Robot Reprise

Something else I've been working on recently but have been slow to complete is my website redesign. A lot of the content/links are in place but I've still got to pretty it up/make it look more like me. I wanted something for a background image. In a mock-up Drew did for me he used this really, really old thing I did here. I thought it would be cool to revisit the idea, if only to see how far I'd come in 5 years. There's a lot of little errors with shadows and whatever, but I figure its more about the sheer amount of lines here than the quality of them. I'm just glad there has been at least some progress to show. Still not 100 robots though :(.

Fly You Fools!

Meanwhile, the left over stuff from Movember continues... Legendary modest hustler James donated for a picture of him and Gandalf fighting the Balrog. I resisted all my urges to have it be Balrog from Street Fighter instead, but at the same time I totally withheld passing it on until his birthday. Now, here it is, minus spelling mistakes and with a couple of minor erasures.

I've been feeling a lot more creative again as of recent, so lets see if I can start a steady stream of posts here again... It's not too late to turn this year's post count around.

Having a whale of a time.

So the next Artist Challenge (of which I can the current reigning champion) is to draw a "Whale on fire, steampunk style".

This isn't my actual submission, but instead is a distraction to make the artists think they don't have to aim very high to beat me this time. You might say "But Gareth, wont they read this text next to the picture and know it's all a ruse?", to which I would reply with "You obviously don't know artists like I do, I doubt any of them made it past the first paragraph..."

The sad thing is that this currently looks better than my actual submission... Still most of a week to go though.

Coincidentally, this would also make a better pokemon than most of the new generation.

RAWR

So things have been pretty damn hectic the last couple of weeks, so I haven't really had a lot of spare time to do any of my regular extra-curricular activities. Hopefully it's going to calm down a little now... but if not I guess I'll just have to put up work stuff:P

So the image to the right here is not related to any games we're working on (although... maybe it should be...), but is in fact my entry in the office wide "Artist Off" competition. Considering we don't have a Lead Artist, we decided to settle things with a good old fashioned free-for-all (although unfortunately, not officially... but that wont stop us from treating it that way). The rules were simple, draw a picture of a T. Rex fighting a Dragon, and open to everyone in the company. 

Mine is kind of more like a T.Rex and a Dragon having an awkward dance on a blind first date, but it would seem that all that time spent drawing dinosaurs having sex for my friend's money during uni paid off. That image ended up winning, beating out the proper artists and giving me another title for my ever expanding list. 

I am now: Gareth Pavlich, Lead Designer, Lead Artist, (let's face it I'm still) Lead QA, (also apparently) Sound Engineer, Localisation co-ordinator and (lastly) the Voice of N3V Games. Pretty soon, I will be the company.

Yes... I am a hero and it's OK if you want to touch me. 

So surprise surprise: I'm taking the blog in a different direction again. The transformation begins one more.

While I did enjoy the whole "month-focused-on-one-thing-everyday" thing (for the entire month that I did it), I have to focus more on getting things done. Gamey things. Things for work. However, since so much of it is seemingly going to be done in my own time anyway, I currently plan to upload some of it here. Unfortunately, because some of it may in fact "give stuff away" (in more ways than one) I probably wont be able to post every night, but I'll post what I can. Work can enjoy the free publicity.

Or alternatively they can tell me to stop.

But hey... Much like Kenny Rodgers, I'm a gambler. We'll see how it goes.

So what to expect? More game related stuff. More analysis, more specific and focused game artwork. Or alternatively I'll just forget to post for like a month again.

The mighty stubby-wearing hunter man.

If there is anything that's more in need of a gritty remake than "The Crocodile Hunter", I'll eat my hat...

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords...

So apparently there were UFOs buzzing around my home town in the last couple of days... I didn't see them personally, nor see any news about it until someone passed me on that link, but really, communications disruption can mean only one thing: INVASION.

Ocelot was his constant.

I have a friend to told me my sprite of Naked Snake was infact a shirtless Daniel Faraday from Lost.

No... this is a shirtless Daniel Faraday from Lost, that's jumped back in time to the 60's and ended up in the Russian Jungle. Cue references no one will get...

Exciting new format!

So I still feel lousy about hardly posting at all last month. Plus... I haven't been drawing nearly enough lately as it is. So under the guidance of my No. 1 fan, I've decided to try and draw something every day for the next month.

Since actual good stuff always takes multiple nights (or at least it does with my schedule) what I'm also going to do is start doing warm up sketches every night.... limit myself to only like 30-45 mins and try and learn to accept it if it isn't all that great. At least that way, I'll have something to put up on top of any actual planned stuff I do.

So will this actually happen? Survey (and previous history) says no, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

This one goes out to Drew, currently over in the UK, who very well may be getting beaten up by a punk similar to this right now.

Also, I ran out of time to draw the legs (I imagine this will happen a lot) so it's your choice as to what's going on here. Are the legs just kinda, tapered out of the picture, or is he in fact rocking a pair of bloody stumps? What kind of terrible accident has rendered him that way? Can his insurance cover it? Mysteries.

I didn't really know what to draw tonight, but it was just one of that lucky 25% that wasn't featuring a samurai/sword. Instead you get a sword-lite baseball bat. If you have anything you'd like to see me try and draw (and most probably fail to meet your expectations) leave a comment with your suggestion!

It slices... It dices...

I would hazard a guess, that if I just sat down and started sketching, about 50% of the time it would come out as a samurai. Someone told me that they think the chance of it is in fact, probably higher, but I think that might be because there's a 75% chance I'll draw something with swords as well anyway. I can't help it- swords are just that great.

Do you think I'm drawing too many swords? Am an ignoring some other, more awesome, weapons? Let me know!

The empire pew pew's back.

Completed! Well as much as I need... I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Don't forget to click on it to see the larger version. I decided to change things up a little too, so now I've ripped off been inspired by some other non anime things as well. Probably even more obscure though, so don't fret if you don't notice it... That's the plan! :P

Anyway... I dunno how much I should say about this. It's for a pitch I'll be making in the next month or two. That's about all I can say for the moment. If it gets shot down I might talk some more about it, but if it doens't, you'll probably have to wait and play it or something...

Oh also, I was so happy with it I actually signed it (somewhat). I didn't want to use my real signature coz you know, I don't trust the Internet, so I've decided to use this proxy-sig.

And Fritopi: Close but no cigar... I haven't actually seen any Gundam, which let's face it, is blasphemy for someone who runs a site called Big Stompy Robots.

Finally: for the sake of boredom, I've composed dialogue, effectively turning this string of unconnected portraits into a comic. Panels as follows:
1: Red leader calling in! Report Squad!
2: Red 2 reporting! On your six Red Leader!
3: You guys are so lame... Those ships haven't even taken off yet.
4: Aww.. Are you a little jealous that they get to be in the ships instead of just having to fix them?
5: I'm just jealous that I'm not your skin-tight space suit.... RAWR!
6: I thought you were into me!
7: Goddammit... Why is it the guys with hair always get all the girls? I had to shave it all off for my job goddammit!
8: Maybe you should wear a uniform like me... Keep it on the quiet, but I'm acutally having sex with all the girls on this carrier.
9: HOLY CRAP GUYS THE COMMANDER IS HAVING SEX WITH ALL THE GIRLS ON THIS CARRIER!
10. Wait, I'm a girl... Why was I not told about this!
11. (translated) I do not understand these humans Khorahx...
12. (translated) Why are we even here Mhasnex... We're Aliens.


Make your own! Don't worry because I've set the bar extremely low :P

Pew pew space battles.

So I had this idea of what I wanted to do tonight, and as normal, it didn't turn out like I was expecting. The difference is though, that this time, I was just trying to sketch out some ideas. But then they started to look good so I decided to spend a little more time on it.

I've got some other ones similar to these still to go, so expect them in a follow up post soon/eventually. Maybe I'll even give some more details as to what it's all about... Probably not though. Feel free to just assume something though, and maybe your assumptions will come true.

Also, feel free to take a guess at the anime references I'm ripping off giving homage to!

Guess the thing.

It's that time of night again: my eyes have gone a-twitchy and my hands have gone a-crampy. But it's been worth it. I haven't finished this one yet, but I thought I'd put up what I've done so far.

So can you guess the game based on the linework? It should be pretty damn easy (if not, I'm clearly doing something wrong).

I've finished basic line work and then started from the bottom and added detail and tidied up stuff. I tried to improve the face a little before I gave up for the night too, but it just wasn't happening for me. I've also been trying to shy away from heavy blocks of black because I think I've been using too much of that recently, but that may change before this I'm done. I suspect I'm going to finish this (with colours!) tomorrow, or at least over the weekend, but I've gotta post now to take the coveted first post of the month trophy from Drew.

Eat your heart out Tintin...

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

'Coz you can can can...

HOLY CRAP I LOVE DRAWING FRILLS.

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.

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).

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.

I FORGOT TO GIVE THIS A TITLE LOL IT'S LATE

My plan for the weekend was to go through a few photoshop tutorials and learn how to properly use it, instead of the regular "use one tool and make the most of it" approach I normally apply.

Unfortunately, nothing ever truly goes to plan... Things happened on Saturday... and then I had to spend most of Sunday reclaiming my computer back from a bout of the spywares (there's still something going on where windows will loose focus every 20 seconds... very annoying). Eventually I decided to get on with it and try a couple of tutorials.

I was looking at absolute beginner tutorials originally... but they weren't really teaching me much so I ended up searching random tutorials til I came to Melissa Clifton's site. I started with a line art tutorial, since I use it a lot and really needed to learn how to use the path tool. Then I wanted to pick something else I could do with what I already had... So I gave the pop art tute a whirl as well.

I think the line art pic turned out alright, but I'm not totally pleased with the pop art one... It looks OK in it's shrunken state, but viewing it at full size is pretty ugly. I was going to just put up that one, but then at the end I was pissy that all the lines I drew in the hair were barely visible, so I put up the line art as well. I may give just the line art a proper paint later.

The model is Nora Zehetner, the actress who played Laura in Brick... She can steal my brick of herion anytime, if you get my drift. (Oh- MASSIVE SPOILERS).