Update

It's been a while since I last posted, many apologies if anyone has taken interest up to this point. I have since left XD Studios (friend's own start-up games company) to pursue a company near home, wishing them the best of luck.
RAM has been discontinued, and in the end the competition was called off. We however received some tickets to the BAFTAs as an apology.

I now work with a games company called Oysterworld. It's been the best experience I've had thus far in the games industry, and I can only dream that I will stay with them for a long time.

My spare time has been spent on other things which are not art related, so this blog will probably not receive updates more often than once a few months- I will of course post the projects I work on, when they release/get published. If I do have some personal art projects going I'll make sure to post them!

It has been my recent interest to live life to the fullest and with balance. I hope some time I can come back to this blog full of content to show.

Art Tests Ep. 1

I have been looking for a job for a while now and most required an art test- which I will probably never put up on my portfolio site... but it will give you an idea of the standards they require. Two of these were for junior positions.

Mind Candy

I started working on this, and then suddenly the positon was taken away- not filled, just... disappeared. :(

King

I was very proud of this one, it got me into the interview, and even now I claim to have been accepted to a second. But no matter how many times I called they wouldn't give me a straight answer... not even a rejection, haha.

MiniClip

This is actually on my portfolio for a lack of similar type of vector art. Unfortunately I didn't fit the bill. But I guess my 2D work is lacking in comparison.

The Unfortunate Outcomes of Freelancing Ep. 1

I've decided to post some of my freelancing experiences, maybe to help warn newbies of the risks they will need to take and the inevitable side-effects of life. It's easy to catch out those who want to trick you into making something for free, but sometimes tragedy strikes and it is genuine (or just a really cruel lie).

When there is no contract involved, you always run the risk of not getting paid- no matter how trustworthy you think the client is. Something life-changing may happen to them that will stop a project suddenly, and is likely to stop them from paying your work's money.

The lack of a contract of course means you have every right to show your work, and use it as you please, so there is always a silver lining.

First Encounter of Drunken Chavs in 3 Years

As most people who know me know- I don't really go out very often anymore. I barely leave my computer as it is, with so much work to be done and limited funds, I found better ways to have fun and even socialise. But tonight I was looking forward to finally going out and hosting an awesome games night to raise funds for my uni's graduation show.

It didn't turn out that great. In fact I wish I could have gone back in time and done something different so it didn't have to end this way.

For the past few weeks I've been busy organising the end of year show, I had also decided to organise a fundraising games night and a classmate and I chose a place that had been used in previous years for fundraising. We had the Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 and a variety of games on each, there was supposed to be a competition held, raffles and just plain fun, but not even thirty people turned up. I was disappointed, mostly because the absences were from the very students involved in the degree show- it was basically for them. The people who turned up made an effort to help and even brought friends over.

So what ended the night with a big bang? Some idiot decided it was okay to enter our area (it was closed off and you had to pay for wristbands to get in) for free, and continued to ignore me, pointing, laughing and no doubt being a racist piece of brainless turd.

It was not so bad when I saw him finally leave the area, he apparently 'knew' one of the randoms that had gotten in (I made his friend pay for him eventually), but then he had the nerve to bring back two orange faced scarecrows and show off his amazing 'ignorance' in front of them.

So I pushed him. Hard.

One of the horrificly tall umpa lumpas went crazy on me whilst I had an awesomly fabulous Princess Peach costume on, and destroyed it by pulling my wig off. Just imagine my pissed off face when she did that. I told them to get out- though I'm sure it was in a horribly rude fashion, since I can't even remember exactly what I said. Then they got banned from the club.

I practically ripped off the rest of my costume, and went to the bathroom, utterly and sourly disappointed with how I handled things. So tonight I express my sincere disgust- at mainly myself.

Three damn years without ever encountering a chav, and I loose my mind when I do. I must be spoiled, I'm in Britain for goodness sake.

University Update & Final Project Complete!

University

This week has been very sunny in Swansea, it's such a contrast to the stressful and rainy days I've had for the past 9 months. There have been some really great and really tiresome days, where I just felt like throwing in the towel because of the amount of stress I've had this year. And finally, it's over.

I had my last Viva last week, and ever since I've just been doing absolutely nothing- well actually, I've been playing Diablo 3, watching Adventure Time, socialising and just eating like a king. But it feels like I've been doing absolutely nothing, and it's great.

Dissonance is complete for the most part, I still want to do some tweaking before I let people demo it. It's not a full game, it's an academic project, something incredibly incomplete, buggy and imperfect, but that's how much one person can possibly do in nine months without prior knowledge to code and with the edition of concept art and modelling etc.

Here's the trailer

This week I still have a few little things to do, like organising the end of year show for our department at uni and just touching up some bits of my project ready to show off on the day- I've been re-editing the textures of Cecilia for a while now, I'm just so picky, but I will be submitting her wireframe to dA very soon.

What Now?

I have time to do stuff! This is AMazing awesome!!!!

On a serious note, I'm going to be spending the next few months creating/improving my portfolio while applying for jobs. I know it's not going to be easy, but I will keep trying.

Think I will finally post something on Polycount, starting up some more character designs and modelling would probably be the best idea.

I've thought about places I might be situated in, and settle down at for jobs- but to be honest, so long as it is within 3 hours drive from my parent's home I won't be complaining much. I know it's hard to get in, especially as an artist and a student who has only just graduated, but I'm hoping that my work has/will pay off.

Cosplay/Hobbies/Events

I will definitely be going to the next MCM Expo, and will be making another costume, I would love to dress as Leo from Tekken and Azula from The Last Airbender- alternatively Luka the vocaloid. It will be pretty sweet. In the worst/best case scenario, where I do get a job and I actually cannot attend, I hope you all will forgive me for my yet-again absence.

Anyhow I'll leave it here. I basically just copy/pasted this from my deviantART journal.

Lack of knowledge on Old Consoles & Games Rant

Aiming at the late 80's and early 90's kids:
Every time some guy gamer asks me about the old consoles they expect me to know every one of them before I was bloody born. There is a pinch of annoyance with this coming subject and I'll tell you why.

Here's a girlfriend test that was given to me to match up console to controler, it was easy for the most part, but I did get two consoles wrong the first time, and that was the SNES (last console) and N64 (somehow I didn't even see the N64, fourth up). Before you gape at me and tell me I'm not a gamer or that I'm an absolute noob let me tell you something.

The notion is, that you may have actually owned or set eyes on them, or had uncles and other family members who had bought them years before you even thought about playing one. It makes it ever more patronising when you tell somebody like me that they should have known.

There's a good reason for it. I never owned any of the consoles that were released before 1994, because I was fricking 4 years old and in the 90's it was normal not to own anything to do with technology at that age. I didn't have uncles or cousins or even friends that owned anything to do with games besides PCs (with the exception of one uncle who had not shown us), and even if we had the interest as toddlers we weren't allowed to own games.
 The gameboy and playstation were quite literally a god send to my brother and I when I was 6 or 7 (1996/7), we didn't have the luxury of owning all the damn consoles, even the ones that released after the Playstation. We were never spoiled on video games and never will be. And that, more than anything should tell you (assuming you're one of those know-it-all/experienced-it-all types) that you are lucky/spoiled as hell, or just older than me.

Gameboy Pocket was our first ever gameboy, and we would take turns to play Kirby on it.

As a kid, even when owning playstation and gameboys my brother and I weren't allowed all the games we wanted. I must have missed out on so many great games simply because my parents said "No, you are not allowed". I don't blame them at all, I would be concerned too, and reluctant to spend my money on something that potentially ruins the study time of my hypothetical child. This is because we're asian (joke)!
As a kid I distinctly remember working on maths books, being tutored on English at home, and spending a lot of time instead watching cartoons on television. It was a rather sheltered type lifestyle, and probably very different from others. We rode bikes at least, and hung out with our neighbour's one kid, I had one very close friend, but never really had other friends or family to saturate our time.

Gaming was one of those really special moments, and we would spend so much time on one game or demo (the psx demo discs were very amusing), replaying, getting amused and playing it again.

As there was always the both of us, you can sort of imagine how much fun we got from just a 2-player game. So games like Zelda and the first Final Fantasy's never really caught our attention until we were older and played Kingdom Hearts.

So before you guys go off and pressure some gamer about their knowledge in games/consoles, do not expect them to know everything. Take a moment to consider how much gaming was allowed in their childhood to begin with, because this is really a first world concern and it's because spoiled/rich kids keep moaning at me.

People may not be the most knowledgable with their gaming history but it does not mean they are less enthusiastic. Sure we could read up on our history of gaming technology, but what would be the point? I played SNES/N64 games using emulators on the PC, I have never touched/seen the actual consoles but I still play the old games because I knew I missed out. For somebody to tell me I'm not a real fan or hints that I am inferior in some way- is almost rubbing salt into the wounds and makes them look like a complete jackass.

This attitude is elitism at its least obvious, and for once- not in PVP or raid in World or Warcraft.

Merry Christmas! Hot Pot?

Every Christmas, we gather our friends and family at our take away shop to set up something called Hot Pot. My friends keep asking me what it is. So this year I decided to film it and explain in a short video. This usually happens at around 12midnight of Christmas Eve, so we eat well into Christmas Day and pack up by 2AM, to play Mahjong. Well, my parent's friends play mahjong not me.



We had two cool special guests this Christmas; Christian and Peilin came to join us.
From left to right, here is Christian, Andrew (my small cousin), Peilin (my brother’s online friend from Holland) and Darren (my brother). My dad is at the back enjoying his Hot Pot meal!

Around 2AM, Peilin and Darren were ready to go, but we stuck around a little since Christian wanted to view the ‘pros’ playing Mahjong- he was pretty impressed and even thought that the moves they were making seemed accidental, but was just their way of moving tiles quickly.





My parents' friends playing Mahjong, well until early morning.

On the same night, my pretty Aunt Caroline asked me to teach her a little bit about the DSLR. This is probably a post I will make for the next day on a different blog.

Finally another post, for our dinner on Christmas night, I’ll be showing what our special Chinese dinners are like.

Norway: Stavanger

Been busy with travels, I'm in Norway at Stavanger. Recently there's been a terror attack at Oslo (capital of Norway), but where I'm staying, everything seems fine. It's very unfortunate what has happened, I wish the best for those who were involved.

Visit my Travel Blog, to see how my travels in Norway are.

I Won My First Competition

On DeviantART. That's a journal entry to announce the winners. Just found out half an hour ago, and I'm so bloody happy!

Among many other prizes I received this wonderful image from SiegeRedWolf: -

It will be coloured, printed and sent to me eventually :D

My Great Family

Leon (deceased at 3), Katie (7), Saki (6) and Bobby (1). 

After the tragic death of my first cat (whom I found lying at the bottom of the staircase, dead and frothing at the mouth), we took a year before getting another, he was only 3. His name was Zampetto Barnabi Brio- but I just called him Leon, and he was a brown coated Burmese cat. His grave is high up in the mountains in the valleys. "May you rest well sir cat".

When we bought our second, my brother was given the chance to name her, and gave her the the most generic un-cat like name ever. Katie.

She used to be pretty loud, but these days will just focus on sitting around, and will grab at any chance to sit on YOU if you are static. 

Happy Father's Day

Work in Progress

Computer Curse

For the past two years, I have changed/swapped parts, dealt with silly software issues and hardware issues that were very uncommon (according to a Computer Tech friend). Today I received my third replacement of the Motherboard, and decided that from now if it does go bonkers again, I will just have to buy a new motherboard entirely. I won't go into detail, but in the past two years, I have never experienced such bad luck with my parts! Mainly the motherboard, honest to fricking Buddha!

The only parts that have been working very well are the PSU (power supply), GPU (graphics card) and the HDD's (Hard Drives), and the Tower: (Cooler Master) Mid Scout.

Panorama- Mumbles

Today, I went to Swansea's collection of beaches with a bunch of my university friends and house mates. The area is called Mumbles, and it was probably the only time of the week we could enjoy the sun.

I took over 200 photos, but here are some of the best!

On our way to Mumbles Pier

On top of a mountain by Mumbles Pier

Old 2- Flash animation

A few years ago when I was studying in an Art & Design Foundation course, I made a flash animation for my final project. Sadly it wasn't received very well because all the art lecturers were computer illiterate, and couldn't understand the process of creating the animation. It took a long time, put it that way. 

The Game Developement Venn Diagram

A good acquaintance found this randomly in photobucket:

I have to say, it speaks a lot of truths!

Learning a New Language

I woke up today, feeling the laziest I've ever felt for the past 6 months; today is the day of rest, since I only have one deadline left. I sat down on my PC and thought... 'I really wanted to learn a new language, maybe today I can dedicate some time!'

The only problem is, I don't know what to learn- and it seems really out of the blue, but I have been thinking about it for some time... preferably European or Asian, I've already narrowed it down to:
German, Mandarine/Cantonese, Japanese, Norwegian.

Rosetta Stone is great but I couldn't find a Norwegian course, and yes, because it's the one that's inconveniently unavailable I decided to pick it. Why? No idea, you always want what you can't easily get I suppose.