Practice

Today I decided that I don't do enough art just for practice, so I opened up the speed sketching program my hubby made (just for me! <3). However, I suppose I ended up ignoring the "speed" part somewhat...

The environment took about an hour and the portrait about 2.5. They're both from photo reference. I started with color for the environment, but monochrome for the portrait. While the monochrome approach was somewhat nice because it let me place the features accurately without having to worry about color early on, it also made the whole process a lot longer. So if my goal is speed (which it has been for a while), I'll either need to find a way to do the under-painting faster, or eliminate it completely.

In other news, life's been a bit crazy, I've been writing Deity Quest and drawing Havencall environments (more updates on all that soon!), I posted this sketch of Aura on Christmas:

And, I am very excited to move forward with our projects this year, the year we plan to release both Deity Quest and Havencall. I have a feeling 2014 is going to be awesome!

Happy New Year!

Obligatory kitty picture: =^_^=

Update!

I recently realized that I have a misguided idea that it's only appropriate for me to blog when I have something big and/or important to say. Well, that's just silly. And since it's pretty much just me and my hubby reading this blog anyways, who's to say I shouldn't post about mundane stuff like what we had for dinner last night.

Just kidding, that might be a little too boring after all...

But...if it were really delicious and I posted the recipe maybe it could be interesting...hmm...

Anyways, I digress. The point is, I'm going to be posting about anything I feel like from now on, not just things that seem "worthy"! So if anyone is actually reading this, look forward to more posts (probably, if I get time to write them) from here on out!

On to the update!

So, things have been pretty crazy lately...thankfully in a good way! The summer and beginning of fall have been largely dedicated to game development around here - both fun "indie" development and less fun but more profitable freelance projects. The Rhythos RPG Builder kickstarter didn't succeed back in May, but David still has plans to move forward with the project and try again at some point. However at the moment he's focusing more on Deity Quest. And I'm doing the writing for it (but not the art)!

Deity Quest is an awesome new game that David designed over the summer.The game is an RPG, with elements from dungeon crawlers and roguelike games. You play as a young new god named Tyrus, who recently graduated (#2 in class) from the Ethereal Academy after 100 years of study...and you have to convert/recruit followers, use them to fight enemies, and compete with your rival, Ryga (who graduated #1 in class). It has some similarities to Pokemon since there are over a hundred different follower types, and you can "convert" enemies to become your followers, level them up, give them new equipment, etc. etc. The game is super fun and addicting, even for us developers, which is a good sign! Also, we are working with some really talented guys on this project: Chase Bethea is doing the music and sound, and Santiago Ocampo has been creating the original artwork.

The writing for Deity Quest has been very enjoyable so far. I'm working from an outline written by David, so I basically get to jump right into my favorite part of writing: details! The game is in eight parts/chapters, and I've finished the first part, and hope to get to at least part 4 within the next few weeks.

While I have been doing some writing for Deity Quest, most of my time lately has gone into "real" work, and Havencall! Havencall has been progressing a little slowly, but definitely moving along at this point. We recently decided to move the release date to March 2014, to give us enough time to make it great. Here's an IndieDB article from a couple days ago with a bunch of new art, info, and updates: http://www.indiedb.com/games/havencall/news/update-and-changes . The article features this new background that I finished recently:

I'm becoming increasingly aware of a problem with the length of Havencall's development - the longer I work on this game, the better at art I become, and the worse the earlier scenes start to look in comparison. By the time I finish the game I feel like I'll have become so much better that I'll want to go back and re-do all the earlier stuff...

But I guess if I keep improving that whole cycle would then start all over again!

...In the end though, it's great that I'm becoming a better artist, so I'm not going to complain too much. Here are some more Havencall scenes from the article:

Lately, I feel like I'm developing a much better grasp on the visual direction with this game. Earlier I was mainly focused on just getting the scenes done in a way that worked in the game. Now, I'm constantly asking myself: "how can this scene be as interesting and unique as possible, while still working in the game?" You'd think I would have started off by asking that, but sometimes we don't think of the obvious when we're doing something new and a little out of our element. But at least I got there eventually. And good things are happening with this new perspective - it makes me more flexible and makes the work more fun, too!

I could probably write a lot more about what's going on in my life the past few months, but for now I'll leave it here and save other things for other posts.

Except for kitties. They belong in every post. : 3

Rhythos RPG Builder Launched!

Yesterday, we launched our first Kickstarter campaign! Rhythos RPG Builder will be a free, open source game builder that will feature the awesome art, music and battle system of Rhythos Arcade BETA, David's April "One Game a Month"! It will also have a lot of other cool features and be really easy to use and flexible.

My involvement with the project has been fairly small since it mainly requires programming work, which I am useless at. However, I did have a really good time designing the Rhythos magician mascot and logo!

My initial sketch/idea:

I knew I wanted an action-filled pose that would be exciting, as well as an open book to indicate the "open source" nature of the project. We also wanted to somehow show the rhythm/music side of the project since Rhythos Arcade is a music-based battle system. Since we knew the character was a magician, we thought a staff would fit, and decided to do a subtle visual pun by making her staff into a "treble staff" :P

Here's the final character:

A close-up because that image is huge:

Aaand, the full logo:

I was fairly pleased with how this came out, although the character's right foot (the one on the ground) continues to boggle me and look weird, despite many re-dos and fixes. However, I am glad I was able to get a more motion-filled pose happening with decent success, since I'm usually drawing more static characters.

Here's another image I put together for the campaign - it's a collection of sprites from the LPC graphics the Rhythos editor uses. I modified one to create the cute little pixel mascot in the front! ^_^

So, please check out the Kickstarter if you have a minute, and share/like/back it if it looks interesting to you!! I really hope this project will be a success - I think it will be an amazing, super accessible tool for the game development community, allowing even a non-programmer (like me!) to create complete games! And that's pretty darn exciting!

"Trip Through Time" Released!

Trip Through Time, our March "One Game a Month" game has finally been released!!! Please check it out on Newgrounds: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/617393.

Trip Through Time is a runner game where you play as a time traveling robot and run through 7 eras of human history, in order to determine the true nature of humanity. To avoid paradoxes, you must phase shift through all obstacles you encounter - including historical figures and iconic objects.

The game was completed at the end of March, but during April we were considering several different release options, and so delayed releasing it publicly until now, when those options fell through/didn't make sense anymore.

I created 100% of the art and animations for TTT, going with a style that is somewhere between my "natural" semi-realistic style (as in Havencall), and a simpler/messier speed sketch style. The game required a lot of art and animations, so March was a constant guessing game for me. Several questions kept running through my head over and over: mainly: "Can I do this?" and also: "Am I going to make the deadline???" and often: "What do I need to do first? What is most important?" The whole month was a pretty intense crunch for me, as I'm naturally a fairly slow artist with perfectionist tendencies.

Happily, I was able to ignore my perfectionist side while making this game, because I knew it had to be done by the end of the month, and I wasn't going to make it if I worried over every little thing. I just needed to get it done! And I did! I finished the art with just a few days to spare in the month for final tweaks and testing!

Trip Through Time was the first game I completed using our animation toolkit, VIDE! Havencall uses VIDE as well, so I'm really glad I got the chance to get a lot of practice with it while making TTT. I really enjoyed learning to use VIDE better, and while I still have much to learn about animation (I've just started trying my hand at animations this year!), I feel I've come a long way already.

One interesting tidbit: TTT originated from a Twitter conversation in which @indiepetey challenged @DavidMaletz to make a game based solely upon a song he (Petey) wrote! David accepted the challenge, and when Pete sent him the music, he immediately felt as though it sounded like a trip through time, starting off slow and primitive and becoming more technological and crazier. Thus, the idea for the game was born!

Final fun fact: I am horrible at runner games, and couldn't believe we were making one at first! However, I warmed up to the idea when David explained the movement through time side of things, which sounded like great fun for me as an artist! I mean, I got to draw robots, medieval knights, Darwin, Einstein, hippies, and futuristic soldiers with laser guns, all for the same game. It was pretty amazing!

Please check out the game and rate/review! We want to know what you think! ^_^