Cardiff Comic & Animation Expo 2012

Note: I got a mention from Sidekickcast Blog and Swansea Comics Collective Blog. 

Bit of a late post, but I had to wait for the photographs to be sent to me so I could upload them here (especially the one to the right). :) With that note, the majority of the awesome cosplay ones were taken by my friends DizzieDee, Mute and Jack.

My weekend was pretty amazing, I can gladly say I wasn't expecting half the amount of fun I had at the comic expo at Cardiff. On Saturday the place was bustling with comic lovers and cosplayers. There was a section for the animation, which was mostly stalls for University courses in animation, and in my case we were representing a games design course- a fellow classmate and I had a stall to represent the Swansea Metropolitan University. The week coming up to the event was very busy and a nightmare since I also had to try to juggle my Major project, create business cards and print out my portfolio ready. As I type now I'm short on time to do some work!

I had finally decided I'd give a go at cosplaying, and I must say considering it was my first time, it went very well. While I didn't win first place in the competition, I still got a special mention (an unofficial 3rd place). This is far better than it sounds- the judges had a hard time deciding on the winners because of the amount of well hand-made female costumes (this is a category of its own). It took them 20 minutes, but from what I understood they split up the prizes initially planned for the 1st and 2nd place winners, to at least give me something for my effort. Here is the prize in all its glory:

I didn't want to open it since the package was so cool. I guess my hard work paid off! 

With so much talking "Hello!"s and "Can I take your photograph?", I got to re-acquaint myself with some old/lost friends and possibly have made new ones. A very big part of the stalls were to give me and my classmate Shane a chance to get ourselves known, I think we did a pretty good job- at least in Cardiff. This is definitely an incentive to go again :).

 

The comic expo was a fraction of MCM, size wise it was big enough to roam a few hours, and small enough to feel homely and casual. I quite like this feeling compared to the giant MCM. A lot of people attending were local, and of course the comic artists and store keepers were from all sorts of places, this made it all the more interesting to talk to them.

There was particularly one Japanese culture shop I liked (my prize comes from their shop!), and the owners introduced me to their online store. Just before the competition proceeded, I had expressed enthusiasm with their stock- there is a chance they knew I would like my prize? :3 This kind of thought makes me very happy.

All in all, there were a surprising amount of cosplayers, and I hear this is a more recent thing for comics and Doctor Who which started three of four years back. I heard this at a Doctor Who talk, with some of the people responsible for the comics and radio. They say they had never seen so many (in particular) teenage girls, cosplaying the characters, until three years ago. Well I'll probably will have to end it here.

Here's a video that Dizzie Dee recorded of CICAE:

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And here are a few of the cosplays!

 

^ This is actually my friend Ricky standing besides a theatrical costume, xD still very cool!

Business Cards

After, a bunch of feedback (thanks guys) and even some helpful tips from a lecturer and friends, I've decided the final version of my business card. Honestly, it's a rather rushed decision but I regret nothing at this point. Comic & Animation Expo is nearing (it's in two days...) and I need something to make myself look important!

Cardiff International Comic & Animation Expo

You can see my Pixie costume's progress:
 Part 1,  Part 2

It's been a while since my last post. I've been busily doing my major project, and now I'm preparing my first ever cosplay costume for CICAE (Cardiff Comic & Animation Expo) on 25/26th Feb. Rather excited and anxious at the same time. I'm cosplaying Pixie from X-men.

 

One of Shane's sketches: Alpha Legion Concept

I had planned to go way back in December, but coincidentally some lecturers at my university department decided it would be a great idea to go there to showcase some Animation and Art work. From Games Design  they chose me, and an artist called Shane (he is frickin' awesome, he has true passion for what he does, and is pretty popular for it too!), whose work is dark and morbid and cool. (see image to right)

I'm a little embarrassed, I would imagine there will be tons of great comic artist that will overshadow my work by miles. Not to mention Shane's cool art- did I mention he's cool? ( /-\ ) 

The embarrassment isn't even because of the difference in skill level, it is the quantity and relativity of the work I can muster up to display that will probably make me wander from my 'table' more often than not. I've been desperately looking for any cartoon/comic/anime type thing I've done for the past two years, and to my demise there is barely any. This doesn't mean I haven't been drawing, I have been- but for my work and assignments which needed more experimentation and research than practice. As a result I have a kooky mix of retarded fan art and artist impressionism and random bits of scribbles (my games design work) all over the place. Fan art, unfortunately is a large 'no, no' in portfolio displays. So that's half my stuff in the bin. It really does make me wonder, where have I put all my creative energies into all this time? Rubbish, or maybe I'm just concentrating too much on other things un-arty?

My only defence is that I have been working my ovaries off this year and last- on university work, grasping at opportunities, and volunteering for small side projects with one of the BSC Games Developement students (programmer, basically). Much of it was to do with more technical and sometimes less visually interesting things. I'll admit sometimes I need a break, and sometimes art is far from what I consider to be a break when it's the medium for work also. These past two weeks I've been working with motion-capture, trying to get the animations on my characters and into my game. I've modeled assets for my game project, and have recently been crafting my cosplay outfit (as you'll see in the top image), I've even been designing my business card: 

Front of business card Version 1

Front of business card Version 2

Back of card

 Personally I like the second design, it looks far less like final fantasy, and more like a cool and awesome logo that belongs to a much cooler and awesome person than myself... maybe like Shane *cries*. So if anyone reading this is going to the February CICAE in Cardiff, please if you see me- have mercy and be kind on my pathetic showcase portfolio T_T.

Qualified for Blitz Open Day!

I found out two days ago that my house mate and I qualified for the Blitz Open Day! Woo!!

The thing is, I don't know how I got in... or rather how some didn't!

There seems to be a very high standard this year, especially for artists in 2D and 3D. I only know this because of some individuals who did not make it, and it boggles my mind, since one of them is incredibly skilled at 2D. I was positive that if I had gotten through, then so would those whose work I admired and believed to be better than my own.

There must have been something in the design work they were looking for- that I had luckily hit the nail on. It could be that they had noticed I had helped work on another submission (since everything was credited in document and websites).  This is completely okay within their rules. Work submitted can be teamwork, as long as the team is credited. It could also be that they limit the amount of students attending from each university- this would kind of suck, but I suppose every university must be given a chance. In the worst scenario, I am just a lucky bugger who just SOMEHOW qualified.

I cannot wait to go see the others attending this event, they must also have some really good qualities, 'competition is fierce' they say.  I am more scared about showing my work than anything else, since it states in the email that I am welcome to, and if I don't I'd probably be missing out on feedback from developers... but what if my work is mediocre compared to the other students? What if that one piece I submitted just happens to look good?

Sometimes I hate my pessimism, and yet it is probably the reason I've worked so hard up until now.

New Goal: Ready a sketchbook and a pen drive with some digital work 2D AND 3D.

New Goal: Bring attempted work, works of Matt painting and new things I am trying, like proper concept art and low-poly modelling!

The goal is probably going to change a lot, but I will try to stick to the last one.

"Through a Rapist's Eyes”

I read an interesting journal about how women can protect themselves from physical assaults. It was interesting to say the least that it even have to be considered (though I must admit I live in a rather peaceful area in the UK). I eventually came across a link to a page that mentioned the qualities rapists look for.
It was convincing and almost believable until I found another site that stated it was mostly false, and has been since 2001.

So below I have two samples of either set of statements- 'Through a Rapist's Eyes' is the false, 'Assaulted Tale' is the uncovering of the false. I cannot say for sure the later is completely true either, but I feel it takes a much more cautious attitude towards the topic- and well..."better being safe, than dead" right?

"THROUGH A RAPIST’S EYES”  Do not re-blog this.

  

'1] The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle.
They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun! , braid, or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed. They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair. Women with short hair are not common targets....'

Assaulted Tale (aka This Bird Won't Fly)   Read: Response to the above

CLAIM: Heeding the advice given in popular email missive will keep you from becoming a rape victim. FALSE

........If rapists choose their victims based on hairstyle and length of tresses, it's news to those in law enforcement; they've never noticed this trend. Rape victims have short hair, long hair, and no hair. They're also young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, femininely dressed or looking like they just fell off the tractor, and all points in between.............

This whole thing makes me consider my personal safety if I ever travel abraod, and contemplate going back to learning some martial arts. Even though I am merely 5" 2', some kind of defence is better than none.

Thought I would share this bit of an interesting read, especially for those keen to know more about protecting oneself against predators.

Dissonance Monster WIP

Final Major Profject

Applejack's Apple Hunt!

Here's a game just finished by Christian Skogen and I, it took a few months on and off.  He coded the engine from scratch with C++ and LUA, and that alone took him a few months. This is a great achievement for him, :D and I'm sure he'll qualify for the Blitz Open Day.

Code: Christian Skogen
Assets (except for sky dome): Gemma Suen (me)
It should work for Windows 7 and Windows XP, since he had to optimise it for XP especially.

Download Here!

BLITZ Open Day soon

Blitz Open Day is peering around the corner. It's a chance for university game orientated students like myself to get a better insight to the games industry, and this would be wonderful to qualify for.
By qualify, I mean you need to prove your worth by submitting one of the following: 2D, 3D, Animation, Audio, Games Design or Programming.

I initially didn't think my work would be good enough to submit, since I heard from some friends that they pick only the top 100 of each field or something like that. But they have also convinced me to give it a shot...

This is a collection of work from my Major Project: Dissonance. It's a game concept I need to design and partially complete by the end of this academic year.










I also helped out my boyfriend with his submission, here is a small preview:

Explaining Aperture for my Aunt, Caroline

Aunt Caroline is doing a filmography course, and she recently decided to get a DSLR Camera (Digital Single-Lens Reflex Camera) as a way of learning about the technical side of photography and filming. So she asked me the other day to explain what the aperture is. I'm no expert but I've read up enough and experienced enough to at least know the basics. So here I made a small crappy tutorial (left click it, then right click, view image to save):

Links
About Bokeh
More information about Aperture









Video comparing Auto Focus and Manual Focus when video recording:
This is using the 18-55mm kit lens with my Canon 550D. Set at the lowest f/n (f/3.5-f/5.6).


While it requires more effort, you can clearly see and hear the benefits of manually focusing your camera when filming. This is when you can also take Aperture into consideration. If you set your aperture to a high f/n (so there is a wider depth of field) you will get less blur in your capture than you see in the above video. And therefore have less problems with focusing.

Video Mode

To do this with your Canon 550D or 600D, look for the video setting 'Movie Exposure' and set it to Manual. Then it will follow your manual settings. You can change your ISO and Aperture like usual. To preview your settings when in Video Mode, gently hold down the snap shot button.

This of course entirely depends on the capability of your lens and the conditions you are shooting in. If it's very dark, you probably won't be able to widen the aperture all that much. Also recently I discovered (since I don't film much with my DSLR) that the camera will stop your video if the conditions are really too bad to film in (aka you've set it so that the film is too dark). I suggest taking a bit of time to fiddle and experiment in the area you are filming. I hope it's in sunny weather!

For good Camera and Lens reviews, I recommend this! http://www.youtube.com/user/DigitalRevCom

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.

Cintiq

Today, I tried out a Cintiq 21UX at my university (which quite ironically do not let students use). And I was amazed beyond amazed. This stuff costs almost £2000 if you can get it somewhere else, it can even be £1500 but still... Jesus. I felt skeptic towards the Cintiq, now I see why it's such a big deal.

When I came back home, I went straight onto my Intuos4 tablet (medium size), to try to quickly compare. And obviously it completely dominated it. However I have not too much trouble with my current tablet, I notice whatever I draw on the Cintiq is quicker, and comes out correctly. Unlike trying to draw without seeing, or when your monitor is a different widthXheight ratio as your tablet. I realise.... Cintiq is totally the way to go.

12WX is a smaller and cheaper Cintiq, and I was considering saving for that but the 21UX was so bloody impressive, I don't know what to think.

Barn Owls

The power of procrastination. I was supposed to be doing character concept work, instead I draw barn owls. Will to draw is obviously not the problem.... xD

Starting back on my Final Year

The semester has just started and already I'm going a little CooCoo from anticipation of thinking up a really bad game idea. Yes, this year us third year Games Design students need to concept and make a game. While I love the idea of painting out concepts, I am also given the task of 'designing' the actual gameplay. Tsk, this is my fault for wanting to work alone.

I've started a new blog for that (yay, I must have zillions by now) and called it something rather boring like Final Year Project...

I'll at least say that my game idea is Horror themed- and by 'themed', I mean it's not necessarily the type that will creep and scare, it may thrill people though. I'm pretty excited/scared this year :) the busy-ness might cause me to not blog so much (except for the blog meant for the project).

Any-who. Just thought I'd make a post explaining future absence and lack of blogging. Here's also a caricature I  just finished for fun (it's me by the way).

I'll be linking my Project blog on the side.. and here-  gsfinalmajorproject.blogspot.com

Alsie WIP

Abeo Initio WIP

Victoria's Abstract Art

Victoria Richards, a good friend of mine, decided a while ago she would blog her hobby, which is painting abstract canvases. She studies Medical Sciences and will be in her second year soon, she's very smart and witty!
Recently she has also decided to set up shop, and asked me to help make her banners, please check her blog and shop out! She never painted so much before, so I'm fully supporting her! It's ironic that she makes more money in art than I do hahaha.

Perhaps I should make myself a nice banner too, my blog is looking a bit plain! I never got around to doing it since I thought it was better being plain, but now that I've seen what I can do with Vikky's banners, it's got me thinking. How very silly indeed.

Work In Progress'

I have SO much work that I can't show. It really sucks when you're creative energy is spent but you have nothing to show for it. Luckily I've had some time (and by that I mean when I get home feeling really tired and have an ounce of will left to draw something) to work on my 4K Kiriban image(s). I have also been working on an image for a friend's novel, I'll probably update the work in progress, but here's what I have so far...

Babylon sucks!

It sucks so much I actually have to post about it.
Guys, if you're ever after a translation program, NEVER go to Bablyon (at least if you're not planning to buy it). It's a giant virus/spyware of it's own. It attaches itself to your browser (in my case it was firefox), and ceases to let go even after uninstalling.

Puddle Puzzles, mobile game released!

Great news! The mobile game I helped work on during my internship at ChaosTrend (ended May 2011) has just been released in the iphone/ipad/itouch app store. ^^ It's the first ever game I helped make being released... even though I only did some artwork, I'm still quite excited about it. I think it will only work on 3GS and above, the HD versions are for retna screens (in other words higher resolution screens).

Full Game HD
Full Game non-HD

Free Game HD
Free Game non-HD

Puddles Puzzles release date!!

On 18th August, Puddle Puzzles will be released for the iphone! I contributed a small amount of work to it, and while it may be a small mobile game, I'm still quite proud. It feels silly to say this since I only really did the promotional work and influenced the image of the game by a very small amount. It was during my first ever work experience with a games company, in this case for small mobile games called Chaos Trend Ltd. The Chos Trend Blog gives more information:

CV Tips for New Artists

http://www.rsart.co.uk/2011/07/31/what-new-artists-need-in-a-c-v-and-portfolio/

The Inception Fan

Games Design 2nd Yr Results- so close to an overall 1st!!

Just got notified by a friend of my module results, I did very well! Got two 1st's and three 2nds. I'm a bit bummed at the overall since it came to about 69.4 (70 is a 1st overall) D:!!!! Oh the woes....

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

Gopoh

Original Character does not belong to me. Second Entry for the contest :)
http://rikona.deviantart.com/journal/39983057/

Inertia's Rebellion

This was made for a contest being held on DeviantART. The character does not belong to me.

Work in Progress

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. 

Add a Reply Button to Your Comments

Just added a 'Reply' feature to my blog. This is very useful, if you have a blogger, definitely take a look:


Add A Unique Reply Button To Blogger Comments

Happy Father's Day

Work in Progress

Got RAM? - An Amazing Tweak

My 2 x '4GB Corsair XMS DDR3'sticks arrived today. I had used 2 x '2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3', and had looked to upgrade them, but sadly my motherboard didn't like having another two that supported XMP (something almost all RAM sticks have), so I gave up and just decided to replace the current two with bigger memory sticks.

After installing I used a very clever tweak my friend Staeton suggested (only suitable if you have a lot of RAM, 8GB+, and a hard drive that's quite slow).

You can significantly decrease the size of Virtual Memory or completely disable it. Virtual Memory, is effectively fake RAM on the Hard Drive. So if you have at least 4GB chances are, when you switch between several open programs, the giant lags are due to a slow hard drive rather than 'not enough' RAM.

Virtual Memory is stored on a file called 'pagefile.sys'. It's a hidden file in your C drive (or whatever drive you're using for your Operating System). You can easily see it by altering folder viewing options: Uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)'.

My 'pagefile' took up a crazy 8GB, it was almost like having crappy RAM.

Here's where you find the settings for virtual memory

[Warning: if your computer is not suffering from lag and you have a fast hard drive or a Solid State  and decent RAM, then FABULOUS, you shouldn't have to do this. Also do not do this, if you have no idea what you are doing- I use Windows 7 x64, and my specs are found at the bottom of this post]: 

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.

Small Game Collaborations

This was a while ago, back in January 2011. I collaborated in the making of two small games with a friend. I was the artist/modeller, so I didn't really play a big part. :) Still, it's nice to post it here.

Duck VS Flies

http://skauert.users.avalanchehosting.com/DvF/

The music was taken from games like Bejewelled, I'm not entirely sure, so if you hear something familiar- that's the reason xD. In the end it was a university assignment, so as a Disclaimer: neither me or my coder buddy stole anything on purpose okay?

Space Match

The game we made before was a Pairs game called Space Match, it's downloadable only since it's 3D and uses openGL. To try out make sure to:

Download and install this first: Microsoft Visual C++ Re-distributable

Then download the game: http://skauert.users.avalanchehosting.com/rars/SpaceMatch.rar 

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

Summer Break

Since it's summer, there won't be much work related content to post here... perhaps I'll post silly things. Here's an old drawing *throws in a random old drawing*

Wonderland 2009

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. 

Group Level Design- Design Document

Illustrating Character Stones

TROLLFACE Graphical Error