Heading to School

End of my 12th term

2010-12-15T13:40:00.004-06:00

Well, my 12th of 15 terms has ended. I will be graduating at the end of July of 2011 as long as nothing unforseen happens. This term I had classes in Earth Science, Creative Writing, and Level/Environment Design. I got B's in the first two classes, and I am still waiting for my grade back on my core class. The professor was absent most of the class. I am still missing grades from a few weeks ago.

This term was interesting for a few different reasons. First off, I think I enjoyed my Creative Writing class more than my core class. I came up with some pretty good stories and poems that I surprised myself. I have a few more ideas that I might jot down, so who knows what I might do with that. My core class was ... different. The professor, as I said, was absent most of the term. We went weeks without seeing him at the beginning of class, and he wrote us all an email apologizing saying that his personal life was having issues. He was back in class up until Thanksgiving, and then we've seen to have lost him again. Then, there was one week where I had issues exporting/importing my work from 3dsMax into the Unreal Development Kit. I followed the instructions given to me to the letter, and it just was not working. Even Meredith (who had never used either program before) sat down and tried the step-by-step instructions had the same issue. I wrote my professor as this was the first time in 2 1/2 years that I was actually going to be late turing in my homework, and I kept working on it. It was Wednesday, 3 days later, that I tried the exact same thing that I had been trying, and it decided to work. I HATE THAT! I have no clue what was wrong and how to fix it should it ever happen again! ARRRGGGHHH!!!! You can see screenshots of what I did at www.frankenstein13.com in the new Unreal Development Kit section I put up. The interior scene with the crane was all done by me, the modeling and textures and everything. The exterior, the models were provided to me by the tool itself, and I just laid everything out.

So, anyway ...

My next term I have Political Science (more like World Government), Career Management, and Special Effects for Games (WOOHOO!!!!!!!). I have already completed the first exercise in my core class book: creating a flaming ball o' fire. It is the first time that I have ever created a partical system, which is a major part of 3dsMax. Think of trying to animate a snow storm. The hard way would be to model and animate each snow flake. 3dsMax has tools inside of it that take care of it for you. I used a partical system to be the flames of the fire and the wind blowing the particals around.

Anyhoo ...

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year ... and a special shout out to my niece who will be having her birthday tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Sarah! Uncle David loves you!

11th Hour Changes

2010-10-07T09:13:00.003-06:00

I got some critiques before I submitted my homework, so I made some subtle changes. I added some blinks to General Lee's character when he mentions that he doesn't have his glasses, adding more character to him, as well as making him tap the map as to where he thinks a good place for the forces to be. I made General Longstreet flex his hand behind his back just to animate him more. And when Longstreet says the name of the town, "Gettysburg", I tried to make him look non-challant about it as at this point in history it is just another town.

Anyway, I got a 94.6 on the project which gave me an 89.5 for the class, so I am very happy. Here is what the professor ahd to say about it:

Great job David! A very entertaining scene, and your final pass gets two thumbs up from me :-) The incremental changes you made to the overall scene add to the quality of the movie (it's usually the subtle details which will really make a difference in the end). The lip-synching has improved, and even though it could still be more accurate (with the phonemes) it does a good job of conveying what the characters are saying. Expressions are quite solid as well. Adding eyebrows and eyelids to General Longstreet definitely solidified his contribution to the conversation. Before he was more of a distraction due to his expression. The characters do seem a tad stiff with their body motions, but that can probably be attributed to the current scene. I think the scene is quite strong!

YAY!

You can see the FINAL final here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUzpzVwsNew

Final Project: Term 11

2010-09-30T20:39:00.003-06:00

So here it is. I am turning this in for my final project this term. I do not have to turn it in for a few more days (Sunday), so give me your thoughts and opinions on it, things like lip synching and facial expressions and such. Be HONEST! (I am having problems uploading video, so I am trying to use YOUTUBE)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAAk9wgQtM8

Schnikeys!

2010-09-20T10:09:00.002-06:00

It has been two and a half months since I last posted! Yikes! Well, a ot has been going on since then, so let me clue you in.

So, term 10 ended with me getting 2 As and 1 B (the B being in my core class, Texture Mapping for Games). I have learned quite a bit about game engines, and they are really REALLY cool. The first thing I learned is how the engine can be used for things other than games, such as a virtual walk-through for a house. It made me think of an idea of modeling a house before and after a fire as a training tool for insurance agents. Well, guess what? They are currently working on that at State Farm. I spent an afternoon with the project leader of this program. She is anot a modeller, but everything passes through her. The modelling itself is done through an external company in Dublin called CANDO. Well, there are still other jobs in the Creative Services Department that look interesting, so I will wait and see what pops up. I could be a shoo-in for one particular job if I could teach myself a programing language called ActionScript2, which is an older version of the software that is currently available. The problem is that this doesn't hold my interest like modeling books do. I tend to be able to read only 2-3 pages on the ActionScript book and fall asleep ... LITERALLY! Modeling books I can read until I am ready to fall asleep and have to make myself stay awake.

So anyway ...

It is a new term that is almost over, and I currently have 2 As and a B again. And once again I have a B in my core class, Animation for Games. I had a massive meltdown in week 5, when my first project was due. It was 5 animations that I had to do over the course of 5 weeks, then export them from one program and then import them into another. With the project due on Sunday at Midnight, I got up early Saturday morning to do the final steps, exporting and importing. Well, my animations would not export. All 5 of them had the same model, and it was the model itself that was giving me issues, so it wasn't that the files were corrupt or anything so I could go back to previous saves. I was in panic mode when I went to work at 1:30. Fortunately it was the holiday weekend, and we were dead at work, and I got to leave 5 hours early. I spent most of the night trying to save what I could, and came up with nothing. I got up early the next day and cranked out 5 animations using a different model that I had tested and knew would export properly. By 6:00 in the evening, I had them all done, exported and imported, and I had verified that I had all of the correct files and file types all associated with animations all nicely compressed and uploaded to my professor. I even had a note explaining to him what had happened. I had checked at least 4 times for what I needed, so imagine my surprise when I saw my grade listed for the first project was an "F". It turns out that I had totally missed that there was a written portion to go along the animations, and I hadn't done it. With this "F" the best that I could get in the class would be a "C" and that was harsh for me to take. Meredith suggested that I go ahead and do the written portion anyway and submit it just so that I didn't leave anything incomplete and to show the professor that at least I could do it ... so I did. Well, the professor appreciated the effort and said that he wasn't here to fail me and understood the pressure of what happened, so he gave me full credit for it, and I ended up with a "B" for the project. YAY!!!

The current project that I am working on is animating a clip from the movie "Gettysburg", which happens to be one of my all time favorites. I am currently at what is called the "First Pass" stage where I have the basic movents and camera shots all set up, and then I will get to the lip synching this week. Hope you all like it!

Well this is cool ...

2010-07-07T10:21:00.002-06:00

I just discovered a link on one of my pages for school that shows my past grades. I know that I have listed them all as I got them, but there is just something that feels good about seeing them all in one place. So far I have 21 As and 4 Bs. How cool is that?

Anyway, that class I am taking this term are going well. Meredith is helping me through my Humanities class as I think I would have had a hard time reading Persuasion by myself. It seems way too much like my Art History class (with maybe a twist of lemon), though, which really bums me out. My Intro to Psych is going really well also and got to interview my sister-in-law who is also an INtro to Psych professor, and ended up getting a 100% on that paper, which happens to be one of the two biggest point scoring pieces in the class! Thank you Suzanne! My Texture Mapping for Games is still at an A right now, but I have don't my character yet. Just like in modeling, I am very comfortable with objects, be it modeling or texturing. Now I hit a character, I feel nervous. So ... I will keep you all informed on that.

Well ... Meredith and I did something huge theother day and we went out and bought our first car together. Her 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer was getting on her nerves, and she was tired of driving a stick, so ... we headed out at noon and got home at 8:30 with a 2010 Hyundai Tuscon. The color is called Iris, and it changes colors in the light. Really wierd. It does not have cruise control, which is ok, or a sun roof, which is something Mere really wanted, but is ok with, but it does come with satelite radio which is something she really really loves. She keeps telling me that it will be OUR car, and I roll my eyes at her and say "Ok, Babe ... you get up and go to work before me. Which car are you gonan take? The new one our my Taurus?" She responds with an "Ok, but you will drive it sometimes right?" Yeah, sure thing, Babe. I wonder if I even get to select one of the presets on the XM Radio? :-P

Mind Boggling

2010-06-06T14:11:00.002-06:00

So, I am finishing up week 2 of classes this term, and once again I am really enjoying my core class, but the other two are just mind boggling for me. My into to Psych feels like it is over my head (no pun intended), and for humanities, I am being forced to read "Persuasion" by Jane Austin. I cannot believe that people used to talk the way they did in this book. And the way that people behaved back then! ARRRGGGHHHHHH! I will also ahve to watcha movie called "Much Ado About Nothing," but thankfully Meredith loves this movie and said she will watch it with me. She is also reading "Persuasion" with me so that she can help me out. Aint she awesome?

For my core class, 3D Textures for games, I am being really challanged, and this is AWESOME! For my first week I had to take 2 pictures and recreate them using layers. The first layer would be the basic shape of the item, then shadows and highlighted areas, then color, then texture. I did ok on the firest picture, which was to be something weathered and beaten up, but did really well on something with a reflective surface. I feel that I did a really good job on that, and the professor even complimented me on taking on a tougher subject then most people chose. This week we had to take the picture supplied and replicate it to the best of our ability, mimicing the texture and the lighting/shadows. This was really tough. As I didn't have any Styrofoam to take a picture of and found nothing good on the web to use as a picture, I had to mimic it in Photoshop. I am anxious to see what kind of grade I get on that.

Anyway ...

Hope to see my brother and his family here in the next few weeks. Take care everyone!

I know, I know , I know ...

2010-05-19T05:11:00.002-06:00

It's been a while. My last post was ... well ...a long time ago. Right before this last term started, I believe. Truth to tell, it was a really boring term. Although I had a core class called Game Design Process, I really wanted something with modeling. Hence I started teh gothic cathedral project, but that fell through. The project had been translated, and some of the instructions were unclear. It as a cut and dry process of "Do A, then B, then C" with no explainations of why to do it, and when the translations came through, certain things were lsot, and I had to figure out what exactly they meant. Sometimes that meant giong a day or two and getting to a point that something I had done day back was wrong and starting over at certain points (thankfully I had multiple backups). I finally just gave up because of frustration when I found out that I am getting a new modeling class this term. But more on that later.

This last term I had three classes, and these were my final grades:

Ethical and Critical Thinking: 930/930 (100%)
Game Design Process: 1994/2300 (86.7%)
Communication Skills: 1256/1360 (92.35%)

Not too shabby, I think. That B in Game Deisgn bothers me a little, but I can get over it, I think. My next term has classes in Humanities, Intro to Psych, and Texture Mapping for Games. I am very excited about that last one as I will be using the Unreal Engine, which is the first game engine I will get to use. Very excited indeed.

Anyway .... will post more later.

Love you all!

100th post

2010-03-24T13:47:00.002-06:00

Who knew? This is actually my 100th post! I am half way through my schooling and I have made 100 notations about my journey. I am very pleased that no only have I stuck with it and have gotten good grades, but I have enjoyed it! I definately would like to thank all of my family and friends who have been very supportive this past year and a half, and know that you will be there for the next 18 months as well.

So ...

This term is already proving to be as slow as I feared it would be. To keep sharp on my modeling skills, I purchased a tutorial on building a gothic church. I am really enoying working with interiors. If I cannot get into a game company, then I would like to get into something that lets me model interiors. So anyway, this tutorial is very poorly written. It gives you step one, then goes to step 4 and you need to figure out steps 2 and 3. As my wife has pointed out, this is actually then a very good tutorial as it is making me look things up and try things out. I spent 12 hours getting up to one point only to have to start completely over.

Well ... here is what I have so far ...

And here is to the next 18 months!

Yah-HOO!

2010-03-10T02:27:00.003-06:00

The end of the term has come and gone, and I got 3 A's! In Intro to Physical science I had been at a B for the entire term, but brought myself up to an A- by getting a high A on my final exam. I also received solid A's in both my Human Relations class as well as my Intermediate 3D class. For my 3D class, this is what my professor had to say:

Hello David, It was a pleasure to have you in class this term. You seem to have a real knack for texturing and lighting...this might be your strength. The character is a good piece but the anatomy is too stylized. You might consider modeling and more proportional character for advanced 3-D. This would make for a better portfolio piece. Do keep this one as part of your portfolio but it would be difficult to add and a rig until you gain enough skill.

And here is what my final looked like.

He said it was "stylized", but in the class he also said that he wanted soemthing "cartoony". I think I would have tried to go more realistic had he not said that. Anyway, for a first attempt at making a character, I am happy with it. But as he said, I am doing great with lighting and textures (see the video below), and I really enjoy that aspect - making the virtual seem real. I am enjoying this so much, that I really won'tcare if I get into the game industry ... just as long as I can get a job modeling.

Anyhoo ... I am off for a week and half, and then back to the grind. I will continue to model and will post new things as I ge tthem done.

On one final note, I would also like to thank Professor Clever for all of his assistance over the past few terms. There have been nights that he and I have been up until the wee hours chatting about this and that, and he has pointed me in the right direction when I was lost. I know that I have not been happy with him at times and that I have complained about things that he had said, but ... any teacher that will spend that much time with me at those hours is a saint in my book. I seriously wish I had more teachers like him.

For Mom and Mike ...

2010-02-23T06:18:00.004-06:00

The way things ought to have been ...

Now that I have my new system, I went back and placed things back to the way they were before. Things are a bit sharper, the video is longer, and I now have my beautiful sunbeam back (woo-hoo!). Please note a few things with the sunbeam. First off, as we move through the beam, you can see different rays of light as it is being divided up by the breaks in the stained glass window. Also, a couple of times you will be able to see the different colors of light shining down on the pews below. One other thing to note is that when I do the fly-by on the pews near the end, you can see some of the detail of the oak leafs that I had beveled in the sides.

Much more gooder, I would say!

On a lesser note, I have received my class list for next term ...

Ethical and Critical Thinking (groan)
Communication Skills (yawn)
Game Design Process (WOOHOO!) -- this class will take me through game engines to show me how everything all comes together. This one shoud be exciting.

I do not have any modeling classes, but that will be something that I will be doing in my free time.

Tomorrow I have my Canada Licensing exam for work, and I am anxious to get that over and done with. We had 1 week of classes for it at work, and it is the second time I had to take the class because it has now been discovered that a few of us had been given the wrong exam. Although I do not really want to be placed in the Canada Queue as our rates in Canada are pretty high so our binds rates are really low there, I still want to pass to show that I can. The only thing that I can see that might be problematic is that I have a cold right now, so I need to have a good nights rest the night before.

Anyhoo ... let me all know what you think of the new video and effects.

Thanks again, Mom and Mike!

Yay for me!!!

2010-02-16T10:43:00.002-06:00

I got my grade back for my Art Deco Church. I got a 95%! W00T!!! He loved it but he said that some of the camera movement was jerky (which it was because I used angles insted of curves) and he felt that I needed to use more complex models. I am ok with that ... I still got a whopping 95! WoW!

Anyhoo ...I am now working on my character, and boy is that different. I am afraid that I might get something a lot lower than a 95 on him. It is much more complex than an object as you have preconceptions on how a character should look. If I told 10 people to envision a car, you would get 10 different pictures. Now ask them to envision Sonic the hedgehog, well, there is only one Sonic the Hedgehog. Even though I am making a unique character it is still trying to conform to my own imagination. Not very easy.

Well ... back to the grind.

Take care all.

And the verdict is in ...

2010-02-11T11:36:00.003-06:00

So, I just got a new compurer and have been in the process of moving files over and such. I have just taken a break to try and rerender my project just to see how fast my new system is. Well, what took 26-27 hours to render on my old system now takes ... only 9 hours!!!! YAY!!! So ... once I have the time to put my old project back to the way it was before, I plan on doing so and getting it rendered.

Thank you Mom and Mike!

sigh Well, here it is ...

2010-02-02T12:18:00.004-06:00

Herei s my first project forthis term for my Intermediate 3D Art class. I *sigh* because it is not as good as I wanted. I actualyl had it looking like something straight from a movie, with sharp crisp colors and detail, but ... when I went to go render my walk through (rendering being where I make a picture of each of the 600 steps it would take to walk around my church), the program crashed due to not enough memory (ram). The first thing I though was that the last item I had placed in my scene was what crashed it. It was some very nice atmospheric lighting coming down from the stained glass window up in the balcony, with shaded lights flowing down with it, but I decided to do some tweaking first to see if I could keep things together. Well ... I went to go renderit and it said it would take over 80 hours to render ... ACK!!! Well ... I decided that for the sake of a great project, I would let it go. I watched it render the first shot, and it went through, so I went to bed (did I mention it was 3 a.m.?). WHen I got up, I was very disappointed to find that it had crashed again ... on shot 2!!!. Arggggghhhh! 8hrs wasted! So ... I made a few more tweaks, this time taking out the beautiful atmospheric light I had, and it said it would render in about 70 hours. Not too bad ... but this time it crashed on shot 8! GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRR! Soooooo ... I had to tweak it even MORE, and finally ended up with this ... the colors are bland and washed out, and where it looked like a movie, it now looks like a video game.

The issue was that I have an older computer. Don't get me wrong ... it was great when I got it 3 years ago ... but computers become obselete in 2 years it seems. I have a Dell computer with an Athalon 2 processor, 225 gb hard drive, 256 mb video card, and 3 gigs of ram upgradable to 6. So ... as I really REALLY need a new computer to get my school work done, and get it done in a manner that is great and amazing ... my wife and I decided to get me a new computer. But (and there is ALWAYS a but ...) we do not get our bonuses until later on this month and at the end of May). Thankfully, my parents are loaning us the money (THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH) so that I can get me a new computer. I will be ordering an ASUS system that has an Athalon 7 processor, 9 gigs of ram upgradable to 24 gigs, a 1 tb hard drive, and a video card that has 856mb. This is awesome, but (ANOTHER but ...) the down side is that I need to order all new software again, because my software will only load onto one system :-(. This will be a long process and I hope to have everything up to spec and ready to go by the time my next term starts.

Once I get my new system and everything up to snuff ... the very first thing that I will do is get everything back up to the way it was before I started tweaking and put that beautiful light back ... and I will then render it and dedicate it to Mom and Mike for their help with this. For the time being, I hope that you enjoy what I have here.

I love you all and I thank you immensely for all of your support!

So many changes ....

2010-01-29T00:28:00.002-06:00

Well, I have gone back and looked at the starting blocks that I had laid for my church, and looked at a ton of screen shots that I had taken to where I have gotten myself to now, and I must say that modeling is not easy, especially if you are easily distracted by pretty colors and exciting designs. I have made so many changes to the walls, to the pews, to the textures, to the stylings, to the models, it just is not funny! I have found that if I make one change to the smallest of details, it can easily lead to me changing a whole lot more! It reminds me of a comis strip of Cathy I once saw ehre she bought some new placemats for her dining room, and then she needed new plates to match, and then new silverware, then a new table cloth, then a new table ... that is how it was with this. Well ... I now have some minor stuff to do, and then I can animate a walkthrough of it. Just adding 2 more doors, a few more pews, and the final lighting. WoW!

I'm sorry, Professor ... the program ate my homework.

2010-01-26T00:50:00.003-06:00

ACCCKKKKK! When I went to bed last night, I had saved everything that I had worked on all day, and was very proud of what I had done. I had basically done steps 1 2 3 4 5 and had saved each step along the way. When I got up this morning, it was like I only had steps 1 2 and 5. WTH?!?!? It will take me about 2hrs to reconstruct what I had. Well, I at least have screenshots of what I had done. Enjoy!

pew pew pew

2010-01-23T08:09:00.002-06:00

One of our cats, Pickles, like to sit in boxes whenever she can find one open. We always say that she isin her "spaceship" shooting down invaders and we often make "*pew* *pew* *pew*" noises when we see doing it.

Anyway, I wanted to post a close-up of the side of one of the pews I am working on so that you can see better the detail that I put on it. So, here it is!

Term 8

2010-01-22T14:01:00.003-06:00

Well, here it is, term 8. Halfway through this term will mark the official halfway point of my college education. The term has started of great, and so far in the first two weeks I have 100% in two of my classes (intermediate 3d art and human resources). The third (science), I think I might be too old for. The first experiment was rolling a marble down a ramp off of the kitchen table and marking where it made its initial impact. Crawling around on the floor and chasing that dang marble made my knees ache. Thankfully I had Pickles (my cat) to help chase the marble down. Unfortunately, she felt it needed to be batted around some more before giving it back to me.

So, for my core class, Intermediate 3d art, I have to model an building for my first project, and then a character of my choosing for the second. So, for the first project, I am modeling a church, using the art deco church that we have here in Bloomington as a model. My mentor at State Farm, Erwin, said that he will take a look at it when I am done but before I turn it in to give me some feed back, so I am excited about that. I am still laying things out, and will then need to go back and texture everything, and then put in realistic lighting as well. Here are some screen shots that I have so far.

Anyway ... I am more comfortable using the programs that I am learning as I found a great website that I have purchased some tutorials for. School is all well and good, but it seems that at times I am only getting just enough information to by and that I need to do a lot of research on my own. Oh well. I am still proud of the work that I am producing. I feel that once I am done with this church, it might be my first real portfolio piece.

Christmas Break

2009-12-28T11:01:00.002-06:00

So here it is, Christmas break, and I am eagerly awaiting once more for school to start. I find myself at times going to the school link and seeing if by some odd chance that school started early and I can get back into my routine. I will be starting term 8 of 15 on January 8th, and half-way through that term I will be officiallyhalfway through my schooling. It has gone by realy fast, feeling ike I had only started earlier in 2009. I know that I cannot wait for it to be done just to have my degree and to learn all that is coming up ... but also I dread it ending because I find it so exciting at times.

*sigh*

Oh well ...

This last term I got 2 A's (College Writing II and Cinematography) and 1 B (Sequential Drawing and Visual Narrative), the B coming from the professor that I had 3 times in a row, and that I only really appreciated him during my 3D Art and Animation class. Wellllllllllllllllll ... it turns out that I might have him for a 4th term in a row because next term I am going to be in an Intermediate 3d Art class. I will also have classes on Human Relations and General Science. I am very anxious to get my books because my General Science book comes with a Physics Kit ... whatever that might be. Of course, I am EXTREMELY anxious about my books and software for my 3d Art class ebcause I will be getting new software, which will basically be more tools for my tool box and I cannot wait to play around with them.

Work is being very stressful for me right now as I am having issues with my supervisor ... to a point that i had to go to two other supervisors to discuss them. They agree that they are valid issues and concerns are are getting HR involved. All the more reason that I want school to start so that I can bury my mind in a project or two.

Anyhoo ...

I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas. I hope that the New Year brings you all joy and happiness! Love you bunches!

Just an update on things ...

2009-11-28T08:04:00.003-06:00

Hi all ...

This term is feeling like it is going slower than the others. It seems like there is more work involved. I have A's in College Writing II and Cinematography, but have jsut slipped down to a B+ in my Sequential Drawing and Visual Narrative class. There is so much to know about storyboarding! Who knew? I normally have my class schedule for next term by now, but nothing new has been psoted yet. It may be because of the long break for Christmas. I will tlak to my advisor next week and see what he has to say. I also had a migraine last week and ended up in the ER over night. Thankfully I have my wonderful caring wife who takes care of me. We hada nice quiet Thanksgiving with mother and stepfather as well as a friend of mine from the next city over. Word tot he wise -- when ordering a precooked Thanksgiving dinner, ask if "precooked" means if the meal is warm and ready to be served when you pick it up, or if everything has been cooked, frozen, and needs to be reheated. Give you one guess what happened to us!

Something interesting Ihave been doing. I have been researching Game Companies to see see what they have for job openings, and to see if they have any internships or anything else that I might be able to do until I get out of school with my degree. I also noted where they are located. Meredith will be happy to note that there are about 3 of them so far that are located overseas in the UK, someplace that she and I both agreed would be fun to live. I included some notes that I jotted down for each. Here is what I have down so far:

Game Companies

Hiring Opportunities and Locations

11/27/2009

Nintendo – contracts out to a company in Redmonton, WA. Will only take local applicants. http://www.nintendo.com/corp/tester.jsp

Bioware – will only take local applicants in Austin, TX. https://jobs.ea.com/jobs/jobposting.aspx?refresh=1&postid=a0z50000000I9hS

SIDE NOTE: IGDA WEBSITE -- http://www.igda.org/qa

Atari Games – nothing listed for quality testing, but does have other jobs listed. http://www.atari.com/careers

Blizzard Games – offers multiple internships for different game titles, especially in 3d character modeling/animation. Located in California. https://blizzard.taleo.net/careersection/2/moresearch.ftl?lang=en&radius=1&jobfield=6160134073&portal=101430233&radiusType=K

Activision – offers internships/co-ops through accredited colleges. Will even pay for relocation. http://www.activision.com/index.html#careersen_UStype:university

SIDE NOTE – GAMASUTRA.com for listings

Gearbox Games – located in Plano, TX. Nothing listed for interns/co-ops. Nothing listed for quality testing. http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/jobs/

NC Soft – has locations in TX, WA, CA, and England. Has multiple job listings and types. Some quality testing and some internships. http://us.ncsoft.com/en/jobs/

Square Enix – located in CA. Has quality testing and must be local. Prefers someone who speaks Japanese. http://www.square-enix.com/na/careers/

THQ – has multiple job listings, some of them through Volition – Inc. http://recruiter.kenexa.com/thq/cc/CCJobSearchAction.ss;jsessionid=3204FDEC0E656BF896DB141C4537032E?command=CCSearchAll&ccid=bupJEdUjsTs%3D

Sega – has multiple job listings in multiple locations, but NOTHING listed for quality testing or internship. http://tbe.taleo.net/NA4/ats/careers/jobSearch.jsp?org=SEGAUSA&cws=1

Rainbow Studios – in Phoenix, AZ. Few jobs listed, nothing for quality testing or internship. http://www.rainbowstudios.com/employment/index.php

Capcom – does not have many jobs, but does have an internship. Located in San Mateo, CA. (WARNING – ask.com autofills San Mateo with COUNTY JAIL and COUNTY INMATES) http://www.capcom.com/us/?careers

Traveller’s Tales Games – located in Maidenhead, UK. Has multiple job listings including quality tester, but must be local. No interships listed. http://www.ttgames.com/jobs/

Ubisoft – programming jobs only. No internships or quality testing. BIZZARRE website. http://www.creatorsofemotion.com/home.php?param=en-us

505 Games – located in the UK. No career information listed.

So, anyway ... I have to finish getting ready for work. Next week I have 2 job shadowing opportunities with people in the standard tech areas of State Farm. I just wnat to keep my communications open with them in case anything falls through for me. I al have been keeping touch with Erwin. He tells me that State Farm jsut hired a person to work solely with 3dsMax. We are going to see if the 3 of us can set up a monthly meeting with each other.

Well, off to work!

Well this is exciting!

2009-11-06T01:18:00.002-06:00

It was an interesting day at work for me on Wednesday. I had signed up to attend some training, and it was supposed to start right away when my shift started. It was in the building next door, and when I got there, no one was there. I went back to my desk and quickly checked my schedule and saw that something was scheduled for me, but didn't take a long look because I was running late and had to run back to the other building. Still, no one was there. I got back to my desk, and the lady sitting across from me asked me if I was going to the Developmental Fair because she was and didn't realize that she was scheduled for it. Checking my schedule again, and sure enough, it was the fair I was scheduled for, and not the training. At the fair, I got to stop off of booths put up by other departments at work and see if there was any other department that interested me. Of course, I stopped by the Creative Services Department and got invited to Brown Bag Lunch-n-Learn that will give even more information about their department and give me a chance to network. One thing that Erwin told me about and they reinforced is that some of the jobs will require that I present a portfolio of my work. I haven't quite gotten to a point yet where I feel that any of my work is portfolio quality, but I am still working on it. I also got some information on both sides of the ITSS (Internal Technical Support Systems), and it was really exciting stuff. For starters, the people at the booth recognized me as the person who installed all of their computers over a year ago. The felt that I would fit in really well with them just from my experience as is. I told them that I didn't even have a degree or any certifications, and one guy laughed at me and said his degree was in agriculture. He suggested that I set up some job-shadow times and go sit with their groups and see if I could do it. The other exciting part is that there are two sides to ITSS, one for hardware and one for software, and for the software side the point of contact was someone I worked with for my entire time in the kiosk. I attended meetings with her so I have hopes that perhaps I might be able to get in on a developmental opportunity with her group, and possibly on full time (I am currently only part time, and making less than what I would make within adifferent part of the company). Meredith asked if I would be happy doing helpdesk sort of work, and I told her that if it meant full-time, having all of my evenings off with her, and getting paid more, I would be more than happy to do that for our little family.

So ...

My supervisor was not in on Wednesday, so I need to talk to her first before I can start communicating with these other people and see about setting up some job shadowing and such.

Keep your fingers crossed!

As for school, things are going great. In the first three weeks of this term I am at 97% or higher in all three of my classes. I am excited!

Anyway ... will write more later!

My visit with Erwin

2009-10-27T11:11:00.002-06:00

So today I talked to a member of the Creative Services team, his name is Erwin. He is the only person who uses 3dsMax, which is the tool that I am currently learning for school. This will most likely be my main tool, but as my instructor has mentioned, there are many programs out there and each one should be a tool in my tool box.

Erwin and I talked for about an hour about different things, different programs that he has used, and it turns out that 3dsMax is not used that much at all. State Farm is pretty much in the practice of hiring outside help to do their 3d animations. He mentioned that they have currently hired a company to make so many seconds of 3d animation and is paying them $150,000 to do it. Professor Clever had mentioned that freelancing can be a good way to go, but the downtime between jobs is what can pull you down. Erwin also mentioned that State Farm bounces back and forth between whether they want people for 3d work or not, and that maybe my skills would be better for Learning and Development instead of Creative Services. I do have skills with other programs that they use, such as Illustrator and Flash, and so I could try to get on there with those programs and continue to develop my 3d skills on my own after I am done with school. Maybe freelance a bit while I do that, but who knows?

Erwin told me that he had mentored someone before for a short period because she got in to Creative Services not long after he started mentoring her, so there was little left for him to mentor her on. He did give me a name of someone to talk to about mentoring, and I will follow up on that.

He did show me some of the things that he had worked on, such as a tornado simulation and at-fault simulators of vehicles. Those were pretty cool to look at. He said that the models were provided for him and he did the camera work. Still pretty cool stuff.

Over all, it was a very well spent hour. It has given me some leads to work on and made a friend. He said he will keep in touch with me and that I should start working on my portfolio, which is really great advice.

So, I gotta run ... gonna take care of some schoolwork.

Made the Dean's List again .... yay!

2009-10-25T23:58:00.002-06:00

Well, I cannot seem to lcoate the sheet that I had written down my grades, but it was all A's in my classes. I do remember for my final project in 3d animation that I had received an 88%. This really bummed me out for I felt that I made the changes as my professor had requested them. I still received an A for teh class, but it was disheartening because he gave my prelims rave reviews, stating that he wished everyone else was where I was at with their work. He was disappointed with the gag, saying that he didn't get it (the bottle flying at the bear). Meredith wondered if he had never seen any Disney cartoons, for the bottle behaved like the brooms in Fantasia. Oh well ... can't win them all, right?

So, this term is going along really well. In my first week, I recieved 100% in all three classes. I am slightly worried about my Writing class as I need to come up with a a 7-10 page research paper by the end of week 9, and I still ahven't picked a topic yet. Not even sure what I want to research at this time.

I am very excited about Tuesday, coming up. I have an appointment to meet with the only person at State Farm headquarters who uses 3dsMax (the software I am learning) and he will show me how he uses it there. If I am lucky, I might even be able to job shadow him for a day depending on how things work out. This could be my "In" to the Creative Services department.

So, that is it for now. More later!

The final draft

2009-10-01T20:32:00.003-06:00

Here it is, my final draft. I softened the light coming from the sconces, and lessened the reflection on the brass table base. I also added some more footage, and made the teddy bear's gait a little more swayed to add weight to his movements. I hope you all enjoy it.

My final ... a rough --

2009-09-24T01:24:00.003-06:00

Well, here is my final for my 3D animation class. It looks a little rough due to compressing the file down to size, but when I have to upload it to the school's server, I have to keep it small. So this is still my rough, but it is not due until next week. Hope you all like it!

To answer some questions from my brother, I have just completed my my 6th term out of 15. I will complete all of my classes in July of 2011. Hopefully by that time I will have a nice portfolio put together and can find a really decent job with this degree.

Anyway, it is time for bed.

Grades and Next Term

2009-09-21T13:29:00.002-06:00

Well, here it is in week8, and have 2 more weeks to go until I am done with Term #6 of 15. Wow. Where does the time go?

So, my grades so far are:

College Writing I: 466/500 (93.20%)
3D Modeling and Animation: 1102/1250 (88.16%)

College Algebra II: 663/730 (90.82%)

For my animation with the mouse, I got a 405/500, which really dropped my mid-A to a high-B. I don't mind much getting a B in my math or english class, but as this is the tool that I will be using in my newly chosen career, I want to do well with it. I do not agree much with his grade, as he docked me points because of the way I compressed it. As we never really went into great detail about compression, I used the same format as 98% as the people in the class used. Everyone but one person had large files that were uploaded that ranged in the 20mb-50mb range, and that last person had it down to less than 1mb. So, I now jsut have to work harder to get that grade back up to an A. The last project, which is worth onl 100 points, will be a teddy bear running across a floor and bumping into a glass table (see the attached picture). Why the last project is worth only 100 points and the midterm one was worth 500 is beyond me. After all, you know more at the end than you did at the beginning and know how to use it better, right?

Anyway ...

For next term I have three classes. One of them is my second English class. My other two are:

Cinematography
This course provides students with an overview of camera dynamics. Topics include camera placement and movement, scene composition, and lighting. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to analyze, identify, and apply cinematic elements in games.

Sequential Art and Visual Narrative
This course covers in depth the elements and techniques of sequential art. Topics include story boarding and scene layout, graphic arts publishing, pencil tests and animatics. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to create dynamic and effective narrative content for a variety of visual media.

Don't they sound exciting? I cannot wait for these class to start!!!

So, that's about it for right now.

Character Posing

2009-09-12T07:05:00.002-06:00

This week we took our first steps towards Character Modeling, and that was posing. We were given an already made character model, and were asked to pose it in 4 different manners that looked natural. I played around with it and turned in two sheets just for kicks and giggles. I am happy over all, but think that perhaps I could have done more witht he hands, especailly on the first sheet with the four poses. But I won't know until a week from Monday when I get my grades.

2009-09-08T10:48:00.003-06:00

So, here is my mouse project. I had to compress it and so the quality isn ot that great. You can still see everything pretty good except for maybe the fur detail. I am quite happy with my overall finished product. Out of about 12 of us, I think 3-4 people did a better job than me. Everyone else did as little as possible when it came to animating their mouse. They would move the entire mouse and not animate it at all so it looked like it was gliding or flying. I cannot wait until next week when I get my grade back for it and find out how I did.

Enjoy!

Alrighty, then ...

2009-09-03T17:08:00.004-06:00

Well, I have a new picture of my mouse. Pickles was finally cooperative and let me take some pictures of her fur. Also, here is a lesser quality rendering of my bounching ball. I hope you like it.

2009-09-03T13:38:00.002-06:00

Since I have posted, but I have been pretty busy. I am finding that I made the right choice in picking what I wanted to do in school as me 3D Character and Animation class is extremely exciting. And to think, I thought about going to school to be a chef!

So ... let me say that I am learn a LOT about 3D animation. I earned an interesting lesson the hard way the other day when I tried to render (or finalize) part of my project. I have to make a 30-60 second animation, and as a test, I thought I would render just a small part of it to see how long it would take. I sat at the computer for about an hour watching and waiting, reading a book, watching some more ... and after about an hour of thinking that surely it must almost be done ... it was only on frame 3! Yikes ... My project will be about 900 frames long, and after doing some quick math discovered that it will take about 2 weeks for it to render! OUCH! So, I was up until 3:30 A.M. reworking my mouse. It seems I had too many hairs on the lil guy. So at the current settings I have on him, my project will now render in ... 24hrs. Not TOO bad. If I leave his fur off, it will render in 3hrs. So now I have lots of choices to make. One of the choices that I have is trying to use a picture of fur instead of real fur. Let me tell you that Pickles was not being very cooperative with me when I tried to take some pictures of her fur up close.

Anyway, another thing that I had to do was animate a ball bouncing through a room. I am not quite done with it, but I will post it here for you to see. Not bad for my first try at 3D animation, huh? Erm ... it is too big to load here right now. I will have to try a few things.

I also redid the room that I first posted, trying to make it look more realistic.
Well ... Grades so far, although imcomplete (why do teachers take so long to post grades?!?!?), are as follows:
College Writing I: 157/170 (92.35)
3D Modeling and Animation: 369/380 (97.11)
College Algebra II: 209/230 (95%)
So, that is about it ... will post more when I have it!

My finsihed mouse and other things ...

2009-08-19T13:08:00.002-06:00

Well, no grades as of yet ... some teachers are taking their time. That's ok. I am enjoying my 3D class too much to care. I made a really stupid mistake with the mouse I was working on, so I had to start over. What did I do? Well ... When I made the head and wanted to render it so taht I could post its picture on my blog, I saved the .jpg and closed out the file ... not saving my work file at all. So when I went back to work on it some more, the work file was not there and all I ahve was a picture of what I had done. That is pretty much liek typing up a report, printing it out, and not saving what you had typed. When you went back to edit what you had done, you ended up having to type it all over again. Anyway, as you can tell, my newer mouse is looking much better than before!

Also, the next shot is of a recroom that I made. My first project is to animate the moue to run through the room to nibble on some cheese. So, we shall see how that turns out.

Anyway ... I am of too work! Take care everyone!

My first 3D work

2009-08-12T13:49:00.003-06:00

Hey all, I am now in my second week of my second term of my second year of school. I have no grades as of yet, but I have been working with the 3Dsmax software to do some 3D modeling. Nothing too exciting yet, but it's a start!

Anyhoo .. I need to keep it short so I can get to work. I will post more as I get things done.

Missed it by THAT much

2009-07-30T11:32:00.003-06:00

My final grades for this term were:

Advanced Drawing and Perspective for Games: 1139/1300 (87.62%)
Character Development Design : 4019/4385 (91.65%)

So I got a B and an A-, but I didn't make the Dean's List. As my brother Skip would tell me, they are great grades, and I should be happy for them. I am, and cannot wait to start the next term which is less than a week away.

I am happy to say that I am done with the first of three years, and it went by very quickly. At this rate, I feel like I should have my degree by next year! One can only wish, right?

Meredith and I had at one point talked about getting me a larger monitor than my current 20in flat panel. I have been toying around with the idea of moving my desk in the den to the wall that is shared by our living room because our 27 flat panel TV is right by the door. If I had a wireless mouse and keyboard, I would be able to sit on the couch and work from there after I swapped the monitor cable from the monitor to the TV. Just toying with the idea:-).

Speaking of Skip, he and his wife Suzanne have the most adorable little girl named Sarah. She is learning how to play the violin and the ballet. You can see her at his website at the following link http://pelorus.org/wordpress/

So ... that is it for this term. 5 down, 10 to go!

The final week of this term

2009-07-20T22:48:00.005-06:00

Well, here it is, week 9 of the final term of my first year. I have mixed emotions about it all. I am very happy and excited because it is one of three years down. I am bummed a bit because I am just finishing up my first class that I feel the teacher was really poor and that I might actually have him again next term with my very first 3D modeling class. I'll go more into this in just a minute ... first of all, my grades so far (keep in mind that we are now in week 9, but I only have grades up to week 7 in both classes):

Advanced Drawing and Perspective for Games : 913/1050 (86.95%)
Character Development Design : 2496/2725 (91.60%)

As you can see, I am pretty much into the lowest scores that I have received so far since I started school. This has me bummed out. Truth to tell, I blame the class layout and the instructor for my Advanced Drawing and Perspective for Games class. We were to turn in our rough drafts by the end of one week (Week A), and then turn in our finals the following week (Week B), but we would not get feed back from our instructor until the beginning of the week after that (Week C). It was because of this lapse that I missed out on some easy points, and my grade would be higher.

I know ... it is still a B, and I should be happy. I AM happy that I have a B. I am very happy that I am doing better in college then I did in high school. I am happy that I am doing something and having fun with it. I am bummed, though, because I had no control over it and it took some of my pleasure away.

Did I do anything about it? Others already had. They posted their displeasure about it in the discussion threads, and the teacher pretty much said that he was overwhelmed. I will have my say when I fill out the end of term survey. I get one for each class, and I will go into detail. Oh well.

Anyway ...

I apologize for the rant. I am hoping that everyone is doing great. My Aunt Karen from North Dakota came for a visit. Meredith and I had my mother and her over for dinner. Since that visit, Meredith has repainted the livingroom, and we have rearranged it. We made more open room because we intend to get a Nintendo Wii with a Wii Fit to try and get us into some shape. I am very proud to say that I have cut my soda consumption by 2/3. In about a month, I hope t be soda free.

So ...

With that being said, I need to head to bed. Tomorrow I need to get my hair cut, and finish up working on one of my final projects. It is due Wednesday, but I want to turn it in tomorrow.

Take care everyone!

Next terms classes

2009-06-27T21:24:00.002-06:00

I just confirmed my class schedule for next term. I have mixed feelings about it. I have three classes, and they are: College Algebra II (ACK!!!), College Writing (meh), and .... 3D Modelling and Animation (W00T!!!)!!!

Am I excited? Sure am! The first two I can do while I am at work. That should not be a problem. That will give me plenty of time to do my full class at home. The description of the 3D Modelling course ias as follows:

In this course students are introduced to 3D modeling and animation using industry relevant software.Topics covered include project development from initial concept to final production using lighting, camera angles, and textures. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to create and animate virtual objects in a 3D environment.

Doesn't that sound exciting?!?!?

I am so very anxious again to get this term over and done with and start on my next one!!!

Hades: High School Gym Teacher

2009-06-26T13:16:00.003-06:00

It is now week 5, and that means I am halfway throug this term. Once done with this term, it will be 1 year that I have completed out of 3! I am VERY excited about that.

My grades for this term so far are:

Advanced Drawing and Perspective for Games: 449/485 (92.58%)

Character Development Design: 575/609 (94.42%)

In my character design class, I have sparked an interesting discussion with my character turnaround for Hades, Greeek Lord of the Underworld. We were to take a mythological character or creature and redesign them any way we wanted. I thought it would be fun to take Hades and turn him into a gym teacher. As you can see, I made him on the hefty side. I thought it would be funny for one, and two -- what would be more torturous to students than to have the person who is trying to get them into shape be out of shape? The discussion is whether or not the chatacer is believable. Some people argue that it doesn't matter that Hades would be able to take any shape he wanted, that a gym teacher SHOULD be in shape, and so that is the end of it. Others have argued that they have had gym teachers that were out of shape, and it was hell having them make them do sit-ups while the teacher broke a sweat just watching them. It has been a very interesting discussion. Especially because some of the peoplpe arguing against the believability have their own renditions of Gods running around in power armor!

Anyway ... heading to work now.

Take care!

Samurai Bear

2009-06-17T13:00:00.003-06:00

So, I now have my grades back for week 2, with it now being week 4 of class. And they are as follows:

Advanced Drawing and Perspective for Games: 117/130 for a total of 244/260 (93.85%)

Character Development Design: 154/158 for a total of 358/375 (95.47%)

So, I am still hanging in there -- but things are still early. I am really not liking the perspective course, as e ven though I understand it and it's importance, it boogles my brain sometimes. I know that once I get into the computer aspect, I can always draw whatever I need or want on the system, and it can then be rotated to give me the perspective I need. On the flipside, and this is why I do need to do well in this class, is that sometimes it is quicker to get it hand drawn without using the computer, so ...

On I go.

Anyhoo ... here is a recent picture that I did for class, called Samurai Bear. I had to take a classic character archtype (villain, hero, sidekick, comic relief, and so forth), draw something that fits, and then redraw it a second time as if it were a different arachtype. So I drew a polar bear as an animal sidekick, and then drew him again as an anthropromorphic Samurai. I received a 48/50 for it, because I didn't have enough emotion or expression showing on his face, which wasn't enough to tell a story or what he was thinking.

Oh well.

Enjoying school!

2009-06-12T13:35:00.002-06:00

Hey all ... this term is certainly pretty interesting, if nothing else. Both of my classes are focusing on drawings, so they can be very time consuming. As it stands, After teh first week, I have "A"s in both of my classes, and still an "A" in one class, and unknown in the second. I seem to have one teacher who gets the previo9us weeks grades up withn a day or two, and the other who posts them at the very last minute, or even a day late. ARRRGGGGGG!!!

One thing that I have done so far this term is to create a character from scribbles. Basically, using MS Paint (found under Accessories in the Start Menu) I made a bunch of random circles, squares, lines, and scribbles, and then made a mirror image of it and see if I can spot anything to work with. The picture shown is one that I came up with. Looks like some sort of insectoid head in a hood, doesn't it?

Anyway ... my first project in this course is to take a mytholical character or monster and redesign it. Put them into some sort of different role. My intention for this project is to take Hades, Greek God of the Underworld, and turn him into a high school gym teacher. Give him tight gym shorts, short sleeve shirt, whistle around his neck, and shades. Should look pretty good once I am done.

Anyway ...

Work is keeping my busy. I took my Canada licensing exam about 2 weeks ago, and I score a 25% out of 100 questions. Seems that 3 of us had that happen to us. I studied long and hard for that test, and even if i was to walk in off teh street and take that test without studying, I could have scored 25%. So upper management is trying to fight this, thinking we were given the wrong test to the listed answer key, and we will see what happens. Worst case is that I will n eed to retake the test, but if I fail, I will need to pay the $150 for it. I really do not want to retake it, especially because it is no longer fresh in my mind. And it will jsut mean having to restudy and devote time to it that I much rather devote to school and Meredith.

So ...

That is about how things have been here lately. Hope all is well with all of you everywhere else!

Back on the Dean's List!

2009-05-20T06:20:00.003-06:00

Just received my final grades:

Life Drawing for Aninmation: 7107/7710 (92.18%)
College Algerbra I: 1052/1160 (90.69%)
Game Analysis and Playability: 1228/1250 (98.24%)

3 "A"s!! Woot! I feel great that I made it back onto the Dean's List, as I feel that I am giving it my all. One thing that my stepfather always tried to get across to me is not to do anything half-assed, with I feel that I did a lot as I was growing up (and maybe still do every so often). I don't feel that I gave it my best shot the first time I tried college 20 years ago, and so I am now giving it my all (witht he support of a wonderful wife), and setting high goals that I want to make. I see that I am not only getting good grades, but am making progress with my ability as well. I am really eager to get into the 3D side of the art work, but that will jsut take some patience. Best learn how to walk before I can run.

Love you all!!! See you next term (1 week from today!)

Heading into the final week ...

2009-05-16T21:57:00.002-06:00

Well, here it is, the final week of this term, and these are my grades:

Life Drawing for Animation: 5602/6015 (93.13%)

College Algebra I: 772/830 (93.01%)

Game Analysis and Playability: 1056/1075 (98.23%)

In this final week, for me to maintain my "A" in each class, the breakdown for what the week is worth versus what the minimum I will need is as follows:

Life Drawing for Animation: Worth - 1695; Need - 1337

College Algbra I: Worth - 330; Need - 272

Game Analysis and Playability: Worth - 175; Need - 69

I feel fairly confident that I have gotten an "A" in both ym art class and my game class. I am worried about my math class, but will be happy to even get a "B". Over all, it looks like I made it back onto the Dean's List which makes me happy.

I have put up here my character sheet that I turned in for my final in this art class. Looking back to my first term character sheet, I see that I have made improvements. I feel that I have not yet made it to a point that I have something that is portfolio worthy, but ... I do feel that I am on the right path to getting there. I am putting up my first term character sheet to show the difference.

Any thoughts?

2009-05-06T13:41:00.002-06:00

So, one thing that was suggested was that I ditch the mask, and try some other approaches. Here is what I came up with. Any thoughts on what Frankenstein XIII's head should look like?

Some really good feedback ...

2009-05-02T23:11:00.002-06:00

In my art class this term, we have to come up with a character and make a more advanced character sheet than before. To do a study of the character, as it were. Of course, we had to write a backstory for the character, and this is what I submitted:

Frankenstein XIII

Victor von Frankenstein actually lived and had created a monster. Contrary to what popular fiction would have you believe, he and his creation did not die. The monster survived with minor injuries, while Victor suffered major bodily trauma. Through the use of his notes, the followers of the baron’s research have kept his brain alive in a jar for the past two centuries. With the aid of his followers, the baron has made 12 attempts at making a creation that remains stable and controllable. Most of these attempts resemble human beings. The others incorporated the use of animal parts to enhance the possible combat factors. Unfortunately, each attempt was a failure. Each creation was lacking in some shape or form. While some showed promise in being controllable, they lacked in other areas such as speed, coordination, or intelligence. And those that excelled in physical traits became hard to control and exhibited psychopathic tendencies.

It is the year 2012, and Victor is ready to make his thirteenth attempt at making a controllable monster that will be the ultimate being. Using the body of a gigantic Mongol that was captured in the Himalayas, Victor’s followers place the brain of a captured navy Seal inside. This works out to be the perfect combination, but the Navy Seal rebels against the cult that created the abomination that he has become. Using the combined strength of the Mongol with his own combat training, he escapes and starts making his way back home. To bring back his finest creation, Victor has released the previous twelve creations to hunt him down.

And this is what my professor responded with:

David...this is the finest work yet, for this class. I really love your story. Siskel and Ebert would give this thumbs up! Consider copyrighting this. Not only did you breath life into an old classic, you gave it lead off branches to the four corners of the earth, so to speak. Also, to the careful observer you garnished this with some backdrop depth of symbolism - by using the number 12. Whether that was intentional, it works:)

So ... I am hoping that next term in my Chracter Creation class that I can really flesh Frankie out more and get something more solid that maybe I can get a copyright. I have an email out to my professor asking for more information on the process as to what I would need to have solid before such a thing. Will just have to wait and see how it goes.

As for my grades:

Life Drawing for Animation: 4209/4540 (92.71%)
College Algebra I: 644/690 (93.33%)
Game Analysis and Playability: 747/765 (97.65%)

So, over all, still going strong. I hope to make the Dean's List again. I am currently at a 93.41% for this term, so that is still a pretty good "A".

Anyhoo ...

Have two more weeks to good for this term. Meredith will be gone to Florida for my last week. She will be helping her mother and grandmother pack up the grandmothers belonging so that she can move to Cincinnati to live with her parents. I will miss her dearly.

That is it for now. I hope you all ahve a great Cinco De Mayo!

A paper I wrote (with Meredith's help)

2009-04-26T22:26:00.002-06:00

I had to write a paper about a game that came out in the the 1990's, and why it was enjoyable to play. Here it is:

Final Fantasy VII
“The RPG by which all others are to be measured” – IGN Staff

In 1987 when Hironobu Sakaguchi created the game “Final Fantasy”, he had no idea that 10 years later he would be instrumental in releasing what is arguably the best role playing game of all time. For its time, Final Fantasy had the best graphics available. The game play was on a level that had not been seen before. And the story had people in tears.

Both the story and back story of Final Fantasy VII is profound and multi-faceted. The plot is varied with aspects reminiscent of “Dune”, “Frankenstein”, and “Godzilla”. (Kesavin) The game takes place in a futuristic world on a planet called “Gaia”, referred to as just “The Planet”. The Planet is ruled by the Shinra Electric Power Company, an unscrupulous entity that holds the population in a grip of terror.

There are 9 playable characters, each with their own unique and engaging back story. Some of the best characters include Cloud Strife, a member of SOLDIER, the elite fighting force for Shinra; Barrett Wallace, who leads the resistance force of AVALANCHE against Shinra; Tifa Lockhart, a childhood friend of Cloud’s and a member of AVALANCHE; and Aeris Gainsburough, a simple flower merchant. (Williams) The greatness of the characters provides a realistic dimension that no other game has been able to match.

Part of what makes Final Fantasy VII an excellent game is that the player can take on side quests that further the back stories of the characters themselves, but have no effect on the main storyline. A player can complete the game without doing the side quests, but in my opinion they would be robbing themselves of some of the most excellent writing and storytelling.

At the start of the game it seems that the main protagonist of the story is Shinra Corporation, but through twists and turns we learn that it is actually Sephiroth. Sephiroth is the hero to Cloud and the long lost leader of SOLDIER. (Williams) His goal is to be revered as a god and will stop at nothing to reach that goal. During the course of the game he kills one of the main characters. This cut scene is one of the most talked about cut scenes of all time. This act alone makes the game stand out from previous games of this type and certainly from the other Final Fantasy games.

As an extremely immersive role playing game, there are no levels to conquer; instead, like the original game from 10 years earlier there are expansive areas to explore. Most areas are not accessible to the player until certain criteria are met, such as discovering an airship or a submarine. Each area gets progressively harder than the previous area. In a fairly new twist to immersive role playing games, players are allowed to go back to areas that they had previously explored. What truly adds to the richness of the game is that each area stands out from the others. For example, when exploring the Shinra Corporation, the player can sense the “industrialization” of the scene expressed through both colors and sounds. When entering the jungle areas, the scene is quite different with bright colors and birds in the background.

The graphics for this game are simply fantastic. Many of the locals are static and hand drawn. Also, the 16 different summon monster spells each have their own cut scenes, such as the “Leviathan” spell. This spell was on the demo disk, and this “sneak peek” is believed this scene provided the high demand for the game. (Boor) The graphics stand out even further when the game switches to the unique combat system. Each player and weapon has a distinct look to be equipped for every attack. Each time a character updates a weapon, the graphics show the change during combat. When a character learns a new attack, the animation during combat changes to reflect this. Prior to Final Fantasy VII, animation change was never seen.

There is also a fantastic soundtrack to the game, composed by Nobuo Uematsu. (Kesavin) Nobuo is also the composer of the original Final Fantasy game from 10 years ago. As mentioned earlier, one of the main characters is murdered by Sephiroth, and one cannot help but to get teary eyed as the mournful music plays in the background. During combat, each attack has a distinct sound, and the monster summoning spells really come to life with their own sounds and soundtrack.

The game play really grabs the players and gives a never before seen control over each character’s development. Weapons can be upgraded and made more powerful with different colored crystals called “materia”. “Materia” crystals can be mixed, and depending upon what colors are used, special abilities are given to the characters. Combat itself is menu driven and simple to use. Navigating the open world was even more simple. Even the side games have quick little instruction snippets that instruct the player. Over all, it is an expansive game that is simple to play.

The artificial intelligence from the original Final Fantasy has been greatly improved in VII. Nothing seems senseless or useless. In the original game the AI “silences” players (prevents them from casting spells or using abilities) that have no ability to cast spells. As each player has special abilities they all can be “silenced”. If a player relies too heavily upon one character for their special ability the game “silenced” that character. Attacks are still pretty random, though, without the monsters trying to single out the healers or any other specific character. The game would have been much harder had specific characters been targeted by the AI.

The ultimate goal is to stop Sephiroth. That is the “win” condition of the game. Even if you do this, the player still feels a sense of loss at the death of one of the main characters. There is an actual “lose” scenario written into the game and can be seen if everyone in the party dies during combat. If you play like I do with frequent saves, this is not a problem because one can go back to the last save point. All characters seemed to die during the big “boss” battles which made the save points especially important.

Many would argue that “Final Fantasy VII” is the best RPG game available. Definitely “the most shocking moment in video game history” (Gouskos) occurs when Sephiroth kills one of the characters. Today the graphics still look good. When the game debuted, the graphics were amazing. The game play, the combat system with the addition of the “material” components and the monster summoning spells made this a game to be remembered for all time. Is it worth all of the attention and praise that it has received, including spin-off games and a feature length movie? Many players including myself think that the attention and praise is deserved.

Works Cited
Boor, J. (n.d.). Game Details for Final Fantasy VII. Retrieved 04 15, 2009, from IGN Entertainment Games: http://psx.ign.com/articles/150/150494p1.html
Gouskos, C. (n.d.). Greatest Games of All Time. Retrieved 04 15, 09, from Game Spot: http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6155700/index.html
Kesavin, G. (n.d.). Final Fantasy VII Review. Retrieved 04 16, 2009, from Gamespot: http://www.gamespot.com/ps/rpg/finalfantasy7/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review
Williams, S. (n.d.). Final Fantasy VII - Characters. Retrieved 4 17, 2009, from RPG Gamer: http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/text/char/ff7char.html
Sakaguchi, Hironobu. "Final Fantasy VII", video game, 1997

3 more weeks to go ...

2009-04-26T22:13:00.002-06:00

And then this term will be done. I am still waiting for a grade from my art class back from week 4, but it seems so are a lot of people.

Life Drawing for Animation: 3236/3522 (91.88%)

College Algebra I: 590/620 (95.16%)

Game Analysis and Playability: 548/560 (97.86%)

Doing good! As a matter of fact, for my Algebra Mid term, I got a 290/300 ... I would have aced it, but I fat-fingered a "9" for a "6".

The picture I have posted is an "environment" picture. Here is what my professor had to say about it:

This is pretty solid work overall. You demonstrate a good understanding of informal composition. You also understand perspective. More refined shading would have put this over the top.

Shading always seems to be my downfall. It will definately be something that I will be working on in the future. I either leave out the shading, or it looks unnatural. So ... practice makes perfect, right?

Also ... I have my class schedule for next term. I will be taking two classes, and they are:

Advanced Drawing and Perspective for Games

In this course students will build upon their traditional drawing skills and apply them to the design of vehicles, environments, and props. Topics covered will include the techniques and materials relevant to generating game design concepts. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to develop final concept art for 3D environments, vehicles, and props.

Character Development and Design

This course will prepare students to create characters with personality. Students will design a character from scratch and carry the process through to the level of detail expected in the animation industry. Topics include brainstorming ideas, elements of character, expression, facial anatomy, ethnicity, poses, costume, accessories and human psychology. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to take a character development project from its conceptual stage to a final end product.

These classes look pretty interesting. Once again I am anxious for these to start so I can see what they are and how they will play out. I am loving school, and as much as I cannot wait to get it over with and move on to a better life with Mere and the kitties, I am really enjoying myself.

So ... that is it for now. I'll be posting one of my reports here, probably, just to show some of the writing I had to do this term.

Take care everyone!

Where has the time gone?

2009-04-12T14:37:00.002-06:00

Wow. Here it is week 3 in my 4th term, and I haven't posted in sucha long time. Truth to tell, i've had a few migraines and ended up in the ER once again. The meds that I have been on have not helped, and the only had negative side affects on me. Mostly, I was irritable and got angry really easily, which I was told AFTER I hadbeen taking these pills that it was a possibility that this would happen. Great! So they now have me on something else now, which has a small chance of playing havok with my liver, so I a have to be tested ever 3 months to make certain that it is ok. My neurologist says that finding something that will prevent the migraines is hard because I have them so far apart. It is the severity that has him worried. My stepfather thinks I need to have something that tells doctors in the ER that I am having am igraine, not a stroke or am on drugs, and just treat the migraine as they normally would. My arguement against that is that what if I AM having a stroke, and they treat me for a migraine, as they symptoms are pretty close? Great!

Anyhoo ...

My grades so far are:

Life Drawing for Animation: 1855/1948 (95.23%)
College Algebra I: 210/220 (95.45%)
Game Analysis and Playability: 264/275 (96%)

So I am doing pretty good right now. I really enjoy the Game Analysis and Playability course. We ahve jsut formed teams and will be picking a game that is not doing so well and relaunch it ... or basically come up with ideas that would have made the game do better when it first came out. There are 7 people on the team, and there are about 4 of us that are doing all of the work, with the other 3 practically being no shows. The professor is aware of this and said this is our real world experience. So ... the game our team chose is "The Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures." It is an online game so we have a social aspect to deal with, as well as we can all hop on at the same time and try out group things together as well. We just need our professor to approve the title now, and we will be good.

So ...

The job is going well, and it has its ups and downs. I really do not like the amount of time that Meredith and I are apart, but it does give me plenty of time to get my homework done. Also, some of teh customer can be downright nasty. They are calling me to run a quote on their automobile insurance and sometimes lie about accidents and tickets hoping to get a better quote. Once we run our reports and find out that they werelieing, they get upset at US. They are the ones with the accidents and tickets, and it was our time that they wasted. Go figure.

Well ... that's it for right now. It's Easter and the wife and I are gonna spend some quality time together. I hope that you are all well and good and safe.

Love you all!

Final Grades for Term 3

2009-03-15T19:33:00.003-06:00

Digital Illustration: 2225/2400 (92.71%) -- Final Project 625/700

Color Theory: 2789/3265 (85.42%) -- Final Project 960/1280

*sigh*

My first "B" -- made the Dean's List my first two terms, and then lost it on the third. Kinda bummed, but as Meredith says: It is still above average.

True, but I really did not like the way teh class was ran. When we got our quizzes back, none of the questions we got wrong showed wha tthe correct answer was. Furthermore, with only two huge scoring projects, it was impossible to bring your grades up when all of the other assignments scored very little. And then on my final project, I only got two sentences worth of critique fromteh professor explaining my grade. It was as if he didn't care. Oh well ... I did my project really more jsut for fun anyway, and maybe make something special for my mother. She liked it, and that is what is important to me.

Oh well. My professor in Digital Theory gave me a huge paragraph explaining how things could have been better, so I fell pretty good about that.

I am really excited about school starting again, which will be on this coming Wednesday. I am curious to see how my Algebra class will be ran, especially the discussion side of things - "No, really ... prime numbers are signs from God that math can be fun!"

Anyhoo ... the pictures are from my Color Theory Final Project that I had to come up with a mock-up of a website and some banners and brochures for an event. I did a fictional garden-walk for my mother and her sister who live in two different states.

Talk to you all again soon!

Final Num-nums Draft

2009-03-04T14:30:00.003-06:00

After getting feedback, and having to do the rest of the assignment, here is my final work for my Digital Illustration class. The bottom one is the packaging design (a treat pouch that only has 2 sides), then a marketing poster up above it (tried to make it look like a movie poster), and finally an advertising floor cling (the idea is to leave a trail of them leading up to the display).

Hope you like them!

Still waiting for grades, and ... NUM-NUMS!

2009-03-01T23:04:00.003-06:00

My teachers are supposed to ahve our grades posted by Sunday, but alas I am still waiting for mine. Oh well.

I wanted to post my rough draft for my final project for my Illustration class. I had to come up with a fictional product and make a package for it. As we have cats and get treats for them in pouches, I decided to make a new cat treat and designed a pouch. So ... here it is! I will probably need to rework one or two items, but this should be pretty close to my final product.

Let me know what you all think!

A little glimpse ...

2009-02-28T08:12:00.002-06:00

I am still working on my final project for Color Theory, which is to do a full spread on any event, real or fictional. A full spread is 3 pamphlets, a banner, and a webpage mock-up. I am doing a fictional gardenwalk that my mother and her sister who live in 2 different states would host simultaneously. The idea would be that they would have photo displays of each other's garden set up so that people could view the other garden in a different state as they walked through. Here is a picture of the banner that I made. The colors are sampled directly from photos of the flowers that are on display (the ones farthest to the left in the photo banners). I have the pamphlets done, and jsut need to to do the mock-up next.

A little Andy Warhol

2009-02-24T22:13:00.002-06:00

I am a bit bummed that my Color Theory teacher only gav eme 90 out of 100 for my Audrey Hepburn picture. He said I could have used my colors better. ARRRGHH! Well, let's see how I do on this assignment: it is to be a self portrait and used colors that express our emotions. We had to write up what those emotions are, so -- I did an Andy Warhol type collage expressing how I feel/felt about migraines. Meredith read the short description and was bothered by it, and I would liek to say that it was not easy growing up with them -- for me or the people around me. I thank them all greatly, for it had to be as hard on my family as it was for me. I will always love them for all that they endured -- family past and family present (that goes double for Meredith!).

Portrait of a Migraine
Ever since I have been 2 years old, I have suffered from debilitating migraines. Sometimes they start off with wavy spots and lines before my eyes, or a tingling sensation in my extremities. Sometimes there is vomiting involves, and always there is massive pain around the eyes and in the head. The pain intensifies in direct relation to the amount of light that I am exposed to. A lot of times I get very confused and cannot verbally communicate, and this earns me a trip the emergency room, and sometimes a hospital stay. I am now 40, and on average suffer 2-4 migraines a year. This is how I see my migraines.

The first picture in the upper left with the reds, yellows, and blues is a total capture of one of my migraines. The yellow is the bright light that I become acutely sensitive to, causing me massive amounts of pain and suffering. The red is the manifestation of that pain as it permeates my head. The blue is the emotion that I feel, a depression that once again I am going to feel miserable and in great pain.

The second picture represents my hidden thoughts about the way I feel about myself and the migraines that are a part of me. As I went through elementary and high school, a migraine could be triggered by anything, even a bump on the head. Because of this, I was not allowed to play in sports, had to attend a special gym glass, regular camps would not accept me, and it all made me feel like an outcast. It was very depressing because this was a major sign of weakness, and I was the target of many bullies. I feel that I only had one true friend back then who understood what I was going through, but it was not enough to keep me from feeling lonely. The depression was to the point that at times I had considered suicide, but did not have the strength to follow through. The blue is for that depression, with the yellow being my cowardice and shame at the thoughts of suicide.

The third picture with the red and green is how I was made to feel by the rest of the world because of my migraines. There were times when I literally felt like the Joker character from the Batman comics. When I was at school and started to get a migraine, there were times I was told to go lay down in the hallway and wait for my parents to pick me up. As I would lie there, students going to lunch or gym would be paraded past me, all looking and pointing at me, not understanding my plight. To them, I was a freak. The color scheme itself represents me feeling like that freak, but the colors mean other things individually. The green represents the envy that I felt towards the other children who did not suffer the way that I did, that led normal lives. The red is for the anger that I felt, not at them, but at myself for being so different. Even to this day, I still feel a bit of that anger, especially after being in the hospital and wonder “What did I do to deserve this?”

The final picture goes through the steps of a migraine as I perceive it. The squiggles and the lines are what I see when a migraine starts to attack me. The yellows and the whites are the bright lights that will be my antagonist for the next several hours. The red is the intense pain that will pound against my head. Green represents the illness itself, and the orange represents how I feel different from the rest of the world.

A little help ...

2009-02-24T00:06:00.002-06:00

I had a person at work "hire" me to make a logo for her. It was nothing too serious, just needed what you see here. She asked me what the name of my company was for her paperwork that she needed to turn in, and so I have been thinking about it for a few days now. At first, I was thinking along the lines of "Mad Scientist Graphic Design" or "Evil Genius Graphic Design" because of what I want to do with Frankenstein XIII. Meredith on the other hand was thinking about Taking the first two letters of my first and last name, and that became "DaMo Graphic Design." I shot that down real quick because 1) my sister's nickname is "CaMo" for the same reason, and I wanted my own name, and 2) what the heck kidn of graphic would you make for a "DaMo"? I then realized that using the first two letters of each of our names (DAvid and MEredith), you get "Dame", which is slang for "woman". but is defined as the wife of a knight. So at work tonight I was tossing around ideas and was thinking of some nice fonts (ones that kind of flowed and had some nice curves to them), and thatthe name could be "The Classy Dame Graphic Design Company". I could then have a mascot (a classy looking dame) sitting on the "D" in "Dame" ... be it on top of the "D" or inside of it ... or maybe even standing with her back to the spine of it.

Anyhoo ... that was just something I was tossing around. I would like to have a side business to do stuff like this, and to get my name out there. This way when I finally do get to go to a Game Designer's Conference, I will have a nice portfolio and a list of accomplishments that I can show to potential employers. Not to mention a little extra cash would be nice.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Classes for next term

2009-02-19T22:19:00.002-06:00

I know I jsut posted, but I jsut found out that my next term's schedule is up. I will be taking:

Life Drawing for Animation (7 credits)
This course covers advanced drawing concepts as they relate to character modeling and animation.Topics include basic human anatomy and form as it relates to the surrounding environment, spatial relationships and introductory sculpting techniques. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to effectively capture and develop gestures and motion in various media (pencil, pen, watercolor, clay, and sculpey) for use in 2D and 3D animation.

Game Analysis and Playability (4 credits)
This course introduces students to the concepts behind the development of games, conceptual reflection, genres, and the determination of what actually defines a game’s playability. During this course, students will play games, investigate code or sample aspects of existing games, and document and critique the effectiveness, efficiency, and aesthetic qualities of the sample games. Upon completion of this course, students should have played several games and documented the playability by critically analyzing the graphics, sound, artificial intelligence, and intended audience.

And I will be taking a course in Algebra (3 credits) as well. All sounds exciting ... especially the Game Analysis. I'll keep you all posted on how that goes!

Grades for Week 5, a new picture, and a migraine

2009-02-19T21:47:00.003-06:00

My apologies for being late with my grades this week. One of my two teachers seems to like and wait until Sunday to post grades. That is somewhat annoying. Added to it that Meredith and I went to a nice hotel for our anniversary (3rd), and then had teh strangest of migraines on Wednesday night. It was as if the migraines was having problems starting up. I was at work and I was reading a book when I started to get the spot in my eye. I looked up and the spot tracked, and so I was going to leave when it went away. I decided to stay. I went on break a little later, and got a massive headache that almost made me fall over, but instantly went away. When I went on lunch, my entire leg went numb in an instant and so I went home and went to bed. That was the worst of it and slept through the night. I have been to teh doctor, and he feels that I suffer from migralepsy ... migraines triggered by a form of epilepsy. He has put me on Keppra, which is an anti-seizure medicine. So ... let's see how that works out for us.

Anyhoo ... my grades are:

Digital Illustration: 587/630 for a total of 1036/1100 (94.18%)

Color Theory: 151/155 for a total of 1349/1475 (91.46%)

My comic book cover got a B (87.5%) because I could have shaded more, and I accept that. The new picture that I have up I had to do for Color Theory. It is Audrey Hepburn. I ahd to take a black and white photo and paint it with one color and any shades of it to try and express the emotion of the picture. Purple is considered teh color of royalty, nobility, and is often considered to be an erotic color, and I felt that it best described Audrey. Hope you like it!

Grades for Week 5

2009-02-10T22:06:00.002-06:00

I am sorry that I did not post this last week, but I had a trip to the hospital for a massive migraine. I am feeling much better now, but it was one of the worst two migraines I have ever had. I ended up with an MRI, a spinal tap, 3 shots for nausea, blood tests, and who knows what else. I will be seeing a neurologist next week and will see if there is anything new out there for me.

Anyhoo ...

Digital Illustration: 83/90 for a total of 449/470 (95.53%)

Color Theory: 703/795 for a total of 1198/1320 (90.76%)

I took a hit in my Color Theory class because my report was too short. He liked the colors I used for the "Jaws" movie poster and liked my ideas in my report, it was jsut too short. Oh well. I can still pull an "A" out of the class.

The picture that I have up was my first project in Digital Illustration. We had to come up with a comic book cover with a super-hero of our own creation. So ... here is my first incarnation of Frankie!

An interesting assignment

2009-02-04T13:21:00.003-06:00

In color theory class this week we had to do a painting of something nature related using as true a color as we could. So, as my mother is a master gardener and has a buku load of flowers in her garden, I used one of her photos from my assignment. It took me about 8 hours to paint using the tablet that my wife got me for my birthday (I love all three ... my wife, my mother and my tablet!)

Another week done ...

2009-01-29T21:07:00.003-06:00

Another week done and now into week 4. Almost halfway done with the new term. I am still enjoying it all very immensely, and even got to give my new tablet a huge workout on this week's assignment. I had to make a picture completely of colored dots, and the dots are supposed to "mix" in the picture to give you the different colors. So ... can you tell what it is? And how well do the dots mix for the colors?

Anyway ... for my grades for last week --

Digital Illustration: 149/150 for a total of 366/380 (96.32%)
Color Theory: 131/155 for a total of 495/525 (94.29%)

Still going strong!

I am really enjoying my school work and the way that the school itself works. I have talked to many different people outside of school telling them how excited and thrilled I am with the whole thing, that one of my friends is now starting classes in March. He is going for a Visual Arts degree and is very anxious to get started. He has said that his initial start-up has been as good an experience as mine was, so I am happy that I had recommended it for him. too bad I don't get a commission for that.

I have started working my normal hours at work now, which is 3:30-11:30 Mon, Wed, and Fri, and 9-5 on Saturdays. On the week days we sometimes go 30 minutes between calls, so this will give me a chance to get my homework done ahead of time.

Well ... that is it for now. I am going to get to work on one of my assignments, so ... will write more later!

It's about time ...

2009-01-25T08:19:00.002-06:00

I now have my grades for my first two weeks of school this term. The delay was that because school started on a Friday, we didn't have to have our first week's work turned in until the end of the second week. That meant that our grades didn't come through until the end of week 3. So ...

Week 1

Digital Illustration: 97/100 for a total of 97/100 (97%)

Color Theory: 112/115 for a total of 112/115 (97.39%)

Week 2

Digital Illustration: 110/120 for a total of 217/230 (94.35%)

Color Theory: 252/255 for a total of 364/370 (98.38%)

The courses are interesting and fun, and so I am enjoying this term quite a bit. The discussions are fun and my projects that I have ahead of me are exciting. Even the smalll assignements are pretty cool, such as making a design that seems/feels like it is vibrating. To help me out, I have requested a mentor from work in the Creative Services department. Once I receive one, I will meet with them about once a month and go over how I am doing in school, and see what I have learned can translate into real world experience. I submitted my request earlier this week, so now I just have to wait and see what happens.

For my 40th birthday, Meredith and I had a nice quiet dinner at Red Lobster and then came home. For my present, she got me a Wacom tablet that lets me draw directly to the computer. I am still learning to use it, so I don't have anything to show for it yet, but I will in the near future. It is really amazing, especially when used with the right software. I have tried it in a trial version of Corel Painter X, and the way it uses it pressure sensative screen is AMAZING. Of course, the realistic nature of Corel Painter is also pretty amazing, the way it emulates real paint, it just blows me away.

Yes ... I feel and believe that I made the right choice getting into this career field. I cannot wait to see what the next 12 terms have ahead of me.

Just couldn't wait ...

2009-01-14T18:22:00.003-06:00

Although I have 3 more weeks before I had to complete my week 4 project, I went ahead and started playing around with the movie poster. Any thoughts and opinions would be appreciated, seeing as I have time to make changes.

Keep in mind that the idea behind the exercise is to make color changes that would be more appealing.

It's a new term!

2009-01-14T11:38:00.002-06:00

Not just in class, but in life as well. It is the day after my 40th birthday, and I am feeling great. I was feeling a bit bummed about it yesterday, thinking "My god! I'm 40! And I will be finishing school when I am 43!" But I got over that thinking that at least I am getting my degree.

With that being said ...

School started on a Friday, and all of our homework for week one is not due until the end of week two. So I got all of my week one homework done before the end of the weekend so that there would not be any rush for week two.

I am very excited about these courses that I have this term. The end term projects are not too terribly exciting (I get to design a website for color theory, and for digital illustration I get to design packaging for a product), but it is the mid-term projects that I am really looking forward to. In my digital illustraion I get to design a superheo (will really work on Frankie here), and in color theory I get to revamp the original JAWS movie poster. How exciting is that? I must admit that JAWS is probably one of my top three favorite movies of all time, mixed in with Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile, so this is really exciting. My plans are to turn the water more darker down near the base of the shark and using a gradient to show the transistion between the light blue and the almost black-green that I will be using. And for the black border I intend to use another gradient going from a blood red at the top to a blue to the same dark blackish green at the bottom to simulate blood in the water. My teacher is very enthusiastic about the idea, just as long as I don't over do the blue for the water. Once I have the picture done, I will have to write a 4-5 page report on what I did and why I did it that way. So it should be fun!

Anyhoo ...

That's it for now! Will post my grades once I get them!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T08:34:00.002-06:00

Hey all ... a new year has started and I have been telling Meredith what a great year we had in 2008. We had a great vacation when we went to Virginia to see my brother retire from the navy. She and I both ended up with new jobs which took us away from areas we were less than happy working in. And who can forget that I started school and have been doing really well?

So ... I am really excited and eager for classes to start up again because I miss it. My training classes for my new job are all well and good, but truth to tell, I only ope to be doing it for about a year. After that first year I can move about in State Farm and do something different. As my degree as a whole is a Graphic Art degree (it just specializes in video games) I hope to get into State Farm's "Creative Services" department and be able to stay there for the rest of the time that I am doing school. After that ... once I graduate I hope to get into a good game company. Honestly, though, I have read that the economy is affecting some of teh major game companies just like everyone else. They are closing down studios and laying off people, so ... if I get onin Creative Services I could possibly be there a lot longer. Who knows what the next 3 years will bring?

Anyway, my next term starts on January 9th. This will be term 3 of 15. I only have two classes, each one worth 7 credit hours, so they should both be big. I am eager for class to start as I want to find out what my big projects will be, especially for color theory. Also on January 9th we are getting rid of our DSL and going with High Speed Cable. We never use our Land Line phone and all we get on it are junk calls, so as we both have cell phones we are getting rid of the phone and lumping all of our utilities through one company (Comcast).

On an interesting note, on Jan 13th I will be turning 40. In my past few classes I have not been the oldest person in them. I really do not know where I came up with the thought that I would be the oldest person, and it certainly is interesting that there are people who can relate to the same things that I can in the classes. At least when it came to the history of video games there were a few of us who were talking about the old Atari 2600 vs the Intellivision (which is what we had).

So, what am I doing with all my free time? I have received some great drawing books from my mother for Christmas and I have been studying one in particular. It has a really unique style that I am enjoying a lot, and I have been tossing around ideas on how I would do Frankenstein 13 in it. I have not actually drawn anything yet, because I am still tossing around ideas. I think that if I could get the idea down, I could possibly do another animated short. Before I do that, though, I would really like to get my hands on a tablet (http://www.wacom.com/intuos/index.php). In the Game Designer's Club you can always tell the artists who have a tablet versus the one's who don't. My Cat Butt short would have looked a lot nicer if I would have been able to use one. Basically a tablet will let me draw directly to the computer using a specialized pencil on the tablet itself. An interesting tidbit about myself is that I am left handed, but ... I mouse with my right hand. So with the tablet I would have been able to draw much more naturally and the short would have been much more cleaner. I would like to get the Intuos 6x11 model tablet, but with me currently in training and working part time, it will probably be closer to the end of this year before I pick one up.

Something else I have been doing during this break is beading. I have made 5 necklaces for Meredith and 1 for my mother. It has kept my imagination flowing and been very relaxing. I really cannot wait to get onto the phones at work and start making bonus money, but that will not happen until the end of this month.

Well ... that's it for now. I know I haven't posted much these last couple of weeks, and I apologize for that.

I hope you all have had a great holiday season. I wish you all a Happy New Year!

Term 2 final grades ...

2008-12-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

Art History: 82/135 for a total of 1119/1207 (92.71%)
Image Editting for Games: 30/30 for a total of 1200/1230 (97.56%) -- 600/600 on my picture!
Intro to Animation: 460/490 for a total of 1430/1520 (94.08%) -- 370/400 for my animation!
Intro to Game Development: 268/270 for a total of 1067/1130 (94.42) -- got 40/40 for back assigment.

For a total of ... ALL "A"s!!! WooHOO!!! I pulled it off again.
*WHEW*

I have to say that I would not have done it without the help from Meredith. Art History was a major pain as I kept getting dinged on my posts for not enough information. She helped me out big time on that, even though we still got dinged, but at least I didn't feel so frustrated.

I am also very happy that I received full credit on my past assignment. I wish I would have known that sooner. With that big ZERO there it was bringing me down to a "B". I know I am trying a bit hard to keep up my grades, maybe too hard, but I am afraid that if I start slacking off that I will lose the momentum. I am sure that it will start to wear on me, but I wnat that to happen later instead of sooner.

With that being said, my books are ordered and will be here tomorrow. I am extremely excited about that. I cannot wait to see what the books for Color Theory and Digital Illustration will be like. I know that for Digital Illustration I will be using Adobe Illustrator. I openned up the program for the first time today. Looks like a cross between Photoshop and Paint. Should be lots of fun using that. Has anyone out there used it before? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

Well ...gotta run. It's been snowing out here in Illinois and I will need to ge tup early to clean off my car before going to work tomorrow.

Love you all!

Let's give this a shot ...

2008-12-14T21:30:00.006-06:00

I got my video up ...

Enjoy!

And I have it up on YouTube as well ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6B7-YHw66I

Last weeks grades and next term's classes

2008-12-12T21:42:00.004-06:00

Well, last week's grades are in and here is how I did:

Art History: 285/285 for a total of 1037/1072 (96.74%)

Image Editing for Games: 100/130 for a total of 540/570 (94.74%)

Introduction to Animation: 30/40 for a total of 970/1030 (94.17%)

Introduction to Game Development: 260/280 for a total of 679/780 (87.05%)

So ... I am still fighting to get back to an "A" in Game Development. I got a note back from the professor saying he won't grade any "late" work until the end of the term, so I won't know anything about that until next week.

I missed out on 30 points for my rough draft in my Photoshop class because I didn't list my text in it. Oh well .. no one is perfect. Speaking of Photoshop, Meredith (my wife) has signed me up to in the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. I now have access to their site and all of their tutorials, as well as getting the monthly magazine "Photoshop Users." It is a very informative magazine. I really do enjoy it and ahve learna lot from it already.

I am happy to say that with Meredith's help I got a perfect score on my Art History paper. I had to write a thesis on a famous Artist and some of their works, so I picked Norman Rockwell and his "Four Freedoms" poster. My thesis was that he was more of a propagandist than an artist. The profess made a note on my paper thiking that it was an interesting spin on him.

Of my four classes this term, three of them have final projects that are being critiqued by the other students:

Image Editing for Games: My picture that I uploaded as my final is what is showing, and it is getting mediocer reviews. Too much fog and that the text looks like it was added as an after-thought. Of well. Lets see what kind of grade I get from teh professor.

Introduction to Animation: My animated short is the only one so far to get 4 reviews while everyone else has one or two (one person has three). Everyone loves it and says that they laugh and cry over the story. One person asked if I was planning of doing a whole series of them as there are way too many possibilities to do with it all. Now, I will see if I can get these files over to my brother and see if he can find a way to show them on his site (18mb to get over to him).

Introduction to Game Development: We had to do a PowerPoint presentation on what we want to do in our careers, how we will get there kinf of skills we will need and such. I ahven't gotten any critiques on that yet, and the choice I picked was a texture artist. That is pretty much considered ground floor starting position, but it was more realistic to pick then Head Game Designer and Art Lead as many people picked. Sure, I hope to one day be in a leadership role such as that, but I went to do my presentation on something different. Let's see where that will take me.

So ... today I found out what classes I will be taking starting in January. They will be:

Digital Illustration: In this class students develop electronic illustration skills. Emphasis is placed on conceptual thinking, composition, creative type effects, and design campaigns. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to create effective layouts and illustrations through the use of digital illustration tools and menu items.

Color Theory: This course covers the principles of color as it applies to print and electronic media. Emphasis is placed on color relationships, composition and color mixture. Students will study the effects of color on the development of design as well as the psychology of color and its power to deliver effective marketing messages.

Both of these courses are 7 credit hours, so they should have some big projects in them. I am very excited about both of these. I eventually want to get into painting some digital pictures and would like to get a decent digital pen tablet to make it all easier. Photoshop and Vista have some great features for tablets, and am eager to play with them all.

Anyhoo ... that is all for now. I am very eager to know how I did on my final projects and will post the grades once I have them. I love you all and wish you all happy holidays!

Bummers

2008-12-01T20:53:00.002-06:00

First off, here is what I am considering turning in for my final project for my Photoshop class. I took elements from my past assignments and put them together for this picture. I was not going to put the text in, but it was required to have some sort of writing or a message of sorts, so I put it in. Now that I look at it, it seems to balance it and complete it, so ...

I have until midnght on Sunday to turn it in, so any constructive criticism anyone wants to give, please feel free to do so.

The bummer part of my post is that I encountered an issue with one of my assignments. In my Introduction to Game Design class I had to turn in a paper to 2 locations instead of the usual 1, and I missed that little detail. Imagine my shock and horror when I logged in at my In-laws house on Thanksgiving and saw that I had a "0" for my assignment. The only thing that I saw was a note that said that the assignment had not been received. At first I thought that I messed up on the naming convention of the file, as you need to name it in specific format or you can get docked points for that. I downloaded the file (as I did not have it with me in Cincinatti) and renamed to upload it again. I even email my professor stating this is what I did. I never heard back from him and finally figured out on my own that I had to upload it to a second area, and I still have a "0" for a grade on that assignment. I think I emailed him at elast 3 times and he never contacted me back. If I still do not hear back from by the time he grades last weeks assignment, I will talk to my councilor and see what she has to say about it. It makes me mad as I had finally gotten back up to an "A" in that class, and now I got a "0" on a 40 point paper. What even makes it even more aggravating than the fact that I had just gotten my grade up was that I just received a certificate from Westwood because I made the Dean's List last term. Hope I cna still do that again this term.

Anyway ... here are my grades from week 6:

Art History: 85/95 for a total of 698/729 (95.75%)

Image Editting for Games: 30/30 for a total of 440/440 (100%)

Introduction to Animation: 134/140 for a total of 813/850 (95.65%)

Introduction to Game Design: 40/80 for a total of 419/500 (83.80%)

Oh well. On the plus side, I started my new job 2 weeks ago, and me being able to keep it was contingent on passing my licensing exam. We were to get three tries at passing it, and I passed on my first try. That is a load off of my mind. Now they tell us that because I am going to be on the team that will be dealing with Canada, I now ahve to take that exam as well, and that no one has passed it on their first try yey. Oh joy.

So ...

That's all for now. I have 4 final projects I have to work on. I will keep you all posted!

YAHOO!!!

2008-11-23T21:53:00.004-06:00

Art History: 49/57 for a total of 613/634 (96.69%)
Image Editing for Games: 80/80 for a total of 410/410 (100%)
Intro to Animation: 138/140 for a total of 679/710 (95.63%)
Intro to Game Design: 80/80 for a total of 379/420 (90.24%)

I GOT MY GRADE BACK UP TO AN "A"!!! W00T!!! Now if I can jsut keep it there, I will be happy. With all of the studing I have been doing for my licensing, it has been very stressful. I have that test on Tuesday. Added to that I have an assignment with the Game Designer's Club to work with two other people to get a game summary written up to be submitted to the designers. If they accept it, then they will work out a game from that and if that gets published, I may get a credit for it and I can put it on a resume. Maybe.

Oh, and what did my instructer think of my picture of Pickles smoking?

Hi, Jah rastafari Cat. Nice work, David. Creative ad. (work on the point of junction between the cigar and cat's mouth, but that's not a big concern for this assignment). Nice work. I see where you are going but it needs more work to be complete, and convincing. Try working with some opacity variation in your smoke, mix it up a little in how you create the texture, to add to the realism.

It is so nice to have a teacher that gives such good feedback. I feel like working on the picture some more now to see if I can make ti better.

Anyway ... off to bed and maybe some more studying in bed.

Wish me luck all ... I am sure I will need it!

A new picture and my grades for last week

2008-11-16T14:46:00.003-06:00

This week our assignment was to create a picture and add some smoke. So ... here is what I came up with.

My grades for last week are:

Art History: 331/33 for a total of 564/577 (97.75%)

Image Editting for Games: 80/80 for a total of 330/330 (100%)

Introduction to Animation: 127/140 for a total of 541/570 (94.91%)

Introduction to Game Development: 80/80 for a total of 299/340 (87.94%)

So I am on my way towards an "A" in my game development class, I just need to stay focused on it. I do enjoy me image editting clas, and not just because I am acing it. It is a lot of fun to be creative, and I am excited about where I can go doing this kind of thing.

Anyway ... I'll keep you all posted on how things turn out. Take care all!

A Field Trip

2008-11-12T15:57:00.002-06:00

For my Art History class I had to take a field trip to a civil building or church and then write a paper on the building and how it was built, and what kind of art influences were present. Meredith helped me out on my paper, and between the 2 of us, ended up with a perfect score of 250/250 ... the biggest scoring assignment for this class.

W00T!!!

I am posting the paper here, and I am also wanting to take a moment to publicly thank my wife for her help and insight. She is the best!!!

Holy Trinity Church; Bloomington, Illinois
For my field trip I went to the Holy Trinity Church in Bloomington Illinois. This church has the distinction of being one of five registered churches in the United States to be done entirely in Art Deco and is on National Register of Historic Places as of 1984 (Holy Trinity document, March, 1989). Although it is in need of many repairs, it is still a very beautiful building.
The church has a great history dating to before the current structure was built. The original Holy Trinity Church was established in the late nineteenth-century by Irish-American immigrants wanting to show God the glory of a building dedicated to the Catholic faith. However, the parishioners must have spent all of their money on the construction of the building because insurance was not purchased when the building was finished in 1869. Central Illinois resides in the “Tornado Alley:, the swath of middle America where tornado season ensures that all buildings have tornado exit plans and drills in today’s age. The almost-finished building and rectory was demolished by such a tornado less than 10 years after construction was finished. Between building the replacement (the second church) and the existing Holy Trinity, the area near the church sustained fire damage that was classified, “mysterious”. The Chicago architect, A.F. Moratz, was consulted at one point about the cost of replacing the church structure and is largely credited with saving the parish from ruin when fire did destroy most of the building in 1932. (Jutkins, p.10) The parishioner’s gratitude most likely provided Moratz the commission of the third church, the Holy Trinity that stands today.
The architect, A.F. Morantz, appears to have done other buildings in both Illinois and Indiana, including another Catholic Church in central Indiana. Today, Holy Trinity Church is conducting a capital campaign to repair the almost 70-year-old building. Due to the Depression, there was a great desire and need to reuse as much as possible from the partially destroyed building. For that reason the steel structure of the second Church was reused in Morantz’s design. Inside the steel rafters are supported with solid concrete pillars
The term “Art Deco” is used to describe the overall decorative movement that originated in the mid-1920s and lasted through the1930s. According to www.wikipedia.com, the phrase is used to describe the period of decorative arts where Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Art Nouveau, and Futurism culminated into an art form where chevrons, stained glass, steel and aluminum we used as mediums. Famous examples of the Art Deco style include the Chrysler Building in New York City and the Omaha, Nebraska train station. Moratz utilized a glass-maker in Munich, Germany to create the distinctive cobalt blue glass for the windows and lead to outline the patterns. One of the interesting points about this building is that the Art Deco theme is carried out in all of acid-etched stained glass windows and there are no religious scenes are utilized in those windows. Another characteristic of Art Deco arts is the usage of decorative plaster. The main vault is barrel arched was created and completed in 24 hours using a scaffolding that was constructed to allow a specially built trowel to plaster the richly adorned ceiling in a continuous concave oval. Outside, the Church is recognizably Art Deco with multiple layers of stepped brickwork on every side. In 1996, the Chicago Art Deco Society published an article in their quarterly newsletter on Holy Trinity Church. Art Deco structures are based on mathematical geometric shapes (Hauffe). . The roof is a massive steel structure that is covered in gothic art. The spire was made of limestone, and is in need of repair. The rectory itself was done in red sandstone which also needs some repair. Copper was used on the roof in the ridge caps, the box gutters, and the downspouts located inside the walls, all which needs to be replaced. The pillars that ring the altar are simple cylinders, plain but topped with decorative elements.

More Grades

2008-11-08T20:03:00.003-06:00

Art History: 57/58 for a total of 233/244 (95.49%)
Image Editting for Games: 80/80 for a total of 250/250 (100%)
Introduction to Aninmation: 134/140 for a total of 414/430 (96.28%)
Introduction to Game Development: 80/80 for a total of 219/260 (84.23%)

So, I aced my Game Development class this week and brought my score up 7 percentage points. I am glad that a bad week was not enough to pull me completely down. I just need to keep it up to get back to an "A". I know I can do it.

My Image editting teacher gave me great feedback on my picture:

Hi, David, outstanding composition here. This is one of the strongest I've seen today. great work, technically, creatively, and with the requirements of the project. Keep it up. Point Structure: For this project you needed to included the following requirements: 1. Format size: 8.5 x11 = 10/10 points 2. Minimum of 3 images = 15/15 points 3. Use at least one MASK = 10/10 points 4. It must be original = 15/15 points Total points = 50/50

I am happy that I got this kind of response. I am really happy with this picture, the way it turned out. I look at it and see places I could make it better, but knowing that this was a first attempt for me is what makes it feel important.

For my Game Development class, I had to submit three original game ideas for the professor to look at and to OK at least one for our class final project. I'll post the actual rubric for the paper at the end of the post. I submitted these ideas:

1 -- Invasion Oz: a real time strategy game (changed from being massively multiplayer online)
2 -- Frankenstein 13: an action adventure game
3 -- Feudal Days, Ronin Knights: a sandbox adventure game in feudal Japan

This is what my instructor had to say:

I'm a fan of everything oz even the play Wicked, very good game ideas David choose the one you like the most they all will work.

I was kind of hoping to work on Frankenstein, some. So do I cow tow to my instructor and possibly hedge my bets a little? Or do I do Frankenstein? Oh, decisions, decisions, decisions. Anyway, here is what the assignment will be:

SG110 Introduction to Game Development
Game Concept Document
This assignment supports the following outcomes:
Discuss game career goals and strategies.
Apply market analysis, competitive analysis, genres, platforms, and applications to game ideas.
Express opinions related to the game industry and game concepts using accurate terminology.

Assignment Overview
The purpose of a concept document is to sell the idea for a game to your team, company or funding source. Submit a 5-7 page concept document containing headers and 1 paragraph (on average) discussions of each of the following with regard to your own original game idea:
Title: Make sure your title is brief, descriptive, and “snappy.” Try to come up with something that will attract players to your game.
Theme: What is the theme (usually philosophical) of your game? Are you trying to make a statement, promote an agenda, make a value judgment about good vs evil? Common themes include survival, redemption, transcendence, and temptation. Come up with a theme and discuss it in one paragraph.
Genre: Use an accepted genre, a hybrid – or make up your own!
Platform: What platform will you primarily target, and why? Will there be a secondary platform?
Application: Why are you planning on developing this game? Is it purely for entertainment purposes – or will it have other applications and goals (e.g., education, marketing, fitness)?
Summary: Provide a short summary of your game idea. What is the main storyline and player goal?
Target rating: Indicate what the expected ESRB rating for your game will be, and why.
Target market: What is the portion of the game-playing audience that will be most likely to play your game? What is the market’s geographics, demographics and psychographics?
Competitive analysis: Choose 3 game titles currently on the market that could be considered competitors of your game. Describe each of these titles and discuss why your game can attract the same audience and establish a competitive edge over each title. This section should be a total of 3 paragraphs (1 paragraph per title).
Goals & player motivation: What are your expectations for this game as an experience? What mood are you attempting to achieve? Make sure you go beyond the idea of "fun." Are you trying to provide excitement, tension, suspense, challenge, humor, nostalgia, sadness, fear, or a "warm fuzzy" feeling? Do you want players to create their own stories and characters? What will drive the player to actually play the game to the end? Discuss how the game will achieve these goals.

My grades for last week

2008-11-05T18:58:00.002-06:00

My apologies for not getting these out sooner, but my last grades did not get in until Sunday night. Throw into that mess a migraine, and the fact that I got accepted for an internal job at State Farm, and things jsut got out of hand.

Anyhoo ...

Art History: 78/86 for a total of 176/186 (94.62%)
Image Editting for Games: 80/80 for a total of 170/170 (100%)
Introduction to Animation: 134/140 for a total of 280/290 (96.55%)
Introduction to Game Development: 69/110 for a total of 139/180 (77.22%)

Yes, I tanked my Intro to Game Development that week. I got docked 20 out of 30 points because I missed two posts. And a report I did received 49 out of 70 because I didn't cover all of the material that was requested. So ... these grades are only for the second week and I cna still pull an "A" out of it, I just need to be careful. In my defense, I wrote the report in peice meal as I had a medical problem that prevented me from sitting for more than a little bit at a time, which meant I wasn't really focused. My coach says that if I had notes from my doctors (which I did), I could probably ask if I could re-write it, but I declined. I really didn't want to go into embarassing details about the issue, and besides ... in real life, you don't get "do-overs". So I see it jsut as a challange to get back up to an "A". As a matter of fact, I have 2 of my three grades back for this past week already, and I have gotten full marks (40/40). If I ace the paper I turned in, I could pull myself up 7 full percentage points. Here's to hoping!!!

Anyway ... I just accepted an internal position with State Farm. I was external working for a vendor called Technisource. I have done that for almost 4 years, and the politics were awful. At least from an internal standpoint, I will not have to tip toe around those kinds of things. I will be working in the Quote & Bind area, which is the after hours sales team. I will need to go through 10 weeks of training to get my certification and then I will get placed eitehr on 2nd or 3rd shift. I would like to get 3rds, so then Meredith and I will still have our evenings together. Also, it is only part time, 30hrs a week, but there is a commission on it, so I will be making close to the same, if not more. This will be great for me to get more time into school and studies, and if school is caught up, so play time with the new programs I have. I haven't done the developer's challange yet for the game design club as I have felt that I didn't have too much to contribute yet. I could get that out of the way and then start participating more in the game design when I am ready.

One other exciting note ... about 45 minutes away from where we live is a game studio called Volition. The have manufactured two of my favorite games, Saints Row 1 & 2. It sure would be nice if I could intern with them, but that might be a problem with my new job. I won't have to worry about that until next year though. Once I have been with Quote & Bind for a year, I can move around inside of State Farm, and they have a really nice Creative Services department. Perhaps I can do some developmental opportunities there.

Anyhoo ...

I got some homework to do now, so ...

See you all around!!!

2008-11-02T13:56:00.001-06:00

For anyone who is interested about the picture I made, I am including here the three pictures I used. The sides got cropped a little, but you still get the idea.

A picture I made

2008-11-01T10:58:00.002-06:00

I am still waiting for grades back from the previous week, and I find myself getting irritated by the fact that one teacher seems to wait until Sudnay to do all of his grade postings. Although he has until midnight on Sunday night to get them posted, he could do like some of my other teachers and post the grades for the minor stuff such as our discussion postings.

So ... I am about to endevour myself with some homework I need to get done. I have been out of action most of this week with an abscess in a very uncomfortable spot. It was drained on Thursday and I have been on Vicodin since then. I have not taken any today as I need to get my storyboards drawn for my animated short. I did do my Photoshop assignment while taking the painkillers, and I wonder if it shows. We had to come up with a landscape scene by taking apart any three pictures we had access to and see what we could come up with. I have a friend who is trying to break into semi-professional photography (not to mention a brother who is in my opinion already there) who has some landscape scenes up on his own website at http://www.photosbychauncey.com/. As a matter of fact, I bought one of his prints for Meredith for her birthday this past year. Anyway, I used two of his landscape scenes and the boat I took from a picture I shot while visiting my brother and his family that last summer as he reitred from the Navy after 25 years.

My own thoughts on the picutre I creatred are this: I feel I could have merge the two pictures a little better, but I actually like the effect of the outline the foreground gives. It makes it look even more creeper. I at first thought the blurs at the top and bottom looked cool, and now not so much so. I like the overall compoisition and will give myself an "A-" on it.

Thoughts, anyone?

Story Arc

2008-10-29T12:02:00.002-06:00

In the game club I have been attending the writer's round table. In the game design industry, there are artists and programmers, and sometimes writers. In the cases where there are not specific writers (smaller independant companies), the artists and teh programmers fill the role of the writers, so it is good to ahve this experience. Basically, we started with a picture that someone had drawn, and then came up with a game concept from that. We brainstormed and came up with ideas of what kind of story we could tell in the game and then submit our ideas for what kind of scenes would be important to gettin gthe story across. This is what I came up with for a story:

Prelude – Father and Squire
Opens with two sets of running legs (knee down), one clad in armor and the other in leather. Cut to what seems to be many pairs of running legs, all wrapped in cloth. Flash to full profile of a fully armored knight, visor down, running with sword drawn and his squire beside him. They come to stop in a clearing and the knight is huffing and puffing. He decides that this is where they will make their stand. Attackers look like zombies, setting the stage for the game being set in an alternate reality. At the end of the battle, the knight raises his visor and talks to his squire commenting on the fight. They turn around to head home. Fade to small room at night. Story is being narrated by a father (the knight) to his son as he drifts off to sleep.

Intro to Chapter Three: Cut Scene
The king addresses his knights, explaining the importance the upcoming Crusades. As he speaks of the evil people that his knights will be fighting, we get flashes of grotesque looking people doing violent things. After the king’s speech and all of the other knights have left, the king pulls aside the hero. He speaks to him as a father to a son, speaking about his past triumphs, glories, and honors. He looks forward to his triumphant return so that he can marry the princess.

Out in the staging grounds as the knight and his squire make ready to leave, the princess shows up in his tent to give the knight her favor. He protests the impropriety of her visit, and she remarks upon how he is as much an honorable knight as his father was. His squire is notably absent during this encounter. The knight and his squire ride off into the morning mist followed by more knights as the princess watches from the tent.

End of Chapter 4: Cut Scene
The hero has just delivered the killing blow, cut scene kicks in. It shows that massive battle of the hero fighting the King of the Infidels. During the battle, the Infidel King morphs into a big killing brute. The hero takes a blow to the head right as he delivers the killing blow. The hero falls to his knees and then passes out. He awakens to what sounds like the battle still raging and he stumbles about. He is appalled at what he sees: knights raping helpless women and beating and killing children in the streets. As he tries to stop a group of knights, on makes the comment “Not much like his father, is he?” implying that his father was not as shining a knight as he thought. As the hero stands in shock, his squire appears and escorts him back to the main camp. As he heads towards the camp, the hero looks back over his shoulder at the group of knights, and their faces seem to have changed to something more beast like.

Further Chapter Elements: Character Cast
The hero will have three more people join his group of himself and his squire. They will be a female bard (representing “Heart”); a big burly blacksmith (representing “Body”); and a young knight (representing “Soul”). Each of these characters will be like the squire (representing “Mind”) – not real. Each character will be a representation of the hero’s well being. As he is suffering from dementia at this time, the Squire will seem to be almost evil, with a very sardonic side. The Squire character will always be at odds with the Bard character; representing the classic battle between heart and mind. The young knight will be the manifestation of our hero’s doubt. He feels that he has be naïve this entire time and is no better than a young inexperienced knight. The blacksmith represents his physical well being. As he leaves the crusades to head home, this will be the first of his new allies, as he will need to heal himself and make himself better. As our hero recovers over time from his wounds, the blacksmith’s attacks will become more powerful.

Cut scene before the Final Battle
Our hero enters the throne room of the king after a long journey home. The king is holding audience and seems genuinely surprised and happy that the hero has returned. He goes to embrace the knight who in turn draws his sword to keep him at bay. The knight accuses the king of genocide, that the people the crusades were launched against were weak and defenseless. They posed no threat to the kingdom. The king refutes this saying that they were cruel viscous people who threatened the kingdom’s well being, their way of life. The hero responds back that it was the knights who were cruel and viscous and were under the employ of their cruel master, the king. The king laughs at our hero stating that our hero is just as naïve as his father was, and morphs into an evil ogre. Hearing that his father really was a true knight, our hero takes strength in this. To represent this, his four aspects of Mind, Heart, Body, and Soul all morph into golden knights and then merge with the hero. The final battle begins.

Cut scene after the Final Battle
The kind lays dying at the feet of our hero. He says that he launched the crusades because he could not justify a war. His daughter wanted a larger kingdom and convinced him to launch the crusade. He dies and at this time we notice that the princess was there for the entire battle. She sheds no tears as she walks over to the throne and sits on it. She says that he father was a simpleton and was weak. She makes her first royal command and it is for the guards to arrest the hero. No one makes a move and our hero looks long and hard at the princess before turning around and walking out of the castle. You can still hear the princess/queen yelling for him to be arrested.

Finally! My grades for the first week!

2008-10-26T15:29:00.004-06:00

It was very annoying and frustrating waiting for my grades to get returned. My teachers have until Sunday night to give them to us, but why do they have to wait that long? Especially if it is just the first week and the assignments were small and simple?

Anyway ... my grades are as follows:

Art History: 98/100 points for a total of 98/100 (98%)

Image Editing for Games: 90/90 points for a total of 90/90 (100%)

Introduction to Animation: 95/100 points for a total of 95/100 (95%)

Introduction to Game Development: 70/70 gor a total of 70/70 (100%)

The Introduction to Animation was the course that I botched my quiz. This week around I took a lot of notes on the lecture, but I feel like I missed some of the information that was on this week's quiz. So once again I am fretting on what kind of grade I got. My instructor had this to say about my idea for the animated short:

David, a very funny story to start out the description, and it really helped to set the tone of the project. I don't know that the cat's line in number seven is going to be a hit with audiences, as it really is an inside joke between you and your niece. However, I think you could replace that with just awkward silence or some kind of internal thoughts that everyone would associate with cats. Regardless this will make a great animation and I'm looking forward to seeing the character design.

With that being said, this week I had to create a character sheet of one of the characters in my short. Well, I could do Pauline who is tide to the train tracks, but I would need to do a front, side, behind and action pose. How fun would that be to draw? So I made a character sheet of the other character, PICKLES! And so that is the picture that is up on the blog. Yes, the action pose is of Pickles laying down ... I was going to do the butt licking pose, but I want to save that for my short!

Yup. Definately different this term.

2008-10-21T20:21:00.003-06:00

So, my first week of the new term is over, and I am starting to get my grades back. Yes, I did bomb my one quiz, getting only 5 out of 10 questions correct. I did get 29 out of 30 correct on my other quiz, though. I have gotten my grades back on most of my discussions in all 4 classes, and I got docked a point because I didn't give enough detail on a subject. Wow. I never missed a point in all 3 of my classes in the previous term. I will have to step it p a notch.

So ... I have just spent 2 hours working on my first animation. It is to be just a bouncing ball. So, I have added a little background and a somewhat looking sandy beach. This will also be my first attempt to posting such an animation, so ... here goes nothing!!!

...

...

...

Well ... guess what? I couldn't figure out how to load it. Perhaps my brother who is a lot more smarter than me can assist me. I'll have to give him a call here in the near future once I get all of my homework for this week done. I still have to do a character sheet of Pickles. So, like my Frankenstein 13 sheet, I will need a front, back, side and action pose. I ahve to be honest and say that the most action we get out of Pickles is her sleeping!

Anyway ...

I will post my grades once i get them all. Take care all!

A new term has started

2008-10-19T20:06:00.002-06:00

And boy it feels different than the last. In my last term, 2 of my courses felt like sluff classes from the get-go. Looking at the syllabus for my classes this term, well ... it's not that I am worried, but one of my classes the final project is 50% of my grade. A lot of my classes are low scoring classes, so if I mess anything up I can be in trouble.

I may have botched up my first quiz this term. Last term, the one class that had weekly quizes all of the questions were in chronological order according to the blook. This term I ahve 2 classes that have quizes, and the questions include information from the lectures. So the first quiz I took I was not quite prepared for that, and I will find out my grade for it tomorrow. So when I took my next quiz in the next class, I was more prepared this time, and missed one question out of 30. So I am feeling good about that.

The big thing that I have to do this term is make a 10-30 second animated short using flash. For my first assignment I had to write an outline of what it is to be. Here it is:

“Why cats cannot be rescue animals”

I have a niece who just had her 5th birthday, and she has a cat named Gus. We asked her if Gus had gotten her anything for her birthday, and she looked at us and scrunched up her face and said: “Don’t be silly. Cat’s don’t have pockets!” And the way she said it, she said it as if that explained it all. With that in mind, I dedicate this to her and all cat lovers.

1. Train zooming along in wooded, mountainous country
2. Pauline tide to the train tracks screaming for help
3. *zoom out* Pickles sitting along the train tracks next to Pauline, twitching her tail about
4. *zoom in on Pauline’s face* Pauline begs Pickles for help
5. *camera on Pickles* Pickles remains seated, but lifts her leg and starts licking her backside
6. *camera on Pauline* Pauline growls and frustration and yells at Pickles for help
7. *close up of Pickles face* Pickles stops licking herself, look up at Pauline and says “I can’t help you. I don’t have pockets.”
8. Full shot of Pickles, Pauline, and train getting closer. Pickles walks off-screen as the train barrels in on Pauline who has question marks popping up all over her head.
9. Fade out and we hear a big SPLAT as Pauline gets ran over by the train.

Thoughts?

And my final grades are ....

2008-10-08T18:39:00.003-06:00

Computer Applications: 160/160 for a total of 1408/1450 (97.10%)
Success Strategies: 202/230 for a total of 1649/1705 (96.72%)
Introduction to Drawing and Perspective: 1020/1040 for a total of 3352/3500 (95.77%)

For a grand total of: 6409/6655 (96.30 -- an "A")

!!!

My art project got divided between my character sheet final and my story board final. This is what he had to say about each:

Character sheet final
Daivd, This looks good. Progress! The shading turned out really nice. Great touch. Good details. Nice contrast. The write up helps sell the design and shows critical thinking skills. That extra effort along with the attention to detail on shading took the grade from a B to an A. As you move forward I am pretty sure you know what you need to work on. Details. Draw with you see. Proportion. You made great progress in these areas so I am confident that with more practice you will get there! It has been a pleasure working with you! Thanks for the hard work!

Storyboards final
David, This is great! It made me laugh. It kept my attention. Your illustrations were consistent and solid. Suggestion on that end is to try and add more contrast to your shading so there are even darker lines. That will help add emphasis and style. That will come with practice. This solution shows great effort. Excellent progress. And a great ability to tell a unique, funny and engaging story! Well done. Your hard work paid off. You earned this A!! I wish you continued success.

I am feeling very good for myself for doing this well. I was so very afraid of falling flat on my face. And what is even better is what he said about telling a unique, funny and engaging story. I am already reading my books for my next term classes (which start on Tuesday) and my Introduction to Animation book is really stressing the story and the characters (duh, right?). Anyhoo, I will start jotting down my ideas for characters and stories and keep them in a file so that when the time comes, I have plenty of information to draw upon.

Anyhow ...

I need to go and read some more of my books. I love you all and wish you all the joy and happiness in the world!

Last Week of School

2008-10-05T14:32:00.002-06:00

Here it is the last week ... no, the last DAY ... of school for this term. I feel that these last 9 weeks have been spent very well. Each week was a trial for me, to over come wants and desires over the needs. I WANTED to watch TV, but I NEEDED to do my homework. I WANTED to play video games, but I NEEDED to get my drawings done. I think once or twice I gave in to the WANTS and put the NEEDS off, but I always finished my homework before it was due to be turned in.

My grades for week 8 are as follows:

Computer Applications: 128/160 for a total of 1248/1290 (96.7%)
Success Strategies: 370/370 for a total of 1447/1475 (98.1%)
Intro to Drawing and Perspective: 60/60 for a total of 2332/2460 (94.80%)

This last week in Art is worth 1040 points with my character sheet being worth 400 points, my storyboard being worth 550 points, my postings worth 30 points, and my critiques worth 60. So, by my calculations, if I was to take serious hits on my drawings, I could lose 125 points on each and still come up with an "A" in the class. The postings and critiques have always been good for me, and in this pweeks postings, my instructor give me this comment:

David, Like I said at the begining of the term you have some crazy creative writing skills. Your postings were stories, rich and full of energy. I really appreciated that level of effort and admired the talent so know that you have a double whammy on skills here...you are going to become a solid illustrator/artist and you have some natural talent with writing and storytelling so develop those skills. The combination is unique and will open doors. I wish you success.

It is times like this that I am glad that I did not go to school to be a chef. Sure, I could have come up with something that looked and tasted great, but I would probably be short one or two fingers by now.

Also, in my Success Strategies class we had to write a paper on our reflections of the course; what are we taking from it and how will we use it with our plans for our future and careers. I got a 340/340 score, and the teacher placed the grade as "A+" in the grade book. This is what she had to say:

David - I'm glad that you are including your wife in your goal planning. This is so important! Excellent job with this paper! I really valued what you wrote on each of the applications of each topic you selected. I'm glad that you can apply what you have learned in this class to your career, education, and personal life. Well done!

So, I have done pretty well for myself. It feels good to know that I have not let anyone down and have isntead made people proud. I was truly terrified that I was going to fall flat on my face and disappointed everyone, but instead I have extremely well!

Thank you all again for being there for me. You all get "A+" from me for being supportive.

Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle!

2008-09-28T19:48:00.003-06:00

Well, I just ordered my books and software for my next term of school. It came to almost $1900. $1600 of is for software. I will be getting Photoshop C3 and the entire Adobe Creative Suite. I am so very excited about this. I have been buying magazines that have some really great tutorials but I didn't have the software to do them with. Also, I will be just that much closer to making my first "portfolio" piece.

W00t!

So ...

Onto other things ....

My brother has asked me what my Success Stratagies class has been about, so ...

The book for the class is "From Master Student to Master Employee." The course is about self discovery, discovering what your personaliy is, what study habits work best for you, how to plan your time more efficiently and so forth. It gave suggestions on how to study for tests and exams and ways of taking notes. It also gave suggestions for making goals and planning to meet then long term ones. As I said, it was an easy course.

Well, tomorrow is the first day of the last week of class. I am eager to wake up and check things out.

Tkae care everyone!

Frankie and Grades, and ...

2008-09-28T09:11:00.004-06:00

Well, it has been a very long week for me.

It started on Tuesday morning when I got up and discovered that my home/school computer had the Blue Screen of Death. Here it is, week 8 of 9 for my very first term of school, and I find that my computer had crashed. I went to work and was planning on taking half a day off so that I could work on my computer, only to have my team lead send me home after half an hour because I was a nervous wreck. I worked on my computer from 7:30 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday. A friend had loaned me his Windows Vista recovery CD should I need it, but that was not the problem. A few times I was able to get into Windows and I was told that I needed Service Pack 1, so I downloaded that and rebooted only to crash again. On Wednesday I stayed home to work on it (got no sleep the night before), and I discovered a few things. I first of all had installed 4 gigs of RAM nto the computer on Saturday, and Vista 32 bit can only handle 3.5 gig. If you put more in, it becomes flakey. So I am now at 3 gig of RAM. Also, my motherboard needed a new driver, so I downloaded that and installed it, and now it is working great (or so I hope).

*WHEW*

Anyhoo ... I finally got feedback from my Art Teacher on Frankenstein 13, and this is what he had to say:

David, Good work. Thanks for the play by play in the sketchs. Helps sell the idea. Your sketches are fun. I want you to try and darken up the outer line. Add darker lines in the body as well to help show the weight and balance of the character. Adding that kind of shading will take this to the next level. The proportions on the profile are a bit off in the neck area. Getting that will come with time. As a whole I am very happy with the creativity and the progress. Keep up the good work!

That's a good feeling, knowing that someone likes my ideas and all I need to do is keep on working at it. Honestly, I have not submitted much art to the Game Designer's club yet as I am not yet creating anything that is "portfolio" worthy. Once I start getting into the programs that willallow me to modify my pictures, to "paint" them on the computer (hopefully next term or the term after), then I will start doing so.

So ...

My grades for last week are in, and:

Computer Applications: 158/160 for a total of 1120/1130 (99.12%)
Success Stratagies: 550/570 for a total of 1077/1105 (97.47%)
Introduction to Drawing and Perspective: 250/260 for a total of 2272/2400 (94.67%)

Overall: 4469/4635 or 96.42%

*WHEW*

Granted the first two courses are pretty easy courses and it helped to have them first. But I am still happy to be getting an "A" for my first term of school after being away from it all for 20 years.

I would liek to thank my brother Skip, to Mom and Mike, and to Meredith for being extremely supportive and encouraging to me. I love you all!

And here he is ....

2008-09-21T21:13:00.004-06:00

Frankenstein 13!!!!

Frankenstein 13 and Grades

2008-09-21T07:52:00.003-06:00

How many people here watch American Idol? I don't, but I am familiar with the judges telling people that they picked the wrong song. What this means is that thesinger mihgthave done OK with their singing, but the song was the wrong choice giving them a lower score. If they had chosen a different song, they would have scored higher. With that in mind, I picked the wrong song when it came to story boards.

This week for art class we needed to come up with a character sheet for a video game character we created. It didn't have to be related to our story boards, but it might help flesh out the character. My idea is for a character named Frankenstein 13, and here is what I posted:

As for a character, I have bounced a comic book hero around in my head for a few years called Frankenstein 13. The back story being that Baron von Frankenstein was real, and he didn't die with his monster. Instead, his body was destroyed and he exists now as a brain in a bottle. The Baron had a following, and they are still trying to perfect the process so that they can put the brain into a viable body. Unfortunately, each attempt has resulted in the brain becoming extremely psychotic ... until now. It is their 13th attempt. the body is that of a massive Mongol. The brain is that of a Navy Seal. Unfortunately, the Navy Seal training kicks in and he makes his escape trying to get home to his family. The Baron and his following are trying to recover their masterpiece and release the other 12 monsters to bring him back.

And this what some of the students thought of him:

George: David that character sounds amazing with that much detail to his back story. Please take no offence; the Oz Theatre of War idea for a game was a cool concept, but man Frankenstien 13 is a game all unto himself and sounds like a much cooler concept. I mean seriously, you just mapped out your whole game progression right down to the 12 bosses. It mixes fantasy as well as modern day military. you could have a field day with this guy. I suggest you pursue some serious development on him, even if it's just a personal game that you have a a showpiece; one heck of a showpiece might I add.

Timothy: I've got to go with George on this one. He's absolutely right. You've got an entire game already mapped out in this one neat little paragraph. By all means... bring the little nipper out to see the world. I think the world is looking forward to meeting him. It just may not know it yet!

And the Professor: An extremely fun and creative idea David. You tap in to the classics but bring a very post modern/pop culture feel to an old story. Clever. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

So ... I have one more drawing to do for my character sheet. I will be working on that today. Once I haveit done, I will post it here. I will be redoing my Oz storyboards for the final project (as it was my roughs and now need to turn in finished work), and I will post those as well.

My grades for last week are finally in and they are:

Success Strategies: 60/60 for a total of 527/535 (98.50%)
Computer Applications: 154/160 for a total of 962/970 (99.18%)
Intro duction to Drawing and Perspective: 310/360 for a total of 2022/2140 (94.49%)

Oing great in the first two, good in the third ... just gonna have to work a little bit harder so that I do not lose that "A" that I have.

Well ...

Gotta go finish that last picture!

Next Semester

2008-09-17T17:14:00.002-06:00

Next semester starts October 14th, and my classes will be:

Art History: This course provides students with a brief overview of historical ideas and events in the development of the arts. Topics include a review of art styles and functions of art in varying cultures. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to describe major characteristics of art and architecture and identify historical significant artists and works of art.

Image Editting for Gaming: This course covers the basics of digital image editing in creating textures using industry standard software.Topics include digital photography, scanning techniques, photo retouching and manipulation, and texture building. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to utilize layers, channels, filters, and masks in creating efficient textures for use in 3D applications.

Introduction to Animation: This course introduces students to the fundamentals of traditional animation. Topics include the history and principles of animating key poses, timing cycles, and the mechanics of motion. Upon completion of this course students should be able to present a short animation using traditional techniques.

Introduction to Game Development: In this course students are introduced to the history of gaming and the terminologies used. Students will learn both the theoretical and practical considerations governing the development of a game and how these considerations are manifested in the design and development of games.Topics include game history, terminologies, philosophies, and genres. Upon completion of this course students should have an understanding of the basics of gaming and how games interact with the user.

The first class sounds kind of 'meh' to me, as I have had classes similiar to this before. I understand the need for taking this class, but it just doesn't excite me like the other three. The image editting class sounds absolutely exciting. I have been reading magazines (Imagine FX, 3D World, and Photoshop Advanced), and image editting as well as image painting is extremely exciting. I am hoping that this class is the one where we get our copy of photoshop as there is so much I want to try and play around with.

Anyway, I got my grade back for my story boards. I got 250 points out of 300, which is a B/B-. I have a lot of work to do to make my roughs look "not-so-rough".

Grades for last weeks, and ...

2008-09-14T15:55:00.006-06:00

Because of Ike, my Intro to Drawing and Perspective teacher (who lives in Texas) did not get the grades up for last week until today. So ...

Computer Applicatons: 160/160 for a total of 746/750 (99.47%)

Success Stratagies: 237/245 for a total of 467/475 (98.32%)

Introduction to Drawing and Perspective: 260/280 for a total of 1742/1810 (96.24%)

YAY!!!

Still going strong ...

Anyhoo ... this week for Art we had to comeup with some rough drafts for a commercial representing a video game we came up with. If you ahve been following my blog, you saw the outline I did for it eaerlier. So, here are the drafts I submitted:

Power Point

2008-09-07T18:29:00.003-06:00

This past week in my Computer Applications class we had to search the web and find a site that had a Power Point presentation on it and discuss what we liked about it and provide a link to it. I found this site: http://www.graves.k12.ky.us/powerpoints/elementary/. What I really liked about it is that it's a website full of educational presentations aimed at elementary students. My instructer really liked it and is passing it along amongst his peers, and other people are having their children go through tem as well. One person even said that they were going to show it to her child's teacher because she really liked it. So ... I thought I would post it here and if anyone who has children want to check it out, they can.

Week 4 grades

2008-09-06T15:01:00.003-06:00

Computer applicatons: 160/160 for a total of 646/650 (99.38%)
Success Strategies: 60/60 for a total of 230/230 (100%)
Intro to Drawing and Perspective: 414/430 for a total of 1482/1530 (96.86%)

!!!

Still going strong. I am feeling really good and happy with my scores to date. The first two courses are ones that I take seriously, but also lightly. I think because because these courses will have little bearing on my career choice. I fret and worry each week until my grades come out for my art class because it is a more accurate guide for me as to how I am doing.

On another note, I took my first real test today. It was my mid-term for Success Strategies. 50 questions, at 4 points each, I scored 192 points (missed two questions). That makes me feel great! First real test in 20 years, and I didn't panic or anything. So, I am pretty certain that the next three years will be well spent.

Last night was a very good night for me in the game design club. We have round table meetings every week for each section of the game design. There are meetings for the programmers, the artists, the writers, and for everyone in general. I attend the general meeting as well as the artist and the writers. Last night was the writer's meeting, and I was the only one who submitted an outline for the project. We are trying to come up with a unique story for a knight. After two hours and going over the outline that I provided (which got some really great feedback on), the story will revolved around a knight that is suffering from some form of dementia. He had been the proverbial knight in shining armor and then went on the crusades. The shock and horrors he endured during the crusades breaks his mind, hence his dementia. We are trying to decide if his squire is real or just a figment of his broken mind. It was really a great feeling working on this story with the group, and they were working with the outline that I submitted, which was also a great feeling. So ... I have to now listen to the meeting again (it was recorded) and refine all that was said and resubmit so we all ahve something to go off of at the next writer's meeting. Once we get everything all hammered out, I will post it here for everyone to see. What is a lot more exciting is that all of the round table meetings connect together, and what one table comes up with, the other tables might pick up to work on. So this might even make it to a published game!

One final note ... I really want to take a moment to thank Meredith (my wife). She has been very encouraging to me and is always there for me. She heard part of the meeting where people were really excited about my outline and she got just as excited. She was extremely happy for me when I finished my mid-term and had a great grade. She is utterly fantastic. She has even offered to listen to the recording of the meeting and scribe it for me. Isn't she awesome? These next three years will be all the more easier because she is by my side.

I love you, Babe!

Storyboard Outline

2008-09-03T20:10:00.002-06:00

As I decided to go with my Oz idea for my storyboards, I have to come up with 15 storyboards for a 15 second commercial to pitch my game. I do not have to create this game, just pitch this idea that I have. this week I have to give an outline as to what my commercial might look like. I have until Sunday night to post my outline, so this is my first draft, and would like some input as to what people think:

Board 1) A sunrise over a cornfield with a scarecrow on a post taking center screen.
Board 2) Black screen, gold letters "Somewhere ..."
Board 3) A busy Munchkin village
Board 4) Black screen, gold lettering "Over the Rainbow ..."
Board 5) A nice sunny day viewing from afar over a field, Emerald City
Board 6) Black screen, red lettering, "A War Rages!"
Board 7) A grey sky and the view of Emerald City shows smoke rising up from it, and battle damage to the city
itself
Board 8) The same view of the Munchkin village, the buildings in ruble and bodies in the street.
Board 9) The cornfield is now burned to the ground, the post is but a burned down stub, and there is no sign of the
scarecrow.
Board 10) Faction shot of the Good Faction of Oz, with characters such as a Lionman, Clockworkman, Scarecrow, and
Munchkin standing grouped together in from of some damaged buildings in downtown Emerald City
Board 11) Faction shot of the Evil faction of Oz, with characters such as a Wicked Witch, a Winged Monkey, a
Winkie, or a female assassin.
Board 12) Faction shot of the Corporate Army, with characters such as the Shocktrooper, Commando, Medic, and
Infantryman.
Board 13) A split screen showing four different battles between the different factions.
Board 14) A war room with a general leaning forward against a banister, looking at the central command screen, that
has the Wicked witch's face with her pointing at the camera, and a horde of winged monkeys flying in the
background.
Board 15) Black screen, red lettering, "Theater of War: Oz"

Thoughts?

Drats!

2008-08-30T19:24:00.002-06:00

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 ...

2008-08-28T19:22:00.003-06:00

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 ...

2008-08-26T20:06:00.003-06:00

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

2008-08-24T09:52:00.003-06:00

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

2008-08-21T20:50:00.002-06:00

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

2008-08-20T20:29:00.003-06:00

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?

2008-08-17T11:19:00.002-06:00

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

2008-08-16T16:20:00.002-06:00

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

2008-08-13T05:29:00.004-06:00

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 ...

2008-08-10T18:11:00.004-06:00

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!!!

2008-08-06T21:09:00.000-06:00

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!!!

2008-08-05T21:18:00.000-06:00

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 ...

2008-08-04T21:10:00.001-06:00

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 ...

2008-08-03T21:25:00.001-06:00

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 ...

2008-08-02T22:29:00.000-06:00

*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!

Heading to School

End of my 12th term

11th Hour Changes

Final Project: Term 11

Schnikeys!

Well this is cool ...

Mind Boggling

I know, I know , I know ...

100th post

Yah-HOO!

For Mom and Mike ...

Yay for me!!!

And the verdict is in ...

*sigh* Well, here it is ...

So many changes ....

I'm sorry, Professor ... the program ate my homework.

*pew* *pew* *pew*

Term 8

Christmas Break

Just an update on things ...

Well this is exciting!

My visit with Erwin

Made the Dean's List again .... yay!

The final draft

My final ... a rough --

Grades and Next Term

Character Posing

Alrighty, then ...

My finsihed mouse and other things ...

My first 3D work

Missed it by THAT much

The final week of this term

Next terms classes

Hades: High School Gym Teacher

Samurai Bear

Enjoying school!

Back on the Dean's List!

Heading into the final week ...

Any thoughts?

Some really good feedback ...

A paper I wrote (with Meredith's help)

3 more weeks to go ...

Where has the time gone?

Final Grades for Term 3

Final Num-nums Draft

Still waiting for grades, and ... NUM-NUMS!

A little glimpse ...

A little Andy Warhol

A little help ...

Classes for next term

Grades for Week 5, a new picture, and a migraine

Grades for Week 5

An interesting assignment

Another week done ...

It's about time ...

Just couldn't wait ...

It's a new term!

Happy New Year!

Term 2 final grades ...

Let's give this a shot ...

Last weeks grades and next term's classes

Bummers

YAHOO!!!

A new picture and my grades for last week

A Field Trip

More Grades

My grades for last week

A picture I made

Story Arc

Finally! My grades for the first week!

Yup. Definately different this term.

A new term has started

And my final grades are ....

Last Week of School

Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle!

Frankie and Grades, and ...

And here he is ....

Frankenstein 13 and Grades

Next Semester

Grades for last weeks, and ...

sigh Well, here it is ...

pew pew pew