#Lots of just wrapping my head around 3d concepts and stuff

[alienrascal]

Here's the completed 3D scene for uni. I wish I had to time to add more details, especially for the house and trees. But still pretty happy about the placement.

[tricktster]

I made a lot of progress on making my displacer beast pattern (while I was procrastinating doing my real work).

The deal with this technique is you make a model of the stuffed animal (or other complicated 3d object) you want to sew, then you wrap the whole damn thing in 2 or 3 layers of masking tape, hugging as close to the model as possible. Then you plot out on the tape where you want your seams, mark the points that should match up when you’re sewing it and the direction the fur should be going (if you’re using fake fur), identify each piece of fabric you need to cut, and then finally, use an exacto knife to cut the masking tape off the model along the seam lines you marked.

The reason this is a useful pattern design technique is that when you do cut the tape along the seamlines, most of the time it’s not going to come off in a flat, 2D piece that you can just stick on a piece of paper and trace. Most of the masking tape pattern pieces I cut off of this round baby are going to have significant curves to them, which means that in order to get from 2d fabric to the 3d shape I want them to be, I’ll need to sew darts. This video by Brittany Zerkle, who runs a great plushie design blog/shop called BeeZee Art, is really good at explaining the general concept. If you don’t feel like watching it, these screenshots demonstrate the general concept. Here’s a masking tape piece Brittany made by wrapping a creepy rock with the tape a few times:

And here’s how she cut it to make it into a pattern:

When you cut lines into a thin curved object (like several layers of masking tape), you can make that curved object lie flat by cutting lines into the curved part - when it does lie flat, you’ll notice there’s wedge shaped negative spaces in the flattened piece where you cut that weren’t there when it was curved. Using that information, you can work backwards to take a 2d piece of fabric and make it so it has 3d curves. First, you trace the outline of your flattened pattern on your fabric - including your best approximation of where the outline would be if there weren’t any wedges, like this:

You’ll eventually cut along that border (or like adding 1/4 inch or whatever if your pattern doesn’t include a seam allowance), but before you do, you mark out those negative space wedge shapes on your fabric, but you don’t cut them out; instead, you fold your fabric in the dead center of each wedge so the lines you traced are directly on top of each other, and then you sew the folded fabric together along the lines. End result, your 2d fabric now has a 3d curve in it; if you sewed all the wedges in the above picture together like that, your end result would be something shaped exactly like the object you wrapped the masking tape around.

Anyway, my displacer cub has a lot of curves, and I just don’t have the skills to math out in my head where darts should go to make the shapes I want. Fortunately, I don’t technically have to: using my masking tape pieces from my model, I can figure out exactly where the darts should go.

Another complication here is that I’ll need to sew curved fabric to curved fabric to make this little guy, and trust me, it’s hard to figure out sometimes if you’ve got two curved pieces lined up together right. I marked a ton of reference lines on my model across the seams, and marked and numbered all of the 80! places on this pattern where three or more pieces of fabric will need to meet up, so I can line the pieces up easily when I’m actually using the pattern to sew the dang thing.

Aaaanyway, I hope this was interesting for anyone else who’s into figuring this stuff out, but what I mostly came here to say is when I finally finished marking everything out and took a step back to look at what I’d done, I had a profound realization of what it reminded me of:

[taikova]

I'd love to color in a painterly style but I have a really hard time wrapping my head around it and how it works for some reason. Do you happen to know any good tutorials or resources for it? Because I love the way your painterly work looks (I think that's what the style is called).

i watch things on youtube, here are some i’ve found have a pretty good grasp on things: sinix design has some cool tips, tyler edlin posts professional critiques (think concept art, backgrounds, etc) and tips on painting light, composition, storytelling. laura price paints backgrounds and makes some tutorials and speedpaints on her channel. (sometimes just watching someone paint is super helpful.) Astri Lohne has some cool and helpful stuff on her youtube as well, and

i recently started following a youtube channel called ctrl+paint which has really simple and clear tips and video courses on painting (aaaand making concept art), and i think i recommend starting from that one.

all of these are focused on pretty specific type of professional concept art, and some of them have philosophies aren’t necessarily helpful to all artists (i have learned), so take their advice/critiques with a grain of salt. i’ve found a lot of what they put out there helpful though. i’ve been influenced by a lot more things than just these kinda of tutorials though, and gotten a lot more help in drawing (i did start by painting with watercolors and acrylics).

real life physics with light is pretty important to understand with painting? i also look at 3d models especially for family animated movies!

hope that helps some!

[lady-divine-writes]

Campaigning for Peace (Rated T)

With the fate of the world in the hands of a demon, an angel, two ex-antichrists, and a defunct computer engineer, sometimes decisions come down to the roll of a die. (1503 words)

Written for @drawlight ‘31 days of ineffables’ prompt ‘chestnuts’. All humor. Completely tongue in cheek. Don’t take anything seriously. One suggestive remark at the end.

“No.” Crowley snatches the tanned parchments from a baffled Newt and rolls them into a tight coil, eyeballing the young man with open and palpable disgust.

“What do you mean no?” Newt counters, brow furrowed, angrier and more confused than their party has ever seen him.

“I mean no.” Crowley shoves the parchments into a duffel sitting beside him and pulls out, instead, a leather-bound text. “One word, two letters, very simple concept to grasp … for most people.”

“But … you’re not even willing to try?” Newt’s voice rises sharply, his gaze darting from the demon’s inscrutable eyes to the black canvas bag by his thigh. It’s only pulled closed, the scrolled parchments nestled within out of Newt’s reach, peeking through a slim gap mockingly.

“That’s what no means, boy.” Crowley flips through the pages of the book, perusing the text with dramatic intensity to show he’s moved on from this argument. Other eyes gauge Newt’s reaction – with sympathy, with understanding, with ridicule and sly grins.

Newt knows he’s being watched, and his face burns because of it.

“You … are … infuriating!”

“So I’ve been told, and by better men than you!”

“Hey, hey, guys!” Adam intervenes in an attempt to calm soaring tempers. “Arguing helps no one but the enemy,” he reminds them, though he already has numerous times to no avail. “What if we go in a different direction and I wield the flaming sword?”

Crowley’s eyes snap his way. A fire behind them burns dangerously, his slit pupils going paper thin, telling Adam he’s overstepped his bounds. “Oi! No! That’s Aziraphale’s weapon!”

“But he’s not here!” Adam protests. “And it’s the most powerful weapon we’ve got right now!”

“Don’t matter! No one but Aziraphale touches that sword! End of discussion!”

“I think you may be projecting on that sword a bit too much,” Adam mutters under his breath, double checking to ensure Crowley didn’t hear. He doesn’t doubt the accuracy of his remark, just the timing. Crowley’s eyes have begun to turn from their usual venom yellow to a dark, fiery orange – something Adam has only seen once before.

Needless to say, things didn’t end well that day.

“I have another idea,” Newt ventures even though no one asked and no one intended on asking. “What if I seduce him?”

Crowley and Adam’s heads whip around, both demon and ex-antichrist staring at him strangely.

“What?” Adam croaks. “Why!?”

“You know … as a distraction.”

“You? Ssseduce the Lord of Hell?” Crowley nearly chokes on his bifurcated tongue. “That’sss rich! If you work your mojo the sssame way you work a computer, we’ll all be turned to flaming goo, ssswimming in our own intestinesss!”

“Cool!” Warlock pipes up from behind the screen of his 3DS. He glances up when the group goes silent, staring his way with varied expressions. “I mean … yuck,” he corrects, shaking his head in fake contrition. “Don’t want that. Nope. Not at all.”

“Excuse me,” Newt starts haughtily when he notices Crowley’s smug smile in Warlock’s direction. “What exactly is your contribution? Besides playing video games and making sarcastic remarks, that is?”

“Oh, I have no contribution,” Warlock replies without looking up.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I was an antichrist, too, you know. Probably more of an antichrist than Adam here. Raised by an actual demon, I was. I’m waiting for you all to die so I can step over your corpses and take over. Rule the burning pile of intestinal soup.”

Adam shakes his head, but he can’t help the grin he has for his unlikely friend. Crowley’s smug smile becomes positively effervescent.

Newt rolls his eyes. “It’s good to have goals, I guess.”

Bells jingle in the distance.

An alert! Someone else has entered the field!

But it's not a hostile, so no one pays it any mind.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Fell!”

Aziraphale, reading his newspaper at his desk a short distance away from the heated debate, looks up at the voice he’s been expecting for the better part of the afternoon. “Tracy, my dear! I’m so glad you could make it!”

“It has been a while since I could come over for tea,” she says, embracing the angel when he stands to greet her. “I’m looking forward to making up for lost time.”

“My goodness! Is it still snowing outside?” Aziraphale asks when Tracy removes the hood of her pink peacoat and a generous dusting of flakes falls to the floor.

“Just a bit, just a bit. None of it’s sticking though so that’s good news. The cold’s more a bother than anything. Brr!” She shivers out of her damp coat. Aziraphale hangs it up on the coat rack to dry. “That wind goes right through you! But it’s nice and toasty in here, isn’t it?”

“No, no, no!” Crowley roars, pointing emphatically at the book spread open in front of him. “We might as well just start launching flaming food stuffs at them then!” He chortles so loudly and with such an edge, it makes everyone, including Aziraphale, jump. “That’s what we’ll do! Take down the whole horde with flambes and hors d’oeuvres! Lump in some chestnuts while we’re at it! That’ll do just as well than your asinine idea!”

“I still think seducing him …!”

“Will you get off it, you dolt! It’s never going to happen!”

“How do you know!?”

“H---h---how do I … how do I know!?” Crowley sputters, gesturing at himself in disbelief. “Because I’m a bloody demon! I’ve lived under Satan’s rule for thousands of years and let me tell you, you’re not his type!”

Tracy listens, hands wringing out the chill, her grip tightening as the conversation continues.

“What … what’s going on?” she asks nervously. “Are they …” She swallows hard, a flashback from months prior zipping through her thoughts like a bullet train, speeding her heartbeat and rendering her momentarily breathless “… preparing for another Apocalypse?”

“Not at all, dear! Now at all! They’re playing some fool game called … uh … Prisons and Lizards, I think.”

“Dungeons and Dragons, angel,” Crowley corrects alongside a put-off, soul-wrenching sigh.

Aziraphale points at his exasperated husband. “That’s the one.”

“It looks like they’re taking it rather seriously,” Tracy says, quietly accepting Aziraphale’s offer of a seat.

“Oh, yes. They’re quite involved.”

“Do you ever join them?”

“Oh, I’m a part of their campaign, as it were,” he explains, forgoing the tea and bringing out a bottle of his best brandy. “In absentia.”

“That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“Ha! Fun!? Let me tell you a thing about fun!” Aziraphale has to steady his hand while he laughs so not a single drop of alcohol hits the table instead of Tracy’s glass. At times such as these, it would be a sin to waste good brandy. “With the Dowlings gone away on vacation and leaving Warlock with us, and Newt having some kind of existential slump, this lot has started hanging around my bookshop 24/7, and I haven’t gotten a moment’s peace! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy their company, but it can be a bit …” He clears a collection of less socially appropriate modifiers from his throat and goes with “… much.”

“It does seem a little crowded in here.”

“Yes, well, there’s usually more of them, so this is a refreshing change.”

“I notice Anathema isn’t here,” Tracy remarks a tad judgmentally, scanning the shop just to be sure she’s not hiding between the stacks, rifling through Aziraphale’s older tomes in the occult section.

“Exactly. With her fiancé here, she’s enjoying some much needed peace and quiet. Getting some work done. And I don’t blame her. But that means I’ve been tasked with babysitting. With the boys wrapped up in that game, this is the first chance I’ve gotten to read my newspaper cover to cover. Later on, I’m going to try my hand at actually finishing a crossword puzzle!”

“You sound excited,” Tracy teases.

“I am, dear! I am!”

“You’re ridiculous!” Newt crows, slamming a hand on the table. “All of you! Ridiculous! I don’t even know why I’m still talking to you!”

“The feeling’s mutual!” Crowley retorts, spiking Aziraphale’s brain with a perturbing sense of déjà vu.

“Acid slugs it is,” Adam declares, picking up a large, multi-sided die and offering it to Warlock.

“Nah.” Warlock dismisses the die with a shake of his head. “Still waiting on that sweet intestinal soup.”

Aziraphale raises his glass. “It may not be quiet, but it is peace.”

“Or something like it.”

“Cheers.” Aziraphale bobs his glass Tracy’s way in a meager toast, closes his eyes, and indulges in a longer than normal first sip. When he opens his eyes again, Tracy is grinning at him like a mad cat. Aziraphale frowns self-consciously. “What?”

“So, if you’re babysitting, that makes you something of a father figure. Yes?”

“I suppose so,” Aziraphale admits with a heavy sigh.

Tracy leans in. “Does that mean Crowley gets to call you daddy?”

Aziraphale’s eyes pop. Seconds later, he snorts into his brandy. “Hush you!”

[bag-of-broadway-snacks]

ROGT Secret Santa Gift

@rotgsecretsanta

I had a lot of fun making this! I hope you enjoy @leilani-lily

Sandy x Reader (Secret Santa)

It was a warm, mid-may evening in your beautiful hometown. Spring flowers were lightly kissed with water droplets left over from the early rains of that morning. The water reflected the soft glow of the sunset that painted the sky with variations of orange and rose. It was a perfect evening, and you were hoping with all your heart that a special someone would drop by your house at night. Sanderson Mansnoozie, the star captain of the golden age had been your nightly visitor for almost a year now.

You recall your first encounter to be short and sweet. You had been staying up late one night, struggling to get your next art piece finished on time when suddenly you saw the most beautiful golden sands flow right by your window. You rubbed your eyes and got up, going over and opening up the thin glass pane. Another strand flew by, and another, and another. You stared in awe, not knowing what otherworldly occurrence what happening. Then, in a brilliant firefly-like glow, he appeared. The Sandman. You had always believed in him, ever since you were small, and now he was all the more real. Sandy hovered by your window, sending out streams of sand out into the windows of many other houses and apartments. His hands held such elegance and grace to them they mesmerized you. You rushed to grab your sketch pad and begin rapidly drawing the small man outside. Your sketch was almost complete when he noticed you. You locked eyes and for a moment, the world seemed to be still. He was surprised at first, his face motionless, but then he smiled a bashful smile and he sent a small strand of the golden sand out to you. You remember reaching your hand up and grazing it with your fingertips before falling fast asleep. Your dreams had been so wondrous that night, and when you finally awoke the next morning, your sketch pad was set on the foot of your bed. The lines of the drawing were all kissed with the same golden sand.

Ever since that fateful night, Sandy had visited you in the early evenings. He was very busy, but he always managed to make time to visit you. It didn't take long for you both to start being attracted to each other romantically. Sandy was a wonderful boyfriend it turned out. He brought you gifts, made little pictures for you with his sand, and always gave you sweet dreams before he left. You spoiled him as well, making him fresh cookies for his journey, or some of your homemade eggnog. He especially loved your eggnog, he couldn't get enough of the stuff. You two were very happy together. But something was bothering Sandy as of late-you could always tell when something was. Even though he mainly used pictures to express himself, you never struggled to know what he was thinking. Sandy was bothered that he could only visit in the evenings. You never had the joy of spending your days together just enjoying each other's company. You also felt this way, though you would never say it out loud. You didn't want to hurt his nightly job of bringing good dreams-someone had to do it after all. But still, it was a struggle to be apart from him so often.

That evening at 6 o'clock sharp, Sandy floated gracefully through your bedroom window and onto your apartment floor. You came out of your tiny kitchen and grinned ear to ear when you saw him. "Sandy!" you cried out and rushed over. You had always been a short woman, so even with Sandy being a little man, the height difference wasn't too bad. You bent down and kissed him softly on the forehead. He blushed and smiled at you, forming the shape of a little heart above his head. You blushed as well and invited him to sit down on the couch while you brought out the dinner you'd prepared. It wasn't the fanciest feast, just some sandwiches, and cookies, but it suited you both just fine. You set the tray on the coffee table and sat down next to Sandy on the couch.

"Are you tired tonight?" you asked him with a wink. It was a little joke between you two that amused you greatly. Sandy was virtually always tired. It was one of the things that came with being the Sandman. He often fell asleep standing up, which you loved. Sandy smiled and wrinkled his face a bit as if laughing. He nodded his head in an enthusiastic answer. You giggled a bit as well and divvied up the sandwiches.

'Sandy is still a mystery to me,' you thought as you took a big bite out of your favorite sandwich. It was true, he had limited communication so getting information from him was a little difficult. The reason you knew as much as you did at the current moment was because of a dream he gave you. It was no doubt the strangest dream you had ever had, but it explained a lot about Sanderson. Even if you weren't quite sure what 'The Golden Age' meant exactly, you still understood that it was the time Sandy was from. You knew that he had been a captain and that he had once helped grant wishes. You also knew that he was deemed the Guardian of Dreams by a man who lived in the moon. It had been a whimsical dream, and when you awoke you felt closer to Sandy then ever. Yet, you still didn't know everything about him, why he was silent now when he spoke in the past was a mystery.Not only that, but the fact that he was seemingly made of this golden dream sand had always been a lot to understand. You supposed you didn't mind, you had a lot of time to figure everything out.

You went over all of this in your head while taking a few more bites of your dinner. You glanced at Sandy, who was eating in small little nibbles here and there. You furrowed your brow in concern.

"Sanderson," you said sweetly, "Is something the matter??"

Sandy looked up and gave you an encouraging smile. He set his sandwich aside and took up one of his cookies. After crunching down on it, he began to form his dream sand into a figure. It was a rose in full bloom, and it looked even lovelier when made out of the sunrise golden grains of dream sand.  You blushed deeply when Sandy hopped off the couch and offered you the rose. You took it out of his hand and it immediately split into several different, and smaller figures. 3D depictions of your favorite animals, plants, and dreams. You smiled ear to ear at the romantic gesture. Sandy always knew how to make you swoon like a teenage girl.

You clapped your hands together. "Sanderson, you are too sweet for your own good!" Sandy beamed at you, then shuffled back and forth on his feet. He reached up and touched your forehead lightly, which caused you to wrinkle your brow in confusion.  Slowly but surely you felt yourself become heavy with tiredness. You gently leaned back against the couch and fell asleep.

-

While you slept, Sandy was conjuring up your dream world into a beautiful landscape. There was a candlelit table in the center of a large gazebo, complete with an appealing dream dinner. You walked over and sat down at the table.The feeling you got when Sandy entered your dream was amazing. Just seeing him in his golden bowtie made you feel warm, like you'd just dipped into a hot spring. He came over and sat in the chair across from you. He smiled gently.

"I have something important to discuss with you," he began. His lips didn't move but you heard his voice. It was always like that in the dream world. You didn't mind of course, as this was the only way to hear him.

"Well, go on," you said, trying not to sound too worried or excited.

Sandy straightened his tie. "We've been together for a long time now, but I can only visit you in the evenings. It feels like we're losing so much time together." He sounded sad, but when he spoke again, his voice was hopeful. "I love you so much. I have decided that I want to make my home yours. We could be together all the time, only being separated at night. Perhaps, you could also journey back and forth so you could see everyone who loves you...I believe to put it simply what I'm trying to ask is..." Sandy held his breath and stared intently at you. He hopped out of his chair and knelt beside you, his golden orbs staring into your own. He held out his hands and conjured up a small box, and when it opened it showed off a stunning ring. You'd never seen such a jewel, even in your dreams. You would find out later, it wasn't a work of fiction either.Sandy had gotten a friend of his from the North to specially make it for him. "Will you be my wife?" Sandy asked you, hope gleaming in his eyes, "You make me so happy. I feel like a small sandman again when I'm with you."

You couldn't contain your tears of joy, it all felt so overwhelming the moment and the implications of it all. You rubbed furiously at your eyes and tried to suppress your sobs of happiness. You nodded again and again as you tried to find the right words. "You make me feel like a princess, yes. Yes. And before you ask again yes!" You kissed him suddenly, even if it was a dream your embrace was no less passionate. He pulled away and slid the ring onto your finger gently, it shimmered brightly at you. You wrapped your arms around him and held on tightly. Your heart beat a mile a minute and you could barely wrap your head around what all this meant for you. You were going to marry Sanderson Mansnoozie, the legendary Sandman, the bringer of good dreams, and one of the defenders of childhood. It sounded like something out of a fantasy book for crying out loud. Yet, this was your glorious reality. This was your future and you were ready to put on your adventuring boots and take it head-on.

Sandy hugged you back tightly and kissed you. He took your hands gingerly and smiled. He was a man of few precious words, but those words meant everything, and he would only ever speak them for you. The concept of love had often perplexed the little man. It was a mysterious force, and it conjured up the most powerful belief. Belief in another person to be there and love you for as long as you both lived. He hadn't understood it long ago, it was strange to him. He understood some types of love. He felt a deep love for the other guardians and Emily Jane. They were his close friends and they never tired of one another. But when he met you, he learned a whole new type of love. You had as well, dating and marriage had never been far from your mind as you went through life. You dreamed of meeting your true love as many other people around you. But after waiting for such a long time it felt as if that would never happen. Sanderson had shown you differently. He showed you a world of wonder, love, magic, and dreams. You cherished and held onto every bit of it. Now it was all coming to a head. You and your Sandman would be together forever. And when you opened your eyes from the wonderful dream, you glanced down and saw the beautiful ring still on your finger.

[spiffyworks]

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching

SSSo recently, after finishing (an admittedly long-overdue) a piece, I decided to download a trial of the new Corel Painter 2019. I hadn’t used Painter since my old DeviantArt days (circa 2005) and wanted to see how it felt with more digital art-veteran hands. Loaded it up, started sketching my default doodle-muse and wow, that “Real 2B” pencil feels great. I loved it so much, and wondered why. 

That’s the story that is spawning this weird personal series of Software Surfing. I wanted to write little notes to future-me on how it felt using my favorite sketching tools in each program I have, and after the sixth one I thought it might be a good idea to check out inking, colouring, painting, etc. and writing those down as well.

So I’m writing this series for myself, but making it available in case anyone else can benefit as well. Thanks for sticking with the intro, let’s get into it.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

There are many ways to sketch, but this is specifically the classic “pencil” or “drawing” form using the tools with the program’s default settings.

As an introduction, this is my doodle-muse, Cloey. She was my first original character, and though I don’t usually share my anthro art on here (I know that’s not everyone’s thing) I do have a separate blog for that stuff that you can find here if you’re so inclined. If you’re familiar with Artgerm (and you should be), she’s basically my Pepper.

Corel Painter’s “Real 2B”:

The one that started it all. The pencil just GLIDES, and I’ve always loved when you can tilt a pencil tool and it will shade just like tilting a real-life pencil. The only thing I want from a program now is to be able to bind touch to blenders so I can use my finger to smudge-blend the scribbling. (I tried drawing that fist so many times /fume)

Likes: Tilt functionality, line width variance, stroke speed, eraser Dislikes: Rebinding Rotate Canvas tool was a pain. I like Shift+Space, and that key combo is reflected in the shortcut panel, but it just continued to pan. Never worked for me, and rotating or flipping the page quickly is crucial for my sketching process. Also sometimes if I quickly resize the eraser and mash it down to use, it won’t detect any input.

Photoshop, Kyle Webster’s “2B” & “Animator Pencil”: 

**Disclaimer** Firstly, I’ve used Photoshop for over 15 years now, and it’s a great digital art tool, but for drawing and painting I find it’s sorely lacking. It’s slow, expensive, and unintuitive. That being said, there are some things this program does exclusive to others so I’m still clinging to it (desperately) and while I would definitely recommend something else for budding digital artists, I have to supplement my misgivings by purchasing additional plugins and tools, such as the famed Kyle T Webster’s Ultimate Megapack for Photoshop (

which is now complementary with Photoshop CC, damnit

). Unless otherwise noted, all the brushes I use in Photoshop will be from that pack. **End Disclaimer**

Following off the heels of Corel, I remembered messing around with another “2B” (which btw is my personal favorite traditional pencil to sketch with) in Kyle Webster’s Drawing Box in Photoshop. It felt a bit similar, but with no tilt functionality and it really lacked the chunky-thickness (a scientific term) I enjoyed with Painter’s pencil. I switched to my favorite (and the favorite of MANY digital artists btw) his “Animator’s Pencil”. So chunky, but the ability to shade lightly... It’s really a fun brush to use for sketching digitally. Still one of my absolute favorites.

Animator Pencil Likes: Line width variance, texture fills in and scales perfectly Dislikes: It’s a photoshop exclusive, a program that for some reason you can’t bind shortcuts to whatever you please, takes forever to load, and WAY too often suffers input lag while drawing. Also no tilt shading, :’( aw

Paintstorm’s “Textured Pencil” & “Pencil Tilt”

As a bit of an aside, I love Paintstorm, Paintstorm is what got me back into digital drawing and painting after doing 3D and game design for 7 years. I bought it for the very low price of entry (2 licenses for $30) and was impressed by its ability to customize literally anything in the program. You can create your own tool/brush boxes, bind any shortcut to any key combination, and every single brush tool adjustment comes with the most customization control of any program I’ve come across since Photoshop set the bar way back in the day. Out of the box a lot of the basic brushes have that old OpenCanvas or PaintTool Sai feel, but more recently they’ve added some very textured default brushes you can play around with. It’s also hands-down the FASTEST program I’ve ever worked in. I highly recommend giving it a try, it’s great for learning and experimentation. I grew a lot working in Paintstorm.

The Textured Pencil is a fun sketching brush, you can get as think or thick as you’d want and it keeps a clean outline. The Pencil Tilt really blew my mind the first time I used it. YOU CAN SHADE! It was the first time I had ever seen a program do that. The tilt has a great texture, fantastic control, and gets just as dark as you’d need. I’d recommend using them both, the Textured Pencil for a cleaner sketch, and the Pencil Tilt for something more expressive or loose.

Krita’s Ink-Tilt & “Sketch”:

I’ll be honest, I have almost no experience in Krita despite having downloaded and given it a try back in 2014. It was a hell of a time to figure out how to rebind my usual shortcuts (flip horz, rotate canvas). I couldn’t even rebind colour grab/eyedropper. Yikes. I opened up the “Sketching” brush box and there were only two options, made worse as one was a sketch pen... That lacked the flexibility of ballpoint. 

First I grabbed the pencil dubbed “Sketch” and was bewildered why the size of the circle was so large compared to the mark it made. Very confusing. Feeling intimidated, I abandoned it immediately to try out the “ink_tilt” (which by the way there’s no tilt functionality??) and hated it. I reluctantly went back to the pencil and just started trying to make marks. Wow. It’s weird, but surprisingly fun. You have to be willing to relinquish a LOT of control, but the shapes the brush makes while moving and tilting during a stroke can yield some really interesting and suggestive shapes. I would say great for early concepting or making something really loose and expressive. Fun to play with, but not really practical.

Clip Studio Paint’s Real Pencil & Rough Pencil

I’ve been wholly immersed in CSP since I purchased the program back in late 2016. It goes on sale often, so you can pick up a nice fully featured program for ~$35. I’d had my eye on it for a while and still really want to get into self-publishing comics, so I picked it up, bought a couple of brush packs for it (it’s pretty lacking in default painting tools) and I’ve been illustrating in it ever since. The brush creation isn’t as fun as Paintstorm, but brushes are quite customizable. I usually like to use the “Rough Pencil” if I want just a little texture and line variance, or the “Darker Pencil” for something cleaner. Trying to be different, I just jotted out a couple heads in ones I don’t normally use, the Real Pencil and Design Pencil. The Real Pencil has a lot of texture, but for some reason in CSP the textures don’t seem to scale with the brush, so I tend to avoid using it in most cases. I hate the design pencil, I just could never get dark enough. I guess that’s probably the point, though.

Well, that definitely wraps this digest up. I feel refreshed after trying out a lot of new digital sketching brushes. I was really reminded of how much I enjoyed drawing in Paintstorm. I hope someone other than me found this useful or otherwise inspiring! Sometimes, especially if you’re stuck in some art blockage, it’s a good idea to try something new, and for me digitally that’s hopping programs and trying new brushes.

I’m thinking about doing inks, colours, and painting at some point. Let me know if anyone’s interested in those! I’m planning on doing some for myself eventually, but I might expedite a post if anyone is interested. o/ Take it easy,  y’all.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

[vaultt-tec]

How did Fallout 1 ever get made?

PCGameN sat down with the Fallout 1 team and discussed its making.

This is in a read more because it is SUPER long. I added it all here but click the link and read it on their site, there are more pictures!

Tim Caine was at PAX when he first saw Vault Boy as a living, breathing entity - it was a cosplayer of 16 or 17 years old, hair gelled to replicate that distinctive swirl. ‘This is weird’, he thought.

Feargus Urquhart remembers walking into Target and seeing that same gelled haircut and toothy smile, not on a fan this time, but emblazoned across half a metre of cotton. ‘How is it that a game that we all worked on somehow created something iconic?’, he wondered. ‘How did it show up on a t-shirt in a department store?’

Related: the best RPGs on PC.

In the years since, Bethesda have taken Fallout into both first-person and the pop culture mainstream. Vault Boy has become as recognisable as Mickey Mouse. The series’ sardonic, faux-’50s imagery now feels indelible, as if it has always been here. But it hasn’t.

It took the nascent Black Isle Studios to nurse the Fallout universe into being, as an unlikely, half-forgotten project in the wings of Interplay, where Caine and Urquhart were both working in the ‘90s. The pair helped create one of the all-time great RPGs in the process.

“The one thing I would say about Interplay in those days, and this isn’t trying to pull the veil back or anything like that - there was just shit going on,” Urquhart tells us. “It was barely controlled chaos. I’m not saying that Brian [Fargo] didn’t have some plan, but there was just… stuff.”

One day, Fargo sent out a company-wide email to canvass opinion. He wanted Interplay to work on a licensed game, and had three tabletop properties in mind. One was Vampire: The Masquerade. Another was Earthdawn, a fantasy game set in the same universe as Shadowrun. And the third was GURPS, designed by Games Workshop’s Steve Jackson.

The team picked the latter, overwhelmingly, because that was what they played in their own sessions. But GURPS wasn’t a setting - it was a Generic Universal RolePlaying System. And so Interplay’s team had to come up with a world of their own.

“I would send out an email saying, ‘I’m in Conference Room Two with a pizza’,” Caine says. “And if people wanted to come, on their own time, they could do it. Chris [Taylor, lead designer], Leonard [Boyarksy, art director], and Jason [Anderson, lead artist] showed up.”

Interplay at the time was almost like a high school, as map layout designer Scott Evans remembers it: incredibly noisy and divided into cliques. Caine was building a clique of his own.

Traditional fantasy was the first idea to be dismissed. The team actually considered making Fallout first-person, a decade early - but decided the sprites of the period didn’t offer the level of detail they wanted. Concepts were floated for time travel, and for a generation ship story - but one after the other, they were all pushed aside and the post-apocalypse was left.

“One thing I didn’t like was games where the character you’re playing should know stuff that you, the player, don’t,” Caine says. “And I think the vault helped us capture that, because both you the player and you the character had no idea what the world was like. The doors opened and you were pushed out. And I really liked that, because it meant we didn’t have to do anything fake like, ‘Well you were hit on your head and have amnesia’.”

There was plenty about the Fallout setting that wasn’t as intuitive, however. Players would have to wrap their heads around a far-future Earth and a peculiar retro aesthetic, even before the bombs started dropping. The question of how Fallout ever survived pitching is answered with a Caine quip: “What do you mean, pitch?”

For a short while, Interplay had planned to make several games in the GURPS system. But soon afterwards they had won the D&D license, a far bigger property that would go on to spawn Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. As a consequence, Caine’s team were left largely to their own devices.

As for budget - Fallout’s was small enough to pass under the radar. Although Interplay are best remembered for the RPGs of Black Isle and oddball action games like Shiny’s Earthworm Jim, they had mainstream ambitions not so different to those of the bigger publishers today. During Fallout’s development they were primarily interested in sports, and an online game division called Engage.

“It was almost like a smokescreen,” Urquhart explains. “So much money was being pumped into these things that you could go play with your toys and no-one would know.”

Which is exactly what the Fallout team did, pulling out every idea they’d ever intended for a videogame.

“Being just so happy and fired up that we were making this thing basically from scratch and doing virtually whatever we wanted, we had this weird arrogance about the whole thing,” Boyarsky recalls. “‘People are gonna love it, and if they don’t love it they don’t get it.’

“Part of it was a punk rock ethos of, every time we came up with an idea and thought, ‘Wow, no-one would ever do that’, we always wanted to push it further. We chased that stuff and got all excited, like we were doing things we weren’t supposed to be doing.”

The team laugh at the idea that Fallout might have carried some kind of message (“Violence solves problems,” Caine suggests). To these kids of the ‘80s, nuclear holocaust felt like immediate and obvious thematic material. The game’s development was guided by a mantra, however.

“It was the consequence of action,” Caine puts it. “Do what you want, so long as you can accept the consequences.”

Fallout lets you shoot up all you want. But if you get addicted, that will become a problem for you, one you’ll have to cope with. The team were keen not to force their own views onto players, and decided the best way to avoid that was with an overriding moral greyness. The Brotherhood of Steel - in Fallout 3, a somewhat heroic group policing the wasteland - were here in the first game simply as preservationists or, more uncharitably, hoarders. Even The Master, the closest thing Fallout had to a villain, was driven by a well-intentioned desire to bring unity to the wasteland. His name, pre-mutation, was ‘Richard Grey’.

“Everyone needed to have flaws and positive points,” Taylor says. “That way the player could have better, stronger interactions whichever way they went.”

Although the GURPS ruleset eventually fell by the wayside, the Fallout team were determined to replicate the tabletop experience they loved - in which players don’t always do what their Game Master would like. They filled their maps with multiple quest solutions and stuffed the game with thousands of words of alternative dialogue. “The hard part was making sure there was no character that couldn’t finish the game,” Caine says.

Fallout’s dedication to its sandbox is still striking, and only lately matched by the likes of Divinity: Original Sin 2. It was a simulation that enabled unforeseen possibilities.

“I am shocked that people got Dogmeat to live till the end of the game,” Taylor says. “Dogmeat was never supposed to survive. You had to do some really strange things and go way out of your way to do so, but people did.”

During development, a QA tester came to the team with a problem: you could put dynamite on children.

“Where you see a problem…,” Urquhart says. He is joking, of course, yet the ability to plant dynamite - achieved by setting a timer on the explosive and reverse pickpocketing an NPC - became a supported part of the game and the foundation of a quest. This was a new kind of player freedom, matched only by the freedom the team felt themselves.

“We were really, really fortunate,” Boyarsky says. “No-one gets the opportunity we had to go off in a corner with a budget and a team of great, talented people and make whatever we wanted. That kind of freedom just doesn’t exist.

“We were almost 30, so we were old enough to realise what we had going on. A lot of people say, ‘I didn’t realise how good it was until it was over’. Every day when I was making Fallout I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this’. And I even knew in the back of my head that it was never going to be that great again.”

Once Fallout came out, it was no longer the strange project worked on in the shadows with little to no oversight. It was a franchise with established lore that was getting a sequel. It wasn’t long before Boyarsky, Caine, and Anderson left to form their own RPG studio, Troika.

“We knew Fallout 1 was the pinnacle,” Boyarsky says. “We felt like to continue on with it under changed circumstances would possibly leave a bad taste in our mouths. We were so happy and so proud of what we’d done that we didn’t want to go there.”

Fallout is larger than this clique now. Literally, in fact: the vault doors Boyarsky once drew in isometric intricacy are now rendered in imposing 3D in Bethesda’s sequels. And yet Boyarksy, Taylor, and Caine now work under the auspices of Obsidian, a studio that has its own, more recent, history with the Fallout series. Should the opportunity arise again, would they take it?

“I’m not sure, to be very honest,” Taylor says. “I loved working on Fallout. It was the best team of people I ever worked with. I think it’s grown so much bigger than myself that I would feel very hesitant to work on it nowadays. I would love to work on a Fallout property, like a board game, but working on another computer game might be too much.”

Boyarsky shares his reservations: that with the best intentions, these old friends could get started on something and tarnish their experience of Fallout.

“It would be very hard for us to swallow working on a Fallout game where somebody else was telling you what you could and couldn’t do,” he expands. “I would have a really hard time with someone telling me what Fallout was supposed to be. I’m sure that it would never happen because of the fact that I would have that issue.”

Urquhart - now Obsidian’s CEO - is at pains to point out that Bethesda were nothing but supportive partners throughout the making of Fallout: New Vegas, requesting only a handful of tiny tweaks to Obsidian’s interpretation of its world. “I’ve got to be explicit in saying we are not working on a new Fallout,” he says. “But I absolutely would.”

Caine has mainly built his career by working on original games rather than sequels: Fallout, Arcanum, Wildstar, and Pillars of Eternity. But he would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about working on another Fallout.

“I’ve had a Fallout game in my head since finishing Fallout 1 that I’ve never told anyone about,” he admits. “But it’s completely designed, start to finish. I know the story, I know the setting, I know the time period, I know what kind of characters are in it. It just sits in the back of my head, and it’s sat there for 20 years. I don’t think I ever will make it, because by now anything I make would not possibly compare to what’s in my head. But it’s up there.”

[uglymanchronicles]

UMC:R Chapter 5: Compiling

A lazy first-person ‘journal entry’ chapter.  Merry Christmas.  There’ll probably be one more chapter before the prequel arc is done.

Uh, okay, testing. Test. Tes-tiiiing. Alright. Uh, this is Evan Abrams and it’s… May 18th. So it’s been a week since I, uh, ‘woke up’, and I think I’ve got my head wrapped around this whole situation. I’m recording this as a kind of way to, you know, make sure everything’s in order, that I’ve got my plans together, all that. Plus, if I suffer another, uh, memory loss or something, I want an easy summary on hand. I don’t want to have to spend another week playing catch-up with my own life.

So, to summarize, a week ago today I found myself in a bar in Arizona with no memory of how I got there. I eventually figured out that I’d basically erased about three months of my memory through some hideous DIY surgery. I’m still not sure exactly why I did this to myself, and I seem to have sanitized the notes I kept from those missing months to keep myself from figuring it out.

Shit, I’m not doing this very well. The big picture is, I apparently discovered that the… supernatural? Is real. That word sounds wrong for describing this type of thing. But there’s magic, and monsters, and people with special abilities… I have so many notes about all kinds of things, I’m honestly amazed by the sheer volume of data I was able to gather.  I did it really well, too, really professional, I…

Okay, don’t get caught up in sucking your own dick, Evan. Oh yeah, that reminds me—sometime during the missing time I got really fucked up. Like, physically. My face looks like an old steak. Not sure how that happened. A few serious wounds on the rest of my body, too, but here’s the good news. Remember how I mentioned special powers? Apparently I’ve had one my whole life, but something ramped it up recently. I heal very quickly. The process leaves some serious scars, it seems, but the internal healing seems flawless. I have no residual pain from what I’m pretty sure are gunshot wounds.  Even if it’s been three months, that shouldn’t be possible. I hit my head really bad a few days ago and minutes later there was no sign of any injury. No pain, no mark, no blood except what got in my hair. According to my notes, my body can recover from near-mortal injuries in hours, if not minutes. Apparently it ‘focuses’, if you can assign some kind of intent to a biological process, on making me functional and mobile as soon as possible, so it rushes the skin repair. Keep me from losing too much blood, prevent infection, make sure it doesn’t get worse. I guess it scars up so bad because of that, but I think that’s a fair price to pay for being extremely durable.

This all kinda brings me back around to what my plan is going forward. I really hit the weights hard these past few months and I’m fucking huge now. My pre-brain erasure self got into a pretty serious exercise routine—at least two hours a day. I was worried it’d be a pain in the ass, but my body seems to remember the movements. It feels good. I’m so strong now, and I’ve been doing yoga and a bunch of really tough stretches and, well, I feel amazing. I feel like I could be sexy. Except for the face, I mean. Oh, uh, and I checked, it didn’t heal old injuries, so no improvement below the belt.  Oh well. Maybe there’s a possibility out there.

Okay… enough about that. I keep getting distracted. There’s just so much to take in. The reason I’ve been bulking up and did all this is because I decided to do something about… well, the intersection of the ‘normal’ world and this new one. Not go out hunting monsters or magic-users or whatever, but… just protect people who can’t defend themselves from things like that. Be an equalizing factor. Give people some protection from things they don’t even know they need protection from. Maybe keeping some of the bad things at bay will let things really improve for the world, you know?

But I can’t do that just by being buff and unkillable, though it certainly helps.  I can’t help people just by throwing myself into this metaphorical meat grinder. So I somehow got my hands on something called The Book of Fate, which is the lynchpin to some kind of magic ritual that will make me, if my notes and the translations are correct, an “Agent of Karma”. Apparently the people who devised this thing—over literal millennia, mind you—believed that the universe, reality, everything, whatever, actually wants to be a just place, but it can’t directly intervene in its own self. Like how we can’t actually directly fight our own diseases, we have to trust in our body’s internal systems to deal with them. Anyway, these people believed that the moral arc of the universe actually does bend towards justice, and all this research, experimentation, and sacrifice they did was to give someone the power to actually do what needs done. To make sure good things happen to good people, bad things to bad people, mercy and justice metered out appropriately, all that jazz. Apparently it’s supposed to allow the… user? To develop great supernatural abilities as they act in accordance with “the will of the Universe” or something like that.

That sounds amazing and everything, but a lot of it’s pretty vague on the kind of powers you get or how you’ll even know what constitutes “the will of the Universe”. There are some mentions of being granted extraordinary senses or awareness, but again, vague. I don’t like the idea of playing judge, jury, and executioner… if I have to fight people or things to make things right, I’ll do it, but… just enough to handle the things that are outside of existing systems. I don’t want to make people think that society is obsolete and can’t protect them. I’ll just… you know, handle the things that the normal world isn’t equipped to handle.

God, I hope I don’t have to kill anyone.

Uh, anyway, one thing the research made clear is that I won’t have any difficulty finding trouble, at least. My earlier self wrote about a concept called an “entropy sink”, which is apparently what I’ll become in addition to being an “agent of Karma”. Apparently, by fighting bad shit I’ll be soaking up that entropy, that chaos and evil created by said bad shit, which in turn will make more bad shit tend to happen to me. That sounds miserable, but better it happens to the big strong guy with super-healing than to some poor kid playing in their back yard, right?

I’m not worried about that part. The more good I do, the more bad I find, but the stronger I get. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

So, uh… most of my ‘normal’ work has been automated by this point. My Amalgorithms (note to self, check on the progress on that trademark applications) seem to have been improved a bit recently, so past me wasn’t just focusing on the superhero stuff. They can probably handle any projects that come my way, but I think I’m going to stop putting out so many feelers for now. Might need to start working on the Blaccat project again, though; I may need to take some extra-legal measures sometime in the future, depending on which way this goes. I’m sure there will be times when I need some information that’s not, uh, public.

So I keep finding little hide-aways I apparently carved out of some of the empty spaces in the RV. I’ve found a couple of serious guns, a lot of ammo, and a lot of… pharmaceutical.  I am committing so many felonies just by knowing about this car.  But I apparently also built several, well, let’s call them tools.  Like a suit of low-profile body armor I 3D-printed and wired together.  I have no idea if that works or not and I’m not keen to find out, but the old me’s notes seem sound.  I guess I’ll find out if somebody shoots me and I wind up with a wound full of weird plastic discs.  

I think I’ve said all I need to say.  Most of the ingredients for the Book’s ritual are gathered, and I’ve already rented a cabin out in the middle of nowhere to perform this thing.  Apparently the moon needs to be a waxing crescent for this to work, so I’m going to have to wait a couple weeks to actually perform it, but I’m going to get everything set up in the meantime.  The only thing I really have reservations about is that the ritual needs a ‘focus’, and it apparently has to be something with great emotional significance to me.  The obvious answer is Mr. Nex, but… I don’t know if the focus survives the process. All the other ingredients get used up, apparently, but nothing says anything about the focus… do you think it’s what he’d want?  If he was actually alive and knew all he would know about me, having been by my side my entire life?  God, listen to me.  I’m 27 years old and I’m having a crisis over a stuffed giraffe.  But… I guess he wouldn’t be of great emotional significance if the thought of giving him up was easy.  I’ll either figure something out or suck it up.  There are greater things at stake here than my feelings.

God, I’m gonna have to kill someone, aren’t I.

[tonysladky]

From my other blog

(Reposted, in case tonysladky.com gets hacked again)

Okay, I’ve admitted this to myself a million times, but never said it publicly:

I never wanted to be a 3D artist. I never enjoyed it. I never wrapped my head around all the abstractions in 3D art (shaders, any map less straightforward than a diffuse or specular map), never came close to figuring out the right poly-count on the rare occasions when I even got close to getting something into an engine (but hoo boy do I know how to freak out about poly-counts…).

I’ve spent my entire life poring over books of concept art, for pretty much everything I could get my hands on. I’ve always loved seeing that what-if: the wildly different ships we might have seen in Star Wars, the completely un-prawn-like aliens that eventually became the creatures from District 9, the countless designs that eventually got finessed into the weapons of one of the dwarves from The Hobbit, literally any piece of mass entertainment media whose concept art I could find. That’s what I always wanted to do.

And it’s that first point that holds the majority of the key to why I’ve gone two and a half years without using my blog (and why hackers have spent more time here than I have, hence one of my last posts is just gone…), why I improved at a glacial pace and wound up backsliding pretty regularly.

But, at the same time that I knew I wanted to be a concept artist, I also wanted to work in video games. And as a listless teenager, I latched onto the most prestigious school I could find offering a major with the word “game” in its name. This major, in a supremely poor fit for me, was split off from a phenomenal computer animation program and, especially in its infancy, focused overwhelmingly on the 3D side of things. For— I’m pretty sure, last I heard— everyone else graduating from that first class, that wasn’t a problem. They either developed the knack and passion for 3D to get that career, or figured out enough on the side to get into a related position (the folks who went on to become tech artists, game designers etc.). I didn’t. I didn’t get it, didn’t catch that studying on the side, posting my work on forums like Polycount, doing side-projects for the sake of additional learning, tracking down tutorials pretty much constantly, were supposed to be a major part of my education, and I was too caught up in sunk costs and just wanting to be done with school to even consider switching majors or schools to find something that would actually teach me what I wanted to do, or at least not waste so much money that I didn’t have.

(Don’t get me wrong: I’m not calling out my school. The fact that it seemed to have worked for the rest of my class and for every subsequent class that I remain in touch with, suggests that it is indeed a good school and a good program for students who weren’t me.)

And so I graduated, after four years of probably straight C’s, with a mediocre portfolio demonstrating modest skills in something I didn’t actually want to do. Much like the proverbial person who tries to get into QA and work their way into the job they actually want, I had this notion that I would buckle down, build a slightly less crappy portfolio, get my foot in the door as a 3D artist and start learning concept art on the side until I could get the job I actually wanted.

You can guess how many of those steps happened. Oh, I came close. I tried a variety of techniques over the years to cut down procrastination, started a lot of projects aimed at going back to the fundamentals and finally grokking 3D art, did a handful of art tests and sent out my resume and portfolio all over the place.

The one thing that never happened was the one that’s probably closest to the root of my problems, at least where art is concerned: Admitting that 3D wasn’t what I wanted to do, and wasn’t something I enjoyed. As long as those two things were true, I was never going to get better, never going to get employable, never create art, never feel like I’m not lying through my teeth when I call myself an artist.

So there it is: Creating 3D art for games is not my jam. It’s not my passion, it’s not what I want to do with my life. It’s something I haven’t touched for two years and will be okay with never touching again if it comes to that. I don’t see a future for me in creating 3D art.

I’ve always regretted not learning to paint, digitally or otherwise. I’ve always regretted that I didn’t see where Game Art & Design was heading with our first class and say “You know, I think I want to switch to Illustration.” I’ve always regretted that it wasn’t until senior year that I even figured out Gnomon was a thing, much less a resource at Ringling’s library.

And it’s been very hard lately. I let myself be convinced to try being a ski bum, which is a brutally expensive lifestyle. When I get a break from a 60+ hour workweek, the last thing I want to do is bang my head against the wall, creating art that’s nowhere near the standards I hold myself to.

Going forward, I am going to take the first baby steps into learning the skills and pursuing the artistic career I actually want. There will probably, eventually, be some redesigns of this blog to be more "concept art" and more "anything I've been doing more recently than 2011", and I guess more frequent updates, especially once I get into either creating more art digitally or just get better equipped to post sketchbook pages (currently I have to either take a terrible cellphone picture or carve out a chunk of time to scan stuff at the library).

So, yeah, it already feels better to admit what I’m actually after instead of pretending I’m interested in a field I’m not. Now I just gotta keep this motivation going.

Anyone got any resources they’d recommend to the beginning self-taught concept artist?

[advrik]

A Farmer’s Recollection ~ Harvest Moon 20th Anniversary Celebration :: Part 1 [1998]

Last year - 2016 - was the 20th anniversary of the series in Japan. It didn’t get much traction here in the states obviously, but this year Natsume is hyping up the event with some big surprises and even its own hashtag: 

#HarvestMoon20th

And so, being the nostalgia junkie that I am, I am going to dive back into my past with the Harvest Moon series using my freakishly accurate long term memory. If you read my Zelda: Ocarina of Time Recollection [http://blu-cup.com/post/155697199530] then you will know what to expect from this.

Part 2: http://blu-cup.com/post/157175362955

Disclaimer: I have not actually played each and every game despite owning them all, so expect things to get skimpy post 2000. Also, though the series first hit the states in 1997, I didn’t actually play one until 1998.

A long, long time ago. In a front yard located somewhere in America. It was a hazy, late summer day in 1998, and a 10-year old me was about to flip through to a page in a gaming magazine that changed my gaming landscape forever.

It’s time to dive into the wayback machine.

Prologue [Summer 1998]

The sky looked like it could break at any time, but I didn’t care too much. I was 10 years old and everything was great. I sat on a wooden bench swing that hung from an arch that my father built the previous year, flipping the pages at an old gaming magazine. What the publication was I do not remember, but I keep thinking Gamepro or Gamefan. Beside me sat my favorite wooden sword that I used to save the world daily with, which I still have to this very day; Albeit in a broken and weathered state. 

My nephew had come to visit for the summer as he always did. And while I flipped through the pages of the magazine, he and my other siblings played around. 

I had always been a sort of lover of nature and homely things. A lot of the games I’d play as a kid always had me and my siblings living in a small village and just going about village life, void of danger but high on adventure. Like tasks that involved us taking care of animals, or traveling far from the village(aka, your back yard) to collect ingredients for food. That sort of enjoyment of that sort of life started very early on, with myself even halting progression in RPGs just to form little stories for myself as I hung around the villages. Secret of Mana and A Link to the Past were two such titles I did that a lot with. It’s no wonder really that I love Animal Crossing as much as I do.

With that knowledge, imagine how I must have felt when flipping over to this magical dual advertisement that advertised two upcoming Gameboy games on a single page.

 Rise up with the sun, water the crops, feed the animals and visit town all before lunchtime.*

There were a few screenshots of Harvest Moon GB set in front of the cover art that was blown up to cover much of the page. It billed the game as a “Farming RPG” and that blew my little mind. It sounded like a concept that was made for me, I knew I had to have it. Down below that was the second half of the ad: One for Legend of the River King, which was advertised as a Fishing RPG. I always loved fishing growing up and even owned a few games for the SNES, so I knew I had to have it too.

My Christmas list for the year was basically made up at that point: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Harvest Moon GB, Legend of the River King GB and Pokemon Red Version.

Fast forward to the end of August. It’s a cool Sunday morning and some early autumn air was creeping alongside summer breeze. It’s my grandmothers birthday and everyone in the house is gearing up to go out and do some noontime shopping. I was sitting on the couch in the den, watching an old repeat of Waynehead when my father calls me out to the side of the house to show me a dead snake he found. Classic dad.   After that, we’re all ready and we head out to town. Our first stop is at Hollywood Video with their awesome $5 for 1 Week rental deal. I head straight for the SNES games as I always did, which at this point the selection was quickly dwindling, being overrun by PSX and (to a lesser extent) Nintendo 64. 

That’s when I see it: An actual Super Nintendo version of Harvest Moon. I didn’t think that I would actually have it, let alone actually finding it for rent. But sure enough, sitting behind that beautiful box art was an empty plastic case that signaled that it was in stock and available. I quickly snatched it up and took it up to the checkout counter, handed them the $6 my father gave me and then made a bolt out the door and back to the family van.

Harvest Moon SNES [Summer 1998]

While the rental copy of Harvest Moon at Hollywood Video was eventually stolen, I ended up with this copy via my nephew whom found it at a pawn shop years later. I like to believe that it is the stolen copy I rented in 1998 and it somehow found its way back to me.

With game in hand, we completed our chores for that day and then headed home. We had bought a cake and some ice cream for my grandmother, but at that point I was only thinking about one thing: Farming my heart out.

I wasted zero time in plugging that bad boy into my Super Nintendo, which was sitting beside my TV in front of the only window in my room. I sat atop my bed and my nephew sat on the floor and watched me play for a good three hours. I made it all the way to the first summer and was doing very poorly. Barely cleared any of my farm, had a few crops growing, no friendships. I think I was just enjoying this new found freedom that I had yet to experience in any game before it; living out my days from dusk to dawn, dancing in the rain, foraging for wild food, caring for animals and my small garden. It was an experience that I knew I had to own, that I wanted to experience often. I knew that I needed the Gameboy release.

The last thing I remember of my very first playthrough was my nephew and I trying to grow the biggest tomato possible. We had no idea that it couldn’t be done, but it was that sort of experimenting that I enjoyed and still enjoy to this day.

In 1999, I managed to rent the game again and this time I made some legit progress, managing to upgrade my house and even visit the Golden Chicken. I at one point had the run on a VHS tape, but recorded over it with You Lucky Dog for some stupid reason.

I got so into Harvest Moon that decided I wanted to be a farmer for the 1998~1999 time period. We had a custom built storage shed in the corner of the backyard that I was going to convert into a chicken coop so that I could buy some chickens to raise. I wanted to start my own garden and start getting up later than 10am when I didn’t have school. I even bought one of those little farm playsets that came with a little farmer, various animals and some accessories inside of a plastic silo. It was pretty sweet.

Harvest Moon GB [Christmas, 1998]

Christmas 1998 was the Christmas that would change the lives of millions of kids and set in motion the gears of the biggest franchise we’re ever likely see in our lifetime. 

Now 11-years old (and none the wiser), I was hyped for Christmas. Early December that year was pretty chill, weather-wise. A lot of cold, dark days. It remained that way right up to the week of Christmas, where we got hit with a pretty big ice storm that left us not with a white Christmas, but a cold, crackly one. Luckily, no power was lost.

The gifts I received for Christmas that year were all pretty great. A few Zelda figures, An airsoft gun, some rollerblades. Even an air hockey table! ...that we eventually left out in the rain. Oh and a few little games you probably never heard of: Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Pokemon Red Version, Legend of the River King. Oh and Harvest Moon GB.

It was finally in my possession! A Harvest Moon game to call my very own. It was the sweetest thing ripping off that wrapping paper and seeing those two farmers sitting atop that stack of crops. Finally there would be no rushing to see everything in the game as I now owned it for myself and could take things at a slower pace.

Only, it wasn’t the same game. The layout of the farm, the music and the way it played were all the same, but there was no town that you could traverse or a mountainside to forage in. Only a menu-based town with six buildings you could ‘visit’ and some dank mines underneath your tool shed.

But you know what? It did not matter in the least. There was a Harvest Moon game sitting in my Super Gameboy and it was mine, all mine. And boy, did I ever play it a lot. In-between Pokemon and Ocarina of Time sessions, I was tending to crops and caring for animals and clearing out my fields! Grampa was giving me mad praise... for the first two year. I never did quite achieve Ranch Master until a few years back when the game hit the 3DS Virtual Console. I never obtained the pick-axe or umbrella, just the fishing pole and farm extensions. 

I remember shortly after Christmas, while I was stumbling around on the strange world that was the internet. We had only owned a PC for a few weeks at that point and I was just learning how to browse away from the AOL homepage. Heck I still remember having to ask my parents to take me to “that places that sells stuff” just so I could look at toys and game that people had for sale. eBay was a much different place back then.

I learned of Gamefaqs pretty early on, and it was there that I discovered a glitch that was found in the original black and white version of the game, and that was if you watered the egg that sat closest to the shipping bin, it would glitch out and you could pick it up an unlimited number of times, effectively giving you an unlimited amount of money.

Harvest Moon GB kept me busy for a good year, up until around the time that Harvest Moon 64 came out  in 1999. More on that in part 2 of ‘A Farmer’s Recollection’. 

And so concludes the origin story of how I found my way onto the fields that Marvelous and Natsume had cultivated for me. In the next issue, I delve into the Golden Years of the series and focus on 1999 and 2000 with the releases of Harvest Moon 64 and Harvest Moon: Back to Nature and the tears and annoyances that surrounded my quest to obtain them.

[aurimeanswind]

Quick Thoughts: Switch & Breath of the Wild

Editor’s Note: the first half of this was written early in the evening with just hands on time setting up and playing around with the Switch. The second half was written later after time with Zelda.

So I got my Switch a day early today. The graceful lords over at Amazon Were kind enough to bestow it upon me just a full day ahead of schedule. I got to get some hands on with it, just pretty much set it up before work but of course I had to run off to work and will be seeing Logan, so by the time this posts I will probably have already done a stream and played around with it. I thought it'd be fun to just give my first raw impressions of it, and then add on a bit after I've played some stuff on it.

First thoughts: wow, this is some good hardware. It was like the first time I felt the Dualshock 4 or had the PS4 added to my set up. Right out of the gate, it just felt like some excellently made first generation hardware. The only thing that surprised me or threw me off were how small the analogous sticks were on the Joycon. Aside from that, it was all excellent.

One of the first things I needed to know for myself was: how is the Joycon Grip. I am not lucky enough to have gotten a pro controller, so I needed to know if my primary means of play was going to be good enough. It was actually a lot better than I thought. I have medium-to-large sized hands, so it was a comfortable middle ground for me. Not too narrow. Not too odd either. I haven't played any games with it yet, but I'm excited to, which is more than I could have said before.

I also love the interface. As a console, navigation is slick and easy to understand, with really great visuals to go with it. I wasn't surprised; this stuff has been online for weeks, but the tactile response of it all was just great. It's the first time I think I have ever felt “great” about a Nintendo interface.

Some time later...

Okay, so I’ve spent a little under four hours playing on my Switch, primarily in TV mode, with The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. When I was playing I thought of essentially the perfect way I would want to start my eventual review of Breath of the Wild, talking about all the importance of the series, the fanboyism, etc, etc. I don’t want to give that away here, since I think it’s pretty good, but I’ll just establish this out of the gate: I am a massive fan of Zelda. A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds are some of my favorites, with Majora’s Mask representing probably my favorite 3D Zelda game. It’s the Dark Horse answer, I know, but it was the first 3D Zelda, having gone back and played through all of them again recently, that really broke the format. (note: to be fair, it was the second 3D Zelda just in general)

Suffice to say, Breath of the Wild has completely changed everything.

There are the two halves of me; the one that loves Zelda and the kinds of innovations it brings to video games, and has brought to games in the past, mixing with the critic in me that doesn’t want to get too carried away too quickly. There isn’t a Zelda game that I dislike, even Zelda II, but I try and approach everything from a critical standpoint. I am going to discuss Zelda in some pretty blanket terms, as I’ve read quite a few reviews from some of my favored writers, and I want to actually talk about the game. I will keep this as spoiler free as I can, of course, but bear in mind everything I have seen has been from absolutely only the first area, and I know a great many things about the format beyond that that I won’t even discuss here.

So I just wrapped on The Great Plateau, which for those who don’t know is the starting area. Link awakens from some resurrection chamber, is sprung into the world, and that’s it. You meet a mysterious old man who starts giving you tips, and complete a few things on the plateau, and then it’s off to the open world.

Some things about this that I didn’t expect: it can really be as guided or not as you want. I spent a lot of time talking to the Old Man, and he serves as a sort of optional tutorial, but not on trivial things like how to Z-Target, shit we’ve known for almost two decades of video games thanks to Zelda, but system stuff, like lighting fires, cutting down trees to make bridges or gather materials (things that have never been in Zelda games before) and most importantly, COOKING. I could imagine totally missing this, but I poked around in the Old Man’s house, which didn’t occur, mind you, until I had been running around the Plateau for over an hour fucking up Bokoblin camps, and discovered his diary. In his diary he wrote about cooking up some meal that made him warmer, so he wouldn’t need some old clothing he used to have that kept him warm in the colder areas of the plateau. He ends up forgetting the last ingredient, only remembering two of the three parts to it, and upon inspection, the Old Man can give you a full cooking instruction. But only because I probed around a bit!

Past this, you can find the Old Man getting up to a ton of shenanigans through the world. He was hunting boar, cutting down trees, gazing from a mountain top, and by talking to him in these instances, he’d give me different contextual hints. I knew going into this cooking and heat-control were important mechanics, so I spent the next hour or so trying to find this damn missing ingredient. Mind you, it was very obvious, I just forgot one important clue, but upon experimenting and recreating his recipe, I was joyous! I did it! And I got the warm doublet as a reward, meaning I could venture into the cold peak of the plateau without the need for warming food. Awesome!

This wasn’t some formal sidequest added to a questlog (though there is a quest log for the first time[?] in a Zelda game), it was just something I decided to make my goal. And I dicked around a ton in this one area alone. Fighting monsters. Dying a handful of times. Just experimenting, finding treasure. It was genuinely adventurous and fun. It may be preemptive to say, but it’s the most wonderous feeling a game has gotten out of me in a while.

Horizon, the other game I’ve been primarily playing this week, is very different. I’ve been enjoying the combat in that game the most. Fighting stuff and learning their weaknesses has been massively rewarding. This? This feels like an adventure. It feels lighthearted but challenging in a way that that game doesn’t bring out of me. Two different things that I am enjoying a great deal, but this just immediately has me much more. Part of that may be the Zelda name, but really it’s the quiet, wide wonderment. I don’t want to make some uncouth comparison of the two too early, since they are soooo different, but I’m already thinking in my head what one is doing and the other isn’t. But enough about that.

The goal of this starting area that the Old Man gives you is to find the treasure in the four shrines on the plateau. Each has an item that it gives you, totally to four, which represents, from what I understand, your complete arsenal for the whole game. That’s kind of nuts. They’re cool tools though, kind of a reimagining of items from past Zelda games (both 2D and 3D) with wholly new concepts thrown on top.

Now I decided to pop this bad boy out of the dock and play one of the shrines in handheld mode and whooooooa boy. That was magical. I legit, out loud, to no one said, ‘holy shit this is amazing,’ just at the marvel of holding this massive game I had on my TV in my hand. I have toted that I will probably not play the Switch very much in handheld mode, and this is true, I have a lot of trouble getting comfortable playing handheld games. It’s just my whole life. I love my Vita to death, and I play it way more on planes than my 3DS, even if it is half-broken, but I just get super uncomfortable with it. This feels sturdy and hefty in a way that I want to lug it into my bed and curl up with it like I did with my Vita and the very first Danganronpa. The mere idea of Breath of the Wild anywhere I go, and past that other major Nintendo games (Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem in a glorious console form) has me stoked. Again, I probably won’t use it that much, but the magic of taking it out and putting it right back on my TV again was genuinely impressive.

Okay, this is longer than I’d hoped it would be, but the only other thing I wanted to mention is minorly story related. I won’t spoil it, but I understand if you want to avert your eyes. After finishing the Plateau, a task that could easily take an hour and a half, which I turned into almost four (thanks to dicking around), you’re treated with the first fully-voiced cutscene of the game, which was great, but like... They laid out a whole lot more right away than I was expecting. You need the paraglider you get after the scene to get off the plateau, so it is a mandatory scene, unlike just about everything else in the game, but I was taken aback by how the world, who you were, and what happened was generally explained. I mean, there are still a ton of lingering questions in my head, don’t get me wrong, but now I’m filled with all of this story info that I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT just a few short hours into the game. You know a pretty good deal right off the bat, so I’m impressed this stuff hasn’t crept out there. It was more of a what happened, but not a how it happened, if that makes sense? I’m very curious to see the arc of this game.

Well anyway, I have today (Friday) off, so I’m just gonna forgo sleep and lose myself to Hyrule. I am really, really enjoying my time with this game. Playing it in TV mode, I will say there have been a great deal of framerate drops. Nothing major, no full stops, but it happens. It’s noticeable. Doesn’t really bother me, because it hasn’t ruined anything for me, but I wanted to throw that out there too. Anyway, back to Hyrule I go.

[scrawnydutchman]

My Top 10 favorite animated features

So in case it somehow wasn’t obvious to the followers of my Blog and my other social networking (follow me on twitter @Tomjvank and subsribe to my youtube channel @TomboTime), I friggin LOVE animation. Quite possibly the world’s most innovative, commercialized and yet surprisingly underappreciated art form all at the same time, the movement of pictures is, always has been and always will be an accessible and yet enlightening art form that speaks of human imagination, interaction and character on a level unachievable by any other art. Whether it’s 2d hand drawn, 2d rigged puppet, stop motion or 3d, animation is always a wonder to behold, and while there are DEFINITELY terrible animated products out there the stuff that’s good far outweighs the bad. Also, while animation trends may come and go with 2d being out and 3d being in and so on and so forth, truly triumphant works of art remain relevant and timeless for their audiences, however big or small, for their entire lives. So we’re going to look at my current 10 choices for my favorite animated features.

Before we go into it, let’s clarify some things: While there are very innovative giants on this list, this should not be considered the best animated films EVER. This is completely my opinion and is based on many subjective variables such as, but not limited to; the impact they had on me as a kid, how many times i rewatched them and what I remember about them. Not to mention how quickly they came to mind when writing up this list. Of course I’ll be considering more objective variables such as the impact they had on the industry as a whole, but expect a pretty bizarre order. These are NOT in order of objective quality, they are in order of how much they impacted me personally. without further ado, let’s get started.

10. Fantastic Mr. Fox

So fun fact about this list; Akira used to be in this spot when I first made it. But upon completion of this blog I suddenly remembered one of the most charming, unique and well delivered pieces of stop motion ever put on film. I don’t have anything against Akira, in fact I think it’s brilliantly made and lovably eerie and action packed and I appreciate the impact it had on the industry. But I only really thought of it when I couldn’t think of anything else at the time. I remembered this movie suddenly afterwards and realized I made a mistake. It seems silly but it’s true. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a lovable retelling of Roald Dahl’s novel of the same name but adds quite a bit of charm not previously there. A wonderfully dynamic cast of some of the most popular and talented actors around brings to life this unique, distinct and delightful romp of which frankly, nothing else is like it. Plus it’s incredibly funny with surreal bits reminiscent of Wallace and Gromit as well as some nice deadpan delivery and an attitude adults will especially enjoy (in fact I think this movie would entertain adults more then kids, but that said it IS child friendly). Also this movie has the funniest outburst of anger ever put in a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6xoL76TbnQ

Check it out; it’s a cussin’ good time.

9. The Thief and the Cobbler (THE RECOBBLED CUT)

Emphasis on “The Recobbled cut”. This movie is nothing less then a tragedy incarnate. I mean that in the most sentimental way possible. It’s difficult to wrap up this movies 30+ years of development hell in a single paragraph, but I’ll see if I can do it.

Basically this was SUPPOSED to be the animated magnum opus of legendary animator Richard Williams (who is one of the most innovative animators in the industry who wrote the fabulous educational book on how to animate called The Animators Survival Kit and is also the animation director for a film coming up later in this list). He began production on this film in 1964, but due to budget complications it was going in and out of production for 3 decades. To make things worse, Disney got word of Williams’ passion project about the animated retelling of an Arabian Night and decided to create their own commercially viable version of it and release it before he could so they could take credit for the idea (And that’s where Disney’s Aladdin came from). What followed is a bunch of heavily edited, alternatively named versions of the same movie including an infamous Miramax version in 1995 that decided it would be a good idea to give an intentionally silent protagonist the voice of Matthew Broderick that frankly, would not shut the hell up throughout the whole thing.

But then there began production of “The Recobbled Cut”, which is the closest to Richard Williams’ original vision that utilizes unfinished cels and linework to tell the story the way it was meant to be told. I emplore you, WATCH THIS VERSION. In fact, here’s the link to the vimeo right here:

 https://vimeo.com/156616168 

It’s artistically spectacular, wonderfully surreal and colorful and the motion is nothing short of enchanting. It’s so good it managed to land a spot on this list in spite of being unfinished (though that does keep it quite a ways below). Not to mention it features the last performance of legendary actor Vincent Price upon release. I can’t recommend it enough, especially since we can’t let all of Richard Williams’ hard work go to waste.

8. The Nightmare Before Christmas

 Ah yes. Hot Topic regulars rejoice! The film that only did okay in the box office but has one of the most active and passionate cult followings I’ve ever witnessed, and rightfully so. An enchanting stop motion romp with unforgettable visuals, music I’ve memorized all the lyrics to, lovable characters in both personality and design as well as a beautifully simple yet original storyline, this movie is simple childlike joy. It’s not particularly complex or thought provoking but dammit, it just has an irresistible charm. Plus it proves that high quality entertainment that takes risks and goes in over it’s head CAN be profitable long after release. I mean think about it; this movie sparked an entire franchise of cult merchandise still relevant several years later AND IT’S JUST ONE MOVIE. that’s a hard feat to recapture. plus it’s a technical marvel with hundreds of unique faces for Jack and iconic setting and cinematography. I get warm just thinking about this movie.

7. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Good God, speaking of technical marvels. THIS is the highly innovative work of Richard Williams I was referring to when talking about Thief and the Cobbler. The movie that jaw-droppingly meshes wonderfully slick and fluid animation with live action in a way that feels like an hour and a half long magic trick and meshes it with a funny and original noir movie premise, this critically acclaimed masterpiece is the ultimate love letter to cartoons. Hundreds of little historical references to the medium scattered around the movie, little in jokes, plus the utilization of some of the most iconic and memorable cartoon characters to ever be shown on screen ALL from different companies ALL in the same movie. How surreal was it to see Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny on screen at the same time?? Not to mention hilarious performances from the live actors, particularly Christopher Lloyd. This movie had a concept presumed to be impossible at it’s time, but the animation crew had SUCH attention to detail that in one of the scenes where Roger and Eddie are wrestling they bump a live action lamp, and the real lamp that’s actually there ACTUALLY EFFECTS the lighting of the Roger Rabbit character model in real time. That’s where the animation phrase “bumping the lamp” comes from in the industry. click on this link to see what I’m talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EUPwsD64GI

Overall, it’s a wonderfully done love letter to everything great about cartoons you simply can’t miss out on.

6. Howl’s Moving Castle

Wouldn’t be a very well informed animated feature top 10 if I didn’t have at least ONE Studio Ghibli movie on this list. Most people would pick either Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke when referring to best animated flicks done by Ghibli if not best films of all time. And while I DO like and appreciate both those movies a lot, there’s a connection I have with Howl’s Moving Castle that I don’t have with other Ghibli films I can’t really explain. I don’t know why this movie impacted me more then those other ones did, it’s considered fantastic and among the best of Ghibli for many fans, but most wouldn’t put it before Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. I think the main thing is I went into both those other movies expecting it to live up to all the hype put on them by the people around me, and while I DO certainly agree they both deserve all the praise they get, Howl’s Moving Castle is the one I wasn’t told anything about and so it left me with the most surprises and curiosity. The movie has great animation as Ghibli always does, with BREATHTAKING settings, wonderfully fluid and constantly morphing animation and an overwhelming amount of imagination and whimsy. It’s everything great about Ghibli and it’s an unexpected favorite for myself. Check it out!

5. The Incredibles

For the first 3d animated entry on this list (and only . . . spoilers) what better studio to celebrate then Pixar? Pixar can be credited for paving the way of mainstream animated features for establishing beautifully realistic and thoughtful movies that really capture what the medium is capable of. In my opinion, The Incredibles is the perfect example of what the studio is capable of and is my favorite work of theirs. To be fair I’m probably pretty biased as I’ve loved Superheroes for the vast, VAST majority of my life, but that bias doesn’t change the fact that this movie is action packed, dramatic, thought provoking, philosophical AND goddam hilarious in a way that Pixar hasn’t recaptured in quite some time. This movie celebrates everything great about the Superhero genre while also challenging it and mocking it in a delightful way. I remember reading on the back of the box that someone (can’t remember who) said this movie was X-men, James Bond and Indiana Jones all rolled into one and . . .yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Wonderful textures, great color scheme that knows how to reflect the mood of every given scene, and the faces . . OH MY GOD the faces in this movie are SPECTACULAR. Wonderfully detailed, you can see every hair and every tooth, they just feel so organic, like the facial muscles are really there, and are so funny to look at. Not to mention this is the only Pixar movie that actually makes sense to give a sequel to at this point (Cars 3 . .  . .really??)

4. The Emperor’s New Groove

Okay, so Disney was coming sooner or later. It’s pretty obvious to put SOMETHING made by them on here and EVERYBODY has their favorites. They’ve made so many classics that they can fill an entire list of their own. But for the sake of diversity and a little unpredictability I’ve narrowed my Disney picks down to two selections (foreshadowing). My first is this comedic marvel. Witty, slick, and exploding with personality, The Emperor’s New Groove is an entity that came into fruition by complete accident in the middle of the production of an Incan inspired epic called Empire of the Sun with the leaving and replacing of directors and writers . . . .and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Every casting choice in this movie is spot on, 99.9% of the jokes in this movie are a dead ringer, and it’s a miracle of bizarre and unpredictable decision making creating something great. Disney has a habit of recycling old storytelling tropes, characters and, well . . . straight up animation when budgets are tight. Disney Princess movies are comparable and often times predictable, but Emperor’s New Groove is a breath of fresh air and entirely it’s own entity that cannot be recreated. Also, I shamelessly listen to this movies opening song on the regular. WHAT’S HIS NAME?!?!

3. Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Ladies and gentlemen, the second entry from Disney Studios on this list and the only other one from Disney studios. Now I have to come out and admit that this movie is pretty problematic and objectively, I don’t think it could be considered better or even on par with previous entries on this list. It’s not as tightly written as Emperor’s New Groove, it’s not as well paced as the Incredibles, It’s not as Whimsical as Howl’s Moving Castle. But what this movie gets right, it gets REAAAALLY right. For starters, the scale in this movie is HUGE. the stakes are incredibly large, the choir is captivating, the villain is a maniacal perverted badass, and it’s arguably the darkest entry Disney has ever done (either this or The Black Cauldron). It has stunning angles, great lighting, SOOOO MANY character models on screen at once in certain shots. It has a bit of a tonal problem in that it shifts between happy and very dark jarringly, and with the exception of a FEW jokes it isn’t very funny due to ineffective comic relief (the Gargoyles) but the things this movie does so incredibly well is what stuck with me since I was a kid. I would play this movie at least once a day for a while as a kid and as an adult I identify with it a scary amount. The epic scene where Quasimodo is breaking the chains is etched into the deep crevices of my subconscious. Also character design in this movie is great, with Quasimodo being effectively ugly but easy enough on the eyes to still remain sentimental.

2. Kubo and the Two Strings.

Okay, so anybody who knows me in real life knows that for like a month I would not shut the hell up about this movie. But for those of you who also saw it, can you blame me?? This epic is a technical innovator that brilliantly captures the atmosphere of Japanese culture right down to the nearest detail and has a refreshing yet familiar story that feels so much like ancient folklore; making something that’s been around for generations suddenly seem new. I could go on and on about this movies achievements: the thousands upon thousands of unique faces for the protagonist, the seamless integration of CGI and stop motion, the largest stop motion puppet to ever be featured on film and the first 3d printed puppet to be featured in a movie, it’s SO refreshing to have a movie this challenging and risk taking again. Studio Laika deserves all the praise  they can get for this masterpiece. A lot of people have problems with the story and to be fair, I had my issues with it for a while too, but honestly it’s only as contrived as a Japanese myth, which is what it’s trying to replicate anyway. It’s definitely a style over substance movie, but the style works SOOO well that you can’t deny how friggin impressive it really is, plus the substance is serviceable enough and tells it’s story in a way lets you put variables together as you go along. Plus the casting choices for this movie are SURPRISINGLY good, especially Matthew Mcconaughey. I initially thought he would be the thing that holds this movie back but he’s a surprisingly helpful and charming character that completes the dynamic in this movies trio. I love movies that can take bizarre decisions and make them work, in case you couldn’t tell from my entries.

Honorable mentions before we see number 1: Spirited Away, The Prince of Egypt, Aladdin, The Iron Giant, Princess Mononoke, Akira

1. Song of the Sea

My pick for the number one spot was a real toss up between Song of the Sea and Kubo and the Two Strings. Most likely because they are actually incredibly similar. They’re both highly immersive in their culture, they are both recent releases that unfortunately didn’t do nearly as well in the Box Office as they deserve, and they feature child characters that defeat their antagonists and save their respective days through the use of love and kindness. But ultimately I decided Song of the Sea should be my pick for the number one spot. For one, it’s story is a lot tighter; much simpler, much less contrived and a hell of a lot more nuance. This movies greatest strength in terms of storytelling is it’s allegories and how it presents them, with every main character somehow being a reflection of some ancient celtic tale. It’s story and characters are great and believable and heartwarming, but it’s true strength is it’s animation. Brilliant use of simple geometric character design, wonderful sense of depth perception, brilliant background design that highly resembles Irish aesthetics and architecture (which makes sense because this movie was produced by the Irish studio Cartoon Saloon) which also has lots of adult jokes and imagery scattered around out of sight for the kids btw, and Miyazaki levels of enchanting imagination and color use. If you haven’t seen this yet, drop whatever you’re doing and watch it now. Not only is it in need of some long overdue attention but it will make you a better person by the time you are finished watching it. 

So those are my current picks for my top 10 favorite animated flicks. There are so many classics out there I have yet to see so sometime this list might change, but until then this is what it looks like. If there are any flicks here you haven’t checked out then by all means give them a watch. They most certainly deserve it.

[miloscat]

[Review] Risk of Rain 2 (PC)

My brother and I enjoyed playing the first game so much that we had to try the sequel, and even though it has a whole extra dimension it was just as much fun!

Risk of Rain was a roguelike side-on action platformer with a low-res pixel art aesthetic that I really dug. The sequel is instead 3D but manages to translate much of the content and feeling into quite a different style of gameplay. It’s still a roguelike (you build your character’s power over a single run until death, with randomised elements such as enemy spawns and item drops, and in this case the levels are still mostly predetermined) but now it’s a third person behind-the-back-view shooter, which requires more complex control and movement.

The characters all feel nicely distinct, and naturally will suit different temperaments. I disliked melee range characters or the Artificer, who suits a mouse/keyboard setup and doesn’t really work on controller. My favourites were the Huntress and Engineer who are effective at range but don’t need to be so precise with aiming; MUL-T I also found versatile and fun. Alternate fire modes can be unlocked, incentivising repeat runs with something to work towards, and of course the items you find will shape your build and playstyle.

I find that so much of what I said in the ROR1 review still applies: building momentum on a run is so thrilling, the randomness and potential sudden loss can be maddening. The balance of managing the chaos. Working towards your next unlock. Learning the levels, or trying to (they’re big and confusing)! Discovering the mysteries and secrets. It’s something I love sharing with my bro.

I must emphasise how impressive I found it that so many of the character concepts, monsters, items, etc. (not to mention so much fundamental game design) were reworked into 3D and still... work. It’s not a simple task! For a sequel to be so faithful but at the same time such a huge shift from the previous game... I’m still wrapping my head around how they achieved it. At the same time it’s got plenty of new stuff in those categories as well as new mechanics and kinds of secrets, so there’s a lot to get used to.

The big thing that didn’t make the transition was that minimalist pixel art that I loved. But it’s been replaced with a slightly low-poly and cel-shaded look that I am just as much a fan of; it’s moody and communicates clearly even when things get chaotic. Also, a fun detail is that items you find are visually represented on your character model, so long runs will end with a multitude of trinkets and baubles hanging off you (or at least they will if you diversify like I do).

My brother bought the game as soon as he could thanks to our positive feelings on Hopoo’s first effort, but we didn’t start playing until it left early access and became 1.0 (and until he gifted me his old PC to actually play it on). Since then more updates and new content have rolled out so we look forward to continuing sessions with it every now and then. That final boss can eat my entire butt though.

[gavinbowman]

October - It’s alive

OK. As I mentioned in last month’s update, this is it for me now, I just have to work on Monsters & Monocles, make it done, make sure it’s good. It’s nice to have a pretty singular focus for a change.

On the other hand, I still have to worry about how we keep the lights on, and this is a massive project with a lot still to do in a lot of different areas... so it’s only singular in the sense that it’s one game... but it still feels better.

So this month I actually spent a bunch of time working on the game and digging through trying to wrap my head around all the code and how it all interacts. I’m enjoying working in Unity with some visual tools and higher level code, it’s refreshing, I feel like I can focus on important things more. I still tend to pick my phone up and wait for the game to start whenever I hit play, but I’m doing it less than I was at the start of the month.

I’m taking a pretty broad approach to issues with the game, but I’m focusing a lot on quality of life issues, things I notice most when I playtest, things that don’t feel right, or little tweaks that I feel make some significant improvement to the way I feel about it.

I’ve also started to build a more comprehensive personal task list that gives me a pretty good idea of what I’m going to be doing for a while.

The biggest changes I’ve made so far were in the combat rooms, one of the recent builds introduced more of a room based concept as opposed to the original organic mansions, but the way the rooms seal for combat had some unfinished areas that I’ve started trying to clean up because they annoyed me a lot when I played. I’ve also started trying to add beam based weapons for players. This has drawn some attention to some layering issues that I need to work out, but I think I know what needs to be done there.

There were a bunch of small changes too, like little timing or positioning things or sound triggers that I felt needed a tweak.

It still doesn’t 100% feel like it’s my game, and it feels weird talking about changing stuff, but I need to get over that and just start ripping into things to bend it to my will if we’re ever going to get it done.

But overall, aside from a shaky week this week, I’ve been working well, making changes, feeling pretty good at the end of the day... even I think making the game better. It’s been great. I forget that this should probably just become my new normal, but after the last few years of whatever the hell the last few years were, it feels weird to end a day feeling satisfied with my contribution and thinking positively about what I’m going to do the next day.

In other news... our next, probably last for the foreseeable future, mobile game, InfiniBugs, is now up on the App Store for pre-order, and will launch on the 13th November. It’s a super retro shooter, it made me happy to work on from time to time over the last few years. It was a bit of a monster to actually nail down to a final product for release, but thankfully Craig was around to give me new art and push me to get it done, and I think we ended up with something pretty great. With this and Dungeon Drop I’m definitely happy to see them on the App Store as a representation of us and our work there over the last 11 years. They feel right.

I’ll probably get a bit distracted around the launch, but hopefully not too much, I’m hoping November will be another good month on Monsters & Monocles. We’re going to need a bunch more of them if we’re going to get this done.

What else, hmm, playing... I played the goose game a bunch with kids, that was fun. My eldest is getting a little older so I’ve started trying some of the lego games with her and we’re having fun occasionally, but they’re not sticking for her just yet. Still go back to Mario Party or 3D World the most. We tried out NSMBU because I enjoyed playing that solo, but it didn’t really work out, it’s a bit hard and the coop experience isn’t as well thought out as 3D World, maybe they changed the structure a bit for the Switch version. We’ve been looking forward to Luigi’s Mansion 3, so we’ll definitely try that over the weekend.

As always, thanks for listening, if you were only here for me to complain about how much my life sucked and I didn’t get anything done, I apologize for this month’s progress.

[tinymixtapes]

Live Blog: “Weird Al” Yankovic

"Weird Al" Yankovic The Apollo Theater; New York City, NY [03-23-2018] by Frank Falisi on 05-07-2018 When I stepped out into the flashbulb facade of Harlem’s Apollo Theatre from the darkness of 125th, I had two things on my mind: Weird Al and a silver Discman. You know how some school buses had a pocket-flap on the back on the seats, so you could squash after-school stuff in there? Like chilly batter in a hot waffler, snug and transforming. It went everywhere with me; I would feel a buzz in my backpack and go to check my Discman, me paranoid, the phantom sing. My parents gave me the Discman for my 10th birthday, or maybe my 12th. This’ll show him how music’s the good good stuff, they said. Or: This’ll shut him up for a while. Maybe both ages, probably both reasons. Any hopes for new quiet were dashed because the Discman had speakers on it. There was an upside-down triangle of a button square in the center and when you slid it to the right, the Discman played through headphones, like most Discmans, but when you slid it to the left, you could listen to Greatest Hits Vol. 1 by Weird Al Yankovic as loud as you and the Discman pleased. I still didn’t know that music was the good good stuff. Some days I still struggle to know that. But at 10 or 12 or 27, Weird Al presented not just an alternative sound, but a world screwed to a degree I could comprehend, or at least laugh along with. I had no language for approaching the radical disco’d horizon of “Bad” or “Beat It,” and I knew no coil of body that could welcome Madonna’s smoke future-fuck. I knew parents who fought (never terminally, ever-casually) with each other/ for their children. I knew being taken to arcades and shopping malls by mom or dad at various times to distract us from the fighting. Sometimes we went to arcades and shopping malls when no one was fighting. We drove around neighborhoods that weren’t ours looking at how big the houses were; in certain winters we ogled the same houses’ light displays, and my dad would tap the wheel. One year, someone stole the light-up snowman from in front of our town house. How do you stand that stab of useless suburban hate without laughing? It’s time to let your babies grow up to be cowboys/ It’s time to let the bedbugs bite. Here was dancing with laughing, serious attention to pop art’s penchant for transforming us while discarding all the noxious toxicities that sometimes showed up in art. From the suburbs, Yankovic offered a weird world that was no stranger than the one I goldfish’d around in in backyards most days: Settle down, raise a family, join the PTA/ buy some sensible shoes and a Chevrolet/ and party ‘til you’re broke and they drive you away, it’s OK/ you can dare to be stupid. I had seen Weird Al play live before. It was my first experience with live music ever once, a school bus flap-space where your heart jumps up out your eyes and won’t stop. I had never been to the Apollo before. My fingers were suitably spacey-feeling as they flitted along the spackled walls. Up in the rafters, out of our grubby reach, were true sweet ghosts. The Apollo is a sharp, shiny gem that still sounds like James Brown even if you’ll have to walk past lots of Buffalo Wild Wings to get into it these days. Emo Phillips, looking and sounding like someone had stuffed an animated goose into a chest in the 80s and was just folding it back into daily life, was wrapping up 20 warbled, warped minutes as me and a whole Idaho of people took our seats. Yankovic opened the set sitting on a stool playing “Dare to Be Stupid,” not as the Devo pastiche that used to bleat out of my Discman, but as a 4/4 roadhouse blues number and we, rapping our buffalo saucy fingers into claps, said “weird.” Because since the career re-focusing Running With Scissors (bought at Barnes & Noble with my mom’s 10%-off coupon after church on Sunday) a Weird Al show was replete with every cranny of oddityness. There’s lots of costume changes for Yankovic and the band, lots of video clips surprising everyone how ingrained Yankovic is in popular culture, lots of people in the Hawaiian shirts all their fathers brought back from their honeymoons; some slime creature from outer space would be forgiven for thinking it a weekly gathering of some benign and askance religious sect. But this, billed as the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, was askance yet again. Yankovic and his longtime bandmates Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, Steve Jay, Jim West, and Rubén Valtierra promised, “None of the songs you really want to hear, all of the songs you usually skip over, obscure original tunes.” Was the band exhausted at the prospect of touring a production, disheartened at not touring at all? Was it all more deconstructive jestering? Listening to Al deadpan, Burn your candle at both ends/ punch a gift horse in the mouth/ mashed potatoes can be your friend over professionally white blues riffing brought to mind something like Dylan’s reformed live cuts, but was it participatory or commentary? Next was “Close But No Cigar,” a plastic-Cake pastiche, then “Generic Blues.” “BB King once said this was one of his top-10 favorite blues songs,” Yankovic cooed cooed, smiling. “Maybe he was joking, but I’m gonna assume he wasn’t.” Jokes and reality sit in the same seat in the weird, a name we give to what we can’t regard or disregard. Yankovic and the the band laughed into “Mr. Popeil,” a cocktail of B-52’s and late-night late-stage consumerism: I need a handy appliance/ that’ll scramble an egg while it’s still inside its shell!/ (Operators are standing by/ How does that make you feel?). I’m rocking at the top of the Apollo asking, “How does that make you feel, Mark Fisher?” “When we say something is weird, what kind of feeling are we pointing to?” Fisher motions towards his book, The Weird and the Eerie, still keenly aware of how good the band on the stage at the Apollo sounds, switching gears and modes like plastic mechanicals, rude and sharp. Something like “Nature Trail to Hell,” probably, an imagined theme to an unmade movie that doesn’t let you ignore how your favorite horrors will feel serialized to eternity, IN 3D! Something like “Craiglist,” a full-on Doors rave-up that’s a better Doors song than most Doors songs, positing that the weird sale has triumphed over the sale of the weird. Yankovic swoops between Jim Morrison and Fred Schnieder, all the while pointing out the tragic hilarity of suburb-y capitalism and Saturday-morning faux prosperity and online market madness, and the weird feels fierce, mobilized. Fisher goes on, because we’re both a little wounded by “Dog Eat Dog,” impersonatory Talking Heads that flattens Byrne’s soul-seeking zen coldness into the boil-you-alive-every-day-of-your-life corporate eternity. Fisher: “I want to argue that the weird is a particular kind of perturbation. It involves a sensation of wrongness: a weird entity or object is so strange that it makes us feel that it should not exist, or at least it should not exist here.” (Like Weird Al shows at the Apollo, maybe; like suburban dad in Buffalo Wild Wings in Harlem, perhaps.) “Yet if the object is here, then the categories which we have up until now used to make sense of our world cannot be valid. The weird thing is not wrong, after all: it is our conceptions that must be adequate.” Listening to Yankovic perform these originals (not straight parodies, they simply mimic formal elements of other artists), this wrongness is especially evident. “My Own Eyes” is Foo Fighters but pushed to the side, where it isn’t grand or cool to be a rock star, just another excuse to belt the mundane; “Your Horoscope For Today” is my favorite song ever probably, a ska dagger that seems like an astrology-takedown until you realize it’s target is both blind optimism and hopelessness. You will never find true happiness/ What you gonna do, cry about it?/ The stars predict tomorrow you’ll wake up/ Do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep. “UHF” is a song 40 dimensions before Netflix or streaming services or Spotify going public, but its compass warns against all the despondency of tech taking over: Don’t you know that we control the horizontal?/ We control the vertical, too: we gonna make a couch potato out of you. Yankovic’s plastic pastiche transforms that which we love and that which we can’t bear to confront into a new universe, listenable and wobbly, hilarious and damning. His narrators are unstable (“I Remember Larry) pig-headed optimists (“Jackson Park Express”), egomaniacal (“Young, Dumb, and Ugly”), and romantic (“You Don’t Love Me Anymore”). Yankovic’s weirdness chucks warm human hope up into systems made by people that aren’t made for people. He sketches this relationship by making us recoil from the familiar, leaning in toward an alien. Fisher, again, forever: “The form that is perhaps most appropriate to the weird is montage — the conjoining of two or more things which do not belong together.” This is not to say that weirdness should and can only be distressing. Fisher continues: “The sense of wrongness associated with the weird — the conviction that this does not belong — is often a sign that we are in the presence of the new. The weird here is a signal that the concepts and frameworks which we have previously employed are now obsolete.” There’s no more time for crying over spilled milk/ Now it’s time for crying in your beer. How to dare? How to be stupid? You switch to speakers so everyone can hear it. You play “Albuquerque,” a 12-minute odyssey through the weird and the wired, a mobilization of personal weirdness into protective hope: And, by the way, if one day you happen to wake up and find yourself in an existential quandary full of loathing and self-doubt and wracked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful meaningless existence, at least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that somewhere out there in this crazy mixed-up old universe of ours there’s still a little place called Albuquerque.We laugh but what does it mean? What does it mean when Yankovic ends the regular set with a medley of all the hit parodies he said he wouldn’t play tonight, scrambled past the point of recognition, just like “Dare to Be Stupid”? Here “Eat It” is like Clapton unplugged, sapped and dragging and leading into a limp-soft jazz “Lost on Jeopardy,” a schmaltz-for-wind-chimes “Amish Paradise.” Should we recoil from the whistle-pop of “Smells Like Nirvana” — will all the sounds of our youth end decayed like this? The flamenco fart of “White and Nerdy” euthanizes toughness, while “I Love Rocky Road” sounds like we’re all just wasting our waists and place in a forever-parlor of half-off consumerism and fame-worship and misplaced e-rage. “Like a Surgeon” is a yacht-y ballad now and what? These parodies were built on the premise that they sounded familiar and used that position to suggest new realities, but now, here at the end, even that form falls away. It’s a joke and a jab; nothing is above rehearing, no perspective is sacred with plastic consciousness. If you close your eyes, the weirdness peals back the place where the thing used to be and you can see the frame of the familiar around a brilliant light leading someplace else. Then the encores, more jestering. Yankovic makes his guitar-playing debut on a deadly straight take on “Cinnamon Girl,” holding off until that famous one-note solo and then making every serious-rock-star-guitar-man face in the book. He thanks everyone again, thanks his killer band, looks up and out at the Apollo’s cavern again, and gives us “Yoda,” no jokes, just a reverend take on an irreverent classic. Does it undermine the whole evening, all the work done to undermine expectations and constrictions? It does not. We sing and dance, we think about how we didn’t know our Discmans with speakers were weird, how we didn’t know what our parents were doing but still work to love them, how we didn’t know that laughing together was always our best way towards the bright portal of better days. We, weird, walk away a little transformed and a little more open to transformation. The future’s up to you, so what you gonna do?/ Dare to be stupid. http://j.mp/2IojpJd