never be. I've really gotta sit down and work out names for some of these projects sometime. Naturally, this one doesn't have a proper name yet, So we'll just refer to it by my super secret code name 'Project Mute'. OK? OK.

JJVR is the son of European aristocrats and lived a charmed life up until a moment we've all been through: Teenage rebellion. JJVR's chosen practise of rebelling was to run away and join an art collective. His lack of respect for authority, ingrained (if undeserved) sense of entitlement and taste for the finer things eventually led him to theft. His natural charisma allowed him to manipulate other members of his collective into working together under the pretense of a "Crusade against the Rich". Soon enough, JJVR and his posse mimes (can't pin a crime against just one when everyone looks the same!) had progressed up from petty theft to outright murder, and JJVR became known as one of the worlds best hitmen.

JJ is also known to torture his victims with avant garde dance numbers and soliloquys before killing them.

This character is mostly inspired by the music of The Hives. Not in any meaningful way (well, maybe thier trademark "colourful idoicy") but definitely in regards to the themes in their music.

Particularly that one song about "being on my way" and then "stopping and doing somethin" and then "being on my way again" and then offending someone.

Monday, August 17, 2009

How appropriate, you fight like a cow.

So I dunno, this was supposed to be Motivational Monday or something I have a feeling it failed. But truth be told I had to put out something. It had been 6 days since my last post and I didn't even have the excuse of being deathly sick anymore.

So what is my excuse? Oblivion.

The game I bought aaaaaaaaaaages ago and then vowed never to play it because I knew I'd end up doing nothing but playing it. What started as an way to spend a recovery day after being sick has slowly devoured all my time. That game is the devil.

But what does it have to do with Monkey Island? Well... Nothing. I was going to make a post about being a pirate or something, but it seems pointless now. Furthermore, I really rushed this out for the sake of posting something. Some isolated sections look OK, but others are the stuff of my nightmares. Guybrush deserves better. Maybe some day soon I'll give something else a go.

As a side note, it would be pretty cool to make a Guybrush style character and run through Oblivion as him. I don't think there is a Pirate class, but I think it should be pretty easy to make up. He'd have to have:

-Attributes: Luck (Nothing can kill him thanks to sheer luck), Personality (He does a lot of talking), Strength (He can carry all that stuff!).
-Birthsign: Thief (Mainly for the luck bonus). He could also go Shadow to get the 60 seconds of invisibility, but it would be cooler to have an actual necklace of invisibility made from eyes like the game.
-Race: Imperial (Providing you can make them blonde).
-Skills: Speechcraft (For talking your way out of stuff), Blade (For insult sword fighting), Mercentile (Pirate's gotta make money), Athletics (Lots of walking), Light armor (Unless a pot counts as heavy armor), Acrobatics (It'll help when being fired out of the cannon).

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Oldies but goodies.


The geezer to the left is Montgomery Kellerman from a comic that once got started (and subsequently stalled) called "The Payload".

He's a genius British biochemist, responsible for creating an an ridiculously potent air delivery nerve agent. Feeling that he's been slighted by his employers, he offers knowledge of his discovery and guaranteed access to a hefty store of it to the highest bidder.

Unfortunately for Monty, things don't really go his way.

I found all my old notes for this series the other day when I was cleaning out my desk. I think one weekend I might go back and draw up the first part at least. Then again, I say that about a lot of things.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

What If Wednesdays?

What if the X-men were all hipsters, oppressed by the rest of humanity for their taste in clothes, musical taste, and general unwarranted elitism? I ask the tough questions.

So hopefully the lineup here should be pretty obvious, otherwise I've totally failed. If you're having a tough time, this is definitely a pre-Morrison team. One of them may be a challenge.

Once again, I was practising with my stylus, this time more line-art/inking kinda of stuff. Originally they were just going to be generic hipster rip-offs in the style of Scott Pilgrim, but my reluctance to check source material and resemblence of the front guy to Wolverine made me head down this path.

But the most important part: what would their power music be?

Wolverine - Old school rock and punk, maybe something like Iggy Pop and the Stooges, since he would've been around at the time.

Cyclops - Some kind of Ska band, Maybe Reel Big Fish or the Aquabats. Because he's a dork.

Gambit - Motorhead (Ace of Spades!). Or Kenny Rogers, just for "The Gambler".

Psylocke - Something emo, but like... serious emo.

Jean Grey - Tegan and Sara. No reason. Or Belle and Sebastion.

Colossus - Metal. Duh.

Nightcrawler - German industrial. And Kraftwerk.

Rogue - Rilo Kiley. Or the Long Blondes.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

New(character)s day Tuesday?

I'm totally going to do time for that labored ryhme.

heh.

Anyway. This character is kind of between names at the moment. I was at one point calling him the Nightwatchman, but it's a bit of a mouthfull and I suspect it's already been taken. That's the problem with superhero names, the well was tapped dry a long time ago.

So I came up with this guy and his game concept a while ago, as a kind of mental exercise of fixing something that went terribly wrong. I'm not really sure how much detail I can go into without giving away the key gimmick, but this guy exists in a city where all the superheroes and villians are Batman style gadget users.

The Nightwatchman himself was security guard who caught the villain "The Grappler" and took his signature tool, made himself a padded armour suit and decided to hunt down other villains. His other key weapon is his modified baton. He possesses an only slightly above average strength and speed (i.e. he's no olympian).

Disregard how poorly the grapple came out, I had no idea what was going on.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Motivational Monday?

To be honest, Tuesday is my Monday... And that's where I need to get motivated. But I'm going for alliteration here so it'll have to do. I was also thinking that I'd do these up has like a motivational poster, but it looked stupid, and I couldn't think of a good joke. Also tired. So instead, its just going to be fan art of characters/people and me prattling on about why I aspire to be them.

So today, it's Solid Snake from the Metal Gear series. Why? Well he's the ultimate bad-ass. But being a silent wall of death isn't why I'm a fan. He's a man, probably the biggest man in games. He's one of the more multidimensional characters ever. He's practical and a thinker. But most importantly, he carries on after everything has gone wrong. Even when the actions he's been ordered to do just mess up things more, he pushes on and get's it done. I aspire to have that kind of determination.

Also I have a weakness for redheads who could kick my ass.

On the picture: I was kind of happy with it when I was doing it, but looking back it doesn't seem as good. I've been having trouble with my computer (and everyone else's in the house too... Yay for being tech support) so when I get the chance I like to practice with my wacom and with colour, since those are the two things I've had the least practice with. I did it pretty hastily... but these things need to be done sometimes.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES


Here is a sketch of Deadpool. The end.

Monday, July 27, 2009

All Good Chefs have Burns...


I burnt the crap out of one of my fingers, which meant that I couldn't do what I was planning tonight. Since I was down to one hand I thought I'd just doodle something on my wacom instead. What I thought I'd do is draw a chef with his hand on fire. That doodle eventually became Akuma, and has lead to my desire to see a fairly unlikely cross-over: Capcom vs. Black Books.

Can Fran and Chun Li make it through an entire bottle of wine without breaking out into a fight? Will Blanka ever stop stealing Manny's Hawaiian shirts? Will Akuma put up with Bernard's dour ways, or will he perform the Shun Goku Satsu?

Other Capcom cross-overs I'd like to see:
-Capcom Vs. Trainz.
-Capcom Vs. Archie Comics.
-Capcom Vs. The Mountain.
-Capcom Vs. Larry Flint.
-Capcom Vs. Woodstock: The Dream Concert Never Ends.
-Capcom Vs. Piracy: An animated guide to copyright law.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Hasty lunchtime art attack


@Drew:I thought samurai were really more my kinda thing?

BTW, two of your posts this month totally don't count. I think that makes us even at the moment doesn't it?

HEY COME ON COME ON


I keep on forgetting I'm the Lone Freakin' Wolf. In honor of me remembering that I'm the the Lone Wolf, I've done this picture of Terry "The Hungry Wolf" Bogard. He is part of my wolf pack.

I also want to let you know you are part of my wolf pack too.

I needed to practise a little more with my wacom, so I took a sketch I did on the train and digitally inked it. I still need more practise, but I'm starting to get used to it.

Meanwhilst, I think this is also my most posting-est month ever. Go me.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Game of the Moment - Dawn Of War 2


I was a bit of a fan of the original Dawn of War, well at least after a couple of the addons came out, I'd taken her on a few dates and met her parents. Even though I could never really find anyone to play against I thought it added a bunch of new options that really shook up how an RTS should be played. Map control was the most important part here, much more than in a regular RTS. Combined with the relatively slow pace, this suited players like me (i.e. Lovers/Not fighters) who prefer to defend rather than rush in (like fools).

Dawn of War 2 keeps that basic feeling of combat but like someone hooking up in a nightclub toilet, it completely does away with base (relationship) development. Instead, players pump out units and thrust them directly into battle, shifting gameplay from strategic to something more tactical (if there truly is a difference). I haven't really ever played Warhammer 40k, but I imagine DoW2 is more like getting it on in a dining room; i.e. a lot closer to a tabletop game than the original ever was. To be honest, I'm not sure where this leaves me, or whether I can continue casually tieing this to sex and relationships.

Sure, you can still bust out a bunch of different playstyles, and technically there's nothing 'missing' in that. Removing base-building has only simplified the build order. But thats probably the biggest problem here, everything seems overly simplified. As far as units go, you don't get that many to choose from, but I guess you get enough for each race to have a few strong tactics. Following that, considering how little troop variation there is you'd expect there to be more races to choose from. I for one miss Chaos, and those crazy outerspace commies, the Winter Guard, and it couldn't be that hard to add a couple of the other races from the expansions. After all that, even considering the small numbers of troop types, its still not that greatly balanced.

The other major win DoW1 has over DoW2 is that it can run well on my computer. I know I may not have the greatest computer EVER... But I can-not-for-the-life-of-me work out what is causing DoW2 to be running so slow on both mine and my housemate's computer. There is honestly not that much going on screen, but it seems to take a godly amount of processing power to do it. Furthermore, I bet I could get a decent LAN game going in DoW1. DoW2 seems to handle online play fairly well, but LAN play was like a pile of broken dreams, soaked in tears.

It's not all doom and gloom though, the single player (or co-op) campaign is pretty cool, coming off as a kinda linear Dune 2 meets RPG. I'm not sure I'm entirely following the plot, but whatever. It's different and kind of cool. Furthermore, as limited as it is, playing skirmish maps is fun. I haven't played against anyone yet (and probably never will) but judging by the reviews it's gotten I guess there must be a little bit of magic in the multiplayer.

So there we go. As far as I stand, I'm still in that awkward place before I'm ready to see her exclusively or decide to go for her older, slightly more traditional sister.

This has gotten very creepy.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Last night Jackie Chan came round...



I'm still trying to work out what I should call these posts... Character Mondays is boring and lacks alliteration.

This guy is Shinichi Watanabe (perhaps, I can't find my old notes notes at the moment, but I definitely remember his last name is Watanabe). Long time viewers may remember him from old (and failed) comic "Fistful of Kung Fu". In that story, he's an Shaolin Monk drop out, who wanders into Shanghai, looking to start a gang war between the resident Triad/Yakuza gangs.

Watanabe is proficient in many forms of unarmed kung fu, particularly the 5 animal styles. He is also privvy to the secrets of the forbidden "Shadow-Eagle Claw" technique, which specializes in one hit kills.

He's a pretty casual guy, who likes to keep his cards close to his chest and his motivations hidden. When things don't go his way, he tends to overcompensate a smidge. All in all, I wanted him to be more Jackie Chan than Bruce Lee. For an outfit I wanted something that looked like a rough approximation of the outfits from period kung fu movies. The jacket is pretty much a straight up chinese jacket from one of those movies, the rest of the outfit is a little more modern-day hipster-ish. In other words, he's wearing it to be ironic. Or something.

I'd still like to get around to re-doing (and finishing) Fistful one day, but I could always turn it into some kind of fighting/beat-em up game. Half of the fun came from coming up with wierd unorthodox fighting styles. Admittedly, Watanabe was kind of boring in this regard, but there always needs to be some normalcy amongst a group of freaks.

This scan didn't come out as well as I was expecting. To be honest I rushed the sketch a little bit, but I had lives to save so I think it's ok. I decided to add a little more colour than the last one to try and compensate, but in the end it doesn't really matter, these are only supposed to be rough character sketches anyway.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Roomy


I needed a post, so I've quickly knocked together a bunch of the little, uninteresting stuff I've been working on into something post worthy. This is for that thing I'm doing at that time...

It's a bunch of templates for rooms. I haven't slapped them together like they should go in the game so they kind of seem a bit nonsensical (but who would building shaped in the letters BSR anyway?). I'm aiming for executive office space. Imagine desks and cubicles. Also not properly finished are the connectors between rooms and some of the shadows could use work but I'm not entirely sure whats going on with shadows at this particular moment. Also, I shrunk it down.

More later, but it's late. I'm out.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Opinions 2 months too late - Motion controls are not the future


The big news at E3 this year was that both Sony and Microsoft had both developed their own motion control systems, Sony's unnamed magic wands, which I assume can be called PS-3-motes, and the Microsoft's Natal, which is an even creepier baby sounding name than the Wii (or Christmas if you're Portuguese...). Seriously, just as an aside, Natal is a terrible, terrible name. Sure it's not as juvenile as Wii, but it deserves scorn and shame.

Meanwhile, back with the topic of this post; This is not surprising. The Wii still has a large share of the console market and all it really has is motion control, so it's understandable the other two companies would want to move in on that. And also let's not forget that Sony had already tried this once before with Six-axis. And the Eye-Toy/Playstation-Eye. By the way Sony and Microsoft have both jumped on the motion contol wagon, it's looking more likely the next generation of consoles will be supporting motion control from the beginning.

But let's take a brief step back and look a what Nintendo has done with their control system. To me, it feels like Nintendo are always going back to their past and re-imagining older products. It's easy to follow the progression of the Gameboy as it moves away from the old LCD Game&Watch, and then gradually starts moves back to the old look and feel again before adopting the double screen fold out variant now represented by the DS. In a similar way, the Wii's motion controls invoke memories of the NES Powerglove. So Wii's motion control, while not perfect, nor as cool (in an 80's way) as the powerglove, is basically Nintendo getting an idea from the past and fixing it for the present. I'm still hanging out for the new R.O.B.

As great as this is (and indeed, as sales have confirmed), what has this meant for gamers? Unfortunately not much... The Wii has been criticized for it's lack of "Hardcore" games and in most cases, hastily shoved in motion controls. While there has been a few games that have made decent use of the Wii's potential, most simply play as minigame collections. This may change with the advent of motion control plus, but at the moment, actual gaming on the Wii is pretty stagnant. In my experience as well, implementing the motion controls into a game is tough without having to simplify things. Motion controls most definitely restrict the design process rather than compliment it.

So why?

Think about a game you enjoy playing? Would it work with motion controls? Lets look specifically at a couple of the bigger games on each console.

Halo (and indeed any FPS) - So aiming and shooting might be pretty fun, but how about movement? Let's say you want to quickly turn around and shoot someone behind you? With Natal, wouldn't that involve spinning around on the spot, which would then end with you facing away from the screen? Sure, you could have a voice recog that would accomplish that move, but would'nt that kinda defeat the whole purpose? And who wants to yell out "180" all the time while playing?

Metal Gear Solid - Once again, aiming and shooting would be easy, same with hand to hand combat. But how do you implement the sneaking and cover without simplifying it to the extreme? Do you make the player lean against an imaginary wall to simulate Snake hiding up against a wall?

That's not to say there aren't some games motion controls would work well in, but in both of those cases, there are several gameplay mechanics that in no way work better with motion controls, and a few that do. The problem with that is if you start mixing between control methods you begin to end up making the game feel like group of minigames rather than something consistent. These are existing games though, surely games being developed for these systems that would specifically be designed around this right?

Maybe so, but lets look at some of the other limitations that they'll haver to work around:
-Not everyone plays games in a nice big living room that gives you space to move around. Or is unashamed enough to jump around like a manic frog while other people are around. People think watching others play Guitar Hero is awkward, imagine driving an imaginary car.
-There's no feedback between character movement and player movement. You can just wildly swing around as your sword hits a wall or something. Theres nothing stopping you from getting into positions not possible for the in game character.
-It's much easier to move a couple of fingers and thumbs rather than your whole body. And it's a lot easier to know where to put them when you've got something tactile to touch.

And lets not forget the lessons we've learned from the Wii so far:
- Motion control gets shoved in for the sake of having motion control.
- Control schemes get needlessly complicated when they are replaced by arbitrary motions.
- More games get turned into a series of minigames.

And thats not all, but it's as much as I can be bothered with on this train ride. I can elaborate further, but as I mentioned: Train ride. Over it. And of course, as a designer you should be doing everything you can to not let the bottom 3 happen, but as a player you know that's where the majority of games are going to go.

And lets not forget what this will do for competitive gaming as well. Imagine a finely tuned game like Street Fighter, where a character'sattack speed/priority/reach etc are all important. In a motion controlled fighting game, would that be necessary? Would it just be all about who can wildly wave their arms around the fastest? Will style and subtlely be damned? Games wont be won on skill anymore, they'll be won on fitness, and if its going to be like that, why bother with the console and game? Fitness is the natural weakness of the gamer.

So all up, I'm hoping this is a passing fad. Everyone knows a mouse/keyboard combination is perfection :P. For the record, I do think Natal is pretty impressive tech, but I also think Sony have a better idea of what they are doing (buttons etc on the wand will give you more options).

Monday, July 13, 2009

King of the Iron Fist

In my legendary quest for regular posting, I've been trying to come up with ideas for weekly posts. As mentioned before, I was thinking about adopting a column-style "post of the day" type thing. Hopefully then I might be able to stay more on target. I have a feeling what I'll be doing is just trying a bunch of different stuff and then seeing what sticks.

I haven't committed to anything yet, because commitment is scary, but today I'm trying out a "Character of the week" type thing. Basically, I take one of the ideas I have for a comic/video game/thing and sketch up a character from it. This also has the double purpose of being able to fill up my ideas folder with character sketches and stuff. Everyone wins.

I'm not sure what else I'll be talking about, since I dunno if I wanna give away too much information. Not only because I deathly fear intellectual theft but also because I deathly fear that a lot of my ideas are dumb.

So this guy is... Well... Currently nameless. I did think of a name a while I was sketching this but I forgot to write it down. It's not important for the moment. He's the leader of a small group of cyberpunks, and basically the tank of the group. His metal arm is able to produce various explosive attacks. He's also a sarcastic bastard, quick to temper and enjoys gardening. The game I was thinking about him for is also currently nameless.

I wasn't aiming for him to look like anything else in particular, but looking at him now I can see so many little influences. It's not that big a deal since the game idea was supposed to be pretty referential, but see how many you can see and then compare them to mine for prizes!
-The whole thing seems very Cowboy Bebop, especially the mechanical arm.
-The hair and body shape seem a lot like Yashiro from King of the Fighters.
-The colour scheme is similar to Sol Badguy from Guilty Gear.
-It's retarded, but I can't really see a red singlet and not think of Duke Nukem.
-The two belts (one superfluous) is a little new Final Fantasy-ish. Although this one was kinda intentional. Probably should've put more zippers on him though.

Friday, July 10, 2009

FACE IT STRAIGHT!


And yet... here I am rushing things out again...

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Big Stompy Variety and Cabaret Hour.

In an effort to keep up the apparent rivalry between my blog and Drew's (He is the Ken to my Ryu), I've been considering what I can do about this blog to keep up the pace. I unfortunately don't get the chance to do stuff at work, usually because I'm kinda a little busy working. Furthermore, anything I do at work is officially property of the company and that includes ideas and thoughts. Naturally, I try to think as little as possible at work.

So anyway, my days mid-week are massive drains. I'm tired of pushing out rushed things for the purpose of getting out a post, but I'd still like to post as much as possible. Sure, I can sketch on the train on the way in to work, it's way too bumpy on the way home to do anything. What I can do is type though, so I imagine what I'm going to start doing is maybe re-occurring column-style-glossy-magazine-topical-nonsense posting. And by that I don't mean trash (hopefully) I mean interesting things (also hopefully).

I've been thinking for a while I should really be testing all of my skills as it stands with BSR. I'm not just about the drawing. I'm about writing. I'm about sound. I'm about volleyball. I'm about a lot of things. So this isn't going to be like posting personal stories about what I did on the weekend and what I'm going to wear to the prom; I'm going to try and keep it relevant. What I need to do is learn to be more opinionated, pick my beliefs, stick to them and savage people who don't agree with me. I'm mainly talking in regards to video game design, etc, of course. Mainly. But look at the post that's got me the most comments so far, the one where I cry at Hollywood for ruining Max Payne. Sure, one of those posts was mine but I'm still counting it. All the famous video game designers are bastards. John Romero want's you to suck it down. Cliffy B demands to not be called Cliffy B anymore. Ron Gilbert's stance against April fools day is both legendary and terrifying. Sure Sid Meier was relatively placid but the man's an encyclopedia. He defines bastardry (cue rimshot).

So what does this mean for this blog really. It probably means more blogs where I get obsessed about stuff for weeks at a time, which I know Drew hates, but fuck him... I hate circles and there has been a hell of a lot of circles in his last couple of posts and you don't hear me complaining...



(I'm sorry circles, you know I love you... You're so round and shapely... Please take me back.)

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The New New Challengers


The time has come for fighting in the streets once again

So I picked up Street Fighter 4 PC – despite what you might think, It's not the reason for the lack of activity on here recently. To be honest, aside from a marathon session last weekend while I unlocked the secret characters, I haven't played it that much. It's good like that though: I can play a couple of rounds online and generally be satisfied.

The game itself has definitely justified its reviews so far. It's odd to find a game (that's essentially a remake) that not only maintains the feel of the old game but also manages to feel fresh and new too. Not to mention I finally get my chance to prove my salt against other like minded individuals. Considering I never really had access to a decent arcade growing up, this is like some kind of geek dream come true.

The character roster isn't bad, although its a shame none of SF3's characters made it in. I'm mostly OK considering most of my favourites have made it though.. Although it would be cool to have Guy back as well. It's kind of interesting what they did with the new characters though. The creators specifically did research and attempted to design new characters to specifically appeal to western audiences. It's like they totally forgot that SF2 was one of those World-Wide-Smash-Hit type of things.

Anyway, this isn't the first time it's happened. In Super Street Figther 2, they introduced Dee jay and T Hawk, which I think were both designed by Capcom USA to specifically appeal to an American audience. Speaking of which, it's also interesting to look at the comparisons between the 4 new challengers introduced in SSF2 and the new guys introduced in SF4.

Abel is probably the best designed of the new characters. He's french. He uses a (slightly embellished) real style. He's heavily riffing off of an actual real world fighting legend. His design also would look perfectly in place if he'd been introduced in SF2. As far as story goes he's an amnesiac who's also mercenary who just happens to be a clone of M. Bison (LOL SPOILER). This is (surely coincidentally) almost exactly Cammy's back story in SSF2. I can only assume this is going to lead to a horrid torrent of AbelXCammyXBison slash fiction. Also, Abel is the guy in the picture today.

Next up is El Fuerte. He's a lucha libre (A.K.A Mexican Wrestler), but I assume he's owing more to WWE's Rey Mysterio Jnr. His back story seems to revolve around him entering the tournament to find the ultimate recipe. This kind of “Entering a fighting tournament in order to find a totally unrelated thing” was also done in SSF2 with Deejay, who was fighting to find the perfect beat. However, considering he's never really been seen in a game again, I guess it went pretty well for him. I think there's a lesson in that for all of us.

Crimson Viper is the character designed especially for American audiences is a Angelina Jolie-esque, Pussycat dolls reject mother wearing the tuxedo from Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo. Strangely enough, she didn't end up all that popular in US after all. Personally, I think she looks more like she belongs in an SNK fighting game. I'm stretching it a little, but she can set her kicks on fire. So can Fei Long from SSF2! Coincidence?

Definitely the worst character of the new lot is Rufus, the overweight self-styled kung fu prodigy. Sure, his outfit references Bruce Lee, but all up he's a joke character. Let's face it, as much as I like Dan there's no need for another one of him (i.e. Self taught joke character) and his ability to bounce around like he's made of rubber defy beleif even in the reality of the Street Fighter world. It also doesn't help that his moves are pretty good and all up is probably one of the most powerful characters in the game. I'm going to go ahead and call him the new T.Hawk, since both are American stereotypes annnnnnd... no that's it.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

SHO-RYU-KEN FOR-(EE)-YOU-(KEN)!

In honor of MOUNTAIN TRAINING: Ryu.

I just had his as a black and white sketch, but then I considered that the last couple of items so I gave it a quick colour. Also, I learnt a way to quickly turn sketches into line art which is pretty awesome.

So, I sketched this on the train as well. For some reason the ride out to Helensvale seems a lot smoother than the ride back into the city, so that will be something to consider when I get around to organising myself.

Meanwhile I've come up with the following areas I think I need the most practise with. Can you spot anything I may have missed?
-Hands and Feet
-Foreshortening
-Consistency
-Likeness
-Composition
-Action
-Punching through tree and rock
-Meditating under waterfalls

My first challenge will be trying to paint like a French art nouveau fashion designer from the 60's though. It's a complicated situation...

In other news: Street Figther 4 is finally out on PC! FUCK YES.

Monday, June 29, 2009

So two robots walk into a bar...


... Merge together and then transform and roll out.

Just a couple of other things I've drawn on the train recently. Could also be in relation to previous posts, but it's still very up in the air.

The weekend wasn't as productive as I was hoping. I may not beat Drew's blazing post lead after all. Sure, there's still 2 more days, but I'm not made of miracles.

What else is new? The site's had a couple of minor changes made to it. Very minor. Minuscule. See if you can spot them. I'm thinking of making that an actual game: "Spot the recent changes". Failing that I could always start something like "Where's Stompy". I can smell the success now.

This week? More of the same hopefully. I have a feeling we'll be taking a pretty random departure for first part of it at least.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

So these 2 guys walk into a post-apocolyptic bar...


So it turns out I can sketch on the train. Not that there was a rule against doing it or anything (well... aside from actually sketching ON the train), but I just figured it would be too bumpy/crowded. It turns out it's neither of those things.

Well.. it is a little bumpy. And I still feel a little gumby drawing in public. I guess that's all part of the challenge. But if I don't push myself with pointless and retarded exercises like this I'm not going to get anywhere.

I've decided to take a leaf out of Ryu from street fighter's book (who in turn took leaf out of Mas Oyama's book) and engage in some kind of personal version of mountain training. I'm not entirely sure what that's going to entail, but it'll surely be some kind of drawing equivalent of punching rocks and trees and fighting bears. Failing that, it'll probably mean focusing hard on the stuff I know I'm pretty weak at... Or trying to draw underwater or something.

These two guys are just some preliminary sketches for the thing I mentioned last post. There hasn't really been that much discussion at the moment. All I really know is that it should be a little Phillip K. Dick and a little like the old game Syndicate. Also, I decided to add a little Equilibrium, cyberpunk and a hint of nazism, just for flavour.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Robot Rock


Those of you playing at home will notice that there's been a few minor changes over at the main site. I've actually properly implemented the php, so now I just have to make a couple more quick menu assets. Oh... and get around to finalizing that template. Oh... and maybe putting up some stuff.

The picture to the left is a thing that may have relation to stuff I may be doing next, in a very cryptic way. Obviously, there's a robot. As I was drawing it, I began to realise it looked a little X-men Sentinally. Later on, I realised the colour scheme was the same as Eva-1 in Neon Genesis. In honor of this, I have decided to name him Sevat1nal.

So what else is new? Everything thing is about to get very very busy. And it's probably only going to get more so. I'll have to reconsider a lot of what I want to do and prioritize. Also, I'll need to find a way to make better use of the time I have. Since I always seem to have so much time during the week on the train, this may mean more texty posts, since my lappy is hopeless for arty stuff.

So once again, it all comes down to discipline, something I seem to be sorely lacking. I think I need to go on some kind on spiritual adventure of self-discovery. Maybe find out what my spirit animal is. Except in a way that sounds a little less dirty.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Not such a productive weekend after all...

I seemed to spend most of it running tech support for my housemate. DAMN YOU JAMES.

So I've added a little more to the site: All the links should lead somewhere (even if "about" just leads back to the main page at the moment) and all buttons should be rollovery. Also, I finally sorted out the html on the subpages to filter out items that don't belong, and I made the stars appear in the news items.

I was working on a proper template for item pages, but I wasn't happy with the result, so it didn't get finished tonight. The challenge now will be trying to find the motivation/time to get something done over the middle three nights of the week, since so far, these have proven to be my undoing.

ONLY TIME CAN TELL.

Monday, June 8, 2009

It's about time...

New site is finally up! Woo! check it out here.

So, obviously, not everything is working there yet (like for instance: most of the links) but don't let that stop you from having a good time. All the heavy thinking is done, all that's really left is the boring monotonous stuff. Plus, adding new content to this system is simple as, so hopefully I'll be able to get around to maintaining it this time. I've put it together using xml and php, so that saves time, plus the way I've set up the main page means it should be able to expand forever without the complicated bits looking weird (the scratched boarder type thing was a bitch).

So there's probably some more I can do, I think I can definitely optimise some of the images more and I'll probably get around to condensing things down to css when I'm on the train this week, but that'll probably be it til next weekend. I'm in a good mood though, so hopefully I'll be able to ride this wave of discipline on through the week.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Back on track?


... Doubtful, but I'll give it my best shot.

So things should have calmed down a little now, which means I can get back into the swing of things. Hopefully.

It seems whenever I make a plan or get heavy into something, something else happens that ends up eating all my time. AND THEN something else happens and I have to end up entertaining my dad for a weekend. I could totally write it into a sitcom except it would need to be interesting and/or funny instead of time-consuming and/or pointless.

Never-the-less, in celebration of my recent victories, I quickly sketched up this picture of Winston Churchill riding a Bulldog. We are talking like an hour tops here. Pick out the parts where a) I don't know what I'm trying to do, and b) I just don't care anymore.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

What happened to my blog!?!


OH GOD I'M SORRY DREW I SHOULD'VE BEEN THERE FOR YOU...

(But seriously for a second guys and girls... Work has been a massive drain these last couple of weeks. I've barely had any spare time, and when I did, I didn't want to spend it in front of my computer doing work. Hopefully next week will return me to my regular-irregular schedule.)

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Revenge of the Suckage.

It's a post. Yay. Everybody party.

Not really having the best of nights tonight, but I slacked off all weekend, so I have to make up for it now.

So this is something I drew in conjunction with something else.. It's nothing to do with the webpage, but I'll probably chuck it in there somewhere anyway.

I dunno... When I say slacked off all weekend maybe that's not correct. I did a pretty impressive winter clean and finally got around to unpacking a stack of boxes that were just sitting around my room. I also picked up a brand new giant monitor, so I had to reorganize my desk for that as well. I have such a ridiculous amount of tech on my desk now that even I scoff at it when I walk in my room and criticize why anyone would need all of it.

So to recap on the current events:
-Stuff I had to do for work that I did tonight sucked.
-Website is still coming along, but it's always a little 2 steps forward 1 step back and I can't find the right kind of voice for the text, meaning what I have written so far has sucked.
- I had sushi for dinner at a new place and it sucked.
- I have to get up in 5 hrs, and which hasn't happened yet but one it does I'll be able to say that it sucked.
-Tenses sucked.
- I collided a couple of hadrons together and created a black hole, which sucked.

Friday, May 1, 2009


Sorry for the lack of updates recently, my new schedule is hell on energy. 4hrs of travel, 3 days a week is pretty rough on the creative juices. I think what I'll be doing is taking it easy those nights and then work on the other ones.

It's not all bad- there's an hour train ride in there that I have my laptop for, so I've finally been in the position to start writing some stuff down.

So the image you see to the left is the last piece of concept art I think I can safely show... Coincidentally it's also the first one I did. Since I was rushing, I was still trying to work out a style at the same time. It looks a little bland compared to the other ones I did. I briefly considered making a few little changes before I put it up here, but why bother really?

The website is still coming along, but its stalled at the moment since I have more extracurricular work to do at the moment. I've got to finish that first, which I did a fair amount of tonight, so hopefully I might be able to get a little headway done for the website by the time this long weekend is over. The art is mostly done, I just need to begin breaking it up and then putting it back together.

This has been the most interesting post EVER.

Monday, April 20, 2009

All I wanna do is make phonetic gun noises x3.


And so, we come to the end of another weekend of broken promises and lack-of-working.

That's not to say I didn't get anything done, its just that there were a lot of unforeseen distractions and forgotten obligations. What I have got, I am so very proud of. Not only that, but I've only got one more piece of finished concept art left (or do I? *DRAMATIC TURN and STARE*), so I'll have to start showing off something soon. I'm definitely going to have to look at getting this site finished as soon as possible.

On another note, I had my first day of working from home today. It wasn't all I was expecting. Hopefully things will run smoother when we have the office set up properly. Similarly, I have my first day in the new office tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to the 2 hrs (possible) travel time, but I am almost excited to be working somewhere new. Plus I'm also glad I've got an hour train trip with nothing to do but stuff on my laptop. I've still got a bunch load of stuff to do from that and this trip is tailor made for it.

As for today's picture, this is a boy train. He was supposed to look kind of eager and ready, but I've had some people describe him to me as an angry Asian train. These people are racists.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Baby did a baaad baaad thing.

Well... Today was a lot busier than I was expecting, and fraught with danger at every turn, so I'm only just getting around to posting properly here.

So this is another piece of concept art for that thing I did that time. Once again, I cant really give too much away about it, aside that a) it's a game and b) they are trains. Draw your conclusions from that. Even better: write how you think those two facts come together and what details I'm omitting. Bonus points if you force me into replying with "No comment."

In relation to this, I remembered another lesson I learned from this: Don't count your chickens until they hatch. I think I got a little too excited that I'd "made it" when in reality I hadn't made anything yet.

In a similar vein, I saw this list of advice everyone should know when they are 18. I can't remember where exactly, it was some right-wing newspapers website, so some of the advice was probably thinly veiled racism and bigotry. I did know some of them pieces of advice, but one that struck me, and that I'll now recreate with heavy paraphrasing, is: Don't mistake being active with being productive.

It kinda struck a chord with me, since that's what I've being doing. I keep off putting off projects because I don't have enough faith in my skills to complete them to a state I'd be happy with, so Instead I keep either starting new ones or just doing random things and then I don't really end up with that much to show.

I think I've got enough ideas that I can safely burn through some and maybe not focus too much on making them as perfect as I envision in my head. Even if I'm not happy with theme, I can always go back and remake them again as something else later down the track I guess. It's so common to see people revisit (and sometimes never leave :S) the same basic themes they started with in pretty much all of the creative arts so I don't think there's a massive amount of shame in doing that if I feel the need.

So the current plan's going to remain a secret for the moment, but mainly because I'm trying to sort out exactly what I want to focus on. Well that's not totally true, I'm going to properly finish off my site and tart up this blog first, but after that it's all a-mystery.