You don't use it you lose it, gonna try to get it back.

[JFierce]

Apparently hit page 7

Messing around with sprites and stuff for an iphone game, doing it with friends.
More serious stuff on page 5-6

Edit: Games on hold for a bit, I'm just messing around with whatever now.

Mainly digital because my scanners pretty much gone lol. So I scribble with pencil occasionally but no way to really show it here.



Was going to wait a bit until I had something more to post but I'll just post this little picture I did awhile back for my game since I don't like to post without something at least.

But ok lets see.

@ KONM Thanks. Yeah That one was fun to do, kind of want to finish it but I'm going to leave it on the backburner.

@ zathraya Thanks

@ ThomasM I've actually seen some peoples studies and I was wondering what they were based on. Occasionally I'll get suggestions and I'll look through them but Vilppu's stuff actually seems really interesting to me. Definitely going to check it out. Thanks!

@ teapo Yeah the game is fun, gives my other creative juices an outlet. I'll eventually do more color studies, I took a break for awhile but I probably will need to since I plan on doing cinematic screens for this game which when your in low res one of the best ways to differentiate is through color. As to perspective. Yeah, it's a weak point of mine. Actually one of the reasons I first started doing comics. Because they force you to do angles and keep a scene logical and in place. Objects don't just shift around in space so you have to keep things generally with the same feel.

------------------------------------------------------------


All I got today is the finishing 3rd picture to the above sequence. Though the sword in the 2nd picture is foreshortened wrong. I needed to keep it that way because I technically need to use it again but with a person holding it for a different panel.


It's very hard to make a character decent looking but keep it close to the pixellated character it's based on. Then you have to keep it consistent.


But mainly I've been busy with programming this thing recently. Even though it's an old RPG maker without even a scripting language you can do a lot with some algebra and pictures/animations. Basically I think of the project as compiling all my favorite games and features from my childhood and making it into my own story in the same format. All this recent copyright scares have me skiddish about sharing even a bit of it. Though there are countless RPG maker games out there and no one cares because they're just fan games not making a profit or doing any harm.

[JFierce]

Well a weird change. Went from doing a personal project to a friend asking me to join a project to create an iPhone game app.

Sounded interesting. So I decided to give it a go.
2 friends are programming, one helping with planning and such, another doing the music and I have the fun of doing all the spriting. Which is going to be a huge project. But I have plenty of time on my hands.

Not going to post too much from it here, one of the few serious projects.
But I've been messing around with some things I've never done before
So I figure I'll put a few here to sort of log the project so I remember it later.

Never animated anything from scratch that I've drawn so it was definitely interesting.







Though I edited these a bit so it's a bit old. But eh. Either way it was fun.

[Black Spot]

The walking one is my favourite. They're very detailed for sprites.

[JFierce]

@ Black Spot

Thanks!
The walking one I like a lot too. It was actually really really interesting learning about the sequence of walking. You never imagine the stages of it being so intricate for something so simple.

-----------------------------------------------

Can't update too much as the game is fairly secretive and I don't want to make the guys mad. But a few random outdated things here and there won't hurt. Doesn't matter if it's not being used in the game, and if somehow a random onlooker stole something by a very low chance it would be old.

I took the new main costume I've been working on and as someone pointed out in my group it looks weird both his hands being stuck in place. His standing pose he has one hand behind his back and a cane.

Before I was animating literally by just eye balling it in a line next to each other but I found an animation program to help. Though the gif is a bit off fixed the little issues that bugged me already.





Then I was working on some very rough drafts for how the perspective of the side scrolling will lay out, text box and picture size. All that jazz. It's going to be interesting keeping things generally the same but having the setting change drastically. The stages location are going to be extremely different.



Drawing a portrait on a small resolution with the realization that they're going to be looking at it on their tiny phones though makes it very hard to do. Because you have to draw it at the resolution it's in so you'll zoom in get all close and make it detailed then zoom out and it will look like utter crap. You have to simplify and make it complex at the same time. Then you have to make every other portrait match. Then the formats for all these pictures is a mess to figure out.

Never made a game and drawing things while having to keep in mind file constraints is very new to me.....

Frustrating but fun. If this game does get made without a hitch that would just be cool to have a game out in the market that you sprited entirely yourself.

[JFierce]

Haven't done anything but pixels for ages.
But of course the only thing stuck on the brain is characters from the game we're working on (or at least the current drafts)




Random doodle, had a little time to do non pixel stuff because we had a slight moment of

"Wait... I thought you meant we're doing this for the game. You meant that..... wait.... that won't work if.... if we're trying to do this, we should do this over here.... .... God dammit Group meeting later this week!"

On a different note it's very weird drawing sprites in a new method of dividing the picture into 32x32 square grids and create them in a way that they can be reused and tiled down for multiple purposes.

[JFierce]

Taking a break from drawing and animating pixels for at least one picture
Still drafting generally for now, gotta adjust a lot while moving on. Mainly perspective with the foreground vs the rest being a biggie. But a bit tired. So sleep time.

[JFierce]

A little bit more today. Not too much. A bit busy.
Waters pretty interesting, kind of hard to lightly reference
Taking an existing water and then moving it doesn't work, all the ripples wouldn't make sense. Same with the lighting, and everything else since water is quite reflective, and changes dramatically.

Then there's that damn balance between too many ripples and too little.

[JFierce]

Sadly my computer got hit with a pretty bad virus. Pretty sure from what looked like innocent enough software, even had good reviews. Goes to show you not to trust things based on a few good reviews.


But I don't have an external HD or anything so I had only a blank DVD and a few small CD's to backup whatever I could. Then when reformattingI accidentally forgot the file of the photo I was working on above, sooooo guess that's finished for now then......


Anyways...... a real quick still life and some random doodles.

[JFierce]

Some late night scribbles. More CA backgrounds. It's a nice tone.

First one was just some quick lines and such while starting to finally read some Vilppu. Was skimming and already felt I learned a bit.



Then I just messed around with trying to add some simple form to them




Then I did a random doodle where I was just basically throwing shit down loosely. Was lightly referenced at first but then I realized the reference sucked. So I changed the expression and everything else in general.

[Black Spot]

Eye aren't quite lined up on that last one, but keep working on it as it looks interesting.

[JFierce]

Well doing todays study I learned a lesson. Always check the file size before drawing digitally.

Pretty much finished then I realized the file size was really small so I doubled it and had to redo a bit of it here and there before I got tired of it and said I'm done.

Either way. Figured cosplayers would be interesting to do figure studies of. This was originally going to just be a gesture. But I liked it as I went on. Then started adding color when I wasn't planning on using color.

Well either way it is what it is.
Study of the day.


Anyways random early capture




Then the final.






Things off here and there but I wasn't even intending to push it that far.



Edit: Since it's the same day I figure I'll tack this one I just did while just zoning out to music. I like it actually quite a bit despite not planning one bit of it and just randomly laying stuff down to see what I get.

[JFierce]

@BlackSpot
Thanks! Yeah I notice it now that it's pointed out. I think I tilted the reference a bit without tilting the eyes =/

------------------------------

More random doodles. Was pretty fun despite the abundant errors with the crazy perspective. Not sure, think I messed up some areas I had a good feel with in the first draft. But either way, it is what it is.








Edit: Oh yeah.... and some simple squares when messing around with some stuff.

[James Thomas]

haha wicked spiderman picture, i think u shud focus a bit more on using solids wen u color instead of black transparencies and such, wud help alot, tho im no master so yeh, take it with a pinch lol

[JFierce]

@ A Faux
Thanks, the colors aren't really solid because I was just using a simple brush to quickly lay in the basic values while eyeballing things. I could just stop at the sketch but I like to practice a bit with the form even if it's a quickie. Solid brushes it's a bit harder to just quickly scribble in some basic form (at least for me it is right now lol)
--------------------------------------

Not too much recently, more quick scribbles from my head for now. Busy with this iphone game thing as well as household stuff.





Edit: Ah what the hell I'll add a draft of this guy from the iphone game
Still a wip though. Tip of the barrel is off in the gif lol.

[Black Spot]

Nice dynamic pose with spiderman.

That girl needs a bit more body and more indication where her hands are.

[MrFrenik]

Cool stuff, man. I'm subscribed.

[JFierce]

@BlackSpot
Yeah, I've had a few people tell me that. It was either I made her legs too long or her torso too short.

@MrFrenik
Thanks!

-----------------------------------------------------

Nothing big to update. Just a bunch of random quick pages when I was experimenting. Going to get back into comics but I'm at the conundrum of finding that balance of quality and time. Doing comics alone takes ages. Why I quit my color long form comic on the other page. Took way too long for too little.

That's why I'm thinking of trying the 'manga' route which is simplification, use of Notan and pure blacks, and not focusing on getting everything perfect but more so consistency and just telling the story properly. I enjoy manga's a lot because in many of them it's both good art and story, yet they can produce a decent sized chapter in a week with only a couple people.


My experimental pages messing around with random stuff. All sorts of little errors, especially with the environments and rushed perspective. My worst subject.









Then I bought Manga Studio for 5 bucks (why not, it's 5 bucks)
And it helps a lot with a bunch of stuff. Especially making the panels and layouts. Also sorts all the layers into nice simple categories so you can just click a button and go from your sketching layers grouped together to your drawing layer, your toning, dialogue and text etc. Then of course you can do custom ones outside of it. But sketching quickly around in panels easily that are automatically masked and such is nice. Then just laying in the lines over the sketch.

So I'm having fun playing with that stuff.
Though trying to figure out how to use Notan in a comic
is really difficult outside of obvious things like clothing and hair.


Guys neck is fucked up but fixed that already.




Oh yeah and this little joke from a misspelling when posting a pokemon joke to a friend.

[Vritra]

Hey, nice sketchbook. Like the comic, love this one.

Don't have much to crit, really. Your GIFs are looking good. Some of them have a bit of stiffness to them, though. Nothing a person can notice while the game is on, however, so that's fine (I think).

Squirtling on Jigglypuggs gives me shivers.

[Black Spot]

Poor Jigglypuggs - he looks so unhappy. I'll be interested to see how for you can push Mango Studio, but it looks okay so far.

[JFierce]

@Vritra Thanks! Yeah I think they're stiff because of the upper body semi afraid of animating the upper half. The games on pause as the programmers figure some shit out but the gameplay at least WAS supposed to be really fast pace to the point I was thinking yeah you might not notice it.

@Black Spot Yeah me too. Manga studio is fun, helps with doing this whole thing myself too since Manga's are generally supposed to be easy so that an artist and maybe 1-2 other people can produce chapters weekly.


-------------------------------------------------------

I was going to post a bunch of in progress shots showing progression
But nah. I think I'll just post the 2 pages I was working on and stop there
Too many progress shots takes away from the pages.

Anyways these 2 are my experimenting with manga studio.
Interesting program and I am enjoying it. Fairly quick for the amount of time
I can dedicate every couple nights or so.

Like always errors here and there in many departments. This one was a bitch very much in composing panels and text though. I need to plan text bubbles ahead of time. Old mans face in the 2nd frame on the 2nd page sucked too. I accidentally merged layers without thinking and it would have been a pain to redo. Would have had to reset the panels and rearrange everything ..... bleh...

[JFierce]

Sisters been in the hospital haven't really had time for anything besides this page. Which has some funky stuff here and there messed up. Especially the first and 2nd panels. But eh. Moving on. Probably won't have time for much more for a bit. Lots of heavy stuff going on.





Oh yeah and trying to read up on Notan and apply it to a comic is a bitch. Completely different mental process which I don't get at all besides "Oh hair black, clothing pure black. Space it out so it doesn't distort the form blah blah blah" basic observations from other comics.

[iven]

WOW amazing stuff in here, do you still got your house thou ?!
I wonder if you draw with vectors, it looks like it sometimes,
what kinda program is that. The comic strip looked very good,
and the eye looks very good as well.

[iven]

I saw your sprite animation, I would add 2 more keyframes on the head/ torso.
It would kinda look like this animation than it look much better cause it's
not stiff:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rvQzQL6kSo

This is another game which is great but the animation looks stiff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XBaEvNsDtQ

In what program do you do the sprites in flash photoshop,
is it for the iphone right !?

Now I could help you too EH, would love to do some games too, did you check
my website, some people call me FLASHGORDON !

Would like to find people where I can make games with any ideas/ forums etc. !?
I have the VILLPU BOOK it's amazing and I practiced a lot from it, thank for
the reminder thou !

[JFierce]

@iven

Answered most of those questions in your SB.
But yeah. Current project is just a small thing with friends.
Easier to cooperate and no stressing over time and schedules.
Pretty casual.





-----------------------------------------------------------------

Stuck in Hospital at John Hopkins watching my sister. They can't diagnose the ridiculous amounts
of Nausea she has. But they're trying to cop out by saying it's psych related.
That's a joke. She's had nausea all day every day since she had a gallbladder removal
last year. She has abdomen pain as well, that's not in her head.

This is a joke. Can't figure it out, blame it on psych.

Drawing with a mouse is annoying.
Wish I at least had pencil and paper or my tablet.
Having immense urges to continue my comic but can't =/
Stuck doing at least some scribbles in alchemy since it's a tad more feasible with a mouse
But can't do anything precise.

[iven]

Thanks man I will maybe try alchemy, I really like your new profile picture.
Updated my SB, I feel like strucure is fine, so far but I really can't handle
value. Which I am trying. Thanks for posing, this face looks very good.

Is it gonna be a character ?!

[JFierce]

@iven
Haha, naw that's just a little face I did of Aang from Avatar the last airbender.


-----------------------------------------------------------


Another page. A little on the light size, nothing too big or fancy.
Was just trying to get a page out because I was stumped on how to do this page.
Couldn't think of a proper transition. Especially when sitting in an uncomfy hospital chair.

I feel I'm doing something wrong when I keep simplifying faces and figures.
But at the same time I kind of want a bit less realistic so I can make some exaggeration
without it feeling completely out of place. It's one reason I love One Piece.
It's very cartoony and exaggerated but because of that he can do some hilarious and expressive faces.
Also need to refresh myself on figure drawing since I haven't even drawn recently yet alone
done figure studies. I was having some issues with basic poses again =/

[JFierce]

Haven't done anything solely with Alchemy in ages. Messing around with making custom pull shapes. Doing portraits is just fun in alchemy.





Edit: Not going to bump for some minor stuff.




Notan stumps me.

[JFierce]

Hand and face still bugs me in the first panel
But I redrew it like 5 times. I'm done.
Not going to obsess that much over one page.




I need to learn badly to put the text bubbles in before drawing....

[Black Spot]

Hope your sister is okay. My mother had hers removed years ago and emigrated 2 weeks after the op. Got another friend who is waiting for the op, but has to wait until he stops looking like Homer Simpson.

You need to work on hands a bit more as they're not coming across that great and they express so much.

Watch you don't give yourself tennis elbow with using the mouse to draw - I did. Take care of yourself.

[JFierce]

@Black Spot


Thanks sisters doing a bit better. Still a long way to go though.


Thanks for the kick in the ass too. Was subconsciously waiting for someone to just point it out. Especially since I already started reworking a bunch of the old panels and got really hung up on a few of the hand changes I have a half empty panel with no hands because I just literally couldn't even begin to think of it after realizing how crappy it was before. I might end up starting over with a new comic at some point like usual. It usually happens when I learn something I've been screwing up or when I'm practicing something new that's different from the usual process. When doodling these pages.

Next time going to make it a bit more interesting from the start..... talking pages to start off get very boring....


--------------------------------------------------------


So I just decided to do some quick reference studies vs a quick imagination sketch and yeah. Clearly can see the difference. Hopefully once I'm out of this damn hospital I can actually reference my pictures more and try to up the quality a bit more (with my own refs, I hate working around other peoples random pictures online some of my favorite panels when I was learning were ones where I was doing the crazy pose) . Because ref vs no ref, there's obvious quality differences =/

Also going to try to limit the values of any studies since that's what I'm going to do in comics. Which is fricken difficult.... normally it's just "Oh this value goes here" but now it's "No, you have to balance the black and white, with a touch of gray. get used to it. It will speed things up in the long run".

Ignore the crying kid up top, old scribble on the page I was using to test things. Was reading too much One Piece.





Going to add hands to the notan/in general studies after I'm out of here.



Then messing around with brushes to create some custom helpful things I may be able to use later.

Also need to ref trees whenever I attempt them.






That odd feeling where you step into an area you have no idea about and feel like your going backward. Low # value comics I want to learn. I really want to learn, but I feel I suck at it far more than just doing observation armor studies or whatever like on my last page. That was simply look at it and draw it. I get caught between trying to make something cartoony for exaggeration and trying to shoot for some kind of realism which you get a crappy mix of the two. Don't use reference at all (Don't really have the ability to atm but that's no excuse). I can't "Spot the black" worth crap while I see some of my favorite comics use tons of black properly, when I use it it's all out of place entirely, either too much or too little and never in ways to help describe the form/figure. It's frustrating. Nothing to do but study in areas to improve but still I have the feeling that I could be headed backwards lol.