Evidently, I'm Bad at Blogging

I'm working on fixing that though.

So July was a massive flop for me. I had a major artist block that refused to go away and life wanted to get in the way as well.

Thus, I'm thinking of changing up the way I post updates and how I go about achieving goals that I set out for myself. This art block really crippled my workflow for the entire month so I'm hoping to avoid that.

The Plan is...

I'm going to try to aim for monthly goals and post small updates weekly. That, and work on making a more long term plan for this project. From there, I can work on the smaller monthly goals with (hopefully) a clearer picture of what I need to achieve and how to go about it.

Other Notes...

I think part of the reason my art isn't working as much as I would like is because I've unintentionally signed myself up for a whole lot of things without considering my schedule. Such things include holding a producer role for the semester 2 pantomime with the UWA Panto Society, and starting on an online diploma of project management.

I should be able to juggle everything, but I really need to say no to things sometimes.

Planning Up!

The big picture goal is obviously to get the game out with some killer artwork in an year and a half or so (date not determined, don't quote this). Starting out on the smaller goals, I need to get a working art style for the project that'll be visually interesting and successfully implementing it into the test level that we have now. That should be a solid months worth of work just on the 3D assets and animations.

In Case You Didn't See It...

On my art page on Facebook, he's some work I've done in some of my spare time when the block wasn't as overwhelming.

Hey look! My toe got into the shot.

I need a better way to post these rather than just using my phone.

I had this sketch for a while from before the July block, I also found some fantastic paint pens. So I went over the line art and put the pens to good use. I managed a to nail the cell shaded look on Samurai, it worked much better than I thought it would.

9/10 Would definitely recommend buying these pens.

I'll post updates when I have some art ready to show you guys. The project management course is actually really helping with time management and planning and I'm only halfway through the first unit. It's almost like they know what students are like with assessments.

Anyways, I'll update you guys soon!

Jason.

2 Months later

 Brushing Off The Dust

I know what you're thinking. That was the longest two weeks you've ever sat through waiting for an update. 

You're right, and I'm sorry it's been so long without an update.

I've been a busy guy lately and mostly none of it has been towards the project.

So instead of a sprint update, here's what I was busy with.

I'd Like to Talk to You About The Revengers Initiative

For those of you who don't know what a Pantomime is, the TL;DR version is that it is a play that usually parody fairytales and the audience is encouraged to heckle things like; "He's behind you!" or some other joke towards to cast on stage.

The Cast Shirts were great. The taglines on the back read "Heroes aren't Born...They're Cast." and "Revengers, Rassemble!"

The UWA Pantomime Society recently showed a pantomime about a group of supervillains called the Revengers and it was the most ambitious panto I've taken part in. This included something the Panto society had never done before, a short animated motion comic intro movie.

Due to time creeping up on everyone, we had a very short window to complete the entire thing.

Short as in 4 days.

All the assets were pre drawn thankfully. There was more that we wanted to add in but there was absolutely no time to get them in before the first show. We were already walking a knife's edge with the editing.

Credits for the intro vid for the art and editing collectively goes to Stuart Potts, Cam Michael Butler, Emily Archibald, and myself.

EDIT: Watch it here!

Slow Time To The Present

It's been a couple of weeks now since the panto and I've done at a handful of concepts to get myself back into the swing of work.

Hey look! It's the Templar again.

Believe it or not, I got the idea for this boss after watching a nature documentary.

Back On Track

I'm going to start up my sprints again. It's fair enough to say that my last sprint was a total flop so I'll start up from sprint 3. The major goals for this sprint will be:

1.  To get the Templar rigged up and ready for animation.
2.  Get some basic animations done for the Templar.

Other optional small goals include making basic equipment for the Templar like his shield and sword, and drawing up some more environment concepts to start fleshing out the feel of the world.

Rounding Off

I'll get back to posting updates every second sunday so then I can get myself back into the rhythm of designing again. The Revengers was a fantastic panto to be a part in but it did end up taking a very large chunk out of my time for the project. Now that the panto is well and truly out of the way (at least until next semester), I'll be devoting all the time needed to get something going for this project.

Sorry again for the hiatus and I'll see you in 2 weeks!

Jason