Sketchy doodle.

 Ah. 

Stopped suppressing my creativity.  It's terrible but, I'll get back to drawing fit eventually. Hopefully.

It's a Mock-up.

I'm doing another Game Jam thing - no more of it, because there's a decent chance I won't make it in time. In any case, I was doing some mock-ups, mainly to determine the style of palette to use.
I kind of like the one here, since it has this, sort of Commodore 64 vibe to it.

The strong orange-yellowish colors remind me of the first Castlevania, though.

The palette in the top-left corner is my initial one, trying to figure out the color harmonies. I ended up with this one after a bit of tweaking, increasing contrast and reducing lightness.

The original palette was kind of pastel-y.

I painted this mostly using the rectangle tool. It's kind of fun.
As you can see, I did poke around with some filters and adjustments.
This is about the correct size - I'm targeting 800x480, and going for the main character sprite to be around 64x96 pixels.

Worst case, this is all I'll have to show for it, but... mmh.

As for designing the characters, I want to think of them as designing toys. Part of the idea is trying to shut down my inner critic.

Mm... Locations, moving parts... Should be interesting.

Part 2:

Movement cycles

So, I was in need of a jogging cycle. I have done one before, but that one was really stiff-backed. I intended to go for 8 frames, but for some reason, I drew one with 6 frames - it's at the bottom.

I ended up inserting them in the computer, it looked strange without them. Oh, and I used this paper earlier while pondering other animation thingies.

What I had to do was:
1. Scan this sheet.
2. cut every frame into  individual png:s,
3. Import pngs as layers in gimp. Make canvas size equidistant
4. Open the images in graphicsgale, tweak around, add missing frames
5. Export as strip for further painting.

The biggest strenght of Graphicsgale is it's ability to port to and from spritestrips and spritesheets, in my opinion. You can paint on a spritestrip with anything, and if it's created properly - IE, all frames are the correct width - you can pull it back in to GG.

For actual animation, I still think Plastic Animation Paper is great, but it's one of those where you need to learn the keyboard shortcuts by heart.

My RSI is acting up something fierce - I have decent wrist support, but my keyboard is an extra-cheap Logitech one, and I could really use something nicer. While I'm indoctrinated into the Keyboard Cult, and drool after mechanical switches, I'm currently lookin at Microsoft's comfort offerings, mainly due to their christmas rebate deal.

Part 3:

Indeed, I didn't make it in time. Ludum Dare 28 is next weekend, though, and I've pre-committed to doing that.

Anyway, Runcycles.
Here's an old one I did wayback, with PAP.

I HAVE SUCH A CRAMP IN MY BACK

And here's the new one in it's current incarnation.

The master file is way way bigger, this one is 80x64, which is decent, but System 3's Myth: History in the Making on Commodore 64 had this really great looking character that was, I believe, 16x20 pixels.

Side note: This game is gorgeous. In my opinion it looks better than it's Amiga port, even.

The new one is much more relaxed, but it seems a bit glitchy, as if it's limping or something.
The master file is almost 500 pixels tall, and has a separate layer for each limb as well as torso. I want to have something I can tweak and paint over when creating different characters, I think.

Oh, Aseprite is quite cool. I haven't poked around with it enough as of yet to be certain whether I prefer it to GraphicsGale or not.

And this is me fiddling around in Asesprite.

Looking at Things at an Angle.

Is that the correct title casing? I never know...

Anyway, since I'm loathe to waste paper, I made use of the earlier sheet, proving again that if you can draw cubes you can draw anything.

Since I'm loathe to waste screen space, I crammed all the drawings into the smallest possible space.
I'm still not sure which way I want to go, design-wise, but I'm enjoying myself, mostly.

Also, just magic wand + delete gave some interesting visual results, so I took them and ran. The portrait series up-left is meant to be a Doom - type thing, with neutral/getting hit/attacking/quad damage modes, so to speak.

Studying my failures: Pose

So... I wanted to draw a boring pose on purpose, since besides the Uncanny Valley, pose is a large part of the problem in this image. I ended up having fun, though, and while there are failures, there are also fun lines in this picture. Plus, I haven't posted anything in a while, so...

Oh! I recently ran into some very interesting youtube videos, including pencil tests animated by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. Or this clip of Masakazu Katsura drawing Zetman. Also, these pencils from DieBuster.

All in all, way too many to link. Still, wonderfully inspiring.

Galactic Destroyer Beast Landing Sequence Continued

 I'm especially liking the first two frames here

and...

I couldn't leave it entirely unfinished, now could I?

I had some scanner issues, the last image should use the correct settings, now. I think I drew this out to satisfy my animation bug - I do relapse every now and then. It might a sequence I might actually have some success in animating. I've done walk cycles, attacks, idle animations and such, but not much in the way of successful sequences. If I do, I'll probably go for Graphire + Plastic Animation Paper 4, which is free these days.

Also, Onepunch-Man's  - specifically the version drawn by Murata Yuusuke - decompressed sequences are somewhere in my head, too. So there.

There's another sequence in the image used in this post, although it's not quite as decompressed, in addition to being almost indecipherable.

On the Subject of the Galactic Destroyer Beast.

First, drawing is HARD. especially when one hasn't done it in a while. 

Second, while it's almost never true that I don't have time to draw, it is often true that I don't have the time to ENJOY drawing. There's a difference. 

I've never gotten all the way through to explaining my concept of the Beast. visually it draws heavily on a lot of memetic things, but did  you know, for an example, that all of the head spikes can move independently? Or that the teeth can retract? 

Basically, the Beast form is a mobile transorbital assault platform. In the above picture, the eyespikes flare out and teeth retract as the body configures itself into firing mode - I would presume that majority of the energy gathers within the chest cavity before being released.

The secondary arms - Wings, if you like - have multiple configurations - they can spread a huge shadowy 'parachute' effect - which can also act as a solar sail, or they can fold out of the way to a minimal configuration - they also do duty as energy gathering/manipulation apparatus when they start glowing. 

The claws are primarily a weapon - not that useful for grasping, except for stabilizing the creature for firing. Same with the feet, which are also built for executing powerful leaps. I would presume escaping the gravity well requires energy manipulation form - wings, even with infinite energy are of limited use, especially when there's no guarantee the assaulted planetoid has an atmosphere. 

Mechanically, the back of the beast is somewhat vulnerable. It is, however, covered with potentially mobile spikes, not to mention that  the wings bend towards the back, and can probably emit enough energy to fry any potential assault. So it's more of a trap, as much as anything. 

As for size - it's kind of hard to estimate, but I would suspect that it's current combat form is only about half the size of an Evangelion unit, tops. Even this form has quite a few, what are essentially artificial limitations. During it's nine billion year long assault against the universe, the GD began enjoying combat, and even without Queen Serenity, was turning from a true omnicidal maniac into more of a blood knight. 

Of course, the GD also enjoys fireworks, so it probably would eventually blow up  the solar system it's attacking, but it might very well take several millenia of fighting before getting that far, especially if there's decent opposition to go around. Something of a best-case scenario, admittedly. 

The above is a decompressed GD landing sequence, in thumbnails. It probably doesn't make that much sense without my brain to interpret it, but there you go, anyway.

Question: Can someone explain to me the weird title capitalization syntax used in English language?

Chain Reaction

Some sort of a pointy-eared mutant. Looks uncomfortable.

Let's see how long I can keep the chain going.
I've scanned these last two images with paint.net. I think it's doing something not-nice with the scanner, since they seem kind of extra fuzzy to me.

Regarding an old post, the Schneider keyboard had Cherry MY switches, and was moderately sweet, gave me the mechanical keyboard bug. I've been drooling after Topre Realforce, and  Filco Ninjas, among others.

I got to take a look at my dream notebooks again. There was a scene, where, instead of a black NCC-1701, the Galactic Destroyer arrived in a derelict (yet structurally sound) Titanic, which crashed from the orbit.

The plot in my last dream notebook post seems kind of awesome, actually.

Warming up

Haven't touched pens or pencils in a rather long while. I have a situation where I could reasonably be expected to draw a couple of hours, on a couple of days, most weeks. So, no excuse, let's get on with it.

I've gone a bit messier - years of Ben's nagging gone to waste :P

I'll try to post some pencil warm-ups tomorrow, after I'm back from the gym.

Oh, in other news, I have a job and a gym membership. It's kind of expensive, which I like - not because it's a good gym, which it is - but because it's an incentive, a hook, a manipulator, that makes me go to gym relatively often. I seem to average about 3 times per week, which isn't that efficient, calculating per-visit costs, but it's going to do wonders to my well-being in short order (I've only gone there for about three weeks now. )

I'm not very good at drawing buildings

I can't even pretend I am. 

Still, not like I'll get any better if I don't draw, so there. 

Characters, creatures, objects and buildings. That's the stuff that needs drawing.

Maybe. Something.

I need to draw Something // Funny consciousness thingy

Practice. Based on a Sargent sketch. I need to draw lots, lots, lots more

I still have no strong desire or drive towards anything, but I think I can pretend I do, which may be enough to get my body moving, which is the important part. So, I'm trying to see if I can act (do stuff) by acting (pretending I'm someone motivated).

Now, it's very clear to me, that the part of me thinking in words, the one who tells me a story about who I am, is not actually the part of me that controls my actions. I _think_ it's the part that listens to the story, so it's somewhat possible for me to convince myself sometimes. However, it seems to be horribly unreliable -- basically, I don't listen to myself, I guess.

Copying.... //Something

4e Warlock's 'default' appereance.

I bought a new HD today as my machine didn't seem to boot. In retrospect, it may have been a case of loose wiring, but I've been having issues with my XP install for a while now, so I had enough excuses to get a new HD.

So, lots of space. I'm transferring and reorganizing files, and currently there's still ~200GB to copy from the drive that gets retired --- my HD300LJ has started resonating in a really nasty manner, so it's the one that goes. This may be because my MP3s were on it, so it got a decent amount of access. Hm.

This leaves my current HD setup as 1000 / 500 / 250, which is plenty for my purposes.

not quite as something

Brought to you by the art of procrastination. *sigh*

I'll get back to my regularly scheduled essay writing now.

Something blue terra sketch

Not that sketchy sketchy.

Was going to draw more, but this turned out relatively nice, in some areas. I'm slightly busy right now, trying to finally get my CS Bachelor's degree.