Due to being about to fall asleep while typing this, tonight will be a nice and short blog!
Got the first 4 pages of Last Cup storyboarded out and got a tiny bit of work on the second page done.
Still needs some shading work on the top panel, and not 100% sure I'm liking this look or not.
Besides that I picked up some prints I made on Monday. Mostly garbage, but one or two decent ones. Also printed a few more today, hopefully they turn out a bit better!
And now sleep. See, short upda~zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Well today seemed like the exact opposite of yesterday in that it flew by way too quickly. Didn't get half of what I wanted to get done done, but oo~oh well.
Finished up the first page of Last Cup for the most part, but had my N4 Copic die on me. And sadly no stores around here carry that color, so I'll have to wait for an ink refill to arrive to touch up some of the shading.
Didn't even get started on the second page though, which I was originally hoping to have at least penciled in by tonight.
(Wish I had a giant scanner. This loses quite a bit of detail and subtle color with it being a photo.)
Did get to knocking out a few of those sketchbook assignments I've mentioned. Didn't take too long (which definitely shows), and I won't bore you with all of the mediocrity that is them. Just combined a few randomly picked ones into one handy image!
The highlight is definitely the 'self as a super hero'-"Amazing Coffee Pouring Man!" (How does he do it?!)
I did finally got around to picking up a frame for my Vanitas for the sake of entering it into a local art show. Looks pretty swanky framed, better than I thought it would. Going to try it out in a old barnyard-wood looking frame (hopefully) tomorrow and see which I prefer.
Still need to pick up frames for a few other pieces I plan on entering, will need to wait until I next get paid though. (Art is eating all of my money!)
Also had some extra mat board around, so I cut a piece to house three of the 8" x 10" prints I've been making lately. Not sure what exactly I'll put in there yet (Tokyo+Osaka+Glico monochromatic, Tokyo+Osaka+Glico multi-color, or three of the same multicolor [maybe primary colors?]) A lot will come down to what paint colors I have left and what I end up getting good prints of.
And for some completely unrelated news that has me very excited - Lee Unkrich's next Pixar project is going to be set in the world of the Dia de los Muertos. Cannot wait to see what sort of designes, character, and overall world Pixar comes up with for this. Sadly it's probably a good four years away, this will be a long long wait.
SLEEP MODE: ACTIVATED. (With a slight possibility of "Draw up that Utah print mode" creeping in.)
Ever have one of those days where thinking back to the morning feels like a few days ago? Today was one of those days! Not necessarily in a bad way, just in a really long way. I suppose having classes form 8-8 will do that...
Nothing too exciting happened class-wise today. Started off by doing a short presentation on *JenZee for my 'intro to drawing' class. Nothing too fancy, just me going "LOOK AT HOW AWESOME HER ART IS" for a good fifteen minutes or so. Good stuff.
Also finished up an strange outdoor sculpture for a 3d design class. Ended up looking like some sort of giant bird nest, sadly I forgot to take a picture. Hopefully it'll survive until Wednesday. D:
Besides that finally checked out a local art store I've been hearing about for ages (ArtWorks~!) and spent my 2d design class making more prints instead of actually working on some painting that is due all too soon. Finally printed the Glico man print, not sure if I liked how it turned out though. Forgot to take a picture, so you'll have to wait until Wednesday to judge for yourself. (You can kinda judge it from the plate.)
I did pick up a bunch of prints I did last week though, they range from "pretty cool" to "ehhh?" Didn't expect most of them to turn out amazing, was mostly just playing around with paint and trying all sorts of things. I'm like a kid and print making is my new shiny toy, it's pretty fun! (May pick up the materials for a linoleum print tomorrow.)
Got a little more work done on the first page of that comic assignment as well. Was hoping to get it finished up, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow.
Also kinda picked up my first commission today! Going to be doing a crazy crab-alligator hybrid monster for somebody, should be a fun project! Right now trying to decide if I'm going to do it in a print or pen/marker. I'll have to talk it over the the client a little more.
That's about it besides finishing up The Girl Who Played With Fire. I think tomorrow I'll try to finish the first two pages of Last Cup and try to get a new print going (this time of Utah! Aww yeah, change of pace.)
Now I sleep.
First off, finished up cutting a Glico Man print (big billboard in Osaka) and should hopefully have time to do a few test prints of it tomorrow.
Also started on the first actual page of Last Cup. Didn't get too far, still need to finish up the line work, add scratchy shading, add tones/tiny bits of color, decide I hate it, and promptly start over. Doing the planned 8 or so pages might take longer than I'd like to admit.
That's about the extent of the art I got done today, those two things took longer to do than I had expected. D:
Also just realized how close this semester is to ending which was followed by me realizing how much I still have left to do. Have about two weeks to get a few prints done, finish Last Cup, do a painting assignment that is supposed to be ~12 hours, do ~20 sketchbook assignments, write 4 papers, do a presentation on an artist (decided to go with Jen Zee, the art director from Supergiant games,) and a few other things I'm undoubtedly forgetting about. Ack.
Two days in a row with blog posts? WOOHOO, (not) A NEW RECORD!
Today was entertaining enough, spent around ~7 hours at an animation presentation/workshop/thingy, tried out the Dorito taco(eh,) and drew some more (shocker.)
Was working on Storyboards for that short comic I'm working on (Last Cup) for a while, but wasn't getting much accomplished. So I took a break and worked on a cover-ish page. Not sure if I'll use it or make a fancier one, but here is what I currently have.
Nothing too crazy, nice and simple.
Most likely going to be color the characters in the comic in the same was as on the cover as well, should give it a unique look.
And now I have some friends trying to get me to go to a bar that is having a pajama night... so I'll see you all later!
An update?! HALLA-BA-WHAAAT?!
Daily(ish) updates are back(ish) again, although they won't have too much to do with development on Chester except for news on possible future releases. Also probably won't be too much on Clyde for a while either, classes are murdering about 90% of my time and the 10% left I'm killing with various art projects (building a portfolio and the like.)
What these updates will have probably won't be too exciting to many of you, but just going to be posting daily drawings and updates on miscellaneous art projects I'm working on.
So what have I been working on lately? Loads of different things! Weird Vanitas, playing around with print making, some character design for a (super) short comic, and loads and loads of figure drawing! You can see some of this stuff over on my DeviantArt. (Yup, I have one of those.)
And as blog posts without pictures bore me incredibly, it's time for a few pictures of what I've been working on today/yesterday. Loads of figure drawing and some character design!
Currently working on a short comic for an assignment, and while designing characters for it I realized that I am absolutely terrible at drawing the human figure. So I put the designs on hold and just drew various figures over and over and over for a very long time. I think I ended up with close to 200 for the day, hazzah! (Pose Maniacs is awesome)
After I started feeling a tiny bit more comfortable with figure drawing (and my hand recovered) I got back to character design. Ended up with 3 characters that I'm pretty happy with, but are all still unnamed.
Going to be a short comic about the main guy getting the last cup of coffee and the business man deciding to fight him for it. Yup
So that's how my last two days have been spent (also went to a presentation by Jacob Gardner and Tom Jech that made me decide to start posting updates again!) Oh yeah! I also discovered the crazy amount Michael's charges for framing things or even cutting a mat board. So I instead went and bought a nice mat cutter for about what they would charge to cut 2 or 3.
The next patch for Chester is well in the works. This patch won't have any huge changes to the game, but will address a few bugs, balance issues, add more music/sound FX, and add mouse support for menus/maps.
Hoping to have this up on Desura by the middle of next week.
Once this patch is out the plan is to start on the first big free update. Going to try to have a new style, new world with a few levels, new level setting (thinking something icey), and maybe a new mini-boss. No ETA on that yet but I shall keep you all updated!
Now that Chester is out for the PC many YouTube videos are popping up! We've got an LP started by watchmeplayshow (Part 1Part 2)
A quick look at the demo by Sketchfile found here (Had a few technical issues with a non-360 gamepad that I'll be addressing in the next patch!)
And finally a fantastic review by indieSTATIK!
If you spot anymore videos out there about Chester let me know @BennFried and I'll help spread the word!
Besides that working on a patch to fix a few small bugs that have popped up, add mouse support for menus, add more music and sound fx, and a few more things! Hoping to have this updated patch out within a few days. After that I'll be working on free update with a new style and a bonus world full of challenging new levels.
Unsure about this Chester character you keep hearing about? Give him a quick try with the new demo! [DOWNLOAD HERE]
Not a terribly large demo, you get access to ~6 levels and can experience a few of the styles available in the full game. Just download and run the msi installer and it should take care of any prerequisites you may be missing.
After many delays I'm finally close to getting Chester released onto the PC! No definite news on what distribution networks it will be on yet, but once I have any news I'll keep everyone updated through this site and my Twitter.
Hoping to have it released by the end of this month.
Alright!
With my semester being crazy I don't really have much time for real updates so instead I'll just be posting daily(ish) doodles on here instead. Enjoy!(?)
I'll start off with a DOODLE DOUBLE DOSE!
Finished the fancy one up over the weekend, and doodled the other one while typing this up.
So, I've scrapped all of the coding that I was doing for Clyde recently, but for good reason! Switching over from developing in XNA to Unity. This will allow me to have games not only on the PC but on the Mac as well. And if I feel like it web, Android, and iOS (boy howdy!)
The downside of this is that I have to learn quite a bit before actually starting up on my next title. Plowing through tutorials right now, so it hopefully won't be too long until I'm working on something actual. The fun part is with the web aspect of Unity I can post up the small things I'm working on when I post updates! (Excitement.)
Style wise getting closer to something I'm happy with for Clyde. Right now it's going to be a robot world in the same universe as Chester. It will be split up into different regions based on locations in the actual world, just with bizarre and robotic twists. Once I have some actual art to put up I'll do so.
Until then, enjoy a few character and scene sketches.
After many delays Chester 1.1 is finally available on the XBLIG. (get it here!)
1.1 brings a lot of changes and new content to the game.
-Twice as many levels
-Twice as many enemy types
-New playable characters
-New styles
-More unlockables
-A light element system to combat
-New level and world progression systems
-An overall much more polished and complete game
-More things I'm forgetting!
So if you've already bought Chester go grab the update to enjoy it all again and if you haven't bought it yet WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU JERK GO BUY IT NOW!
Nothing really to report today! Worked a little more on the look and style of Clyde but still don't really have anything worth showing.
Last actual class was today (still have some finals next week) so should hopefully have more time to devote to Clyde soon though!
Oh yes, be sure to check out this article by @Duckols over on the Official Xbox Magazine website. Covers up few fantastic XBLIG including Chester!
Woo early Clyde run-cycle that's probably getting scrapped due to changing the style of the game!
Reina Lamour put together a reel of a bunch of songs that will be in the PC release of Chester, be sure to give it a listen! Chester - Soundtrack Show Reel by Reina Lamour
Spent a few hours today trying to get a look together for Clyde, but haven't quite come up with anything I'm too happy with yet. Went through about four or five different looks, right now I'm leaning towards a more cartoonish look. Once I'm set on a look for the next game I'll start posting some images from it. Hopefully going to have enough time over winter break to put a pretty good dent in Clyde!
Besides that nothing too exciting to report, just finishing up some projects before the semester comes to a close.
Nothing too major to report today except for a few minor adjustments to the site.
Changed the sidebar links to the Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube pages to little icons instead of the weirdness I had going on before. Also replaced the old Chester box on the sidebar with the new one and actually added a link to the XBLIG release (probably should have done that a while ago.)
Last change was to the about page, added the sound duo Reina Lamour to that and changed a few other small things.
On the actual game front nothing too exciting was done today. Added a little more polish to some of the menus for the PC build of Chester. Still waiting to see if 1.1 will pass peer review on the XBLIG (such a fantastic review system they have set up there. </s>)
Have this really weird dancing animation of one of my very old 3d models: Airman!
Finally going to try to get back into the habit of daily (or at least semi-daily) updates. I'm probably picking the worst possible time to do so (Yay finals week!) but oh well, I'm not always the brightest.
Plans for the day are polishing up the PC build of Chester a little bit more (really nothing too much left to do) and maybe getting a little more work done on the Clyde engine.
I'll probably be posting another update tonight. Also going back to the fun of making sure every daily update will have some sort of image, because text is boring! (Except for this one, because I said so.)
Chester 1.1 for XBLIG
The 1.1 update for XBLIG is complete, just waiting to get it through peer review, it will hopefully be out in the next week or so. The 1.1 pretty much doubles the amount of content in the game.
-Twice as many levels
-Twice as many enemy types
-New characters
-New styles
-Loads of unlockables
-Learn the strange backstory of the Chester universe by unlocking "Bestiary" pages
-An actual final boss encounter
-A Stamp Shop that allows you to unlock things in any order you desire
-New music and sound effects
-Much much MUCH more polish
-More things I'm forgetting about!
Chester PC
The PC version of the game is about complete as well. Don't have a set release date or any solid news on what distribution networks I'll be releasing it to just yet but I'm hoping to have it out by the end of the year. I'll keep you all updated when I have some more news.
Clyde
Now that Chester is completed I started up on my next project: Clyde. Nothing too concrete about this project yet, have the base for the engine underway and the main character design. It will be another 2D platformer set in the same "Chesterverse" but it will be drastically different than Chester. More customization, more fluid animation, one insanely huge level with seamless loading, and more.
Don't have too much to show for it yet, so have an early idle animation of Clyde.
That is about it for now, going to try to keep the updates on here coming along at a more steady pace!
Cheers.
Woohoo! Most of the work I got done today involved creating new enemies. Code-wise I got about 5 new ones in, but most still need animations (and designs)
Some new flying types, a new walking type, and a new type that hops from walls/ceilings.
Besides that also started up on a list of planned enemies and current enemies, going to be shooting for about 30 unique enemy types (not including cannons) in the 1.1 build. That is nearly double what is in the current build!
And now I sleep, for I have class in the morning. But enjoy this new enemy, that flies with his hands (for now he is simply called Flying Hands...)
Time for another small update!
Didn't get quite as much done today as I did yesterday, but still accomplished a few small things.
The first and biggest change is that I added panning to pretty much all sound effects in the game. So if an enemy is on the left side of the screen, you'll hear it more out of you left speakers, etc etc. Adds a really nice effect, especially when playing with headphones on!
Also started adding some more enemies in. Got a new cannon type that fires a rapid series of bullets directly at Chester that I'm sure will kill you all off at least a few times added in. Sketched up a few Skull cannons as well that I'll probably be using in the games ending FORTRESS levels. Also a new enemy that rolls around like some sort of weird rolly thing, similar to how frogs move but a little less predictable (sort of the Paper-type counterpart to the Scissors-type frogs.) Got started on a new flying movement type of enemy as well, but don't have that quite finished yet to that'll have to wait for a future update.
And now I sleep, so I can wake nice and early and get back to work!
Hello all, going to attempt to get back to posting daily (or at least semi-daily) updates on the bog here!
I've been looking through a lot of feedback I've been getting on Chester and two things are pretty clear:
-Players want styles to be more than just a visual change
-Most players stick to using one character and don't branch out to the others
Encouraging users to switch Styles!
I've come up with a few ideas on encouraging users to switch between styles today, got one pretty much fully coded and the other is still in the designing stages. The finished idea is that I gave every style a slight gameplay advantage that will be useful during some of the more challenging parts of the game. For example, the Sketch style now causes enemies to attack and fire at a slightly delayed rate, the Block style gives you a little extra hang time while jumping, the Hand Drawn style lets you use special attacks for less ammo, and a few other bonuses along these lines. Running low on health or looking for an enemy bio card (more on those later)? Switch to BluePrint, which increases item drop rates!
The other idea for encouraging the use of all of the Styles is adding in secret areas and multiple paths that can only be accessed while using a certain style. There will be visual cues in place to give you a hint as to where these secret paths are. I'll be trying to get this into the 1.1 patch, but that's not a promise!
Encouraging users to switch characters!
I've added a very light elemental system to all characters and enemies. And by elemental system I mean Rock, Paper, Scissors. By switching to the correct type of character you'll be able to deal extra damage to enemies. But switching to the wrong type will leave you open to more damage.
To make this system easier to use each Element is color coded. So Rock-type enemies will be red themed and give off a red Aura as they move about. This aura will also apply to your characters and will grow stronger as you level them up.
After playing around with the new Element system all day I can definitely say it adds a lot of fun and some simple strategy to the gameplay.
Another idea for switching characters up that I haven't quite gotten into the game yet is enemies with "Knockout" attacks. If one of these attacks hits you, your current character will be locked until the end of the level and you'll be switched to a different unlocked character. These attacks will look quite different from normal attacks so they'll be easy to spot and avoid. I'd say there is a good 90% chance I'll have these ready for the 1.1 patch.
That is about it for tonight, and I should probably be off to sleep as the semester starts up tomorrow morning. Hooray hopefully easy classes! =P
