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.

SPX/SIS coming up

And my team and I are finishing up game three at the Game Assembly. This time it's a shoot 'em up, and it's been fun despite it not being my genre of choice. I finished cutscenes and convo pictures earlier this week, and we got working on what little dialogue we have today. I might show the cutscenes off later, but for now know that I'm working on rim lights. ALL the rim lights.
We also finished the concept art course, during which I made these two:

We were to take the Grimm Brothers's story The Skillful Huntsman, and do a take on one of the characters. I had great fun doing thumbnails (a total of 87 before I realized that perhaps it was time to continue to the next stage XD) and ended up with enough time to do two.

And now I'm going to go and pack my bag, because I'll be way too tired tomorrow. If you're in the Stockholm area this weekend, be sure to come by. Think Ink is releasing our first printed book The Art of Fika, and we'll be selling some old pieces and some individual new pieces as well :)

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.

Time flies

I have been oh so very busy since... oh... October, I'd say. Squeezing in the time to manage a cosplay before the Bioware dinner, going to the Bioware dinner, NaNoWriMo, trying to catch up on my studies as the cosplay ate too much of my time and I had to sleep too, and learning the basics of 3d in Maya. It ended up with me being sick as a dog the last days before the holidays, but I'm recovered and back in the Game Assembly as the new term began. We've started working on our third 3d project, and our second game. So far so good, but I could certainly do with a few extra hours in the day. And then some in the night.
But, so far we have a lowpoly fjord horse.

I am really happy with this, even though I would have liked to give it more detailed legs and a fringe, but we were only allowed to use 500 triangles. I'm not sure where they all went to be honest. I checked inside so many times, expecting to see a tiny horse or something in there, explaining where all the triangles went XD

The second 3d project was the vampire hunter's crossbow.



I wish I had had the energy to do more on it, texturing and working on adding more details on the normal map for all of the crossbow. Alas, I was sick half of the week, and it got worse towards the end of it. It is named both as a bad pun, and as a Supernatural reference, courtesy of my friend Jonas.

 

And then I've been doing some character designs for the game. We are basing the story around old Swedish myths, and where they would be now. Evidently I chose the huldra/skogsrå/lady of the forest to design. She is a favorite of mine after all. Personally, I like the idea of a crown made of raven wings, but the dark skinned version is my favorite. Whether or not she, and Näcken (a nude violin player who drowns people) who I am currently working on, will have clothes in the game depends entirely on the outcome of our meeting with the teachers tomorrow. Personally I'm all for nudity as long as it's not treated with the 'male gaze', but I provided a clothing alternative all the same, just in case. Viking inspired, but altered to reveal her hollow back :)

NaNoWriMo 2012

… 51k and done. Unless I get a fit later, before the month is out, and press on. Could reasonably happen, truth be told, because Nri is in a good place and I know where to take him, Solique is opening up, and Shmil is moving too.
Not a single word was written about Catlas, Ghysantrine, Nasreen, Dinatus, or Yselle. Which… well, I miss them a bit but Nri was on a roll. He makes up approximately 2/3 of those 51k. And there’s still more happening, just around the corner for him.

But for now… a little rest and a lot of learning Maya. Despite the book being the worst educational book I have ever had. Ugh.

But! Today the Think Ink exhibition starts! So that's something to look forward to at least :D

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.

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.