ｷﾀ━━━━━━(((ﾟ∀ﾟ)))━━━━━━!!!!

2011-03-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

Just did this to relax after playing a horse simulator game.

posting some art

2010-12-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Redoing the sculpture project, I was unsatisfied with the minimal effort I put into it so I'm challenging myself now. Flesh, hair and fabric, eep. Any crit would be much appreciated. I could work on this forever and never be able to capture the subtleties in this painting. The pose in my version is off, gonna rectify that...
Also finished the character I'm working on.
1024 flat diffuse. Working on a stylised child character atm, I need more variation in my characters.

I'm going to try pick this article apart because I think its silly.

2010-11-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

So, its been a while since I've gotten angry on my blog about something on the internet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10883404

This article bugged me in several ways. First off, you expect to be taken seriously using the phrase 'girl gamer'...?

'When you think about women in video games, you would be forgiven for imagining the helpless girly-girl persona of Mario's beloved Princess Peach, or for getting distracted by the improbably-chested, often-running Lara Croft.'

Has this woman even touched a video game beyond Farmville and Bejewelled in the last 10 years?

Why all the hate for Lara? After all these years she's still my secret idol - intelligent, witty, athletic and totally out for herself, not to mention looking fabulous while doing so. The Crystal Dynamics games really developed her personality and gave her character flaws such as her slightly obsessive and psychotic nature that reveals itself from time to time.

This scene never fails to make me smile. Look at what a badass she is. [also, she's pretty modest compared to Amanda!]

'"Sometimes women don't get the option of being male or female," Ngan Nguyen, editor of Women in Games Jobs, told BBC World Service's Colin Grant.

"You have to play with whatever character you're given. Some of the games I've played, like God of War, you are given just male characters."

HAHA OH WOW, does this really need a comment? Oh shit, Kratos is a man, how has this got anything to do with the topic? Some games actually have character-driven stories other than you just being a faceless avatar. This is one of the most stupid comments I've ever read.

In regards to revealing your gender over chat in MMOs, if the people you're playing with aren't immature asshats, why would they care if you're a woman or not? I knew someone in my first year who was the only girl in a group of about 20 guys and had a blast, no one treated her any differently.

"Parents aren't going to encourage their girls to play, they're not going to be as keen to buy them their first DS or buy them a console in the way you see families and mums buying lots of that stuff for boys at a very young age."

This is pure opinion over fact. As a child, all my female friends got bought their first gameboy and copy of Pokemon red/blue because our parents were intelligent enough not to buy us anything with an 18-rated sticker on it. My group of friends and loads of other girls I knew at the time owned consoles so they could play cute colourful platformers.

"I don't think we just want games where you dress up Barbies. I think [my daughter would] love to go around picking up gems, cutting the heads off donkeys or whatever it is that the game involves."

Cutting heads off...What? Since when are games either about barbies or super violence? As a child I never played games about either of those things, I just wanted games about animals jumping over things and collecting gems. Why is this article so obsessed with black and whites.
I think this is a very poorly-researched, unbalanced and petty article which I don't particularly want to be associated with as someone trying to get into the industry. :(

chara

2010-11-21T17:28:00.000-08:00

3k tris. Flat diffuse ftw.
Any crits at this stage would be much loved.

2010-11-06T09:36:00.001-07:00

The main problem with my characters, aside from aesthetic things, is the fact that they usually cannot deform properly or work in engine, two things we decided to include in the goal of this project.

Needed to brush up on my modelling skills, so I made a generic looking dude concentrating on proper edge flow and basic blocking out of anatomy, with no zbrush.

Here's some progress.
After getting a load of crits [thank you Del!] I focused on correcting things like uneven polygon distribution and the smooth flow of verts, as well as the overall posture.
Here's the result I've got so far.
Clocks in at 5296 tris including the head. Neither the proportions or topology are totally correct, but next is a rigging test to see how it holds up with deformations.

"-Is it essential to be able to rig characters, or just understand enough about how animation works to build the mesh correctly?
Placing bones and skin weighting I think is pretty essential as it’s the only way you can pose your characters to show them off and the only way you can really judge if your mesh is any good once it becomes an animated character. This is not the same as being a rigging expert though. To test elbow deformation all you need are the major bones and the skin weights, this a character artist should be able to do. To rig an elbow properly you might need to set up FK and IK and pole vectors and a UI. This wouldn’t be part of a usual character artist’s job scope."

^ Jolyon Webb in response to my incessant questions [thanks!]. A little clearer on what I have to do now. Will post the results of how I get on.

some cool animations i found while browsing.

2010-09-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

funny Russian cartoon from the 80s.

I don't know why I like this...It's really simple and sweet.

This is really good, though I hate it when cute things turn sad at the end ;_;

More awesome 3d animation.

Also...I can't wait for this!!! 5 years in production, Madhouse are going to inject pure adrenaline into my eyeballs and its going to be amazing style over substance.

artsss

2010-09-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Heh, thought I should update my blog with some recent art. This guy is around 9k tris. God, the lighting is so terrible, not sure how to get it to look decent, makes the skin look like plastic. Looks better with a viewport shader.
The most successful thing about this was the hair alphas, after the clusterfuck that was the hair on my last model. It works better if they're made in chunks, and thin strands are overlayed over thick pieces. Looking at the hair on the FFXIII Lightning model was super useful.
Ah, I wish my laptop was powerful enough to run Marmoset...Does anyone else have it installed?

RIP Satoshi Kon

2010-08-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

"It's not that anime will never be the same with Satoshi Kon gone. It's now much more likely that anime will always be the same." - Jeff Betteridge on his twitter.

I love this quote, Kon's animation was true art not just throwaway trashy entertainment like 99% of anime. Perfect Blue is a masterpiece. Hopefully his works will inspire new directors to not just waste the medium on recreating reality and push the limits of 2d animation!
Time to catch up on the Kon works I missed, hopefully they'll make a box set or something.

2010-07-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

Taxidermy art by Polly Morgan.
The metaphor/parallel may be obvious, but I really like this piece and I've been kind of fascinated by taxidermy since I went to the Natural History museum. I like how the animals are posed in such lifelike ways, especailly birds as they're so fine-boned and delicate, I thought it would be impossible to stuff them and open their mouths like that. Its amazing! I don't think the work is morbid, its more optimistic and quaint in the choice of materials, especially in the whole spectrum of comtemporary art where the theme of death is extremely common place. I saw her on a documantary recently called Art is Child's Play, talking about how closely linked our play as a child is to what we call 'creating art' as adults. I don't think what we do is as relevant to this theory, as our kind of art is less concerned with experimentation and self expression as it is with 'get good or fail'. Saying that, I have no desire to do a fine arts degree, and Game Art is infinitely more satisfying to my brain - making at it, not looking at it, however.

2010-07-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

Just wow. The power of circle lenses and false eyelashes is a force to be reckoned with. Also I love how the men comment on these types of transformations with things like 'you lied to us!!!!11'. Mhm, you could say that. There's also an amazing Japanese makeover show where they transform men into very convincing and glamerous women..!

2010-07-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

So I entered the Never Ending Story redesign comp at Gameartisans, been a while since I did a mini.

Dreamy Theatre high poly weirdness

2010-06-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Ew ew ew, the PS3 add on for Hatsune Miku Project Diva [a Japanese rhythm action game] really creeps me out. Its way too uncanny valley and makes me think that anime doesn't work in 3d at all unless its got some kind of cell-style/toon shader on it like Valkyria Chronicle. Its mainly that model used with that animation that bothers me, its mo-capped and everything but it looks so unnatural. I think the PSP version of this game is totally cute and charming and its one of my favourites. The PSP forces everything to be in flat colour, so it makes things look more like a cartoon and not like some creepy doll. The 'realistic' cloth and lighting in Dreamy Theatre kills the stylisation for me. Segaaaa, why do you do this?

PSP -

This is about feeling a bit shy and isolated sometimes

2010-06-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

School reunions are just as awkward as they're supposed to be. Two minutes into a conversion with someone you haven't seen for 4 years and suddenly the talk is highly inappropriate and i really don't care about her sex life when she was seventeen and ancient gossip, some people do not change. The fakery from them and me was astounding and just ew. I feel a little bad actually. I've gotten so uses to being at uni, i sometimes take for granted being on the same wavelength. Most people from school are ready to settle down in leeds, and i feel childish to have ambitions. Sometimes its like i haven't changed from being 15 either, or maybe just being with everyone again reminds me of that time. Some people were still so genuinely lovely it made up for those vapid conversions. I'm not one to have amazingly mentally stimulating conversations with, but at least its fun. If noone enjoys it then it feels truly pointless. What I'm trying to say is I'm so glad to have broken out of that circle when i did and have the friends that i do or people i just enjoy being with even if we don't know each other that well. I love my hometown but school was crap. Everything after that got so much better! I guess its pretty common to feel this way? I don't have a load of friends or anything like that, but i think i'd go crazy if i didn't have them. so thanks for putting up with me everyone :)

So the 2nd year is at an end...

2010-06-20T04:04:00.001-07:00

I guess I can count it as finished now and we're officially third years after the degree show. I'm glad I came up to see it, everyone's work was so impressive and the standard was so high...I feel like I really want to push myself to at least meet that next year.

I want to say thank you to everyone especially Cam, Del and Dave for putting up with my nagging questions, you guys taught me so much this year and I'm so grateful to everyone for taking the time to explain things to me and giving me direction. I appreciate it so much, thank you ♥

Looking back on this year I'd say I've been a little too emotionally sensitive towards what people have said and taken things as a personal attack. People are going to say what they think and be harsh to me, but I need to learn to take criticism and carry on. I made a thread on Gameartisans.org recently to get some harsh crit that isn't softened because we know each other. I'm starting to compare my work to real game artists and realise how far I have to come. I just had a frank conversation with my dad and he thinks its likely that I'm going to have to work a shit job at home and save up money before I can work in the games industry. I don't want that to happen, even though it might, and I'm a bit worried about it. Working in a shop or whatever would be a last resort, there are many other things that are at least art related I'd try and do before that. But, fuck worrying, lets do some work!

2010-04-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

I did these drawings recently for a 12 thumbnails project and to practise my digi paints and colour theory...the last two images were done without photo colour reference/colour picking and they turned out much more blue/washed out. I don't mind it though, I think they look ok. Just used large brushes and didn't go crazy with the details, as they are just thumbnails.

time management

2010-04-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

Since I never made a time diary when we were supposed to this term, I made by own simple 3-day diary of how I spent my time.

11 - get up, eat breakfast
11:30 - browsed internet for 15 mins and started work
13:18 - lunch
14:00 - break
16:30 work again
18:24 - break
19:30 - modelling for personal project
23:45 - stop working
2:30 - bed

sat -

11:30 - get up
12:00 - browse the internet,eat breakfast
13:00 - work on personal project
14:00 - blogger
14:30 - visual design
15:00 - browse internet
17:00 - went out

sun -

12:30 - got up
13:00 - had lunch, chatted online/browsed internet
14:00 - started digi paint
16:20 - break
16:50 - resume work
17:40 - finished paint
18:00 - watched star trek with parents/dinner
21:30 - chatted online
22:45 - worked on personal project
02:00 - bed

My working habits this week haven't been as good, mainly cos of social commitments in seeing my friends at home where I'm out for the whole day due to travelling and such. I still managed to find time to work though. Yesterday I didn't do anything cos I had a migraine, and the day before I went out, etc etc. Its easy for your days to just disappear and you can't be in control all the time. I learned that when you have free time, you have to make the most out of it and get as much done as possible because 'working every day' in small amounts, isn't possible. So as long as I work hard on the days where I do have free time, I'll be ok I think.

The pic is something I did recently, tried to develop different silhouettes..the drawings are full of errors though!

new Master's piece

2010-04-06T07:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a study of an Alphonse Mucha oil painting. I thought he was an interesting artist to look at, because he's most famous for his stylised commercial works rather than his fine art/painters work. I really liked this piece because of the symmetry and focal point of the composition, as well as the vivid skin tones. Mine is full of errors compared to the original, [small face] but the main thing I learned from this piece was the importance of measuring, and that in my paintings I tend to overly highlight and shade things which makes my work look flat because there's no sense of background and foreground. So doing this helped me to recap on really basic things like that, and the piece in itself is very simple.
I suppose digital painting comes the closest to oils, because of how easy it is to blend colours and create a smooth transition between shades enabling you to render things more realistically. When I did oils in high school I painted on this huge wooden door and the smell of it really makes you light headed after working with them all day. I wouldn't mind trying to find a class that devotes an afternoon or so to oil painting, I've decided I mostly hate acrylics.

adventures in perspective

2010-04-03T05:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I worked on the ideal interior spaces project for Chris. I've been looking at a lot of rococo architecture lately and wanted to make a tea-room lounge style place. I've never actually drawn something like that without either drawing from life or using photo reference, so I made a rough model of the layout in max and drew in some perspective lines over the top.

In the chart of my progress, the biggest changes happened between image 3 and 4, when the problems in scale were pointed out to me between the chairs and the staircase. It really hurt my head trying to figure out why it didn't look right, felt a bit like a child who didn't understand anything. So I lowered the horizon line which made the room a lot bigger, so the staircase could look more plausible. Redrew a few things so that they matched the new perspective lines and added in details. I'm still not sure its completely convincing, but I learnt a lot from this project, that scale is really important for the believability of images, and to always follow perspective lines when making things up or it will look wrong. Also, that colours desaturate when they go into the background. I knew all these things in theory, but sometimes I struggle with applying them to my own work.

Drawing life, day 3

2010-04-01T18:06:00.001-07:00

Ok, here's my last set of drawings from the short course! Some ok and some really bad, a mixed day but it was nice to do some curled poses. Stayed away from colour today and just concentrated on measuring and line...The two measured drawings I did I like the most! It is a technique that really works sometimes if you prepare accurately. The last one I did in 10 minutes before end of class and its my favourite for some reason even though its not that good. We were looking at gestural life drawings today and none of them were rendered or anything, but they were really nicely drawn lines. I like it when you can see movement in the shape of the figure. Anyway for the charcoal/chalk piece in the middle I tried to copy Aby's flesh rendering technique because I'm a fan...though mine still needs more work.
Now I really want to make extra life drawing at home a regular thing over summer! Oops, its really late again. I'm going to get up before 12 of course and carry on with my work for Chris. Goodnight~

Life drawing day 2

2010-03-31T11:39:00.001-07:00

Here's my work from yesterday! Will post today's lot up tomorrow. I found this model the most difficult to draw, she was really tiny and my drawings don't represent her body very well...somehow, I think its hard to draw a small chest. Like when you're drawing a female figure the breasts and hips are defining curves of the torso and when they're really small I get lost easily and don't know where to go with the drawing. Anyway I tried some more acrylic and realised I'd like to learn it properly at another class some time, my painting is really amateur and I've forgotten the right approach. Also do you ever think back to early paintings and remember how good you thought they were? Its like I downgraded somehow, but probably those early paintings were no good either, haha. Had the most fun doing ink studies, even though they're not the most accurate or particularly 'good'.

2010-03-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well today I was going to post more life drawing, but I was scatterbrained and left my phone charger in Leicester so I can't upload the pictures until tomorrow. Today was pretty tiring, my arm is really aching from drawing! Anyway, I went to see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake tonight at Bradford Alhambra. I'd been wanting to see it for years but always missed my chance at Saddler's Wells so I was made up when they annouced another tour, and the show surpassed my expectations! My new favourite New Adventures show maybe? I love Bourne's adaptations of classical stories and the camped up sense of humour they all have. Tonight I laughed a lot, though Jonathan Ollivier's performance as the Swan in the last act moved me to tears, it was so beautiful.

This was one of my favourite acts in the show, sort of like a satirical ballet within a ballet [though this is the only piece of actual 'ballet' in the show, otherwise there's not a point in sight] that pokes fun at the campy old-school while the Prince's girlfriend misbehaves in the background. There's also some fabulously hilarious butterfly and 'trollete' costumes -

Life drawing day 1

2010-03-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

First day, went over measured drawing and measured the figure in heads. Sometimes this method really works for me and sometimes it stifles the 'balance' of the drawing...I need to trust in the measurements more rather than what I think 'should' be right. Construction lines for standing poses don't hurt, though its harder to do for lying down poses with foreshortening. Today I used charcoal+chalk, acrylic and ink and a stick. It actually gives loads of interesting marks and cool ink splatters. Tomorrow we're drawing a girl, its nice to have some variety in the models...and my teacher reminds me of Chris in the way that she doesn't interfere with your drawing and lets everyone get on. Most of these are 10-20 minutes, spent about an hour on the acrylic, going to try and zoom in on one area and make a nice fleshy tone tomorrow with a large brush. Also I heard there's a life drawing class every thursday at a place very near me, really cheap too, I want to go there over summer!

fresh start

2010-03-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

I realise I've been neglecting my blog a lot recently, and it reflects on my low enthusiasm this term...I've been concentrating on the group project and seem to be in the labs more than usual, but I haven't got as much to show for it as I'd like. I've lost the idea of time management and I've been wasting days thinking I've been doing more work than I have, so its time to stop being dilusional and apathetic. I've been really distracted with pointless things this year and I will try my best to improve myself before the start of summer. In a way I'm thankful to everyone for making me realise this before it was too late.
Attending a life drawing class at Leeds Art College today and the next two days, so I will post some of the work I do.

2010-01-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

I find it pretty painful to play ps2 games now unless its a puzzle game because the textures are so blurry! Did you know FFX is 9 years old? Its hard to believe that much time has passed since I was drawing knockoff Nomura characters in my bedroom. Anyway, emulated FFX and XII look amazing, it really shows how ahead of their time the graphics and art direction were, only it wasn't obvious at the time because of the limitations of the ps2. Maybe that was the reason it had prerendered cutscenes as well as in-game cutscenes? I didn't really like the graphics in FFX so much at the time because I was still in love with sprites and prerendered backgrounds like in ps1 era. All this 3d crap just didn't have the same charm to it. It was that time when most games looked like utter crap because 3d was fashionable and no one knew how to use it properly yet. Recently I've been playing Dragon Age a lot and made this little comparison image, using Morrigan and Lulu, because they're both spooky witchy characters who walk around in skirts made out of belts with their assets on show. They're both supposed to be beautiful, but I can't help but think Morrigan is hideous, despite being an awesome character. In concept art I prefer Morrigan's design, she looks like a witch of the wilds who makes her own clothes out of scraps, whereas Tetsuya Nomura tends to pull things out of his ass and stick belts and zippers on it to make it look cool, so Lulu looks a bit like a teenage boy fantasy who doesn't really fit into her setting at all. Why do so many people think he's a good characer designer? Also, just add glasses to Lulu and you have Bayonetta, ooops.

Morrigan probably has more tris in her face than Lulu does in her whole body, but Lulu looks exactly like her concept art and still looks fabulous 9 years on. Morrigan looks nothing like the concept art facially and there's tons of face mods for her which try and match it. Isn't that a little strange? FFX artists made the most out of what they had, I find it quite amazing. To be fair, Bioware used a facegen for all the humanoids, and it was originally meant to be played from above Baldur's Gate style. But none of the characters look anything like their concept art. Morrigan has so many polys in her face because it needed to animate way more than FFX characers did, but in prerendered scene Morrigan still looks ugly, what? [Even though I'm happy Bioware made one of these videos because hardly anyone seems to do it anymore.] I know they were going for 'realism', but its said in the game that Morrigan's supposed to be beautiful, and the artists kind of failed at that. Also, the environments are underwhelming. [Its still a really immersive game and I've lost many hours to it] Since ps1, FF has always been about graphics, and western RPGs don't really care as much. I still love those old isometric rpgs ~ graphics aren' that important to me, but from a Game Art POV its really intesting to look at the current standard. We're supposed to be making things superior to ps2, but given the same technical limitations I don't think I'd be able to make something as good as the ffx models.

Mortal Engines film adaptation??

2009-12-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/3184223/Peter-Jackson-to-adapt-sci-fi-series#share

Oooohhhh

2009-12-12T18:27:00.000-08:00

Old, but oh god I really want to hate this game, Squeenix fan-pandering should have stopped working by now, I'm 20 years old jesus christ. I really want to buy this soap opera and complain about everything all the way through but secretly enjoy it. It looks so wonderfully badddddd! Also Sarah looks like one of the worst characters ever and I bet Lightning turns out to be one of those emotionless 'badass' female characters who no one can relate to, although yay female ff hero. I know they'll mess it up but I'll still buy out of curiosity. And maybe for Snow. don't judge meeee

2009-12-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

My friend showed me this video last year and I thought it'd be super relevant to post considering the kind of thing that's been discussed lately, time management etc. It's pretty long, but the advice is really useful if you take it on board and have a lot of willpower. The part about how to deal with people who demand loads of your time when you're working was really interesting, though I personally don't feel grown-up enough to relate to things like coworkers and that type of thing, I'll definitely watch this video again before I go into that kind of environment.

Well I saw this lecture for the first time at the start of the summer break last year, and it really motivated me to work on 3d pretty much most days, and only give myself certain rewards like watching tv or playing games in the evening. At uni its been really hard to do that, especially living in a really social place I always feel very awkward about including people into the working schedule, I wouldn't want anyone to have to work around what I'm doing and for me to only talk to them when I'm not working because it feels rude to me and kind of selfish, even though its just self-discipline. There's so much persuasion not to work, so much more than there is at home considering uni is supposed to be a learning environment. Only when a deadline is approaching can I really work, because that's when everyone else is working. Though, I think I've improved a lot from year 1, I'm really motivated to get better at 3d now I have my foot in the door, it doesn't seem so impossible now that I have some clue what I'm doing. Last year I couldn't do anything, using Max isn't as much of a struggle anymore, the only bit I struggle with now is unwrapping, and that's because I have to think of the best way to do it rather than what buttons to press. Its more like certain skills I need to improve on, modelling and texturing individually rather than how to use Max as a whole.

Here's some stuff I made recently.

Bad time management with the self portrait means I haven't finished texturing yet. Took too many trips away from Leicester and wasted a lot of time, though I'm happy with how its progressing. 4th character including the man we made in the first year, I still have many many more shit character models to make before I start to get good!

Also I fixed the cataract eyes on my character, Del showed me how to do a specular properly haha. Eyes aren't really that glassy. Also the normal maps are making a weird seam down the face from some angles bahhh. Diffuse/normals/specular in this render, no lights in the scene.

2009-11-07T04:51:00.000-08:00

Posting some of my work from year 2 so far...

My painting seems to be getting less realistic this year. Probably because I'm referencing from photos less and I feel bored of trying to do photo realistic digital painting. Its more fun to play around in Painter/photoshop cos it takes hardly any time at all to make something decent compared to using real paint, so I think you can take more time to experiment with things you usually wouldn't think to do. People can get good at digital painting very fast, just look at us second years. Everyone's really improved! Though I don't think any of this stuff is better or worse than what I did last year, I'm kind of at a loss...Though I do like my sketching better this year. Basically I learned that I want to draw/paint nature, all the time, thank god Chris makes us diversify or I wouldn't draw anything but rocks and figures.

The Masters project was fun. I wanted to do a Jenny Saville study straight away, because she's my favourite contemporary painter as of around 3 years, and my background is pretty much all modern stuff so I tried to teach myself a bit about art history. So, I like Saville's work because the subject matter of beauty/body image speaks to me and she's a little bit controversial. The technique of painting with oil on a large scale interested me because I tried it a couple of years ago, and the perspective of it really messes with your head even though my painting was only a fraction of the size of what she does, so I admire her to be able to do that

While trying to reproduce the painting 'Plan' I noticed that even though her work has a hyper-real look, the large brush strokes still only suggest detail rather than explicitly paint every skin pore and vein etc. It didn't take that long to do a relatively accurate reproduction in painter using a pastel brush, as it responds better to large strokes than oil which lags terribly. I really dislike Painter sometimes for that reason and I always go into Photoshop at the end.
So after looking what everyone else had done, I thought I hadn't really understood the task because Jenny Saville still uses a modern technique even though her work has a classical look. I wanted to paint a male nude so I was looking for a good subject and found a Neoclassicist painter Jacques-Louis David who's painted a scene of Hector's death from the Iliad. It reminded me of this scene where Hector's family see his body after Priam gets it back from Achilles and he still looks all fresh and beautiful and alive even though his body's been desecrated. I liked how Hector was basically one of the manliest and heroic characters but in this painting he kind of looks boyish and like he was a vulnerable person when living, so I imagine this is the kind of image the Gods gave his body at funeral. This painting took many more hours to reproduce than my other attempt, using the same tools in Painter. The skin has a glowing quality which is made by layering paint over and over getting lighter. There's no quick way to get the effect. When you zoom in mine looks so crude in comparison to the original even though I spent a lot of time on it. Digital painting seems totally contradictory to the old techniques because its so fast, and correcting mistakes is so easy. When painting this I started to paint over mistakes rather than erase them to get in the right frame of mind. Just building up the colours on the arm to show the muscle was a slow and tedious process and takes a lot of time to get the reward where yours starts to look a bit like the original painting. Whereas doing the Jenny Saville started to take shape within the first 10 minutes. It was really interesting to see how the work of the old masters can be replicated relatively quickly in a digital medium, these are techniques I want to apply in figurative art, in life drawing or painting texture.

For 3d work, I feel like I can actually make what I want in 3d though its still a struggle every time. Last year I couldn't do anything, but I practised over summer and made a character and vehicle which was really fun. Probably because I was making something I'd designed which I'm interested in, i.e. fashion and kitschy stuff like gypsy caravans. My aim over summer was to feel comfortable in Max by the end of it and start using zbrush/surface detail maps which I also did. By the end of year 2 I want to know what to specialize in, so I guess I should just make everything and see what I'm best at. Mortal Engines projects are really fun, but I'm rushing them because I'm so slow which makes it not as enjoyable because I don't have time to do what I want. Making the environment of the natural history museum was fun at first because it was something I'd chosen, but when I realised the scale of it, it wasn't as fun anymore and got really frustrating...Still need to finish it. The vehicle is harder because I've no real reference for it, but I wanted to see if I could make something purely from imagination and a few basic references. Have no idea if it will look good or not.

Mameshiba~

2009-07-27T16:19:00.000-07:00

Oh god so cute I almost had a heart attack. I love this Bean Dog. Watch Mameshiba 10 for Lol Engrish and casual Japanese racism.

Generic 3d female body

2009-07-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

Made a mannequin-esque female, so I can use it as a guide for part of my summer project. At first it ended up too mannequin-like, so I made the thighs and waist a little weightier so they looked less stupid.

3972 tris including head. Is...This semi-decent? Its like 95% quads, a couple of triangles here and there. I think the shoulders/upper arms are the most problematic. Any crit would be treasured forever, as usual.

2009-07-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

Blogs – Did slightly worse than I thought, I need to update regularly to improve my grade, I think. Need to improve self-discipline and time management, I’m terrible at this.
Game production – Happy with my result, but want it to be on a similar level to VD by end of next year. I’ve learnt a lot in the last few months, I don’t feel as desperately helpless as before whenever I open Max, but my 3d stuff has zero finesse. I’m still learning to build things.
VD – Happy with it, but needs much much more drawing. Should I upload work here still, or does it get tiresome to see it?

Got to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy this Saturday with only an hour to see everything before the gallery shut~ I thought we could rush round, but it was so good we were pretty much escorted out of the Weston room by gallery staff. I think the theme was ‘making space’ this year – loved Anselm Kiefer’s Tryptique, it’s beautiful. I never get tired of natural materials.

Reminded me of this from the Turner Prize a few years ago, [bad photo of it] my favourite but it didn’t win. Shed Boat Shed did, lol. Also, one of Georg Baselitz’s amazing upside down paintings was there, but didn't have time to take photos. Lots of good typography stuff too, loved Michael Craig Martin ‘DESIRE’, though I can’t find a pic of that one he’s done things for the DLR, wow!

Also, this Liz Collini drawing amused me with all the little mathematical annotations.

The architecture room was interesting, but had to run round it to get a look at everything. Loved the miniature landscape designs and models, it reminded me of the 3d work at art college which I was always pretty envious of. I can’t build anything more graceful than oxo boxes tacked together.

Did not get chance to see the video room, which I believe is a new thing for this show. I feel bad, I always leave video/performance ‘til last/low priority, though the last piece I saw were a set of documentary-style things by Darren Almond which set me and everyone else off bawwwing in the middle of the Tate.
The show was lots of fun, but impossible to do in one afternoon, let alone an hour. Next year I want to go to the Biennale~

Oblivion Domino Day

2009-05-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Feeling slightly better about 3d [maybe

2009-04-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

Just posting a few things I've done recently. The 3d is still laaame but I wanted to redo some of the early projects.

I really needed to get better at both modelling and texturing...Even though they're simple things, I think I at least improved a little on building geometry that wasn't completely messed up on the inside. With my first house, I had no idea what I was doing. In the new one, even though it's smaller and less complex I can count the mistakes which I didn't know how to fix, the only problem I couldn't fix with the geometry was when you get two edges next to each other?? I couldn't figure out how to weld them into one edge, so the rim around the roof is technically wrong, I guess. There's also parts of the unwrapping I did wrong. But in my first model I did ages ago, there were loads of these types of problems which were pretty unfixable by the end of it, so it was pretty much untexturable. Making a rocking horse was pretty simple, my first one just looks terribly embarrassing now, I might delete it from facebook over the summer.

For the texturing contest...Got some help from Del to see it as a flat image, so I could see the shading on the texture more clearly...I don't like how Max shades things, its way too dark? So this is just a diffuse map. I did do some research into normal maps, but all the sites told me I needed a bunch of new software, some of which wouldn't install because I needed yet more software and plugins I couldn't find. Is there an idiots' guide to this somewhere?
Well anyway, i really liked this female model! I wanted to make a preppy-looking character rather than something grimdark. I'm really into salmon red and turquoise recently. The dress pattern is loosely based on this disaster of a 1980's swimsuit I saw in a vintage shop. Ah, I really messed up on the hair! But by the time it was all unwrapped it was too late to change it...Everything is planar, so in future I really need to do things seperately rather than trying to economise too much, I had something different in mind for boots but because I didn't unwrap them right, I had to improvise a little in the end...Anyway, I really enjoyed this project! Painting the textures is kind of really tedious and precise, where loads of little adjustments need to be made, but it's fun to see the end result.

Oh, and some 2d junk...

Gahh doing shitty sketches is much more fun than fully rendered digital painting. I might start doing those posemaniacs sketches again...Neeed to find a life drawing class I can go to over summer, or some kind of art class. I want to do this course so bad 'cos its a really good college, but I think I'm away for it...

Creativity, part II

2009-03-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

This blog is a follow-up to our previous discussions on creativity. Last time, we established that creativity is a means of producing original ideas which have value, i.e. a purpose, or are highly skilled. It is something that applies to every role or career, and should be encouraged and nurtured to develop from early on in a person’s life. Applied specifically to art and design, a piece of work is generally considered to be 'art' if it either shows a highly refined skill, or evokes some emotion in the viewer of the piece. Then in theory, art should be accessible to anyone with no room for elitism, but we know that's not the case.

After doing some research as to what other people define as creativity, specifically within video games, I came across this article which cited Little Big Planet as a game which stood out concerning Sony’s creativity, as opposed to Playstation Home which wasn’t as successful as it’s competitors. I've only played LBP game recently, and although the concept of a side-scrolling platform game isn’t original anymore, there are small aspects that stood out such as the variety of minigames, and how you can ‘stamp’ your character and home with pictures or animated objects, or how you can control your character’s individual limbs and expressions. The whole visual style of the game has a sort of universal appeal which has attracted a variety of age groups of both genders.

I liked how the game tries to promote creativity, though the limitations do provide the easy option of making random choices rather than creating ‘original content’. Although this does seem to be possible, it isn’t the main focus or most accessible part of the game, and is more evident in games like ‘Drawn to Life’ for the DS. I also appreciated how LBP didn’t have an obvious bias towards either gender, which is a step towards getting rid of the mentality of ‘girls’ games and boys’ games [although, I think most of these are fine for young kids].

It’s also stated that the best ideas are ‘coincidental’, are usually simple, and have a tendency to stick with you. There is a problem with this theory when it comes to real life, as the ideas you come up with entirely off your own back, as a passing or reoccurring thought, are usually so personal only you yourself would find them interesting. There’s a very low possibility of these types of ideas actually appealing to other people and being recognised as valuable. Valuable ideas are formed by reworking these passing thoughts over and over, by doing research, and surrounding yourself with similar things. That’s why being surrounded by other creative people doing a similar thing to you at University is more motivating than being at home, and keeping up with the art scene and games industry is beneficial, I think, as it is usually quite inspirational. I think it’s important to be critically aware of the industry you want to go into [conerning games, this is something I need to work on].

On a slightly related note, if anyone’s interested in Superflat, I watched a short animation recently by Studio 4 °C, who are probably one of the best commercial studios right now, in my opinion. Their stuff has this amateur feel to it which reminds me of indie festival style anime. Thought I'd share!

Director is Daisuke Nakayama, this one really does look like a hiphop-influenced Imaishi [Dead Leaves, Diebuster]. I do spend quite a lot of time watching cartoons, so when something stands out from the 90% of rubbish Japan produces, I get excited. I’ve never actually wanted to be an animation student though, I know I get too caught up on the small details to churn out the amount of storyboarding, etc that’s required. Of course, Game Art is probably more difficult..!

Week 19

2009-03-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

I think it’s very easy for people in our creative industry to dismiss the whole idea of Liberal Arts/academics because they don’t have to deal with that curriculum anymore. For most people who have being aiming for this industry, academic subjects and accolades are just a means to an end which you can easily label as illogical and crap and stifling for creative people, whose talents and interests should have been recognised by educational institutes instead of repressed [one of the main points in the intriguing TED video clip we watched today]. I see the liberal arts and the whole process of compulsory education as a means to attempt to make well-rounded individuals, and the institutions I went through communicated that. I’ve never had any bitter feelings towards the methods of education, and I don’t think studying mathematics and humanities is pointless even if you’re not going to be using those skills in your future career.

I don’t think creative subjects are exactly stigmatised, as my schools have always encouraged me in those areas; my art teacher had blatant disregard for the idea of assessment, and his own work and teaching methods was so concentrated on traditional techniques he was way more focused on getting us to make pieces that looked visually impressive rather than what fitted the mark sheet, thus everything we made was basically extremely shallow, and 6th form graduates from that school had practically zero chance of getting into an art college. My art teacher at a different 6th form college was the opposite, the creative process is supposed to be about reworking ideas until reaching a final outcome, and the marking structure was completely set around supporting/sketchbook work and was meant to run parallel to the actual process of making a painting or sculpture or dress etc. Similarly, in Foundation Art, one part of the course was keeping a creative journal to discuss contemporary artists and their work which might influence you. So while a lot of teaching methods are disengaging and plainly bad, I don’t think the ideas behind marking and grades are' wrong'. I also think that those who’ve worked harder for their studies deserve to be recognised, so I do like the idea of University being a more exclusive thing that only hard workers are able to get to. The problem is what schools value as hard work.

I do have a personal attachment to the values of the education system which makes me biased, mainly stemming from the fact that my working-class parents and grandparents paid for me to go to ridiculously overpriced private school; which was not the pinnacle of effective teaching methods, but it got the results and it was probably an overall step-up from the alternatives. After going through public school, my Dad went back as an adult to get English and Maths GCSEs because he wanted to be acknowledged as an intelligent person as well as the better job prospects, and thus he has this unshakable high regard of the values of academic degrees. To brush them off as worthless lines on a CV, I think would be a disrespect to what my parents did and what they did for me and are doing throughout my own educational process - which is constant support, funding, and reward but never pressure. They’ve always known I was going to study art, and always encouraged me to work for whatever I wanted, and I chose the option of picking up as many good grades as I could along the way because you only have one chance, and my Dad always says he regrets not going down that route. Would he have been happier if he did? I don’t know, but the least I can do is value what’s been given to me when many other people’s creativity is not nurtured or valued by parents or institutions. I think I’m an extremely lucky person in this respect to be from such an encouraging background so out of principle, even though I agree that there some things that are seriously wrong with the system, I take pride in what I’m able to put on my CV even if others think it’s worthless. I think it would be ungrateful, in my own circumstances, not to be even a little bit proud.

I realise I sound like a square, but it’s more just an emotional reaction to what we talked about today. Also, I despise the idea of spending so many years of your life doing something, only to think of it later as a waste of time. I think that’s really negative, and there is always some value in anything. Just watch me eat my words when I end up as a bitter, snarky old lady..!

To actually address the task, I don’t see why you can’t have a highly-trained individual who also has a good liberal arts background. The whole process of going through school is to give you that background, and I see university as the process of training one specific thing. Though I suppose if you think of it that way, it’s best to have a good idea of where you want to end up early on, otherwise three years just isn’t enough to start from scratch. That’s why I think, can I really get to industry-level in 3Dsmax in just 3 years? Well, more like two now. We’ve had our whole lives to practise our traditional art skills; can I really get to the same level in such a short time? I suppose I must think of it as just a different way of applying those skills. I think by a ‘good liberal arts background’, employers want well-rounded individuals who are aware of the world around them. Really, I think there should be much more emphasis in schools on the subjects of cultural studies, debates, politics, current events, morality, that kind of thing, which in my opinion when taught well would be a better way to produce intelligent, aware people rather than the divisions of ‘faculties’ from so early on.

Dreams, art, me me me

2009-02-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

This morning I had a dream about going to sleep with some kind of rotten meat next to me. No idea why I didn’t just get rid of the meat before sleeping, but I didn’t and when I woke up the next morning there were all these flies and bugs on the walls, including some weird coloured ones but I couldn’t bear to look at them too closely, or my imagination didn’t want to stretch to thinking about insects as I really hate the look of them. Anyway, dream-me knew the meat must be really gross but I didn’t smell or see it [can you imagine smells in your sleep? I don’t think so..] but still knew it was there. So, my Mum happened to be upstairs [we were in some house I didn’t know that resembled a hotel, but my room was the same as here] and I asked her to get rid of it all. Kept saying I can’t do it, I can’t look at it etc and she didn’t really say anything but I knew she’d fix it for me anyway. So, when I woke up for real I did so unpleasantly, looking for something rotten.

So, fortunately I don’t have anything rotten here, apart from maybe the drain which needs a good bleaching, but I was thinking about the dream for a while. Maybe something to do with the massive guilt I had when I broke the hard drive my parents got me, and I knew they’d still pay for it to be fixed/buy a knew one even though it was my fault for always being clumsy and careless. But I think...It’s more to do with that feeling you have when you ignore something for a while, until the point where it’s unbearable and you go crying to someone else to fix it. I don’t think I’m too guilty of that, though everyone must experience that sort of thing to some extent...Usually I don’t think dreams have meanings or anything, but it’s been a while since I felt so emotional over a dream so it must be quite important. I guess the thing I’m guilty over...Is neglecting 3d. Its said that you can do anything if you try hard enough, and generally that’s applied to me, in everything but driving [cannot get my head around it, it’s like I’m mentally disabled or something], and I’m scared it’ll be the same thing with 3d, that I have no hope in hell of ever being good at it. But I doubt it. With some help, I really liked the tree I made, even if it’s just a small accomplishment. I suppose I’m the type of person that expects to be able to do everything art-related straight away, and it’s really not the case. What an irresponsible attitude...

A-Anyway, dreams are a silly topic, so I’ll put something relevant here before posting week 18! It was nice to see Chris’ work on Wednesday, I expected just figurative sculpture for some reason, but seeing the installation work and larger-scale things was very enjoyable...It’s been a while since I looked at fine art at all, last year I was really into it so it was really good to see work which had that emotional quality to it, a nice break from purely commercial stuff. I’ve always said I liked commercial/low-brow art more, but Chris’ stuff reminded me of what the fine art students last year were doing, well more like how they were thinking, basing an idea on something really small and developing it to the point where it’s only traceable back to that point if you’re able to see the whole process.

I think, that’s why a lot of fine art is hard to ‘understand’; either because people go in to a gallery expecting a visual treat or some kind of intellectual explanation, when more of it is based on quite a small idea or feeling, it’s the expression of it which gives it value, and at some point down the line the tools of traditional craftsmanship become unnecessary when it’s abstracted. The artist may still be a good craftsman, but their work might not need those skills to express the idea. For instance, in the fine art group at Leeds last year, for their first project they had to make a collection of every day objects that were interesting in some way, and draw, film, and record them. My friend in that group chose soap, and did things like drawing with them, looking at the textures, and making a kind of shell of the soap out of tracing paper and thread. Recording the sound of soap was pushing it. A lot of those people were pretty good painters and sculptors, but the ones who weren’t did things like video and performance. A lot of people in my graphics group thought it was a load of crap, but I liked all of it! The fine art exhibition was the one of the most interesting at the end of year show. Well, all the groups had good exhibitions, but that one had the most story to it. My first graphics project was making a hundred variations of a backwards letter ‘n’. God knows what Mike and Chris thought that was all about. I didn’t think my portfolio showed enough actual skill, so I stuck a few digital paintings in at the end while my Leeds tutors weren’t looking. But now I understand the projects that we did now, and even though I took Graphics and not Fine Art they share the same processes in the end. That’s why I think it’s good to look at galleries and contemporary art even if you think its crap, because there will be some things that you find interesting and impressive!

Also, I’ll post some of my character work here. Why not?
The descriptions/explanations are all on Facebook so I don’t re-iterate myself here.

Week 18 - Sound and music

2009-02-20T21:08:00.000-08:00

Sound and music is as important in games now as it is in any other form of media. Like film, the sound of games has evolved from virtually silent to multiple channel orchestration. Old console games of the 70s and 80s had to keep sound and music to a minimum, the Atari 2600 only capable of generating two notes at a time. Sound effects were very basic and often the background music had to stop so the effect could be heard. Into the 80s, music became more of a specialisation and famous video game themes and composers emerged, such as Koji Kondo [Super Mario, Legend of Zelda] and Koichi Sugiyama [Dragon Quest], and of course Nobuo Uematsu. The short opening theme to Super Mario 64 is one of the most nostalgic pieces of music for me, despite never actually owning an N64. It was always something my friend’s brother would play and I’d sit and watch and long to own it myself, so I always feel vaguely excited and optimistic when I hear it, partly because I got a Playstation instead!

The DragonQuest games I feel are highly underrated, and totally overshadowed by FF as the long-running JRPG. Thinking of the world map theme in DQVIII has this similar nostalgia for me, because even though the game’s not that old, when I finished it I kind of just put it down and forgot about it. When I think of the music, doing mundane things in the game while having the hyperbolic orchestration in the background and the chirping of the dawn birds made it seem like I was this super important hero. In a way it’s similar to Elder Scrolls IV, it’s easy to loose track of time and wonder around at night thinking you’re awesome, until you’re kicked in the head by an imp or a mudcrab wanders up to you, etc. Anyway, the game has this really charming Japanese take on Western Fantasy and the music fits with that; it has a feel of mid 90’s anime of the same theme such as Slayers and that kind of thing.

Nobuo Uematsu on the other hand, has many fantastic compositions [Zongyi described it the best] of which I couldn’t possibly choose a favourite [okay, it’s Melodies of Life, and it’s also my favourite game because it takes itself the least seriously out of the PS-gen games and has Knights and Rogues and Princesses. Japanese vocal version because this was the only one I could find to download on the internet way back when. I only heard the English version once or something!]. The other games’ music, specifically FFVII themes just don’t have the same nostalgia factor for me anymore, as they’re constantly brought up again and again, and have never been laid to rest in peace without some fanbrat reminding us all that it is the best game ever made. I also used to love praising the game, you know, ten years ago.

Uh, bitterness aside, other MIDI-type music that had a lot of exciting atmosphere were things like the Doom and Wolfenstein 3d themes. I still think they’re some of the scariest games even though the baddies look like lego, because the imitation-heavy metal BGM holds the memories of me and my friends shrieking when shot from behind, then deciding it was way too tense and going to play some Rayman instead. That was probably the last time I played FPS. Around that same time I was really into DDR, which had tons of disposable pop songs that were popular at the time, but also some original Konami classics. If you were lucky, you might find an American import machine and get to listen to some garbled Engrish Jpop or the opening theme from Gundam Wing, which was pretty much pee-in-your-pants level of excitement for me at the time. From there on I was really into rhythm games, and the idea of playing a game based around music rather than music just being there for background and sound effect purposed was a pretty foreign concept. The most recent music-based game I’ve played is Patapon on the PSP, in which you act as a God and make a drum beat to command your cute little tribesmen. It’s really incredibly cute!
Here's a rather old article that goes into the purpose of game music in more detail.

Video game music has a kind of cult status now and has developed into its own culture catalysed by the internet, with many of it’s own artists and events, such as Blipfestival. The actual chips from older games can be emulated and used to make music in a technical approach, or famous pieces of music from games are remixed, sampled and covered by other artists. Amateur game developers also write original compositions, wherein all the actual game content is usually made by one person, sometimes masquerading as a ‘team’. A notable example is horror/murder mystery ‘sound novel’ Higurashi no naku koro ni/When they Cry by 07th Expansion [composed of 3 people]. The atmosphere is created with background music and sound effects, where the player has to collect hints and solve the mystery. The original features some pretty appalling artwork, but it just makes the various bloody scenarios even more disturbing. I wanted to find a translated clip to show, but Youtube only has Japanese. Here’s a good example of the cicada chirping sound effect, which never fails to give me the creeps, as does the psychotic Rena interrogation. Also, that high pitched white noise kind of thing is constantly there. Shudder.

Oh, the Good Times song! I listened to it and didn’t really recognise it immediately...But it’s been used in lots of songs, one of the most sampled pieces of music of all time. This makes it a very important and influential song. Isn’t it in Rapper’s Delight?

Week 17 - Game Engines

2009-02-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

A game engine is a piece of software designed to render 2d/3d graphics, sound, animation, AI, and a physics engine [ to simulate Newtonian physics and approximate effects and conditions in a real life or fantasy world], among other features. To economise game production, they are typically used over and over when creating different games, falling into the category of middleware as they provide reusable tools purchasable for different companies, reducing the time and cost of development.

Key technologies include a rendering engine, the mathematical process of creating an image from a 3-dimensional model containing geometry, texture, lighting, shading and viewpoint. The word can be compared to how a traditional artist ‘renders’ an image. Scene graphs in games are used to describe logical and spatial relationships between objects in a scene, and can also be useful in reducing memory budget and increasing speed. Recent trends are favouring accessibility, and engines are being developed more for devices such as mobile phones and web browsers, e.g. Shockwave and Flash.

Additive or subtractive environments describe the process by which objects are created within the engine. An attitive environment exists as an empty void, in which the game world is created and sealed off without the void space leaking into it. The Quake engines, MaxFX, and Half-life are all examples of additive engines.
A subtractive environment is the opposite, as in there is an endless solid instead of a void, and objects are created by removing parts of the solid and the game world is formed from negative space. As additive enviroments are easier to manipulate, a large cube can be removed from a subtractive space and things can be built within it, emulating an additive environment but without the problem of the void leaking in. Some popular engines to use subtractive environments are the Unreal, Dark, and Serious engines.

Using middleware engines can be a big advantage to developers as mentioned previously; it prevents ‘re-inventing the wheel’ – why recreate something that already exists unnecessarily? Engines also are becoming more and more complicated, and creating an original piece of software would be extremely demanding requiring vast amounts of expertise. Also, engines that have been used in successful games are naturally attractive to developers.
However, the licensing of the third-party engine can also be costly, and may require modification to meet the developer’s specific needs. Creating an in-house engine may produce totally unique features for the games using it, with the opportunity to re-use it and sell as middleware in the future. Considering these disadvantages, a safer choice with less risks of failure would be to use pre-existing software, although it would be interesting to see more original engines being developed for specific purposes.

Obvious fakes

2009-02-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

...Of the game and console variety. BEHOLD:

Dazzling 3d DRAPHICS, huh?

Remember Metall Slug? Best game ever am I right?

TRY AND COUNT HOW MANY THINGS ARE WRONG WITH THIS

Conker..?

Nintendo 64
Compact Disc
Que?

I love my NINTENDO POLYSTATION

I think I've seen this on a market stall before.

Superior to the Dreamcast

OH GOD POLYSTATION 2, with Goku and Jigglypuff SHIT YES

Help, it won't stop..!

Er, have you played your SexBox 3600円　today?
Costume x1 Igniter [???] x1 Lotion x1
...And those must be the games for it above. Also, Microchinco - chinco - chinko = Japanese word for penis. Okay, I laughed. Unfortunately it's not a real console, but some crazy sex kit in disguise, probably a typical example of what you'd find in Akihabara.

Also, what the fuck, Japan? Are those mini-hamburgers and broccolli on pizza?

The Shrimp and Mayonnaise Roll Winter Double King Pizza from Pizza Hut. This amazing amalgamation is filled with crab, shrimp, beef, scrambled eggs, onion, broccoli, mayo and a demi-glace sauce. And the exterior crust is filled with shrimp filled with mayonnaise.

Mmmmm.

Week 16 - Gaming Cultures

2009-02-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

Gaming culture is so rich and varied because it is just another representation of real life; there are games and communities to suit almost everyone’s tastes. If games themselves are a form of escapism, then the cultural aspects that surround them are the grounding ties back to the real world. They are the thing that makes playing games more integrated with every day life; the friends one makes in an MMO often cross over into becoming ‘real’ friends, not just digital representations of people. Gaming communities are able to give the solitary act of playing games a little more meaning.

In this aspect, I think they’re a good thing, although not quite for me. Games for me remain as a solitary hobby, pure escapism which I’m happy with as being completely separate from my real social life. For one, I’ve never really played the sort of games which favour community in the same way, apart from maybe certain RPGs with large online fanbases; where we discuss everything apart from the actual gameplay. Somehow I don’t think this sort of thing counts, as there’s no competitive aspect, only discussion that could apply to any other medium. Another reason for my game shyness is probably the same reason for my general internet shyness. For about 5 years I was extremely active online and keen on the idea of online interest-based communities and friends. A while ago I found myself becoming less and less active, and quite jaded with the whole thing, I didn’t see it as necessary anymore, and not that fulfilling as there was always a distance between you and these people that limited you to little more than glorified small talk, which you can do in real life anyway. Another thing is when you’re younger, you seem to have the insatiable craving to find others who are similar to you because you feel so isolated all the time; it’s a fairly natural part of teen angst, isn’t it? Now I know there are in fact many thousands of people with similar interests and opinions to me, it all seems a bit redundant. I’m not particularly special or unique, and I’m happy with that, whereas 4 years ago most of the things I did were motivated by the drive to be different from everyone else. So now more than anything, I prefer to be an observer or do things anonymously, and right now that’s fulfilling to me.

I’m sure there are many people with MSN contacts full of people they’ve never met and have very interesting conversations with, but I have 2 or 3 people who I’ve met online and meet up with regularly in RL too. If I meet someone online who I have good conversation with and it’s possible to meet in RL too, I’d definitely want to meet them! I think, with gaming communities, it seems to be more about having many, many friends to have game-related small talk with, and that kind of thing doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Give it a few years and I’ll probably have different attitudes again, but sometimes I just need to crawl away into peace and silence and be content with doing what I want to do and having my friends in RL. Also part of escapism, there’s lots of opportunity to recreate yourself as an avatar in a game as there is on the internet as a whole, and a lot of people do blur the boundaries to lie about things with no repercussions.

As for games being the new literacy, I don’t know if I like the idea of it. If games are part of your culture, then yes its good to play many different games, but also watch films and read old books and books of your time too, I think everyone needs to read more and seek out what they’re interested in! Though I spend most of my time watching children’s cartoons, so it feels wrong to pretend to give advice...!

Here's a pretty cool example of something productive coming from gaming cultures, PSP design club [although I think part of the site is down right now].

Bawwwwww

2009-01-30T19:10:00.000-08:00

Part 2

S-s-stupid elephants, it's not like your video made me cry or anything.

OH GOD ;_;
Anyone have a joke or something?

Stupid laws

2009-01-28T17:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4370072/New-pornography-laws-could-make-comic-books-illegal-claim-campaigners.html

More badly thought-out laws that will probably never get passed. Could this be any more vague?

“The Government defines an "extreme image" as any "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise ... obscene" moving or still depiction of someone any "reasonable person" would think real being sexually injured or engaging in sexual activity with an animal or corpse.”

Why the hell are people worried about comic books? No “reasonable person” would think they’re real, unless they’re part of the Australian legal system*. I don’t remember Batman going around raping animals either.

“"A kick in the balls or a--- would constitute this, and a kick in the balls is a well trodden part of humour."”

Did they miss the part where it stated images “solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal” would only be affected? This is such a load of rubbish. You can say the only people worried about this are the guilty ones, but these fascist laws just encourage censorship and stupid fucking paedophile fanaticism. Catching actual criminals is the most important thing, and it’s never even been proven that looking at drawings is linked with real crime, so it would probably be wasted efforts anyway.

Disregarding the content of that kind of material, the difference between fiction and reality is the thing here that seems to be getting confused more and more. 'Extreme, disgusting images' is so subjective it makes me uncomfortable to think that what would fall into that category would be totally dependant on the personal tastes of one person. God, just stop the circulation of images of REAL children and real exploitation before worrying about what Kaworu Watashiya writes next. This kind of thing really pisses me off because it just seems like obvious scapegoating.

*This Neil Gaiman blog entry explains some things. I’m fond of this line:

“And, I should warn members of the Australian judiciary, fictional characters don't just have sex. Sometimes they murder each other, and take fictional drugs, and are cruel to fictional animals, and throw fictional babies off roofs. Crimes, crime everywhere.”

Lol.

Week 15 - The Industry

2009-01-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

The fact that our course exists is indication that roles in Industry require specialisation, now that it has begun to mature over the years. Companies need a wide range of skills to function, and must have people that are very good at a certain thing; e.g. a games artist, rather than someone who can design a game, make the artwork and write the code averagely. That may have happened back when console games first began to compete, and even into the early nineties where production teams remained relatively small, with may of the staff were multitasking; but the games industry is now fully comparable in scale with other commercial entertainment identities.

Although our course is specialised for this Industry, many of the skills we’re training are transferable. With the current climate the future of getting jobs is foggier than usual, but I’m trying my best to counter that by developing my traditional art skills. Courses such as illustration and fine art had appealed to me before I discovered this one, but I’m very happy to be here because it seems that I share the tutors’ sentiments about the importance of drawing and uses of Photoshop, etc. In other words, I’m keeping my options open but still dedicating myself to what we do here. After spending some actual time on Max during the last project, I don’t feel quite as intimidated by it, but I have a lot of catching up to do – although everyone seems quite relaxed about it, so I don’t feel pressure in a negative way; perhaps because I’ve always had my traditional art to fall back on. That’s kind of arrogant, isn’t it?

I’ve been quite worried recently about the negative atmosphere surrounding the employment issue. I can understand why people are worried, and I’ve been trying to take an interest in it rather than my usual ‘it doesn’t affect me right now, everything’s peachy’ attitude. I think, generally, worrying too much about anything is bad for one’s mental health, so recently I’ve become a more ‘take it easy’ kind of person. But, when a real issue that has a possible chance of upsetting things gets too close for comfort, all the worry I didn’t have comes all at once and motivates me to get things done in a whirlwind of neuroticism; but usually all that applies to is deadlines for things I haven’t done. I’ve had bad working habits in the past and it shows. Anyway, last week’s session with Mike did put my mind at ease about it, that we already are specialised and don’t need to concentrate that much on one really specific thing, that companies are always seeking out graduates, and so forth. It was comforting to me, although that probably wasn’t the primary purpose of that talk..!

So, despite everything I’m still fairly confident that I’ll be able to find a job, although that positive attitude may come partly from the fact that I utterly despise and fear the idea of failing at anything [though I’m not the aggressive, overtly competitive type, perhaps you can tell]. The situation the industry is in is likely to fluctuate even more in the next few years, and as a result, I’d say its logical to presume that to preserve stability and prosperity, they will continue to pick out the very best and refine this even further, and that’s why abilities of being able to meet deadlines and be highly productive are so necessary.

In which I talk a lot of shit about men and women

2009-01-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

Warning for male nudity, NSFW. Serious discussion of rude bits will follow.

Oh god, Mikel Marton is awesome. This article [not work-safe!] made me happy. I'm so glad his work is getting more gallery exposure, especially after all of his cameras and computers were stolen a year or so ago. It’s funny, after about 4 years of browsing the site DeviantArt, there were only a handful of people whose work made me think something else other than ‘that’s cool’ [but maybe I’m just a bit shit at appreciating art sometimes], especially in the photography section; which is mostly just macro pictures of flowers and underage tits. In Sixth Form, me and a friend of mine became pretty obsessed with Sarah Lucas’ work, in that period when I was only beginning to understand what fine art was, to realise that the things she makes are all about bawdy sex and vulgarity, and those things are cool. Or rather, challenging the idea of a woman [‘Eating a Banana’, 1990] and gender roles really got me into reading about feminism and a lot of the ideas struck a chord with me and made me really passionate [I won’t go into detail, some guys are following this blog and I wouldn’t want to bore them to tears].

While keeping this contemporary art journal for foundation course, I realised I actually liked photography quite a bit. I’ll have to dig out the journals to remember the names I was into [the sheer amount you had to talk about was intimidating, so you become forgetful], but I do remember feeling vaguely uncomfortable about the overwhelming number of female subjects in nude portraits/erotica. At first I put it down to immature, prudish heterosexualness, but I don’t think I’m all that prudish. It’s mainly the fact that pretty much all of this genre is pictures of tied-up women, and I don't see the irony to these kind of photos. Women are physically vulnerable compared to men, and have been/are oppressed, and I don't see any reason to celebrate those terrible things. This kind of imagery is never morally questioned and I was quite frustrated about that as I could never think of anything to say that didn’t sound like I had double standards, as you can easily reply with ‘you’re no better just because you’d rather look at cocks’.

But I so completely agree with what Mikel is saying. Male art is taboo because we are still scared of showing the strong white man as a sexual object, because that is something completely associated with femininity or homosexuality, and of course, neither of those are any good for what we demand a man to be.
I’ll be very happy to see change, really, so I was extremely happy to find Mikel's work as the photographs are beautiful and the ideas behind it I think are important things.

In before 'lol, that guy has a huge penis'

On the topic of naked people, life drawing yesterday was great fun! It was my first time doing it properly, as I’d only drawn clothed models before...Not entirely happy with what I produced, I was trying to get the drawings as accurate to the three dimensional person as possible, and I didn’t really put any boldness into it. I think it’s a matter of confidence. I now know I can draw the human body reasonably accurately, so that gives me more room to experiment technically. Sometimes I think my stuff has zero visual impact, so I’ll try harder.
Also on the subject of female bodies, I’ll link to one of my favourite painters, Jenny Saville. I love her work.
So that the next entry isn’t entirely worthless, I’ll post the drawings we did with Chris for the laugh.

Creativity

2009-01-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

1. • Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. (page 396)
• Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative: 1. need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation 2. need to communicate ideas and values 3. need to solve problems (page 396)
- Human Motivation, 3rd ed, Robert E. Franken.

I like the ideas presented in this article, particularly that creativity is not limited to the arts; instead it is a requirement for everything we do that needs independent thinking. Problem solving of any kind requires creativity, I see it as the formulation of ideas which is necessary for an intelligent individual. And since all of us humans are intelligent, as well as some animals, we are all creative. I think it’s sensible to gauge a person’s creativity by how much of that energy is put into use. Using arts as an example, a productive person who fills a sketchbook a month will be said to be more creative than someone who keeps their ideas in their head, but doesn’t act on them. Objectively, I think its fair, because we can’t see inside the heads of others. Their own ideas have to be expressed, creative ideas in the form of drawing/fine art, music, poetry/prose if the individual is interested in those things. Equally, science and mathematics both require creativity to progress. It’s a part of the brain we’re born with in order for us to live, e.g. attaching sharp rocks to sticks to make tools is a creative process. So in answer to the questions in the task description, everyone on a team must be creative individuals, moreso than the average person because their own creative skills are essential to their job and success.

When creativity manifests itself visually, it is usually linked with ideas that seem original in comparison to the rest. Something that is plagiarised has a less creative process to it than an idea that has been fully developed and researched, despite the technical skill. Although it’s fair to argue that nothing is original any more, I don’t think there is a limit to ideas which are different from anything that has been done before. It’s just harder to get to that level. In my opinion, an idea which consists of both research and imagination is extremely creative even if it’s been done before, as it’s very unlikely the two will be that similar, as long as the idea has been refined by the creators own unique imagination, to avoid cliché.

Creativity in games, is something you feel when you get excited about playing, or you notice many things in the game which stand out to you as being interesting, as well as the overall ambiance of the game. From there you can try and guess the creative process of the artist, as however loosely, ideas are based on something real, that is, your own experiences. Some companies I think are particularly visually creative are Monolith, Atlus, and Oddworld Inhabitants. I’ve always been fond of Devil May Cry’s Bosch-inspired architecture and environments, fused with modern day cityscapes.

If it’s been done before and if I’m just being ignorant please tell me, but I’d really like to see a game with graphics in a more painterly style [I know of Ookami, though I’ve never got to play it]. Kind of like what Toei did with the Mononoke tv series, which is basically a moving Ukiyo-e, or A Country Doctor by Koji Yamamura, based on Franz Kafka’s short story. Imperfect, hand-drawn images work so well with animation I don’t see why it’s not the same with games. Perhaps the games industry thinks it looks pretentious? I hope not. I think many of their artists will start to come from a background more rooted in fine art with an understanding of periods and leading artists in history, who are more critically aware in general, like on our course where we’re shown films and learn about genre and movements. I love it.

As an artist, you show your creativity by the process that leads up to your results. Explaining that process is helpful sometimes, but usually visual development does not need much annotation, in my experience. When having your work acknowledged, having the technical skill to back up your ideas seems to be important. As long as the progress of your ideas is interesting and easy to follow I’d hope that it would be acknowledged. Some kind of instant appeal that makes an impression like stylised images or bold colour can make work more memorable. But I’m being really vague here.

This essay is quite an interesting break down of the components behind creativity; the un/importance of talent or ‘gift’ has always interested me particularly.

First impressions, fanart, etc

2009-01-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

So I'm playing Tomb Raider Underworld as slowly as possible, so I can make a short game last. From looking at the promotional renders I was kind of apprehensive of what they'd done with the character, but I've liked everything Crystal Dynamics has done with Lara so far and it turns out I wasn't disappointed. The ps3 model is more natural-looking facially than ps2 versions, they've definitely gone for realism in that respect. It was hard to get used to. She no longer has an impossible body shape, and actually looks powerful in form and movements. In the first part of the game you get to wear an amazing wetsuit, its a conventional suit from the waist up but has no legs to it, like a swimsuit. She looks so cool swimming around wearing it with the equipment belt over the top, I was so impressed considering all the previous dodgy fashion mistakes of the earlier games, where the only considerations were to show either as much skin as possible or cling to it as much as possible, and it made for some pretty terrible designs that looked more like a tacky cosplay of Lara rather than what a Countess would wear [even though the official bio was different at the time].

In TR: Legend one of the most fun parts of the game were the unlockables. Concept Art and alternate outfits were the most interesting for me along with the Director's Commentary in Anniversary. Legend had a bunch of colour variations and novel things like an Amanda skin and gothic Lara. Highly entertaining, and the choice was probably more appealing to females because they were mostly quite demure, with the exception of *that* dress which was great fun to run around in. One thing I'm kind of disappointed about in Underworld is that a lot of these are gone, there's less than half as many unlockables and no alternative outfits, woe. The in-game ones are slightly plain in a bad way. I love simple design but its hard to pull off, and I was looking forward to seeing some optional extravagant things. It just strikes me as a wasted opportunity to design interesting clothing! Even though its Underworld and the tone is different from Legend, I think a lot of people miss it. However, lucky 360 owners get to download and prance around in a Marie Saint Pierre jacket! Why doesn't Playstation store get this kind of thing? So much woe.

Here's something I drew today. This kind of body shape...Is really hard! So excuse my anatomy. Must practise.

There is a swimsuit already in the game, but its basically a recoloured wetsuit with the sleeves cut off. I thought it'd be kind of cool to have a 1930's style bathing suit, I've always liked the simple elegance of that period and it keeps coming back. In the level, Lara wears no shoes which is pretty amusing considering you have to climb sharp, pointy rocks and kick vases for treasure. But I thought it looked cool in the game. The belt is still there because I think its more challenging to integrate it with other clothing, and also the game's physics/animations wouldn't allow it to be removed, as far as I can imagine...I've always wanted to get into modding TR, but have so far only dabbled with 2d. Well, I want to do some more of these, it was great fun.

Various things I watched over the holidays in the early hours...

2009-01-14T18:43:00.000-08:00

I’ve made this habit while being at home of falling asleep on the couch around 11 and waking up as a film on tv is starting at 1 or 2am. It started out with rather bad Nicholas Cage movies, Face Off and the one where he jumps out of a plane dressed as Elvis. Ok, I did like that one. Last night I watched Carry On Camel. Or something. I don’t know either, but I felt pretty bad for smirking at every joke, similar to what happened while watching Hairspray [2007], except I didn’t think it was bad. I thought it was pretty good in a way that it rehashed John Waters’ film for today’s audience. My friend who loves Divine and all things camp would slaughter me for saying this, but it was still delightfully camp, just in a 00 way instead of an 80s way. But I’m probably biased because I love musicals [Oklahoma on Christmas day? Oh yes], even though it is not at all cool to love musicals.

Yes, I was highly disappointed when no one would go and see High School Musical: senior year with me [so much woe], and I never understood why those films get so much hate from my generation. They’re for kids and should be watched as kid’s films. Maybe its confusing because the characters are meant to be older, and when I watched for the first time I thought it was being somewhat satirical, because I didn’t realise the actual target audience until I visited EuroDisney that year and saw how young those kids where. As a kid’s film I think it’s a good film, I don’t really understand what people are expecting for a low-budget Disney live action aimed at 5-10 year old girls. For the record if I had children, I’d rather them watch a week-long HSM marathon than read Twilight. That’s not aimed at me, but I can still hate it because the message is quite backward. But that’s my opinion. Does loving kids’ films make any more sense than hating them? Probably not, but maybe for those idiots still infatuated with Disney [read: me].

One of the interesting things that happened to me with the falling asleep on the couch thing was waking up at the start of a film called Journey through the Night. I think it was a film festival piece, 10 minutes long. A man on a sleeper train finds himself in the same cabin as a cannibal, who proceeds to describe in some detail how he would go about eating him. The man could easily change cabins any time, or alert someone, but instead forces himself to stay awake and continue the conversation of how to go about eating the human body. Suddenly everything changes to animation, A Scanner Darkly sort of thing but more painterly. I did not see the point of this, it doesn’t really do anything more than add a bit of visual intrigue and perhaps emphasize the disorientation resulting from lack of sleep. The conversation led into questioning some of the morality and philosophy behind cannibalism. The whole situation implied the man was somewhat fascinated with the idea of it, just staying there long enough is playing with death until he comes to his senses at the end and you see the cannibal being thrown out of the train.

I really liked this film. Its interesting, while being confronted with a situation where you could leave any time, something so horrific can begin to make sense even if you’ve never thought about that thing in no more depth than ‘this is wrong’, before your reasonable part wakes up and you realise there are some things you shouldn’t question, or possibly shouldn’t think about too much. I’m quite a squeamish person, but I’m fascinated by horrible crimes and terrible, strange things. I think it’s the same for a lot of people and it’s not particularly weird. Usually after indulging in crime/horror novels I find I can’t sleep much afterwards, but morbid curiosity/masochism continues to make you seek out more shocking things. I like the idea of seeing inside the criminal’s head before saying, ‘that’s evil’. Of course, everyone knows murder is wrong so perhaps it’s pointless to think about these things at all? I don’t think so. Understanding crime is important even if the physical outcome is the same.

Oh, I’ve written a lot already. There were other things I wanted to say, but I’ll leave you with some highly amusing anime.
Possibly don’t watch if you’re at all offended by claymation gore.

Also, I was so disappointed I didn’t get to see The Mist today! I love horror films so I’ll seek it out on my own. I’ve had a bit of a nasty illness.

Week 11 - Gameplay

2009-01-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

I really liked what this article was saying about games having both local and global modes, and the tactical and the strategic styles of gameplay. This seems like a good method to analyse the type of gameplay present, and immediately RPGs came into my mind as having these two levels. There’s the whole overworld exploration where the story events are usually triggered, where the game focuses more on exploration and item collecting, as well as managing many other tasks which are controlled in this level, earning the description of a strategic element to the game. The tactical, local part would come from the battle screen, which traditionally has a very different interface and functions which the user must learn in addition to the global play.

More recent RPGs such as FFXII have tried to integrate these two modes of gameplay, and from the looks of the PS3 offerings it will end up visually seamless. This kind of decision was probably made in favour of ‘realism’, and thing like the gambit system made it possible to have real time battles, something that I found hard to imagine in a FF game, probably due to being so used to the old system.

However well the modes integrate visually, as long as they are still there underlying the player’s experience the game is quite likely to be more interesting and enjoyable, as long as the learning curve is effective. As nice as real time battles are, for a tactical traditional RPG battle I prefer things like Dragon Quest where its all time-based selecting commands for each character, and you’re always very much in control of everything, as well as the game making the transition to battle very distinctive in a way that seems so old-fashioned now.

Will add to this one later.

Week 10 - characters and story

2009-01-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

If games are here to stay as an stable medium, developers need to do things to grab a hold of their potential audience who are thinking along the lines of ‘why play a game for the characters or plot when I can watch a film or read a novel’? Games don’t yet have enough historic or critical weight to be compared with these other mediums to any great extent. Writers are only a small name in the credits of a game, whereas for films and books, it’s considered reasonable to consume them based on the writer or director’s name. I don’t think this is feasible for games right now, as there hasn’t been enough time for game writers to gain credentials which would be noticeable to mainstream consumers.

The principle of character is has underestimated power. People often claim to be following something for the plot, but the plot should come second to good characters, because without them the story wouldn’t have any appeal no matter how complex or ‘deep’. Every type of drama is based around the characters and conflict, the foundation for the story. We’re still unfamiliar with the concept of ‘buying’ characters or seeing them as consumables, when the selling points of games over the years have always been the characters – they are symbolic of their franchise.

Unlike film, games provide us with the opportunity to be the character and not just observe them. There is an element of projecting yourself onto the character you control which is probably why we can feel close to them after spending however many hours playing a game. It’s a different type of feeling compared to an emotional connection, which is how empathy with characters from non-interactive media works. The connection via gameplay can make even cliché, shallow characters endearing if its fun to play as them. A few years ago I found it surprising when I recognised that the characters I used to really love weren’t actually that deep or developed or even likable [certain characters in the FF series], but I hadn’t recognised that at the time because I was so absorbed in the game. Or I was naïve and easily infatuated by long haired men with big swords. Now my preferences have changed, and as I grew up I now find myself more inclined towards short-haired men with big swords. Or guns, or eyepatches, or beards, or mullets. What I’m trying to say in a really shallow way is that stereotypical character design is really effective at pulling people in, but some companies just exploit that way too much to the point where it doesn’t work anymore. Or it really shouldn’t work anymore. Why is FF7 still making money??

Something I don’t really understand is how people can say things like ‘but...they’re not even real’ in response to your fondness for a character. Just...What? I really like Heathcliff and Mr Rochester and no one has even found that particularly strange. I don’t see why it should be different for any kind of fictional person. It’s pretty funny how loving a character from a game/animation is strange, whereas obsessing over real life actors is practically encouraged. If the things that make up a character is at the least a description, or an image, or a voice, or some combination, the two dimensions really aren’t that different to me. Stay with me before this starts to sound insane. On the surface, there’s not much difference between a Photoshopped photograph of a celebrity and a painting. Both are unattainable, because what you see from actors is invariably different from their real selves. If anything, a 2d representation of a person is a purer way to satisfy our needs to admire or idolise others. Its easy to say ‘I know the difference between real and imaginary people, so there’s no need to think about it anymore’, but I like to think about it quite a lot.

The kind of archetypes I like are most definitely the slightly broken, emotionally vulnerable males who still have this air of strength about them. Bonus points if they’re either slightly arrogant or selfish as well, though I also like the gentle type who’s secret tragedy is revealed later on [Suzaku from Code Geass, if you know the show]. When the theme suits it, I also like hotblooded manchildren just for entertainment factor. Generally I love tragedy and melodrama when it’s done well, and still like it but pretend not to when it’s done badly. One of my favourite clichés is timeskips, when you get to see the hero, or the heroine’s lover come back as a different person, and it’s gradually revealed to you how he came to have changed. Ah, I love it when we get to see blind Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, such a tear jerking moment which made him a very endearing character to me, it set my protective instincts to full power!

[Also, I apologise if this post seemed to be all opinion, no fact. Finding the balance is hard, and I'd hate to sound forceful.]

What happened

2008-12-29T17:02:00.000-08:00

Amateur anime in the 80s

Amateur anime now:

The first film was shot frame by frame with an 8mm camera by three animation students, made for a scifi convention in Osaka. They would go on to found studio Gainax [Evangelion, FLCL, Gunbuster, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, etc ect]. One of them was Hideaki Anno, one of those anime directors where when you see one of his films, you can recognise anything else he's done, because his own style is so heavily imposed on it. Everything is hand drawn and its all pretty crude but its still exciting to watch. In Daicon IV [the film with ELO music] the animation staff increased to 9 or 10, all of them future Gainax animators [including Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, recently did illustrations/concept art for Rebuild of Eva], still as an amateur studio you can see how good the production values are. Some of the effects just put modern animation to shame. Unfortunately, this was the best quality video I could show you. Apparently it could never be commercially released because they never got permission to use the song Twilight or the Playboy bunny outfit, ha. Do you see all the references to Star Trek, Star Wars and American comics? There's also a load of old anime characters in the crowd at the end, I see Kamen Rider and possibly Char from Gundam, as well as Spock in a tux. I've written too much about it, but I love these! Its so interesting to see the first works of this studio.

The second thing I linked to is another piece of fan-made anime which was released yesterday at the 75th Winter Comiket . It's based on a series of shooter games called The Touhou Project created as an amateur work by a guy called ZUN, although he's nothing to do with this animation. The fanbase for this game is so huge [over 1300 artists circles selling fan-made manga at C75] Maikaze got professional voice actors to appear in the anime, so I was a little excited to see it, although I wasn't expecting much. I won't link to the whole unsubtitled 20 minute episode, but the animation shown in the trailer is pretty much the extent of what was on offer. The background art is nice, but actual 2d animation is really scarce, and I won't go into what I was expecting from the story/theme. I know I'm being quite mean to criticise such an amateur production, but Maikaze had unlimited time to make this, along with modern technology which is supposed to speed up the animation process; this looks like it was outsourced to Korea. They also had their love for Touhou to fire their blood! Its just so poorly crafted compared to what was being made all those years ago. I don't think I'm being to harsh to feel disappointed.

I'm sorry, I think I talk about my hobbies too much. But if you're at all interested in anime, anything by studio Gainax is worth watching. Even if you hate anime and are beginning to regret following my blog, I guarantee you there are great things amidst a vast ocean of shit. Even things which aren't about magical little girls.
Weekly tasks coming soon...Really...

Tokyopop

2008-12-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

Good opinion/rant piece about Tokyopop 'manga pilot'

Anyone interested in the comic book industry, or had considered using this as a gateway route might be interested in reading. Its pretty funny and shocking. This is fairly old news, I know, but I thought I’d link it here in case anyone hadn’t heard of this yet.

I can’t say I’m surprised. When I first saw the advertisements for this competition it really did raise my suspicious that TP were out to exploit artists. They just come off as incredibly patronising, I mean just read that terms/conditions contract. I’ve never seriously considered entering before I read this as more than a passing fancy, and [quite arrogantly] I thought, would I really want to be published with a company which has a whole branch of ‘American manga’ and spreads misconceptions. I know that having any kind of publication is an achievement, and perhaps this sounds like I’m just jealous of some of those decent artists and bitter of the idea that the precious manga style isn’t tainted by filthy westerners, but it’s not like that. I think that when you are passionately interested in something, enough to be inspired to do something creative because of it, you should make the effort to understand the context and history of that thing. Don’t the two come together? It seems not. If it did, more people would know that manga refers to comics made in Japan/by people brought up in Japan. Its manga because they have that whole history and process in their work. I don’t want to put too much emphasis on this part, because of course it’s still a grey area, but I do believe that comic books that go through Japanese publication and have been made by someone who has absorbed that culture [its that more than a race thing, but how many white people are born and brought up in Japan? It’s easier to refer to race] should be the only comics we refer to with a Japanese word, just like manhwa refers to Korean comics. It’s just logical, isn’t it?

I like comic books from any country. Even if I come across as fanatical [please don’t agree with this] I don’t worship glorious Nippon [like any country, there are of course repulsive things about it as well as interesting]. But I don’t see why these Western comics should be marketed as manga just because they have a few googly eyes and effeminate men in there. It just comes across as shallow to me. No matter how well the style is emulated [what is ‘the style’? Manga is any kind of narrative art coming out of Japan, we only see like, a tiny tiny percentage of what publishers think would appeal to consumers over here. There is no definitive style, it’s like saying all American comics feature big, steroidy muscular men in tight pants], it’s still a comic. It’s like those people don’t acknowledge their own influences outside of manga at all, and selling stuff as Amerimanga just shows the publisher’s ignorance [or they’re underestimating their audience?].

So, my family is pretty working class and we’re from a decent rural pocket of a rough area. Kids slapped teachers at my middle school and all that sort of thing; my school experiences were most likely no better or no worse than anyone else’s to be honest. Just think how absorbed you are into British and American culture, even if you’re not aware of it. Everyone has had some great memorable experiences in their lives. I don’t see why all those things shouldn’t influence you when writing/drawing a story. I don’t know how anyone could feel comfortable writing a story about a Japanese high school with Japanese characters in a completely foreign place where all the character’s relationships are idealised. That’s pretty much what most of the RSoM entries are about. There’s nothing wrong at all with doing it as a personal escapist thing. But I think....People should consider if anyone would want to purchase and read their escapist fantasies in print.

I once played a fan-made visual novel game which I thought was pretty cool. The scenarios were put together pretty well. Then I read the artist’s bio in which she described herself as a Spanish girl who didn’t identify with the Spanish culture at all, and only typed in English or Japanese. It made me think, how can you not ‘identify’ with your own country? You are a product of your country’s culture whether you like it or not, you can’t just ignore something so fundamental. After that, I played the game again and found myself to be highly critical of it. I don’t know whether I was just angry at the artist for saying those things in her bio, but second time through I found the characters and dialogue to be very unrealistic and full of bad melodrama. It’s probably a bad thing that I let the artist’s personality and views influence my judgement. But I still have this negative disposition to people who call their work manga when there’s no reason for it. It’s a bad habit. A lot of the RSoM entries are very good, the 2006 winner June Kim has some really awesome illustrations on her site [please look at it!], and the comic 12 Days was great – it didn’t even feel like manga, which its not supposed to, but the publisher says differently.

So, I don’t like Tokyopop so much, the only comics about Japanese highschool I want to read are from people who have been through Japanese highschool. Please Amerimanga artists, read some good western comics and write something about your own experience, I would very much like to read it!

Sackcloth and Ashes

2008-12-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

Hello, dear readers.
If, like me, you're into imagery such as boys, flowers and animals, I just discovered the Sackcloth and Ashes blog after seeing the artist's fanart images floating around for a few years. The Alice in Wonderland illustrations in the memo are really nice if you scroll back a few pages. Makes me wish my own Alice illustration book [Must photograph that properly one day] was a bit...freer. I really should have developed that more. Also, this, this and this are really nice to say they're made with the online equivalent of MSpaint. Actually, just look at the gallery.

Unfortunately, most of her oils on the site have been taken down because of online distribution and people actually printing and selling her work without permission, and obviously you can't claim copyright to fanart. Discovering her original illustration recently was quite refreshing, even if [like me] you find yourself incrediby jaded by manga, yet can never stop yourself from looking for it. Its just fascinating to see simple line drawings by an artist who you've only seen do fully-rendered paints.

Ironically I only knew about this artist by unauthorised distribution in the first place, but its definately not the first time I've seen whole galleries removed due to people saving and reposting images elsewhere. It's a shame, because even with notices saying not to repost, when you publish something on the internet, there's nothing you can really do to stop people distributing it without your permission, especially when those people speak a different language [though this incident was caused by Japanese-speakers]; so I think you should be emotionally prepared for that to happen as soon as you publish your work online.

Also, can anyone read the kanji for the artist's name? I can't even find it.

Week 9 - Ergonomics

2008-12-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

As we can tell just by looking at the world around us, technology has been going down the route of ‘smaller and sleeker’ for a while now. Game consoles of today seem to be experiencing some regression in this aspect, but companies like Nintendo are still conforming to the trend. Consoles do seem to be an exception to this rule, as the thicker they are, the more powerful they seem to be.

I do like my PS3, but if the PS2 is a brick, this thing is a cement block. It looks good, until you see it IRL. I know that for a home console, they should be a relevant size for their environment, and since we have the PSP transport isn’t as necessary, but I just find it too heavy. I am not looking forward to carrying it home tomorrow for Christmas [even though the thing is out of commission right now due to Assassin’s Creed error]. This seems really trivial, but the fact that people, especially University students, part of its target audience travel far more frequently than they used to and want to bring their beloved beast of a console with them is something that should be more doable. Maybe I’m being picky since the PS3 is a MAN’S console and I lack the required manly strength to carry it without living in constant fear of dropping and breaking its precious inside-bits. Perhaps the pure manliness of the PS3 is what attracted me to it. Aside from this, I do think the PS3 looks the best out of the next-gen consoles. I think the X360 looks a bit like a toy. The Wii looks pretty cool but I don’t like white so much. What I did like about the PS3 controller was the similarity to the PS2, and the wireless feature is really nice. Also, I do like the consistency which Sony is giving us, as the user interface of the PS3 is based off the PSP which came before it. The PSP works just like holding a PS controller in your hands with a screen in the middle, and I really love it! I find it much more appealing than the dual-screens or interactive screen and so on. It reminds me of the original design of the GBA, which I also really liked for the symmetry of it.

Menu interfaces on the other hand; I was disappointed at first to find my PS3 rather confusing to use. Small examples such as the fact that when you insert a flash drive, you have to select the ‘see all’ option after the interface tells you there are no files on the drive. And that option is not visually obvious, it took me way too long to figure it out even after going through the menu several times and considering trading in my console with the complaint that it couldn’t read USB flash memory. I am not a natural with computers, at all, but I’m learning to understand these things after many years of persistence. Should I really have to do that? I also find the online network capability ridiculously over-complicated to set up. Again, after reading the manuals, and considering myself a person of average intelligence, I am non the wiser about how to do this. It’s gotten to the point where I’m asking the person who built my computer to come and do it for me, and he doesn’t know anything about consoles. So, why so complicated? How can manuals say so little? Somehow I doubt I would have any less trouble with xbox live. I’m putting it down to my own lack of computer-related intuition/common sense unless anyone agrees with me. I’d estimate that I use around 10% of what my PS3 boasts it can do, and that's not that good, is it?

When will ergonomics go too far? When functionality and accessibility is compromised. My complaints above are more related to basic graphic design than ergonomics, aside from the size/weight issue. But I don’t have that much of a problem with it, if I could use all the features with no trouble then I wouldn’t mind at all.

The joystick is only really useful in things like flight simulators, or the sort of thing used in military training. It lacks the physically interactive features to match the needs of next-gen games, or even games that were made years ago. The ergonomics of the joystick is already incorporated into the analogue sticks present on most other controllers, so it has become quite redundant a while ago. After removing the nostalgia goggles I can remember the joystick being quite awkward and frustrating to use with PC games, but perhaps I was using it for the wrong kind of games? I don’t remember that clearly. Although I don’t think peripherals aside from the standard controller are really necessary, they do look kind of cool, and using a light gun, even if it didn’t work at all, made you feel pretty awesome. Nintendo has always made some weird peripherals such as the Powerglove and the Virtualboy, and its interesting to still see strange unnecessary things like fishing rods come out for the Wii, which they will most likely continue to make for sheer novelty value. Which isn't entirely a bad thing.

[pst, why are these 'thumbnails' blogger gives you always so massive?]

Week 8 – Storytelling and Games

2008-12-17T09:14:00.000-08:00

I agree with the opening quotations that storytelling and listening to stories is fundamental to our natures and desires. The power of myth is often underestimated, but over a long enough period of time, stories can even be transformed into what is established by common belief as fact. A lot of the stories we consume we do so without realising, which can lead to the idea that they aren’t important; which we’ve seen so in games of the past where plots seem like they’re thrown together at the last minute or are full of deus ex machina. Depending on the genre/tone of the game, story doesn’t have to be a fully fleshed out and developed plot, I think even simple thematical narrative can be sufficient if the emotional impact is communicated.

Does story make a better game? Usually, I think, yes, but of course there are varying degrees to what extent ‘story’ is necessary. The primary purposes of story in games are to give the characters [and players] motivations for their actions, to lay out a beginning, middle and end, and to make the player become emotionally connected to the game. I think this aspect in particular is easily overlooked. It is the difference between a game you enjoyed playing that is fun, and something that stays with you in the same way a novel or film does, and games have perfect capability to do that to the same extent. They have the same tools as film – image, sound, and voice. But they also have the extra dimension of interactivity. Depending on the genre, the depth of the story is of arguable importance. For instance, in a puzzle game, an interesting premise/theme is enough, and usually a narrative is a nice bonus that I think should be included more often and usually works well, for example in the Puyo Pop series, the puzzle battles are connected by a simple but appealing narrative that corresponds with the light-hearted style. On the other hand, in games that deal with human killing and other weighty issues, I think they require a heavier level of depth to justify those kinds of themes without appearing arbitrary and shallow.

Reaching a certain point in the game can make the storyline progress by the use of cutscenes, but those are still linear narratives. Some games take the concept of narrative and make progressing through the story the main element of gameplay. The player can be presented with choices at different stages of the plot which lead onto different ‘routes’, and branch off even further to a multitude of outcomes. Even with that type of setup, all the player is really doing is switching from one linear narrative to the next.

After looking at some articles dealing with story in games such as this, and this, while making some interesting points which I will not quote or analyse at the risk of making this entry too long, seem to ignore a genre of game that immediately came to mind after I read the title of this task, Visual Novels. Although classed as ‘games’, examples of this genre are more like interactive fiction, hence the term. All the gameplay consists of is choosing options at decision points; in other words the ‘gameplay’ is completely limited. Does it sound unappealing? Gameplay is usually the thing which we focus on completely. Capcom’s Phoenix Wright series is the best example of a popular visual novel, and I am struggling to think of any more games released in the West which incorporate this style, apart from maybe Atlus’ Persona series as Miles' mentioned or maybe even some parts of Harvest Moon [but even then it’s more of a dating sim, different to a VN as they’re based on statistics where as VNs are based on routes and ‘flags’]. 70% of Japan’s pc game market is made up of visual novels, and not recognised as a genre in the West. The actual narrative content of VNs varies, genres which lend themselves to the medium are typically drama/romance and mystery, character depth is usually the focus. The platform is mostly PC because it’s easier to make the games for, and successful titles are sometimes ported to PS2 or PSP. Some of the most popular manufacturers [I’d link to their home pages, but most people reading this might find the anime artwork rather eye-searing] are currently TYPE-MOON [started as an amateur group, turned professional after Tsukihime, their most popular series is Fate/Stay Night], Key [makes particularly melodramatic titles, but I’m finding Clannad quite enjoyable] and Nitroplus, who have a subsection which makes VNs aimed at women, which unfortunately have not yet been translated into English by fans. [Right now, I’m playing this game on my PSP. The point is to go through the events of the tv series it’s based on as your own character. I’d try to explain the appeal of that, but probably could not do so in so little words without sounding like an odious fangirl, so perhaps another time.] So why aren’t VNs exported to us? Some of them have been , and they haven’t sold because they’ve been marketed the completely wrong way. I won’t go into it today because this entry is already tl;dr.

The fact that there are pretty much no non-linear narratives in video games could suggest that they’re simply inappropriate for the medium, but I somehow doubt that. Game creators are not postmodern novelists, and I just don’t think the majority of the audience would [literally] buy it. However, considering the standard of game writers, I don’t think the narrative aspects should be ‘dumbed down’ into an easy to follow story when they’re capable of producing more complex things. Instead let people be dazzled and set the standard for other games. I wish. Amateur works probably have a better chance of attempting it rather than big producers which have risks and audience targets to reach and so on. Also, related to the topic I found this which I’d read about in an essay on storytelling once, but I can’t get the Java on my browser to work for this site.

Week 7 – The role of the Art director

2008-12-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

An Art Director is one of the roles an artist within the company can aspire to. They control and oversee the work of the art team to ensure the deadlines are met, and to monitor the overall visual style of the game. Even though it partly focuses on managerial skills, I still think it is a creative role more concerned with artistic concepts than production. Also, someone who wants this role would likely have a background as an artist directly involved in creating content, who would prefer to take on more responsibility for others, and become less involved in physical production.

I agree that art direction within a game is similar to the role of the same name within a film production. Setting up a shot in terms of lighting, composition, colour and overall style all still apply as much in games as they do in film. They’re the same artistic principles.

The qualities you would need to fit this role I think would be the capability to have a clear artistic vision which you can express to others effectively. Social skills are important, as one of the main focuses is communicating with others, so an Art Director should love to work with people. They should be self confident, as they’re taking responsibilities for others as well as themselves, and be able to work closely with other designers. An assertive but not forceful personality would probably be suited to this job. I’m not sure if this is the kind of role I would like. Having more artistic control does have a certain kind of appeal, as does becoming very involved with everyone else’s work, but I doubt I have the right kind of personality for this job. I’m pretty meek and not forceful with my opinion. More of a ‘yes sir’ kind of person. That’s really bad, isn’t it?

Also, here’s a good place to share something I’m finding very interesting and amusing to play through in game - Toby Gard [creator] and Jason Botta [Crystal Dynamics Creative Director] comment on Tomb Raider Anniversary, Greece level.
I love Director's commentary. Everything should have it.

Week 6 – Game Design

2008-12-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

Even as console games progress, with more complex gameplay and improved graphics, the principles of good design should stay the same. Basic principles should be coherently established such as how to graphically represent the game space, how to represent the player, what constraints exist, what obstacles are present and what the goal of the game is. To immerse the player properly, the game should also have a set of rules that become clear to the player over time.

Gameplay I would define as how the game responds to the player and how we interact with it. For the game to be ‘realistic’ despite the themes or setting, the physics of that game need to be consistent for it to be believable, and for the player to learn how to play and progress. If the rules are inconsistent and sloppy, the player will most likely become frustrated and confused, and unlikely to continue, e.g. rules for which part of a platform the character can land on. SM World series is a good example of platforming which is fun, has a learning curve and just the right amount of tricks.

Gameplay in video games is similar to traditional board games in the way that both ‘worlds’ abide by rules, which are easier to manipulate in video games. They also have more complex sets of rules which happen in the background, of which the player isn’t aware. In board games, you are always conscious of what is and isn’t allowed. I suppose a board game is like a microcosm of a video game, which is logical because their roots are in traditional games.

The Art Director is someone who controls the visual design elements and makes sure these things are cohesive with other areas of the design. The role is very important since games are a visual medium. If there is more than 1 designer, which generally there will be, it should be compromised of a small group who are each specialised in different things, so each person can do their job without spending too long debating over specific issues. Although I think that games should stick to some design principles, I don’t think genres need their own set of rules, as not doing so would leave more room for innovation to avoid cliché. As far as art goes, I like lots of variation as long as it sticks to an overall theme. Other things like gameplay and music can add to certain atmosphere; this kind of thing is more likely to make an impression on you.

Week 4/5 - Writing about games

2008-12-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

I think that games should be judged alongside other visual media such as film, and not as products. There are many elements to a game that can be ranked on an objective scale, and the task is to decide which factors the readers of the review will want to know. Judging a game within the context of its intended audience and possibly its genre should be important; even the graphics/story should be valued by keeping in mind the question of whether or not these things add to the gameplay. I think that audiences should be divided into ages, and also by the platform of the game, as this is usually suggestive of the demographic; i.e. a game for the Nintendo Wii will often be aimed at families and a PC game aimed at an older demographic. Those things such as graphics and visual elements are all subjective, people have different opinions on what looks nice or what is or isn’t necessary, but I believe that gameplay can always be judged as good or bad. This could be done by assessing how effective the gameplay is at conveying the designer’s intentions and how enjoyable it is for the player. Issues such as how immersive the game is, or if the rules are consistent can contribute to this. Length and re-playabilty should also be considered; though the genre of the game should be taken into account, e.g. an MMO or linear narrative.

I found the examples of New Games Journalism rather interesting, as it does make the exclusive task of reviewing games accessible to any player. I like the fact that the opinions of the reviewers are going to have less bias, but I would personally prefer to read a magazine article which directly deals with the various parts of the game. My own experiences involve reading several different reviews to see what kind of rankings the game of my interest would receive, and generally anything in the 6-10 area I’ve enjoyed, even if my opinions on the specific elements vary.

I stopped reading game reviews in printed media a while ago, mainly due to the price for a small coverage on maybe 1 or 2 games out of the many the magazine would review, most of that information I could find for free on the internet. Professionally published reviews [online or printed] can easily sound like promotions rather than unbiased opinion, and even though all opinions contain some amounts of bias, I think it’s wise to read more rather than less if you’re looking to become informed about a game and make a decision on whether or not its worth buying. To become more engaged with the review, media like video is useful for showing examples of specific features by demonstration rather than description, which I think may become even more popular in the future. With the prices of games, researching before investing is becoming more important than ever.

Not particularly surprising, but I like to look at the stuff on Gametrailers, Gamespot [though less than before since they lost a lot of rep], IGN and pictures on Famitsu.

A few pieces

2008-12-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Here's my final piece for Abbey park, I have a feeling this is going to look really really muted and washed out on pcs, but there were a lot of subtle changes in colour in the scene which I really liked. Bare trees are awesome, I thought a lot of the other views were too samey really...
Still working on the 2pt perspective, etc.

But here's some more character stuff. Some really quick sketches of the kind of poses I wanted to do. I thought I standing pose would be easier to model in clay, all I really want to do is be able to get the proportions right. Also an orthographic view of the pose I chose in the end.

I'll probably do another one using my own photo ref too. About this project...I'm aiming to really develop it next week and end up with something different. Because its a humanoid, I'm not sure where to take it, unless I just come up with something completely new?

more anatomy practise

2008-12-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

More 30 second drawings. This is so hard!

organic

2008-11-17T13:16:00.000-08:00

Here's what I did for this project while at home. So I really liked the photos I took of the glassy crystals and rocks in the museum. Even though they were behind display cases I got some pretty good pictures. I'm not sure if this fits the brief much, I kind of went off with my own ideas and urge to draw figures, baaaad. But I think it should be okay. In before 'rocks aren't organic', they grow and make different shapes over time, right...? Wait, that's the effects of erosion, isn't it. I'll do better next time.

2008-11-17T11:31:00.000-08:00

30 second drawings on Posemaniacs, go try it!
Its harder on a tablet though, too damn slippery. Need to get a smaller sketchbook for this stuff...My favourite is number 4, just for the pose.

Fffff I will do the blogs soon. Also, I'm at home in Leeds right now, the thing that has been going round has got me and I've been a bit ill. Disappointed I missed yesterday's lesson, and I'll miss tomorrows too...Will just have to catch up. I haven't done as much work as I'd have liked to, haven't felt up to it, but I can never just force myself to rest. Ugh.

practise

2008-11-12T15:56:00.000-08:00

Some figures from Posemaniacs, Photoshop, about 10 mins each. I think to make it a better exercise, I'll try do them in about 30 seconds instead, is there much need to put so much time into eyeballing something when the point is to familiarise yourself with anatomy? I want to be able to do this kind of thing with no reference eventually. Not that these are great by any standard, but my figurative drawing sans reference is a little embarassing.

Well, the past few years I've been finding figure drawings much more interesting and beautiful than fantasy/manga stuff, or polished imagery in general. Those kind of things I tend to glance at and say 'cool' without really responding to them, its probably overexposure or something like that. The only time I can really appreciate manga style anymore is when its being used for its intended purpose, i.e. actual Japanese comics. Seeing that kind of thing being done by Westerners tends not to sit right, I think it takes a very creative person to do it well. Personally its not something I'd want to put into my portfolio too much, unless I wanted to show off my hobbies? I kind of see fanart, etc as completely separate from your main work...
Well, I should be catching up on the real blogs, so I'll stop now. Until next time~

Bradgate Park painting, paper scissors

2008-10-16T19:59:00.000-07:00

This killed me. I really need help with environments, it looks totally bland to me. I'd appreciate some crit if anyone's in the right mood, just lay into me if you want! I need to improve these things.

It's hard to photograph something 2d decently. I really hope my 3d modelling skills won't be as terrible as my RL modelling skills. I have...A rather bad feeling I'm going to have zero talent for 3d, argh! It seems oh so daunting.

Sharing an old anatomy book PDF, might be useful.

2008-10-16T16:00:00.001-07:00

I don't know about you guys, but my anatomy knowledge/drawing is barely passable. I found this Andrew Loomis book on human anatomy which is out of print now, but here it's available to download in .pdf.

http://www.placidchaos.com/AM/index.php?title=andrew_loomis&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Right click figure drawing for all it's worth and save file as to download the whole thing. I think it's worth a look...

Quotation found within the first minute of flicking through: 'Five feet eight inches (in heels) is considered an ideal height for a girl.'

Oh man, I love old books. When taken out of context, there's at least 3 things wrong with that sentence. Political correctness, who needs it~?
If you take a look tell me what you think of it. I can't wait to do life drawing!!

A History of Computer Games, part iii.

2008-10-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

Here we are at the third part. I think my factual discussion last time was a little lacking due to the nostalgia bomb that happens whenever I think about old games, so I’ll try harder this time.
So, in the recent past/current times, games really have to reach certain standards now to meet the demands of the players. Compared to the 80’s, 90’s, and before, most games seem to have to subscribe to some kind of narrative, whereas in the past this element wasn’t really held with much consideration. Something which makes me happy is the amount of games that have interesting or complex plots and endearing characters which add to a distinctive ambience, which really engages your emotions and makes the game more memorable, even if the gameplay wasn’t fantastic. I guess this part is of varying importance to different people, but for me, narrative elements and interesting stylisation is what I tend to go for. I’ve played a lot of RPGs, and I suppose those things are more important to people who enjoy roleplaying and enjoy characters that’re actually compelling – RPGs tend to focus on this a lot, but I’m not saying all RPGs have interesting characters, more and more are suffering from classic anime sameface syndrome but continue to be popular with a certain niche; other genres are actually doing this better now and have been for a while. Immersion has become a more important thing, and I think narrative and visual style contributes far more than photorealistic graphics.

The first game I played with a strong narrative element was Final Fantasy VII, as I’m sure it was for most people. As a 10 or 11 year old kid, I’d never heard of roleplaying before, so I was fascinated with the series for a good few years. Being immature and impressionable, I hadn’t seen much Japanese artwork before either, and I know everyone hates Nomura now for his ‘beltsanzippers’ character designs, but back then all the designs were unique from each other, whereas they stick so closely to one theme now it starts to look generic instead of just cohesive.

Years later I discovered Metal Gear series and branched out from JRPGs, though Yoji Shinkawa artwork made me pick it up. The whole cinematic feel really kept me playing, even though I’m rather poor at the actual gameplay, but there are so many characters in the series to love or hate or have some response to.

With fighting games, I think I probably go about them the entirely wrong way. I choose the characters based on the ones I like rather than who I play well as. I’m terrible playing Jin Kazama and Kazuya, but since I’ve always liked them so much I’ll still play them even if I don’t improve. Tekken is a good example of this genre where there are so many characters, they all have to be appealing and obviously they can’t all be DEEP, but their designs are always rather blunt and immediately recognisable. I like how fighting games can get away with not being subtle at all in this respect, the Guilty Gear series is probably the best example. For this series, the characters and plot are fleshed out more in side-materials like drama cds and light novels, but those are pretty foreign concepts for us. GG also has the ‘choose your own’ storylines which are popular in Japanese games, Western games don’t really seem to pursue that. Also, Daisuke Ishiwatari’s concept art for this series is amazing. [Sorry, no insert pictures, just google it or buy the artbook!]

So, I’ve missed out many many things I wanted to talk about. I wonder if I've written about the right things. Whoops, I only mentioned really popular games!

A History of Computer Games, part ii.

2008-10-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

So, the 80’s and 90’s. I guess I should talk about the Slump here. I think, some of the reasons for that was the fact that the market was so saturated with titles, and so many of them were just poorly-made advertisements for a franchise that flooded the market. There was a lack of innovation, and the prices of games were forced to be lowered to stay competitive.

1985 was the NES/Famicom. [I never had a Nintendo myself, but I went back and played some of the classics with emulators, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Metroid etc] Consoles started to use CDs and put things like real video and animation into games when they couldn’t before. There was also the era of handhelds, which further contributed to the decline of the video arcade, and have continued to hold a significant segment of the market

In '96 my parents bought me my own playstation, and obviously I ran home from school and had a strange kind of fit Nintendo64 kid-style. At this point I was already completely obsessed with Sony playstation [and Pokémon blue on GBC], I used to buy gaming magazines that I now wish I kept. I don't read them anymore because there's so many now, and they all seem pretty biased and overpriced. I was really into Oddworld around that time, because that game just stood out from everything even in the demo version. I think it was a pretty popular game, so most likely you'll know what I'm saying about how genuinely macabre it is, which makes it special because it isn't even supposed to be a horror game or spooky at all, its actually kind of humorous, but Sligs are just the scariest thing in the world, aren't they? That mechanical noise when they walk, you hear one coming closer and you know he's going to gun you down on site and laugh in your face. Or force some poor slave into a meat grinder. Also, remember those scrolling marquees with the ‘motivational messages’ in the meat factory? So so disturbing.

I said before I went back and discovered Tomb Raider on PSX. TRII was my favourite because it had the better action, [exploding Lara] but TRIII had those cool cinematics. Or they seemed so great at the time. They got a bit silly after Toby Gard left, but I still played the games. I don't even care if Lara was designed to pull in the male audience, as someone who generally dislikes the way females are represented in any form of mainstream media, I love Lara because she uses her strength and intelligence to get to places in this really dignified way, and at that time weren't most female game characters either innocent weaklings or super-violent dominatrixes? It disturbs me that we still see these lame things today. Also, she had a butler and a quad biking track, what's not to like.

Though saying that, I'm really unimpressed with the default costume for Underworld, it brings back bad memories of AoD.

A History of Computer Games, part i.

2008-10-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

From what I've found out, it seems that Universities, labs, and military bases provided the backdrop for the video games industry. Many overworked students and researches turned to developing their computers into games machines, as a relief from their usual tasks of mathematical calculations, which kind of goes to show our constant need to derive entertainment from things primarily used for other purposes. It's pretty interesting how as soon as the capability was there, computers were used for fun.

One half of the games industry begun in 1951 when a manager at a military base, Marty Bromley, launched SEGA [SErvice GAmes], which would eventually grow into the coin-operated arcade industry which boomed in the 70s. The other half began with the creation of the first interactive computer game on a mainframe computer, Spacewar! in 1961. It was developed by student Steve Russell, and was later adapted into Computer Space, the first coin-op video arcade game by Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari.

Tennis for Two was showcased in 1958 by Willy Higinbotham on an analogue computer. About a decade later, Ralph Baer patented the idea of an interactive table tennis television game for his invention, the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home gaming console [he also invented the first light gun game].Pong was released in the same year by Atari as a coin-op, and Magnavox sued Atari claiming that Bushnell had stolen the idea. Apparently it was settled out of court...!

Now, personal history! The first game I ever played, I was too young to really remember much of it, but it must have been the very early nineties on my Granddad's old Macintosh computer. I guess it was something aimed at young kids, involving this turret made of about 10 pixels used to shoot a robot which danced around the screen. Its a shame I don't remember more about it. Also, in reception class we played this really trippy game on those old Apple computers again where you had to join together walking clouds with eyes in pairs based on colour. [Hnn, that sounds...Familiar.]

I didn't own my own console ‘til 1995, but one of the earliest video games I played was Sonic the Hedgehog on the Megadrive, as well as a load of film-based games on the Saturn at other people's places. It was like a super rare exciting thing, because my friends always hogged them and I hardly ever got a turn.

When they first game out, my best friend's brother got a Playstation and we started playing colourful games like Croc and this really weird one called Bubsy 3d. I wish I still had that, it was awesome, in a really bad way. For some reason, said friend also had the PC version of Tomb Raider, but we used to share the keyboard with one of us on directions and one on actions, so we never got past the first obstacle. I re-discovered it a few years later.

So, since this entry is already reaching tl;dr, I'll continue in the next post.

First post, hello, canal painting, etc

2008-10-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

Hello, dear readers. I hope you enjoy your stay.
To make this a useful first post I'm going to put some drawings in here instead of blathering on, so, here's some screencaps of the stuff I've been working on this week. Just click on them to full view for the time being, until I figure out how to edit the template html properly.

First digital paint of a landscape I've done, it's really hard. I sat under a bridge for an hour or so in the rain, on my own with people walking past, but it was the best one I managed to draw. Goddamn this rain. Well I scanned it into PS and just painted over the top, took a few photographs of the scene for colour reference but they came out really...whited-out and dull, so I ended up painting from memory mostly.

So here's how it turned out. Looking at the reference photos now, the angle of the far riverside is completely wrong, so is the direction of the water. I just liked the idea of having a big dirty dark bridge in the foreground. I need serious practise at this.

Bradgate Park was fun. It made me want to sing Kate Bush songs.

Lol hair.