Lighting Designer

That's my new title for 413, yup. We made our official presentation to ACBU council last week, and they loved it.

The logo at the beginning was something that I designed. I'm really excite for this.

Oh hey, a blog.

Well, lookie here. I had almost given up on trying to regularly update this but with a conversation that we had last week in my IM 413 class I've changed my mind. We talked for a short amount of time about keeping progress blogs/artist blogs that talk a bit about whatever big task or project we're working on at the moment. I won't go into details at the moment (I spent half of last week in and out of the ER) about our big epic project of the semester, but I figured I'd try to touch on as much of what's going on right now.

So Senior year got here REALLY freaking fast. There are two big project-oriented classes this semester, and a third one that, while it's huge, isn't going to kill me as much as the other two are (it's working with sound, something I enjoy immensely). Projects include working with FMod in 3D soundscapes, designing a game for multiple touchscreen platforms, and a big fucking epic project that will probably end up with me in the ER a hell of a lot more this semester. I'm a little worried and excited at the same time; we're working on a touchscreen interface that will allow the user to experience a completely new way of enjoying music and dancing than usually done. And to trim that last statement down to the motto that Jim had at the beginning of our class: "IM 413: We do cool shit!" I'm hoping that in both of the group project-heavy courses I can work more and improve my niche as a designer/artist type. I would (ideally) like to work coding and other aspects into the mess, but considering that I'm taking a lot of what most students consider "heavy" courses all at once, I would be more than overjoyed if I got told to sit in a corner and draw X all day for the rest of the semester.


Speaking of drawing, I do have a tumblr blog that I have (grandoise) plans for. It is going to be (hopefully) used as a sister blog to this one. Where this one will go into the nitty-gritty of the processes that we're working on, the other one will be image-based at most. I've found that my ability to draw bodies in poses has slacked off immensely in the last year or so. In an attempt to improve myself (and to on those super typing/etc days that I just need time to draw) work on artwork in short bursts so that I'm continually keeping up my digital tablet proficiency as well as improving on my own artwork. Thanks to the BF buying me TF2 for my birthday this year, as well as the Polypack contest, I've done a ton of research into the ways that VALVe has gone about designing their game series, especially how each TF2 character has its own distinct personality and outline. My current sketches are based around an online forum that uses TF2 classes kinda like D&D. I know, uber geeky, but I'm also working on my writing abilities in the forum and some of the stories I've collaborated on just beg to be drawn out. I've started out doing face/body shots of some of the characters as a test. If it helps me improve, fuck, I'm all for it. I will link to it when I'm awake a little more, but for the moment, just take my word that it's there. (It's empty anyway....)

I lost track of the train of thought that was occupying this post, so it's probably best for me to call it a night. Just plan on hearing more from me soon. OH YEAH. I also finally got a Droid2. Officially completely hopeless and wired.

Apologies once again.

I've once again been super busy. Moved into the new place and I've been keeping myself occupied with several things.

Organizing! Holy crap!

So I decided (with some encouragement from outside forces) that I'd be attempting to condense my multitudes of emails and other general claptrap in a way that can keep my shit organized without a half hour worth of just checking separate accounts. Apparently Yahoo won't let you load/forward your mail to other accounts unless you pay $20 for it (sonofabitch) And other crap. Debating on killing off both my yahoo accounts (the one I use for personal crap, and the one I use for band/radio show stuff) and just keeping the new network of gmail accounts that I made for the art portfolio and personal mail (both of them sync with one another) since I can work with them and my school email for the remainder of the time I have that thing.

Two more weeks before classes get out for the semester. Goodbye sleep, it's been nice knowing you. If I get my shit together I'll post some of that stuff up on dA or here...or fix my portfolio website so that it doesn't suck so badly. Need to start working with droopal again.


Anyway, yes. New stuff. A group of Bradley University IM students/graduates are getting together over the summer to start work on a game design company. If we can get it off the ground before half of us graduate, I'd be very happy. We've got a few ideas for names of the company, but the one I like the best so far is named after the level that's always used by programmers to fix bugs before the public part of game testing is involved. If I don't pass out before moving out next weekend, finishing as much of these games as I can, and getting everything else in line, I'll be happy.

That's all for now, I guess. I can't formulate much more than that in my head.

Holy Crap. What a Day.

So, I wake up this morning and get told my one class is not going to be held for the second time this week. I am rather happy about it, but a little nervous because I have a project due monday in that class and I have no idea what I'm doing (primarily because I've been working on other stuff this week...). So I take my time getting up and working on some artwork today.  Around 4pm, a light goes off above my head before it bursts into full blown sirens. There's a fire alarm in my apartment, so I dive out to the street with my shoes, my wallet, my keys and my phone. It takes a few minutes, but one of the guys living on the thirdfloor peeks his head out of his window, the window billowing smoke, and he yells, "Sorry guys!"

"What the hell did you burn?" I shouted back.


"Easy Mac!"


........while I stood and tried to ponder the complexities of how the fuck someone could burn easymac, three firetrucks showed up, checked out the upstairs apartment, and left. I file it under the same category as the phonecall I got last year from a friend after he got hit by a car, and went to try the new Sushi place in CampusTown right next to the University.

Guess what? It's affordable and it doesn't suck! I had some cali rolls and one of their house special rolls before shuffling back to artwork. And then I got my third nugget of "What a freakin day" happening to me. I sent off some of the artwork I drew in the past few years to Sixx Sense (Nikki Sixx's new radio show) and they posted up on the site. I'm very happy of this! A LOT of hours went into both of those pictures, so feel free to check them out over there on the site.


And I still have a few hours left before I ususally go to bed. What next?

Catch you guys later....

Rediscovering the Magic....

So after several weeks of hypothetically talking continually about the next video game project in school being Fantasy/Medieval in nature, I caved in last Sunday and watched Fellowship of the Ring for the first time since Return of the King came out on extended DVD. So what, five years or so? That period of time was like an overdose to my imagination: seeing Fellowship right on opening day, looking up at the screen in awe screaming "I want to do this for the rest of my life!", then Pirates of the Caribbean started to come out as well, combining swashbuckling adventures with epic war-scale fantasy movies. I think Fellowship of the Ring was actually the start of one of my artistic hobbies of creating costumes - probably even what led me to wanting to do conceptual artwork in general. I practically adored Aragorn's "Strider" outfit, and immediately started making hundreds of sketches of trying to make a female ranger outfit. (that's right, boys and girls: screw being one of the female characters, I wanted Aragorn's frickin sword and duster jacket. The amount of thought and detail that went into damn near each stitch......) After finding out what the details were with the special features included in the Extended Editions, I begged my parents for each movie for christmas, happily spending the first week after that holiday pouring over all of the special features and behind-the-scenes before ever even touching the first two DVDs in the series. As an anniversary gift in high school, my bf got me a copy of "Weapons and Warfare" of Middle-Earth, detailing every pauldron and vambrace and niche in each race's armor. The fact that a lot of the dress and such were based on blends of different cultures in real history....that just made it more awesome.

I wanted to describe the initial attraction to the Middle-Earth series first so you'd get where I'm coming from. Back in high school my parents got me Aragorn's sword Aundril, and the sword itself came up in my head while thinking about getting a new photoshoot done. I haven't had a good series of photos taken in a few years, and personally, I think a portfolio is made more personable if you have a current photo of yourself on the "About the Artist" page. If you can pull off looking like a creative, intelligent person who's fun to work with/be around (but knows how to keep to a schedule/etc), then I think you look like a creative (and hireable!) artist. I decided on a "geek chick of awesomeness" motif. We'll see if it works out at all...and damnit, I wish that Aundril's scabbard was cheaper than $125......

Anyway, when I put the DVD in on Sunday, I was just going to have it as background sound while I worked, occasionally glancing up and smiling at the badass action scenes or anything else. Nope. I had to watch the whole thing and immediately start scribbling down ideas for new garb for April. I figure that if no one else that I've seen in the SCA so far is being a huge stickler for historical accuracy, I can start playing designer as long as I find people to help me sew it together. I'm slowly improving on building clothing, it just takes for freakin ever. Will probably post pictures when I get some color schemes up. In similar news: who the hell thought the bright gaudy-ass clothing for LOTR online was a good idea? Seriously....way to kill me ever wanting to play the game.

that's my ramble for this week. If you see me out running around with a big frickin sword.....well......I warned ya.

Hey wait, I wasn't done with the last one yet!

Another week's gone by. It barely feels like it. Another freakin week....And I'm watching the snow pile up outside and the first Pirates of the Caribbean on the TV. I can't find my copy, and now I want to swagger around so badly. Or get into a sword fight with a skeleton.

Anyway, yeah. More work is being done on Ortus, though I look at everything I've done so far and try not to vomit. A lot of this stuff is NOT my best work. That being said, I guess I'm learning a lot since I've been trying to sketch without using the lineart as a part of the final piece. I've got working names for my hero and villain (Art and Vladamir, I think.), and we're going to start working on the 3D renders before we start project 2 for the class, which is working on the game with my other class, 491. This last week was rather rough on me with home life, and this weekend hopefully settled that out a little bit. Instead, next few weekends are going to be replaced with a friend's birthday party and getting ready for Rites of Spring. And getting my garb put together for said event. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't wear myself into a pulp by the end of this.

Toldja so!

Well, I had to force myself to sit down and do a post tonight. It's been another long and amazing week full of work. I'm excited for a lot of stuff, frustrated about another section of stuff, but hey, that's life. I'm thinking about redoing my environment sketch for a third time because I still can't get quite the feeling I want out of it. I'm much better as a character artist, and I want to be able to reflect my style drawing people in these buildings.

I started working on the sketches for the characters and objects for the game today. Did a warm-up sketch because I need to get into the habit of doing them. It turned out so awesome that I'm trying to come up with a name for the Hero in this project.

It's very emotive for a little 20 minute sketch, 10 minutes of messing around and coloring. Still don't know what his haircolor actually will be, but I'm going to have to figure it out pretty soon.

Now to try to suffer through tomorrow/the rest of the day without dealing with VD day. Yeech.

Headache.

Yup, 's me trying to put together another blog that'll be a little more about artwork than computer issues.

Both of my current game design projects have been going pretty steadily, although I find myself wishing a lot that there were more hours in the day. I'm thinking about looking into the market for a protective wrist strap because I had to stop tonight after my wrist wouldn't stop hurting. I've come to learn a few things that I need to work on a lot during this semester (and beyond):

• I need to take less time drawing something. Takes me about an hour to do a simple sketch - I need to get it down to a half hour if possible. Just a personal goal anyway.
  
• I need to draw more environment sketches. I think that even after we're done with the current game project in IM 471 and go on to other things, I still need to work more on this stuff. I never did a lot with backgrounds when I was younger, so I haven't gotten comfortable with drawing in perspective. It's something I need to work on too.
  

Speaking of 471, I might as well post what we've been working on this week. Or rather, what I've been working on.

The worldscape for my game is one of insanely high skyscrapers that are continually having floors added every few centuries. As the technology at the bottom of the skyscraper becomes outdated, they simply build on top of it, leaving various labyrinths underneath a "sparkling utopia." I tried to draw references from a lot of post-apocalyptic gameworlds I've seen, plus the way that some buildings are stacked on top of one another like legos in China/Japan and those areas. The world is supposed to be an even balance of magic and technology, a Cyber Punk kind of place where sleek design exists side by side with grunge and sharp angles. I worked on this thing for several hours, but it's still barely done. It's the image on the left.
That's all I've got for now. I need to rest my arms and sleep so I can finish creating my paper game for my other class. When I get a chance, THOSE drawings I'm also going to improve.

Hello Perfectionist-self, when the hell did you get back?

I enjoy a challenge, but I've redrawn my most recent commission about five separate times, and most of that was done today. I'm not sure when she showed up over break, but the perfectionist part of me is becoming a pain in my ass. It's been a slowly productive day. Well, it's been a hell of a lot better than the past week. Here, for you who are curious as to why I kinda vanished, is the shortened version:

Monday: try to install the video card in my computer. I epically fail'd getting the drivers to work. Had to get a local tech friend (and fellow STO-beta member) to help me install. I get it up and running, and play CoH on it for a few hours.

Tuesday: Beta Launch. I turn on my computer and it doesn't recognize the Ethernet port on the motherboard anymore. Much chaos ensues, more help from local tech friend and an NIC card later, and I'm skimming across the universe in a light cruiser-class ship.

Wednesday: Spent about an hour or two on the game before it shuts down for an epically LONG repair period. So far a hectic week, but an enjoyable week. I go to school to find out why I'm getting a refund on tuition (it turns out their website paying option for tuition is a bit buggy this semester, so they took that and the check I had written for them before realizing the mess up.)

Thursday: Turn on the computer, monitor stays in hibernate. By 8pm that night, find out it's my motherboard that decided to stop recognizing the PCI-E slot that the new video card was in. Freaking out for most of the rest of the night because I specifically preordered STO to get into the beta.

Friday: Preoccupied myself with everything but the whole computer thing. By the end of the night, I have a computer in mind to purchase. Okay it with the folks, who are helping me pay for it, and make an online transaction to have enough money in checking to buy it.

Saturday: I try to buy the computer, debit card is denied. I go and look at my statement and I'm $2000 in the hole. The bank has no idea why, and the Financial Aid office isn't open.

Monday: Get the runabout from Financial Aid saying that it's not their fault, and says that banks sometimes try to cash checks twice. I'm curious as to why, because this would mean someone would owe double if they ended up overdrawing twice. Get told politely that it's not their fault, and that I need to talk to my bank if the money doesn't show up in my account tomorrow. I tell them VERY firmly that they need to fix their online payment option, otherwise this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Today: The money's in my account. I want to smack all of the people who were patient but condescending to me while I interacted with them. I'm a college student who gets epically huge projects that take up most of my free time, I can only do commissions and the odd sound tech gig to try to have money for things like food and occasional new pair of jeans. At the same time as all of this is happening, I'm trying to price out the next six months so I can make the security deposit on the house I'm moving into in June. Unlike the college students they might be used to dealing with, I'm REALLY concerned about my cash. I still have to call the bank to see if they took out any money because of the whole overdraft thing.

Okay, yeah. This week's been rough. Not trying to be whiny/needy/emo about it, it just has really been hard on my psyche.

*ahem* on to better things! I've got a lot of stuff to look forward to in the future. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but I'm going to actually go to a convention this year. And no, it's not Anime Central, regardless of how fun it might be. No, I'm saving up for the Valhalla of geekdom - GENcon Indy. Two years ago I got to play a demo of Champions Online (despite how much the visuals made my eyes bleed, it was still a decent play. Still not gonna pay for it though.) and meet the guys at Cryptic. Now that I'm following a few of them on Twitter (and actually have names of some of them, too) I'm going to go see if I can chat art stuff with Matt Highison, aka the Lead Character Artist for Star Trek Online. I want to pick his brain about how he got to be where he's at - cuz from the interview on the site, this was his first job outside of college. Guys like him give me huge hope for my future. Plus the con's going to be filled with different gaming groups that will need artists down the road. I might still be in college for another year, but if they like my stuff now, they'll keep me in mind if I strike up a chord with 'em. The only thing that's not really decided on (well, the one thing that's kinda important in my head right now) is how the hell I'm going to dress. This is one of those places where if you come in a business suit, you're either cosplaying someone in a suit (MIB, Blues Brothers, Agent Smith.....list is endless) or you're hopelessly lost and trying to find your way to the bathroom. So yeah, that's a tough one to decide on. If you're going to GENcon, lemme know if you want to hook up.

Once the spring semester gets settled in, I'll start taking commissions (Well, actively whoring((*coughAdvertisingcough*)) for them). I'm serious! I've got a button that leads to paypal and everything. Ha.

Now, back to drawing that @#%#$%# %ing juggler.......

Redbull and Mermaids

I'm sitting here, in the current CasketStudios (ie, my Apartment), with a red bull by my laptop. I'm watching Star Trek on my poor and crappy little TV, chuckling at the interactions between the "new" versions of Bones and Kirk. I can't watch the old series because I keep laughing at the special effects. We've honestly come a long way as far as special effects are concerned (surprise surprise), and it's amazing to see.

Where the fuck did Winter Break go? I've got two weeks and then I'm back in college for the spring semester. I'm not complaining entirely, just thought I'd have a longer chance to go and do stuff. ((random moment: watching the first red matter scene and going "Oooh! Shiny!!" and also giggling with glee at Spock's eyebrow raise)) I realize life is going to get 3x as busy. (still waiting for a paycheck to be involved with a lot of the stuff I do) I'm actually happy about that. The more active I am, the more creative I am, and the more chances I get to do some fun stuff.

((Random ST Moment: I want Sulu's Katana. Nuff said.))

Sorry, I should be more focused on my stuff, but the combination of the awesomeness of the movie and the fact that I'm going to be trying STO in a few weeks is making me giddy. I have been playing City of Heroes for nearly three years now, and while it's been fun, there's a substantial lack of any decent new content. The fact that the main brain behind "Going Rogue" is also the same brain behind the Cimerora zone does not give me any hope for the future of CoH. It doesn't help that much that I have been a part of a large and very structured Super Group (hero side) that does NOT want to participate in Villain activities at all - "Going Rogue" will obliterate any type of coherent single-side SG system that is in place when it drops. I've gotten a little used to intelligent, semi-militant - based group that has a bit of a crazy streak in them. We're all fun, really. It's going to be interesting in Star Trek Online.

Anyway, enough non-art stuff. Thanks to a few different discussions I've had over the break, I've been in the mood (though probably will be unable) to do some redesigns on a few well-known series. One as a possible commission, the other as stock for my portfolio. I've found out that Highlander is getting a reboot. How it's going to be scripted, I'm not entirely sure, except that the original producer/director team is going to be doing it, plus several of the writers from Iron Man have signed on to do the scriptwriting.

((Nother Random ST Moment: Kirk really sucks at hand to hand combat in the beginning. Either that or Vulcans become Vikings when angered. Hehe. Vulcan Vikings.))

I have been bouncing around ideas as to casting for the reboot of the Highlander series. So far, one of the forerunners is Karl Urban as Connor MacLeod. He's proven to be versatile (both as Eomer from LoTR and Bones from ST), has combat training, and for the love of the Celtic gods, he's Scottish! It'd probably be more accurate than Christopher Lambert, bless his heart for trying though. I've been putting together updated versions of all of the characters (Connor, Rameriez, the Kurgan) in my head to try to make them a little more appropriate for 2010. The original version kicked ass, but let's be honest, it'd be a little hard for Connor to blend in with his current look. He needs a little bit of work.

If I can, I'd love to be able to get character designs set up for that project. One of the things I've always loved about drawing was designing outfits. I've made a homecoming and prom dress that way, and I love to continually do these things. It's part of the fascination I also have with being a character conceptual artist. I would, in a very bizarre sense, years down the road, love to be attending a convention (either as a patron or a guest) and see someone in a cosplay of a character that I've created. Admittedly, I'd love to see it on a person of appropriate body type (ie, not several hundred pounds more than the actual character would weigh)

Wow. It's already the end of the movie. I thought it would last longer....Anyway. I guess that's enough rambling from me for now. I'll try to use this blog more as time goes on. I'm feeling talkative this semester anyway.