news

Have had a shitty month.

Lost a pet, feel pretty terrible about it, not exactly in the mood to be creative. Getting back into the Galefire groove now, hopefully post some art soon.

I linked two of the artists that are my models for not being terrible on the right, if you haven't ever heard of them or seen their art, you should go look.

E3 is going on, and I am tremendously excited for several of the games coming out (OMG METROID FROM TEAM NINJA?!).
Games I'm excited about:
Halo3:ODST
Metroid
Mario Galaxy
Splinter Cell: Conviction
Assassin's Creed 2
Sidescroller XBLA game from Epic/Chair
Brutal Legend
I'll add more later

I have a game picture to post here soon, hopefully tonite... we'll see if I have time to finish it up. It is a picture of samus, since I got so excited about the new game. Next I will probably do Master Chief, since Halo:ODST is coming out soon. I am going to try and make a habit of doing different characters for my quick rendering/color comps, since doing a lot of different characters is better than only doing my own all the time :)

I also probably have some commissions rolling in, so I should be posting some knightly coolness here soon. Also, I promised a pretty pony to my woman, so I guess I'll post that at some point as well.

Putting this up was probably long overdue.

If you have had any desire to contact me, here it is (I know tons of you have, right?). Also details are within on commissions (which I would love to do for YOU). My email is listed like that to hide it from spiders, my other email already gets way to inundated with crap to have another one getting loaded up. Hopefully the spiders haven't figure out how to read it when its written all clever like that.

So I've been busily working on a script for the first episode of my Galefire graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it, and I am finishing up. Hopefully I can have it finished in the next few days so I can have some friends and associates look it over, then I can actually start concepting out the panels. I've written 45 panels so far, and it will be presented in a 'cinematic' look, which basically means each panel will be a wide, page width box, and there will likely be 4 per page... I'm not really a big fan of the massively cluttered pages. I will probably throw a couple splash (full page) panels in there as well, but we'll see.

Went to an all day concert on Saturday, so I didn't particularly get much done this weekend other than writing. Hopefully I will have some info come back on some freelance work this week, otherwise it will be more writing and probably concepting out some more characters and locations.

So I have returned... actually I returned last Thursday night, but I've been taking it easy over the weekend. Now its time to get back into the groove of actually producing stuff. Might have some freelance illustration work coming down the road, so that is good news as well. Need to shore up this technique before that happens though, look for something new coming today. I have a good grayscale rendering I've been working on sporadically over the last couple days which I am going to try and apply some color to, should turn out alright.

I actually have an idea for a comic, that may or may not be funny, but its about Fable 2, so that's old. Hey, at least new DLC for it just came out... right?

Nothing coming this week, I'll be basking in the sun.

I meant to get a color quickie up before I left, but I fell asleep on the couch, and then I had to super-clean the house before we ask people to watch it.

I'll be taking my sketchbook if I get any free time to draw.

Well, I get a decent amount of traffic here at the site, although I can't imagine why sometimes; but I will admit, I don't think I am much of a "funny comic" kind of writer. I have my whole crazy/intertwining/social commentary first episode bouncing around in my head, and all kinds of artistic thoughts about how to improve, and the funny comics just don't seem to find their way in there most of the time.

So, I'm asking anyone who does think they are funny to leave a comment and give me an idea for what to do with the next comic. I would like it to be from WoW, since I get a decent amount of traffic for that, and I enjoy doing them, I just have problems ever getting an idea as to what to poke fun at (unless its deep mechanics, which no one gets). I'll be forwarding this onto my friend at WCFiction, and possibly my guildmates, to see if they can help me come up with something hilarity-ensuing to draw.

I am going to try and keep up on my twitter more, but we'll see. I am reluctant to post on it while I am work, and when I am at home I'm generally "doing" something. One candidate would be to chronicle this new style, and how it works out, although that may be lost without any pictures to go along with it, and I am sure not going to be posting a new version every 30 minutes. I am going to try and go back to grayscale and make a TONAL-SPLOSION of amazingness with which to color over, we will see how that goes (and by TONAL-SPLOSION I mean figuring out all of the tones, gray scale, before taking it into color). There is a great workshop for it in the new ImagineFX, so I'll be trying it.

Killed Mimiron finally on sunday night, that fucking bastard, and got Vezax to 6% on about the 4th try. So Uld isn't going too poorly now. Oh, and this "post to twitter" functionality for when I post doesn't seem to be working too well, so I may just be doing it manually from now on. Wow I was going to talk about something else but this is way to long, I'm outz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPzNl6NKAG0&feature=player_embedded

CAT VS BOX, A CLIMACTIC BATTLE!

Ok, so I am going to try and bang this one out tonight before my guild OMGWTFPWNs Ulduar (yea, we'll see how that goes). It is less complicated than the last one, and I am still trying to optimize my technique.

I have it sketched out on my sticky note here (ah I love them for concepting). I have a bunch of other art I've been doing for Galefire Universe/Graphic novel, but haven't been posting. I may do an art dump in the next few days, although I don't really know how much I preliminary stuff I want to put up here... I might make a new art gallery category to throw it all in.

Edit: Yea I fail, doing it as soon as I get home today.

But then 3.1 had to go and come out today!

Seriously, I'll be playing. This is annoying though, because I haven't even finished the new Riddick game for xbox yet. Oh well, I guess there's not really that much new to do other than the new raid dungeon, which I doubt we will try tonight, although that would be nice.

So, I have finished both of the new DLCs for Prince of Persia and Fallout 3.

Prince of Persia's DLC was strong, I think, in challenge and execution. Maybe not so much in storytelling. It basically continues where you left off after the end of the actual game, which I'm sure you've seen if you've read anything about it. Now this is fine... but I hope after the ending of the DLC there is another DLC coming soon, because I'd rather not wait till Prince of Persia 2 to figure out what the hell Elika is thinking. On the gameplay side, the segments (between where you get thrown back to if you screw up) are longer and your timing needs to be better, but I don't think it was really too tough. I'm still sticking with the first 3 for last gen consoles are better.

Fallout 3's DLC was alright, but it didn't really wow me in any way. It seems kind of silly to get there as a level 20 monster in the best gear in the game, only to be beaten down by a bunch of raiders with nightsticks when you go in the front door so you can have all your things taken away. From there you are basically a slave until you get some gear back, and once you've done that you have to participate in some goofy arena deal to "win your freedom". It would have been nice if that were a bit harder, but nothing in Fallout3 was hard after about level 8. I'm not going to spoil everything, but I did very much appreciate the morally gray decision you are forced to make at the end. That almost made it worth the trouble of playing through the whole thing... almost. In my opinion, Operation Anchorage, the first DLC, was a better and more focused package, even though it was totally linear; and I actually died a couple times because it was pseudo-hard at some points (like stealthed guys with sniper rifles, ffs).

The new stealth-action-shooter-badassery Riddick game comes out next week, so that is the next thing on my list to play. Maybe one of these days I'll get to Fable 2... but i just can't seem to get into the "oh you're the hero, you need to go stop this villian" kind of storyline. Maybe if I played it as an evil bastard I'd have more fun... although I didn't do that in Mass Effect and it was great (maybe because your character in that game isn't a mute).

Totally hilarious!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864846564&sid=1&...

So, I've finally managed to fill in my "on creation" portions of my last two comic postings. I really need to do that sooner, and I will try to fill it in right when I post the next one (shit I don't even know what I'm going to do for it yet!). I have been doing a lot of experimentation with some new brushes to try and make them work, and get closer to that every elusive "new Prince of Persia" style I've been trying to put my own spin on.

I think I am getting closer, although I think it lacks some detail... but it looks like a different brush and style is used on those parts in the concept art to me. Broadly, it appears to use some sort of texture-comb/palette knife brush, whereas it might just be a hard round on more detailed parts when you get close (yes I've gone in and zoomed in as close as possible... I wish I could find a higher rez image). I will post something new when I feel it is ready... and I've also been working on some panels for my graphic novel/blog comic/thing, but they are not in order, as the first panel features the crew's airship, and I have not quite completed the design of it yet. It is build with sort of a hybridization of heavy industrial tech and smooth magical structures... so its a challenge. I feel it needs to be as fleshed out as any character in the book, since it will play a prominent role.

A friend of mine at work apparently is friends with Kevin Mellon (http://www.aimsatellite.blogspot.com/), who is an published artist/writer in the comic-ing field. He will be at the Planet Comiccon (http://www.planetcomicon.com/) this weekend here, so I will probably swing by and chat with him. Although at this point, it seems kind of silly to ask for direction since I don't really have anything substantive (graphic novel/book) created yet. That might be the first step!

Other than that, my director at work gave us some poor news. 2 weeks from now, I could be out of a job! AWESOME!

Hopefully a non-corrupted version of the Fallout3 DLC will go up on xbox live so I can get that downloaded. Still haven't finished the DLC for Prince of Persia yet, but I'm probably getting close. The platforming is more of a challenge than the actual game, but still not as interesting to me as the first 3 games.

http://eightbitdirtay.ytmnd.com/

Hilarious!

This is crazy awesome, you must watch it.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5173430/guy-in-chain-mail-faraday-suit-takes-star-w...

On the next comic: My friend is supposed to be writing it, since I think I'm terrible at them, but he is slow and needs to get it to me sooner! If anyone else who browses this site has an idea for a WoW Comic, please feel free to leave it in a comment somewhere.

So last night, my roommate, fiancee, our guild, and I, managed to slay Sarth with 2 drakes up... which was quite an accomplishment given our group composition. We are still a ways off from 3 drake, but I guess I'm happy enough for now we could do it with 2.

I am not happy about the fact it was 12:30 when we finished and I didn't get any time to work on the new comic. I should be able to knock it out fairly quickly later on when I get home though, so it should be up tonight at some point. Also have been working on yet ANOTHER new technique, that didn't really come out of a magazine or anywhere, but me glaring harshly at the Prince of Persia concept art. Which, I've posted before, that I love. I'm not really terribly close, but I don't want it to look too similar either... I think it looks pretty good. I'll post some concepts I did later on tonight as well.

Edit: Ok so, tonight actually means Wednesday night, it turns out... yea, we'll go with that.

I started the comic last night, but it just wasn't turning out right at all, so I ended up giving up on it for the evening.

After giving up on that, I was thinking about a different technique that I could try while I was away from my PC, so I ended up giving that a shot later on. I didn't get to work with it for too long, but it seems to work pretty well for the kind of look I will be going for in my graphic-novel/comic/whatever.

I tried something new because the lead concept artist of guild-wars technique just doesn't vibe with me, because you have to start in gray scale - and that doesn't work for me at all for some reason. I think its because its too unpredictable when you colors in over the grays with special layer types... if someone knows how to do this well, let me know.

The new technique pretty much just starts with big dark shapes, and then block in detail from there. I'll have to work with it some more to see if I can consistently make it work, but it seemed to work pretty well last night. More updates (and hopefully a comic and some other art) coming later.

So this weekend was my birthday. Went out quite a bit with different people, so I didn't get a whole lot of artz done until sunday, which then I didn't really get much done either. Got pretty hosed on saturday night, but it was a fun time... I was having trouble typing on Sunday, but I think that's mostly gone now. All in all, I'm not satisfied where I am artistically at 27, but other than that I think I've done pretty well.

On the art front, I am trying out a new technique from the latest issue of ImagineFX. The lead concept artist of Guild Wars uses it, and I happen to really like it, so it must be good. I am still trying to get the hang of it, but it is going well. The latest WoWComic kinda had it, but not totally. Hopefully I'll be posting a new picture using it soon, but we'll see. I also need to finish up my fiancee's pic, which I haven't for some reason (possibly because I'm terrible).

Having a few minutes dedicated to talking about the Turpster pic was too cool to hear, here is a link to the show, and its only a few minutes in:

http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/16/wow-insider-show-episode-77-the-lad...

They sounded a bit confused about what my site was, but I think they nailed it in the end; a glog, which I assume might mean a "Graphic log", since Turpster pointed out I do post a lot of art up here (which is basically all this site is for). Pictures and venting, that's about it :)

Wow, I'm pumped!
http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/13/wow-insider-show-live-tomorrow-afte...
I R teh famous in teh World of Insider Crafts

Now... I just need to get them to include me on their weekly webcomic round-up. /chinstroke

This is a total repost, I just thought it was great from reading it!
------------
They need RAGE, so stop tip toeing around the issue and remove all rage penalties for switching stances already.

Warriors should be the ultimate toe to toe fighter. They can’t heal for crap, can’t escape or control the fight like other classes and have crap for range DPS. So what should they be able to do? They should be able to smash any classes face when up close.

So last night I decided to hit Naxx10, something I don't regularly do since, y'know, I have other things I do, and the guild I was with generally did their raids when I couldn't go. So generally, I am stuck with pugs, which, humorously enough, is how I found the guild I am going to join.

Just have to put a few finishing touches on the comic before I post it. Its very... bright. I did something different with laying down the colors, which isn't exactly to my liking. I guess its fine, but the image doesn't seem integrated enough. Oh well, experience with what works and what doesn't is always nice.

I would have posted it last night, but I wanted to snag those Hero's Dreadnaught Gauntlets for 60 Heroic emblems; so I ran a couple extra heroics :) I am pretty confident I can probably tank any lvl80 heroics now with little difficulty. I kind of miss the days of actually using CC, and setting up kill orders... now its just run in, roflstomp aoe. Oh well, I'm sure it will get harder, at least I hope it does.

Alright, to make the comic a bit more understandable, I placed some silly names above the heads of those two duking it out... or rather the warrior helplessly flailing against the shield. That may make it read a bit better.

I am also going to be helping out a guildie of mine with his site, WCFiction, or at least posting my goofy WoW comics over there as well. Who knows, maybe after I get a substantial amount worked up I can approach a monster like WoWinsider or something.

Got a couple other WoW spoof comics bouncing around, but for the moment I am going to attempt to get Adobe CS4 installed and work on my fiancee's landscape pic I still haven't finished yet!

Well, I changed the "preview" setting on my uploaded images to be larger than the goofy CMS allows, but I don't really want to size it back down because then sometimes the images get a little blurry. Basically if its getting cut off, just right-click the image and click "view image" (you all probably know that already) to see the full size, or register on the site (wink wink) and you can view the original I uploaded. I think I may try to find a different solution to loading the images anyway, maybe that fancy java app that blows it up on your screen when you click the thumbnail.

So eat-sleep-game, the new home of Rebel FM and all my favorite podcasters, has a comic section that looks pretty forlorn. I sent them a message letting them know I'd love to make em some pictures, so cross your fingers.

Fiancee's pic is still getting worked on, its pretty big... it will be something like 36" wide when its printed out, but its taking quite a while because its pretty damn detailed. Hopefully I'll have it done soon, then I only need to do an image for my dad and my grandma before I can get back to other stuff!

Other stuff as in the goofy WoW comic I am doing with a Warrior's only inside joke about rage on magic shields (as in you get none). We'll see how many people get it on the forums when I'm finished.

http://www.eat-sleep-game.com/news/
is where the new podcast is going to be hosted. Too bad its a torrent right now, for me at work at least.

However thankfully, http://www.castmedium.com/, is hosting a non-torrent of the podcast. Sounds good so far.

I need to make a links box on the right there of sites I visit or something...

They also have a neglected comics section... and are looking for submissions. Who knows, maybe they want some help with that too. Sending emails when I get home.

Been listening to CGW Radio, then GFW Radio, the LAN party from 1up for like the last 4 years, not to mention several of their other podcasts.

Now almost everyone is gone... very sad day in the world of game's journalism.

Time to sub up to the Giant Bomb podcast I guess, and I hear things about Rebel FM coming from some of the laid off 1up staffers. Hopefully it will happen, I need podcasts to listen to.

I'll have about 3 things going up soon, I want to finish this xmas picture for my girl (yea, a little late, I know) before I post them all. That, a painting for my mom, and a quick painting exercise of everyone's favorite character!

Soon!

Oh yea, happy new year!

I see Kendra registered, OMGHAI! I want to make something for you and Brett, tell me what!

Ok, me and blove figured out how to increase the header size, now I just need to recreate my header image and resize the logo!

I'm excited for it to not look like ass!

6:00pm - Wow, it looks so much better. I'd rather the logo be even bigger, but that may be a bit too much :)

Plate is pretty full right now with art to be made for gifts, although I'll be posting it all up here when I finish them. They should look pretty awesome framed up and all. I am making a sci-fi couple picture for my parents, a above-the-bed picture for my fiancee, and some kind of picture for my grandmother (haven't quite figured out what I want to do with that one yet).

Once the season is over, I will probably have the first issue/script of the blog-style sequential art done (I'll have some time whilst I'm out of town as well to plan, if I don't just play xbox the whole time anyway), so I can get started on that.

Sigh, I suppose I'll need to do something with this site as well since my header image came out looking like balls... maybe I can get my boss to take a look at that header area and see if we can make it bigger.

I'll post up Christmas images here when I get done, its shaping up to be an artsy kind of weekend.