Drats!

One of my ideas has certainly been done already. My idea for a gangster game that was free roming has already been done. The game is called "Mafia" and it is listed as:

* 20 action-packed missions with subquests - Luxury and riches are yours for the taking, if you do as Don Salieri has requested. From mob hits and car chases to shootouts and more, complete the unsavory tasks the Family needs done and you will be handsomely rewarded. * Explore over 12 square miles of the 1930's American city, with simulated traffic, landmarks, and surrounding landscapes. * Convincing environments pull you into the 1930's with their attention to detail and style. From seedy bars and hotel rooms to train stations and airports – every location is rendered in fantastic detail by the 3D "LS3D" engine, such as the Lost Heaven International Airport and Chinatown. * Gun down enemies with classic mob weapons including machine guns, shotguns, and the famous molotov cocktail. * Drive over 60 vintage cars, roadsters and delivery trucks using the most realistic car physics ever made for a game.

Pretty much what I had in mind, so ...

I am tossing around between werewolves and Oz. Here is an interesting site for Oz information. Who knew how big the Oz universe was?
http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/

I hate waiting ...

I hate waiting for my grades to come back each week. My instructors ahve until Sunday night to post my grades for the last week's work, and I swear I check every night 4 or 5 times until they are posted. To make it worse, my grades for my Computer Application class always seem to get posted by Tuesday, and then my Success Strategies on Wednesday, and then I have to wait for the one class I want to see the grades most. So, here are my scores for last week:

Computer Applications: 160/160 for a total of 486/490 (a high A)
Success Strategies: 60/60 for a total of 170/170 (a VERY high A)
Intro to Drawing and Perspective: 410/430 for a total of 1076/1100 (a high A)

*whew*

I was worried about that last week for art. We had to do 4 sets of 15 quick sketches each (each set worth 100 points). A quick sketch is no more than a 10-20 second sketch to capture the flow of movement or action. It is like a shorthand version to sketching. After I was done, it lookedlike a lot of scribbles, but as i did them and knew what my shorthand looks like, I understand the sketches. I got scores of 95s on all 4 sets because I needed just a tad more detail. I can do that. I can work with that.

Meredith asked me how I felt about my Art scores. I said I was happy because I am still doing good, but just a tad disappointed that I didn't do better. I am not "unahppy" or sad or anything else ... I just realize that I can do better and should continue to try and do so. So ... I will!

As for my final project ... unless I come up with a better idea ... I seem to be leaning towards the werewolf idea. Not only might a better idea come up, but we are still kind of in the air as to what exactly the project will entail. It is 15 storyboards, that much I know ... but is it to cover 15 consecutive seconds, or is it just a general base idea that I am pitching? The final project is worth 900 points out of a total 3900, so I want to make it a good choice.

Anyhoo ... I am going to call it an early night tonight. Take care all, and if I don't see you before hand, have a great LONG weekend!

Decisions, decisions, decisions ...

We have been asked by my art teacher to start thinking about what we want to do for our final art project. What it is, each of us needs to come up with an idea for a game, and promote it with 15 story boards. I have had a few ideas that Ihave already shot down as they were not something that could be easily promoted in this manner. I have narrowed my ideas down to 5, and would like any feedback that anyone has to offer. I will need to make a decision by sometime next week. My ideas are:

1) A game based on werewolves. There are plenty of games based on vampires, supported by numerous books and movies. Werewolves are just lurking around the edges of the multimedia world, and their brief appearances have been somewhat lackluster. As it has been documented throughout history, each ethinic society has had some form of myth that was related to the common werewolf: Africa had werehyenas; South America had werejaguars; and Siberia even had myths about weretigers. The player would be tracking down a pyschotic werewolf across the globe and would encounter the other types of werecreatures.

2) A game that would take place in both the future and the past. A serial killer is on the loose and is running through history killing people during major disasters (no wistnesses and no bodies to be found). You are chasing him down through disasters such as the Titanic, the burning of Chicago, and Pompii.

3) A game that uses all of the material that L. Frank Baum created for the land of Oz, but with a twist. In our world, some huge mega-corporation with it's own private army finds it way into Oz, and wants to take it over. You could play a character from either the good faction of Oz (Tin woodman, lionman, or Munchkin), the bad faction of Oz (a wicked witch, a flying monkee, or a Winkee ), or a member of the mega-corps army. Whichever side you pick will determine a set off objective based missions for you to take.

4) In this game, you are a cop who is chaing down a very bad person. You chase him into a skyscraper and during the chase, a huge fire breaks out (think of the movie "Towering Inferno"). As you are chasing him up the burning skyscraper, you will have to run rescue missions for trapped people, all the while dodging traps that the bad guy sets up for you. It would be a mission based/puzzle/action/adventure type game.

5) Grand theft Auto is the mother of all sandbox games. A sandbox game is a game that you can do anything you want in (just like in a sandbox). In the Grand Theft Auto games, you are either an ex-con, or part of the mafia. In Saints Row, you are a gang member. In Bully, you are a student in a private school. In my idea for a sandbox game, you are a gun for hire in Chicago in the 1920's. What would make this game different is that once you join a gang/mob, you can change sides and the missions that are available to you will change according to that. For example, if you were going to do a mission and the outcome would have been one thing, but you change sides before you do the mission, then the outcome becomes something else.

So ... those are my ideas.

Thoughts, anyone?

My first real concept art

Taking everything that the artistsin the game club had to say to heart, I went back and revamped my sword. I used a very old copy of photoshop that I had laying around (version 5, and they are up to 10 right now) to do the textures and the shading. I just put it up on the club's website and hope to get some feedback from them.

The actual concept we were given was that the game would would be making would take place a few decades after a nuclear holocaust wiped out most of the world. There are still people around and they are starting to emerge from their shelters that they hid in. The hero of the story is a welder, and his sword and shield needed to look like something he would have created. So ... here it is!

Round Tables

The game Designers club has had 2 Round Table Meetings that I have attended. One for the club in general, and one for artists.

The first one, for all in general covered groups and their projects. It went into detail on getting onto a group and who should be in what groups. As the goals of these groups is to get a game completed from start to finish so that you have something to put into your portfolio, it is important you get into a group that you will work well in, as well as a group that will complete what it started.

The artist meeting was extremely exciting for me. They are working on practicing doing concept art. Each week we are given a scenario of what a customer might want, and we have to come up with ideas and draw them. As I only found out about the artist meetings the night before, I looked up what the scenario was and whipped up a couple of quick ideas. The ideas I had were well liked, but of course the artwork was not too detailed. I was given some suggestions and after the meeting I got right back to my drawings and started reworking them. Some of the ideas and drawings that people did were amazing! I really felt great spending time with these people and getting ideas from them. I know I am in with kindred spirits with these people.

Anyhoo ... I only wanted to take a break from drawing to get this posted. I want to get more work on this done before I go to bed.

Catch you all later!!!

Last Weeks Grades

So my teachers ahve one week from Sunday to get all my grades up from last week, and I now have all my grades ...

Success Strategies: I received 55 out of 55 points, and I am at 110/110 for a perfect score. My teacher's comments are more on the nugget of wisdom kind of comments. They are not very encouraging, just more like fortune cookie kind of stuff.

Computer Applications: 158/160 for a total of 326/330. Doing good here as well. His comments so far are that I show good energy in the discussions. Meh.

Art: 330/330 for 666/670!!! YAY FOR ME!!! My instructor is great. His comments are strong and instructive. He likes my drawings and appreciates teh leadership I show in our discussions. This is going very well for me, and I get more excited as I get deeper into the semester. I cannot help but to wonder what the next semester will be like?

Who knew?

So, I was bored last night as 1) I had finished all my homework and postings for the week, and 2) there was nothing good on tv, so I started looking at old emails I had gotten from the college. A lot of them were invitations to workshops on career planning and such, and one was an invite to the Game Club that they have.

Well ... as an avid gamer (and a recoering World of Warcraft junkie), I had put almost all of my gaming on hold as I do through school. I will play the ocassional board game (I belong to a Bloodbowl League), and once a month hold a game night, but that's it. I do have an Xbox 360 that is seeing very little use, and that is because I want to devote my time to learning and developing my new career choice.

Imagine my surprise when I check into this club and find out that it is devoted to getting students immersed into the field of game development. Most companies will take a person who has a degree, but they also prefer someone who has worked on some games that have been shipped (completed and in circulation) already. So this club puts together teams of programmers and artists to get them going and possibly get out 3-6 games over the next three years. And here I thought they were people setting up virtual game nights to play World of Warcraft! It is funny because the first thing they say is if you are serious about joining this club that you need to cancel your World of Warcraft account because you wont have any time to play. So ...

I joined!

This coming Tuesday I will be attending a round table of all the club members. I will also be attending a meeting of all of the artists to see what that is about. It's even funnier to know that I was pretty clueless as to exactly .... EXACTLY .... what my degree would teach me. Its in "Game Art and Design", which is jsut the ART side of building a game. The other side is PROGRAMMING, and truth to tell, I have an ART background and no real experience with programming, so I fell into my niche. It was an accident, but maybe I have someone looking out for me.

So ... I have been told to treat this as just another class, but with more deadlines and such. I will be attending meetings and joining a team and hopefully get a game or three out. I will mark posts related to the game club as Game Club so people who want to track those seperately can.

Is this exciting or what?

Week 2 completed

I have just scanned and uploaded my third peice of art that was required for week 2. My syllabus for this week looked like this:

Week 2 Sucess Stratagies
Discovering Yourself
View Lecture materials
Complete the Pre-assessment (10 points for completing)
Complete tasks under Assignments item (15 pts)
Participate in the Discussion (30 pts)
Review Read On resources

Week 2 (Art)
Drawing Techniques
Read: Reference Chapters 1 & 2 in the Drawing for Animation text.
Assignment: Drawing Techniques assignment. (100 points)
Assignment: Upside Down Drawing (100 points)
Assignment: Self-portrait (100 points)
Discussion: This week we will discuss comic books and graphic novels. (30 points)

Week 2 (Computer Applications)
Word 2007 Read Microsoft Office 2007: Introductory Concepts and Techniques
Word 2007 Chapter One: Creating and Editing a Word Document.
Assignment --Due: Sunday, by midnight (100 pts).
Discussion--First response by midnight Wednesday. Respond to two posts by Sunday midnight (30 pts).
Quiz--Due: Sunday by midnight (30 pts).

I actually had the computer application class completed on Monday night, except for the 2nd and 3rd posting I need to do between Thursday and Sunday. I still have not gotten all of my grades from my Success Stratagies calss yet as I had placed my assignment in the wrong box. I have resubmitted in the hopes that because itwas time date stamped as being on time, that I will still get credit for it. I have completed all of my work for that class for this week, and have verified that I have placed it in the correct box this time.

The three peices of art I had to do this week were fun to do. The first peices was three drawings of a mortar and pestal, and each one had to demonstrate a different shading technique (hatching, cross-hatching, and stippling). The second drawing was of a picture that was upside down (and we had to draw it upside down as well). The hard part was not turning it upside right. After I was done, it looked really good compared to the actual picture. The last peice was a self portrait, and the ahrdest to do. I took a picture of myself, and had a hard time drawing myself. I finally went over the picture with a black marker to highlight myself, and then it became really easy to do. Granted, I feel I can do better, and in three years I hope to look back at it and have the proof with other work that I can.

Anyhoo ...

I am anxious to get started on week three. I am indifferent to my other two classes, and want to dive in to my art class. It is what my degree is about, and what I want to do with my future. Speaking of which, I have come across some really great magazines that I feel would be great for me to subscribe to, as they go over some great techniques and even provide software as tools and examples, but these are being printed in England (#d World, Imagine FX, and there is one other about Photoshop). A 13 issue subscription to any of them is roughly $100. If I buy them at the newstand, they $16 each. Mere and I dicussed getting subscriptions, but I told ehr that we should wait to make certain that I can do this. There will be one more semester before Christmas, and that will give us a better idea of how I am doing, so we should hold off until then to start shelling out more money. And belive me, there are a lot of places I can be shelling it out. There are some nice peripherials I could plug into the computer, such as a drawing pad that would let me draw directly to the computer. Or even a nice digital camera. I was looking at some interesting books on animation and artificial intelligence programing yesterday. This will all wait until I am further along, again, to see what I will need and what I can do.

But still ... THIS IS ALL SO EXCITING!!!!

As I sit here and type, it really occurs to me that I hope I do my brother proud. He is older than I, and has jsut retired from the Navy, and I am really proud of him for his accomplishments. He is a photographer by hobby, and wants to do it professionally, and some of his pictures have really blwon me away. We have never really be close as brothers, but I would be filled with pride if I knew I created something that blew him away.

I think that is my goal.

Well, I have three years to polish my work!

Grades for the first week

Most of my grades for my first week ahve come back, and they are looking good!

In my Computer Appplicaton class, I am at 168/170 (having 168 points out of a possible 170)
In my Success Stratagies, she has only graded my introduction so far, and I have 10/10
In my Drawing class, I have ...

336/340!!!

YAY for me!!!

I was so nervous about getting back into the drawing side of things, but my instructor has given me some real good feedback so far. For my blind drawing (drawing without looking), he had this to say:

XXXXX
Well done David. The blind contour shows you did not look...the lines are off and bumpy...so you focused in and drew what you saw. That said I am going to throw out a challenge at you I think if you tried this again, but this time you really focused in on your hand and every bump and devit that is on the outline of the hand..we have all kinds of wrinkles on the hand that are begging to be drawn, then you will get more out of the assignment. If you slow way down you will train your eye to really see the line and details of the hand and your eye will learn to transfer that to the hand. But it takes practice. The half-blind contour is good. Great line work. Shows some very strong talent! Thanks for the hard work.
XXXXX

I feel really good about this. I am getting more and more excited about this each day. Another interesting thing was his comment about how I come up with ideas. We had to post on where we get our ideas and how we develop them, and I said:

XXXXX
Cats don't have pockets!That is what me niece said when I asked her if her cat had gotten her anything for her birthday. She said it was a silly questions because cat's don't have pockets. If you stop to think about it, it's hard NOT to come up with ideas for a short story or picture book.Ideas are everywhere, and you don't even need to look for them. It could be overhearing something someone has said that strikes a cord in you, or it could come to you as you are taking a shower. My own creative process is nothing set, and I go to wherever my imagination takes me.A few examples: I was at work and I heard a snippet of a conversation between two ladies. One lady said "And we took him to the emergency room, and I had to explain everything to the doctor." The other lady responded with "And did the doctor believe you?" Just hearing those comments made my imagination run wild. What could have happened? Was it funny or sad? What kind of story could I make up with that?Another time I was just out and about, and I saw a child's balloon flying away. My sister had a little girl who was three at the time, and I could just picture her asking me where balloons go when the fly away. Sounds like another possible picture book in the making.So, basically, my style is just to let my imagination run wild and the ideas just abound.
XXXXX

I had already gotten a bunch of responses back from my classmates when my instructor responded with:

XXXXX
If the drawing thing does not work out for you David you can fall back on your writing and storytelling skills because you have them in spades. Thanks for this excellent response! A very fun read!
XXXXX

So all in all ... I think I am doing great!!!

I will keep you all posted!

End of my first week ...

The first week of school is over, and I feel great!

My Computer Application class is a real sleeper, with my first assignment being me using the HELP feature in Word 2007 to do 10 look-ups and pasting screen shots of them into another document to send to the teacher.

My Art class was fun, with me having to do a drawing of my hand without looking at the paper. I then had to do a second drawing where I could look at the paper only to lift the pencil and put it back down.

In my Success Stratagies class, I really got a discussion going when we were asked how we define "success" in 5 different catagories. I said that for a person to define success is like trying to define what is funny. What is funny for one person may not be funny for another. And for success, there are so many different levels that it is all relative. The instruction then asked me if I agreed witht he statement that the only success is the ability to live one's life the way the choose. Well ... I finally responded that without going into politics and law and such, that I would have to agree with her.

I am enjoying this a lot. I cannot wait to get this semester over and get into more exciting classes. This is so AWESOME!!!

SCHOOL'S STARTED!!!

I woke up at 5;30 this morning with Mere, and stayed in bed until about 7:30. I just couldn't wait until 9:00 and hopped online. I let out a small whoop for joy as I found out my classes had started and were available for me to access. I went straight to the art class as that is the one that I am afraid of, and sure enough, the instructor wanted me to post a picture I had drawn recently. Well ... I didn't have one. So I whipped up a contour (outline) drawing of Pickles. That was good enough (this wasn't graded, it was just and introduction). The other two classes look ok, and I have already completed all of the work for my the week in my Computer Applications class, so that is good. My syllabus for this week for all thre classes looks like this:

Week 1 (Success Stratagies)
Mastering Transitions
Read through the syllabus, view all lecture materials
Introduce yourself to the class (10 pts)
Read the Introduction in your textbook.
Complete tasks under Assignments item (15 pts)
Participate in the Discussion (30 pts)
Complete Self Check
Review Read On resources

Week 1 (Art)
Contour DrawingPerspective
Read through the syllabus.
Introduce yourself to the class. (10 pts)
Read: Drawing for Animation: Chapters 1 & 2. Reference page 53.
Assignment: Contour Drawing Assignment. (100 points).
Assignment: Perspective Studies. (100 points)
Discussion: This week we will discuss your sketching skills. (30 points)

Week 1 (Computer Applications)
Introduction to Office 2007 Read Microsoft Office 2007: Introductory Concepts and Techniques
Appendix B: Microsoft Office 2007.
Appendix C: Microsoft Office 2007 Help.
Appendix E: Customizing Microsoft Office 2007.
Introductions (10 pts)
Assignment --Due: Sunday, by midnight (100 pts).
Discussion--First response by midnight Wednesday. Respond to two other posts by midnight, Sunday (30 pts).
Quiz--Due: Sunday, by midnight (30 pts).

So, I still have my assignments for my Success Stratagies and my Art class to do, as well as I have to post 2 more times for each class. Shouldn't be too hard to complete before Sunday night, right?

I will start posting again every Monday so I can put out my new week's syllabus.

See ya then!

Tomorrow is it!!!

What a long night. Stu couldn't make it over, so I watched television all evening. Mere went to bed at 8:30, and I was tempted to join her. I have not slept well the last few nights. It always felt that my body was asleep but my mind was racing around. I am very much hoping for a good night sleep tonight.

So I have spent more time looking at the magazine I bought yesterday, and I am amazed at what people can do with computers. I found a picture in the magazine that a person made of Ingrid Berman. The person made it solely with computers, and it looks like a snapshot that somoene took just yesterday with a digital camera. It's funny because when I first saw the picture, I thought to myself "Wow! In three years, I will be able to do stuff like that!" ... and then right away I also thought "WoW! What if after three years I CAN"T do stuff like that?!?!?" I just gotta keep telling myself that not only CAN I do this, but that I WILL.

Besides ... I have an awesome support group. I have friends who are loaning me books to inspire me and give me ideas and tips; I have a great mother who is not too far away; my cat Pickles is always telling me how proud she is of me as she curls up in my lap; and my wonderful wife is very happy and proud that I am doing this. How can I fail, right?

Anyhoo ... I see that I was msitaken about how the semesters work. I thought they were 6 weeks long and then 2 weeks off. Well ... they are 6 weeks long, and then 5 DAYS off. Yeah ... gonna be a busy 3 years!!! At least that means it will go by fast. I am happier with it being 5 days instead of the 2 weeks as I would be just too anxious for classes to start again once the got done, I think.

So ... in less than 12 hours I will be a college student.

Wish me luck!!!

One more day ...

Just one more day, then school starts. One more day and I will be on the road to a better career. One more day then school starts!!! YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

This afternoon I picked up a magazine called 3D World. It is devoted to 3D Artists. it has a ton of articles on how to achieve certain effects with certain programs and tells what programs are best to use for said effects. There were a couple of magazines that we for 3D art and animation, but I picked this one up because it has an article in it about the 10 best things one can do to get noticed. About halfof them centered on putting your work out on the web (having your own website and such). So, in a year or two, once I get some real work to show, I will put up a website other than my blog for people to check out what I can do.

Tomorrow night my friend Stu(art) is coming over for another game of Twilight Struggle. It will help me pass the time (as you all know I am just so eager for school to start). It is like waiting for Christmas when you are a little kid. I have been asked how semesters work, and it is not like going to regular school. I will have 5 semesters a year, each one being 6 weeks long with 2 week break between. There is a longer break at Christmas time.

Anyhoo ... that's it for tonight. I am really tired tonight and plan on sleeping like a rock.

See you all tomorrow!

Only 2 more working days ...

and then I can start my classes!!!

I just ordered my first book for my own private library. It is called "Anatomy for Fantasy Artists." Be it that I end up programming video games or doing animation, fantasty is really big out there. I have three years to practice!

Not to much to say today. Mere and I had a nice day, and then I played some Twilight Struggle with my friend Stuart (I played the US and lost the Cold War to the USSR somewhere in the late 1950s).

Anyhoo ... next few days I will be probably counting the hours until 9:00 a.m. Wednesday morning when I can start my classes.

Will be writing more later!

Ciao!!!

One more day closer ...

*YAWN*
Well ... it has been a long day. Mere and I went to her family reunion and had a great time. I was the "baitboy" and "fishman" for all of the little kids. basically I baited all of their hooks and took all of the fish off the hooks for them. I am DRAINED just from that.

We also went to BESTBUY and picked up a scanner for school. I will be scanning in some art work to be graded, so I needed this.

And to end the day I watched possible the most awful movie have ever sat all the way through. It was called Dragon Wars. the only reason i sat through it was because of the special effect on the dragons. They were really good, and in a few years, I might be doing the exact same thing. I only hope that any movies I work on fare better than this movie did.

Anyhoo ... I am heading to bed. Those kids just sap the strength from a person!

5 days and counting ...

And it would seem that I am building a nice circle of support. Meredith, of course, is the central pillar. We have talked long and hard about this before we started down this path, and she will be there through the entire process. I have people who are loaning me books so that I can get into practice drawing (thank you Mike and Hudson), and I have more and more people at work asking me about it. Also, Wendi at the school has been very supportative as well. Of course, it is her job to be, but it seems to be very sincere.

In other news, Meredith had to take a test today at work to get her LOMA certification, and she passed. This is the first of 10 tests that she needs to take for the certification, so she has 9 more to go. I will keep everyone posted on how that progresses. It is cool that she and I are both working to better ourselves. I will be a pillar for her as she has been a pillar for me.

Well ... I am gonna keep this short tonight. I have things to do and Meredith's family is having a reunion tomorrow and I will be taking some salt crusted potatoes for everyone to snack on. That should make one of the few remaining days go by quicker, I should think.

So ta-ta for right now ... I will write more tomorrow.