Latest Creative Endeavors!

It's the last day of January, and the past month+ has been filled with my favorite sort of things: creative endeavors! So what have I been up to that's made my last blog post already 6 weeks old?! Here's a round-up!

~ Havencall ~
Of course, I've been working mainly on my biggest and most exciting project, our point and click adventure game! Since my last post I've finished a new background - Aura's bedroom (aka the attic), have made progress with the third battle scene, the design of the third "boss," some NPC designs, and some animations. I've also been working on the story, fleshing out scenes and dialogue in the second world mainly. It's all very exciting and awesome and I can't wait to share it, but we don't want to share too much or the game will get spoiled! But, I think I can share some in-progress stuff without spoiling too much! Here's some NPC line-work that I posted in my recent IndieDB update:

And here are some speed thumbnail sketches I made while brainstorming for "boss" designs. Keep in mind that these are super rough!! But I thought it might be cool to share what goes into the very early stages of designs...

None of these thumbnails are terribly close to the final design I settled on, but there are a few that were strongly inspirational. Which thumb would you liked to have seen developed?

Also speaking of Havencall, we decided to be a little more responsible to our fans, and update the Havencall facebook page at least once a week! So Monday is now our update day! This not only will keep our followers interested and entertained, but it should also help keep me productive, because I'll want to make sure I have plenty to write about every week!

~ Secret Simulation Project ~
A good chunk of my time lately has gone into this "real work" project. Happily, even my "real" work is creative! Sadly, I cannot talk about this project very much aside from saying it's a simulation and it's pretty cool! Although, it is always difficult doing "real work" when I have so much Havencall stuff waiting to be made...

~ The Saga of the Epic Mayan Pyramid Cake ~
As I mentioned in this post, last month I was requested to create a cake that looked like a Mayan Temple, for an "end of the world" party. Here are some pictures of this epic process:

 The vanilla cake batter was delicious. Waaaay too delicious.

This cake basically contained butter. lots and lots of butter.

 All layers baked!

Frosted! It was half chocolate, half cinnamon frosting.

Stacked!

Finished!

 Unstacking!

Demolished. And that's the end of the saga of the epic Mayan cake (except we had leftovers for a long time after!). And now I feel like eating cake.

~ Kitty Beds ~
Recently I decided that this:

was simply not cutting it for a cat bed. I'd made it very quickly many months ago. The time was right for *real* cat beds to be made for my two [superspoiled] cutie pies. Here are some pics documenting the process of making the new beds!

 I used an old blanket for the stuffing. The middle was cut into rectangles, and the batting from the edges was removed and rolled into long cylinders. The grey fabric is fleece left over from another project.

 These edge pieces were long!

Rollin' em up like a cinnamon roll!

 Dinah oversees as I cut out the side pieces from the fabric.

 Stuffing the edge pieces was somewhat amusing.

 Me being a goof and wearing an edge piece. It's a fashion statement, ok?!

 1st one done!

 Phoebe using the 1st bed. It was a little small for her. Oh, and that's David's January One Game A Month, "I Can't Escape" in the background!

 This is Phoebe in the second bed I made. It has a black middle part, and is definitely a better size for her!

 And here's Dinah in the first bed. Perfect size for her! Now both my kitties have a super soft and comfy spot to curl up. =^_^=

~ Backstage Graphic Design ~
My sister [in-law technically] Jamie writes incredible musicals, and recently she was offered a venue and is doing a production of one of her shows down in Phoenix! I did a little graphic design for the show: a poster and logo for t-shirts. It was a fun process figuring out what to do with the design. In the end I settled on this design for the poster:

And this is the 3-color logo for the t-shirts:

 Backstage is a super fun musical with awesome music and a great story. If you're in the Phoenix area March 14th, 15th, or 16th, you can check it out at the Desert Rose Theater, and tickets are here.

~ Speed Sketches ~
A few weeks ago I decided to do a little bit of speed sketching every single day in order to improve my drawing speed and perceptiveness. I've been posting them every day in my sketches micro-blog (linked to this blog as the "Sketches" page, above). It's been going pretty well (no missed days yet), and I think it is actually helping me improve! Here are a couple of pages from random days (these are all 30 second sketches):

And now, it's time for me to get back to work!

=^_^=