It was a... RED HERRING!

tf2 sword

2011-03-14T22:36:00.002+11:00

Everyone's heard about the new demo.soldier weapon, the half-zaotochi or whatever its called, right?

This is my little moment of glory with it.

Crafted it first time from two tokens and a scrap.

That's it, move along, I just had to write it down somewhere.

HOW TO HERP YOUR DERP

2011-02-18T09:52:00.001+11:00

Enrolling for university atm. AND THEN I DERPED

EXCEPT I derped for HALF A YEAR.

I hate you Spring.

Comparing prices

2010-11-09T22:28:00.000+11:00

I don’t know about you, but recently I was thinking about buying an Xbox 360. Yeah yeah I’m a little late to that party, bugger it. ANYWAY, the two major games stores near me are JB Hi Fi and Dick Smith. I don’t like shopping at JB Hi Fi because it’s always very cramped. And if you check out their website? Most of it is an un-interactive image. I’m not kidding, look that shit up.

So they’ve got two deals on offer. One is a Kinect package (hell no) and the other is for all us “non-jumpy roundy” people. Just ‘cause I own a Wii doesn’t mean I can’t look down on the Kinect. So the ‘starter pack’ offers a Xbox 360 250GB, headset, two games, and some other crap I don’t care about. All told, its $449. Honestly? Not bad. Let’s see what Dick Smith has to off-

-OH THAT’S BULLSHIT, DICK SMITH’S.

For the exact same price (not kidding, $449) they offer the console.

That’s it, nothing else.

THE FUCK

Final Package Completion

2010-05-31T21:47:00.003+10:00

Hah! Look, a post that's meant to be here!

My package is about done. I've got the folder, the lecture notes, the cover sheets, the prints, the business card...

What else was there?

TO THE LEARNING GUIDE!

--

Right. Well then.

My folder won't fit inside an A3 plastic sleeve, mainly because it's big enough to fit A3 plastic sleeve inside itself.

I've tried bruteforcing it, but that ruined my plastic sleeve. I have others.

--
I've tried (and I've tried) but it's a no go. Honestly, though, the majority of folders I've seen wouldn't fit inside an A3 plastic sleeve. Well, a manilla folder would, but let's be honest here, they don't count. They're a sheet of paper. They ain't no folder.

Haven't found any B3 sleeves, but they don't count, anyway. Have to see how it goes.

Shouldn't take terribly much off my score, anyway.

WHY DO I KEEP SAYING ANYWAY AAAUGH

Portfolio Design

2010-05-31T21:38:00.001+10:00

Man, really glad I wrote the requirements down! Though, seriously, how the heck do you go about customising a folder? An example we were given, someone just stuck there logo on it.

Guess I know what I'm doing now...

---

8 double-sided, loose prints. Maximum A3 in size.

Custom Folder.

Leave behind item: Business Card.

---

Ended up with half-n-half A3's and A4's. And yes, I know 's doesn't work that way. But it does the job! So grammar is violated!

I've decided to combine my older stuff with my new stuff. That means really, really old stuff like "Guard Busters" (a collection of covers for a mecha comic-book series, plus a poster), not-as-old stuff ("Star Finder" and the Mageknight sprite spring to mind) and some of my new material, like "Victory Moder."
Some of the new sprites I;ve been doing should be good stuff as well.

I sure do say stuff alot, don't I? Aren't there any good alternatives to that word?

Designer Profile

2010-05-31T21:30:00.002+10:00

I was sure I had a text file lying around somewhere that talked about this...

Well, I knew from the start that:

It had to be revelant to my work as a designer.
It should deal with my aspirations and my strengths.
It should talk about my design work.

My strongest pieces of work, so far, would have to be "Clockwork" (on that note, I should really post the file up here) and the animation I'm working on now, "Victory Moder."

Come to think of it, there's a strong theme of, well, "Superheroism" in a lot of my work. Only "CAT VS Mouse" is really exempt, and that has HORROR MOUSE running around in it. Personally, I feel it's more of an infatuation with the tokusatsu genre than anything else. That's what "Victory Moder" really is, I guess; my way of saying 'Thank you' to those series as a whole.

Tokusastu, defined by wikipedia:
"Tokusatsu (特撮?) is a Japanese term that applies to any live-action film or television drama that usually features superheroes and makes considerable use of special effects (tokusatsu literally translates as 'special effects')."

Think Power Rangers. That's tokusatsu.
Though in hindsight I keep saying/writing tokuatsu...

BLAME IT ON KABUTO! CURSE YOU TENDO, YOU'VE SPOILED ME FOREVER!
DECADEEEE

Logo Design

2010-05-31T21:18:00.002+10:00

Think I was kidding about the art knife logo? Well, most likely yes, because I was.

Then I went and did it.

The font I was settled on from the start. I'd fallen in love with Antique Olive quite some time ago, so it was an easy choice for me to make. Although Myriad Pro had been gaining some ground recently...

Early on I had to throw out the line-for-line art knife design, as it was too dominant. The brief for this logo insists on being text-dominant. So I broke it down into basic lines.

I played with a triangle fish for a while, for a different angle, but went back to the knife-line after this became obvious it was too distracting.

I settled on a trapezium, with a smaller one projecting out of it. This was scrapped because it looked silly.

Then it was the trapezium by itself. This sucked. I added a single line, a leftover from the double-trapezium idea, to emphaise the "blade" part. This worked.

Then I added my name, in Antique Olive Roman. I believe it was... 32 point?
--
And that's how my logo came to be. Well, that's not entirely accurate. My name was there the whole way.
But it wasn't in 32 point Antique Olive Roman!

Self-Review

2010-05-31T21:01:00.003+10:00

The Self-Review was complete improv. Or, rather, I had a general idea of what I was going to say, but didn't write anything down.

Just a sec...

Oh you're kidding I have to have something written down
EDIT: Wait, nope, seems I did have something!
---

90 second speech

Self-Review
MageKnight 16-bit custom sprite

Looking back at my work over the years, my favourite piece of work has to be the very first scratch sprite I ever completed.
I'm aware not all of you may be aware of what a sprite is, so I'll give a quick explanation. A sprite is a term used in gaming - basically, it's a single frame of a characters animation. This only applies to 2D works - 3D works use models and meshes instead. A scracth sprite is simply a sprite built from the ground up - no templates, frankensteins or other legal gobblydook.

---

Well, the main idea for my self-review was to look back at one of my many pieces of work and pick apart why it was important in my development as a designer. I picked my "Mageknight" sprite. It was my first attempt at serious spriting. It was a wee, lowly 16-bit sprite, set up in a fighting game stance. This is the blow-up of the sprite. It's actually size is about your thumbnail, so it's expected to look blocky at A3 size.
It was my interest in spriting which lead me towards animation. I remeber downloaded a trial version of Freehand, and working my way through various .GIF editors. It... didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but my interest was sustained nonetheless. This interest in animation was one of the deciding factors which made me pick up this degree in the first place.
And now I'm spriting for a major game project, a fighting game called "Superheated." Work is still continuing on it, so don't expect a major release anytime soon.

---

Annnd in hindsight my time management sucks

UHOH TIME FLIES

2010-05-31T20:58:00.001+10:00

Whoops.

Well, here's certain posts that should've been here a long time ago. Not that anyone will really see these, but anyway.

NO SHUT UP

2010-03-14T16:55:00.001+11:00

THAT WAS ASTUPID IDEA

FORGET aBOUT IT

--

proper post later on

Week 2 Board Notes (WARNING: brain)

2010-03-10T11:32:00.004+11:00

sans the missing manual

NOT TAUGHT (what’s missing)
⇒ heading into the workforce

GETTING A JOB
- PREPARING
- STEPS TO TAKE

INTERVIEWS – how to make it in the profession

TRAVEL + EXP of other cultures -> makes for a stronger design

STRESS + HOW TO REDUCE IT THROUGH GOOD TIME MANAGEMENT

FUTURE TRENDS – where the profession is heading

WEB DESIGNERS – creativity + standing out

OLD SCHOOL – analog technologies and practices

QUEENIE CLAN – manga/animation case study
ANIMAL LOGIC

It’s All About Collaboration

HOW DO I GET NOTICED AS A DESIGNER

Being a culturally aware designer

HOW CAN I BECOME A CONFIDENT DESIGNER

approach: conversational

interactive website. pdf download (interactive pdf?).
promotional material.
our place in the launch.

information architecture

---

whole bunch a websites not listed here

cat empire ?old animation? on website
dey used da waaaaybaaack masheen

(meet the team at HAH NO WAY HOH SAY)
(facebook is the devil. after apple.)

OH YEAH!!: the sans logo seems to be... cutouts in black material. BUT IT IS ONLY TEMPORARY

damn apple keyboards as so snotty about what counts as a keypress.'

...

NEED A NODE HERE

Management Roles

2010-03-10T10:41:00.002+11:00

So we've had to apply for management roles in an online magazine called sans. Two, to be exact. I went for Flash Manager or Editor.
I also have to produce an article. My topic is "the fear of stepping out." That is, the fear of releasing work to the public and being negatively criticised, or worse, ignored.

Superheated Update: Recently got a book on anatomy and another on body animation. Should speed up things a little.

Eldrake update: My parents are too busy playing Portal for me to get anywhere near my steam account. Gonna be awhile before I can fix things up with the friend list.

Yenai update: YES IT IS COMING. If you've got any of the art from the KamenRiderYen threads (easymodo only saves the thumbnails, so it's no good), I'd appreciate if you could post a comment linking to them.

sans

2010-03-03T11:46:00.003+11:00

(Apparently I thought this deserved a seperate post)

sans

from french

Meaning "without, lacking, absent, none, to be away"
Derived from latin sine meaning "without"

Sans font is well-known for its lack of serifs (ornamentation) and being easy to read.

Sans fonts include arial, comic sans (the typographer's nemesis), candara, etc.

sans synonyms

devoid, empty, wanting, lacking, bare, deprived, naked

sans antonyms

embellish, decorate, with, unconventional, conformity

--

And somehow post-modernism is connected to this mess. I hate post-modernism, it's so last year. AND STUPID.

--

Ways to play with the word visually

* Molds of the word
* Paper cut-outs of the word
* No logo - the magazine is "without" a logo (World Without Words / Tower of Babel)
* AnoNONONONONONONO

--

Who's the audience? No-one? Everyone?
What do you want to do with the magazine?
What does the group want to do with the magazine?
What does the audience want you to do with the magazine?
Independent? From what? Why? How?
Vision vs. Profit? Are they mutually exclusive?
Your ultimate agenda?

What's a catchphrase that describes your magazine?

Do you allow divergent opinions?

Games without audiences?
Or rather: audiences without games -> why doesn't the industry try something new?

*What's missing?*

No one talks. No one offers an opinion unless asked specifically. Why? (conversations without words / Words without question)

Single we talk, we question, we intrude upon others. As a group, meek and quiet and without words.

Hello, World. I brought the chips.

2010-03-03T10:14:00.004+11:00

I'm in the middle of my three-hour Publications tute right now. Roman's just popped in and is setting up as I type.

The workload looks like it's gonna be a bit crazy for a while, but as long as I keep going steady each week, I should be fine.

Did some roughs of Yenai today. I'll upload them later. If anyone out there reading this blog can find some pics from the KamenRiderYen threads I'd be very grateful.

--

SO! We've been asked to pick two management roles we'd like to apply for. For me, these are the esteemed positions of Editor / Forum Manager, and Flash Manager.

The Editor / Forum manager role is simple to explain: fix everything. The forum manager part is technically a studio manager role, but they are allowed to have someone else to step in and do it for them, as long as Roman gives the go-ahead.

The other, Flash Manager, looks to be a nightmare. Handling the Flash and Actionscript behind a website / online magazine? A horror stretch. Which is why I want it. So much.

The challenge, the excitement, the burning desire and drive to go further with my Flash skills. It sounds so terrifying yet so amazing and wonderful at the same time. Ah, my heart's all aflutter.

Oooh my.

The Mighty Reset Button

2010-02-24T14:20:00.004+11:00

Welcome to this blog, IT WAS A RED HERRING!

With the onset of a new university year, one of my units requires a design journal. Fortunately, this can come in the form of a blog. So I thought to myself, why not use this one?

Hence the reset. All the old blog posts that came before are now forever lost to the ether. Not such a loss, in retrospect. In the following weeks you'll find me uploading bits of work from Superheated, KamenRiderYen and my university projects. There might even be a review or two to break the monotony.

Be on the lookout for:

>A self-review
>A new logo
>My designer profile and
>My self-promotion package.

On the unrelated to university front, we've got:

>Superheated spriting: Yggadrasil
>KamenRiderYen: Initial Yenai Okaneda animation roughs
>Bootleg review: Mask Superman (Kamen Rider Black RX)
>Team Fortress 2 class gameplay highlights.

Hooray for a new year! Onward!