Work in progress: Fire Daemon

Here is a detailed shot for a piece I've been working on for a while, which is slowly starting to take shape into a near final product....

Updated to the max

Had to fix up some images, removed text since I want to redo the gameplay part, so focus is on the images for now. Ignore the watermarks.

Villainy Box

And the final results of my game....

Hopefully this will be acceptable. -.- I'd love an A....

Villainy

School project time. Digital Illustration II: Design ten cards (minimum) to show off your ability in the world of Adobe Illustrator. Come up with a creative solution to print and distribute the cards. Design the images using mainly Illustrator. No photoshop means at least 90% Illustrator I'm guessing, and no pure traditional media drawings. The last two rules are the ones that hurt the most. Well, if I'm going to make any form of cards...it might as well be a game. Welcome to the world of "Villainy", in which you take on the persona of either a super hero, or super villain. Rules will follow (As well as card text lol).

Doodle Bop

Necro Demon

Just keep on sketchin....

Decameron Assignment

Just realized how long it has been since my last update. Wow. Anyway...here is some filler. An assignment I did illustrating a scene from The Decameron

Gouache on Illustration Board

9''x11" (I think)

Though my skill isn't the greatest, the work still looked better in person.

Space Corporation 1

Another image for my game....

Corporate 1

Oil of Gessoboard

2010

10" x 8.5"

Scrubbers

Scrubbers

3" x 5"

Water Soluble Oil on Canvas Board

These are my buddies. I make strange friends in my sleep.

Progress Update

Well, I'm still fixing up some of my other works, but for now I'm happy that I managed to fix this particular piece...

Although I could easily spend the rest of eternity nit picking and touching up parts of the image, I will not. I know it must hurt to hear that such a talented artist such as I will not further this particular piece of beauty, but it must be done for the greater good. I have more game art to work on and many paint brushes to burn through.

Mask AI

At this point in time, my school assignment (Space Corporate) is almost finished, my secondary painting (The last painting I showed) is almost done, and so I took a break. What did I do during this break? Well....

I was inspired by the idea of Jared's mask drawing, so I decided to make my own interpretation of the piece.

Maybe I'll color it next....

Art Overload

The past few days has been hectic, as I went back to the society for a casual class trip and ended up spending the day in NYC waiting for discussions on the Air Force Art Program. The program itself is interesting because it provides willing artists research material (and food) for a specified amount of time as they join with the air force training exercises. The only thing asked of the artist is that they make an illustration/painting of something they saw when they get back.

Anyway, the society is finishing up their air force art show this weekend, I believe sunday afternoon is the ending. I suggest that anyone interested in the illustration process (Research, developing ideas, creating an image representing something in their own way) or any fans of planes in general check this show out while you can.


Also....progress!

Update

Shocking even myself, I click "new post" and have a post which I can consider relevant...

I went to the city yesterday for the show "Blow Up" located at the Society of Illustrators. It was a great talk by a combination of three major illustrators: Tomer Hanuka, Yuko Shimizu, and Sam Weber. Details can be read HERE. They talked about their processes and answered questions from the audience. I suggest seeing the show itself as the works are amazing even without the stories behind them.


In other news....I continue my paintings....



Something tells me I need to work with a new color palette...

The Force Reviewed

I finally got my chance to play a real copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed recently. Of course, I had planned on buying it for the Xbox 360 immediately after the release of the game, but as I reached into my pocket I discovered that I was poor. I ended up waiting for Juan to finish his Playstation 3 copy of the same game, of which I borrowed and enjoyed thoroughly...for the first hour at least. After that the game became a tedious mess of mixed graphics (Some of the characters are perfect enough for a low budget movie, while others look like they were slapped together from the leftovers of previous star wars games). The plot showed that Lucas has no remorse in taking a stack of Expanded Universe books and ripping them in half (Throwing them into a fire is not unlikely either). The gameplay, well that is fun at first, until you realize that hack and slash is just a lot easier than using any of the force powers. This is unfortunate because the whole appeal of the game was to...wait for it...unleash the force, in ways never before imagined at that.

And out of all the things that bother me the most, this is probably the MAIN complaint I have about the game...





That's right. In the parts where you weren't trying to figure out how Vader's cape worked, you try relentlessly to get the camera back into a reasonable position for killing Wookies and Stormtroopers alike.

That's not to say the game was SOOO horrible. It was actually a playable game, with a backstory to some of the events which everyone wanted to see on a screen of some sort.

:SUMMARY FOR THE LAZY PEOPLE:

-Gameplay-The combat is amusing and creative, if you are only planning on playing for about an hour or less at a time. If you can look past the camera controls, it isn't so bad. The Xbox version (I played the Demo on this one) felt a little more streamlined though compared to the PS3 imitation of a controller.

-Graphics-People are ugly, planets are BEAUTIFUL. Although they can get a bit repetitive, the artists went all out in designing the different worlds.

-Story-It is Star Wars. I love seeing the something new in the universe, but certain points of the game (I'll avoid spoilers for you OCD people out there) made me slap my forehead in disgust. Honestly, whoever wrote the script needs to be stringed upside down and slapped by a fish, or something equally as smelly. If you love the original Star Wars canon, don't spend money on this game. Borrow it.


-FINAL CONCLUSION-
There is ALWAYS something to love about Star Wars. The only problem here is that it is just another Star Wars game. There is nothing really special about it other than the new technology that allows force telekinesis and lightning.

Rent it, or buy it used or just borrow it. Don't spend you're hard earned money on this game unless you have nothing more important to spend it on...like food...or soap.

COS: An Apology

I apologize for the lack of updates. I was going to do a report on gencon...about a month ago..lol, but I unfortunately didn't realize how much work would have to be done to put it into Webcomic form. Perhaps sometime soon though, if my plans continue, I will at least get a new comic or two up.

Once again...I'm sure everyone is devastated at the halted comics, but I'm sure you will all survive. :P


(I do this for free btw, hence why I get distracted by other things, like college and jobs. Don't hate me because I'm devoted to responsibility. Yeah, that's it....responsibility. lol)

And a note...I really SHOULD make sure I log out of my account before certain other people in the room decide to have fun when my back is turned. lol


Edit: I forgot to mention, as of now I am taking suggestions for generic D&D character names, personalities and other cool things involving the subject matter. This is not important at all, I swear. There is no plan for future comics at this time, move along people. ;)

But should you be paranoid and not believe that, feel free to email them to me at...

Rayzer730@aol.com


Also, I feel bad about the lack of a real Gencon report...so here is a spoiler of the eventual blog I will have to do on the convention. I promise, I'll have one done by next Gencon at the latest, which btw I will be attending.


Truly Epic


At one point, Kasey fulfilled her destiny and joined the dark side.



And just because they deserve a place in all of our hearts.

Project Gencon: Success

Gencon was definitely a success. Many many photos were taken, and I will make a series of reports on the con as soon as I am back to my normal schedule. For now...I rest.

Project Gencon

It is now 3:42 AM and the most awesome nerd gathering of the year is only 2 days, 20 hours and 18 minutes away.

Gencon


That's right, four days of every kind of nerd, gamer, cosplayer and rock-paper-scissors tournament champion in one city.

I of course will be attending...as will Kasey, Jared and Juan. I plan to explore for a bit, but mainly I plan on entering a lot of Warlord tournaments.

Preparations are almost complete, and only a few more plans have to be finalized. My brilliant steps in what I am calling "Project Gencon" will involve many hijinks, several situations where shenanigans are called, a whole lot of WTFs and shit load of medieval weaponry.


And as of now, I am proud to announce that Phase I is complete.

Warlord 4E

Well, it is close to Gencon (Expect news on this soon...I have plans. Ones involving Oreos and lots of Fabreeze) and the CCG I thoroughly enjoyed for several years now is making a return.

Warlord:Saga of the Storm

The fansite "Temple of Lore"
This site has some of the greatest members and a VERY involved community that has supported the game for years without fail. I highly suggest checking it out.

I am a gamer at heart. I have tried different types of games: video, tabletop, board and many card games. Out of them all, Warlord has supplied me with the longest running amount of fun. You get an army, great art and even a bit of a backstory with occasional fiction (It is official people, not fan-fic). The game recently switched rights to another called Pheonix Interactive, and as of July 31 the first set of the new edition (Coinciding with the release of D&D's 4E) is released.

In celebration of this new edition, I am putting up two old mini-comics I made as an inside joke for the community supporting the game. These comics are based on property of AEG/PI (I'm not sure who to credit now) and I'm sure on some level Wizards of the Coast. Those guys own a bit of everything.






Now go! Go and order as much of the product as you can!

The Fine Print

It has been over a month...but I finally found time to work on a comic. I miss the old days when I could wake up and actually sit around drawing. New job, responsibilities...all that junk seems to be getting in the way of my artistic abilities! I swear, I really thought that summer vacation would bring more time, but it did nothing more than make me realize how valuable my spare time is.

ANYWAY...for those of you who still have not finished Halo 3 after all this time, I would suggest turning away. OH NOES! SPOILERZ!





I am convinced this is how it happened. I dare you to convince me otherwise.

Paranoia

I haven't been able to find proof yet... but I'm sure it's out there.

Dude...

...I got a Dell.

::shoots self in face for saying that::

No, but really...at long last I got my new laptop and I am currently enjoying the ability to open run multiple programs at onces without the computer bursting into a ball of fire and crashing. It feels great to not have that problem anymore.

This calls for a celebration I say!

A True Hero

Well it has been a while since my last blog comic. Unfortunately for the comic I have been busier than usual and, while I know I say this ALL THE TIME, a lot of junk has happened recently to keep me occupied otherwise. I am not finished making comics, but I might have to make them a bit slower at least until the end of this semester (A month or so left so not that much of a wait). I am sure I can get a few on the site before then, but it won't be like the time when two could go up a week. Oh well, c'est la vie. Or as Jared has said on a past occasion "Ces't-lor Moon".




It seems that after almost a year of playing that damn game the effects still linger...

Not dead.

No I'm not dead...but I felt like it all last week so I kind of ended up a bit behind on my comic. Finding out I might be allergic to penicillin was so much fun. Really, tons of fun all week long. At least the fevers stopped a few days ago. Now I should be able to work on the actual comic again...once I'm done catching up on school work and all that. Oh well...back to my homework.

Wish me luck!

Alex and Lisa

Congrats to the first two people to actually buy shirts from me! Both will soon have in their possession (because my delivery person *coughJuancough* did not pick the shirts up today) a shirt with their comic alter ego and their very own quotes. Now before my blog becomes any more grammatically incorrect...here they are!

Kasey

The soon to be introduced Kasey...

Frank