Hey there.

Hello invisible blog readers. I'm back in Wales and stuffs been happening, let's talk.

The most noteable thing is that i've not really done a whooole lot of work i suppose, but it's not all so bad, well, that's because i'm in a good mood today, but whatever. I went out last night with my friends, got drunk, came home this morning and was really in the mood to draw. So i tried out a new technique, as i've had little success trying to get some drawings done the other ways. I put on The Warriors, a film which i've wanted to watch for a while, and one that I don't care about so much as to have to watch all of it, and sketched away. It was awesome. And the film just gave me so many ideas, I bloody love the visual style of the film, the gangs, everything really.


Christ, how awesome is that poster? I'm gonna buy it :D

Here are some stills I found online.


Some of The Warriors. Look how awesome their hair is!


The badass riffs leader, dunno his name but I like his face and his shades. The shades are super reflective... i like this...


This guy has a massive chin, I think that's why they hired him to be the baddy.

On the site that I went on about The Warriors there was a section called Costume. Of course I clicked it because I love their look and stuff, and I was surprised to find the costume designs for the characters. I was even more surprised though, to find that the drawings are actually pretty crappy. I've seen this before, where I love the finished piece but the initial designs are pretty bad. Last time I noticed was on the space marine for the Starcraft game. Anyway, I just thought it was interesting so here you go.




Lastly, here's the list of all of the awesome gangs in the film, or the ones conceived at least. I'll post it in its entirety for the sheer brilliance of how many there are.

The Alleycats,
The Amsterdam All-Stars,
The Baseball Furies,
The Black Hands,
The Blackjacks,
The Big Trains,
The Boppers,
The Boyle Avenue Runners,
The Charlemagnes,
The Colt 45's,
The Dealers,
The Delaney Rovers,
The Dingos,
The E Street Shufflers,
The Easy Aces,
The Electric Eliminators,
The Eighth Avenue Apaches,
The Fastballs,
The Fifth Street Bombers,
The Filmores,
The Firetasters,
The Five Points,
The Gerrards,
The Gladiators,
The Go Hards,
The Gun Hill Dancers,
The Gramercy Riffs,
The High Hats,
The High Rollers,
The Homeboys,
The Hoplites,
The Howitzers,
The Huks,
The Hurricanes,
The Imps,
The Jesters,
The Jones Street Boys,
The Judas Bunch,
The Jupiters,
The Knockdowns,
The Knuckles,
The Lizzies,
The Locos,
The Magicians,
The Meatpackers,
The Moonrunners,
The Napoleons,
The Nickel Steaks,
The Nightriders,
The Ninth Avenue Razors,
The Orphans,
The Panzers,
The Phillies,
The Plainsmen,
The Punks,
The Queen's Bridge Mutilators,
The Real Boys,
The Red Hook Shooters,
The Roadmasters,
The Rogues,
The Romans,
The Runaways,
The Saracens,
The Saratogas,
The Savage Huns,
The Shanghai Sultans,
The Southern Cross,
The Speedwagons,
The Stevedores,
The Stilletos,
The Stonebreakers,
The Terriers,
The Turks,
The Turnbull AC's,
The Van Cortlandt Rangers,
The Warriors,
The Whispers,
The Xenophones,
The Xylophones,
The Yo-Yo's,
The Youngbloods,
The Zodiacs,
The Zulus.

lolz.

Basically what i'd love to borrow from The Warriors is the overflowing character that the gangs have. Am I overstating the film? I dunno but I love them anyway. God i'm talking crap today.

Just a little info about what i've been up to and i'm done. I've not updated since I came back from uni for a few reasons. One is that i've found it hard to get work done, but using my new found technique I think the rest will go beautifully :D I've also actually been away from my house a lot too, though. I went to Tenby and Swansea, each for two days with friends. Good times were had. I feel positive for the rest of my holidays, and I feel full of passion for my project as well :) That'll do for now, laters x

EDIT: Actually, one more thing. Look how awesome the Misfits look in this video. More character that I love. I might give one of the musicians a misfits t-shirt :D

Final Post from Uni :o

Here's a quickie post to upload the last of the pictures i've created this week and say goodbye from Cornwall (to be swiftly followed by a hello from Wales). Here're the doodles.


Illustration thumbnails. May make a nice little illu for every class in the game depending on the time I allow myself... schedule is a bit sketchy, in two minds on how long to spend on concepts and painting but yeah. Barely worth uploading really. Just scribbles.


Mike Sketch, don't like it a whole lot, I tend to draw mike hit and miss. He looks a little too serious in this picture, although I knew I was doing it when I was drawing it. I'm drawing myself into a rut really, just wanted to be free and do what I wanted for a bit. Think i'm gonna give myself more freedom from now on, i'll be happier and i'm sure the project will benefit. Bit of a shitty scan.


Sketch of the emo/wicca/idunno character. Quite like this one actually, I like the character too. Shame he won't be in the film, I don't think he'd really give it much though. He's more of a moody cool character than a really energetic char that could lift the film another notch. May keep hold of him for the future though (yes, him lol. Quite girly looking I know.)


Finally a little doodle of the mascot. I like this guy. Might try to develop it further but I like the idea of animal armour. (Maybe he could have a set!!)

Apart from that I had a chat and some feedback from Andy and the Script writer etc. Was quite happy with it, what I got from it was to basically consolidate my ideas, if I want it to be set in the real world then just get rid of magic. But instead replace it with over exagerated real-life scenarios, e.g. The Poet can blow a ton of smoke from his cigarette to confuse the enemy/make him cough/whatever yaknow. I'm glad I was told this because now I can really start to focus on something. I think it may be tough making enough real life thingies interesting, but at least I know what I need to think about now. I'm really looking forward to it. Kind of running out of steam with the drawings atm :/ Keep getting distracted etc. Have a strange feeling in my stomach as well. Not really good but I reeeally have to try keep it up over the summer. I'll have plenty of time on my own at home anyway hopefully, So I should be able to churn some shit out. Alright that's enough. Goodbye Tremough for another 3 months. xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Even more stuff!

Cut to the chase.


Through some doodling today I think I may have come up with my main character and more of a storyline :D So this is Lightning Mike (Junior). A name I actually stole from Andy's mouth haha. He called one of the media center guys Lightning Mike and i thought it was an awesome name and didn't forget it. So this is him, and obviously all characters need motivation to be doing whatever they're doing. So in the Nazi vein of things an idea I thought of is that the Nerd Lord guy could've taken away all of the people he didn't like/thought to be a threat to his kingdom, locked them away somewhere, and these people included the loved ones of some of the cast. Lightning Mike Senior would've been taken away for being.. too awesome or something. He's a pro boxer and who Lightning Mike Jnr. aspires to. So yeah there's a bunch of underdogs going for the Nerd Lord, and here's the main guy. Typing like a retard for some reason but i'm drawing alright so whatever. He's pretty snazzy, slick-back hair. Go-getter.




Some doodles from yesterday, trying to figure out a brawler at first then I started drawing musicians/bards. I really like the guy on the right, just the type of crazy character i'm going for. He can shred but he can also prance around like an idiot with a flute. The other one is weird lol. I can't wait to get some of these guys modeled. Mudbox trial has run out on these comps though :/ What'll I do over summer eh...




Doodles from today of the Nerd LORD. I don't want him to be reminiscent of the Nerd character at all, and I want him to be sort of shrivelled, instantly evil/corrupt looking, but sort of goofy at the same time. I really like the little thumbnail that might be difficult to notice at the bottom right of the page, with him sitting in a gigantic chair. I'll definitely try to use this if possible. I'm thinking also of a massive map of the world under a glass table in front of him... maybe with playing pieces... it could be some sort of gadget also. *still need to think about magic in more detail...* the doodles aren't amazing but look better with a splash of colour, I think this guy will come to fruition in 3d mainly. It's a start anyway.



Finally there's this. I did it because I'm in a crisis about who to include in the film, I just won't have time to make something really nice if i try to make 120398 characters like I want to. My main concerns include:

• Just how many characters can I get away with? 4? 5? I'm thinking 5 good guys max. Then there's the evil guy, A guard and variations and bystanders if necessary. Oh, also bad guys they need to slice up... ugh....
• I don't feel I have any 'strong' girl characters in the fray just yet, the silhouettes are okay but i've not done a sketch of a girl I like yet.
• Lightning Mike is in cause he's the main guy. Mascot is in cause I need a tank. I'm attatched to the Nerd and I like the Musician. The Poet has a nice and different silhouette. Basically I like all the male chars in the frame, and that makes up 5 on it's own.
• Do I need a healer? When I think about it I don't often see healers in exciting trailers but all my girls are healers and I want a girl in there for variation x_x

I guess all will be answered in time. I'd really like some people to bat ideas back and forth with though. Times like this I'd like it if us 2nd years commented on each others blogs, then I wouldn't have to bug my friends :P

I'm out. V

Stúf

Been away from the blog for about a week, half due to laziness (street fighter), but the other half of the time i've been roughing out a timetable for the next year. I don't have it with me but christ is my year going to be hectic. This compounded by the fact that we just saw a bunch of Goblines (sp?) stuff in the cinema and it's all bloody amazing. Damn those frogs. It just makes me want to make something of the same calibre even more, though. I think I can, it'll just take inhuman amounts of effort. I guess all I can do is try my best and hope I can pull it out of the bag. I think i'll need some people's help, as well though. Right now I have no supporters but we'll see...

For now here are most of the doodles i've collected since my last post:


Some doodles for a proposed Musician/Bard class for the game. I like the guy with the hair over his eyes but he'd be more of a reserved character type than I think i'd like for the musician. I think he should be a little wacky, wide-mouthed sort of guy so that he can rock out on geetar but jump about like an idiot playing the flute just as easily.


I like the girl on this page, she's pretty cute. Possibility for a female version of the emo looking guy I drew a while ago. Possibly the white mage girl but I still like the old thumb I did for her a little while ago.


Some stuff mainly for the cheerleader/brawler. Can't get the balance I want between pretty/sweet and crazy strength. Pretty weak sketches I think.


Horrible design page on my businessman. The nasty figure on the left was me getting used to my phat pencil, didn't go well. The faces are kind of amusing but at this moment I'm thinking I might go with a chinese/japanese businessman character instead. He's meant to be a tank. The tank takes the hits etc, and a popular tank class in the games I play is Ninja, therefore he'd be mainly evading hits instead of being a meatshield. This kind of lends itself to the Japanese heritage yaknow. I think it'd be quite amusing too. Something I feel is really important is making sure all of the classes have a unique silhouette/characteristic. Otherwise the game would just be weird and wouldn't work.


A better design page on me old Journalist. I'm sad to say the Journalist, (the guy that started the entire project) might be leaving us and evolving into a Poet. Simply because of the horrendously cheesy phrase I thought up 'A license to Quill'. So our uptight Journalist may be becoming a smoozy charming french poet. He'd be a damage dealer, posibiliy have some sort of charm/smoke abilities up his sleeves. I'm sorta digging him.

That'll do for now. See you soon =^_^=;;;

Quickie

Real quick new post (keeping up steam w00t) since I just formatted a bunch of pictures for blogging. Here they are with descriptions:


Okay I was doing some general doodling to get some ideas for character classes and this guy turned up. He looks sort of magical but he's not nerdy enough to be a nerdmage. A while ago I thought of using goths or weird kids as a way of integrating magic into the game so I might try to develop this further. I really like the design anyway. One thing I'm a little concerned about is keeping the designs of a similar style. I don't think it'll be too much of a problem though as long as I keep it in mind and continue using the same style when i'm making them in 3d. I like this guy anyway.

EDIT: EARTHCHILD! That name just came to me and I like it! Maybe they can be the enfeeblers :D


Continued doodling in the magical theme, and I came up with this girl. Thinking she could possibly be the female version of whatever class the above guy is. I'm digging the colour I used to highlight her also. The other ones are pretty crappy.


Here's some brainstorming for overall character classes. I won't go into detail, found it kinda difficult though. I'd like a nicely balanced set of classes, maybe 2 different classes to fill each role (Tank, Damage Dealer, Healer, Enfeebler, Maybe i'll explain those later.) Obviously it doesn't matter a huge amount since i'm not actually creating the game, but still I'd like to pretend that I actually would be creating the gameplay system one day. It'll lend to a very balanced cast if I do it which is also handy. This needs more thought anyway.


Continuing from the last post where I had that idea (which I think may play quite a large role in the film) about having sort of a police state, I started doing some doodles last night for the guards. My aim is to have them pretty goofy and quite clearly the understudies.. or footsoldiers if you will (or at least some of them, I could have variations in the guards, some more goofy, some mean looking guys. but this is modeling time permitting of course.) The names that i'm throwing around are either 'Enforcer', or, as a little in-joke to gamers, 'X-bots', which is a name that Microsoft fanboys sometimes get called. (Pretty gay but again if i'm basing the bad guy on bill gates then it makes sense.)

That's pretty much all for now but I have finally had some ideas for the name of the piece. I've found it sooooorta difficult coming up with a good one but it's not like i've been thinking about it alot. Had a little think last night and I started thinking "World... world... Other World? Other Land? ...Fatherland? Farther Land."

So that lame example was my train of thought, but I think Farther Land is the best idea that i've come up with so far. It kind of has the same ring as something like Neverland, reinforcing the fantasy element, and I did a little google to find that 'Fatherland' was a novel by some guy about what if the Germans won WW2. This kind of makes sense as well, since my fictional country will have been taken over, also. So i'm not sure if i'll go with it yet, but I can see it working possibly. One thing that i've noticed with names anyway, is that when you're introduced to something, you don't necessarily think into the name straight away. I can't think of any examples right now but in my experience I always just accept names for what they are and sometimes come back to them and think 'what a weird name' or 'actually that's quite interesting/cool'.

I'll leave it there. Keep it real (H).

hihi

So i've been sitting on my arse for the majority of this morning, looking at things online like trailers from the recent E3 gaming event, watching some Gnomon videos and other stuff, and I figured it's time to stop looking and start doing. I do find there to be a strange balance between watching things and doing things, like i'll watch a video on HOW to model some character or whatever for hours, I've probably watched a hundred different tutorials, but very rarely do I actually sit down to do these things for myself. It feels like i'm learning/working just by watching the things, and I love to do it, but I'm not actually doing anything reeeeeeally productive by just having a gander. Anyway, I may as well present the best things that i've seen in the last few days on here, i'll try to be objective and relate it to my project as well. I'll also talk about the story of my Third year project, I think (which, by the way, i'm having trouble thinking up a witty name for. I thought 'The Cast-offs' on my last project was kind of a clever name, I'd like something at least that clever. I think i'll go the retro gaming name route as well, think Shining Force, Power Stone, something like that. Sort of cheesy but i hope the irony will be visible.)

One more thing, I think I should really try to make this blog a little more formal. I enjoy being able to write here without feeling like i'm being marked, but I think if I just keep it a little tidier and more educational...maybe? Maybe people who read this might actually be able to learn something from my mistakes and stuff. I'll give that a try. So this blog will be showing my work, of course, a place to verbalise my research for the upcoming project, and hopefully be helpful as well. I'll tag all of my posts as well if I have the time, so if anyone ever actually reads this crap then it'll be easier to navigate.

To Start: Some Research/Indulgence - E3 2009 Game Trailers.

Final Fantasy XIII

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIII | E3 09: Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

One of my favourite series, one of the only games that i will DEFINITELY be buying when it comes out, pretty amazing in game cut-scenes. All great stuff. The things that I particularly like in this trailer are:

-The colours: I really love the bit with the mecha guys and the blues, whites and reds. Every time I see it i think how great that shot is.

-The enemies: I think these are designed really beautifully, they look exotic but are designed well enough to look feasible and real. Particularly like those blue things, Sahagin maybe. Even the robo soldier guys with the glowing red eyes- they've been done a million times but still seem sort of fresh in this incarnation.

-The summon animation (pink glowing lotus flower: I have absolutely no idea how they make these things, but they look awesome.

Some things that I don't like so much:

-The references to the story/factions: I don't like to admit it but the story seems sort of contrived. It's probably always the case in the FF games, and i'll probably forget about this when i'm immersed in the actual game, but I don't like their references to the il'Cie or whatever they're called, seem a little cringe making at a push.

-Some of the character designs: Lightning (The main girl) is alright, I like the black dude, his chocobo is awesome :D, the young kid with the hair is kinda cool (maybe I think that because of the good voice acting he has?), The woman with glasses is pretty hot, but apart from those people, the rest seem sort of generic, or maybe the designs don't appeal to me. Particularly the hat guy, he's not really cool atm. Balthier and Fran plz, they're smooth as.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Video Games | Star Wars: The Old Republic | E3 09: Jedi vs Sith Cinematic

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

This is pretty fucking epic. I'll cut to the chase.

Good:

The pacing: I think this trailer is paced really nicely. Slow to start, really fast in the middle, slow at the end. I particularly love the Jedi's death transitioning into the space ship thingies, and the very end with the Sith guy walking towards the camera, he looks pretty damned evil and sort of awesome.

The humour: There's not much at all, but I love kicking the Jar Jar Binks guy in the face :D

Boba style trooper peeps: Got a thing for those troopers, they look awesome.

Bad:

Not much to say really, I don't really like the bunny eared girls and the animation is a littttttle worse than some of the trailers maybe, but this is really nit picking.

I think i'll stop analysing now and just rant a little.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIV Online | E3 09: Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Where the hell did this come from!? A game I really wasn't expecting to see at E3, or for like at least another couple of years to even be announced, and here it is coming in 2010. I was an big time fan of FFXI, the last MMO that square released, like BIG BIG fan. Put in more hours than i'd like to admit to. Finally stopped playing when I came to university because you need so much free time to play the games, or in fact any MMO. They are ridiculously addictive, and while I think I really shouldn't get into another MMO ever (I secretly plan to play MMOs when i'm a grandad and retired) I can't help but get excited for this. It's just such a cool thing, and getting into MMOs right at the start is awesome because it's literally an entire world to explore, not just with characters in a game that aren't real, but you get to explore them with your real life friends, make friends in game and basically pretend to be wizards together (you can see why i'm doing what i am for my third year project...). But enough nerdery on that subject.

The Last Guardian

Video Games | The Last Guardian | E3 09: Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The Last Guardian... kinda cool name. BUT WTF! THEY CHANGED MY GRIFFIN! If you look back to one of my recent posts I was getting so excited about this game because of the awesome teaser with the cute but kinda realistic griffin thing AND THEY CHANGED IT. This has honestly lowered my expectations for the game. He was perfect as he was... sigh. And they didn't really change the feathers, they still look a little funky.

That'll do for the game trailer stuff. I think this may even be helping me a little, I will be creating a game trailer after all. I've also discovered these really cool, free to watch gnomon event coverage thingies. I watched the making of the Warhammer Online trailer, it was kinda cool, not super helpful but I love to get any insight into how game studios actually work, and getting to look at the bare bones of the actual models they use and stuff like that. Here's a link: http://www.gnomonschool.com/events/events.php Check them out for sure.

I also managed to watch the new Next Gen Character Modeling tutorial from the Gnomon Workshop. I've only really skimmed over it, and watched the section about normal mapping and retopologising in full, but I'm sort of let down. It looks awesome on the surface but it's pretty much just the guy modeling in Zbrush the whole way through. Not that this isn't cool, but it's not really what I was expecting. But then again maybe since this is the way he actually creates his characters that are in the games, maybe I should be focusing on this... I do need to start getting to grips with Mudbox. I'll try and fit it in when I can in the studio, as I can't even run the stupid thing on this computer :/

Right now i'm really interested in how to make things deform correctly, and I find myself more and more interested in rigging... weird. I find it really difficult to find good tutorials online, and even the gnomon website is sparse on rigging videos. I guess i'm interested in it because I've sort of come to terms with modeling now, and I think that the only thing I need to do to make awesome models now is sit in front of the screen for a billion hours and work away. I also need to learn mudbox, but rigging is something I feel i've scratched the surface of, but there are SO many techniques and cool little tricks that i'd like to learn- to make these models which I create completely water-tight, have every range of motion and expression that is necessary for them to have, and not to have to do inconvenient little tweaks during the animating and stuff. It's a big shame when the animators (Hi Andy) have to limit themselves because the rig isn't perfect. I want perfection! I'm aiming for these great rigs in my third year project. Fingers crossed.

Let's chat some shit about the old Third Year Project. (TYP?)

Third Year Project

I'll kick it off with the Illustration that I managed to do for the proposal on Wednesday.



I'm actually really happy with this looking at it now. It's not mind-blowing but I kind of like the colour scheme, I think it looks interesting enough. The only thing that i'm worried about is that it doesn't really reflect the look or mood that i'm going for with my animation at all. In a way it sort of captures the light-hearted theme that i'll be going for, but not the aesthetic style very much. I now like the idea of making the characters have very strong colour schemes though, I think i'll try that out. They all seem to have quite distinguishable silhouettes as well, and I hear that's good for games. I knocked it up in a few hours as well, so, sweet. I like getting things done so quickly, but I feel I sort of make compromises sometimes and I don't like doing that. Anyway, that's it. I'm not really happy with my actual proposal either, I'm not sure it'll sell me and the idea. Hopefully the art will help with that. I'll wait for the feedback anyway. I feel quite committed to the project though, and i'm quite passionate about it so hopefully it'll come through. Here are a few extra doodles that I managed to scan in too. Not reflective of the final look, just exploration and experimentation.



I like the hoody guy, looks moody and cool, but quirky. The other girl is from street fighter haha.



This guy is sort of troll like, maybe orcish. Gives me ideas.

Now i'm going to talk about the STORY of the project in a little more depth. This'll just be a brainstorm of sorts, along with laying down my ideas somewhere other than my head.

Story Stuff!

So here's what I have so far:

• Maniacal billionaire takes over a country (-how? I'm thinking he buys it/bribes people of power to let him have it. Something along those lines.)
• He turns it into a real life RPG country (-how does he do this? I think maybe he'll have employed enforcers of his RPG rule, he takes everything from the people that doesn't fit with his ideal, maybe uses propaganda, that could be cool for some art. I'm now thinking Nazis, SS, Gestapo and i'm liking it lol, is it bad to say that?) I'd like these enforcers to be sort of clumsy hired goons. Some sort of cool and humourous armour/uniform. These will be great for a generic enemy to beat on.
• The majority of people are made miserable by this change, they are allowed to have no ambitions, they have no mod cons, they're turned into peasants sort of. This raises a question - is he allowing people to be adventurers? This i've not thought about...
  
• He puts orcs and other beasties around the place -this allows me to add some humour into the world by way of making a bunch of nerdy jokes, reusing and redesigning my favourite computer game bosses and having them as in-game bosses, this ties in a previous idea i had for the project about making a game game..thing. (Anyway these may be robotic, otherwise i'm gonna just have to go for the crazy approach and have him bio-engineering or maybe he found a spell book or something. Actually I don't mind the idea of him finding a spell book, but that sort of removes from reality. I'd like it so that this really seems modern, and I don't mean futuristic, but reflective of modern day.
  
• Anyway This also raises the question of magic. You need magic in games, I think i'd prefer to go for the man made angle, having magic coming from some sort of machine. If the billionaire is a bill gates type character he could potentially in my world have created this sort of technology.
• I'm thinking the crazy guy will have dotted equipment/loot around the world. He does this to make it more like a game, and this allows my in-game characters to have a way to upgrade equipment and such.
• The billionaire lives in his little castle as the ruler of the land. Maybe the people just think he wants to be king, but I want him to think of himself as the final boss of his real life game. And when, inevitably at the end of the game the adventurers approach him to return the world to the way it was, he's ready for them and there's a spectacular finale.

Here's what I think I need:

• To lock down reasons why the people are unhappy. What are they made to do/become? Why do they rebel?
• Am I using a single main character for the entire game, with partners who come and go?
  
• If so they all need their own good stories and motivation.

I guess those are the main things right now, so i will attempt to make some decisions on those things in the next little while. I think i've got a few good little ideas, but there's a lot more to work out.

I think i'll leave this blog at that. I feel bad for writing so much haha. Poor readers (if you exist).

Once again, if you have any suggestions or ideas please leave me a comment, especially concerning the third year project stuff. Byeeeeeeeee

Wee Postage.

Had a nice kinda free day today and managed to get on an art-roll. Drew up 3 rough concepts for characters for my Third Year Project (which I still need a title for...) and i'm pretty happy with all of them :D. Of course they'll go through a million iterations yet (hopefully) but I think i'm having a good start. Here they are:

Nerd



This class (remember, all names and everything are work in progress and will change.) i'm thinking will be like the Mage, or maybe the Calculator/Mathematician ala Final Fantasy Tactics. High Intelligence (As you can see i've added a silly stat chart), Low Strength and HP, the usual magey stuff.

Journalist



I sort of went for the Swordsman angle here, spurred on by the cheesy line 'wield your pen like a sword' <_< >_> I know. I'm so using that in my design bible though lollers. So yeah, Agile, Dextrous, I'd like to make him Charismatic also but I think he's got enough stats as it is.

Mascot



Every RPG needs a tank (well, not really but whatever). A guy to absorb the damage and keep the little mageys from harms way. I was thinking of a sportsman, and i've been drawing stupid panda related stuff for a while, which sort of filtered down into this. I like his happy/goofy look, will try to develop him further. Mascot might be a bit of a random name, it was used in Final Fantasy X-2 as the 'ultimate' class, but I never actually unlocked it. I just related it from the american football route. Anywho, like I said all WIP. (And sort of bad scans, sorry about that. I'll tidy them all up if i decide to paint 'em :])

And to round off this little post, here are some paintings I did (two in two days, an absolute record) for the Talking Dog project in a mad rush on the final day. We've actually FINISHED a rough cut of the film now :D woooooooooooooooooooo. I'll talk about it in more detail next blog or something. Here are the paintings anyway (quite rough, as instructed by andy, but they aren't too bad I don't think.)




(sneaky jim reference lolz)

DONE! lata.