New Post.

Herro. This is a short one. Just to say i'm alive, back in falmouth, getting back into the swing of things and I have some work to show. There'll be a massive post soon when the studio and my brian are sorted out so that I can scan all of the bits and pieces I have lying around. Little post is better than no post!

So i've finished 3 paintings, each containing 2 characters. So that's sort of 6 paintings! (If i'm kind to myself.) That's alright really, I reckon. I got some sketches and stuff done too and a very rough story board. As ever i'm sort of happy with my paintings but still wish I was better. Practic makes perfect though right? I think i've realised that i'm not as skilled as I would like to think. I think I have the eye for things, but when I start the painting I get stuck often, or have to cop out and make things look cartoony. I want to change this by doing some studies when I can, and also try paintings where I'm tied down by absolutely nothing. No deadlines, no sketches, I think i'd make some nice stuff if it were entirely experimental. Cause even though I have free reign with this project, I am still limited by the fact that these paintings have a purpose, they are concept art. They need to be readable and show snapshots of the characters. I mean I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving areas completely unfinished or go off on a tangent somewhere and have inconsistensies in the series of images. Talking crap now.

Anyway. I've 'finished' the 3rd of my paintings just moments ago. I spent today on the background...which was possibly a massive waste of time, but I've not been sure what angle I would take for the background, and i've been waiting til i've completed more because I would like some sort of cohesion with the pieces. So here're the Bards. I think i'll keep that traditional RPG class name because they are quite modern looking characters sorta. I have 3 variants because i've been going a bit nuts and i'm not sure which one looks best. Here's the first:



These are the colours and stuff that I put down myself.

Here's the second:



This is with an overlay, but I think it's my favourite of the three as it stands today.

Finally, here's the third:



This one's mental, so I'm pretty sure it won't get used, but I like it anyway. Also i've not tweaked it, it's just the same overlay as before but on Exclusion or something.

There's a chance I may even go in a completely different direction when I've got the whole set of images together, too. I think i'll leave the other two completed Illus background-less until i've done the rest, and tweak them when i'm done. Speaking of those, i've never actually uploaded them... I think I will now, even though I feel that they need quite a lot of polisihing before they are finished. So let's call them work in progress.

Brawlers:



Businesspeople:




Both need level adjustments because I painted them on a wonky laptop screen which threw the balance completely. The laptop also had a lower resolution which I think is obvious when you compare these to the bard pictures. I won't make any excuses anyway, it should be fairly simple to sort out what I want to do. It's just finding the time and effort.

I seem to be working quite slow lately, but at least i'm enjoying it.

I'll leave you with some images that I downloaded earlier, I'm gonna get into the habit of downloading the awesome that I find when I find it, then i'll post it up here. I think these images may be one of the reasons I went a bit mental with the background of the bard images, so they should fit here quite nicely.







Jesus christ, how good are they? I absolutely love the play with the colours. Sort of very experimental but at the same time they're valid concept art I think, if even only for the atmosphere that is created. Anyway I love them, check out the guy who painted them's blog over here -----> http://crayonboxofdoom.blogspot.com/

london postings.

Almost exactly a month after my previous post, I return. I'm not sure whether I should apologise for the lack of posting or if it's sort of warranted due to my situation... I think i'll go with the former for now, and say sorry for being crap. I haven't decided yet whether i'm doing badly or not. This is possibly because I decided to abandom my schedule for the summer, and therefore don't really know where I could/should/would be. Initially I had planned to complete all concept art and have my models animation ready for my return to falmouth. I ended up forgetting that, not due to unfeasability (although this more than likely would've been the case) but more to allow myself a little (a LOT) more freedom as far as concept art goes after a chat with Andy on the situation. In hindsight i've definitely created less work by not abiding to my former schedule, but just like the Talking Dog project I probably would've failed the schedule and just gotten myself worried. None of this is really making sense, but my feelings right now are fine. I've just completed my first full character concept, I have 2 months til I return to uni, one til I return to falmouth, and i feel comfortable.

Like I said, i've not decided yet whether i've been working enough. But I have been working, even though i've not been posting. If you've not yet guessed, this will probably be a ridiculously long post :P Quickly, my current situation is as follows. I'm living in my girlfriend's house in London, painting when she's at work and relaxing the rest of the time. I'll be here for the next 4-5 weeks until the 25th when I leave for Leeds Festival. I'll be returning home to Wales right after, around the 1st of Sept, then heading straight to Fal shortly after that. I'm thinking my return to fal will be when the work really starts to get going. I'm painting here but I find that I thrive in the studio environment and when I return I will be completely focused on work. I'm really looking forward to that, and REALLY want to make something I can be proud to show at the end of the year.

Workwise: I'm fairly happy with the concepts i've been producing. I found it difficult to knock them out when I was in Wales but I just about managed it, and have started the painting. I'm not sure how I feel about my first completed concept yet, but at the very least it's not bad, passable. I think i'll have a more cohesive idea when everything starts coming together. (Read through to the bottom to check him out :D)

INSPIRATION

Alright here's a little section on the things that've been exciting me recently. I've been compiling some images but sadly I left them on my computer at home, but I'll chuck them up when I get the chance. For now check this out.

Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2 ---LINK

Team Fortress 2 is a game that i've never actually played. I've only seen videos but nevertheless I think it's a brilliant game, but solely from a visual standpoint. And judging by the hype the people love it for the gameplay, too. When searching for concept art from the game on a whim, I came across the brilliant article above ^^^. If you take a read through it covers most visual aspects of the game, in a reasonable amount of detail. I'd love to find out more about the modeling and rigging procedures but I'm thrilled to get any sort of insight into the production of REAL games.

GAYYYYY I literally just wrote a load of other crap and the blog fucked it up -.- ugh. Oh well, look at the pretty pictures -.-



Also read this: http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4338&page=2

and this is important: The look needed to be inspirational and it needed to project "fun" rather than "hardcore."

Quoted from the above page. This is what I want!!

lovely stuff. Check out the links for moar.

Gotta cut this short, BRB!

EDIT: Kind of lost my thread, I know I posted this ages ago and I stopped cause I was interrupted by 3 girls who were also staying in Hannah's house at the same time as me. They came home and were living in the living room where the computer is.. blahblah. It really is quite difficult to post here, so i'm not gonna give myself a hard time about this being the second time that i've visited here lol. I'll just carry on with chatting crap.

I was initially going to use this post to chat about the artists that i'd been admiring on Conceptart.org along with that article above and some other game concept art, but shinier things have caught my eye since then, so i'll talk about the other stuff another time :D But make sure to check out that link^ awesome stuff.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

This is one of the games that i'm most hyped for currently. (I really buy into hype lol.. can't help myself, I even think that sometimes I enjoy the hype more than the actual games.) I am an avid fan of the Final Fantasy Series and I ploughed far too many hours into Square Enix's last online FF. Obviously i'm going to be dying to play the next one. Well, sort of. Massively Multiplayer Online RPGS (MMORPGS) are double edged swords. Horribly addictive but brilliantly rewarding, they can eat your life if you're not careful. But i digress, i'll just chat about this from an aesthetic standpoint.

There is little known about the game at this point, but recently the WEBSITE was updated with a nice little bit of information, and some beautiful artwork.





These are some of the character models, you can get some higher res pictures on the site itself, but anyway I bloody love them. Sadly this is probably my inner fanboy talking but I can't silence him D: I won't bother pouring over them but I just love them, and the rest of the aesthetic of the game. Make sure to check the link and check out the landscapes as well. Beautiful stuff.

Here's a gameplay vid which excites me even more!



However shakily recorded and pixelated it might be, just looked at that green grass and the blue shadows of the mountains. Amazing. The gameplay may look a little static which might be strange to those not used tothe genre, but look at the animation of the Dodo enemies. LOOK at the detail of the environment! I love it all, it'd be amazing to be creating that one day...

Finally, here are some of the paintings that i've been doing while in London. None are finished but let me know what you think. Many more will be popping up when I return to falmouth! :D

Hmmm... looking at those pictures on this computer does not please me at all... they look horrible. I can only hope that that is a result of the compression from uploading and not what they actually look like on a non-laptop computer. :////

EDIT: Taken them down cause they look so bad!

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

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

*Turns over new leaf*

In an effort to get my third year project on the move, and with a burst of inspiration again from www.androidarts.com, I am going conduct some research on this here blog. I'll start off by analysing some of my favourite ever RPGs and i'll see where it takes me. So here goes, tonight I'll be looking at probably my favourite ever GBA game Fire Emblem, specifically it's classes and characters.

Third Year Project Research - START!

Fire Emblem

Seventh in the series but the first to be released outside of Japan, I've no idea where I got the idea to play this game but I did, and I was proper hooked for a while over a summer holiday I seem to remember. Good times. Anyway, i'm only going to look at the character classes tonight as it's very late, but here goes. Firstly here's a sample of my favourite classes in the game:

Knight
These guys were massive, the ground shook when they walked, and they attacked slowly but powerfully. I've not looked at an image of the game for years now probably, but I still remember them. Not exactly original but a brilliant redesign of a classic. As a side note, this game is a SRPG (Strategy Role-Playing Game). You basically play like pieces on a chess board, advancing towards the enemies and carefully managing your formations until you were in range and used the 'attack' command, when you would be shown a small clip of your little guy smashing the little bad guy with whatever weapon he held. The animation was beautiful. Here's an animation of the Knight's upgraded form - the General. (That's another point, the guys upgraded when they reached level 10 out of a possible 20. I bloody love when things upgrade/evolve)



weee :D

Swordmaster
These were awesome (i'm going to say that about every class.) I remember they were quick, got critical hits like all the time, and had crazy evasion. Their animations were among my favourite in the game I think. Well, maybe not but at least they got criticals all the time and they looked class. Here's a critical.



Paladin
I don't actually think I liked these above the other classes, but while checking through the animation is really snazzy, so check it out anyway. I think I prefer the paladins from FFXI. Maybe they'll feature in an upcoming blogaroo.



Troubadour
I remember thinking these were quite a strange class, not something i'd come across before. They're basically White Mages (clerics, healers, etc) on horses. Hmm... Also I remember liking her more when she was in her unpromoted form. Not a special animation but here's Priscilla the troubadour.



Pegasus Knight
What a brilliant class eh? Some girls with lances on Pegasus'. How are there more than one pegasus? Who knows. There were three pegasus knight sisters, awesome. They were super weak to begin with but became awesome if you really trained them up. Lovely animation as well. I love how much dynamism can be captured in the tiniest of sprites. And i even love the colours, what are there, like three? You see, that's the type of thing that I wouldn't allow myself to do but marvel when others do. Anyway, anyway.



MAGE!
I love mages. I've always loved mages. I think it's because they're the smart weak ones. I mean i love warriors and stuff too but I guess i feel an affinity to the mage. This is probably my favourite character in the game and possible even one of my favourite mages ever: ERK! I don't know why, I love his name, his little outfit, everything. Brilliance. Here he is doing some magic. (You'll have to imagine the magic)



Druid
A close relation to the Mage is the Druid. They look a bit like evil mages, but in this game they could be goodies, they just dabbled in Dark Magic or whatever it was called back then. Arcane? Maybe. Here's Canas.



Assassins
I'm going to show you the most memorable Thief/Assassin in the game, Jaffar (even though he never spoke as far as i remember). I remember he looked after the litte Mage, Nino. (She was awesome too.) On this occasion I think he was cooler outside the battle animations, I feel he lost his personality when they shrunk him down so small, but he was awesome nonetheless.



I think that'll do for tonight, but here are a few more animations whose characters didn't make it, but are still super-awesome.

Okay so maybe this isn't anything like hard work, but it's helpful right? At least i'm writing a blog. And it has helped me to remember a little about what I really love about RPG Classes. I have quite a nostalgic feeling. I love the moment when your characters evolve, they get bigger, better, more awesome... Maybe we need some evolution in the third year trailer? That'd be pretty fucking sweet. Something to think about.

Semi-EDIT: Alright, looking at the pictures on the blog is really annoying, what the hell is with those stupid white borders? They're ruining everything! I think it's time for a fresh layout for the site. I'll work on that when I have some free time. Might just copy android arts' blog, that looks nice.

Just a little closing rambling, turn off now. I actually feel a little bad because this blog post hasn't contained any hard work lols. Actually that's probably not it. Regardless, I'll continue to do this research, post it up here and as I sketchsketchsketch I'll update also. I actually have some that i'll upload tomorrow or something. Tomorrow, the very final deadline... I wonder what we'll do next week. It'll be really nice to have some free time. I'll still be coming in to the studio but i'll just be doing what I want. I think I want to get good at mudbox. It wasn't as easy as i'd expected. It'll definitely take some working if i'm to make really beautiful models for the third year... actually that's inspired me to go do some digging, so that's what i'll do :) Au revoir. Hope this post's not been too crappy.

EDIT: Fixed the white boxes :D Also I forgot I was gonna do a little Listening to: bit, because I love music and more people should know this. Just a quick one for now.

Listening to: Bloc Party - Ion Square (Joel's Bright Lights Don't Bore Me Yet version) <3

p.s. Please comment if you have anything to say. I promise i'll reply :D