Being a meanie in Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops

In MGS Portable Ops, one of the main things in the game to do is to recruit soldiers.

In the picture above, you can see the result of a few minutes hard work of disabling soldiers to do as I say. Like force them to give me their guns or their Adult Magazines.

Which reminds me, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is coming out around May of next year. I hope they have some sort of bundle! :D


Me playing the Peace Walker demo for the first time. There has been three demoes so far since their introduction. The first one was Japanese and was a bit rough in terms of completion. But you get to watch a cutscene, a training level, play 1 boss level and 2 sneaking operations including the tutorial.

The second one was also Japanese but they added an extra level, interactive cutscenes, some new CQC moves, easier to spot orange-clad grunts in the tutorial level and is pretty much similar to the one that people got to play at the Konami booth at the Tokyo Game Show.

The third one had all the features in the second demo but it's in English. David Hayter is back as Snake but Robin Atkin Downes who voices Miller in English does a poor performance with his "Snake Call" when you Fission Mail when compared to his Japanese counterpart.

Still, looking forward to the game next year. :D

How Being in the Art Industry has Changed the way I watch movies

I remember a time when watching a movie or animation was just about watching it. Those were the good ol' days.

Then I thought that I wanted to make my own animations or movies. Somewhere along the line, I decided to make that my career. Before I knew it, I already have my degree and am already working in an animation company.

When you come into the art industry, you are programmed to make things look good and believable. As a result of this, you begin to scrutinize every tiny detail in a production.

I remember watching Buzz Lightyear of Star Command the pilot episode having much fun and in awe way back then.

I rewatched it recently and caught myself playing interesting sequences frame by frame, analyzing how they made a scene, how they achieved an effect and noticing glitches in the animation.

For example, there was one frame where a character snapped from one position to another when he should be standing still. Fortunately, I still had fun watching the show.

One other thing I noticed was that I actually paid attention to the credits. SHOCK SURPRISE MADNESS. Well I would want my contribution to an animation to be recognized would I not? So I noticed that most of the animators of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command to be Asian (of which I am)

Watching something more recent like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs also made me unwittingly use art terms in comments such as 'Wow I like how the color scheme changed to red when the..' or 'haha the animation of that guy is hillarious. he had snappy pose-to-pose animations' or 'i bet they used a separate head model with unique blend-shapes for that particular scene'.

Having said that, I still managed to enjoy the show. I suppose the change of the way I watch movies isn't necessarily negative; it made the process of watching something to be something not only entertaining, but also educational!

That's right folks, I revise my studies by going to the cinema.

Just in case those of you who 'read thick text-books to remind yourself how this function affects that operator' missed the impact of that last off-hand comment:

I revise my studies by going to the cinema.

On another note, do not trust movie trailers. I actually considered not watching 'Meatballs' because the trailer looked really mediocre. But what I watched was totally much better than my expectations.

Animators and Neck Strain

Hi all.

This is an open question to all animators or artists out there.

In our line of work, we constantly hunch over to look at our work.

Then I realized that we don't. To be more specific, I'm referring to those of us who draw on sketchbook and manual 2D animators.

I'm also one of those who use a tablet PC to draw my animations or paintings.

After being folded up, a tablet PC becomes sort of like a digital sketchbook. I still have to hunch over the thing and draw.

After about 15 minutes, I sense a sort of pain at the back of my neck.

I'm certain sketchbook artists/2D also experience such pain.

"I'm not hearing a question, Mister Shadow."

Oh yes, of course. My question would be.

How do you guise solve this neck strain issue?

That is all. Thank you

Schmurtle

Joy to all Color Blindees Everywhere

 

Glee to all color blindees everywhere! I've only just discovered this nifty app out there! It's called WhatColor!

Very useful for all your color-identification needs! For example, I didn't even know I colored my Schmurtle with the color Goldenrod!

No wonder it looked so roddishly golden to my eyes! It all makes sense now! Yay!

WhatColor can be downloaded at the following web page: 

http://www.hikarun.com/e/ by Hikaru Nakahara

Berry the Tortoise

This is Berry's MSN screen name, there appears to be some sort of turtle creature there. Since the image isn't very clear, I drew this for her with my relatively new HP TX2000.



I also drew a bunch of other stuff. Which can be seen in her blog post here.

Sushi Plox

Done for my cousin in Facebook's Graffiti app.

The Warden Sends his Regards

This was a drawing made for Liyana for her birthday. I was testing out my brand new tablet. (It has a twist)

It is also here: (http://strangeyoungman.blogspot.com/2009/07/happy-birthday-candydon.html)

Up Butt Coconut

Now this is something that I created for TOFU! TOFA!

That stands for The Conglomerate Of Awesome Flash Artists. Naw. It doesn't mean that. It actually means...

*checks the official website*

... the Tournament of Flash Artists of course! Hosted at Albinoblacksheep dot com. No that's what you call the site. Albinoblacksheep dot com. Just saying Albinoblacksheep is okay. But Albinoblacksheep dot com is the more proper way of saying it.

But the bummer in this post would seem to point at the fact that this submission will not be able to be accepted. Due to the usage of his lordship Sir Esquire Master Parry Gripp's audio production, Up Butt Coconut, (I require his permission) the animation will not be accepted, and with only 3 hours left till the deadline, I did what a normal man would do. PANIC AND FRANTICALLY CONJURE UP SOMETHING NOOOWWWW!

I made this



Don't worry. Sense.
It does not make.

UPDATE: Parry Gripp has granted permission to use his song for the competition! (in the comments) Unfortunately it won't be accepted because it's past the deadline.

Skeleton Jack The Animation

It is finally complete! Hope you like it.




You may want to watch it here on Newgrounds as well (and look at all my pretty awards).

You may also be interested in the design processes of this animation:
Skeleton Jack: The Making Of

Progress Czech

Due to the scaring of cousins and engagement in highly-explosive detonating activities, only so much was able to be done during the past trimester break.



What you see here is the Temple. Inspiration comes from the bar building in Samurai Jack episode "Samurai versus Samurai"



This is the squid. I am still unsatisfied with its outcome. Further work shall be worked on to the squid in the weeks to come. This shall function as a placeholder as of now.



Background 01: Shot of temple from quite a distance



Background 02: Shot of temple and Jack(not shown) to indicate character placement



Background 03: Shot from inside temple. Doors will open up revealing a Skeleton Jack. Doors will be added later.



Background 04: Generic grayish background. Side view of Jack will appear in foreground.



Background 05: A flight of stairs on which Jack will travel downwards into the fortress.



Background 06: Hallway at end of stairs. Warm lighting from adjacent area is slightly visible.



Background 07: Generic background with a hint of orange/red (help me I'm color blind)

All backgrounds were drawn and colored in Flash. 3D assets were crafted in 3DS Max.

That's all for now folks.

Defragmentation of the broken mug

Remember the broken mug? I've attempted to reassemble the mug with my limited wit and supergluuuuue!

---

Here's the mug, being all broken and unassembled.

---

Here we see the foundation starting to take shape.

---

Here we see a "sirap-oren-bandung" behind the partly defragmented mug.

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That crack looks pretty awesome. Looks like something Kane would have on his ironing board. For when he irons his clothes.

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The following video demonstrates the limited capabilities of the mug to contain fluids. This high profile stress-test should only be performed by a professional mug-testing-technician.

Nodification Prizes : RECEIVED (wait wat)

If you were prancing around this blog yesterday, you would realise that I've "recieved" my Nodification prizes.

So another FedEx truck delivering an extra box of goodies couldn't possibly be anything prize-like.


Above: Probably not C&C-related goodies.

But yet.



This box contains a non-shattered(see previous post) Nod mug, C&C3 Deluxe Edition and a Kane Lives T-shirt. No Red Alert 3 though.

So now I've got this:



2 Nod mugs (1 in less-than-good condition), 1 copy of Red Alert 3 Premiere Edition, 2 copies of C&C 3 : Deluxe Edition, 2 Kane Lives T-shirts.

Uhm. Thank you? *uncertain grin*

At least whoever shipped the goods this time used a box. With foam bits. And bubble wrap.

Nodification Prizes : RECIEVED

Remember the time I participated in this contest? I've finally recieved the prizes!
According to the Commercial Invoice, they were sent on the 7th of January of 2009. Or maybe thats just customs. I don't really know.

One major flaw though.

THE PACKAGE'S PERIMETER'S BEEN BREACHED!



It's been opened.

And a lot of clinking can be heard. (Clinking can be heard in video below)



What IS causing all that noise?



Oh. A broken mug. That's no big deal. Because.



Kane Lives Shirt, CNC3 Deluxe, Red Alert 3 Premiere Edition. I got more than I deserved.

NightShadow wins third place, consisting of a copy of "C&C3: Deluxe Edition" and a "Kane Lives" T-shirt

-Hexetic

No mention of Red Alert 3 Premiere Edition. There must be a mix-up in the prize-giving-room-of-operations.

However, in a gracious display of sportsmanship, Kalle informed me that he did, in fact already have the travel mug and TW T-shirt, so these gifts will handed down to Ricky P (he'll get the T-shirt) and NightShadow (he'll get the mug).

-Hexetic

Well a mug for Red Alert 3 isn't a bad trade-off.

Thank you PlanetCNC.com, and Mister Kaufman!

Coming up, fixing the broken mug!

Skeleton Jack and The Temple Of the Musical Cuttlefish

This post details me and my adventures in The Faculty of FCM and The Project Of Year Finality!

Concept Board



Treatment
A treasure hunter, Skeleton Jack, clearly an homage to the Genndy Tartakovsky TV series, Samurai Jack, finds the Temple Of The Musical Cuttlefish, grabs the goods, becomes hunted and a spoilerific ending ensues. Now don't tell anyone about the ending. It's only between you and me.

Name Change
Some of you may notice the change of the title. This was due to reasons which will be revealed in the following animatic.

Animatic



Music from Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4, Fortress Sneaking and Desperate Chase, and Fallout 3 SFX from various games including but not limited to Fallout 3 and COD4.

Which of these two designs do you think is more appealing?

A


B

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