SatEve Update

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    What's up people?  I'm gonna try things a bit differently than usual now.  Before I was uploading work both here and to my dA on the same day, but now I think it might be a better fit to save blog updates until the weekend.  Particular pieces-mainly fanart-I'll probably be uploading to dA first when they're complete (I'll be aiming to do at least one a week now, whether digitally or by hand, MOTL), and tbh I do get *slightly* more traffic there vs here.  Maybe when I become more prolific, people would take care to search out me blog more often x3.

    But yes, while I will be updating finished fanart pieces to dA first now, I'll be cutting out all the WIP posts there, and I've already stopped uploading non-fanart pieces to the site as I said I would.  And given I won't be doing anything w/ CA.org until next year, that gives me plenty of time to work on getting as much content as I can to this blog and working on my Pro-Spec site (which I'll actually be doing l8r today).

    Okay, so this is a bit of a big update; let's just get to it then shall we?

    First, a new venture.  I've always been particularly interested in wanting to make my own video game, and a while ago I got a lot of inspiration for an idea I'm now working on moderately btwn pictures.  That's all I'm saying of it now, but suffice to say it'd be neat to get it into playable form.  Only problem is, I don't really have any programming experience and my artwork is only now beginning to get to a point I think could work well in main projects such as a video game.  I could just as well get a group of experienced programmers to do the hard work for me, but not only is lack of money an issue there, that's also a bit of a cop-out.  This is my project, my first project, and I'd like to devote as much of myself to it as possible.  It'll take a little while to learn how to do the technical stuff, but I know I have the capability to do it.

    Rather than using a programming language or a proprietary software like Flash, I'm going to attempt coding the game in HTML, particularly using the multimedia tags and <canvas> element.  It seems like the W3C group has paid solid enough attention to the innovations of the net since Adobe bought Flash on-board, and I've seen some very neat examples of what the technology can do in capable hands.  There's also the fact that the opportunities the new HTML5 standard can bring may-if the pieces fall into place as they should-remove the need for heavy-proprietary plug-in software like Flash which, good as it is, is also a bit expensive.  There's also plenty of other potential benefits to HTML5, but long story short, I'm gonna give it a try and using such a standard will allow me to keep most of the money spending to game assets and marketing, while still getting to the largest possible web audience (most browsers support many HTML5 standards, the exception being the newer Internet Explorers :P). 

    At the moment I'm *just* learning HTML (well, again...I spent some time a few years ago at a technical college where it was one of the course material) and it's going pretty well.  Just basic stuff, and I'm hoping by the time I get to the game-relevant stuff I have a solid base of how the technology works and can be implemented.  In fact I'm going to attempt putting together pseudo-sites as I learn and maybe even create a website out of all of this l8r down the road next year, but for now I'll just keep things modest.

    This is the first picture update I have, it being the base to the background for my Pro-Spec site.  Haven't had much time over the week to work on this actually, but that should be less an issue now.  I'm not sure just how much detail I'll explicitally draw and ink, as I won't be using the lineart in the finished piece anyway (it's a background!), but at least I know what to do w/ the scenery's mood.  It's set in late evening, about shortly after sunset.  I want it to be very neon-intense w/ a slight cyberpunk complex in there for good measure, while still keeping it grounded to what you'd expect of a modern-day metropolis.  I'll have updates as it gets attended to.

    Some more work on my Alita fanart piece; got around to doing the inking and starting some clean-up now.  Although I was considering NOT doing any inking this time, I also think my initial reasons for wanting to stop that were ill-informed.  The Bilstein picture had some really chunking work on it which I wasn't happy w, but I only have myself to blame for that.  And it's not like I don't know how to moderate my pressure (although it's a bit difficult to do so when you're outdoors and it's feeling like 40 degrees).

   So this time, I've taken more precautions, mainly to only ink in room-temperature conditions and to not be so lazy w/ 'reading' the pencil work.  This'll be one of the next pictures to get painted, altho I'll have to do this in addition to two other fan-art pieces I'll post some roughs of next week.

    Finally, the Bilstein picture.  It turned out pretty well; I learned a lot more about lighting and NOT working too much w/ the underpainting base layer this time, and definitely got a stronger handling on contrasting values.  Even managed to tone down most of the lines where appropriate.  I still wish I could've drawn him a bit more 'badass' like, but there's always next time (which will itself benefit w/ me now being familiar w/ his design much more). This picture also solidified my color palette approach and has taught me in balancing the palette.  In truth I think differently than most others in deciding what colors to put on the palette, but at least I know now that way of thinking-which I might elaborate on some day when I'm on my deathbed xD-has been paying off. 

    I'll also take this time to make a vow to begin doing more traditional painting again.  Even tho oils would be preferable, I still like the acrylics and doing some traditional work should help balance out the monotony that eventually sets in when doing so many pieces digitally in a row.  That's really all I care to say of that right now; as usual, letting the actual work do most of the talking when it's ready to present itself.

    Oh and, if you can, check out the South Park episodes 200 and 201 again.  I don't think CC is ever going to re-air them, but I have a couple of links to them here- http://akirathedon.com/blobblog/watch-south-park-14x05-200-stream/ -, and here- http://www.watchsouthparkonline.net/season-14/episode-6-201/ -.  Very much worth watching, probably the most fun I've had w/ the series since their 13th season reached the halfway point. 

    'Kay; that's all for now.  Be back soon, so try and have fun even when the frost is locking up your joints (particularly for those of us on the East Coast, it's always like that this time of year) and turning you into an ice statue Sub-Zero would be proud to demolish.  L8r!