#industrial mockup

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[nestorleont]

Introducción a las Técnicas de Presentación

Interpretación de los fundamentos teóricos de las técnicas de presentación gráfica Las técnicas de presentación gráfica son herramientas fundamentales en el campo del diseño industrial. Estas técnicas se basan en principios teóricos que permiten transmitir información sobre diseños de objetos industriales de manera efectiva y atractiva. Algunos de los fundamentos teóricos más importantes…

[gummy-ai]

my visual language assignment :))) i had to design the front and back cover for a book about a topic we talked in class, i chose to make mine about beauty standards and how they're selt and imposed to us, like we need to 'fix' something about us. just like we were broken or bad for being how we are.

the title says 'nothing to fix', and the spine says 'a guide about beauty in social media times'

mockup by pixeden!! design 100% made by me in Procreate do not steal or repost without credits

[insertdisc5]

hihi!!! i absolutely adore isat and it inspired me to start making my own rpgmaker game, so i had a quick question for you! if you haven't talked about it before, how did you personally go about finding a publisher? im pretty early in my own development process but it just seems like a daunting thing to find one :o

i hope you have a wonderful day!!! :3

I'm so good at bideo game that they came to ME (sparkles) thanks start again a prologue for showing publishers I can do game good

Here's some advice for finding publishers tho (source: I have eyes, and I've taken classes about this):

-first, ask yourself: why do you need a publisher? Money, marketing, producing, all of the above? There are lots of options out there that aren't getting a publisher. You can just hire a producer (like my producer Dora Breckinridge <3)

-have a pitch ready!!!! you can find examples of pitches online, but I highly recommend looking at the Bear & Breakfast one for example. At the very least you should have concept art, if not mockups of what the game could look like, if not actual screenshots

-making a good pitch is art. Highly recommend having someone look it over. Rami Ismail has consultations available just for that purpose and he knows his stuff (all the advice I have comes from him! I took a great class of his a couple months ago)

-once you have a pitch ready, email it to literally every publisher out there. yes I know you're making an rpg and this publisher is only looking for platformers, but send it to them anyway. They will not blacklist you for this lol, worst case scenario is that they won't look at it.

-if you get zero answers, redo your pitch. If you get a couple, that's the ticket. Look at their offers and take the best one. Only say no to the others once you got that shit signed. If you get a BUNCH of answers, it means your idea rules and you could probably self publish it and don't need a publisher. But take one anyway if you want (especially for your first game!)

-having a vertical slice is always good for pitching, but not always needed? (AKA a slice of your game that shows off the story, gameplay, etc... aka shows you know how to do this)

-once you get a publisher contract, ASK A VIDEO GAME LAWYWR TO LOOK IT OVER. NOT JUST A LAWYER. A VIDEO GAME LAWYER. ITS YOUR BABY!!! FUCKING DO IT

-you should probably add a clause about if the publisher goes down. Reminder also that the video game industry is in shambles right now. Manage your expectations

-you can also self publish. It is a thing you can do. Patreon is here. Kickstarter is here. You have options!!! If you can't get a publisher it's not the end of the world!!!!!!

-I'm just a humble dev and those are my own humble thoughts as someone who got very lucky with their publisher. Armor Games was very good to me during the dev of isat!

[zaebucca]

About scale, process, palette and canvas: a few considerations on pixel art as a medium

User moredogproblems answered an interesting and legitimate question by another, DiscountEarly125, regarding my work and canvas size. He also perfectly isolated two central concepts of pixel art, which are scale and process. Canvas size, which was the theme of DiscountEarly125's specific request, is more of a dependent variable to those two aforementioned concepts, rather than a starting point. I hope the following considerations I shared may help or prompt some other ideas, but this is what I could come up with 15-ish years of experience with pixel art (and a few more years of art and media studies). I was quite in the mood of writing down these few thoughts that have been floating for a while. I apologize as this may also result in a confusing wall of text, but it is all part of a my work and research, and I would love to polish all the material, hopefully with some thoughts, insights from other colleagues, as well as pictures and materials!

A. Scale and canvas size It is true that the bigger the canvas, the more distance one may visually create from pixel art, but I personally think this is to be possibly considered a matter of perceiving pixels, rather than a fundative problem of the medium. In fact I concur with the idea of "process makes the medium" rather than identifying pixel art as how (evidently) pixeled the result feels. The general picture, or the sum of pixels, though, is a really important matter to the medium nonetheless! Pixels themselves work in relation one with another, so it's their overall result that gives context and makes the subject recognizable. This relationship between pixels links back to all the art fundamentals that each artist is taught, from color theory to shape and composition - and so on. So, the canvas size debate usually boils down to a matter of scale or necessity of your subjects. As long as the dimension (canvas) of your subject (as in: a drawing of an apple, a character sprite, a mockup environment) allows you to operate, control and keep an eye on the quantity (number/area of pixels together) and quality (color, shaping of multiple pixels, texturing obtained through color and shapes) of isolated single pixels or pixeled areas, you're in the pixel art universe. The other way around to define the matter of scaling: in order to be operating pixel art fundamentals and techniques, your subject has to be on a scale that allows you to apply principles of pixel art within the space of your canvas and your personal style. These very same principles, or basics, can be applied with different results and extent to bigger and smaller canvases alike, each with their own specific difficulties and variables. It is important to adapt your scale when learning, and trying classic canvases per subject like "16x16px" (standard tile or character sprite unit, tied to older consoles and screen ratios, it's a bit complicated there) is always a nice idea - they also tend to be industry benchmarks and necessities so in case you'd like to consider a professional output, that's very useful.

Scale also applies to the array of colors, and there lies the concept of palette: a number of single hexadecimal hues we are using for each single pixel. Any single pixel can have one hexadecimal color only.

Consequentially it is absolutely true that either a huge canvas or a palette too broad may prevent a viewer from perceiving immediately the "nature" of your medium, namely seeing square pixels, recognizing a certain amount of color - or more thoroughly recognizing that you made some choices for each subject on a pixel level. What could possibly happen on a huge canvas (without zooming in) is that you can't really grasp the pixels, but just the "overall picture" - and that may not differ too much from digital, raster art, which is of course also based on pixels. Therein appearently lies a sort of threshold that is really hard to pin down for us pixel artists, as it depends on screen size, visualization methods, distance, filters and lots of other inherently subjective parts.

This kinda is my case sometimes: I make big environments (possibly too big, and too detailed in each part I tell myself) that are a sum of many lesser parts: both tilesets and sprites that relate (but not strictly adhere) to a basic space unit that is 16x16pixels. You can indeed consider scale in a broader sense as a subdivision or magnification issue, much alike squinting your eyes to focus on a picture's overall contrast or, conversely, analyzing its fundamental parts with a magnifying glass, and then a microscope - an analogy as follows:

a. the picture as a whole is like a colorful rock that you can analyze by magnifying its grain. b. the characters, geographical elements and textures, works like the different substances that compose the rock and give its visible characteristics grain and complexity, c. single pixels constitute the very atoms of those previously recognized substances.

I mean "atom" in the traditional, classical meaning of indivisible, fundative object. That's a "quantized" part of information, which for pixel art is ultimately color (or a binary value, like yes/no black/white). If you were, for example, to crop some parts of my work - let's say 160x144 pixels (a gameboy screen resolution in pixels) you would see the substances that are characters and elements of nature, and when you zoom in again, every atom becomes visible as a single entity of color. There are 29 different type of "atoms" in Ruin Valley as in different, singularly hexadecimal colors that work together in different combinations and shapes to create different substances and characters. 18 of them are used for the different qualities of the environment, and 11 more for extra hues for characters and other elements to pop out a bit.

It's really interesting to see how many pixel artists push this "threshold" of pixel art canvases to the extremely small or the extremely big, whereas, notably, palettes are less open to growth: it is indeed my opinion that pixel art tends to quantize color (quality) over than dimension (quantity). Palettes, notably, do not grow exponentially, but tend to a lower, fixed, controlled amount of individual values instead. This usually gives the artist the true possibility and toolkit through which is possible to think about/with pixels. In other words: color (or its absence) is the founding unit and identity of pixel art as a digital medium.

B. Pixels as process or pixels as objective? Pixels themselves (as strange as that may sound!) are not to be considered an objective of pixel art, I think, but the founding matter of its research as a medium instead. I think that making pixel art is not just devoting oneself to show those jagged, squarey areas or blunt edges that we all know and love: this is just one of the possible aesthetics that pixel art conveys or adopts - especially on small canvases. Pixel art is not about denouncing itself as pixels, but, rather, embracing the square, atomic unit to build an ensemble that conveys a content or a style. That's the important part of the discourse that emancipated pixel art into being a medium, and not just an aesthetic choice or style of representation. Again: process makes this medium. Speaking of that, I consider pixel art as part of a broader family of "quantized art", namely media that operate on/with "indivisible, founding bricks and unities" that can assume a certain quality (color, mainly) within a certain quantity (palette, canvas size) and in relation to its surroundings to describe something. This puts pixel art, with its specifics and with a certain degree of semplification, among other mediums such as cross-stitch, bead art, construction sets, textile art (on a warp and weft basis), (micro-)mosaics and others.

A classic threshold example of process vs objective: oekaki art. Oekaki art - which I love and also happen to make from time to time - doesn't really work or "think" specifically on a pixel base: it doesn't place pixels per se, but uses pixel-based areas and textures on bigger canvases with a certain degree of freedom, like one would normally do with brushes on raster digital art programs (adobe ps, gimp, clip studio and so on) in order to convey an aesthetic with fewer colors and a certain line style and texturing. That way, oekaki uses and knows pixels in a deep way, but doesn't see them primarily in a quantized way. As a result the "overall picture" shows pixels to a certain extent, and it's possible to recognize distinct pixels for each part, but the objective is not an analysis and use of pixel and quantized information, but the use of an aesthetic based upon accessibility of resources, their control and a certain rendering style.

A huge part of pixel art is its absolute accessibility: everyone with a fairly outdated computer or screen and a basic drawing program can study the medium. To be fair, it's indeed considering accessiblity that I highly support an inclusive approach to the term "pixel art" and I think traditional oekaki is a close, beautiful relative that builds upon the rules and techniques of pixel art and pixel rendering, yet keeping its identity as its very own medium - somehow like a dress may be built around/upon textile design. Anyway, boundaries are meant to be crossed and I think there definitely are lots of oekaki and pixel-based art that meet traditional pixel art mid-way - or further. I also think the "is it pixel art?" discourse possibly ensuing - and generally speaking any media belonging purist ontology - is a treacherous, slippery terrain leading to excesses, and this is not my focus today, neither am I able to tackle that subject extensively at the moment.

C. Conclusions and a few good exercises Everything above may be farfetched or too complicated as a starting point. I tried to write all down as orderly as possible. The point of this (possibly discouraging) analysis and the reasoning between scale and process is that (pixel) art is about trying different canvases, and reasoning on one's subject and objective, rather than limiting oneself to presets sizes or styles. It's important to choose something that resonates with us and, in doing so, thinking about other, more interesting limitations: that's the discourse about quantity of space and quality in color. Limiting is the best possible exercise and one I wholeheartedly encourage: by doing so we are progressively delving deeper on the basics, as we learn the fundamental relationships between shapes and colors that we can achieve through pixels. A few good exercises that I too implemented in my own workflow come to mind: 1. Trying different canvases (or sizes) for the same subject (sprite, character art, illustration or so on). This helps a lot finding a comfortable size to apply pixel techniques, as well as getting a hold over fundamentals such as aliasing, linework, conventional representation and so on. 2. Trying different palettes for the same subject, both by varying colors themselves (therefore learning about values and contrast and readability, as well as atmosphere and mood!) or singular hues and their components, in order to discover possible relationship between them. Have fun! 3. Reducing the width of the palette progressively for the same subject: reducing the number of singular colors forces a reasoning on shapes, rapresentation. You may go from 1-bit art (just black/white) to 3 colors, 4, 8 and so on. We'll not talk about transparency as a singular color there, but if you happen to be interested in retro art, transparency counts to the palette size. This exercise is very useful in rendering, and possibly tricky. And definitely fun. :') 4. Choosing an objective and usage of our work: for example trying to learn about old pixel art limitations for games, in order to reason within specifics. Get inspired by traditional games (spriters-resource is your best friend here, in case you have a specific retrogame you're thinking of)! I will probably talk about limitations and style on another post. 5. Four eyes (and other multiples) are better than two: try to talk with people and friends and other artists you trust and feel comfortable with to get their point of view. This can be scary, I know, especially at the beginning. You're not forced to, of course, but if you do (in a safespace) there's lots you can learn about concepts such as readability, subject recognition, rendering and composition. Our eyes and brains get accustomed to something, and pixel art being a rather analytic medium made of synergies, subtle changes, limitations and conventions is especially tricky on the artist's eyes on the long term. Either way, the important thing about pixel art is understanding that this medium is about recognizing and enjoying the process rather than the eventual aesthetic and in order to do so the best choice is to start simple, small, with few colors and techniques at a time! Have fun and hit me up with your progress and considerations. :')

[delta-orionis]

Messing around with Devtool assets again, this time I made a mockup for a region called Sepulchral Crevasse, which is a valley directly beneath Three Stars Above Clouds' superstructure and is thus shrouded in darkness.

I edited a room from Pipeyard, but ideally I'd make a room from scratch that's a bit less industrial, more like Subterranean. I'm satisfied with the overall vibe, even if the room itself isn't completely accurate to what I had in mind. (One of these days I'll stop being intimidated by the level editor, haha)

In Sepulchral Crevasse the upper rooms are covered in ice and snow, and are more industrial, because they're connected to the supports attached to one of TSAC's legs. The lower rooms are more cave-like, similar to Subterranean. There are tunnels that connect to an underground water-pumping station (like Drainage System), as well as a void fluid mine shaft (like Filtration System). The region occupies the area in the center of this map and extends underground into the southwest quadrant. (One of these days I'll make a cross-sectional map of TSAC's facility so this will make a bit more sense, lol.)

I'm probably not going to make a whole region, but it's fun to try and recreate some of TSAC's facility in-game to imagine what it would canonically look like. If nothing else, I'm having fun messing around with the game assets.

[gowns]

excerpt from article about sarah polley and her experience as a child actor

Almost twenty years ago, Polley considered making a documentary about former child actors, and interviewed several adults who, like her, had been stars in grade school. In 2011, Polley told me, “My memory—and it’s a genuine memory—is that I really wanted to do it as a little, little kid, and that my parents were jaded about the industry, and they knew better and resisted, but I had a will of steel and forced my way into it.” All her interview subjects had told the same story, she explained: “There’s not a single child actor you’re going to meet who’s going to say, ‘My parents pushed me into it’—even if they have terrible stories about their parents being stage parents. Shirley Temple, who started when she was a toddler, insisted that she forced her way into this. I frankly don’t believe it. And so, if I don’t believe their stories, why do I believe my own?”

Indeed, Polley’s family history belies the notion that she chose to act professionally. John Buchan, Polley’s brother, the second of two children from Diane Polley’s first marriage, told me, “We were all child actors. We can all find pictures of ourselves with our names and the color of our eyes and a phone number listed on the back.” Buchan did a little TV work, as did their sister Joanna and their brother Mark. “But, with Sarah, she hit the big one,” Buchan said.

Polley started acting at the age of five, appearing in a live-action Disney movie, “One Magic Christmas.” She was subsequently cast in many television roles, including a stint as Ramona Quimby in a series adapted from Beverly Cleary’s novels. In 1988, when Polley was nine, she played Sally Salt, the diminutive sidekick of the eponymous antihero of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” a zany spectacular written and directed by Terry Gilliam, of “Monty Python” fame. Gilliam was an idol to Polley’s parents—particularly her father, Michael, who was born and raised in England.

The shoot took place largely at Cinecittà Studios, in Rome. Polley has happy memories of the city: she and her parents ate dinner every night on the Campo de’ Fiori, where she sometimes joined in with a band of roving musicians performing for tourists. The set, however, was often chaotic—and scary for a child. In one scene, she had to run through a mockup of a war-torn city as bombs exploded. The first take was terrifying enough to convince Polley that the detonations had gone awry; she ran straight into the camera, ruining the shot. For the second take, she was so frightened that she ran too fast, again rendering the scene unusable. In “Mad Genius,” an essay in her book, she writes, “I sobbed in my father’s arms in between takes and pleaded with him to intervene, to ensure I didn’t have to do it ever again. But when an assistant director came over to say they needed another take, my father said, with genuine remorse, ‘I’m afraid they have to do it again, love. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.’ ” (Gilliam has said that, even if the set felt dangerous, it wasn’t.)

There were moments during her career as a child actor when adults, rather than just overlooking her vulnerability, appeared to cynically exploit it. Polley had only recently started work on “Avonlea” when her mother died—a tragedy for which, she says, she was entirely unprepared. (In her memoir, Polley writes with candid self-awareness of the gratification she took in being the pitiable child of a mother with cancer while at the same time being certain that her mother would recover.) During the show’s second season, Polley, who played a character named Sara Stanley, was presented with a scripted monologue in which her character cries over her mother’s death; unsurprisingly, she delivered an utterly persuasive performance. But the experience of this scene and others in which her character recalled her mother derailed Polley’s ability to mourn. “Because some of the first tears I shed about my mother’s death after the day she died were in aid of a performance, I was unable to produce genuine tears of grief for years to come,” she writes. In the aggressively wholesome world of “Avonlea,” which was made by Disney, Sara Stanley comes across as singularly sad, gaunt, and complicated.

Polley’s account of her life as a child performer—of being locked into extended contracts, and working “crushingly long” hours, and being beholden to adults whom she didn’t want to disappoint—raises disquieting questions about the ethics of having children act for commercial gain. Polley’s experience also underscores the fact that a child’s sense of volition—both in the moment and retrospectively—can be an expression of the sublimated desires of parents or other authority figures whom the child is eager to please. (The family, no less than the patriarchy, involves a structural imbalance of autonomy.) When Polley meets stage parents who insist that their child wants to perform, she replies, “Yes—and lots of kids want to be firefighters and doctors, too. But they must wait until they are no longer children to assume the pressures and obligations of adult work.”

sarah polley profiled by rebecca mead in the new yorker, nov 14 2022

[indigosabyss]

Senku trying to get to space as fast as possible and learning all there is to know about the world and working on mockup tests for prototypes is all well and good.

Until you realize that the privatisation of the aerospace travel industry make it... Not as out of reach.

Like I'm sorry but with the type of shit going down in SpaceX that I read, if they had a chance to employ a genius fifteen year old with eidetic memory and questionable credentials as an astronaut, they would.

[popculturelib]

Romance Fiction at the Browne Popular Culture Library

Photo: cover art by Frank Kalan for Caroline Anderson's The Real Fantasy (1996)

Romance fiction makes up a large portion of today’s publishing industry, averaging more than $1 billion in sales per year. Combined with the fact that it is fiction primarily written by women meant to be marketed to women and you can see why it’s a growing area of academic study. The Browne Popular Culture Library was one of the first libraries to archive the work of romance writers, and our collection documents the evolution and growth of this dynamic literary genre.

Our collection of romance fiction includes more than 16,000 series and stand-alone romance novels from the 1950s to today. You can find them all in our catalog. We have a selection of titles from every major publisher and many of romance’s most popular subgenres. Researchers can trace the evolution of romance fiction, including its marketing, covers, and content across decades in a way that can’t be done at other repositories.

A unique aspect of our collection are the manuscripts we have collected from more than 50 romance authors. These papers include items like book drafts, correspondence with publishers, and even fan mail.

The Browne Popular Culture Library documents the business of romance as the official repository for the Romance Writers of America, giving researchers the chance to understand the evolution of the first organization to bring together and support romance writers through its organizational records, publications, and conference-related materials.

In December 2017, we received the Frank Kalan Romance Cover Art Collection, more than 100 original oil paintings that Mr. Kalan produced for Harlequin covers. In addition to the artwork, this collection includes paperwork related to each, reference photographs, and cover mockups. For many of these artworks we have also collected the published novel to give researchers a unique opportunity to explore the production process.

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

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[treasure-mimic]

Felt like messing around in photoshop today, so, what started as a want to create some franchise icons for Smash turned into full character mockups, so I put together my 10 most wanted characters for Smash Bros., whatever the next game looks like, and I’d like to post them and talk about them a bit.

Quote is I think my most wanted newcomer to Smash, I really like and appreciate everything Cave Story has done, and I think if you’re talking about indie games, Cave Story has probably had the most influence on the industry. Kids today probably don’t know much of anything about this game, but trust me when I say there’d be no Hollow Knight, no Ori, no Celeste, without Quote.

This one might be a little obvious nowadays, but I am fully behind the Waluigi train. Just one point of contention, I think people undersell his potential by just having him reference different sports games and spin-offs. I think the real play is to come up with a wholly original kit based around being a dirty cheater and trickster with a penchant for explosives.

I’d much rather have Paper Mario than Dr. Mario if I’m being entirely honest with you.

This one’s a bit weird, because I don’t have a huge fondness for Excitebike the game or Excitebiker the character, I’m just enamored with this concept of a fighting game character who fights entirely from the back of a motorcycle. I just think that’s wicked as hell. I’ll take it in whatever form I can.

Metroid Dread is in strong contention for my favorite Metroid game ever, and it did finally give us a character with a body plan and toolkit that lends itself to Smash, outside of Sylux and the Hunters, whom I’m not the biggest fans of. I’ve had some contentious history with the way Smash fans talk about Metroid, so I guess I’ll put it out now that I think if, at this point, you’re not vouching for Raven Beak, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Love me some DS VNs, Professor Layton I think at this point has the strongest ties to Nintendo and, since Phoenix Wright got to play in Marvel 3, it should be his time to shine, though I wouldn’t be opposed to any of them.

Honestly, every generation of Pokemon there’s a couple of new mons that I think would make sick Smash characters, and will inevitably get passed up for a lame starter. Nihilego deserves a spot, dammit, she’s more plot important than any number of fire/fighting muscleheads. But if we’re shilling for the most recent gen, you can’t go wrong with a giant hammer.

The Heavy is commonly in talks around Smash Bros. wishlists, especially here in the West, but the obvious problem rears its head pretty quickly. He’s a giant, lumbering, immobile mass whose main weapon takes several seconds to start up and then chews through anything it hits. This is my counterproposal, I think the Scout is just as iconic as the Heavy, comes with a lot of fun weapons and abilities, and actually has some mobility. Imagine using a downward Force-A-Nature shot to recover while spiking someone into the blast zone!

This is for sure a weird one, but once the idea came to me I started getting really attached to it. The number of Enderman variants from Minecraft Dungeons gives the Enderman a surprising amount of variance to pull from, and the Ender Dragon could be its Final Smash.

For the final suggestion, this is for sure a “there’s no chance in hell” but also “it would be really funny”. Scorpion, I think, best represents the aesthetics of Mortal Kombat, a ninja with fire, bladed weapons, and the ability to teleport, which centers him more than Sub-Zero who uses ice, Raiden who uses lightning, and Liu Kang who’s just a martial artist. Leaning heavy on the fire aspect is also a good way to nerf MK’s hypergore for a Rated E10+ game, though that really is the central appeal of Scorpion, trying to shove this edgelord into a kiddy cartoon beat-em-up.

[donotdestroy]

Finding creative ideas

Finding creative ideas can come from a blend of exploration, inspiration, and structure. Here are some techniques you can try:

Divergent Thinking: Start with brainstorming without limits. Jot down as many ideas as possible, no matter how unconventional. Quantity often leads to quality by pushing past the obvious.

Mind Mapping: Begin with a core concept and visually branch out with related ideas. This approach can reveal connections you hadn’t considered.

Combine and Remix: Take two unrelated concepts and see if you can combine them into something new. For example, think about how the paper industry could intersect with environmental education, or how digital platforms can simulate real-world investment.

Observe and Take Notes: Everyday life is a constant source of inspiration. Notice trends, user pain points, or processes that could be streamlined. Keep a notebook to capture these thoughts, even if they seem random at first.

Reverse Thinking: Instead of asking “How can I create a great idea?”, try thinking in reverse—consider how not to solve a problem or list “don’ts” for a project. This can lead to breakthrough thinking by clarifying what you do want.

Draw from Other Industries: Looking at innovation in completely different fields often brings fresh perspectives. For instance, if you’re in the paper industry, examine what the tech or entertainment industries are doing to engage customers and consider how you might apply similar strategies.

Set Constraints: Ironically, limitations can fuel creativity. Setting a constraint like “this idea must be doable with only one material” forces you to think deeply about how to work within boundaries.

Collaborate with Others: Bringing other perspectives into the mix can help generate more ideas and refine them. Try brainstorming sessions with people who have different backgrounds or expertise.

Experiment and Prototype: Sometimes ideas only become clear through trial and error. Don’t wait for a perfect concept—build quick prototypes or mockups to test the feasibility and refine them as you go.

Take Breaks: Finally, stepping away and engaging in different activities, like a walk or even enjoying a beer, can refresh your mind and lead to unexpected insights.

By ChatGPT

[femmefatalevibe]

I am currently taking a course to start copywriting/editing as a side gig to my main career. I have the basic writing and grammar skills required, so I am taking the course to familiarize myself with the job itself. That being said, do you have suggestions for how I might market those skills after completing this course to obtain some jobs? I have helped friends and family edit documents forever but I have no paid experience. My coworker suggested Upwork, which I might try, but I am still seeking outside suggestions.

Hi love! I would say to create a portfolio of your work/clips from any projects relevant to your industry from school, helping family/friends, or self-created mockups that are similar to the types of work/projects you want to do for clients. I think it's best to take a global/local approach here.

Online, I would market your services on Upwork/optimize your LinkedIn profile to potential copywriting clients in your niche/industry. Creating a website (even a blog if you have the time/energy) also legitimizes your presence. On a local level, I would pitch your local businesses (like coffee shops, hair salons, restaurants, etc. – depending on your niche, definitely do some research to see if they're hiring) to do some initial projects like social media copywriting or website copywriting for them to get your foot in the door (lower rates tend to be part of the game in the initial stages).

Also, I recommend pitching yourself to publications to do some freelance commerce writing in your niche to gain some free (and also paid even if the rates are low) press coverage for yourself. Friends and family/professional network referrals also are a goldmine if you have any available to work with.

Hope this helps xx

[vertebrae-entertainment]

23.01.24 - Environments

Hey y'all, happy new year! Things were pretty much busy from the get-go for us, so we haven't had time to post a proper update. But now we're here, and here's whats up!

This is a reference picture my partner took for me on one of our trips to my hometown of Stavanger, Norway a couple of years back. Stavanger has been a great influence of multiple of my games, mostly due to a love-hate relationship, complicated nostalgia and pride. Its a gorgeous town with lovely nature and bustling culture, but it is also full of rich jerks and elon-pilled right-wingers. Thats what the oil industry will do to you!

Anyway, thats neither here nor there- i think anywhere you grow up, you have a complicated relationship with.

If you've been peeking at our discord (hey, come hang out with us!) lately, you might have noticed that i've been posting a bunch of mockups for environment art and i thought i could give y'all an insight into how important dirt is to me!!

Environments have been on the backburner for a long time for me, mostly because im not an environment artist and i am pretty intimidated by the task ahead. My task is: portray post-apocalyptic Norwegian society and nature, and make it so that Fangst wont be mistaken for just any other game. It needs to be both unique and also very deliberately reflect real world locations. That's no small task!

But i've made some visual breakthroughs lately, and that has made me able to grasp the task much easier. Its been in the art recipe for this project all along, the key words being impressionism, brutalism, texture! The trick was combining it in the right way.

Here is a mockup i posted earlier this month. The angled texture on the rocks is strongly inspired by brutalist concrete sculptures, with a thick outline to show the player what is and is not a platform. Overlaid is a real-world picture my partner took of some algae and plant growth on rocks close to the sea.

The background is impressionist, clearly distancing it from the lens and 'player space' by taking on a different artstyle. We have mentioned earlier that we're inspired by the work of Munch, and have earlier tried to replicate the sun from this piece in-game.

The characters are also modernist, but in a different sense- taking inspiration from the UPA revival movement most famously seen in early 2000s cartoons such as Dexters Laboratory and Samurai Jack. I suppose this could make them a third, separate layer of modernist art!

Right now some aspects don't fit as cleanly into the formula- plant life is proving tricky, and remains semi-realistically styled. UI is deliberately made to look like real-world objects, because i think it helps it stand out against the other layers. Readability is my primary concern right now, i have a tendency to soup that away in the hunt for exciting art direction.

Next time, i'll be talking about a whole separate beast again- architecture. Nothing is more norwegian to me than dingy little wooden houses along a coastline, so you bet your ass im putting effort into it! But also, GLOBAL GAME JAM IS COMING UP- so i might also talk about that :3 We'll see.

Have a good one! -Hauk

[z-grist]

I forgot to share it here, but here's a storyboard piece I worked on a couple months back. Made it so I could finally add some more recent work to my portfolio. I actually started this 2 years ago back in 2021, but then got busy and never finished - I finally had some time to finish it so here it is!

Story & Characters are by me, all the backgrounds were done in Blender 3D (which was such a challenge to learn btw LOL)

Here are some other scraps underneath:

When I started this board, I already knew what characters I wanted to use - these are some ocs I've had for a while now - a bounty hunter and an outlaw (very much meant to be taking place in a sci-fi setting).

In retrospect, I don't think I needed to go and draw these very intricate character sheets lol. I did them mainly to apply to some character design positions a year back (that never happened).

Also, if you notice, I changed the bounty hunter's black glove to be on their right hand instead of their left in the actual board - when I was drawing the boards I realized that it would create some better compositions if the glove was on the other side lol. My foresight is still underdeveloped at times.

When it came to actual storyboarding - I usually started by writing down the script and listing the shots through text

Here's an example:

So you can see every shot is described by the type (a closeup, a medium shot, wide shot, etc) as well as a short description of what's happening, whether it's dialogue, an action or both.

This helps me visualize the scene without having to actually draw anything. This was a trick a professor taught me so that I didn't waste my arm (and time).

If you want to see more of the document here it is : X I had also included some references in there.

Also some sketches/thumbnails, I was trying to figure out the look of the environment.

"do more research on this part," the 2nd image says, whatever Past Me. These were just thoughts, in the end, I did go and gather a lot of industrial plant references online to properly figure out the environment. As I mentioned, I went and modeled some mockups on Blender 3D. On a side note, I don't think the mockups look that good, but they are just meant to be a stand-in for the environment - what's important is that they are clear and you can understand what's going on (Was I successful in that sense?)

Anyways, thanks for reading. I'm currently thinking of the next storyboard portfolio for me to do.

Here's a little bonus sketch that I drew 2 years ago that still makes me laugh:

[puella-1n-somn10]

Hi! I just wanted to say that I've read through your Hau post and am impressed by the amount of detail you've added in; you've done an outstanding work on analyzing his character! I do have one question regarding it, though- who exactly is that "Witch of Disco" in that fight scene? Is she based on an existing character? If not, that's alright; but she does sound pretty!

Have an outstanding week!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- /V POS

omg omg oh my fucking LORD, anon, your words made me so happyyyyyy ;;w;; Gosh, have the best of months to you too, dearie- you deserve that and so much more HBVCDJFBNFJKFBJN--

Alrighty, alright- as happy as I am receiving your message (like, full on jumping from joy over here, lol), I can't ignore the core question here, soooooooooo-

The Witch of Disco, with an unfettered nature. So far, I'm still working on her name and the intricate details (heck, she might be due a redesign in the near future), but the core idea is that the magical girl she used to be might have been a young lady who was around during the 1970's; an African-American gal who wished to learn more of her roots and spread the gift of knowledge to those around her in new, invigorating ways; especially when considering how much Disco was been influenced by the the African-Americans, Latin-Americans, and those within the LGBTQ+ community who helped skyrocket its popularity.

Of course, there did come judgement from privileged folk who don't seem too keen on anything "tainting" their picture-perfect, clear suburbs with these "indecent" images and "backwards" beliefs. In spite of the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, you bet some assholes were as pissed over sharing their spaces with those different from them as they still are now. Perhaps the witch, due to her desire to learn about her roots to begin with and preserve this very knowledge, was also heavily affected- a freedom fighter in her own way, if you will. I think she witched out while trying to make sure her own family wasn't affected by such hate, but, of course, she could preserve so much knowledge- but she couldn't even prevent the lives of her colleagues and kin slip from her fingers by these pathetic excuses of human beings.

Incredibly, and quite frustratingly, simple concept, I am aware- I will do my best to expand upon her story and even come up with an actual name for her, tho- that's a promise!

I kinda came up with the basic idea of the witch on the spot while writing down the Descent to Despair; initially, I wanted to create a completely unrelated witch related to the dangers of mass-industrialization and just existed as a simple homage to Dr. Eggman's creations from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. As I was in the midst of writing, tho, the theme of Stardust Speedway's bad ending came up, and I was immediately inspired to create a labyrinth that was akin to a busy city full of neon lights, a witch that danced to the beat of that song, and, before I knew it, I was looking up disco dances on YT as reference while I wrote the battle sequence! It was a fun experience; 10/10, would do it again!

I even made quick, albeit basic, picrew mockups of her magi form! God, I can't wait to showcase my list of witch OCs and work on them further ;w;

Of course, I am not African-American myself, so if there's anyone out there who'd like to correct me on what I wrote, or if there's anything that is deemed stereotypical or even harmful present, please, please, PLEASE let me know!!! /srs My aim here is to integrate real-world history and the impact such dire events had on marginalized folk that still persist to this day, so if I ever made a harmful fuckup, do not be afraid to tell me; I'll get to fixing it as soon as I could.