Gronkenheim - Somewhere between Nifelheim & Redmond

Digging up graves..

2009-07-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

Back from the dead!

So, last week was my final week as an 'employed' person, at least until I'm broke. I quit my dayjob as a video game artist at Bungie (yep, that Bungie) to start my own company trying my hand at making much smaller games while working from home.

My previous attempts at blogging have been pitifully sporadic, I failed at the internets. Hopefully this time around I'll do a much better job at keeping the internet entertained and elightened about my lazy wanderings.

So to start things off right, here's a total necropost from 2006, reposted artwork from a previous Illustration Friday. I'd done this piece during the halloween where I first tried out absinthe, and had become smitten by the green fairy.

I swear, new stuff is coming.. Promise.. Don't look at me like that. I'M TRYING HERE.

Our house

2008-10-09T22:52:00.001-07:00

Nowhere near the middle of the street.. It used to be purple, believe it or not. Now it's a boring cream color.

We did all that rock work ourselves by hand.. Been working on that for about 3 years. The initial load of stones filled an entire flatbed semi-truck. The patio up on top is about 800 sq. ft.

yeah, might as well be dead..

2008-10-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the dead zone on posts.. Been up to a lot of things. We've been working on the house a lot, plus we took a couple trips and I went through a hernia surgery.. Facebook also claimed most of my free time. So pathetic.. Anyways, here's a new thing. I got this cool skull shaped vodka.

Here's the story on this thing.. http://www.crystalheadvodka.com

griffin sketch

2008-04-17T23:05:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

2008-03-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

Creeping dead...

2008-03-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

Still crawling like the undead..

Back from the grave...

2008-02-28T01:31:00.000-08:00

Holy crap, I've been lazy.. Had a month off from work and all I did was take the family to Disneyworld, and a bunch of other boring domestic and nerdy stuff none of you would care a bit about.

I got a new toy though. An HP tx2000 tablet PC. I can draws right on the screens, I can. Fancy. Now I have one less lame excuse for not keeping up on paint practice. That leaves only five hundred more lame excuses before I'm out.

Anyhoo, here's my doodle for tonight.

Well, let's see how long I lumber around out of the grave this time.

Goofin with brushes

2007-11-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

Nuthin special, just fiddling with brushes. It started looking kinda father wintery.

Children of the Corn 7 - Suburban Madness

2007-10-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had a rare sunny and warm october day. Knowing it'd probably be the last of it's kind before the typical Seattle grayness and perpetual chilly damp set in, I grabbed the kids and headed out to a farm nearby to do their corn maze and pick some pumpkins.

The farm is called the South 47, and it's this tiny 20 acre thing stuck right in the middle of suburbia, between Redmond's silicon valley of the North, and Woodinville's McMansions of Mormonosity. It's a coop farm, and does a pretty decent job of bringing a bit of farm life to the suburbs, although the corn maze event typically is swarmed by yuppie mom's with cell phones permanently attached to their ears, and yuppie dad's like me desperately trying to make sure their kids have a rare moment of fun that doesn't involve electrons beaming into their eyes.

Blogger's barfing tonight on my attempt to add a pic. Here's a link to our Flickr folder of photos:
Cornmazing '07, http://www.flickr.com/photos/15496926@N08/1626796371/

I Fight Like a Girl!!

2007-10-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's quite true, I fight like a girl! And so does my son!
We've both just signed up for the "Fight Like a Girl" 2nd Annual Halo Tournament for the Fight Against Breast Cancer.

All proceeds will go to the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Chances are by the time anyone reads this that the list will be filled for players, since Bungie just posted news of it on their website, but if you're interested you can donate to the cause at:
http://cavegirlforums.com/index.php?showtopic=2617

I'll be posting vids of our, most likely, gloriously crushing defeat shortly after the event. Stay tuned!

So nerdy..

2007-10-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, well, my company released my 'gamertag' on xbox live to the world as part of a media event 'play with the game makers' thing, and now I've had a bazillion friend request from Timmy's all over the world.. It's kinda awesome, and kinda spooky. Anyhoo, if I deleted any of my actual friend's join up requests, plz resend and email me at home to let me know, so I don't do it again. My gamertag is: KidPenguin.

Baaaraaam-uuuu

2007-09-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

OKay, we're officially back to crazy suburban farmer status again. After our Grand Goat Adventure, replete with exciting chase scenes, fights, spooky nighttime searches in foggy woodlands, scary old neighbor people, and blood & tears(tm), we're trying something a little more sedate and managable.. Mini-sheep!!

These two handsome bachelors, I'm naming Paul and Dane respectively, are mini french 'Cheviot' sheep. We lucked out and found a breeder right here in Woodinville. These guys can be hard to find, believe it or not. They're about a hand high shorter than regular sheep, and about 2/3rd's the weight.

The wool is softer and finer and thicker, and is really amazing stuff. Not quite sure how much usable skeins we'll get from only two sheep, but I'm sure it'll be enough for Kim to do something with. Her name suggestions were 'Cardigan' and 'Socks'..

Not sure how well they'll keep our grass down, but it's gotta be better than nothing.. Erik's already planning on working with them to start training Tara (our lab/border collie cross) herding techniques. Tara's more than smart enough, and even without training was helpful back with the goats.

Bloody Gold

2007-09-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Well kids.. I know it's been hella long since an update to this dustbin of a blog. Been kinda busy working on teh Haloz3. It was a pretty rough ride to the end, but we just went gold, and by a freak of luck it happened on the same night as a 'Blood Moon' here in the northwest..

But the deed is done and by DAGON it's the most fun game I've ever worked on. Still feels just freaky to have worked on something so big.. We're mostly playing the game and trying to think up fun new game types now.

My workload actually started dropping off earlier in the summer, and we managed to squeek out a bit of family funtime. But it wasn't long until Kim fired up the abandoned mammoth 'Honey-Do' list, and we got back to crunching on our projects around the house.. You can see details on her blog: http://clutterfairy.blogspot.com/

Wee! On the plus side, as soon as we get the wall done and enough stones of the patio laid for a human to walk on, I get to buy one of these babies: http://www.biggreenegg.com/ , and invite people over for booze and bbq. YAY!

Now just to find time for some art again...

Happy Mother's Day

2007-05-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it's mother's day.. ..and I'm workin. Alllllmost there though, and MAN, for the first time in my career it feels worth it. So many years of overtime lost to games that sat on shelves. Not this time.

Hopefully my wife can hold the family together for just a handful more weeks until we're past the crunch. Once this one's over I'm paying her back for the last 8 mother's days that I've cheesed out on because of workin so much.. In the meantime, Happy Clown Boy to the rescue!

Crunchichi Oh so soft and crunchichy!

2007-05-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Been crunching for a long time now.. Don't get to see my kids most nights, so you folks are even more neglected. Sorry about that. I'm sorta doodling on an idea for something that might get some post love this summer, it involves Zen and little stone rabbit statues. Yeah, okay, shut up.

Anyways, here's something my friend Peter whipped together to entertain and enlighten, that almost describes what it's like to be a parent in the games industry. Good times!

c:\ya\later
-gronk

Not dead yet...

2007-04-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

Okay okay, this blog is alllmost dead.. But I swear it's not completely dead yet. I'm just in super mega double crunch mode at work. Not even entirely sure why. But I promise I'll start trying to do some weekly sketches again for yah..

2006-12-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

Mmmmm.. Toasty.

We finally got our power back on 6 days after the outage began. Thanks to blind luck and good friends, we made it through without any really cold nights. After this though, we'll be turning our house into a CDA bunker..

Life outside the Matrix is cold and hard.. Oh Blue Pill, how sweet you are!

Storm update..

2006-12-16T18:37:00.000-08:00

Hi all. Well, Seattle area got hit by a really hard windstorm last thursday. The Gronquist house survived well, we expected problems but lucked out bigtime. Our friends the Millars however got hit really bad. Two trees crashed into their upstairs kitchen around 1am, while they were up checking out the storm. They managed to avoid getting hurt, thank god, but the house is really in bad shape. If you know the Millars, send them your best wishes, I'm sure they'd love to hear them. They've got someone to stay with, and their neighbor's showed up in quantity to help out with moving things to shelter, so most of the logistics of their disaster sound handled okay. Will update more as we hear it.

Right now we're spending Saturday night in a Hotel. We got really lucky, and just pulled in to the third one we tried at the same moment someone called in to cancel a room. Within seconds after Kim signed up for the room, someone called asking if there were any available.. We really can't believe how lucky we were through this all.

We're calling all our friends who don't have power and inviting them over for showers and warm coffee..

This storm really was something else. We weathered it out during the night cowering in our darkened basement because we were sure the ancient giant trees around our house were going to come down. At the peak though, I just had to go upstairs to listen and watch it all, and I swear I've never seen anything like it outside of hurricane country. Peak wind speeds were in the 70mph range, with averages around 40-50mph. Volcanos and earthquakes we're used to, hurricanes just aren't Seattle's thing...

Anyways, hope you and yours are all doing okay. If you need any help once we get our feet back under us, JUST ASK. We feel blessed beyond our measure for making it through this storm so well, and just want to give back to the world some of the good kharma we've received.

Nite, John.

It's beginning to look a lot like..

2006-12-01T04:35:00.000-08:00

Well, we're having yet another freaked out November for weather. Seems that the last few years have really started getting weird right around this time of year. My bet is we'll have 70degree and sunny for x-mas.

Anyhoo, hope everyone I know made it through the storm without getting hurt. Next time, I promise I'll have my tractor ready to hit the roads and tow you all to nice warm snuggly homes.

Cheers!

La la la la la.. La la la la la...

2006-11-18T02:50:00.000-08:00

A fairy visited tonight..

2006-11-18T02:34:00.000-08:00

I don't know what this stuff is or how it got in my house..

..but I think.. I'll let it stay for just a while..

Bath time..

2006-11-16T01:59:00.000-08:00

Well, crud, it's wednesday night, time to punt on this week's Illus Friday subject.. Was planning on doing this workup in another painterly fashion, something kinda like Lautrec's non-print work. Gah, maybe some other time. Gotta get to work on some molds and casting pieces for a secret project at work.. :)

Anyways, I slapped some filters on it, and decided it's CyberTrec! "A modern interpretation of turn of the century posters, reinterpreted for a modern age." Take that Art and Grammer!

Click to make big, of course.

TROGDORRRRR!!

2006-10-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Oh man, I am SO doomed.. Trogdor is coming to Guitar Hero.. In just a few short months my basement will be filled with 6-12 year olds chanting the name of this demented dragon like as if in some sort of freakish summoning ritual.. ..and I'll be there with them. DOOMED!!

The Night Way

2006-10-24T00:31:00.000-07:00

Been playing around with painterly techniques in PShop lately. Not as happy with this one as the last, but got too much to do around the house to work on it anymore before Halloween, so up it goes! I'm happy with the church, it turned out well, but she's just not what I was hoping for.. :( Anyways, click on it to see it bigger.

Here's some detail of her face at full rez:

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder..

2006-10-18T23:56:00.000-07:00

Oh yes. I'm hooked on the green fairy.. Anything that glamourizes and ritualizes drinking 120 proof glowing green hooch, has to be good.
I might keep messing with her, I might not. I hate her face, it's mushed, but kinda wanna move on.
Enjoy, and crits welcomed!

Jack scratch'n..

2006-10-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

Just goofing around with some gestural pumpkins.. The piece I'm working on them for right now is actually going to be a nighttime scene, so these are all wrong, but they're fun to doodle. What is it about the magic of oversized squash that makes us feel 20 years younger?..

Sweet Babybacks Batman!

2006-09-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

You just gotta deeply love a job that swings free professional award winning BBQ classes for it's team! Holy Smokes indeed! I'm headed to BBQ University, courtesy of the fine people who pay me to make things blow up.

We've been using Teddy Bear BBQ for catering and I have to say it's by far some of the best in the Northwest, if not the entire continental US.. Smokey-n-tender and not smothered in sugar syrup.. It's gonna be a truly great day hanging with these fine Grand Champion Pitmasters and prying their secrets from them.

Hell, just look at their awards list.. If my middle-aged brain can manage to collect even a tenth of their know-how, I'll be beating you all off with sticks.. Which probably isn't a bad idea come to think of it.

Kharmic Balance

2006-09-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

Well, this has been one of the more wild summer's in a long time.. Between multiple art tests for new jobs, a holy terror of a new beagle puppy, live-in human visitors, crunch-time right away at the new job, to the patio project that'd make a freemason's toes curl..

We've been a might bit busy, and the blog has suffered horribly. So here's a little art to keep the handful of crickets chirping at this blog content. These are logo's I did for a couple of summer functions for my wife's 'Un'-church.

If you're a Unitarian and are interested in using these logo's for your church functions, just give me a holler. I figure doing these in some small way makes up for me sleeping in on Sunday mornings while my wife rushes around the house trying to get the kid's dressed in time all by herself..

Playing with fire

2006-07-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Things have been pretty extra crazy crunchy frosted insane lately.

Soooo, after over 6 years, half of which was near constant crunch mode, I've finally left Gas Powered Games. It was a really intense ride, and I'd like to think I learned a lot from it, one way or the other.

Anyways, in my time off now, I put together these little art effects tests for a potential gig:

Hope you all enjoy the show!

The Red Note

2006-07-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm about as far out of the Seattle music scene as a guy can be.. But nonetheless, occasionally I open my ears. This band is fun stuff, gypsy blues with big horns, or something like that. I dig it. A friend here at work was in a show with them. Sadly, I was too lame to make it to see them. But anyways, enjoy The Red Note.

http://www.therednote.com/tracks/

Interview with Jim Murphy

2006-06-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

Pixar's unofficial blogspot links us to this fantastic animation specific interview with Jim Murphy, lead animator for Cars!

Punk baby

2006-06-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

Demo Reel

2006-06-27T01:39:00.000-07:00

Wow. So much stuff to dig through! But alas, it's in the can until I can make some new decent replacements.

Go here to see:
http://gronquist.com/john

Artist? Naw, I'm a Mason!

2006-06-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

Well, here's what's been consuming pretty much all my time for the past few months..

For those of you who don't already know, my wife is a bit, errr, extreme when it comes to DIY projects. If you've seen Over the Hedge, when Hammy's all rabid for the girl scout cookies, that's what Kim looks like in Home Depot. Her dad was a carpenter, and never let her play with the miter saw, like her brother's got to do.. ..nuff said.

Nominally this whole project is about the hot tub, which we talked ourselves into to try and help out with some complicated medical stuff involving low body temps and lack of a decent blood alchohol level. It's a 10 person in-ground gas fired wonder of modern science.

Anyways, so we're building this giant mega patio. So far it's involved a lot of using the dozer to level out the hill in front of our house, spreading gravel, and shovelling money into the hot tub contractor. The tub is in, and functional, and we're working on tiling the surround for it right now. The contractor who installed it really knew his stuff, this tub is solid fiberglass and built like a speedboat, and has STRONG jets, and should last a long long time with good maintenence. All in all it was probably twice the cost of what a megastore model would've been, but really worth draining the coffers for.. ..yeah. Yeah, I didn't need that nice new TV anyways.. Our 15 year old projector is just fine...

Next up, the retaining wall. Wee!

We're hoping to have this thing done by Labor day.. If we do, we're SO having a big stupid party, and you all are invited.

A Gronquist get's it DONE!

2006-06-13T00:10:00.000-07:00

Check it out, my uncle Dennis is onto his 6th book now! Cripes, and I've barely managed to read a comic book or two while waiting for the occasional render to finish... [insert blush of shame here]

http://members.provalue.net/NanoculePress/

I'm so gonna get off my duff and finish up his first book, Time Trap, now! And finish those game design sketches for my buds.. ..and finish that patio project.. ..and fix my kid's computer.. ..and do the dishes - no wait, gotta draw the line somewhere..

Obey her cuteness, and she will be merciful..

2006-05-17T00:22:00.000-07:00

Threw up the lights and backdrops this weekend for some pics of the new pup. Holy freakcakes, her powers of cuteness are beyond the mortal kin.. Just submit to her will now, it'll be easier that way.

ps. Yes, when she howls, it sounds just like the puppy from Fox and the Hound. Even Dick Cheney would have to say "awwwww.." (before he drunkingly plowed someone with a shotgun again).

Brace face

2006-05-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

Is there anybody out there? Probably not, but I'll post this anyways..

I've started rigging up the face for Walvis using a modified version of a really crazy cool rig my homiez James and Jason created at my work.

It uses splines and bones and a heck of a lot of little helper dummy objects to create a very flexable mouth rig that totally follows the basic contours of the face even when animating in fairly extreme poses. It's perfect for a character like Walvis that has 'hard' forms like his tusks as part of his mouth forms that the lips must slide over. I should be able to animate his mouth with a lot of character and not have to worry about noodling morph tween-targets or anything like that!

And because the bones stretch along the splines horizontally as well, you can get a really lifelike performance with only a handful of controls (haven't hooked those up yet.. ;). It's more fun than a naked midget in a FFD Cage!..

..yeah, I'm a nerd, ok.

Beyond Hope..

2006-05-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

I typically don't push these kinds of articles on people, because I feel that it doesn't do much good. People that aren't finding this stuff on their own already, aren't ready to hear what it has to say, either by willful ignorance or sheer lack of time and ability to pay attention to the world that's around them instead of inside their computers or inside their heads.

But this article really is worth the read, I recommend it for anyone struggling with how to cope with the knowledge that, to quote, "we're fucked."

Here's a little pic I threw together to celebrate the future. I think, perhaps, I need more Bailey's in my coffee each morning.. ;)

"Frankly, I don't have much hope. But I think that's a good thing. Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth."

Beyond Hope - Derrick Jensen
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/06-3om/Jensen.html

Noodlin

2006-04-27T02:11:00.000-07:00

Got an hour of so of me time tonight.. Noodled his face more, and put a coat on the fatty.

Shiny & new, our little poop machine

2006-04-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

Well folks, here she is, our new baby girl..

It was a bit of an adventure picking her up. The guy running the kennel where she's from is kinda old and forgot we were coming on Easter day, and took off to a family thing.. So after a hour or so ferry ride and drive, we get there and the house is dark and empty. Our kids were not pleased..

So we entertained ourselves for about 6 hours in the sticks around Poulsbo, and just as it's getting dark and dad "calls it quits" and starts heading home, he finally answers his cell phone..

But all is well, she's home now, and the kids are absolutely her slave. She makes them bring her food and clean up everything after her, her powers of cuteness are truly mighty.

Doggypoo

2006-04-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.doggypooworld.com/

Can it possibly be coincidence that I stumbled across this the same week we brought home a new beagle puppy? I think not. Fate is a strange master.

More speed..

2006-04-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

Lunchtime doodles.. Idea stolen without mercy from GreenGene, who's toon powers far exceed mine, obviously.. Seriously, one of these days, your pens will be mine, you foul curr!

Sorry it's not worked very far, but the dishes won't clean themselves..

Speedy

2006-04-13T18:51:00.000-07:00

Had this laying around.. It kinda fits the subject... Yeah, kinda dorky humor I know. Sorry, I do most of this kind of work at night after my brain's already fallen asleep.

Tweakin his nose

2006-04-09T01:07:00.000-07:00

A bit more facial work on the Fat Man... Think I'm gonna call it at here for now and move on. I just want enough for now that his anims will work..

Mooching the Walrus

2006-04-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a little inspiration I found for those late nights, thought I'd share.. It's a Betty Boop vid of Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher, rotoscoped-ish onto a freaky walrus ghost. What's better than that?

Some face time..

2006-04-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

Playing with Walvis' face some. He's getting closer I think... Brutal comments welcome.

Here's a spinaround for the insanely curious.

Slither review..

2006-04-03T12:51:00.000-07:00

That's all I have to say.

Full Frontal Nudity

2006-03-29T23:51:00.000-08:00

Super super rough model of Walvis, the Revolutionary Leader Elvis Impersonating Walrus.. Go ahead and crit if ya wanna, he needs it at this point, and I'm inversely motivated, the more you chew him up the more I'll wanna crunch on him.

He's still missing his pompadour, clothes, a lot of facial stuff, real hands and feet, genitalia, back hair, etc.. Just kinda curious if there's anything to connect to here at all or not, or if he's kinda just weak. Hit me!

At last we'll know the truth..

2006-03-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

http://nvp.kavefish.net/nvp1.htm

The 50's should never have happened..

2006-02-25T17:32:00.000-08:00

I'm firmly convinced that somewhere in the 1950's a scientist discovered a virus that made people completely insane, and we've all been coping with it for the last five and a half decades..

Still, a morbid fascination grips me about this stuff, and a road trip to Oregon to visit the store that sells this just might be in order.. Somehow, someway, I have to make sense of this world.

Yes, I am THAT nerdy.

Memmmorrriieees...

2006-02-23T02:07:00.000-08:00

Digging through a decade of files is sooo much fun! Really, you should all come over. I'll make some waffles.

Oh Ann Wilson from the cover of Little Queen, you always will be the one that stole my heart..

..waaait for it...

Curiouser and curiouser...

2006-02-18T22:10:00.000-08:00

Just got back from seeing Curious George. They did a really good job of capturing the simple & light feeling of the books IMO. You'll be hard pressed to find a teenager that admits to enjoying this flick, there hasn't been an animated movie with a plot as simple and clean as this one since Lady and the Tramp. But anyone under 12 or over 30 should walk out with a warm little smile.

The animation work is pretty good. George feels like what you'd imagine him to be, and carries a lot of 'under the radar' emotion. Ferrel as the Man in the Yellow Hat works well, and doesn't suffer from being too much Ferrel. DrewBarrymore's voice detracted a bit from her character IMO, but she's only on screen a handful of times, so it wasn't a big deal.

The saga of how this movie got made could fill a book, it's been bounced around Hollywood for 15 years, and received 9 seperate treatments before one finally 'took'. And then I've read the team only had around a year to do it, which if true means they used that time incredibly well.

Anyways, that a traditional 2D ink & paint movie made it to big screen during the peak of the CG boom, and got a beautiful and loving treatment, makes the heart warm all on it's own, and anyone who believes in animation should go out and catch it just to support your fellow artists!

I don't care..

2006-02-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

Apathy is one of those crazy hard 'in-between' emotions to capture. Halfway between sadness and anger.

A friend and I have an idea for a 3D short about a character that's super apathetic, so I doodled up some ideas. I kinda like the center-top guy the best, although none of them really seem to nail it for me. Don't know if I care enough about this idea to take it further or not though.. ;)

Illus Friday - Song

2006-02-18T00:44:00.000-08:00

Didn't mean this to look like you Jason when I started it.. Honest..

Sacré Blu!

2006-02-07T01:24:00.000-08:00

Click here to go see coolnees.

Well, the French once again prove themselves to be mightier with the pen. Cartoon Network recently started a new line-up, realizing that (due to the physicalities of school/parents/planetary-alignments/etc) kids are pretty much still left alone with the TV to themselves for many hours each and every Saturday morning still to this day.

Amongst the line-up this time around are the usual fare of junk (Zixx) and attempts to capture the success of Indy Comix (Ben 10), and rip-offs from past toon network successes (Robot Boy)..

But this time a rare jewel dropped out of the sky from our friends across the Big Water.. Dragon Hunters is a title developed by the French animation powerhouse Futurikon, who's managed some healthy successes in their home turf and now are coming ashore. Check out the show, it's got kindof a Don Bluth-ish slant to it, but it's a mite bit better than most of Bluth's last 10 titles of artificially sweetened rotoscoping.

Oh, and the intro song is done by The Cure, how freaking cool is that?? :D

Crunchy Chair

2006-02-04T23:21:00.000-08:00

Well, this isn't mine, it's my dad's painting, but it's me in it.. :) It's pretty much the defining moment of my life I think. There's a lot you can learn from the side of a cereal box you know.

Promise I'll do my own soon.

Munk-E

2006-02-03T17:55:00.000-08:00

Some monkey's I did up for a friend.. Not happy with 'em, gotta push the characters a LOT more, just establishing some basics on the ideas right now..

Glamour lost..

2006-01-30T03:34:00.000-08:00

Alas, for the poor fairy has lost her glamour. She let a little girl borrow it, and now the girl has run off and signed a contract with Disney Studios, and she's all alone and can't fly away.. Such a tragedy. Perhaps another kind and gentle creature will come along and clap three times to restore her fairy magic? :)

All right, you caught me. This was supposed to be for the cat week, but I didn't make it in time. But with a little story embellishing, it allllmost works for 'glamour'. :)

Illus friday, quickie..

2006-01-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a quickie I did up for a friend who tries hard to keep people happy around him.

Got a more finished piece coming later tonight with luck. Cheers!

The Punisher is online!

2006-01-25T13:45:00.000-08:00

Sweet gloriosky, look at what just popped up!

Kevin Pun, aka "The Punisher"

Will we see some head to head Punishment of brother vs. brother in a punishing art duel supreme? Man, I sure hope so, that'd be some kickass art! :)

Here's a game char I did in honor of Mr. Pun's addiction to metallic weaponized cuteness.

More Hoodnix..

2006-01-24T16:51:00.000-08:00

The game was basically a satire of different game genres, set within the scope of an RPG where you play Gordon Fink "L33T GameMaster". Your new Uber Game System blew up in a magical lightning blast caused by the Indian ghost of the tree you used for your clubhouse, and now video games are taking over the neighborhood! Your school friends have all been sucked in and turned into Bosses, who you now have to defeat to save them, all before your Mom turns off your game for dinnertime!..

..Yah, well, it would've been fun. :)

Here's some more art:

A schoolgirl who's panties you don't want to see..

2006-01-24T11:56:00.000-08:00

From a game idea I had that got about as much attention as my collection of toenail clippings. Good times for all! Ah well, just need to try harder next time. :)

Enter the Walrus

2006-01-24T02:28:00.000-08:00

Class, this is Walvis. Walvis, say hi to the class... ... ...or don't.

This guy's been battering around in my head for while. He's kinda a fusion of Elvis & Che Guavara. Basically he's a happy normal walrus until a CIA shipment of cocaine, hidden inside a box of Elvis Impersonator outfits, falls on top of his head from a plane. Gaining new insights and bipedal motion, he dons the pompadour in search of Justice. His first stop, Disneyland, where he takes up the People's Fight against rampant sucky animated movies.

Along his side travel his good polar buddies, Deano the Seal, and Frankie the Fish with his Amazing Aquatic Powers of being able to live and thrive inside a bowl of pure gin.

If I ever stop being lazy, I'll do him up in 3D for a short. Kinda like Warner Bros, but with caddy's and guns that shoot real bullets.

Can't believe I didn't see this before..

2006-01-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

My art radar is so busted, I need to have it replaced. Check out this absolutely fluid little movie done by the supervising animator from Iron Giant..

link

Pumpkinhead went on a diet..

2006-01-23T01:03:00.000-08:00

After almost a year of neglect in the corner of my office, I pulled this feller down and finished up his head and one arm. I'd done the basic body shape during a very cool class offered at Arena Net, taught by Jordu Schell, FX sculpter extraordinaire and a fellow cracked-in-the-head grouchy-pants.

I love Super Sculpy. A year of sitting, and a little work and it's as good as it ever was. If only everything else was as forgiving.. Anyways, the goal with this guy was to kinda do a gangsta version of Pumpkinhead, with creepy old man skin. Still needs work, obviously. Feel free to submit any name ideas, the only one I came up with was "Me Gusta Carne!"

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

2006-01-23T00:25:00.000-08:00

You'd best be putting away that chocolate right now sister, before I hafta do anything we'd both regret..

Eldritch buggery...

2006-01-22T20:13:00.000-08:00

2 things..

1 - Hey all, new blog, yada yada.. Blame it on Sweet Gene, I saw his and felt ashamed at my massive neglect of socialization and doodling. I am a poor poor excuse for an art monkey. Consider me schooled.

2- Dungeons & Dragons Online SUCKS. Anyone who says it doesn't really should be sterilized immediately, and frozen alongside Walt Disney's delicious headcicle. The game design sucks, the art sucks, the engine sucks, and the UI sucks. Reasons? Examples? My god, can you actually ask for such things after playing that heaping Cleveland steamer?

Yes, the basic idea of how the game is supposed to work is interesting, and the narrator almost brings back some of that feel of table-top..

But c'mon!! They had 25+ years of art, story, adventures, & ideas to draw from, and we end up getting this laggy thing with a hundred people stacked up like cordwood in front of the tavern door because it's the only place in the world you can heal??... Then they take an already slow-for-this-age level based rules system, and make it freakishly slower to rise in levels and survivability.

Then to top it off, the one part where the limitations of the implementation could disappear, in the actual adventures, turns out to be mind-numbingly poorly designed things with a handful of occasional monsters, a bunch of knobs and levers, and the rare 'magical tetris built into the floor' to spice it up.. Where's the Tomb of Horrors? Where's the Temple of Elemental Evil? Where's the Keep at the Borderlands or White Plume Mountain for crying out loud??... They could've just copied existing adventures for a decade's worth of expansions, and they'd have been better than what they put in... So - very - very - lame.

Admittedly, it's quite safe to say I'm jaded to the extreme, but hey, I've been tossing dice longer than I've been tossing off, you do the math. With other fine MMO's like City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and WoW already out there, for Turbine to roll out something so obviously unbaked, and that feels like it was designed by people who thought Napolean Dynamite was a documentary, is simply not acceptable, and the market will undoubtedly punish them more than my rabies induced blogging could.

Honestly, they should've done what studios are doing with those horrible Uwe Boll movies, and not allow the public to see it until release, in the hope of getting at least enough sucker sales to pay the rent.

This is, however, the company that brought the world that exercise in the extremes of boredom, Asheron's Call, which single-handedly caused a massive tilt in gaming back towards text-based-adventures.. Do these people even own a copy of any other game?

In honor of DDO's undenyable lameness, I have turned my back on D&D forever, and handed down all my books to my 11 year old son, who, at least, should be perfectly content filling dungeons full of Lyger's and Bunicorns for another few years, before hormones force him to leave behind the blissfullness of a world without worrying how you smell.

OKay, sorry for the long rant.. I'd built my hopes for DDO up way too high, and the game fell tragically short beyond even what my jaded senses could believe.. I'd just hoped it would've provided even a smackeral of a taste of what once was something that kept my minds off the horrors of the public school system and abusive older brothers. Ah, sigh for those long gone sweet halycon days of pizza, mountain dew, and utter lack of mortgages and Honey-Do lists..

I promise, the next post will have art in it.