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.

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.

Bioware dinner and Gamex 2012

It's no secret that I'm a huge Bioware fan. Baldur's Gate was the first game I really loved and it sent me headfirst into fantasy and Viconia and the trip into the Underdark in the sequel made me fall in love with drow for what seems to be for life. Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Star Wars the Old Republic have eaten large chunks of my life (I regret nothing).

Three weeks ago Amanda and I got invited to a Bioware fan dinner by Lion Martinez. I reacted like the mature adult I am (read: got silly excited, climbed walls and ran to the cloth store for cosplay materials) and tickets were ordered and preparations started. So, despite both of us studying full time and having such a short deadline we sat down and made Mass Effect costumes. I once swore I would never do a cosplay on short notice ever again. Well. Let's not go into the stress level any further than that.
Amanda went as a random scientist and I went as Shepard in her dress blues because I absolutely adore that design. Granted, I love it somewhat less after making it. Easily the most complicated piece of clothing I've done due to the two different cloths and the folding overs and the gold bands and... yes, yes, carry on. I will say this though: it is probably the most comfortable cosplay I have made in a very long time.

And comfortable clothes that look nice are awesome. I wish to extend my 'thank you's and 'good job' to the artists here. I'm not certain about how easy it would be to mass produce though. Still. I've cosplayed Orochimaru. Any cosplay that doesn't cause me pain and prevent me from moving brings me joy XD

Having been so focused on getting the cosplays ready in time, we were completely oblivious to the fact that SM in cosplay was taking place at Gamex and ended up getting dragged in while utterly bewildered. Either way, lots of fantastic costumes! It was wonderful to see such a high standard wander about the building. Sadly no pictures, because I didn't bring my camera.

We also met up with the rest of Svampriket (at long last!) and made some videos with them which are up on the site now.

As for the dinner itself we were lucky indeed. The Skype connection was unfortunately not the best and Amanda and I ended up being the last who managed to get a reply to our questions to David Gaider and Mike Laidlaw. The connection with Mark Meer was better, and by then the speakers were working well enough that we could hear most if not all even in the back of the room. Not going to deny that I smiled a bit extra, hearing his preference for dressing as villains and history of D&D playing XD

The locale (Sjätte tunnan) was oozing with charm, but sadly was not the best for such a large crowd to have conversations in. Throats were sore at the end of the night, but plenty of game discussions - mainly Dragon Age and Mass Effect - were had, from whether or not the genophage really needed curing to tips on how to beat Loghain in a duel (with added pleading from me that they at least consider sparing his life).
We got the request that we'd draw something while at the event, and we were only too happy to agree. A comic diary of the day will be up... maybe next Monday if all goes well (I need a scanner that works with my laptop. Garrus the ever calibrating scanner is too old and incompatible with anything younger than ME1). Until then I just want to add a thank you to the lovely people we got to meet, the people who surprised us by being familiar with the Champions and Heroes comic, Lion who invited us, Jessica Merizan and Chris Priestly for coming, and the Skype guests too :D I would definitely do this again, and I hope that this sort of thing is something that Bioware continues to do - it was great and I saw nothing but smiles.

We came home from Stockholm again last night, having had a wonderful time and having met a lot of wonderful people. I think we've earned some extra sleep, but I've got catching up on Maya to do and NaNoWriMo has started without me for the first time since... 2001. This will not do.

But yes, as earlier stated, no pictures of the actual event - sorry. Have some strong female Dragon Age poses.

It's part of a bigger picture where I abuse the spines of male Dragon Age characters. I lovingly refer to it as 'the butt picture'. More of that in the future.

After SPX 2012

Ok... the layout of blogspot has gone through some drastic changes and I'm... completely lost. I am not a fan of change in my technology.

Regardless, the SPX in Stockholm has come and gone and I have returned home after all the exitement, and I'm looking forward to a few days of doing nothing useful whatsoever. Four out of six members of Think Ink were there and we had a blast. We sold our fanzines, among them the latest Think 6.
Fanny sold her books and post cards and made adorable bookmarks. She had also remade a My Little Pony, and we had a 'name the pony' competition! Diana pimped her online-comic-in-print and a short story called Sägner (rough translation, 'folktales') which you should keep an eye out for. Amanda sold her sketch fanzines, and the two of us also sold Champions and Heroes fanzines for the first time.
May I just say that it was so much fun to meet Champions and Heroes readers, old and new?

And a huge thanks to the awesome cook Gilbert who came by our table with delicious cookes! (also, go check out his stuff - lots of curvy ladies in there ;))

And... Think Ink now has a joined blog which you can find right here. At long last!

One year of dragons

I just realized today that on Saturday Amanda and I have been running the Champions and Heroes comic for a full year. The updates have varied between once a week to twice a week, depending on how much time and inspiration we've had, but even so it has kept updating regular as clockwork. Neither of us were sure we would be able to keep it up for so long in the beginning, but by the look of things it will keep going for quite some time still.


That being said, there's going to be a bit of Mass Effect in the next couple of updates from me at least, due to the release of ME3. It was a lovely game, up until... you know... everything past Marauder Shields and the three Husketeers. Which was essentially the last ten minutes of a lovely series that made multiple gameplays feel pointless and added plotholes for no good reason. Which is a damn shame, because I was halfway through ME2 with a male paragon Shepard, hoping to see how different that experience would be.

In other news, I'm working on a fairy comic (another collaboration with Amanda) at the moment, which is looking to end up somewhere between 12 and 15 pages. I still need to finish the layout, but I much rather just get right to the drawing XD
To do this, I've chosen to start to upload the Red Planet alternative universe/potential future comic Substitute, which was published in Swedish Comic Sin 2, rather than making new comic pages for the Red Planet. That will run until the end of June, at which point I should be done with the fairy comic (well, this part of it). So, more updates to follow :)

And in a completely unrelated note: Game of Thrones season two is coming! Whooo!

And... an attentive new year?

A happy surprise awaited Amanda and I today when we looked at the stats for today's update. And a lot of confusion. It's not every day we get 30k+ visitors, is what we're saying. After a bit of unsuccessful googling I got a sneaking suspicion and went to check my facebook updates.
As it turns out, our comic Champions and Heroes got linked on Dragon Age's facebook page. Whoo! Completely random, but awesome :D

35k later

... and still going strong.
The beginning has been bumpy and uncertain, and more difficult than I am used to. The story is usually flowing during week one for me, so to find it hard to work with this time made me a bit uncertain, but by the second week it started moving and now as the third week begins it's all good. Though I have, of course, started padding like mad. That's what NaNoWriMo is all about anyway. It's quantity, not quality. Quality is for December.
I got real sick this Friday, and considered not actually writing that day. It was a good excuse, but at the end of the day it was an excuse, and so I sat down and did my daily words regardless.
That was followed by a day where I forgot that I had only written 500 words, and ended up writing 1500 in the last 40 minutes before midnight. And then continued to begin the next day's words once midnight had arrived.


Suffice to say, NaNoWriMo is taking a lot of my time, but... I still find time to do other things. Such as draw more Champions and Heroes comics, even though I'm set until December. Too fun to stop.

Now, the Emperor's chosen dozen are fighting pirates on foreign seas and seem to require my attention. Excuse me.

Alternative games week

Over at the Champions and Heroes comic we are currently having an 'alternative games week', in theory meaning that we draw comics about games other than Dragon Age. In practice, it means that we make comics specifically about the mako in Mass Effect 1. And frankly, we have enough things about that mako to make it mako month XD

Not to imply that 60% of my time playing Mass Effect 1 was spent like this (it totally was), but no one was happier than me to see it gone in Mass Effect 2.

Delightful rest

I've returned home, after a brief little trip with my friend Fanny <3 Got a bit of sunshine and a swim in the sea even.
I got a little bit of drawing done, but by no means a lot. Of course, by then I had already finished The Island and sent it off. I ended up pulling an all nighter to finish in time, but finish in time I did, and in color too :)

Now back to the other projects - making new buffers with both Champions and Heroes and The Red Planet, as well as working on a script for Forest born.

Champions and Heroes

Champions and Heroes - the Dragon Age fancomic that I am doing together with my fellow Think Inker Amanda - is still going strong and updating twice a week. Now that I am done with my studies and SPX is over with (so much fun!) I've got a lot more spare time, and that means building a buffer for Champions and Heroes as well as continuing with the work on The Red Planet. And, you know, doing responsible things that are nowhere near as much fun...

And back to work...

So after a month of being... fairly occupied with other things, I return to the real world.
The little escape into the world of Thedas was not entirely uninspired, far from it in fact. My fellow Think Inker Amanda and I have started up a twice a week updated Dragon Age webcomic and I have been practically spewing out art... which is sitting prettily on my computer and released to the world on Thursdays. It's been a great opportunity to do less than serious stuff with my copics, and I find that I've been learning a lot... the most important lesson have been "relax" XD


The final bits and pieces of Think Ink's new fanzine Absolutely Scandalous Stories are being put together at the moment, and will be heading for the printers next week barring any unseen events. It will debute at SPX, as will Swedish Comic Sin 2 and Nekronasses citatbok, which I have also participated in. Hooray!