Pad-bound

After approximately 18 hours of working on a Photoshop project that I'd really been excited about, I've run out of time and have had to go with a far inferior design, just to meet the time constraints (in other words, I started too late).

The project was to create a two-page highlight spread (as for a magazine) for an annual event. Less out of my interest in tabletop gaming than for a chance to try a design that had been nagging me for some time, I chose to create a design that would incorporate the four elements on the four sides/corners, the four para-elements inside the design, and a Law-Chaos/Good-Evil axis in the exact center. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to the Earth part, I'd run out of ideas for how to make it actually look good. Thus, the project will probably remain unfinished, at about a 1/3 completed point. I am pretty proud of some details I made, however. See below.



Speaking of launch pads, apparently the chief technology and environment correspondent for CNN is named "Miles O'Brien." That's just funny.

Ember and Payne

The general consensus is that City of Ember was a fairly poor film, scoring only 48% on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, then again, Quarantine did far better, and, from what I hear, that's been rather overrated (according to The Spoony One's opinion, which I respect).



Personally, I thought that City of Ember was very good. The complaints are that it goes too slowly, there isn't enough action/adventure, etc., but it introduces the characters and opens the story in about the same way as the book, and, through it all, stays pretty close to the source material. If anything, it adds action/adventure that's not in the book to begin with. I'm a big fan of trying to keep movies as close to their sources as is possible, particularly avoiding reinterpretations of the source material. As someone said, "if you know you can't make it better, don't try."

On the other side of the coin, I'm planning to go see Max Payne tonight. It's been a long time since I played the game, but I recall very good things. The game was action-packed, had an interesting story, and did some fun and fascinating mindplay with psychological scenes like running down a hallway that stretches out longer and longer before you. From what I hear, the movie doesn't stick to the game at all, and that's an easy way to earn my criticism, but let's see how it actually turns out.

If you don't mind spoilers, go ahead and watch the game. It's pretty entertaining, and I love the comic book style of the cutscenes.

Lighten Up

I'm hoping that City of Ember doesn't suck. The book was pretty neat, and the trailer looks fairly sweet. We'll see.

48 Hours of Goblins

Thunt, creator of Goblins, is going to be doing a 48-hour art marathon. Below is an embedded video of his work, live, or you can watch it here. I highly recommend people supporting him with money and the like, as he's now taken on the yolk of drawing webcomics as a full-time job. Maybe he be successful.

The marathon will being the 26th, and Thunt will be breaking only to stretch his legs, eat, etc. There will be audio, so you can hear him chat with those in the chat room (see link) about this and that. Note: there will, of course, be spoilers to the comic as you will see him drawing. I should watch just to see a master artist in action. Maybe I can learn something.

Watch live video from Drawing Goblins on Justin.tv

The Past, and the Future

Updates will be coming fewer and further between as college starts up again for me, but I felt it necessary to offer an old project I completed last year for archival purposes. It is a flip-calendar depicting the travels of a girl through this somewhat surrealistic world. It's obviously not on par with the kind of detail I put into this blog's header, but that was before I started using the stylus, so I had to place every point in Illustrator by hand. I took a long time, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out. Again, thanks to Adam Phillips for his amazing work and the inspiration it gave me.

Download the Calendar's files (pdf format).

UPDATE: Ok, so my download keeps getting lost, so I'll just supply the files in png format, in proper order, below.

And, for reference, here is a large version of the current header (raw file from Illustrator, before modifying in Photoshop).

Brief Update

So I'm, like, totally going to build a brand new gaming computer that will put its foot in the balls of any game out there. Hopefully then, I'll have the power to record myself playing Mass Effect with FRAPS and write an excessively extensive cheese and whine article about it. In the meantime, I may go over Batman Returns, the Tim Burton movie that at least one friend swears is one of the best movies evah. I'll point out why it's a campy piece of trash.

Stay tuned!

A+B+DOWN WITH SANITY!

Recently, I've been playing the classic Pokemon Blue on an emulator, reliving the few hours I enjoyed it as a child (usually by inviting over friends who had it, then ignoring them the entire time). During this period, I found this little number:



Huh. Does pressing A+B+DOWN assist in capturing the Pokemon? I'd never heard of this.

Having had the pleasure of bunking on the same floor as some noisy Pokemon fans in college, I decided to contact one of them and ask if this was some game function I didn't know about. The following is our conversation, complete with additional commentary by yours truly.

Me: Does A+B+down assist in catching pokemon?
Him [pretending to be a Buddhist monk, I guess]: the answer to that question can't be explained to someone who doesnt aleady know it
Him [being excessively poetic, as usual]: it's like asking me to define love
Me [confounded]: Whaaat?
Me [a bit annoyed]: Does it or not?
Him [adding to the madness]: it's not a yes or no question
Me [further confounded]: How is it not?
Me [and yet more annoyed]: Yes, it does make a difference, or no, it doesn't.
Him: see
Him [being wrong]: i know you don't keep chat logs
Him [referencing similar debates in the past]: but remember when i explained to you that you have no sense of subtlety?
Me [pondering this very post]: I do, I just don't read them unless I want to remember something I've said that is important.
Me [trying to make sense of this mess]: Yeah. You mean you're subtly joking?
Him: no
Him [being all poetic again]: i mean this is a gray
Him [further poetic mumbo-jumbo]: not a black or a white
Me: Graugh!
Him [being cryptic]: it is not a yes or no question
Me [quite annoyed at this point]: You know what? I'm going to try to catch a pokemon, press A+B+DOWN, and see if I notice any difference.
Him: you wont
Him [more cryptic words]: because you dont understand
Me [beginning to grin crazily out of frustration]: Then explain.
Him: i told you
Him [being rather pretentious]: you can't explain this to someone who doesnt understand
Me [chortling insanely]: You're trying to make me go nuts, aren't you? It's working. I'm beginning to laugh maniacally.
Me [randomly]: These grapes I'm eating taste like chokecherries.
Him [lying, I'd surmise]: no i'm not trying to make you nuts
Him [being quite accurate]: you dont understand
Him [being quite mistaken]: and it cant be explained
Me: Only because you make no sense.
Him [more crypticness]: you should be able to accept it
Me [trying to use reason]: How is there anything at all about a game that's beyond understanding and explanation?
Him: there you go again
Him [more poetic insanity]: demanding black and white

Okay, at this point I was willing to write him off as just being a little broken. He always did act a bit... odd when I spoke to him, always tagging mysterious, pointless poetry onto every normal topic, until I started asking other people on my contact list. Turns out, all who were into Pokemon says that he had it exactly right. They agreed that it's this big spiritualistic thing beyond understanding and explanation! What the hell?

So, after a bit of research (namely, looking at Scott's comment below the comic), I surmised that it is an alleged cheat code that probably doesn't actually work, but makes one feel like it does, kind of like blowing on dice before throwing them. I proposed this, and they all said it's nothing at all like that. One even claimed that, quote, "its something beyond reality dude."

Huh? Okay, let me see if I have this right. All these Pokemon players believe that pressing a fucking gameboy button combination transcends reality in order to make some purposeful change in their favor? Are these people downright insane?! I'm not a particularly faithful individual. I like things that can be explained, and, as far as I'm concerned, things that have no logical explanation merely have one that has yet to be discovered. This... mess absolutely blows my mind by how nuts it sounds. Does playing Pokemon cause your brain to melt?! God, I'm glad I never got into that game.

Seriously, it's a goddamn good luck charm. Why do these people insist on making it sound like some kind of fucking Free Masons ritual? Maybe now, after venting all this out, I can finally cool down. Let me tell you, I thought I was going to burst with my frustrated bewilderment. This is why I'm not religious or spiritualistic; it opens you up to things like this.