#guys!! i think i improved my skills at pixel art!!!

[jokingfelllas]

Uh hey! This is Undersketch, My undertale AU.

Undersketch is an AU where monsters find comfort in art. Being trapped underground as punishment was terrifying but Asgore thought quickly.

Uhh, I'll probably be talking to myself but I'd like to use tumblr to save these little guys I'm making.

I sometimes feel sad for not being the age I was in 2016... nowadays they don't give much importance to AUs that don't have games.

Anyway, I'm going to show you the pixel art I made!!

sans the skeleton.

Starting with him! He only has two concerns: Doing graffiti with his brother and annoying his brother.

In short: Spending time with your brother.

He likes jokes, puns, graffiti and skateboarding.

The Judge, i think.

GREATEST PAPYRUS.

Heh, he is a little...BONEhead. He is a graffiti artist who would like to be recognized, but has always remained silent.

He always tries to improve his style, unlike his brother, who just graffitis for fun.

He doesn't like jokes or puns.

Asgore Dreemur, King of the underground.

HE IS A BABY, OK?! HE IS JUST A BABY.

ANYWAY,

Asgore is a painter in his spare time, always using art as the main symbol of his kingdom.

Peace and harmony among monsters, chaos among humans. That's his way of thinking, Asgore HATES humans.

He thinks humans don't understand the meaning of peace, thinks that humans are the cause of their own death.

Toriel Dreemur, guardian of the ruins.

She is very good with children.

Writer of children's stories. She developed this skill because of her late children.

In addition to being recognized as Queen, she became known for her writing.

I think that's it for a moment...I accept ideas.

Bye.

[lunariamv]

about me :>

so i just realized i cant just be some random person posting stuff without much context..... so here we go

┊⠀┊   ┊⠀┊

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚     ✧

˚✧

hi, my name is lunaria, or luna ^^

˚✧ some grill that wants to be a artist, writer, and maybe like a lowkey game dev

˚✧ i consume a lot of media: video games, anime, yt, movies, tv shows, books, fanfics, etc

˚✧ i really love the impact media and stories have on the world and people, and there's a lot i love, but also there's a lot out there that frustrates me, or feels like it's missing something, so i wanna throw my hat into the ring and make my own content for me and other girls like me <3

˚✧ atm i write fanfics to practice writing and build an audience, and i draw fanart to improve art skill, also just so i have an art portfolio,,,, cuz if i just started posting games without much of a background i feel like ppl are gonna be like,, "who tf is this???" lol

⊹˚. game dev??? ⊹˚.

i'm really interested in making my own games, specifically rpg maker ones because rpg maker/rpg horror/indie horror is my fav genre (pewdiepie's misao gameplay was my first horror game ever <3); i just love retro horror style a lot

so i'm practicing pixel art and stuff and then later i want to learn some 日本語 so i can translate the games, and also learn to make music so i can go full toby fox lol

and then maybe later on if i got rlly ambitious and had a lot of money id make fancy otome games, manga, fancy horror games, and pERSONA FOR GIRLS

i have a lot of ideas for diff series and id love to share them all <3

⊹˚. my inspirations: ⊹˚.

˚✧ game wise: currently my inspirations are charon (of those yan charon games) and dsp (ik they go by a different name now but that's what i know them as, also its funny because the name reminds me of darksydephil HAHAHA); i like the retro pixel and slight horror themes and aesthetic of their games, but i dislike the writing, so i'm gonna make my own :D

also i like the idea of an oc multiverse like dsp's so i want that too

toby fox is also technically an inspiration too; i wanna learn music so i can make my own bangers with little references and leitmotifs for fun :>>>

˚✧ writing wise: i have a lot, but my main inspirations are mostly like writing in the anime-ish games; danganronpa, persona, ace attorney, yttd, kakegurui; psychological stuff where you gotta think about them, but they also have unique quirky characters and they interact with each other in creative ways

also horror and psychological, i like writing about scary stuff and characters with their complexities, and addressing the rlly messed up parts of humanity and society bc its spooky;; sometimes with a very dark nihilistic outlook bc i love angst, or sometimes with an optimistic one

((thats kinda why i like yan stories but more in the horror sense, like look at all the crazy scary stuff this person is doing lol))

but for characters in general, i like stuff with FEMCS <33333 persona 3 with ya girl kotone shiomi, danganronpa v3 with kaede, sara in your turn to die, genshin lumine, and that one part in ace attorney where we get to play as mia fey

that's also why i lowkey like the writing in romcom/chick flick movies, cuz its just unique characters and stories and usually has a female protag or a group of girls as the mcs

LIKE MISS CONGENIALITY, MEAN GIRLS, AND LEGALLY BLONDE I LOVE THOSE MOVIES SM AND I HAVE MILLIONS MORE EXAMPLES BUT WE'D BE HERE FOREVER

but aside from heavy and horror stories, i also like simple cute straightforward stories like older barbie movies XD (or winx, mlp, bratz, monster high…); they're just really wholesome and cute where ya girl goes on a magical adventure with quirky characters and learns good lessons like trust, courage, friendship, etc…

ITS MUSHY BUT I LOVE IT AAAAA

so my main theme is being a girl and doing stuff, bc girlbossing is fun

but ya know i like making hot guy characters too wwwww

⊹˚. my art/writing style ⊹˚.

i'd say in general its like a mix of asian themes with western; its like anime but with western elements in it

i'd also sometimes like to explore other cultures too, kinda like how jjba has varying characters bc that's cool;; but if i have characters with varying nationalities its because i want to, not bc a woke person held me at gunpoint

⊹˚. aesthetics ⊹˚.

i have a lot that i like, but here's my main favorites i guess that will be in my things

˚✧ cute + edgy; melanie martinez, lucy loone, yandere, ddlc;; basically anything where you juxtapose cutesy with scary horror -- its so fun and subversive

˚✧ femcel/female sigma/doomer girl/anti-egirl; LANA DEL REY LANA DEL REY bc i'm a sad girl

˚✧ retro things; 80s and 90s but mostly early 2000s stuff; early internet, old stuff, y2k, scene/emo, mcbling -- huge emphasis on mcbling, i love the girly hedonistic aspects of it -- ayesha erotica, panty and stocking, bad girls club;; that aesthetic i love it sm LETS DO OUR NAILS AND PARTY ^^^^^^

˚✧ internet horror stuffs -- indie horror, analog horror, internet mysteries, meta horror, local58, mandela catalogue, fnaf, creepypastas, liminal spaces

˚✧ then some internet guy stuff -- vaporwave, cyberpunk, blade runner, hotline miami, madness combat, carpenter brut, etc -- i'm tomboyish in this regard xd, i fangirl over guns and edgy sigma guys fighting

⊹˚. extra stuff about me (bc who tf r u >_>) ⊹˚.

writes a character bio

˚✧ name: luna

˚✧ some randy girl that likes to make stuff

˚✧ not rlly a weeb but i like asian culture a lot, japanese, chinese, korean, vietnamese, thai, laos, filipino (yes), etc

˚✧ sigma?? i think people should be rewarded based on talent and skill, rather than their identity. if i am successful, its because my work is good, not because i am a minority. i'm also learning to draw, write, make music, etc because i want to make content without having to rely on others for assets. why ask other people if i can do it myself? B)

˚✧ i like cute things and being girly, like dressing up and having stuffed animals and cute stationary everywhere :> if i have a chance to be extra and decorate something, i will take it in a heart beat

˚✧ i'm a stocking kin, i love sweets, cake specifically, and milk tea (im addicted to boba its horrible T-T)

˚✧ i like tea, i drink 2-3 cups a day :) oolong is my fav atm

˚✧ cat >>>>

˚✧ unhealthy attraction to fictional men… currently thirsting over tohru adachi 💀💀💀 LOL my friends are like "eww wtf is wrong with you???" i must be a raccoon because i really love garbage

☸ my links ☸

all my links are on caard, but here's an organized list of the main ones; my tumblr will be my main hub for stuff i guess; the degree of activity ranges ;-;

˚☸ art stuff

✧ newgrounds (i wanna be a newgrounds girl tbh)

✧ twitter

✧ insta

✧ tiktok

˚☸ writing stuff (fanfictions)

✧ quotev

✧ wattpad

✧ archive

˚☸ oc archive

✧ deviantart (bc im too lazy to code toyhouse atm)

also apologies if i dont respond to things fast enough, im shy

˚☸ dividers by cafekitsune

[flyawaydev]

Second Update - Patience

Hello I'm back with short updates and long thoughts.

So the kickstarter is officially live! Currently 3 awesome backers have supported the campaign. I really didn't know what to expect, since I startesd doing this project I've tried to be an optimist but also not having high expectations... I'm sure everyone newbie like me felt that way with their own projects...

Unfortunately two ways of selfpromotion where discarded. I was planning to pay tumblr for their promote feature, but... The violent and explicit nature of the game is againts their TOS so I couldn't. 

I'll need to think hard and find other ways! This hard for me because I'm not confident talking in english and social anxiety stuff. 

But well let's talk about actual game updates!

I've designed charms for the kickstarter. Yeah I know it's not actually a game update but... I think they're really cute and I need to have the rewards ready If the Kickstarter does actually well:

I'm also making changes to the interface. I left the menu untouched at the demo so I need to design a new one. I have this concept made on photoshop:

And I really want to make the gui less cluttered, changing some textbuttons for icons:

I'm sure you have noticed the banner at the top. For narrative purposes I'll need to change the POV to other characters so I made this! Maybe it should be more more subtle.

And this spooky one is for certain events in the game (spoilers) . Novel mode is used instead of the deafult one:

Im gonna be honest, not happy with these. I feel like I should make them more pixel art like. The vectors don't fit that well with the sprites. But well these are only concepts! So I can change them anytime.

This is everything for game updates.

Let's get serious here. What happens if the kickstarter isn't succesful?

I spent the night thinking about this instead of sleeping. The perfect way to describe it is with this spanish expression "consultar con la almohada" (kinda like saying "sleep on it"). Big thumbs up to my pillow.

Well this project may be too much for a solo developer like me. And I do have another simpler VN idea. So I may change to other projects. This VN is also dating sim, but I don't know if I want to maintain the same artstyle. The codename for this project is: Bunker: 222.

 In october I start school, where I'll be studying concept art. So I'm sure my art skills will improve over time, and that would be awesome for my future projects.

I'm not giving up on the Kickstarter! It's only september 3rd, and the kickstarter is up for 37 more days. As long as the campaign runs

I need to remake my marketing strategy and selfpromote this project.

Well that's it for todays update. Lots of words I know, I know... but this helps me a lot to gather my thoughts.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

[sparkys-ec-corner]

pixel michelle

[ut-versotale]

I haven't worked on the website for a few days because I wanted to refine some story beats, get some concept art done, and really think about just how interactive this new interactive webcomic version of VT is going to be, so here's something I did spend my time working on

Behold, concept art for part of the Cold West, Version... 2, I guess. Perditus went through like 4 design changes (Now replaced by a completely different concept you have yet to see) over this AU's tenure, and the Cold West has only had one official design. Kinda funny, in a cosmic sort of way.

You guys last saw the Cold West visualized when my pixel art and general drawing skills were definitely still in their infancy. I can't wait to actually properly design the new Cold West with how much I've improved.

[seatosomert]

APPLYING NEW SKILLS TO OLD IMAGES.

12th March 2021.

Lockdown during the Pandemic has limited the opportunities to get out and shoot all the things we would normally.

If you’re like me and hankering to get out and shoot street photography and portraits, but still can’t due to lockdown measures, why not reflect on what you would like to improve upon with your editing skills?

It does 2 things for you...The obvious practising of your editing skills, but it also allows you to review and reflect on your lighting used and your composition.

You can look at your old images that you’ve forgotten about in your hard drive with a fresh perspective.

This not only allows you to also apply new editing skills you may not have had back in the day and to bring about a completely new look to your images, but it also allows you to think about what you’d do better next time. What you’d do to add light, or take it away. How you might have used a modifier to shape the light, or positioned your subject nearer to a light coloured wall etc etc.

I shoot that many images that often many won’t see the light of day. I pick a hand full of my fave images from a shoot and do quick edit or tweak on them, then post them to my IG account. I’ll get some printed also. Then i leave the rest with the intention of going back to them in a few weeks. A few weeks turns into months and a few months turn into years.

By going back to old images and revamping them, not only do you get to apply new skills you may have learned since you took them, but you also get to see just how far you have come in your art from a year or two before. It can be pretty satisfying.

The way i work is for my client work I’ll edit on the Mac through Lightroom CC or LR Classic.

However, for my own personal project work, I’ll use Lightroom Mobile. It’s that good as a mobile app now that I can do pretty much anything i might want to do on the mobile app, as it’s very rare i need to actually fix an image. Also, because the images are for me only, I’m not bothered about them being absolutely perfect for the pixel peeper. It takes the pressure off of me.

The images here have all been take in the last 2 years and I’ve tweaked them applying a couple of techniques i wasn’t using 2 years ago when i shot the images.

Give it a go guys and as usual, if you have any questions about anything I have discussed here, please comment and I’ll get back to you.

All the best and see you soon.

Regards,

Neil.

[jocktrolls]

who's your underrated fave? a creator in the community you think deserves a little more love?

I love how I was going to answer this and then like. EVERY person in order I was thinking about had already been posted by someone else. I wanted to re-establish what everyone else said though, and give short little blurbs

@cernunnos-of-fantrolls is an extremely underrated pixel artist! I get to see stuff she does for other projects and, HOO! The detail.

@grammartrolls has a very specific style that’s fun, but also has technical skills that show in bigger pieces! Also, this almost made me convert my blog to a Natter fan blog.

@burningbloodtrolls in terms of the amount of content that’s made & the unique details of that content, I think Bob is THE most underrated creator in the community. While I know that their friends love them dearly, and I’m generally opposed to the idea of ‘popularity,’ and fan bases... I think Bob deserves little a fan base. As a treat.

@roetrolls came back more recently and I’m so happy for that! Roe’s improvement over this past year has been stellar, and if you guys send Roe asks, then I don’t have to feel bad about forgetting ;;

@whispertrolls Hunter is an absolute darling, love them to bits, primarily a writer with no art to accompany their words, and because of that I know they get less attention :( One of the most genuine people in the community, super strong and understanding.

[mx-metronome]

Say, remember when I posted Thorton and I said I also planned on including a short essay about my art and true satisfaction? Well I have a few hours to kill before bed, so here is that essay. (Read More doesn’t work on mobile, I am so sorry)

I’ll start with establishing that everyone has that art. That one medium that really makes them happy, that sincerely drives them to improve if for no other reason than to learn and delve deep into their craft. Music, painting, knitting, it doesn’t matter.

Some pursue an art for the sake of wanting to impress others, then get frustrated when it doesn’t come easy. For them, practice is painful, and no enjoyment comes of it. It feels like a chore to them. But once they find that art, they stop caring about recognition, and they stop attaching their self worth to how skilled they are in that art.

My art is cross stitch. It has been for nearly a decade. Through all my years of high school, I desperately wanted to be good at something so that other people would like me. I wanted to define myself as an individual for everyone to see. Then one fateful day in April 2010, I picked up cross stitch, but not for any of the reasons above: I started because I felt it was something that I would truly enjoy. I always fancied pixel art, and I wanted to do something with my hands instead of a computer screen, so it felt natural to pick it up.

Right away, my life improved. I forgot about most of my social insecurities, and my self esteem began to climb. I started off small, with little pixel arts like Pokémon and Mario characters. The projects got bigger over time, but not big enough that I felt overwhelmed. I had a small part time job my senior year, and it paid well; I took all that money I made and immediately blew it on more supplies. Slowly, my collection of fabric, floss, and needles grew. My patterns started to as well, as I was itching to extend my skill as far as I could imagine. For the first six years, everything was fantastic.

Somewhere down the line, things changed. As I graduated college and my mental state worsened, I took steps backward back into my high school years when I was so concerned about what others thought of me. My projects got so absurdly large that it took so much energy to finish them, but I worked so hard to impress people.

At first, it worked: Barista Klug (2017) is a perfect example of this. Going into this doozy of a project, my heart was in the right place for the first three months, but as winter turned to late spring, my depression symptoms became severe. There were a handful of days where I couldn’t even move from my bed, the first days of their kind. My passion was dying, and it was frustrating to me. Cross stitch slowly ceased to be fun.

I saw him to his completion, but I was coping with a lot of stress at the time, so he didn’t feel as satisfying to finish as I had imagined. After I posted him on tumblr, and he didn’t get the notes on here that I felt reflected my efforts, things only got worse. I continued to start new, overambitious projects in an attempt to get people to notice me; I felt like a little fame and recognition would help me feel not so alone. But of the four or five massive projects I have started since, none of them have even come close to getting done.

Over the next year, the stitching just...stopped. I started a few more projects, sincerely believing a few times that my stitch itch had come back, but it never lasted long enough. I wasn’t doing anything with my hands, nothing was keeping my mind at bay. One particular day in 2017 stands out to me as the worst depression day ever, but the entirety of 2018 was my worst depression year. I was artistically stagnant, and although I knew cross stitching could be my saving grace, I never had the motivation to do it.

I finished a single cross stitch for the whole of 2018: a small, quick one of Ralsei from Deltarune, in a desperate attempt for stitching to fix my broken soul. Even though he wasn’t nearly as overwhelming a project, I stitched him for the wrong reasons: he was easy notes. It was another difficult time in my life, and I needed the attention.

This year, 2019, I feel is when I started to improve. I took a semester off of school to mentally heal, and in this momentary ceasefire, I tried to pick up cross stitch again through another overambitious project, Agent 9 the monkey. Upon completion, he will stand as my cross stitch project with the second most number of stitches, so he’s no picnic! Like Barista Klug, things were smooth for the first 3 or 4 months, but he’s since gone under hiatus, just like the rest, and I haven’t picked him up since.

So where did I go wrong? I asked myself for years. Why doesn’t this make me happy anymore? Why was I so satisfied with my work in my youth, but now I hate the mere thought of it? Saying it all aloud now, I’m certain the answer is crystal clear to all of you. But I wanted to pinpoint an answer in hopes of pursuing my craft so relentlessly and with wild abandon like I did a decade ago. I wanted a signal in this darkness...

After almost four years of complete darkness and confusion, at the end of June 2019, I received my signal. Still coping with my depression, I heard a new Pokémon game was coming out for mobile, and one of my fav (and super obscure) characters of all time would be in the core game. The clouds started to lift as my heart attached itself to an old lost fandom, granting me an urge, one that can only be granted by pure, distilled hype.

Enter Factory Head Thorton.

I knew I HAD to cross stitch him, to encapsulate the spirit that I hadn’t felt in so long. But this time, I did things differently: Why make a giant pattern with all the intricate details when this guy has sprites from the DS era, sprites that are easily transposable into a cross stitch pattern? I knew his sprite was small enough that I could finish him before school was back in session, but I’d have to work fast.

While I was working on the spritework for the pattern one July night, I had to pause and cry about it. To this day I am uncertain what triggered it, but working on this pattern filled me with such a raw happiness, the likes of which I’d never felt before. I was feeling true contentment for the first time in over half a decade, and I couldn’t contain my relief. As I began the stitching itself, that contentment carried over into my handiwork. I wasn’t stitching him because it would be a quick grab for notes (he’s obscure enough of a character as it is); I was making this stitching for myself, just a little something tangible that I made with my two hands. (If I ever came off as though notes on him were important to me, it was less for fame and more for shooting a flare into a dormant corner of a fandom and hoping I could make some new connections.)

Yeah, I felt satisfaction completing most of my other projects, but Thorton hit differently: Yeah, finishing him felt good, but working on him from start to finish felt even better, something I didn’t feel with Barista Klug or Ralsei. It was a sensation that sent me all the way back to high school, when I felt genuine passion and excitement in every stitch I made. This project was a meditation, almost a time capsule, even though I had only made the pattern a month prior.

From 2016 and on, none of my projects sparked joy. Thorton sparked joy, from beginning to end. So where did I lose my way? Well, I narrowed it down to two basic characteristics.

I think it was the spritework, what I suppose could be considered my traditional style when I first started in 2010. I moved away from sprites in 2015 or so, and it was about then that my art career started downhill. But going back to that style felt so perfect and ethereal, like it’s what I was always meant to do. I was very passionate about Barista Klug, but he wasn’t done in my old-timey sprite style.

Another contributing factor is likely whether or not I’m passionate about the subject and, by extension, whether I’m making the piece for attention over personal enjoyment. Am I considering how much I love that which I am stitching, or am I thinking about how much more people will love me once I’m done? Ralsei was indeed a sprite, but I made him for quick notes, seeing as I started and finished him while Deltarune was still at its peak popularity.

For the first time in nearly a decade, I stitched something that met both criteria, and it felt so powerful. I’m definitely taking this analysis to heart, and I aspire to pursue more projects like Thorton in the foreseeable future.

.........I say as I have already gathered $100 of materials for another HUGE latch hook project... Shame I figured this out a month too late, I suppose.

[dynamite-derek]

My top-10 games of 2018

It’s that time of the year where you are flooded with lists of the best stuff from 2018 and I’m no different. Originally I was going to just make a list of the top 10 games I played in 2018. I even had a giant list I was updating throughout the year. But one day my phone randomly reset and I lost that list. So, business as usual this year. Maybe next year. 

Before I start with the numbered list, I’d like to note a couple of games that won’t be appearing for various reasons.

Games I liked a lot but haven’t played enough of to place on a list like this: Into the Breach, Dead Cells

A critically acclaimed game I haven’t played: God of War

I don’t want remakes on my list, but these games were really good: Shadow of the Colossus, Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Ports aren’t eligible but I like these a lot too: Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Shenmue 1&2, Hyrule Warriors and the PC port of one of the best games ever, Yakuza 0.

Okay, let’s get started.

10-) Red Dead Redemption 2: Actually had to debate between this and Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu for this spot. Ultimately I chose this game because the narrative is spectacular. Well that and the fact that Let’s Go is sort of a remake. This game absolutely nails atmospheric storytelling and creates one of the most interesting protagonists in AAA gaming. This game does a lot of things well, but the actual gameplay portion is...pretty mixed. I didn’t have fun with the open world at all and most missions involved long bouts of horseback riding with dialogue or ambient music. But RDR 2 does everything else so well. It also knows when to go all out. Every major mission in the game is memorable for one reason or another, especially with intelligent usage of music. It’s a game I will never play again, but despite some problems with the gameplay I can safely say that I enjoyed my time with it.

9-) Mario Tennis Aces: This game was a lot of fun. I wrote about it earlier in the year and my opinions on it are still the same.  Even though the gameplay is fairly simplistic, every match against another human felt unique and different. You have to learn the styles of your opposition and adapt. It’s like a fighting game! The online gameplay was also pretty solid. I felt pretty damn good whenever I would win a tournament. Really, Smash Bros. Ultimate would have done well to borrow this mechanic in some way. The only real problem with the game is that there is just a major lack of content. The heavily advertised story mode is barely worth playing and the cups, well, you might as well be playing against an unmanned player 2. I haven’t touched the game in a while, so this might have been fixed via update. As I said a few months ago, this game could have been a masterpiece with a bit of extra fine tuning.

8-) Dragon Ball Fighter Z: This game feels like it was made specifically for me. I have a lot of love for the Marvel vs. Capcom games and even more love for the Dragon Ball franchise. The game is easy to approach for newcomers to this type of game by keeping the inputs simple and having very easy to pull of auto-combos. You won’t do too well online if you stick to the auto combos, but it’s a good way to start and learn how to play. I think a lot of people could start with Fighter Z and transition into more complicated fighting games, which is exactly what you want with a game like this that will attract many people who might not otherwise play a traditional fighter. Oh, and sometimes it looks like you’re playing an episode of the anime which is insane. The story mode is pretty tedious at times, which is a let down, but Fighter Z is an absolute blast to play and is easily the best playing Dragon Ball game yet. Hopefully season 2 of the DLC goes less heavy on all the Gokus. 

7-) Mega Man 11: The blue bomber returns! It’s been a long wait, but after playing through both collections last year and then the X-collection earlier this year, I was ready for Mega Man to get back into the spotlight. It’s a little hard to get into at first because the level design seems pretty tied into the main new mechanic, the gear system. Basically the player can slow things down to a crawl or boost Mega Man’s power. If you just play this game like you would any other Mega Man game, you’re probably going to throw your console out the window during Tiki Man’s stage. Once you figure this out, the system adds a unique flavor to the Mega Man experience and feels like an actual new Mega Man. I love MM9 and 10, but those did not feel like new games. The only thing that I didn’t like about this game was the music. Which, uh, is weird for a Mega Man game. Here’s hoping they get it right in the inevitable Mega Man X9. 

6-) Marvel’s Spider-Man: I don’t particularly like super hero movies and I haven’t enjoyed a Spider-Man game thoroughly since the first PS1 Spider-Man, so you wouldn’t normally think this game would appeal to me. But it absolutely does. The gameplay is outstanding and combines an improved version of the swinging scene in Spider-Man 2 with a combat system that is fairly similar to the Batman Arkham games. I recommend playing the game on hard because, while it’s hard to get used to, it makes every encounter feel unique. You constantly have to adapt to what the enemy is doing. You can’t just mash on the attack button and then press the dodge button when the dodge prompt comes up. 

The story is also interesting throughout. It has my favorite interpretation of Peter Parker I’ve seen in a while and has a pretty enjoyable cast of characters. Really Mary Jane is the only character I didn’t like and even with her, there are moments that hit home - specifically the text exchanges between MJ and Peter. The game is littered with references to past Spidey adventures and just feels like a giant love letter to fans of the hero. Can’t recommend it enough.

5-) Celeste: I didn’t know what to expect with this game. Sometimes I feel very leery of when a bunch of people prop up an indy game too much. Gone Home a couple of years ago told a pretty mediocre story that was held up as some form of high art. Just didn’t get it. So I went into Celeste wanting to not like it and came out fairly surprised. The gameplay feels like a better version of Super Meat Boy and the narrative tells a pretty compelling tale about depression and how to come to terms with yourself. I even don’t mind the pixel art. I am getting sick of indy games going for the retro aesthetic, but when combined with the great soundtrack it’s hard not to love what it’s presenting. 

The game is simple enough to complete on its own. I would argue that anybody could do it as long as they keep at it. But for those platforming veterans, the game also offers a heavy challenge. The B-side and C-side levels will test your skills and remind you of some of the most challenging bits of hard platforming games like Super Meat Boy and I Wanna Be The Guy. Basically, come for the compelling narrative. Stay for the wickedly difficult and addicting gameplay.

4-) Yakuza 6: I believe I enjoyed this game far more than most folks. It told the end of Kazuma Kiryu’s story. It had some problems along the way but my god did I enjoy the ride. The cast of characters surrounding Kiryu in Hiroshima are all great and one of the main characters is Beat Takeshi. It also has a ton of things to do and see. I love the clan wars sidequest featuring New Japan wrestlers, I love the baseball manager quest, I LOVED becoming a regular at a bar and getting to know everyone in it like I was playing some sort of weird Cheers game, I even loved the adult cam chats that came with wacky dialogue. This game is full of charm.

I haven’t mentioned the gameplay yet you might have noticed. That’s because, well, it’s a new direction for the franchise. It focuses on allowing more people to fight Kiryu at once and as a result feels less refined than recent entries Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5. I am excited to see where they take it in Yakuza 7, but I would be fibbing if I suggested that I felt 6 plays as well as previous entries. Still, the entire Yakuza package is compelling and I never felt like I was scrambling for things to do or see. I don’t 100% games out of obligation. I’m not one of those people that feels the need to 100% every game I play. I 100%ed Yakuza 6 though. And I loved every minute of it, combat and all.

3-) Valkyria Chronicles 4: As none of you might know, I used to review games for a website called 411mania. One of the games I reviewed for them was the original Valkyria Chronicles. Nobody else wanted to do it because it looked like a generic jRPG and I was really the only person on the site who liked jRPGs so the game fell to me. And I absolutely loved it. The story was captivating, the graphics were stylish and and the gameplay felt like a breath of fresh air. It was the combination of a tactical RPG and a (very, very simplified) shooter. To this day it remains one of my favorite games ever. Conversely, Valkyria Chronicles 2 on the PSP is one of my least favorite games ever and 3 never came to the states - though it does have a fan translation. The franchise has felt dead in the west for ages. The musou-like Azure Revolution sure as fuck didn’t get me going.

4 came out this year and it felt like I went back in time. Everything I loved about 1 was back. It’s even expanded upon. The grenadier is a great new troop that feels overpowered at first, but really forces the player to rethink how to approach certain situations. The story isn’t as good as the story in 1, but I found it simple and enjoyable. I genuinely liked the main cast and wanted to see them do well. That’s more than I can say for a lot of games. I know I mentioned earlier in my blurb about Mega Man that what I liked about it was that it actually felt like a new game. The difference here is that I have 10 other Mega Man games that play like Mega Man games. With this franchise, I have 1 (or maybe 2, I hate how maps work on the PSP but I have not played enough of 3 to judge). Sometimes a franchise revival needs to go “like the one you like but more” route. I loved this game and I hope as it gets cheaper more people try it. 

2-) Dragon Quest XI: Hey you might notice this about my gaming preferences, but I really enjoy Japanese RPGs! And this sure as hell was one of those! DQ XI felt like a game from another dimension in a lot of ways. It’s a traditional playing Japanese RPG with a big AAA budget. It looks breathtaking. Big budget JRPGs feel like something out of the PS2 era, which is great because I sure love PS2 era RPGs. It’s lengthy, it has a crazy amount of postgame content and has a lot of side stuff in case you get tired of fighting down the main path. It’s a great throwback. 

This game also has the most balanced party in recent RPG memory. Usually games like these have one or two party members that you just don’t enjoy. For instance, Final Fantasy X is one of my favorite games ever. But I just don’t like Kimahri. I don’t like using him and I don’t think his character is interesting. DQ XI has nobody like that. I found everybody likable. Sylvando and Jade in particular stand out and are among my favorite characters in gaming. Really, I enjoy everything about this game. Even the music! I know a lot of people complain about the simplified score in the western version, but I honestly found it to work out pretty well for the game. Obviously the Japanese version is superior, but I still enjoy it. If you’re a fan of RPGs and you haven’t played DQ XI, you’re missing out.

1-) Super Smash Brothers Ultimate: This was my most anticipated game of 2018 from the moment it was announced and the final product delivered everything that I had hoped it would. You have a large cast of characters, a crazy number of stages and a bunch of single player content to consume in between bouts of online or local multiplayer. The single player is what ranks this game so high for me. The classic mode - think arcade mode in standard fighters - is easily the best it has ever been. Each character has their own route with their own gimmick, which gives the player incentive to play each and every one. With a roster of over 70 fighters, that’s impressive. The adventure mode can start off slow, but once you get into the groove of it I really think it stands out as something special. It’s an expanded version of event battles from past games. You face off against a fighter (or fighters) embodying the personality of a character that isn’t in the game. They range from obscure stuff you haven’t heard of to a fight with Geno’s spirit that has you do battle with the cast of Super Mario RPG (with substitutes for Geno and Mallow). It feels very creative. It can be grindy for some, but I really enjoyed my time with it.

I think the online could be more fleshed out. I don’t experience as many laggy matches as most people, but even still the options online are fairly bare bones. You don’t even have leaderboards. I want to compare how good I am with how good my friends are! I think Nintendo plans to keep this game alive for the duration of the Switch’s lifespan, so I believe there will be plenty of time to get the online situation perfect. That doesn’t really excuse Nintendo from still not getting online even close to right in 2018, but I find Ultimate to be such a complete package that I can look past these shortcomings. Ultimately, it is my favorite entry in one of my favorite franchises. So it’s pretty easily my game of the year.

[bttnbsh]

Pixel Imperfect

(see this blog in its native form here: https://bit.ly/38zaRhD)

This week I wanted to talk about the weakest of my gamedev shortcomings- art, or more precisely, pixel art. ​

DEAD PIXELS

Just look around this page and you'll see the extent of the problem. The logo's okay I suppose, but the self-portrait? Bleurgh. I've never been any good at art, no matter the medium or the subject. It blows me away to see what people can do with pencils, pens or paint, but I never anticipated I'd need it as I embarked on a career of words, so I never bothered to invest any time into improving.

Of course, I was wrong. Even when I worked in books, I still had to be able to describe what we needed from illustrators, or feed back on something that had been submitted. I became well-versed in describing perspectives, critiquing compositions and helping to shape artwork and designs. But I still never improved my own art skill, and now I want to make a game all by myself, I'm royally boned.

The choice to pursue pixel art was made for me really. I see it as the native visual language of the medium. You don't see many cartoons in pixel art, or galleries full of beautifully arranged squares do you? I'm sure there are exceptions but pixel art was born, grew and thrived in games - even to this day while photorealistic graphics are possible. I've been consuming pixel art in games since I was four years old so I've been well educated in the language. And so I made the mistake of thinking it was the easy option. You're just putting squares into place until they look like the thing, right?

​Of course not. Every pixel is a brush stroke, and you can make just as much of a mess with pixels as you can with paint. And I've made a lot of messes, and I'm using some of them in my game right now! But it's still the easiest way for me to go, and I honestly like the aesthetic. I know some people are burnt out on 'pixel art indie games', but I completely understand why there are so many out there.

GALLERY OF HORROR

You can see from any of the images and videos in my previous blog posts exactly how bad I am, but let me showcase pixels for you here. Bear in mind that these are all just placeholder and I intend to improve all the art at the next stage ... providing I improve my pixel art skills in the meantime.

It's not the worst thing in the world, mostly because I used a character from a different game as a template to do the standing poses as a starting point. But why is he so much skinnier when side-on? Can you tell which leg is in front and which is behind? Does he need to squish more with every step? Should his hair move like it does?

In retrospect, choosing a black outfit for the guard was a bad idea, but the shading is so difficult and any close inspection raises question marks over this guy's anatomy. I also can't draw hats. But I do really like the difference between the standard walk and chase  (the gifs are all the same speed, but it still looks like a march of purpose), and the leap still makes me laugh.

THE BEAUTY OF PIXEL ART

From drawing and animating these characters and some other bits and bobs, I've come to realise that, even though I'm bad at art, and I hate the colours and the shading and the animations and the composition and pretty much everything I export from Aseprite, I'm not a million miles away.

Because yes, they are crap and need to be better, but with a little dash of coding magic, does the guard look like he's walking? Yes. Does Damien look like he's becoming furious? Yes. If pixel art is the native language of video games, I'm at least doing enough to get my point across, like an Englishman in Spain, pointing at a beer and repeating, 'Cerveza, por favor'. It's not eloquent, but it's communication of the message I want to send. I want you to know that Damien is walking, and anyone looking at that will know.

It's hard to create something beautiful with pixel art as it is with any artistic medium, but it's forgiving, particularly when it's animated. The human eye sees a character moving down the screen and doesn't really pay attention to those six pixels you call a leg and whether or not they're behaving as they should.

I have a long way to go in terms of the art alone. The colours clash and everything is foregrounded because it's all from the same palette; the animations are a little bit clunky; individual poses don't hold up to close scrutiny. And I'm sure as I produce more pixels, I'll create more problems. But you can't improve nothing. If you have something, anything, on the page, it can be improved and the same holds true of my awful pixel art. ​

THIS WEEK I'VE MOSTLY BEEN ...

https://imgur.com/gallery/mgd1R4o

Feeling low still, and most days I'll write a couple of lines of code, draw something small in Aseprite and shut down for the day. Yes, I'm still pissing about with the guards, but I've mostly been making Damien do sneaky swearwords that will eventually stun and incapacitate the guards when he's snooping through areas he shouldn't be in. And I've also made it SFW because I'm totally backtracking on the whole swearing element of the game. Do I need to rename my game now? Bugger.

I also made it so that Damien has a captured animation when the guards catch him as they leap, but I messed something up in the code and they won't chase him now ...

Thanks for taking the time to read about my shoddy pixels - you're more than welcome to bombard me with tips and tutorials if you'd like to help. If you want to hear more about Effing & Blinding​, come back next week, or sign up for the mailing list.

Thanks for reading!

Craig

BTTNBSH

[nasifinan]

An artist in the making

When I was a kid, I thought making art is a pointless effort and doesn’t contribute to anything in life. Little did I know that everything around me was the amalgamation of various forms of art.

Around second grade, I used to watch a lot of cartoons and animes that aired on TV, from which some of my favorites were Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z. One day I became curious about how the characters in those shows were created. I tried drawing something seriously for the first time of my own will. It was the box art of a Pokémon movie DVD. Although it wasn’t anything original, I got lost in a new level of concentration while doing it. I was so proud of what I made when I was done. This made me want to do these even more. So, I started making sketchbooks with drawings of all the Pokémons one by one. I was mesmerized by how each of them is so unique and has so many creative features. Drawing so many of them also helped me improve my skills a lot.

I became so into drawing Pokémons, that I started drawing doodles of them while slacking off in my classes. One day my best friend noticed that and got excited knowing that I could draw. He asked me to draw some Pokémons for him, and when I did, he showed them off to the whole class. I was embarrassed from that thinking everyone would laugh at me, but instead, they all loved them and crowded around me to make some for them too. Some of them requested me to try drawing some Dragon Ball Z characters for them as well since that was the new thing people were getting into. While drawing the Dragon Ball Z characters I realized they were much more difficult and needed me to learn human anatomy to draw. So, I did and leveled up as the popular art guy in my entire class even across different sections in my school. I found true happiness when I saw my friends get so happy when I drew something for them. This went on for years, as I realized art was my gateway to happiness and my passion.

In high school, I started taking inspiration from my surroundings and studied more art and animation styles like pixel art, rubber hose animation, modern anime styles etc. I made cartoon characters and sceneries of my own. Soon I made a portfolio with all my styles and started earning by doing commissions. Gaining much popularity, I opened an art community where groups of artists supported and inspired each other, later taking shape into an animation studio.

Now, I’m a professional artist and animation director, making serialized comics and shows with my studio. When I look back, it’s still amazing how a little bit of curiosity in a cartoon shaped my whole career and helped me find myself as an artist in the process.

[thegamedevquest]

From Blender to pixel art

Hey guys !

Last time, i mentioned that the first game is a 2D pixel art platformer, but it was really important to me that the animations were smooth and fluid. The usual (and to be honest, best looking) way to achieve this is by having a 2D artist working on tons of frames (the more you want fluid animations at 60 fps, the more frames you need).

Examples from PixelOutput 

The way that i chose, i thought i came up with the ideas myself but it's actually something that has been used many times before in the industry, the most recent example i have in mind being Dead Cells. The idea is to use all the 3D workflow sugar (keyframing, animating, iterating on the mesh without necessarily having to rework the animations, blending between poses or between animations using Mecanim,...), and making it render as pixel art on screen. This article will detail the workflow (actually the main steps of it) i've used to create, animate and render my main character, and i'll be providing very helpful links i've been referring to for most of the steps. Thanks to all of these guys for their great insights.

Step 1 - Create a character MakeHuman is free and very easy to use. I won't elaborate on this, check this tutorial if you need any help.

Step 2 - Customizing the character Once your character is in Blender, you have the opportuniy to customize it as you see fit. Depending on what you want to do, it will require more or less modeling skills. For my game i knew i'd go with the black solid color for characters, so i only needed a silhouette which simplifies a lot this process. I just sculpted a really barebone backpack because i wanted my main character to have one. Remember it will be rendered as pixel art in the end, so no need to be too finicky about the details. You may have noticed that the mesh from MakeHuman has quite a lot of vertices. If you think you may run into performance issues because of that (for instance, if you want to display a large number of characters on screen), you may want to simplify the mesh topology using modifiers or manual retopology. I didn't, my main character appears only once in the game.

Step 3 - Rigging Once you're happy with the mesh, you can rig it. Again this is very standard and straightforward (but not necessarily easy), check this tutorial. For an easier setup, you can also use Rigify (which i did). Get familiar with the rig, but because it's a human character and we will be doing a lot of animations, you absolutely need IK on your rig for arms and legs, or you will quickly feel the urge to kill yourself. Check this out to understand IK and how to set it up in Blender. Feel free to make your rig more personal, it's all about how you will use it to animate. This part is important because you create the tools you'll be using while iterating, so these tools must be as efficient as possible to have you win as much time as possible. For example, i removed a lot of bones that i didn't require because of my art style that will hide details (fingers, toes,..). Make it easy on yourself!

Step 4 - Animation Now that your model is rigged, you can animate it. There is little to know from the technical standpoint (check this tutorial to get you started), but be warned that you will spend A LOT of time on animations. First try to think of the framerate of animations that you'll be using in-game (configured in Unity) so you use the same in Blender. Then for each animation, i usually follow these steps : - If possible, study the movement you want to make by watching videos in slow motion on youtube or whatever. - Think about how you'll use the animation in game. For a 2D platformer, you only need the animation to look good from one side. So put your animation view to the side and work from there. It doesn't matter if the limbs are all wrong when looking the animation from the face: The player will never see that. - Time the animation by doing a rough keyframing of the "big movements" of your animation (ie left foot/right foot for a walk cycle) - If i'm doing a cycle animation, i'll duplicate the first frame to the frame "last+1" (if your animation is 50 frames long, duplicate frame 1 in frame 51). This is so interpolation will make your cycle loop perfectly. - Iterate to improve on these keyframes until you're happy with the overall movement. - Begin to add smaller details (think, sub-animations) and iterate on them. - Remember to focus your efforts on what really matters: Spend more time on the animations you'll be seeing most often. Walk and run cycles are very important for instance, you'll be doing that the whole time in-game.

My animations honestly don't look very good, even from the side, but once they are displayed as pixel art and blended with Mecanim, i think the result is good enough, and fits my expectations of fluidity and smmoothness. That's one way of getting around a weakness (ie. my inability to animate properly a human character) to not let it hurt the game idea you have in mind.

Step 5 - From Blender to Unity To export from Blender to Unity is a simple process, but it raise a few issues regarding scaling, rotation, export and import settings,... I've solved all of them using the settings described in this link, but please keep in mind it might change depending on versions of both Blender and Unity.

Step 6 - Setting up the in-game character Having your model show and animate in Unity is usually as simple as a drag and drop. In my case, since i'm doing a 2D game with 3D models, i had to make a prefab that would just add a 2d collider, and set the Z position so the model is displayed above all the sprites (which have Z == 0). Since the camera is orthographic, the bigger scale of the character because of its proximity with the camera won't be an issue.

Step 7 - Render as pixel art Unity now provides some tools to render your game with a pixel-perfect camera. This article from Unity explains it very well. You can also set a custom resolution for your game view that matches your render resolution, so you have a good preview even when the game is not running which is very helpful for designing UI or using Unity animation sequence tool.

Step 8 - Mecanim I'll skip this step as it's very dependant on the game. For a very simple Mecanim example of a 2D character playing a run animation when moving, check this tutorial. The advantage of using 3d models and animations is that Mecanim will be able to blend bone positions between animations, allowing for smoother transitions. Be careful to keep the Animator clean (These are good tips), as things can quickly go out of control in Mecanim. This is my complete Animator for Skyline Rider :

Step 9+ - Iterating Now that everything is setup, you can start iterating. Try out your game, see how your animation feels, go to Blender to make a few tweaks, then export to fbx again and continue testing. Most of the time you can even remain in play mode and the animation will be updated without the need to restart the game. I think of it as "gameplay driven" design which is only possible with great workflows. If you had to redraw every frame when you want to tweak an animation or the looks of a character, you waste a lot of time and either the budget explodes and the release date is pushed away, or you end up with "animation driven" design where programmers will need to make gameplay fit animation, and my personal opinion is that it can hurt the feeling of the game, which must always remain the top priority (at least, in the kind of game i like). This will probably be less and less of an issue with the continuous progress of procedural animation and animation rigging. Looking forward to working on things like that !

Obviously this whole 2D/3D is kind of a workaround, so in the next article i'll mention something that was actually made less convenient because of this.

Thanks for reading!

If you have questions or want to know more about this workflow, feel free to contact me (check the first post for contact information).

[daydreamer0078]

How to Start a Youtube Channel in 2020 ( Ultimate Guide for Beginners)

How to Start a Youtube Channel in 2020

Nowadays, most of the people have been trying to move into different careers like Youtube, blogging, affiliate marketing, and other stuff. Among them, youtube has been a powerful career to start with. There are numerous creators on youtube making billions and billions of dollars per month. Even, small kids are making billions by just reviewing toys and playing games which is kind of crazy to hear. But that doesn't mean you do review toys haha. However, there is a lot of huge competition on youtube. Among them, you have to stand up and make your video contentful. Although, I'm here to tell you how to start a youtube channel in 2020 successfully. Before you go onto youtube career. Maybe, you need to study and consider 3 things before you start a channel. These may help you and give you a clearance about a youtube thing. 3 Things you have to Consider 1.Niche / Topic If you don't know what niche/topic means. It's simple, what videos are you going to make? Are you going to make entertainment videos? How-to videos? Technology videos? Prank videos?   It's all up to you which kind of videos would you like to make. But, here's one thing you need to see. Are you kind of a person who just uploads random videos for just making money? If you're among them, maybe, you better stop starting a channel. You should upload videos or start a channel with only one category which means topic. You shouldn't upload random videos and you are restricted to do plagiarise content on youtube. It's just a warning from me. Even if you copied other's video and uploaded on your channel. Youtube will quickly delete the video due to violating their common guidelines and policies. So, let's discuss what niche you should choose particularly? There are tons of topics you can choose like : Entertainment Food Gaming Beauty tips Makeup Music News Sports Technology and Science Vlogs Pranks Reviews There are more topics too you can choose. It's all depends on what do you like the most. It's all about an interest you have. If you have great interest and know a lot of information about technology. You can share and bring comprehensive content with good SEO optimization which I will talk about it later. Although, I did give you guidance to choose which one and now it relies on you which you want to pursue the topic. 2.Commitment and Patience Commitment and Patience plays an essential role in growing your youtube channel. Without these two qualities, you might not achieve what you dreamed of. A Successful person always has these qualities. As a result, they could able to achieve their dreams and ambitions. Working hard and being a sedulous person guides you huge success which you should keep that in your mind. Talking about youtube, it reflects the same. Even if you're a blogger or youtube content creator. You will definitely be going to make huge success and will be a man who you wanted to be. Youtube career plays a huge role in the future. There is going to be enormous competition for youtube. It's lucky that you can start the youtube channel now and start working on it to grow and achieve success as you dreamed. Though, do not forget to have these qualities. If you're a person who desires overnight success. Youtube isn't the right place for you though. 3. Schedule your video and Be Consistent Being reckless about youtube won't give you visible results. As you have to be conscious and schedule the videos. You have to plan out the content you're going to upload and get your video ready even before you have a few days to upload. Uploading 2 videos every week is a good way of growing your channel. At least, you have to be active in the youtube channel. Even you aren't uploading content, you try to improve your video optimization like descriptions, keywords, and eye-catching video titles. What I can say is you must schedule your videos and always put a plan about what you're going to do tomorrow. Write down on a paper what videos you want to make and do as soon as possible before the release date.

How to Create a Youtube Channel

Creating a youtube channel is effortless and it's easy to create that shit. What you need to have is a Gmail account. That's it Let's get to do this. I suggest you to create a separate Gmail account first irrespective of your personal account because it's better to separate youtube emails from personal ones. So, you don't get confused and organize things.

Sign in your account or create the account. After signing up, Open Youtube 

As you can see, Click that " Create a Channel "  After that, You will be asked to choose if you want to continue with your mail name or want to create a custom name for your youtube channel.

So, now it's time to fill profile picture, channel description, and you can add links to your social media links.

Upload an attractive profile picture CHANNEL NAME : I suggest you to pick up a fascinating channel name. You have to be very unique about your name. For instance, my blog name is MHT Space. M means Movies, H means Health and T means Technology and space indicates that these three topics are planets in space. Sounds different right ? The fact is that I took 1 week to figure out a perfect name. CHANNEL DESCRIPTION: Bring our your creativity skills in this column. Write about yourself and what your videos about. Channel description is an important part of creating channel which most of the people ignore. So, do not forget to write perfectly and other thing is you have to lure and attract people with your channel description. Because, that would benefit your channel value.  

  It's time to connect your channel with social media pages and your website if you have. CREATE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES Do not ignore to create pages for your youtube channel. Social Media is one of the biggest sources of traffic and it drives visitors and your followers to your latest video. Every time you launched a video, your subscribers receive notification from you. Apparently, sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes youtube doesn't come to your favor. You must not depend on notifications to get views and engagement. That's why social media comes into play. So, create social media pages and do a post every time you published a video and redirect your visitors and subscribers through that link. WEBSITE It is also a good way to associate your channel with your site. If you ask me, should you create a website? I would say, wait ! until you get healthy engagement and a good amount of subs. You can create a site after it.   Finally, we have successfully created a youtube channel.

Nah Nah! Not yet, there are few things needed to be done. Click that customize channel Button

You will be redirected to this one and so now you might have got what should you do? right! As you probably would've uploaded a profile pic by now. But I didn't because I've created that youtube channel just to show you how to create a channel lol haha So, Shoot that Channel art button. You definitely know what is it. It is like a cover picture on Facebook. But don't think it's easy to customize the cover picture on youtube. It's a bit difficult though :)

It recommended 2560x1440 pixels to customize your channel art perfectly. It's  kind of diffucult to you to do that thing. So, I suggest you watch this video :)  After you done with the channel art. That's it you've created a youtube channel successfully From now it all depends on you. You have to work consistently on youtube to get success and do not ignore the fact that you should have patience and commitment :) Let's talk about how you can upload videos

At the bottom top of the right. You can see that button. You can upload videos through that button daily. The Important part of youtube is this : After you've uploaded a video on your channel.

Title Type a eye-catchy title based on your topic to attract visitors. But that doesn't mean you type a fake title to get views lol Video Description As I've given an example. You provide visitors what the video is about Thumbnail Design an attractive thumbnail on photoshop and upload it for that video as I did. Playlists If you click that. You will be asked if you want to create a playlist. The playlist is like creating categories. Eg: Informative Videos, Tutorials, How to, Give-away If your video is a tutorial. then put that video in the tutorials playlist. Audience If your video targets kids who are below 13. Then, Checkbox yes and if not, click no

Age Restriction If your video has 18+ content. Then put" yes" Paid Promotion After you got big viewership on youtube. Some companies approach you for their product promotions. So in that video, if you've done promotion. Then Click "Yes" Tags/ Keywords This is a major part of uploading a video. You have to be cautious about this tags category. "How to create a youtube channel " " How to start youtube channel" "Create youtube channel" "how to upload youtube videos" As you can see. You might have got an idea of how to do and what is it Language Select Video language and now you can upload subtitles if you want to add. Date and Location Provide a date and location. Viewers will able to see videos based on their location and country. License and Distribution You can't able to do anything with that unless if your video got copyrights. I've told you right. NEVER COPY A VIDEO OR AUDIO FROM YOUTUBE Allow embedding: will allow users to copy your video HTML code and insert in their site just like I did in how to make a youtube banner in the top Turn on " Publish to subscriptions feed and notify subscribers"  Category Choose your video category. If it's a tutorial video. Choose How to category Comments and Rating Choose what you would like to   CONCLUSION We're in the endgame now !! That's all guys! I've told you everything on how to start a youtube channel with comprehensive stuff. It all depends on you about how you run your channel. Patience and commitment lead to success and Being consistent in youtube grow your youtube career. That's what you have to do to get succeeded in youtube career. It may take you 6 months or more than 1 year. But, one day you are gonna get success unless you make good contentful videos. You aren't gonna get success if you're making bad and contentless videos. Although, All the Best guys Be sure to follow, comment and share this post to your friends :)   You might be interested in these articles, Have a look at them. How to Start a blog – Easy steps to create a blog Why You Should Choose Business over Job – Best Career? Advanced Technology Changes in 2020 that will blow your Mind 7 Ways to make Money Online How to Start a blog – Easy steps to create a blog 12 Best WordPress Plugins for Bloggers 5 Best Photo Editing Apps for Android and iOS – Edit like a Pro 5 Best Video Editing apps Read the full article

[siva3155]

300+ TOP UNITY 3D Interview Questions and Answers

UNITY 3D Interview Questions for freshers experienced :-

1. What is Unity 3D? Unity 3D is a powerful cross-platform and fully integrated development engine which gives out-of-box functionality to create games and other interactive 3D content. 2. What are the characteristics of Unity3D? Characteristics of Unity is It is a multi-platform game engine with features like ( 3D objects, physics, animation, scripting, lighting etc.) Accompanying script editor MonoDevelop (win/mac) It can also use Visual Studio (Windows) 3D terrain editor 3D object animation manager GUI System Many platforms executable exporter Web player/ Android/Native application/Wii In Unity 3D, you can assemble art and assets into scenes and environments like adding special effects, physics and animation, lighting, etc. 3. What is important components of Unity 3D? Some important Unity 3D components include Toolbar: It features several important manipulation tools for the scene and game windows Scene View: It is a fully rendered 3 D preview of the currently open scene is displayed and enables you to add, edit and remove GameObjects Hierarchy: It displays a list of every GameObject within the current scene view Project Window: In complex games, project window searches for specific game assets as needed. It explores the assets directory for all textures, scripts, models and prefabs used within the project Game View: In unity you can view your game and at the same time make changes to your game while you are playing in real time. 4. What is Prefabs in Unity 3D? Prefab in Unity 3D is referred for pre-fabricated object template (Class combining objects and scripts). At design time, a prefab can be dragged from project window into the scene window and added the scene's hierarchy of game objects. If desired the object then can be edited. At the run time, a script can cause a new object instance to be created at a given location or with a given transform set of properties. 5. What is the function of Inspector in Unity 3D? The inspector is a context-sensitive panel, where you can adjust the position, scale and rotation of Game Objects listed in Hierarchy panel. 6. What's the best game of all time and why? The most important thing here is to answer relatively quickly, and back it up. One of the fallouts of this question is age. Answering "Robotron!" to a 20-something interviewer might lead to a feeling of disconnect. But sometimes that can be good. It means you have to really explain why it's the best game of all time. Can you verbally and accurately describe a game to another person who has never played it? You'll rack up some communication points if you can. What you shouldn't say is whatever the latest hot game is, or blatantly pick one that the company made (unless it's true and your enthusiasm is bubbling over). Be honest. Don't be too eccentric and niche, and be ready to defend your decision. 7. Do you have any questions regarding us? Yes. Yes, you do have questions. Some of your questions will have been answered in the normal give-and-take of conversation, but you should always be asked if you have others (and if not, something's wrong). Having questions means you're interested. Some questions are best directed to HR, while others should be asked of managers and future co-workers. Ask questions that show an interest in the position and the long-term plans of the company. For some ideas, see "Questions You Should Ask in an Interview," below. 8. What are the characteristics of Unity3D Characteristics of Unity is It is a multi-platform game engine with features like ( 3D objects, physics, animation, scripting, lighting etc.) Accompanying script editor MonoDevelop (win/mac) It can also use Visual Studio (Windows) 3D terrain editor 3D object animation manager GUI System Many platforms executable exporter Web player/ Android/Native application/Wii In Unity 3D, you can assemble art and assets into scenes and environments like adding special effects, physics and animation, lighting, etc. 9. List out some best practices for Unity 3D Cache component references: Always cache reference to components you need to use your scripts Memory Allocation: Instead of instantiating the new object on the fly, always consider creating and using object pools. It will help to less memory fragmentation and make the garbage collector work less Layers and collision matrix: For each new layer, a new column and row are added on the collision matrix. This matrix is responsible for defining interactions between layers Raycasts: It enables to fire a ray on a certain direction with a certain length and let you know if it hit something Physics 2D 3D: Choose physics engine that suits your game Rigidbody: It is an essential component when adding physical interactions between objects  Fixed Timestep: Fixed timestep value directly impacts the fixedupdate() and physics update rate. 10. What do you do on your own time to extend your skills? As a programmer, do you work on home projects? As a designer, do you doodle design ideas or make puzzles? As an artist, do you do portrait work? Having hired many people in the past, one of the things I can speak to with authority is that those people who spend their off time working on discipline-related projects are the ones who are always up on current trends, have new ideas, are most willing to try something new, and will be the ones taking stuff home to tinker with on their own time. Now that shouldn't be expected of everyone, but the sad reality is that there is competition for jobs out there, and those who are prepared to put in the extra work are the ones that are going to be in hot demand. Demonstrating that you learned C# over a weekend because you thought it was cool for prototyping is exactly the kind of thing a programming manager wants to hear. Suddenly your toolset expanded, and not only did it show willingness to do something without being told, it makes you more valuable. The only care to here is to not mention an outside situation that might detract from or compete with your day job.

UNITY 3D Interview Questions 11. How do you feel about crunching? At smaller studios, this is the 64 million dollar question. My advice is to be 100 percent honest. If you won't crunch, say so now. It may well put you out of the running for a job, but ultimately that's a good thing. No, really, it is! If the company works a lot of overtime and you don't want to do it, then taking the job is going to be punishing for everyone. Having said that, the last thing any interviewer wants to hear is, "I won't do it" because that predicates a perceived lack of involvement and passion (not that passion should equal overtime, but the perception of refusing to do something before you're even in the circumstances could be the difference between getting a job offer and having the company pass you up). Phrase your answer in such a way that you don't sound confrontational with the interviewer. She doesn't want to get into an argument; she just wants to know where you stand. Understand that this question is meant to gauge, roughly, how you might fit into the company culture. 12. How would you make the games you're playing better? You'd be surprised how often this question comes up, even if you aren't interviewing for a design position. Everyone wants a developer who has design sensibilities because it inevitably means she or he will be more involved and engaged in whatever is going on. Knowing ahead of time how you might answer this question means you'll come off sounding like you've actually thought about a game in development terms. Game studios are looking for people who think as they play -- about what they're playing, how it's done, what could have been improved, and most importantly, what they can rip off. One downside to adopting this mentality is that it becomes harder to enjoy a game for what it is, but that's an occupational hazard in all jobs. Believe it or not, you can answer this question in an entirely positive way. However, if you decide instead to criticize a design or implementation decision in a game, be sure you have a solution to the problem too. It's not enough to moan about the final strider battle in Half-Life 2: Episode 2; you have to have an idea of how it could have been made more enjoyable, perhaps through easier car control, or not destroying all the supply stations so quickly. If you decide to bash a game that the company where you're interviewing developed (and that takes courage; some companies will applaud you while others will diss you for not drinking the Kool-Aid), then ensure that what you're criticizing isn't something subjective but something that everyone has had a pop at. Be ready to back up the criticism with proof that it's an agreed-upon flaw, not just you being nit-picky. 13. Explain what a vertex shader is, and what a pixel shader is? Vertex shader is a script that runs for each vertex of the mesh, allowing the developer to apply transformation matrixes, and other operations, in order to control where this vertex is in the 3D space, and how it will be projected on the screen. Pixel shader is a script that runs for each fragment (pixel candidate to be rendered) after three vertexes are processed in a mesh's triangle. The developer can use information like the UV / TextureCoords and sample textures in order to control the final color that will be rendered on screen. 14. Where do you want to be in five years? Personally, I love this question because it reveals if a prospective candidate has a plan at all or is just drifting from job to job as so many are wont to do. There's nothing wrong per se with people who drift along the currents, it's just that those with a plan (or at least a desire to move in a particular direction) are generally much more interesting people. Plus, they are almost always inherently more predictable, which is always a benefit for employers. Having a desire to move forward helps everyone. It helps you measure your progress, and it gives the company a plan to help you get there. Of course, it does depend on you knowing what you want. Most people tend to know what they don't want, but not necessarily what they do want, which is a problem -- particularly if you express that in an interview. Interviewers would rather have a list of things you want to attain rather than things you don't. One optimal answer is, "Still working for you making games," but it smacks of sucking up, so I'd recommend saying something a little more generic: "Still looking for a challenge and putting in that extra effort to make great games." The best response I've ever heard to that question was, "I want your job!" and the individual who said it to me indeed has my old job! But be wary of sounding confrontational. 15. Why vectors should be normalized when used to move an object? Normalization makes the vector unit length. It means, for instance, that if you want to move with speed 20.0, multiplying speed * vector will result in a precise 20.0 units per step. If the vector had a random length, the step would be different than 20.0 units. 16. Why do you want to work here as Unity3D Developer? (This question implicitly includes, "Why do you want to leave where you are?" if you're currently employed.) This question is an open opportunity to show you've done some research on the company where you're interviewing. All companies and interviewers are flattered when the interviewee knows who they are, knows what games they make, and wants to be a part of their experience. Do your homework and put on a good show! Don't say things like, "I need a job," or "I need to move to Sacramento." Instead, pick a few things that are germane to the company in question. The more specific your reasons are tied to the company, the better. "I want to work on FPS shooters" isn't as good an answer as "I want to work on Game Franchise X because I played the first two games and still see potential for future growth of the product." It's sycophantic, yes, but interviewers are as prone to flattery as anyone else -- although don't give that as your only reason. When explaining why you want to leave your current job, the trick is to not be negative. Pick a couple of points that are inarguable, for example, "There was no career development" or "They weren't working on the kinds of games I'm interested in," rather than "Their management is clueless and they are going to die soon." The game industry is a small community -- you could very well be talking smack about your interviewer's close buddy. If you were let go or fired, it's better to say something like, "We decided to part ways," or "It was my time to leave," rather than go into too much detail, unless directly pressed. In that case, the interviewer probably already knows what went down and is just looking to see what you'll say. Answer the question quickly and without negativity, and move on. You want to leave a positive impression. 17. Why deferred lighting optimizes scenes with a lot of lights and elements? During rendering, each pixel is calculated whether it should be illuminated and receive lightning influence, and this is repeated for each light. After approximately eight repeated calculations for different lights in the scene, the overhead becomes significant. For large scenes, the number of pixels rendered is usually bigger than the number of pixels in the screen itself. Deferred Lighting makes the scene render all pixels without illumination (which is fast), and with extra information (at a cost of low overhead), it calculates the illumination step only for the pixels of the screen buffer (which is less than all pixels processed for each element). This technique allow much more light instances in the project. 18. Can two GameObjects, each with only an SphereCollider, both set as trigger and raise OnTrigger events? Explain your answer? No. Collision events between two objects can only be raised when one of them has a RigidBody attached to it. This is a common error when implementing applications that use "physics." 19. What is an Unity3D file and how can you open a unity3d file? A Unity3D files are scene web player files created by Unity; an application used to develop 3D games. These files consist of all assets and other game data in a single archive, and are used to enable gameplay within a browser that has the Unity Web Player Plugin. The assets within a 3D unity file are saved in a proprietary closed format. 20. What's your biggest weakness? Or, if I hired you, what would I regret about it in six months? This is a common question in all job interviews. There are generally two kinds of responses: the brutally honest and damning one ("I get upset with people who don't carry their load"), and the sycophantic one ("I'm a perfectionist"). What most employers are looking for is an honest answer that is followed up with an example of something you have done to work on your weakness. For example, you can say, "My workspace tends to become extremely disorganized," as long as you follow it up with, "but recently, I've put in a lot of effort to go paperless, and I'm extremely systematic in the way I manage my email inbox." The other secret to this question is not so much in the answer but how long you take to respond. If you answer too quickly, you might be suggesting that you already know all your worst points because they are blatantly obvious and you've been told so many times. If you take too long, it will seem as if you're searching for an answer that sounds good, doesn't make you look bad, and is something the interviewer would be happy to hear. Again, it gives the perception that you are being ingratiating rather than honest. By the way, the best answer I've heard is, "I don't know. What do you think I'd regret in six months if I worked here?" 21. What is Fixed Timestep in Unity3D? Why does Fixed Timestep setting affect game speed? Fixed Timestep feature helps to set the system updates at fixed time interval. A queue like mechanism will manage all real-time events that are accumulated between time epochs. If frame-rate drops below some threshold limit set for fixed timestep, then it can affect the game speed. 22. Explain, in a few words, what roles the inspector, project and hierarchy panels in the Unity editor have. Which is responsible for referencing the content that will be included in the build process? The inspector panel allows users to modify numeric values (such as position, rotation and scale), drag and drop references of scene objects (like Prefabs, Materials and Game Objects), and others. Also it can show a custom-made UI, created by the user, by using Editor scripts. The project panel contains files from the file system of the assets folder in the project's root folder. It shows all the available scripts, textures, materials and shaders available for use in the project. The hierarchy panel shows the current scene structure, with its GameObjects and its children. It also helps users organize them by name and order relative to the GameObject's siblings. Order dependent features, such as UI, make use of this categorization. The panel responsible for referencing content in the build process is the hierarchy panel. The panel contains references to the objects that exist, or will exist, when the application is executed. When building the project, Unity searches for them in the project panel, and adds them to the bundle. 23. Why Time.deltaTime should be used to make things that depend on time operate correctly? Real time applications, such as games, have a variable FPS. They sometimes run at 60FPS, or when suffering slowdowns, they will run on 40FPS or less. If you want to change a value from A to B in 1.0 seconds you can't simply increase A by B-A between two frames because frames can run fast or slow, so one frame can have different durations. The way to correct this is to measure the time taken from frame X to X+1 and increment A, leveraging this change with the frame duration deltaTime by doing A += (B-A) * DeltaTime. When the accumulated DeltaTime reaches 1.0 second, A will have assumed B value. 24. Which of the following examples will run faster? 1000 GameObjects, each with a MonoBehaviour implementing the Update callback. One GameObject with one MonoBehaviour with an Array of 1000 classes, each implementing a custom Update() callback? The correct answer is 2. The Update callback is called using a C# Reflection, which is significantly slower than calling a function directly. In our example, 1000 GameObjects each with a MonoBehaviour means 1000 Reflection calls per frame. Creating one MonoBehaviour with one Update, and using this single callback to Update a given number of elements, is a lot faster, due to the direct access to the method. 25. Arrange the event functions listed below in the order in which they will be invoked when an application is closed: Update() OnGUI() Awake() OnDisable() Start() LateUpdate() OnEnable() OnApplicationQuit() OnDestroy() The correct execution order of these event functions when an application closes is as follows: Awake() OnEnable() Start() Update() LateUpdate() OnGUI() OnApplicationQuit() OnDisable() OnDestroy() Note: You might be tempted to disagree with the placement of OnApplicationQuit() in the above list, but it is correct which can be verified by logging the order in which call occurs when your application closes. 26. Okay, we're going to work through a problem here? Often in game job interviews, you will be presented with a problem to solve, or even a full-blown test, depending on the position. It might be grease board work, it might be a conversation, it might be a level design test, it might even be a code test at a PC. The premise is that the interviewer wants to see how you work. Often, once you've answered the question, the interviewer will change the parameters to see what you'll do. But what do you do if you have no clue what's being asked, or if it's outside your area of expertise---> That's a panic moment if there ever was one. Take a deep breath and realize that this is a moment where you need to say, "I'm not sure I understand the question," or "That's not something I've done before." But immediately after that, start asking questions about the problem and take a stab at solving it. That's one of the biggest things you can do at this point -- admit ignorance then have a go anyway. Showing a willingness to try something outside your field of knowledge is huge to interviewers. It shows you want to learn and be more than what you are now. Sometimes, the fact that you tried is more important than the actual result, and sometimes, you'll have an interviewer who will give you hints toward a solution just because you showed that willingness to try. The more junior you are the more likely this is to happen. Occasionally, interviewers will deliberately put you out of your comfort zone just to see how you'll react, so be aware! 27. Consider the following code snippet below: class Mover : MonoBehaviour { Vector3 target; float speed; void Update() { } } Finish this code so the GameObject containing this script moves with constant speed towards target, and stop moving once it reaches 1.0, or less, units of distance? ANS:- class Mover : MonoBehaviour { Vector3 target; float speed; void Update() { float distance = Vector3.Distance(target,transform.position); // will only move while the distance is bigger than 1.0 units if(distance > 1.0f) { Vector3 dir = target - transform.position; dir.Normalize(); // normalization is obligatory transform.position += dir * speed * Time.deltaTime; // using deltaTime and speed is obligatory } } } 28. Can threads be used to modify a Texture on runtime? Can threads be used to move a GameObject on the scene? Consider the snippet below: class RandomGenerator : MonoBehaviour { public float randomList; void Start() { randomList = new float; } void Generate() { System.Random rnd = new System.Random(); for(int i=0;i What's your favorite book? Movie? TV show? ---> Do you prefer open worlds or well-defined quest lines? Do you think a game should/can have both? ---> What's your favorite character class? ---> How would you briefly describe the mechanics of your favorite game to a non-programmer? ---> Do you usually play games to the end? ---> What's your Beta test experience? (No, you're not looking for a QA person BUT it doesn't hurt to hire a programmer who thinks like a QA person at least a little, as in being able to vet their own work before they hand off a fix as "done.") ---> What's your favorite game of ours and why? (If you've only published one game, they better have played it! And listen for their own words-if they sound like they're parroting what they read about your game, it's entirely possible they haven't actually played it.) ---> If you could work in any other area of our industry, what would it be and why? What makes a game fun for you? 31. List out the pros and cons of Unity 3D? Pros: It uses JavaScript and C# language for scripting Unity provides an Asset store where you can buy or find stuff, that you want to use in your games You can customize your own shaders and change the way how Unity renders the game It is great platform for making games for mobile devices like iOS, Android and Web (HTML5) Cons: Compared to Unreal Engine it has got low graphics quality Interface not user-friendly and it is hard to learn especially for beginners It requires good programming knowledge as such most of the stuff runs on Scripts 32. What will you bring to the team? Why do we need you? This is a general question that applies to all interviews. There are two ways to answer: the big answer and the little answer. The big answer requires you to have some knowledge of how the company operates. Who does what---> Your goal is to slot your experience, passion and skills (and if you are a student, your passion, skills, and desired career direction) into any holes the company may have -- and it should have some. Otherwise, why are they hiring---> The little answer is to name some of your previous experiences and best qualities and hope that's enough. Care needs to be taken that a) you don't sound arrogant in assuming the company will die without you and b) you don't say negative things about the company. Statements like, "Well, you obviously can't do good Q/A. You need a good Q/A manager," are likely to go down like a lead balloon. Frame your answer to suggest that you would bring extra expertise, and therefore improvement, to something that's already in place. 33. What game would you make if money were no object Everyone has a pet project they would want to make if they had the chance -- it's just inherent in the game developer psyche. This is your chance to expound on it, and the more realized your idea is, the more it will be seen as proof that you know what you're doing. Taking an existing idea and adding, "but I'd make it cooler!" isn't the answer (the number of times I've heard Q/A staff wanting to become developers tell me they want to remake Counter Strike "but better" is staggering); it just shows you have enthusiasm, but no original ideas. Bonus points if you can take an existing IP license and make a compelling argument for a game out of it. People who can actually do that are at a premium in our industry since most tie-ins, well, suck. 34. What games are you playing? If you plan to work for a video game company, you'd better be playing games -- and you'd better be able to demonstrate that. It's good form to mention some games that are in the same genre as the games made at that company. It's even better if you mention playing some of the games that were actually made there. Again though, don't go over the top. At the very least, play the demo of anything they've produced. You need to be knowledgeable about the genre, what you enjoy about it, and how the development of these games is affected by the genre (as much as you can be). So research the company before the interview. How you answer this question can be a deal breaker or a deal maker for hiring managers. They want to hire people who are demonstrably passionate about the games their company makes. Saying, "I have a level 70 mage in World of Warcraft and a level 40 druid in EverQuest," to Blizzard makes the point that you are immersed in its product genre. Demonstrating some knowledge about older games also shows you're grounded in game history, which is never a bad thing. The wider your knowledge base, the more you can forestall going down blind alleys in terms of implementation and design, which benefits everyone, and that's exactly what a company is looking for in its employees. 35. List out some key features of Unity3D UE4 ( Unreal Engine 4)? UE4: Game logic is written in C++ or blueprint editor Base scene object- Actor Input Events- Component UInputComponent of Actor class Main classes and function of UE4 includes int32,int24, Fstring, Ftransform, FQuat, FRotator, Actor and TArray To create a new instance of a specified class and to point towards the newly created Actor. UWorld::SpawnActor() may be used UI of Unreal Engine 4 is more flexible and less prone to crashes It does not support systems like X-box 360 or PS3, it requires AMD Radeon HD card to function properly Less expensive compare to Unity3D To use UE4 you don't need programming language knowledge Unity3D: Game logic is written using the Mono environment Base scene object- GameObject Input events- Class Input Main classes and function include int,string,quaternion,transform, rotation, gameobject, Array To make a copy of an object you can use the function Instantiate() The asset store of this tool is much better stacked than UE4 It supports wide range of gaming consoles like X-box and PS4, as well as their predecessors Unity3D has free version which lacks few functionality while pro version is bit expensive in compare to UE4 It requires programming language knowledge 36. What is the use of AssetBundle in Unity3D? AssetBundles are files that can be exported from Unity to contain asset of your choice. AssetBundles are created to simply downloading content to your application. 37. In Unity 3D how can you hide gameobject? To hide gameobject in Unity 3D, you have to use the code gameObject.transform.SetActive(false); 38. Questions You Should Ask In Unity3D Interview: What are the core working hours? How do you assign or schedule tasks? Who gets to decide who does what and estimates time? What's the career path for this job? How do I get to progress? What is the process for promotion? What training approach do you use? How would I learn new skills? How are personnel reviews handled? Who does them and how often? Are there any specific development processes used here, for example, Scrum? Who would I report to? If I'm hired, what is the next game I might work on---> How much input would I have on that? Is there a relocation package? What bonus structure or incentives are there? 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[pixelproductions]

A Tutorial in Hand Lettering With Creative Lettering Resources to Learn From

Hand lettering is a powerful design skill for message delivery, If you’re looking to learn creative lettering check out this tutorial in hand lettering with plenty of awesome resources to learn by.

© WILL PATERSON

By mastering the skill of creative hand lettering, you can draw logos and postcards, create advertisements, and graffiti. But first, you should learn the basics. For that we’ll provide you with a brief hand lettering tutorial and plenty of resources to keep you motivated.

Working with letters is both design and art. It opens up a huge space for creativity by communicating words visually in different styles, which ultimately conveys a very different mood and image. If you’re thinking that hand lettering is not a very useful hobby — you’re mistaken. Design companies, like the one this post is appearing on, use custom hand lettering for brand personalization, communication and appeal to specific audiences.

Check out Pixel’s custom graffiti lettering for Sips Elixirs Logo and branding. This is an example of tying lettering into a very specific company culture.

How to learn hand lettering?

To begin this tutorial in hand lettering, it is important to define the concepts. Many people confuse lettering with calligraphy and fonts. Hand lettering is a way to draw and stylize letters beautifully. Pencils, ink, brushes, chalk, and other accessories can be used. The finished drawing can be corrected and improved on the computer.

Alternatively, calligraphy does not tolerate corrections. The essence of it is to draw letters gracefully and accurately at the first attempt. Both in lettering and calligraphy, the emphasis is on the uniqueness of the work and the artist’s skill, and this is their difference from the font. A font is a standardized set of letters designed for reuse.

Once you have understood the terms, it’s time to choose the right way to learn how to fly.

Books

Personally, I like Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces and In Progress: See Inside a Lettering Artist’s Sketchbook and Process, from Pencil to Vector. In my mind, Jessica Hische is probably the queen of hand lettering and her daily drop caps project contributed a lot to the recent rise of hand lettering’s popularity. But really the biggest help for me was just daily practice, with someone who can give you quality feedback on your work.

Finally, If you can get your hands on any books by Doyald Young those should be great too. Unfortunately, they are very hard to get and very expensive. I have Logotypes & Letterforms which is cool but doesn’t teach much fundamentals, his other book Fonts & Logos is considered to be the bible of lettering 🙂 but the cheapest one I found was 75$

Video hand lettering tutorials

Of course, from some videos on YouTube, you won’t become a professional, but you can try out a new hobby for yourself and “fill your hand”.

There are hundreds of videos on how to learn lettering, so I think it might be good to narrow down to some case-specific videos; check out e.g. How to Make Hand Lettering Logo

Masterclasses

Many drawing and design studios conduct workshops and masterclasses on lettering, including free ones.

There are a number of great video courses on YouTube and Skillshare. Also, look into Sean McCabe’s learn lettering course at www.seanwes.com

Who do I subscribe to?

To gain inspiration, subscribe to Instagram accounts of the best lettering masters creative lettering resources.

Matthew Tapia

Matthew Tapia, an artist and graphic designer from Hawaii, is very good at conveying the mood and style of a text. In his Instagram blog he also often publishes examples of quality lettering and interesting fonts from other creators.

Meisographic

If you’re interested in how professional artists work, sign up for a Meisographic account. This author often posts videos, detailing the process of calligraphy and lettering, and this is a truly hypnotic experience.

Rylsee

In his works, Rylsee uses funny phrases like “too shy to rap” and “don’t trust someone who doesn’t like pizza.” However, funny quotes aren’t the pinnacle of the artist’s work; he’s very good at typography, design, branding, and installation.

Kkade Schwarzmaler

The beauty and complexity of the work of this Swiss studio are striking: every letter and element is worked out to the smallest detail. The guys have created their own recognizable style that looks equally good on handwritten works, as it does in graffiti and graphic design.

To sum it up

Whatever route you take, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of doing and learning by practicing every single day.

Find a medium that works for you, learn fundamentals, try to copy \ imitate artists that inspire you and it will come 🙂

[chickensmooshit]

Do you have any opinions on artists on CS? IE artists that you like/follow or artists that you don’t like

I really wanted to wait and make a huge thing with shout outs, but I find I’m never going to do this, so I’ll butcher it.

Okay, so to get the nepotism out of the way, (because they are my cousin), I’m extremely proud of and thrilled to see KOEDEGA’s work. I touched on this a while ago, but they have absolutely no SameFace Syndrome in their work, and that’s gold to me. I also appreciate the sketchy/sloppy lines to where they’re not even messy, they’re stylized, it’s one thing I love where people show you don’t have to be entirely neat for something to look good. Also, fur direction and placement is a big thing I like from them. And lastly, I really wish I had their creative spark for designs and characters. Everything they show me and the ideas they have, I’m frankly stunned and a little upset over not being able to have had the ideas myself.

Onto the non-nepotism answers:

Not even sure where to start with finch.’s work. Their style definitely is what drew me in. I really can’t get over how they draw fur and how they can touch on polar opposites where it looks tuffed and soft to the touch, yet so sharp it could cut flesh. I also like their colour awreness. They know what works. They might seem to limit themselves in what ranges they use, but I find they’re breaking away from that and expanding. I also am mesmerized by their designs. They can keep it simple and add originality to it to make it unique and unseen before. I really wish I would keep up more with thier work.

sov is seriously someone I’m heartbroken about. I used to see their work all the time and I fucking loved it. I think they’re still around on the site, but I never seem to catch any of their work anymore and I can’t explain how upset I am by that. I loved their style their lines their sketches, everything. I’m not even sure where to find them offsite, but it’s a pain going through hunting to find their art. If you can find them, definitely bookmark them, because their shit is fucking awesome.

Alright, I know they haven’t really been around, but I’ll give a shoutout to the first Artist on CS who made me go for it. TheWolfsGirl90 took hold of me early on. When I first started I was all about trying anatomy, but upon seeing their work, I finally decided to add in personal touch and style and even try shading and highlighting for once. I really loved their beastly looks and I kind of miss it. Not sure where they are now or how their style has changed, but if I ever think of CS artists, they’re the first to my head.

Another one is: moonland -They’re another one of those sketchy messy artist that can’t help but to make the mess look like a masterpiece. I also can’t seem to get over their light work and concepts. The dark shadows and light points just hit something I can’t describe but makes me stop and admire all the time. 

I’ll leave this artist as this, but I’m not one for cute things, but I’ll stop for Kessler’s art.

Obviously cass is really good. I’m more for their reptiles than anything which is odd because normally I don’t care too much for reptilian work. But she does it so well. I also like how spot on her realism is, and while being correct with anatomy, she still finds ways to impliment her own touches here and there.

Arganineo is an artist I would like to see the improvements of in the next few years. I think they have a good grasp of where their own personal style is headed, but there’s a few leaps they could make to make it even better.

I do like some of punkopup’s work, but really only some of it. Some pieces just don’t grab me, but others they go crazy with displaying their personal style, and those are the ones I really like. 

I wish I could see more of maloo’s work. I saw some of it when they had their artshop opened, but I haven’t seen much since. Would really like to know the improvements.

There’s more, but I can’t think of them, and these ones I just checked from bookmarks.

For artists I don’t really like, there’s a lot, so it’s hard to mention them all. Also, I don’t really hate their work, it’s just not something that really speaks to me, or it’s just not something in my field of likes. Or even, they’re just at a point where they haven’t exactly developed much skill or style. And with that I’m limiting it to just three artists I don’t like.

For starters, ufos is one. I just don’t really like their style too much. I am mostly for canine artists just as that’s what I like, so that’s already a bummer for them, but even with human art, I don’t really care much for the cartoon style. I think their painting skills have potential, but the cartoon style with it just doesn’t sit right with me.

Nothing against them as a person, but I don’t really like Sixbane’s art too much. They have skill, don’t get me wrong, but their style both with anatomy and appearance as well as lighting, colouring, and shading, it’s just everything I don’t like to see in art pieces.

Celozon is the last one. I think what they’re able to do is neat, but just their personal style isn’t something I favour. I do enjoy seeing their pixels around, but unfortunately to say I wouldn’t ever invest in one. However, I’m glad to see others take interest in their work.

Since I’ve missed tons and tons of artists, if you guys have any specific ones in mind, I’ll give you my opinions on them; just send in some asks.