Countryboy Again

Country Boy

More ideas for my comic project.

Ruins Gunfight

More practice. Here we find Terry in a gunfight in Iranian ruins.

At Luxor

Terry in Luxor, Egypt. Rough sketch for a panel.

Fantasy Character

This is just a random character sketch from the other project I might take up as the lead.

India Marketplace

Just another concept sketch for my upcoming project. The guy looking at the fruit is the main character, Terry.

Brookfen Map

Brookfen was once a cultivated farmland that nature took back. The ruined old barn there is being used by a local slave trading ring under direction from the region's thieves guild. The gangplank network assures the men on watch don't have to dirty their cuffs in the murky water.

More Adventure

Practicing WWI era planes for my potential comic.

Adventure

I've been toying with the idea of a webcomic set in 1911, following a sort of classical adventure route with exotic locales, ancient ruins, and other things I find fascinating. This is a little sketch to imply what it might roughly look like. And yes, Tintin is a big influence on it :)

Secret of Mana Fanarts

Most of you are familiar with my constant rambles about my youthful memories and Secret of Mana. So I won't bore you with more. Instead I'll just post these two pics I've had floating around my galleries the last year.

Machu Picchu

I never got around to finishing this one. Originally it was supposed to be the background for my Larai Cliffs image. Will did, after all, travel to the Incan ruins, but somehow didn't hit up the lost city. So I just wound up creating an image from the game instead.

Rejected Penelo Image

This one did not come out well at all. Mostly because it was just a wild sketch that I attempted to pair up with a background that didn't work with it.

Mirror's Edge 2-D

http://www.bornegames.com/mirrors-edge-beta/

Really awesome 2-D version of Mirror's Edge. Can't wait to see the final version!

Mirror's Ledge

I have a problem with Mirror's Edge that I've seen reflected (Get it? Mirror? Reflect? Har-har) in various reviews. It's the insistence that you stay on the move while having no sure direction to stay on the move towards. Often times you're being pursued by bad men with big guns who will herd you along with bullet fire while you panic and play spin the camera. Now, there is the option of a single button that has Faith look in the general direction of where the programmers want you to go, but odds are, it's a vague lead and not likely to do more than disorient you for a few moments. Just long enough to be riddled with lead.

Now, Mirror's Edge is a beautiful game, and definitely one of the freshest offerings this side of Jet Set Radio, but hopefully round two (provided we ever see it) will refine the formula already at work here.

Caboose

Today it hit around 95 degrees with a humidity factor that'd turn a simple lawn-mowing chore into a full on shower. By three o'clock, even my ridiculous, tree-climbing cat was too hot to do more than flop around lazily and admire it's own paws. Me? I decided I'd be a moron and go take pictures of the countryside and nearby Oakboro.

First stop, the little train museum. I attempted to get a good shot of the building in question, but the sun was not in my favor, so you'll have to settle for these images, including a caboose! Hehehe, I wonder how many of you even remember what a caboose was?



This was the cart in question! These little tack-ons had several serious purposes back in the day, including watching out for trouble on the foremost carts and engine. There's plenty of info abound here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caboose#Cupola_or_.22standard.22_caboose

Meantime, here's another shot the same one:



I'll be posting more from the train museum tommorow or tonight :)

Edit: I lost the pics after a bad viral infection, sorry to those wanting to see it :(

Larai Cliffs - Illusion of Gaia

No post this time, just some Illusion of Gaia fanart :)
Click for full image, please!

Bebop a lu Bop

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-07-22/live-action-cowboy-bebop-film-in-development-at-fox

How awesome is this? An anime imitating popular film noir and serial action flicks of the 60s (looking at you Mr. Bond) gets itself a live-action movie from the developers of the Matrix and A Scanner Darkly.

Yeah, it could go horribly wrong. But hell, even if it sucks, we know it'll be better than Dragon Ball Z the live action movie, right?

Grand Theft Guilt IV

Something odd happened to me today.

I felt guilt over killing characters in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Having spent many hours mowing down nameless, faceless, polygonal populace in past iterations, I'm abit baffled by these feelings. Why now?

Perhaps it's the upgrade in character animations that arose between the gap of last gen and current gen. You don't just ram a guy with a car here and watch him flatten under your car like a pile of squares. Here they have physics. Which means when I hit a guy with the front right of my bumper, he reacts as such, flying off into a spinning drop where he'll then bounce off whatever surface he impacts. It's far more unsettling.

I guess maybe gaming has reached a point where it can mimic life convincingly. All I know is that I spend a full four minutes standing over the virtual body of a dead video game character ripped with guilt. If that's not somehow evidential of gaming's ability to invoke emotion, then I don't know what is.

Shadow of the Colossus

My lovely girlfriend heard me prattling on about how I'd accidentally slipped my copy of Shadow of the Colossus into the pile of games up for sale last year. Never got around to replacing the copy I lost, so she took it upon herself to do so for me. Love ya honey :P

It's abit more dated than I remember, with some sharp corners (particularly the horse's ass) and a ridiculous over use of bloom lighting effects. But it's as emotional as I remember, with minimal dialogue and an emphasis on atmosphere. Can't help but think that the developers were big fans of old films set in mythological Greece.

Premise is simple. Vaguely asian-looking boy wants to bring back to life similar looking girl. So he apparently shows up in this paradise forbidden to whatever culture he hails from and asks the sky to bring the girl's soul back. Said sky responds to him that he must kill sixteen giants (colossi) in order to have his request granted, and that's it. The gates blow open and you're off on horseback.

And then you realize the game plays like shit. I'm sorry, it does. I've had an easier time steering a 78 station wagon after a blow-out. You'd think the developers would've looked to something like Zelda for inspiration since it pretty much wrote the book on horse-backing it in games. But no, instead you get the video game equivalent of drunk driving (and walking, climbing, stabbing, etc). And that's when you're just riding around. Try scaling a two-hundred foot walking monolith with a guy who thinks up is a reverse leap to the rear. Gets infuriating.

But really. There's just nothing else like it. And the first time you see a colossus round a corner you'll get chills.

It's an old game at this point, but definitely one I'm glad to have back on my shelf.

Testing. One. Two. Cat.