Dead Space 2 on the horizon!!!

Picked up the first issue of Game Informer Australia the other day. It featured a cover story on Dead Space 2. Its a great article (in fact its a pretty impressive magazine) and it shed some light onto the thought process of the creative folk at Visceral Games. The article served to further heighten my respect for this studio.
It was so refreshing to hear a studio speak about narrative structure and plot pacing. It mad a nice change from the typical "and we have developed this cool new weapon". It is reassuring to hear that a studio puts that much emphasis on character and plot. After all, video games are often touted as being an interactive and cinematic experience, and therefore you would think that plot and narrative pacing should be crucial elements. Kudos to Visceral for recognising this.
The first Dead Space was amazing. It gave a stiff kick up the pants to the waning survival horror genre. It introduced a game that was genuiinely scary, unrelenting, had good controls and had a story that made me want to play till the end. To hear the direction they are going with the sequel just makes me hungry for the next game even more.

Something quick last nite (WIP)

Here's a quick 20minute progress sketch from last nite. Wanted to do a sort of giant robot wreaks havoc sort of sketch.

Back to work tomorrow...

Oh well, 3 days off was nice but alas it's over.
Did another refinied pencil page today whilst i watched the V8 supercars.
Watched "There will be Blood" last nite. Very intriguing movie. Love the segments with no speaking and just music. Movie makers seem to be giving the viewers more credit these days. Movies like There will be blood, Wall-E, and No country for old men all do this very successfully. There seems to be a lot of good films out there these days. Daniel Day Lewis' performance in "There will be blood" was amazing!
On another note: my puppy gets her lamp shade taken off her head tomorrow so thats a definite plus. Can't say i'm gonna miss that walking Pixar lamp! :)

Comic page pencils

For a day that started with a mild hangover, it was actually pretty good. Knocked over this refined pencil page this afternoon and now its time for a video marathon with the girlfriend.

More comic layouts

Been muckin around with my layouts for the latest POW challenge. These are reall rough. Will go and do the proper refinied pencils next. Sigh...do i have to go back to work next week? Holidays are so much fun!

Nice to be on holidays

Enjoying my time off. Was the girlfriends birthday today so we had a pretty fun laidback day. Did get a little bit of a chance to do some drawing. Am doing the latest P.O.W challenge at conceptart.org.
Started on my main character design and page layouts. Must admitted the tone and theme of the story is definitely influenced by the amount i've been playing of fallout 3 lately. Too many good games out at the moment and too little time. Such a good problem to have.

Holidays and Halftone screens

Sigh....I have the rest of the week off. Am really gonna enjoy this holiday as I've felt a little on the strung out side. My usually short fuse has seemed almost no existant of late.

The great news is that little Leela is feeling much better. She slept the whole nite through with no dramas. That also meant I got to sleep the whole nite through. As wierd as it sounds me and the pup had a little slumber party in the entertainment room, watched some dvds and crashed out there for the nite. Hey, those futons are surprisingly comfy :)

Also mucked around with some halftone screens on my comic pages. Loving the effest. Just have to make sure I don't get too carried away with them, as that can happen with me. Anyway I'm back on track and refuelled with creative energy. More to come soon!

Storyboards

Full on day today. So glad I practiced that comic drawing on the weekend, especially the sketchy layouts.
Needed to do some storyboards for a TV sizzle ad for one of our new products today. It was flat stick but actually really good fun. I love doing storyboards! Got it all done and I must say they turned out fantastic. Very happy!

Well I stayed true to my motivation for the weekend and completed most of the POW challenge on concept art.org. Got two of the pages inked yesterday.

This up and down weather is messing me round though - i don't care if its hot or cold - just not both so close to each other...aaaaarrrgggh! :)

Woke up this morning and feel like i've had about an hour sleep (which isn't true - i had a full nites sleep) but this hot weather at nite is a bummer.

Back to work today...sigh...I think I need a Berocca :)

The girlfriend is still depressed about her fable character getting fat. Have to admit thats pretty funny! (Hope she doesn't read this :) )

Anyway here's my two inked pages...

Panels of the Week challenge

Well it looks like the motivation is holding strong. With the exception of a couple of interuptions to ferry a very drunken girlfriend and her friend jellybean around to a party and so forth, I've been able to knock over four pages of rough layouts for my entry.
Now I've gotta properly design the characters and do some refinement to the page art.
Die Hard is on the tv now, and toy story movies were on before that so theres been plenty of background stimulation as well :)