SUPER AMAZING TOON TIME!
you may not be aware that i started another blog a while back. TOON TIME is where i post cool cartooning and comic references that i find online. hope you find it educational!
documentation of creative endeavors by a hitherto fruitless artist
i don’t comment on stuff much on this blog, it is meant to be a place solely for my own creative works, but i couldn’t resist this one…
Feminist Frequency - Tropes vs. Women: #1 The Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Okay, someone may have to explain this better for me than a series of gifs can. I’m open to that. But, why the hell was 500 Days of Summer used as an example? SPOILER ALLERT: Summer is probably the exact opposite of a caregiver at the very core. She’s not out to fix a sad lonely man… in fact, the sad lonely man gets pretty destroyed over the relationship, and Summer gets the fuck out. Things get better for him, sure… but not because Summer is a quirky little fixing machine. He gets over her and realizes that Summer isn’t the be all and end all.
In fact, now that I look at the rest of the gifs, I feel like a lot of these examples are really bad ones. The second to last gif says “We’re full and complete human beings with our own troubles, interests, and creative endeavors,” and that’s what [from my point of view] 500 days and Eternal Sunshine are about. Through the course of the movies, you learn that these characters, the men and women, are human beings. They have problems and issues and interests and they’re portrayed as real people. That’s why I really like those movies.
i completely agree with the argument above. these movies do much to show the female as a “full and complete human being with troubles, interests,” and whatnot. i also don’t see a problem with women being muses for men. is it not flattering to find that someone finds you inspiring??? i’d be flattered if someone wrote a movie (or book or comic or even drew a picture) because of me. i see this “manic pixie dream girl” archetype as nothing other than the praise and admiration of women.
(via caramelzappa)
everybody else is drawing the Avengers, why shouldn’t i?!
…so i started with the Hulk. actually, i started with Wolverine, but he’s not an Avenger (mostly). i’ll probably finish and color Wolvie later.
this is still a bit rough, but i’m done with it for today. i’ll clean it up later.
so, at the beginning of the month i set some goals for myself and have been keeping track each day on a calendar. this is kind of the same idea as “don’t break the chain” from Seinfeld— which i never saw, but i’ve just read about it and thought it was a good idea.
i set goals for myself a lot, but often don’t stick to them. i’m hoping keeping this calendar might keep me better on track. so as the first image shows, i’m trying to do 4 tasks daily for at least 15 minutes each. the goal isn’t to get a ton of stuff done, but just something. usually the hardest part for me is just starting a task, so if i know that i only have to commit a short amount of time to each task, it’s easier for me to start it. usually, i tend to spend longer on each (especially reading and drawing).
they aren’t set in stone, but general things. i can draw anything i want, but the goal is to start making art that people might want to buy. i’m not very active, so i’m just trying to get off my ass and do any kind of exercise. mostly i’ve been walking (or dancing occasionally), but i’m going to ramp up to running/jogging and try to do some simple body-weight exercises. i already read a lot online, but i’m trying to get myself to read more from books. so far i’ve been reading graphic novels (really enjoying Bakuman and Death Note especially). cleaning is something i really hate doing. so i’m hoping that by doing something small every day, my place might not be such a mess all the time. so far, it’s not making a big difference. i plan to do a little reorganizing soon though (a little each day).
maybe i should have put those in an order so they make an acronym of some sort? C.R.E.D.D.— Clean, Read, Exercise, (and) Draw Daily. that might help me remember better.
you’ll notice on the calendar, so far i haven’t succeeded every day, but i feel like i’ve done pretty well. only one day where i didn’t do anything, so that’s good, right?
i had a lot of fun this weekend at the STL GAME JAM! the randomly drawn theme was Light Justice and i helped make a game which is coincidentally called “Light Justice.” i would have rather called it Moth Killer or something a little less like the theme, but meh.
the pics above are the hero (lightbulb) and villains (moths) of the game. this jam was a full 48-hour jam where anyone could stay and work on site for the entire weekend. i think i got about 8 hours of sleep within that time period. i probably spent around 30 hours actually working on art, and the other 10 eating and goofing off. i didn’t get a whole lot of assets done, but just getting my sloppy artwork cleaned up, colored, and cut apart (each character was chopped into around 30 pieces to be animated) was plenty of work. i actually made one other moth villain, but didn’t have enough time to get him finished and put into the game. so instead i did a few different color variations on the 2 moths i was able to finish.
overall i’m pretty happy with how my artwork turned out. the whole game turned out great as well, and i really enjoyed working with a small group of really talented folks. the only thing that could have made it better was having more time! you can download the game and read (programmer/character animator) Jesse’s take on the jam at his blog Third Party Ninjas.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
made this last night.
GLOBAL GAME JAM 2012!!!
so… i’ve really been slacking. i totally forgot to post about the GLOBAL GAME JAM that was the last weekend of January! jeez. check the link above to learn more about this awesome world-wide event!
i was fortunate enough to actually work on 2 games this year, though both were in a pretty limited capacity. the first was a game called Lost Soul which turned out pretty neat. to play the game and get more info about it, look here. i found (googled) sounds that were used in the game, and also did the music. i ended up spending very little time actually making music because of several circumstances, so it wasn’t my best work. also, i made 2 themes which stretched out to about 2 minutes long each, and in the final version of the game, you don’t hear very much of the spirit world theme, so that kind of sucked. but hey, that’s the kind of thing that happens when you only have a weekend to put it all together.
i also worked on a game called From the Ashes with some really talented guys. for more info and to play the game, look here. other artists did the backgrounds, the phoenix (player character), and the main boss, and i did the other enemies for the game. i think the only enemy that actually was implemented by the end of the weekend was a fire demon, but i also did a green dragon, an eyeball and a wraith (see below). the group is still developing the game too, and we’re working on adding more levels and enemies and hopefully releasing the game at some point. it should be pretty cool.
tonight’s dinner experiment: creamy sausage and beans pasta!
i wasn’t sure what to have for dinner and didn’t have anything i usually go to for cooking. so i checked the pantry and freezer. threw together this pasta with rotini noodles, canned diced tomatoes, canned white beans, frozen breakfast sausage patties, canned black olives, chopped red onion, 2 cloves garlic, red/black pepper, dried basil, italian seasoning, and 2 slices of munster cheese melted over top. voila! to my surprise, it actually is pretty delicious!
i have been cooking a little more often recently, but haven’t posted the last several things i made. some were successes, others… not so much. probably the best was a butternut squash, black bean, & kale soup i made on a whim (i got inspiration from this recipe).
Ghost World update
i took a few months off, and finally took another look at my test game. i figured out what was causing the errors and fixed them. i added a pretty crude sword weapon, health potions, and a health bar.
you can download this update at the link above.
i will probably keep developing this for fun as a learning experiment. i’m going to make original graphics to replace the ones i’ve borrowed, and add more levels. i’m thinking i might even have a bunch of these dungeon platform levels and also have a aerial-view world map level that connects the dungeons.
Ghost World
i’ve been thinking about making games a lot lately, so i made one level of a goofy platformer game last night with Game Maker 8. it’s pretty amazing how much you can do with the program without having to know anything about programming (it probably helps if you do though). i used a tutorial and borrowed a bunch of sprites, sounds, and a little codes. i thought my last song, “Van Helsing” was appropriate, so i used it for the music. the link above will direct you to download the game. press F1 in-game for instructions.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
reminds me of Castlevania or something…
following
stuff i like
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“Complaining is stupid. Either act or forget.”
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“Originality often consists in linking up ideas whose connection was not previously suspected.”
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