Whoo... been a long time...

Suffice to say, this spring got pretty busy. I think the lack of updates was a pretty big hint.

The Troglobyte team and I finished four games (space shooter Neon Trigger, real time strategy Illgresi, first person shooter Illumina, and beat-'em-up Cadence). They were all pirated, Cadence within less than 24 hours, which we're quite proud of. Since they're free games it just means that more people play them. Additionally, we found that there were actual honest to god reviews for them, 2-300 words long even! We were super proud. However, there was also a portfolio that had to be done, applying for internship, volunteering at the Nordic Game Conference, etc. There never seemed to be enough time for much of anything, truth be told.
I've signed the necessary papers for my internship now, and I'll be moving "back home". That is to say, to the north of Sweden where I was born. When I was a child, my cousin and I were most upset that we had to move to the south of Sweden and both wanted to stay. So, we started the club "we who are going to move back to the snow when we've grown up" and were very cranky. A little over two decades later, we still live in the south. I'm of half a mind to suggest he moves up with me now that I'm moving.
I just need to find an apartment now...

The pigs, finished!

Amanda and I held our The Good, the Bad, the Babbler presentation, about character creation, development and representation at Kodachi-Con. The second time we did that lecture, first being at I Seriernas Värld 2013. Got some nice responses and feedback, which we are definitely going to use to update and improve the presentation.

In other news, Champions and Heroes turned three, it is running steadily on tumblr now as well. We've decided to give Project Wonderful a go, and see what happens. Touch wood and all of that.
The plan is to make multiple fanzines for next year's SPX/SIS, together and with Think Ink. Since I have to move for my internship things involving any kind of printing and conventions are a little bit uncertain, but the comic is definitely going to keep going.

I also finished Aquae Sulis for Think Ink's 9th fanzine Mysterious Tales, and lived in a dazed state of confusion when I had spare time after handing it in. I think I spent November to April with practically no time to myself due to the comic, my studies and the portoflio, and absolutely none that was guilt free. On the plus side, I still kinda like the comic, despite having worked on it for so long.

Additionally, SF-bokhandeln is turning 30, and they're hosting a ball in Stockholm in late August. The plan is to go as an imperial officer, but that's provided I find the time to make the outfit. Otherwise I suppose it's going to be one of the old cosplays.
Aaaaand there's going to be some camp NaNoWriMo this month too. I've already started, fallen behind, and caught up. One of my main characters finally decided on a plan, so now I know where she's at least going to try to go (hooray!) but there's a lot of incoherent rambling going on (boo!), but that's NaNo I guess.

After a long silence

I have returned. I have been way too swamped these past months, which I suppose I should have expected for my second year at the Game Assembly. By now my fellow second years and I have been divided into three teams of 22, and finished our first game. I've been bad at updating or this would already have been known. On the other hand I can direct you to Troglobyte's facebook page, with various videos ranging from team building to in-progress trailers, and our Indie DB page where you can play Neon Trigger, our first game!
Neon Trigger is a space shooter, and the story of dr Fox, a man of many talents and a lot of anger. It's got an 80s feel to it, and you fight space bikers. Neon, spikes, asteroids, what more could you possibly need? Reviews are much appreciated to help us grow and improve. It was made under a period of 10 weeks, but at half-time as we had studies demanding our attention as well.
The Troglobyte team has just started working on our second game, so far unnamed, which is going to be a real time strategy. We're all very excited over it even as we're starting to hammer out the basics of it. One and a half week done, eight and a half to go.

An early version of our logo, which has since been simplified.

I've also done my 12th year of NaNoWriMo. I've cheated, once again, and continued on the same story. This year was probably one of the most even years I've ever had. It was not that inspiration flowed like a wild river or anything like that, but that together with school I nearly had no spare time so it was a battle every day. It evened out and stopped being a pain to force out those words. They started coming at a reasonable pace, I found my inspiration probably because I was too tired to chase after it. It was a strange and somehow yet rewarding experience. And I finally got to introduce Fyren, who is one of my old characters who's still around, which was very exciting for me.
And speaking of which...

I drew him a while back, together with Zillah and Ziv who are both important to the story's history.

And then these three as well. I've got two half-finished trios waiting for a third party, and neither time nor inspiration for them at the moment. In part because it's now time to start working on this year's Think Ink comic. This year's comic is something I've wanted to do since 2011 when I visited Bath. I got super inspired at the roman baths there, and that's where the focus is going to be. This year the plan is to print in Japan, as Fanny is there for her studies and it would be a shame to waste such an opportunity!

A little rest

Finally moved out of my old apartment and into the new. Still got a lot to sort out, but at least the vast majority is where it should be. Today I won't be running back and forth to clean at least, so that's a relief.
I have instead finished the basics on my Strong Female Pose picture, aka the butt picture, aka Dragon Age featuring Escher Girls and Hawkeye Initiative.

I've worked on it on and off since... late autumn during breaks at the Game Assembly. I didn't touch it for most of spring though. I'm still going to do some basic shading and add magic shine and whatnot but... yeah. Something presentable! Sorta. There are so many broken spines and snapped limbs I don't even know... The poses (all but Hawke) are based on 'female' poses of other works that are meant to be sexy I suppose. Well. It was great fun doing, and I might muster the energy to do a Mass Effect version in the (probably far off) future.

Speaking of the Game Assembly. The second game that I worked on, The Tomte, was nominated for Best Scenario at the Swedish Game Awards 2013. Which was all kinds of awesome, even if we didn't win. Hopefully it will be up at the Game Assembly's homepage soon, free to play.

Now that I've had a proper amount of sleep for a couple of days, it's clearly time to start camp NaNoWriMo. Plans are to continue that No Coffin Needed story.

I also continued doing those scribbly trio character pictures for the story. I've three other characters that have been finished, but no matching trio sets so... eh. Soon. Sooooon.

A busy month

Three weeks left before the summer holiday arrives for us at the Game Assembly. The rest of Sweden's students tend to end about... two weeks before that. On one hand, a bit jealous, on the other... we've got a lot of stuff to do and a lot of it is fun, and I know what I need to practice on during the summer.
We're currently working on our fourth game - a turn based strategy this time. It makes three weeks left seem short :O
I've also been a volunteer at Nordic Game (fun!), visited SPX/SIS together with Think Ink and sold comics and had fun with old friends and new, and been part of a game art exhibition. Additionally, Amanda and I have passed the 150 comics benchmark on Champions and Heroes (!!) and are preparing for one but possibly up to three new fanzines for next year, in addition to Think Ink's yearly new fanzine.

In other words, I've been quite busy and had a lot of fun, though I think I'll appreciate a breather when the summer break finally arrives. As much of a break as it will be.
Meanwhile, I've started experimenting with a new scribbly style. My comic teachers always told me I needed to stop fiddling with details (sorry, not quite there yet XD) and let go of my careful lines and add more black spaces. Well! I've been drawing some of my (huge horde of) characters from my NaNoWriMo novel that I keep working on, doing just that. And it's fun! And faster than my usual pace.

 

 

 

Evidently I can't decide on what to write about them, but on the plus side, characters who I've only had work names for before now have proper names. So that's... what I've been doing with essentially all my time this past month.

2 month update

Okay... long time no update, again. I've been crazy busy, to the point where I've gotten sick because of it, but it's been calming down now that the work for the Think Ink anthology is done. Now I've actually got spare time when I'm done with the school work (for what feels like the first time in six months). Not that that has stopped me from getting a cold, but hey...

This is page 1 of Forest born, the skogsrå comic I've been working on for what seems like forever. Finally done! :D It will be part of Think Ink's The Art of Fika anthology, which will be released at SPX/SIS this year, and four out of five Think Inkers will be there, yours truly included :)

As far as school goes we've started our third game - a shoot 'em up - and we're at the same time doing a course about concept art. First time doing photobashes, and I have to admit that I find it a bit difficult, though I can certainly tell that it speeds things up considerably.

We were supposed to do a form of mechanical transport or vehicle of some kind. I chose to do some kind of steampunky roman chariot with built in horse thing, though I ran out of time and didn't have time to fix the wheels and the legs which are off . Still, it was fun.

And then we did some landscape depth practice. I've tried this before, with the Shmil picture, and I quite like it, but I chickened out and went with a cave rather than buildings. Still, I got to try to draw saiga - possibly the world's ugliest antelope. So ugly they're cute XD
We're working on character designs for the Grimm brother's story The Skillful Huntsman at the moment, and I made 87 thumbnails before I realized that maybe it was time to stop and go on to the next step. Ahem. It's great fun though :D

Other than that, Champions and Heroes is turning 2 years at the end of the month. Amanda and I are both sick, but planning on a joint little birthday comic to celebrate.

Such a headache

It's been lasting for... oh about 3-4 hours now. The pills haven't kicked in and I just want it to stop so I can get back to work. So, while I wait for that to happen, an update.
Amanda and I finished and updated the admittedly not beautiful comic review of the Bioware dinner last week.

Think Ink has an exhibition coming up on the 28th (more about that here, Swedish only though) and so I sat down and finished that Shmil piece in a hurry, before sending it off to the printers and... it's possibly the source of my headache. But it's done! With a background!

Now... I should probably cook something. Maybe that will help.

New tablet and other things

As I've gotten accepted to the Game Assembly (hooray!) I've been left with no choice but to buy a new tablet. Cdon was awfully efficient, having it arrive less than 24 hours after I ordered it, forcing me to leave the apartment when all I wanted was to slouch about. Oh well XD
So, evidently I'll be spending the rest of august getting to know the new tablet. As it is, it's... huge. And not as smooth as my old tablet, which sadly seemed to get screwed over by the installation of the new one. Your tablet is old indeed when Wacom doesn't even have a picture of it on their site... That mess got sorted out though, and now it's up and running again (it's small and light and I'm considerably less afraid of damaging it, so it comes along for trips while the new one gets to stay shiny at home).
So! Some WIPs are in order, I believe.

Dasin and Thendys Noori, an npc in Star Wars the Old Republic who I really liked and had high hopes for. In cheesy pose. Originally meant to be little more than a sketch but it's escalated and... yes.

Her gear took forever, but I recon it's his that's going to be a nightmare once I get into the shading and detailing stage.

And then there was this Mass Effect 3 comic thing that I started to work with before going to Scotland (which is absolutely beautiful, and with temperatures and a sun that even my pale skin could handle. Hooray!). 8 pages, trying a new 'sketch all pictures separately traditionally, piece together, ink and shade digitally' way of working and I'm liking it.

And those of you who have played Mass Effect but haven't heard Reignite by Maluka, well. I suggest you do something about that, because it is a beautiful song.



Working digitally

So, yeah, I've been doing some digital coloring lately, and primarily using original characters for practice. Because they need love too.
So here's Vadoma from the Vampire the Masquerade roleplaying game I'm running:

I mainly colored her for the dark skin-grey eyes combo, so I did get a bit lazy on the hair and clothes... if you can even call it clothes XD

I've also done my NaNoWriMo novel character Nasreen, after a description of her traveling clothes in the novel that I worked on last November. I then did some variations on that, and... I think I'll be doing some regular clothes too for her (and others) this way. It gives me a better idea of what I'm writing, if nothing else.



Finishing up old stuff

So in the middle of the night inspiration struck, and I HAD TO finish this meme. I haven't colored digitally in a long while, and though it's not the best I can do I still like it.

Of course, the problem with doing anything related to TV tropes is that it eats your life. So it took me a day, with plenty of reading. Sigh... time to do something useful today, me thinks.
So yeah, characters from the Vampire the Masquerade game I've been running since... 2007. Dear lord.