Super Jetpack Penguin

It's out, it was out since Friday. I've been busy working on reports and models, I totally forgot to post about it! Try it, it's free to play :D and here is some artwork (I made 5 promotionals) and a video of course.

Available at the App Store

Silly doodle I was doing when I got bored.

WIP - Lux from League of Legends

8K Kiriban work-in-progress. Finished picture found Here.

Right-click, open in new tab to see the full size.

Designing my First Personal Website

I've been mocking up a design for my very own website:

It's not finished or finalised, but any feedback would be appreciated, I'm wondering how I will be able to achieve this myself. It's easy enough to grasp html, but having to work with other languages combined is going to be the biggest challenge... not to mention adding functionality.

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.

Blitz Open Day, a Day that Changed Me

On Friday 23rd March I went to the Blitz Open Day, and I feel even more thankful that I qualified.

I think this was definitely one of the most important days of my educational life, I have learned SO much from Blitzgames, mainly about my desired career path and opportunities. A full day of showing us how they work and their priniciples and reasons for doing so, was a brilliant insight to one very different games company, and I was deeply impressed.

Towards the end of the day, they had gathered all the other applicants in each area, 2D, 3D, Games Designers, Animation, Audio, Programmers- into their respective rooms with their respective professionals from Blitz to do disciplinary feedback. We 2D artists were asked to show off our portfolios (my greatest regret was assuming they had only wanted a couple of pieces, but I had the option of showing them my FMP blog) and we got excellent feedback, constructive critisims for our art, a point in the right direction if we wanted to apply for a job in Concept art etc. It was humbling to say the least, and I felt I should have posted my work on ConceptArt.org or Polycount, both which I have accounts on but was too afraid to submit to. 

The other students who had gone that day were excellent, and I felt belittled to the point I was sweating bullets when it was my turn to show my work. Two in particular had environmental art that looked top notch, professional, but still had holes poked through them. I felt my critisims were light in comparison, but it was probably because I had less work to show, and the work I did show, gave the progression with character design- which pleased them. I was a little surprised, most if not all the concept art I ever saw has always been wonderful and full blown environments with brilliant lighting and atmospheres, I had thought I had applied to the wrong area, but apparently character itterations were considered much more concept than beautifully finished illustrated environments. It was all about rough design, iterations and the journey to the final product. 

I started doubting that the feedback I got was realistic/harsh enough, so I went to talk to more of the artist and further bug the ones that gave me feedback at the pub.

Yes, after the day ends, staff and students are invited to go to the pub where we talk more and this gives us a chance to get even more insight, more feedback, more information and grab a few contacts while we are at it. I took every chance I had, I wanted so badly to know where I would fit in best in the art department. I know I should go for what I want to do- but what if you genuinly could not decide? I have always liked dabbling in several areas at once, and this has lead me to NOT specialising and becoming more of an all-round 2D/3D person, not hammering out pages and pages of environmental sketches (which is due to my cowardice). I enjoy both 2D and 3D immensely- however I have not found passion in environmental paintings or purely environmental 3D. After a brilliant talk with Ben Ho, Steve Walker and his friend (whose name I will get soon), I now know what I must do to improve, and better my chances. I need to just work my butt off in all the areas I've  mentioned and actually try to get out of my comfort zone and do more environmental art. They pointed out particular weaknesses I had with my 3D and 2D (in what was shown), and this was humbling, I felt thankful and at the same time I felt I really needed to step it up. 

It seems obvious when I say I just need to work my butt off to improve, but the uncertainy I had stemmed from doubting my own abilities- I didn't know how close I was to my goal. Because the feedback was so positive (from professionals) I feel like I have a chance, I have what it takes to become that awesome person that does cool Character designs and 3D art. I want to be good, in all the areas, I don't care about specialising one bit, and this gives me more determination to improve at 2D/3D. Characters are my biggest interest, but I want to be good at environments, I don't want to be limitied.

However, a new anxiety is born, and I feel I don't have time for the next few months (which is a long time) or so to imrpove, I'm giving my 100% to my course at the moment- and I mean, I'm working day, night, day, night, seven days a week on it. If I get the slightest down time, there will be no doubt that I will be doing some environmental/character studies. I just need to finish this course first!

Some of the images I had shown:

My Blitz Submission

Face of character iteration

Victorian lady anatomy studies

Dress design iteration

Monster variety

Monster Sillhouette scribbles (Ben gave very good tips for these, detail is key even in small scribbles)

Monster final iteration (Ben gave more feedback on my need to consider bending joints and realistic muscle/joints proportions)

Steve and friend pointed out that the cheeks are sunken and do not look right, I must make the 3D work and not let it become a slave to my 2D, also that I need to practice sculpting in general.

Phillip Oliver (CEO) says the polys could be lower. Yes, the CEO! I'm amazed.

This was praised for its decent topology, they were much more concerned for the concepts.

 Phillip Oliver (CEO) had seen my Chaos Trend promotional artwork, and the one thing he suggests is making the character itself visible (since promotional art is like a front cover/intro for the game).

 

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.