LoTekK's Journal

Awesome

2007-07-28T17:09:00.000+08:00

Someone linked me to this. Utterly brilliant, especially if you've been following videogames for some time (there are references that go back to the early 90s).

(click for the full image)

More views

2007-07-03T02:09:00.000+08:00

Aside from making more notes on game mechanics and interface/interaction concerns, I spent a bit of time doing two more views, south and southwest:

quick anigif showing the rotation of the three:

and a quick mockup (just slapped the sprites onto a render of the enviro):

Jesus fuckin' iso

2007-06-30T20:07:00.000+08:00

After what must have been at least 50 variants, I've finally settled on proportions I'm pretty happy with for the iso sprites. Done up a South-facing view, with a simple and unfinished idle animation.

updated

Pure Awesome

2007-06-28T17:28:00.000+08:00

That's what the new Transformers movie is: 100% pure awesome. Ok, that's not really true, but damn I enjoyed the hell out of the movie. It's got your very Michael Bay comedy and drama (which is to say, it can be incredibly painful to watch), but it works overall, and shit, the fights, the transformation sequences, the cheesy nostalgia throwbacks, are all very cool. And I have to admit, that new Camaro is a pretty sexy beast. And Megan Fox, goddamn.

The bad? Frenzy feels like the new Jar Jar, I've already mentioned the Michael Bay comedy and drama, and Jazz was trying a little too hard. Beyond that, I'd say the biggest disappointment is that there wasn't more. I want a sequel. With Soundwave. And more Constructicons.

Sidenote: the new Optimus Prime toy is pretty badass. I'm tempted to pick it up. ^^

Oh, and yes, the movie premiered here a week before everyone else. Suck it. ^^

X-Com

2007-06-25T04:43:00.001+08:00

So I finally broke down and got the original X-Com up and running on my computer, ostensibly to do "research" for my admittedly ambitious DS project. As with the first time I discovered the game, I didn't stop playing it for a couple hours. All in the name of research, though, of course.

It's funny, though, revisiting it made certain mistakes and omissions painfully obvious, compared to the numerous games that tried to emulate its formula. Just various little interface niggles, some more serious than others. It still stands as a fantastic game, mind you, but things like not being able to see how many APs will be consumed by travelling to a particular location, not having any feedback on whether a highlighted square is obstructed, range of movement, LoS displays, etc. are a bit jarring. Something to keep in mind when designing the interface for my own project for sure.

In related news, I've decided I'm going to scrap the character models that I was so happy with, and do up a bunch of isometric sprites. Even at 100 tris, which is quite literally the absolute lowest I can go, the models are simply too heavy. With sprites, even assuming I go with a paperdoll sort of system (and I do so want to), that's knocking each character down from 128 tris (plus weapon) to 6 sprites. I think I'd much rather spend those polies on the environment, since that basically gives me maybe 1500 polies (tris/quads? depends on the eventual programmer, I guess) just for the environment, up from maybe 800. And that's being conservative.

That said, doing that many 8-way iso sprites, plus all the accompanying animation, is going to rape me.

A shot of the enviro, as of before my week in reservist. Everything's still WIP, though coming along, and I threw on some vertex lighting. Click for full size:

On that note, my week back in the Army was actually kind of fun. Got rid of the mohawk, obviously, and showed up to camp with a high and tight.

Oh, a little sprite I did to test out a palette that Prometheus is working on:

Pixelling and teaching

2007-05-30T10:54:00.000+08:00

Pixelled up a little baby dragon for a friend, and started animating it (not done yet, gonna add some movement to the head, probably a nostril flare as well):

"But I want a BIG ONE!"

I think I'll go pull my hair out now.

...

Timelapse of the unicorn speedpaint

...

Spending most of the night hammering away at the keyboard, giving art lessons of sorts to a fairly enthusiastic 14-year-old has reminded me how upset I was at watching two potential teaching gigs in less than two years go up in smoke, through no fault of my own, and of how satisfying it is to see (metaphorically speaking, in this case) that wild-eyed enthusiasm of someone eager to learn, lapping up whatever knowledge you can impart. Maybe I should consider taking my friend up on teaching game art at a local technical school. Pay's pretty shit, though, and I dunno if I want to teach fulltime. There's also the fact that from what I hear, the current faculty is, for the most part, pretty shit at their jobs, and political infighting is rife. :\

Then again, maybe the joy and satisfaction of imparting knowledge to the young'uns, in topics I know and love, might be enough to trump those factors.

Maybe.

Argh.

Unicorn

2007-05-29T01:13:00.000+08:00

Yay, did a speedpaint. Felt nice to just paint for an hour or so, without worrying about UVs, seams, texel density, etc. (click for larger, 800x5-something)

Millionaire Tycoon Bastard

2007-05-28T04:58:00.000+08:00

Kiss the ring, bitch.

I'll finish him up eventually (maybe do another variant or two while I'm at it), but I was itching to get back to the DS project (I gotta come up with a working title at some point).

Started putting together a test environment, just to get a better idea of the sort of per-frame polycount I can expect to be dealing with. The terrain is a hopeful at the moment, and whether the final product will be triangulated depends on whether the DS hardware will consider a non-planar quad as a quad, or a pair of tris (if the former, it'll help just that little bit with the DS' 2048 poly limit).

Did up a 2-storey (plus rooftop deck) house that's currently not very practical. I'll be adding rooms and whatnot soon enough. Currently the [vastly incomplete] scene stands at about 1250 tris (though mostly in quads, which will give me more leeway with the DS poly limit), and with occlusion and backface culling, between 500-700 tris (mind you, only a portion of the scene will be visible in gameplay, or so the plan goes).

A silly anigif showing the floors:

More DS Stuff

2007-05-27T05:47:00.000+08:00

Redneck resistance?

More mix n match fun (less redneck, more merc!):

And took a break today to reskin the big chunky bastard. Still WIP:

Probably gonna work on some tilesets for the DS game tomorrow.

Shanghai!

2007-05-23T20:58:00.000+08:00

Looks like I may be hitting Shanghai sometime soonish (emphasis on "ish"). The MB/CA.org workshop is now no longer set for Florence (that's been pushed to next year) but Shanghai. As long as it doesn't fall on the second week of June, I'm good to go. Woohoo.

More DS fun

2007-05-23T19:02:00.000+08:00

Started off creating some art assets and making notes about gameplay mechanics for a game I intend to ultimately put together for the DS. Still a ways off, since I need to kidnap a DS programmer, but things are looking promising. I've got a buddy who's already helping me out with art assets as well as suggestions on gameplay mechanics and controls, and another buddy who may hop on board to help with concepts (this would rock hard, since he's an awesome concept artist and illustrator).

It's been interesting so far, since I've set myself some fairly ridiculous technical limitations due to the genre of the game, along with the rather limited horsepower available to the DS. Hence, characters that range from 100 to 150 triangles, including optional bits like pouches, etc. Swappable body parts are in, though, which should help with variety. Textures are fucking tiiiny, at a total of 64x64 per character, split up into various maps, but I've also unwrapped the humans in such a way that they can pretty much share textures if need be.

Less talk, more pimp:

Wires

First texture set is a bit of an homage (still wip). Note that both male and female models are sharing exactly the same texture

Then I went off and got myself a little sidetracked, lol (also wip)

edit:
And some mix n match testing with the textures from above (I knew I had a good reason for splitting up the mesh and textures!)

Random stuff... and phuket(?)!

2007-05-17T00:59:00.000+08:00

A couple of thumbs, trying to come up with a style/mood for some characters for a personal DS homebrew project.

Pretty much finished up my self portrait thing:

I suppose I should probably try and get a simple environment done up for the models so far (Big Chunky Bastard, Fiat500, self portrait)...

A baby tiger, loosely-reffed:

A buddy of mine is using my Big Chunky Bastard for animation practise:
General dicking about
Sparring (with himself)

And, might be off to phuket for a few days next weekend, tentatively set at Thursday to Monday. Woohoo, should be awesome; the place looks absolutely gorgeous, and I finally get to check it off my list of places to visit.

Even more pimpage

2007-05-10T00:43:00.000+08:00

Haven't actually sketched/painted anything in a while, so it was somewhat refreshing to get pressured into doing just that to cheer someone up. "Make an anime/manga me!"

shit, I don't /do/ anime/manga!

And hence, this turned out more Betty Boop than anime/manga:

"Fairies!"

Sketching in msn can really suck sometimes:

So I switched back to PS, and riffed something up that I'm pretty happy with, and may actually bring to a more finished stage. At the very least I'll finish slapping on the colors and do a simple background. If I'm happy enough with it, I may go further and do a proper illo out of it.

And of course, managed to sink some time into the lowpoly me. Sloooooowly getting there.

Yet more pimpage

2007-05-07T01:46:00.000+08:00

Something a little more poly heavy this time, somewhat of a self-portrait, psp-ish spec. 1010 tris including the accessories, 256x256 for the main texture, 128x128 for the bag, 128x64 for the hair, and 64x16 for the shades (the texture sizes may change as I get to work on each of them).

psp-ish sized render, 100% self-illum, just getting started on the main texture:

New pimpage

2007-05-02T19:50:00.000+08:00

Finished up the Fiat. 192 tris includes the 1-quad shadow.

And a shot with monochrome vert lighting:

Shit this stuff is fun.

Wheee, DS-ish spec stuff

2007-04-28T06:23:00.000+08:00

I can't really believe it's taken me this long to finally take a crack at doing DS/handheld/mobile spec 3D stuff. It's proving to be unbelievably fun, and its own neat set of challenges.

First up is the imaginatively-named Big Chunky Bastard:

Next up is still a wip. Basically modelled after the upcoming Fiat Nuova 500. <3 Currently stands at 200tris including the silly extraneous crap like the hotrod engine and the spoiler, and a 128x64 texture.

More after the break.

CNY Greetings

2007-02-17T00:59:00.000+08:00

Happy new year, folks.

I appear to have been on a bit of an ecard binge...

quick one acceding to requests that I do a pig with a mohawk:

a 3-hour one before i ran out of steam... basically an homage to a child's imagination:

and a 15-minute one just so the guys wouldn't think i'd gone soft:

after a couple of rounds of "requests":
"eh but not big eyes oso!"

"i'll prefer some subtle strategic exposures in the cheong san configuration

a whip may add a nice touch"

"leather choker will be nice too. with studs !! =O"

fucked up the face royally, though... not used to working that small >_<

also did a valentine's day one

For the arithmetically-challenged

2007-02-13T11:48:00.000+08:00

This email absolutely made my morning... xD

Been a while

2007-02-12T01:10:00.000+08:00

So 2007's been pretty good to me so far, I've gotta say. I've been making more of a point of just hanging out with friends, old and new, whether it's just chilling at the workshop playing Test Drive Unlimited and Rainbow 6 Vegas, visiting a flea market, watching a play, or getting completely and utterly shitfaced at the resident cantopop club. I may have to take it easy on the drink, though... Saturday saw me waking up still drunk, and remaining that way all the way til 4 in the fuckin' afternoon... o_O I'm almost apprehensive about the 23rd. Almost. My liver, on the other hand, is most definitely cringing, crying even, with the anticipation of the stupid amounts of alkie my friends are inevitably going to hit me with.

I'm certainly looking forward to the next few months, though. Come 1st March, I'll once again be officially unemployed and freelancing, leaving me a good month to really hang out with friends and then get everything prepped before I ship my ass out of the country for roughly two months of traipsing around Europe. I pretty much have free accommodation sussed for quite a number of countries, which lessens the monetary blow significantly, but godDAMN the initial outlay is still eating a huge chunk out of my MX-5 money. But then, I kinda need this trip for myself. Just being out there all on my own, getting inspired by the sights and sounds, being in Europe for the first time since childhood, and travelling to parts of Europe I had previously only dreamed of, and of course, visiting and meeting friends and fellow artists for the first time. So. The MX-5 gets pushed to later in the year. If I'm lucky I'll be able to do a bit of contract work while on my travels, and be able to make my initial payments in Q3.

So far I've got accommodation confirmed in various parts of the UK, Belgium, France, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands, with probables in Ireland and Portugal, and possibles in Scotland and Latvia. Nobody in the Czech Republic so far, but I'm hitting that regardless. And of course the Massive Black/ConceptArt.org workshop that's going to be taking place in Florence.

I am pumped.

Best. Movie. Ever.

2007-01-10T16:50:00.000+08:00

Black Sheep

I am so there.

Agh, fuck, I keep doing this

2007-01-10T09:04:00.000+08:00

Domain expiration always manages to sneak up on me like this.

Sick of this nice guy shit

2007-01-09T03:28:00.000+08:00

I am sick of being the nice guy that gets passed over. Sick of it. Fucking sick of it.

Reunion fun

2007-01-09T01:30:00.000+08:00

Well this Sunday I headed up to Kuala Lumpur for the first time since I finished junior high. Informal reunion going on, so I bussed up there and met up with old schoolmates. Holy crap, almost everyone looked exactly the same. It was like stepping into a time warp. 4pm to 11pm were filled with silly stories from school, as well as everyone catching up with everyone. 12-14 years we hadn't seen each other, for the most part, and it was fantastic to see everyone again. Hell, I even found out a bunch of my old schoolmates are based right here in Singapore.

After 11 came the idiocy. :) Mac's dumbest suggestion of the night was to hop the fence at what remained of our old school, which was now a more or less abandoned compound. And so ten of us set off. One torn dress, one busted ankle and my own ripped up hands and right arm later, we were inside, walking the grounds in the middle of the night, beers in hand, reminiscing, and hoping not to run into groups of crazy druggies. Y'know, I had never been in school after nightfall, so I had never realised what an awesome view we were privy to.

We've gotta do another one of these before another 12 years passes us by.

Sigh.

2007-01-03T12:14:00.000+08:00

"not ready to date yet"

Well that went over well. I think.

2007-01-01T04:01:00.000+08:00

Jesus, she fucking loved the gift. Overwhelmed. Approaching incoherent. Best, most personal gift she'd ever gotten. Thank you thank you thank you i don't know what to say how can I make this up to you wow. Naturally, despite all the deliberation beforehand, I decided this would be a poor time to let her know just how I feel about her. That and the fact that her response was just way way more awesome than I had even hoped to anticipate, enough to leave myself a little speechless. Anyways, I figured I really didn't want to seem like I was forcing her hand. Hopefully that doesn't completely backfire on me, because I know it's done so before. Hah.

Borat was fucking hilarious, though I have to admit that Cohen routinely went way too far. Gawd did my abs burn by the end of the movie.

Happy New Year, y'all!

Birthday fun, part the second

2006-12-31T12:46:00.000+08:00

Birthday fun

2006-12-28T02:49:00.000+08:00

Spent the last three nights working on this, and I think I've gotten it to a point where it's print-worthy. Gonna pass it around for a final round of crits (one particular area that I'm still undecided on is the saturation of the figure, in particular the upper body and face) before sending it off to the printer. Then comes the framing and the giving.

*chews on fingernails*

Older pic

update:
Managed to make some changes while at the office today, har har.

Not-so-old pic

Printing's only gonna take an hour at the place upstairs, so all that's left is to hunt down a nice frame after work today.

update2:
Teensy bit more work tonight. Think I'm calling this done.

Random musing

2006-12-25T16:56:00.000+08:00

Odd thought occurred to me as I smoked a cigarette, thinking about last night's revelry with friends, old and new alike, thinking about all the anguish (okay, I guess angst might be a better word) going around other circles:

All the sadness in the world, all the tragedies, the craziness going on... I think if nothing else at all, we owe it to ourselves, and to everyone else, to be happy, to enjoy life as we know it, to appreciate the good things, like friendship. I feel like we somehow taint the experiences of the tragic by coming up with faux outpourings of sympathy, and worse still when we wallow in self-pity of what our lives could be, could have been.

Maybe that's just me trying to make myself feel better for being a happy little bastard at the moment, but it works well enough for me (and pardon the shitty writing).

Once again, Merry Christmas, folks!

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T12:53:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since I've met anyone who's made me feel so at ease being myself. :D

With that, here's my Christmas greeting. Managed to completely forget to do this up til I got home from the party this morning, so pardon the quality. :p

Like living someone else's life

2006-12-21T05:08:00.000+08:00

This ridiculous newfound confidence and outgoingness (is that even a word? probably not) is an odd beast. I mean, I'm enjoying it, obviously, but I'm not used to the consequences associated with it, since I'm not even that familiar with the actions. I don't break hearts, dammit, I'm supposed to get mine broken.

Gaussworld

2006-12-20T16:48:00.000+08:00

Right, almost forgot to talk about Mr Gauss, Polycount superstar.

Snowfly, moi, and Gauss, from left to right. Nice blurry pic from our sketch session at City Hall. Way to shake the camera, random passerby! This was the last night Gauss was in town, before jetting off to Japan, the lucky bastard. It was pretty awesome having him in town, going for a life drawing session, going drinking, going clubbing, sketching, chilling, and of course, AGDS.

Gift Idea!

2006-12-19T12:41:00.000+08:00

Now I've gotta find that someone special.

What an awesome couple of weeks. AGDS, freelance work, job opps, ladies, new friends, old friends. I'd write more, but I'm fucking swamped. Still gunning (and more or less on track) for that MX-5 next year.

Itty bitty updates

2006-12-01T17:15:00.000+08:00

So the art test came and went. Went in for it the Wednesday after getting back from Hong Kong, then heard from them last Friday. The art director seemed okay about the 3D, though he says it really doesn't tell him much about my capabilities, based on my portfolio. And the 2D was a little disappointing. So, bit bummed at that point, but he's offered to let me come in again to take a second crack at it. Which apparently has never happened to anyone before, which is cool. But hell, now I'm essentially under a load of pressure, since I figure now I really have to knock some socks off. Eek.

Jack Monahan, aka Gauss got into town yesterday, and I spent the night just chilling with him and Snowfly. Good times geeking out about games, art, etc. He'll be in town for about 2 weeks, so it should be a fun time.

I just heard that Kurt Wenner will be in town this month! Awesome.

After a bit of hunting, I finally found my cojones today and decided to call X, since she hadn't sms'd me like she said she would last Friday. I'm so goddamned giggly right now it's disgusting.

"You don't look like a model o.O"

2006-11-27T04:30:00.000+08:00

That's the kind of response I typically expect or receive when I mention I do 3D modelling to someone at the bar. Maybe not in so many words, but facial expressions say paragraphs of the stuff. The other response would be a blank look, followed by some quick explanations, after which I usually end up on my fallback of "Y'know Shrek? Finding Nemo? Yeah, that sorta thing." Which usually nets me a half-comprehending, yet still largely bewildered expression. Well, better'n nothing.

So I'm at the pub Friday with some buddies, one of whom had brought his friend X along. After a bit of a potential catastrophe-avoidance with another friend, I start talking to X. The usual niceties and small-talk, and of course the "So what do you do?" question. "I'm a freelance 2D and 3D artist," I say, fully expecting the infamous blank stare.

"Oh, so you do modelling and stuff?"

Damned if I didn't have to restrain myself from proposing right there and then. Turns out this banker loves art and drawing, and would love to get into fashion design or some other art-related field some day. Shit, she even liked the mohawk.

ps. Jungfroid, saw your comment. Whenever you can send those over, that would be much appreciated. If you can't find the other two, that's cool. My eye was mainly set on Sneak King anyways, since it just seemed so apt for the character of those commercials. :D Take your time, though; I still haven't gotten my hands on a 360 just yet.

pps. Seems the justification on this beta blogger thing is a little inconsistent. What a pain in the ass. o_O

Freebie

2006-11-27T04:25:00.000+08:00

Yay for cool free music:

Megadeth's "Gears of War" Song Available for Download

Well that was fun

2006-11-15T02:16:00.000+08:00

I gotta say, Hong Kong's a pretty damned interesting city, and it's got some fantastic topography. I reckon half the city's practically cut into the mountainside. Think I'll write a bit more tomorrowish. Need to get some rest for the art test. I'm fracking nervous about that. @_@ Well, at least the boss and lead artist won't be there, so I guess it'll be at least a little more relaxed, in a sense. :p

Oh. My. God.

2006-11-09T22:17:00.000+08:00

Bit of a dilemma, though less so after a lot of thought, and a lot of sounding off against friends. I've been with Cylon for three months now. They treat me very well, but the work has been draggy. Very very little in the way of creativity, just lots of following developer and publisher instructions to the letter. Making sure TMs are in the right place, making sure legal text is correct. That said, I was prepared to stay on, do my stuff, at the very least get the casual games brand up and running, and self-sufficient.

Then today, around lunch, I get a call from a studio I had applied to early this year. I managed to meet with the Creative Director, who I had a short email exchange with when I applied, and he had actually bloody remembered me after all these months. I also know their senior artist, and am acquainted with one of their concept guys. Anyways, I got along great with all of them, and the CD basically gave me an open invite to visit the studio to take a look at what they were doing, as well as to say hi to the gang. See, that's what I assumed today's call would be about. Then they went off and offered me a position.

Okay, granted, I'll still need to interview and do an art test, but I've been told I'm pretty high on the list, since the CD likes my work, and we get along well.

So. The dilemma comes from the whole loyalty aspect, being that Cylon's treated me very well so far. Though my sis did have a pretty good response to that concern:

In these times, with our generation, who's loyal?"

Ha. Fair point. I think I'm going for it. I just know I'll be kicking myself if I don't jump at this opportunity. All I gotta do is make sure I don't burn any bridges as I leave (assuming I actually get the job).

*fingers, toes, and eyes crossed*

Note to self:

2006-11-06T02:16:00.000+08:00

When a girl seems like she really doesn't want you to leave, but you really have to, don't mention that the reason you're leaving is because your mode of transport is in the form of your buddy giving you a ride. Fuckwad. Aaaaagh.

Right, haven't had too many responses for the internship opening, though as my friend reminds me, that may have everything to do with the fact that it's approaching exam-time. Oops. Should have two interviews lined up for this week, though.

Managed to nail down a modelling contract that had been on the fence for a little while. It's less than what I quoted, but still a shitload more than I'd be able to charge locally. Even got a bonus (smaller) contract on top of that. Slowly working towards that MX-5.

Assuming I can get the flights confirmed, I should be in Hong Kong for four days. Buddy's heading there for business, and his firm's paying for accommodation, so we'll be crashing at a $400/night hotel. Should be fun. :D

Semi-work stuff:

edit:
Oh yeah, haven't managed to write a single word of my novel, which puts me several thousand words behind schedule. Ack.

On an unrelated note, Elite Beat Agents fucking rawks. :D

Chugging along

2006-11-01T03:12:00.000+08:00

I'm calling this one done for now. Working at level 7 subd is proving a little painful (over 600k quads, 1.2 million tris, on a 1.73gig Centrino with a shitty Intel GPU... ack). That said, Nevercenter have done a pretty bang-up job with the optimisation, considering the displacement painting is actually useable despite low framerates while orbiting/panning the camera.

And a frontish shot, with a quick and dirty paintover (hair, too-bushy eyebrows, and minor fixes for the eyes).

Oh yeah. Happy (belated) Halloween.

What, me, write?

2006-10-31T01:59:00.000+08:00

So I'm thinking about entering NaNoWriMo. I remember Praxis getting in on that a couple years back (you planning on participating this year?). While I have no illusions about actually finishing, what with all the freelance I should hopefully have lined up, it might be an interesting way to inspire some different creative juices for my artwork. Besides, I havent really done any sort of creative writing in yonks.

Now I just need to figure out what to write. :p

Update: Well, I've signed up.

Silo fun

2006-10-29T21:49:00.000+08:00

After much procrastination, I finally got around to purchasing a license for Silo a week or so ago. Better yet, it was a license transfer from an old user, which left me eligible for the 2.0 betas. The poly-modelling tools in 1.42 and the new betas fucking rock. There are still some workflow things I miss from my beloved Wings, but overall, some really nice tools. The displacement painting in the new betas is simply icing. But damn, that's some sweet icing. The speed improvements for displacement painting in the most recent beta are ridiculous. I still can't orbit or pan for nuts once I go past a quarter million polies, but the actual displacement painting is just butter.

Piccy. Need to work on the likeness (especially the jawline, I reckon) a little more.

"Sometimes you just gotta roll a hard six."

This place rocks...

2006-10-25T16:55:00.000+08:00

I haven't even been here three months and they're already getting me an intern next month. Ha!

Well, it had to happen sometime

2006-10-18T13:18:00.000+08:00

Frack. Got that dreaded call today, informing me of my reservist alert period. 3 fracking weeks on Amber Alert, starting Jan 23. Deputy S4, brigade level, and I can't remember the first godsdamned thing about military logistics. That'll be a fun 3 weeks. Being a Guards unit, they're not likely to just slack around, either, so I can probably expect multiple run-throughs, as well as an actual activation. Frack.

Colour like no other

2006-10-18T03:23:00.000+08:00

Woot, been waiting to catch this commercial ever since I caught snippets of the setup and filming a few months ago. The previous Bravia commercial was bloody brilliant, and completely audacious (and what an awesome song they used). This one actually manages to top the bouncy balls commercial in terms of sheer audacity. :D

Sony Bravia Paint Commercial

Frack

2006-10-17T02:11:00.000+08:00

This one episode a week shit simply isn't cutting it. Third season in, and it still manages to be some of the best fracking television around. Talk about gripping. Edward James Olmos still manages to make what are essentially corny speeches sound fracking inspirational.

Getting my Boomer fix is a nice bonus, naturally.

Mmm, Boomer. The thought of six or seven of her simply boggles the mind.

Dammit, now I'm gonna be dreaming about this for months -.-

2006-10-15T23:33:00.000+08:00

So we're driving over to my buddy's workshop to get some of the old gang together for dinner and drinks, and my buddy asks me, "so if you were to get a car, what do you think you'd get? Realistically, within budget, so don't tell me you'd get a 360." So I'm thinking for a second, and he throws out the MX-5, which I've always loved, and tells me I can probably get one for under $30k. Well, shit, now I'm not gonna be able to get that out of my head. Henceforth, I'm gonna see if I can get enough saved up for the downpayment by sometime next year, though apparently a loan may be a problem with that car (not to mention road tax, plus insurance for a damned soft-top). Ah well, at least when I do get one, I can console myself since it really does make for a good (and fun!) daily car. Too bad that damned Golf GTI is way out of my budget.

Champagne has been put off til next week, owing to the stupid amounts of alcohol on Friday (I arrived at the club only to face down 7 trays of shooters, and 4 jugs of vodka-something), and the fact that py insisted on paying for the one bottle that I did order. Well, hopefully this time I can actually get a table booked. Alternately, find a somewhat quieter place, like Villa Bali or Wine Network.

Anyways, dinner and beer was fun. Some of the old gang together again, shooting the bull. I swear, we're having the same conversations now that we did 7, 8 years ago. 10 years from now, I would hope we still haven't grown up. :p

2006-10-14T05:39:00.000+08:00

drurrru;uunk

Burger King. Yes!

2006-10-04T11:49:00.000+08:00

BWAHAHAHA. Absolute fucking winner.

Can someone stateside pleeeeeease pick up all three for me? I don't see these making their way here. I'll paypal you for the three plus shipping. At the very least I want to get my grubby paws on Sneak King.

whoaa

2006-09-27T01:10:00.000+08:00

Fuckin' plastered. damend crazy gamedves and their tequila shots . mohawk went over well, woot. talks wiht the unnacnoungced studio are going well, and more fereel ance opps coming my way. i love bein the only artist who bothers to go for these things

uh,eah, time for slseeetptyz.zzzzzzz

I might be getting a coffee bitch?

2006-09-26T04:34:00.000+08:00

Quiero Tenerte says (6:07 PM):
oiii...not heading home yet?
LoTekK says (6:08 PM):
heh, just about to get my shit packed up
LoTekK says (6:08 PM):
you?
Quiero Tenerte says (6:08 PM):
im home!!!
Quiero Tenerte says (6:08 PM):
woo hooooo
Quiero Tenerte says (6:08 PM):
hahha..

Nice way to end the work day. o_O

Had a shitty start to the day today, with Photoshit deciding to be completely uncooperative and deciding not to let me save my work (it refused to even quit gracefully, for crying out loud). After which point the day picked up considerably. Apparently the bosses have decided to cut short my already-short probation of 3 months, by an entire month. Once the end of the month hits, I'm off probation and get my employee benefits (leave, medical, etc), not to mention a pretty healthy pay jump. My boss seems to have plans for me to really step up my level of responsibility, and even alluded to getting my very own assistant somewhere down the line. Woot.

Anyways, gearing up for the Microsoft Game Developer Day in a few hours (why the hell am I not sleeping?! Oh, right, got myself completely hooked on Meteos). Anyhoo, should be pretty neat, with big shots from the US and Japanese Gaming divisions at the big M, covering everything from XNA to XBLA, to Vista. Being that the focus seems to be primarily programming, production, and distribution, I foresee myself being one of the few artists in attendance (though there might be some art director types around). With the print shop screwing up my namecard order, I'm up shit's creek with only 15 namecards left (and I was all chuffed about giving out my purdy double-sided namecards, too).

No matter, the mohawk should help keep me memorable enough. I'll likely be showing off my folio stuff on my DS as well, even though the Treo actually has a better screen (not to mention colour depth), simply because it'll certainly be different. It's all about the standing out tomorrow. Looking forward to the networking session at O Bar right after the seminar, too. Hmm, I wonder if I can claim drinks from work.

Now I just gotta figure out I'm going to juggle all these newfound freelance opportunities that seem to be coming my way.

What an odd day...

2006-09-20T22:20:00.000+08:00

So I'm minding my own business at work, and I get a random Skype message (I tend to get these occasionally, usually from guys that go straight to my block list) from some girl in China. I was bored enough that I chatted with her for a bit.

~天涯~: 05:42:32
I dream of to go to Singapore, but did not go to over
Teck Lee Tan: 05:49:07
so how come you've never been to singapore?
~天涯~: 05:52:21
because i have no a friend in singapore now
~天涯~: 05:53:25
I have already had the friend, and that is you, Is and will plan to go to Singapore

I swear, some big burly psychopathic dude is gonna come to Singapore, hunt me down, and, I dunno, kill me or something. o_O

Then, once again, minding my own business, the sales exec walks into my office brandishing a j-porn magazine, saying: "Dude, see this? The chicks coming to the chalet look like that! I'll hook you up, man!" o_O

One more time, minding my own business at home, my dad comes in and asks me a couple things about work and school, how're you holding up, that sort of thing. Asks if I'm seeing anyone, then proceeds to ask if I'd be interested in meeting his young, good-looking, and rich colleague. o_O

Gotta love lull periods

2006-09-12T00:20:00.000+08:00

Evidently, I had way too much free time on my hands today.

Took the (more or less) final version of the box that I illustrated, printed it on half an A4, cut, folded, taped. Sure beat spending the entire morning hunting for something to do.

About that illo, I gotta say, after a solid month-plus of almost purely design and layout work, finally getting to just sit and paint for three days was a really really welcome change.

Oh yeah, SLG, tried getting you on Saturday, but your MSN was signed in at the office, and today my MSN has decided to completely flake on me. So, happy belated birthday.

Homebrew goodness

2006-09-02T21:31:00.000+08:00

I can't begin to express how chuffed I am that the powers-that-be have finally started to embrace garage developers. I've been pretty excited about XNA since Microsoft announced that they would release the framework, allowing garage shops, hobbyists and students to legally develop for the 360 without the need for a bloody expensive devkit. Honestly, this, along with the stupidly high projected sale price of the PS3, pretty much has me itching for a 360. Hmm, I should pick up a wired 360 controller tomorrow.

The other cool thing is the MS partnership with GarageGames, and the soon-to-come closed beta of TorqueX, which'll just be rocking.

So I've been muddling through the included starter kit and looking through tutorials for the beta of XNA Game Studio Express, and it's just cool. The Component model (dunno if this is something that's in C# in general, since I've never actually coded in it before) looks like a great way to streamline development, and organise each project. One more fucking language to learn, though (C#).

And yet another language when I pick up a Supercard for my DSLite so I can do some homebrew for that system, too. The prospect of homebrew on a handheld, and especially for the DS, is even more exciting to me than for the 360.

Now if only someone would invent a way to get more bloody hours in a day.

Update?

2006-08-29T08:39:00.000+08:00

This here's a true gem.

Enough is enough!

2006-08-28T23:20:00.000+08:00

I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!

Finally got around to catching Snakes on a Plane after much anticipation (first bloody flick I've watched in the theaters since februaryish), and I have to say, it totally lived up to my expectations. In other words, it was a completely silly movie chock full of, well, snakes on a plane. They really had fun with some of those deaths (those first couple of kills... lol).

And I'll leave off with the now-classic bit of social commentary:

Can I say it?

2006-08-18T11:55:00.000+08:00

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again: y'all think too goddamned much. Yeah I'm talkin' to you. Honestly, it's been what, nine, ten months now? Seriously, go have fun, make the best of things, or I swear I'll beat the both of you senseless.

Wooo, portrait

2006-08-13T23:36:00.000+08:00

Gorgnut, my crazy Swede buddy, did a portrait of me in acrylic on board (40x80cm), using one of my mohawk pics as reference. He's aware there are some proportional issues, but fuck me he did a nice job with those skintones, especially for his first time tackling that. Bastard's not even 18 yet. o_O

I look like I'm about to kill a motherfucker. o_O

Now I really wanna see this thing in person, probably next Feb when I'm in Europe.

"Improper" photomanipulation?

2006-08-07T10:21:00.000+08:00

Saw this on Yahoo News before they took it down, supposedly showing the aftermath of an air strike on Beirut. Talk about some blatant and shitty manipulation. Someone went a little triggerhappy with the clone stamp. Anyways, it was taken down shortly after, with the following statement issued:

A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

In the message, Reuters said that “photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience.”

Reuters’ head of PR Moira Whittle said in response: “Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures.”

“As soon as the allegation came to light, the photograph, filed on Saturday 5 August, was removed from the file and a replacement, showing the same scene, was sent. The explanation for the removal was the improper use of photo-editing software,” she added.

Earlier, Charles Johnson, of the Little Green Footballs blog , which has exposed a previous attempt at fraud by a major American news corporation, wrote : “This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image.”

Let's backtrack a second:

The explanation for the removal was the improper use of photo-editing software

So what's proper, then? When we're unable to tell it's been altered? It gets better, too:

“The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under,” said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.

Lol?

Anyways, here's a before-and-after gif of the offending photo:

Finally got that haircut

2006-07-31T22:35:00.000+08:00

Umm. Cut line went a little higher than I realised. :p That said, the remaining hair's still wide enough to wear floppy for when I go into the office. But it's narrow enough to wear a mohawk. :D

Another [not-so-]speedie

2006-07-30T23:13:00.000+08:00

About an hour and a halfish this time round.

I start Tuesday!

2006-07-30T13:58:00.000+08:00

So I met up with the new boss on Friday to go over the terms of employment, etc, and got everything all sorted, and we decided I'd start on Tuesday. Turns out there was a bit of a miscommunication, and my position title will be Creative Designer rather than Executive. Works well enough for me, and my buddies agreed that title made more sense. Roles and responsibilities remain the same, though, so I'll be in charge of design and (if the art assets we receive aren't up to snuff) illustration of box art as well as advertising and promotional materials for the titles we bring in for distribution, at some point designing the website for the casual games division, and overall branding for the division. If necessary, I'll also be responsible for outsourcing the above. Should be interesting, to say the least.

Went down to Zouk to celebrate with some of my buddies, and got kinda plastered. Again. Ade claims she's never seen me come out sober and go home sober. :X I gotta lay off the juice. o_O

Two more speedpaints. First one turned into an indistinct mess of colors and values.

Next one didn't turn out too bad, if a little lazy.

I'm a Cylon

2006-07-27T19:26:00.000+08:00

So. Now that I've gone ahead and confirmed everything, I can actually say why I can't hit Europe for that month-long vacation I had semi-planned. Ready for it? Ready? Make sure y'all are sitting down, now.

As of today (though I haven't decided when to actually start), I'm the Creative Executive of the Safari Casual Games Division at Cylon Interactive Pte Ltd (gotta love that company name).

Bam! Took me as much by surprise as the rest of you, I guarantee you. I did a freelance gig with them doing a cover illustration for a game they were to be distributing, and they offered me the position. Bam! Floored.

So yeah, no Europe vacation. Still shooting for the MB Workshop, though. I'll be damned if I'm gonna miss that.

Speedies

2006-07-26T15:34:00.000+08:00

4ish hours, ref'd from the kookiest building I found in my architecture photoref hunt. Could use cleanup/tightening, but I'm moving on with lessons learned.

An hour, loosely ref'd.

Half an hour, very loosely ref'd.
edit: plus another 10 or so minutes tightening up the foreground
edit2: and 20 more minutes refining and adding a foreground silhouette

No Europe fer me

2006-07-25T19:24:00.000+08:00

Got some unexpected opportunities that, while very cool, are gonna rule out my month-long holiday in Europe. Dammit, I had so many people to visit, too. Shouldn't be a problem making it for the workshop, though, it just won't be as cost-efficient as if I could spend a month pottering around the continent. Unless I can get the trip and/or the workshop paid for. Heh.

Got Head?

2006-07-19T02:38:00.000+08:00

Decided to get started on the head studies Becca's been pimping. Bit thinner than ref, and I got lazy around the eyes, I think.

CG Overdrive

2006-07-18T08:50:00.000+08:00

Oh, right, forgot to link up my Thunderdome entry.

So CG Overdrive turned out to be really awesome. Feng Zhu rocked the house as expected, Andrew Gordon and Carlos Baena both gave awesome presentations, Daniel Martinez Lara was hilarious, and props to Steve Unterfrantz and Michael Connely for managing to hold everyone's interest in some incredibly technical topics. Meeting Steven Stahlberg and Robert Chang for dinner and drinks was awesome, especially since they served as my early inspirations and were incredibly generous and helpful when I was starting to learn.

Wheeeee

2006-07-13T02:12:00.000+08:00

Got my entry for the first round of Thunderdome: Last Man Standing 2 in on time. Tyranx will very likely hand my ass to me on a plate, but it's cool. I'm fairly happy with my painting, even though there are areas I could've improved on. Most people I showed it to for crits loved the concept. :) We're not supposed to show our pieces until the official thread goes up on Friday afternoon PST, so I'll link it up then.

Aaand for some reason I've got smiley fever:

Marko Djurdjevic:

Android (Andrew Jones):

Slash's Pencil Holder:

and last but not least, Quicksilver's mitten bop:

Quicksilver loved the mitten bop smiley. :D And Jason might add these (along with those done by 0kelvin and fooxoo) to the forum smiley list. Yay! :D

edit:
Added one more of fooxoo:

edit2:
Marko's secret to drawing

Art gauntlet!:

Duke Nukem Nostalgia

2006-06-29T16:43:00.000+08:00

Someone pointed me to the 3D Realms site where they've linked a video of Christopher Paul Kline (aka VertexGuy) doing a guitar rendition of the Duke Nukem theme. And what a fucking rendition! Check out the solo at the end.

He's got a couple other guitar renditions from as well that are equally awesome:
Contra - Jungle Jam
Double Dragon Jam

And of course a link to his site. He's got a bunch of mp3s of various other tributes (Brinstar!).

So I got my grades today

2006-06-28T20:39:00.000+08:00

Opened up that envelope with a fair amount of trepidation, fearing mainly my math grade. All I can say is, HOLY FUCK!

To mohawk or not to mohawk

2006-06-28T04:41:00.000+08:00

So I feel like doing something crazy with my hair, and after some deliberation, I kinna wanna get me a mohawk. Not a stand-straight-up mohawk, but more of a floppy, I-don't-give-a-fuck mohawk. Only potential problem is the teaching gigs; I'm not entirely sure how well it would fly with school administration for someone with a damned mohawk to even be around their precious students, let alone be teaching them. Alternatively I could do something a little less extreme. Which wouldn't be remotely as much fun.

Anyways, so I missed the Massive Black ca.org workshop in Montreal, mainly owing to a lack of dosh to buy plane tickets, but I'm consoling myself by doing some figure studies from photos of the figure sessions taken by some of my buddies.

Quick lazy (read: shitty) study of the cute model Android got to airbrush.

And a slightly longer study.

I fully intend to go to the next one in Rome, though. Should be happening at the end of the year, and hopefully won't clash with my fucking exams in November. If anyone's gonna be in Europe end of the year, gimme a holler, because I plan to spend about a month there to hop around visiting friends all over (and I'm totally gonna hit up Prague).

Light Surgeons

2006-06-24T14:08:00.000+08:00

Went down to Zouk last night for an event, after my buddy raved about the Light Surgeons, who were doing the opening set. Seriously cool stuff, with pretty awesome music, and live video editing to go along with it. The fact that they interspersed the video with footage and soundbites from some awesome movies (The Warriors, Apocalypse now, Full Metal Jacket, and Yojimbo were the ones I recognised) only made the deal sweeter. The free Henessy and green teas didn't hurt, either.

Then came the pretty appalling fashion show with models who couldn't walk. -.-

Met up with some more buddies after that, and it remained a fairly light drinking night. Until one of my buddies decided we should join his friend at her table. Bad move. I ended up with seven full seconds worth of Hennesy VSOP washing down my throat. o_O

Anyways, off to Starbucks for some sketching. :)

Lawdie, what a week

2006-06-17T05:14:00.000+08:00

YP finally managed to take leave for the week. That's about as rare as it gets, so this week's pretty much been a week of excesses. Too much smoking, too much drinking. Good LAWD there's been a lot of drinking. And bless the guy, he's been driving me around in the Boxster and paying for pretty much all of the drinks. Just for posterity, I'm gonna attempt to list everything from the past 3 nights (the vast majority are from Wednesday):

6 Malibu Pineapples, 3 Sambuca shots, 5 Apple shooters, 2 Midori Sours, 2 McCallum and sodas, 1 Lychee Martini, 1 Chocolate Martini, 2 Gin and Tonics, 4 Vodka Red Bulls, 1 Vodka Lemon shooter, 1 Vodka Ribena, 3 Scotch and Cokes, half a glass of red wine.

That's just what I can remember off hand. Shouldn't I be dead? o_O Yet I was strangely lucid all three nights. Even managed to get some decent work done on Thursday after that crazy bender.

That said, Morton's Bar has some fucking awesome steak sandwiches. Free during Happy Hour. Woohoo! Nifty setup, too.

I think I need sleep. o_O

Swag! Woohoo!

2006-06-15T22:53:00.000+08:00

So apparently they're giving out swag for merely registering for CGOverdrive. And the swag's pretty impressive for how much I paid. Student discount, plus early bird, plus group rates factored in, I only paid S$160 (about 90-100 USD).

And I still can't believe I'm meeting up with Steven Stahlberg for drinks when he comes down for the conference.

$#%&@#% tiger pelt

2006-06-01T03:44:00.000+08:00

I swear, if I never ever have to stare at another tiger pelt in my life, it'll be too soon. -.- OFDW17 on CGTalk.

Full res detail shots, kept everything pretty loose.

Step-by-step (475kb gif), if you're interested.

And, the original.

Nails

2006-05-22T06:10:00.000+08:00

Got rid of the shirt, since as we all know, hardness is inversely proportional to the amount of clothing a guy wears on his upper body. :p Musculature is getting blocked in, hue variation will come later, and I forgot the scapulae. Back of the arms are poo right now. Digital camo on the fatigues, and other little details and crunk.

"Welcome to the Beginning of the End"

2006-05-20T19:28:00.000+08:00

It's ON! Thunderdome: Last Man Standing 2, matchup #64. LoTekK vs entdroid vs Tyranx.

Tyranx. Two words: Oh shit. >_<

Solidmetalliquidwtfbbq Snake

2006-05-17T05:14:00.000+08:00

I keep looking at b1ll's stuff for inspiration but end up getting annoyed at his ridiculous skill. :p

Woot!

2006-05-16T04:20:00.000+08:00

So it looks like this teaching thing is actually going to happen. Not only are they going to let me get in front of a classroom and corrupt our youth, they're gonna pay me good money to do it. Even cooler still, I get major input into the development of this program (lesson plans and structure, etc).

Additionally, this guy's company currently does visualisation work for educational purposes, and he offered me either a part-time position or subcontract opportunity (depending on my preference) to help develop real-time interactive educational stuff. Jesus. Me and education. Whod'a thunk it.

Anyways, another quick update:

The box!

I actually managed to paint an ear that didn't suck.

What, me, teach?

2006-05-15T04:40:00.000+08:00

How's this for crazy: I may have a teaching opportunity in the works; three 9-hour courses on 3D modelling and animation, covering beginner, intermediate, and advanced, to be taught to secondary school students. Meeting the organiser tomorrow afternoon to get a better picture, but I'm fucking chuffed that I might actually get an opportunity to teach. :)

In other news, Ego suggested on IRC that I should enter the 3D Journey Challenge (as opposed to the 2D one that I never got started). That once I'm done with the guy, I should build my entry around him. She's probably right. Could be a fun exercise, and I was already planning to get him rigged up anyways, as well as build an environment for him. Coming up with a Challenge entry looks like a distinct possibility.

Pooky!

2006-05-15T04:35:00.000+08:00

I think I've officially run out of room on the vest to put anymore crap. :( I'd have to get rid of some more pouches, and I don't particularly want to do that (already gotten rid of 3 so far). That said, I think he's got a well-rounded selection of weapons and accessories. The new accessories need optimising still (shotgun and grenade launcher), but I decided to unwrap the main mesh first and start painting.

The shotgun. I'm rather happy with the customisation. Took the shortest combat shotgun I could find... and shortened it even more, while "fixing" it so it could conceivably work. :D I don't think you'd hit anything past 2 feet with that barrel, though, nevermind the fact that you could probably only fit 2 shells in that magazine. :D

Oh yeah, and here's Pooky! Because even a nails bastard needs some company sometimes. :D

And here's the first pass at the head texture (hairstrips, cigarette and oakleys hidden). I added a throat mic, too. Ambient at 66%, 1 spot, and 1 fill:

Liquid?!

2006-05-11T05:08:00.000+08:00

Tweak tweak tweak.

Okay, did some fixing and added another accessory. The main reason the proportions were throwing me off was a slight miscalculation on the part of aligning my measuring grid (going with just shy of an 8-head-tall male):

Argh.

Anyways, fixed up the overall proportions, tweaked the neck area, broadened the shoulders just a teeny bit, played with the forearms, and added a combat knife and sheath to the front of the LBV.

The forearm size is partly a stylistic choice, influenced heavily by Free Radical's art style (I've long been a fan). I may revisit them at a later juncture, though. I'll be fixing up the elbow area, though. "The arms...get too thin as they reach the distal epiphysis of the humerus." Damn you Theresa, what's with the fucking medical terms?

If you're wondering why the first tri count is actually lower this time, it's mainly because I accidentally included the cigarette in the tricount the first time round.

edit: Oops. Think the wire display got screwed up in the front view. :hmm: Relooped the knee area, though, it's mostly visible.

Liquid Lizard! Huh, wha...?

2006-05-11T00:47:00.000+08:00

edit: swapped out the img tags since the next entry has better updates.

Yes, horrible name, but the guy has started looking a lot like some kind of MGS reject (he looks like he really really really wanted to snag the part of Solid Snake :p).

Anyways, still WIP, and needs some optimising (eg, the torso is still present underneath the LBV). Eventually it'll get rigged, textured, and posed+animated.

2013 tris (sans accessories)
3261 tris (with guns, holsters, sword, oakleys, cig)

As you can tell, the accessories also need heavy heavy optimisation. Will likely work on the pants some more, and the LBV is still in its infancy.

Anyways, piccies!

Shaded
Head, shaded
Fron/back wires

Head wires, sans hair and accessories:

And the accessories:

Keepin' busy. Or something.

2006-05-10T06:28:00.000+08:00

Uh, it's 6.30 in the morning. >_< Piccies!

And yes, that's a reference to Zoolander.

Sunset from photoref, still WIP (snapped the pic from the dining room window):

Silly lowpoly (under 500 tris) trout I modelled in about a half-hour after a bunch of the guys on #cgsociety accused me of having some sort of obsession with trout. ^_^

And a WIP lowpoly model (currently just shy of 1700 tris without the weapons) for fun/practise. I'll be rigging, unwrapping, texturing, posing, and animating, assuming all goes according to plan.

Caprica

2006-04-28T15:18:00.000+08:00

Battlestar Galactica spinoff announced

Man, if they do this right, and the creative juices don't get spread too thin, this could be seriously awesome. Here's hoping.

Swag

2006-04-25T04:31:00.000+08:00

Got some bloody comps I should really take a crack at. I reckon the current CGTalk Challenge, The Journey Begins could overlap nicely with the entry theme for CGOverdrive, so I should be able to kill two birds with one stone there. Then there's the comp being held by Animazoo, with the ridiculously awesome top prize of a fucking mocap rig and MotionBuilder Pro 7. I should seriously get cracking on those.

And tonight's SP. Shadowed area's too light; looks like I'm missing half my face, instead of it being in shadow. Plus, fixed up feature placement in PS:

edit: Oh yeah, decided to fix the previous SP up, as well. Again, shifting of eyes and nose area, plus retouching:

Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006

2006-04-24T22:00:00.000+08:00

This is quite probably the most awesome thing I've ever seen (click for article and video link):

See, if that were actually a game, I'd have no qualms shelling out $60 for it.

Muay Thai goodness

2006-04-24T06:47:00.000+08:00

So the muay thai tourney was pretty awesome. Apparently we actually have a decent muay thai presence here in Singapore. The amateur fights, which made up the majority of the tourney were pretty dull, with one notable exception (this mofo really went all out, unlike the others), but the pro fights were real crowd-pleasers.

First up was a female match, a Singaporean girl vs the top female Thai kickboxer. We lost that one, but our girl put up quite a fight. Next up was one of ours vs an Australian. That one ended in a draw, but it was a solid match overall. The last one, though, was the real kicker. Some of my mates knew the Singaporean fighter (the guy DJs part time, with muay thai as his day job), and he just about whupped the Canadian fighter silly. In the final round, he delivered a knockout kick to the side of Canuck's head (framegrab from the vid I took with the Treo):

Feckin' awesome stuff. Then I went off and got shitfaced with my mates. :p Which resulted in a 15-minute drunk SP after getting home:

And today/last night's SP. Still need to work on the whole likeness thing:

Arrr!

2006-04-22T00:55:00.000+08:00

Tonight's SP:

Gonna go watch a muay thai tourney tomorrow. Should be lots of fun. Hopefully I'll be close enough to snag some sweet reference photos, too.

Blech

2006-04-21T05:19:00.000+08:00

Not so happy with this SP. Entirely too much time noodling, mainly because I fucked the foundations early on. :

Expenses

2006-04-20T04:14:00.000+08:00

Argh. I've got another 8 days (whoops, looks like it's 4) to pre-order the special edition of Expose 4, and there's also the upcoming CG Overdrive. (Carlos Baena, Daniel Martinez Lara, and Robert Chang will be speaking and holding workshops. And Feng Zhu!!!1!11one!! Fuckin' A.) Plus I need to pick up an extra gig or two of RAM. @_@ Oh yeah. And a pair of inline skates. Heck, there's a skate park right outside the building where the gym is located. :p

Anyways, another SP. Starting to get a hang of the colors, but still need more practise. Look! Eyebrows! And blue hair. o_O

Straight out of Artrage2

Used the liquify filter in PS to fix up some proportions and obvious screwups, and auto-leveled it:

Fuckin' A!

2006-04-19T04:17:00.000+08:00

Revisiting Another World, Edge Online.

Only one of the best games ever released. I'd love to see Flashback and Fade to Black revisited as well.

More SPs

2006-04-18T06:10:00.000+08:00

Gym again, today. The only thing more disheartening than moving to a station recently-vacated by an ox of a guy, and moving the weight pin down to about a third of the load (and struggling with even that), is doing so on multiple occasions during a gym session. o_O

Anyways, another SP (from yesterday). Tried using more saturated colors this time round, though it's still a little funky. No makeup, though! :p Oh yeah, and I forgot my eyebrows. Doh!

Just finished up one for today. Non-ref'd this time; just wanted to get the hang of colors again, as well as get used to the new paint behavior in Artrage2. Gave myself better cheekbones. :p Forgot eyebrows again. Doh!

Badminton!

2006-04-17T00:46:00.000+08:00

I feel like ass. Two solid hours of badminton just about wiped me out. Then again, there's nothing quite like rewarding yourselves with plates of oily, fatty food after a solid workout. :D

And SPs for the last two days, done in ArtRage2. Having some trouble with the colors. And the second one looks like me in drag. o_O

Owww...

2006-04-14T00:19:00.000+08:00

Hit the gym again today. If I ever get called back anytime soon for my physical proficiency test, I'm so failing the 2.4km run.

So, the interview actually went quite well, I think. :) That said, I still have to wait for a second round of interviews. The suspense is killing me. :p

Anyways, today's (yesterday, by now) SP:

I appear to be making my SP's a little chunky. :p

Whee

2006-04-13T01:07:00.000+08:00

Had dinner tonight with Dan Maas. Very chill guy, with a real fascinating story on how he got his break early on. Dropped bloody $50 on dinner and drinks, but hey, networking. :) Oh, of the four of us there, I was the only non-Cornellian. But it was definitely cool. Good food, good beer, good company, good contacts.

And tomorrow at noon comes my interview at NexGen Studio on behalf of a European partner. Fuck, keeping those fingers crossed. o_O

Oh, and today's SP. Only had 5-10 minutes or thereabouts before I had to run off for the dinner, hence the unfinishedness:

It's already broughten!

2006-04-11T22:51:00.000+08:00

Daily self portrait for two months (til the Montreal Massive Black/Conceptart.org Workshop begins). How I wish I could afford to go to the workshop. :\ Anyways, got a little friendly battle going on between myself, gorgnut, and erilaz, along with whoever decides to randomly put up SPs. :p

SP Overdrive: Erilaz vs. Gorgnut vs. LoTekk vs. the occasional Kimmie vs. whomever!!!

Today's entry:

Nintendo, I lubs you.

2006-04-01T15:37:00.000+08:00

If this all turns out to be some huge April Fool's joke, I shall cry.

Imagine using the Revo controller to paint some happy trees, and happy clouds, and happy mountains. Imagine making a bunch of happy mistakes on your Revo.

March 31, 2006 - In news that breaks free from the shackles of abnormal and jumps headfirst into the realm of surreal, independent development studio AGFRAG Entertainment Group has announced that it is working on videogames based on the cult television icon Bob Ross.
...
AGFRAG made the announcement yesterday, prompting concerns from skeptics of an early April Fool's joke. We contacted AGFRAG directly for clarification.

"The press release is not a joke, but the side effect of people thinking it is might help us get noticed," explained Joseph Hatcher, who heads up the company brining Bob Ross to Nintendo's systems.

Revolution Fanboy article
Go Nintendo article
Go Nintendo article update
IGN article

And almost as cool are rumors of a possible DS port of Mario Paint.

I'll say it again: I fucking love you, Nintendo.

Woohoo!

2006-03-27T10:00:00.000+08:00

The government just gave me $700. (My mom got a grand. What's up with that?)

Oh yeah, so I'm trying to make a solid effort at recovery and self-improvement. I actually decided to go for a run earlier today. Figured I'd start off slow, so I mapped out a roughly 2km route, and work my way up.

That run utterly fucking destroyed me. I don't think I ran more than 300m before my legs started to feel the burn, and hit maybe 1.5k before my legs refused to push any further (not to mention my lungs!). Walked the rest of the way back, punctuating the walk with little pathetic spurts of jogging. But hey, gotta (re)start somewhere, right? :p

Photos 'n' stuff

2006-03-27T00:00:00.000+08:00

As promised, a few photos from Rome and Matt's visit (hover for description, click for larger):

Trying not to get shot

2006-03-26T05:30:00.000+08:00

Well, it's been a vaguely busy week. Rome and Matt arrived on Sunday, at the ungodly hour of 6.35am, after which we proceeded to spend the next three days doing the touristy stuff that I hadn't gotten around to doing since I'd been back. I'll have pictures up sometime tomorrow, once I've sorted through them. But yeah, fun times. :) Managed to not get shot while attempting to visit the Istana, a historical and colonial building that houses our President. Apparently it's only open to visitors a couple days a year on certain public holidays, or so we were told by the 5-0 on gate duty. He, along with the two other cops backing him up (and approaching us very warily), seemed infinitely relieved that our only purpose in approaching the gate was to ask if we could visit, or at least take pictures from the exterior.

Tonight, on a whim (and somewhat inspired by the thread on conceptart.org with pictures of everyone's work area), I decided to finally get off my ass and, well, reorganize my room. See, before I moved back in, my folks were using my current bedroom as a storeroom. It still shows evidence of that, but it's looking a sight better than just a couple hours ago. Moved my bed, moved a bunch of stuff, tossed a shitload of stuff, and still have a bunch of stored stuff I'm hoping to be able to move out of the room. Anyways, I've gone from this trainwreck (note the piles of junk on my work desk, the two large suitcases beside that, and the completely inaccessible desk to the right) to this:

After moving my bed, I found enough room to setup a makeshift drafting table (hard to tell, but it's at a 30-ish degree tilt), though I'm going to have to jerry-rig some kind of narrow shelf at the lower edge.

Also, In the process of moving shit around, I found my mom's old stash of acrylics. I had an artbin full of bloody acrylics sitting right next to me all these months!

Now I just need to see about getting new curtains. That blue and jaundice set on my windows ain't cuttin' it right now. :p

Whoops, just realized that the bedside table is blocking access to the pullout spare bed. Frack.