20,000 VIEWS!!!

 Sometime yesterday we hit 20,000 views! What's even better is that the second 10,000 took half the time to get as the first. Hopefully that will continue to be the case. There's no revamp like last time unfortunately as  I can't be bothered and think it looks good enough at the moment.

I really love having the Blogodile here to promote myself and my work and I actually do have fun coaxing poos out of it, I just wish I had more time to focus on it consistently. I'm going to put a lot more effort into promoting the blog via Twitter and Facebook from now on.

In other new I'm currently helping Rory out again with some design stuff for an app he and a few of his friends are making so will be posting some of that soon.

And of course, the big one.

Congo War Child.

I'm currently working on getting a gameplay video together in celebration of reaching 20,000 views.

The mechanics are all in place but most of the current art is place-holder and there are no animations so I don't want to turn people away from it because it looks shit.

Here's a screenshot of the game in it's current form as some evidence that I'm actually doing something:

CWC is the piece of work my main focus is on at the moment and I'm intending for it to stay that way until it's done (mainly to prove to myself that I can see a bigger project all the way through).

Anyway thanks for reading.

bye

June The Ninth Be With You

I missed May the 4th this year so here's something to make up for it.

Plo Koon is a top Jedi.

I always thought that in the films he should have had a yellow lightsaber like he did originally in Jedi Power Battles and came close to giving him one in this but decided to go for the blue in the end.

Almost at 20,000 views so will do something cool when that happens (maybe a Congo War Child video update). 

Bye.

Alice

Just another Utopia drawing. Bye.

Where is Jessica Hyde?

Arby from Channel 4's amazing new series Utopia. Despite being horrifically violent he's probably the series' most likeable character. Couldn't get the mouth right here though I think.

Watch Utopia if you haven't already.

bye

CONGO WAR CHILD

So here's my big announcement.

During a quiet period with production on The Seeker I've been working solo on a 2D shooter called Congo War Child, made in Game Maker.

It's an idea I've had for a while now and am glad to announce that development has started and most of the mechanics are in and working at present.

Without giving too much away the game is about a Congolese child soldier who has an epiphany that leads to him realising what his life has become and making a decision to bring some balance to his actions. Mainly by killing all the baddies. And some goodies.

So that's it for now. Expect updates on both Congo War Child and The Seeker in the near future.

Thanks.

Bye. 

Spillin the beans (Part 2)

 Welcome back to Spillin the beans! This post won't be as in depth as the last, nor will it be about Spillins as he has been sent off for rigging by master animator Steven "Crane Style" Craner and so I haven't done any more work to him.

 Instead I've been doing various bits of environmental modelling and texturing so this is going to be about that. Hopefully there will be something of interest in here for you and if not it's always nice to document the work that I've done. Anyway...

Awwwwww here it goes.....
 Also we have a new Facebook page for the game (click here) and it needs your likeage! Anyway...
Awwww here it goes.....

Lever

 My first port of call was to model and texture the lever that appears throughout the game to open doors, gates etc. The model itself didn't take too long but the texture did take a few hours as it was the first thing I'd textured in a long time. I don't tend to keep my layout clean as I don't really see the point with this kind of model but with characters etc it's obviously better to make the most of space with the UV layout.

 Here's the texture map of the lever base, I was going to post the separate handle texture but it's even less interesting than this:

  

 And here's the model textured and in-engine (without lighting built, that's why it appears to be lighter than the rest of the environment):

 Hopefully it will stand up to being a recurring environment piece!

Chest & Graveyard Wall

 For the next two assets I've only needed to do the modelling so far so no texturing here.

First up is the treasure chest. It's not remarkably different from the treasure chest you imagined when you read the previous sentence but I tried to jazz it up a bit with handles and pointy bits so hopefully it's unique enough to fit into our world. Here's a render of the model: 

 Second is the wall and gateway that separates the regular citizens' graveyard from the VIP tombs (I think). The concave side (citizens) will be stone bricks and the convex side (VIP) is built up from large rocks and boulders. Here's the render:

 Will possibly be texturing these next week so look out for them.

Flower Bushes

 Here's the one you've all been waiting for. Don't pretend you haven't. I know you have. Here's the flower bushes (I textured, Pete modelled):

 And here's the texture map which I think looks pretty funky:

 Well that's all for Part 2. Hope you enjoyed, more will be coming soon. Please like the Facebook page if you haven't already and help support and promote the game!

Bye.

Spillin the beans (Part 1)

 It's been a quite a while since my last post. I've got a job now and have been working on stuff in the rest of my free time so that's why! But here I am again with a big update specifically about my work on Project Steel, which has since become 'The Seeker'.

 We have an IndieDB page to keep you up to date and you can find that by clicking here.

So yeah this post is going to be a recap on where I was up to in the design process of the character Spillins last time and, from there, cover his progression into a 3D model in-engine. There will be some ground I've covered before but hopefully enough new stuff to be interesting. Aww here it goes...

Character Design

 With a pair of sketches of Spillins that Pete drew last year as a starting point I began work on the character design concept drawing. Using reference points such as famous historical explorers, american mountain men, and Yoda, the drawing took shape and finally ended up as the image you can see above.

 While designing Spillins I made a conscious effort to make him as recognisable from a distance as possible. As he is such a mysterious character and will occasionally appear at long distances unannounced it is important that his design catches the player's eye so that they don't miss him. The two main factors I took into account were his silhouette and his colour palette. 

Giving him a large rucksack, bulky figure, and bald head combined with a red coat with white fur (based on an image of the aforementioned mountain men I found) will hopefully mean he stands out against both the white mountains and the dark green forest settings of the game. 

Orthographic Drawing

 With the concept drawing complete the next step was to create an orthographic drawing of the character to aid the transition into a 3D model.

 I suffer from the problem of not being able to draw the same thing twice so, as you can imagine, I'm not a massive fan of this type of drawing. Luckily however I knew before I started that I would be modelling Spillins so I didn't have to go into a serious amount of detail as I could visualise the missing pieces in my head, having come up with the character's design myself. Had I had to pass the drawing on to someone else for modelling (or if this is the case in the future) I would have gone into a lot more detail to make sure they understood exactly how he is meant to look.

 Having said all that, the orthographics were fairly painless to draw and I had a good image in my head of how Spillins was going to look as a 3D model.

3D Modelling

 I was so glad to get into the task of modelling Spillins. As much as I'm satisfied by finishing a drawing, it doesn't come close to modelling, which I find constantly rewarding.

 There's little to say about modelling the main bulk of the character's body, arms, and legs as it was so trouble-free and quickly finished. The video below shows the body at an almost finished stage with a placeholder head:

 Once the main body was finished I moved on to Spillins' hands, which turned out to be the most frustrating but ultimately rewarding part of the model. Although the topology isn't great I'm incredibly happy with the shaping of the hand:

 Next was probably the most important part of the model, the head... The following image shows the head throughout the process growing from a random bunch of polygons into something more recognisable:

 And here's the head at this point on a partially accessorised body (rendered in Maya):

 After quite a few hours of developing and tweaking the head is complete. Following that more accessories are added and the model is complete and reading for engine testing:

 And again with the wireframe visible (don't forget to view the pictures in full size!):

 I'm pretty pleased with the model's poly count (weighing in at just under 4000 faces) but obviously still have much to learn when it comes to low-poly game modelling (and modelling in general of course). Since finishing the model I've found some great topology pictures of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood characters which have insanely low poly counts and which I will be using very closely as reference points for future character modelling. 

 To wrap up this part of the development of Spillins I give you him in-engine (UDK) with a rather jazzy sandstone texture (unfortunately not two-sided as his bag strap is invisible):

 I hope you agree that he's looking good and hope that this post offers a bit more insight than usual haha! Next time I will hopefully have the model textured and possibly rigged, but that's all for now.

BYE

June 2012 dump

 After the tidal wave of posts in May I've been relatively quiet this month. I have done some stuff though and here it is...

 I've started working on the orthographic drawings for the Project Steel characters and this is the first completed one, Spillins. Normally I'd tidy up the drawing with clean lines before signing them off but we've decided that I will be modelling him so there's no real need as I have a good enough picture of what he looks like:

 At the very end of last month I also released episode 2 of my lego-style minecraft instruction videos so here it is:

 Finally I have set up a DeviantArt page (http://enormousblogodile.deviantart.com/) to post and promote stuff. You can get to it via the other sites/contact list on the right of the blog.

bye

Project Steel Character Design

 Finally finished the character concept drawings I've been working on for the past few weeks. They are for Project Steel, a game I am working on with a few friends. So yeah, I'll let them do the talking:

Captain Hawk

Adam Adams (First Mate)

Gunner (waiting for a name)

Rascal (Quartermaster)

Twin Deckhands (waiting for names as well)

Spillins (Mystery Man!)

 Very pleased with how these have come out. The recent drawing practise has paid off I think.

Let me know what you think. BYE

Yogdrawing + Project Steel

 As some of you will know I am a massive fan of The Yogscast. I decided to do a drawing of their most popular minecraft series so here it is: 

 I'm very pleased with how it came out. It's a similar style to my Mario and Luigi pictures but slightly less creepy I think.

 Also here is a silhouette and scale image of all the character designs I have been doing over the past few weeks. They are for a game I am currently working on with Pete and Ollie called Project Steel, at the moment, and you can get more information on the current build etc by clicking on this exact text which will take you to Pete's blog.

 Full character design drawings coming soon!

bye.

LUUUIIIGIIIIII...

 I've drawn a companion piece to my Creepy Mario picture. It's creepy Luigi (click for full screen view, open in new tab for even bigger):

 Very pleased with him and it didn't take too long either!

Finished the initial sketches for all the characters I've been designing, now to tidy them up and colour.

bye 

The first dump of May

 We hit 10,000 views last Friday so a massive thanks to everyone who has visited and fed the Blogodile over the years. I think the stat-tracking started in mid-2010 so there are probably some uncounted views but yeah, hopefully the next 10,000 will come quicker! 

 To celebrate we've given the Blogodile a wash and a make over as you've probably seen so let me know what you think of the new design.

 Also decided to leave my Creepy Mario picture as it was (with a couple of adjustments) as it received so much great feedback. I did start adding textures to his clothes but in the end decided it was good enough without so here's the finished piece:

 Lanny is hopefully going to get it printed as a poster so I will post a photo of it when he takes one.

 Finally here is the completed version of episode 1 of my Lego Minecraft videos:

 There's still some stuff that needs changing and adding. I've changed the font of the 'BLOGO' logo on the title card as well as changing the Minecraft text colour. I also want to change the font of the text in the instructions. Any ideas let me know.
 In the future I want to do a 3D animation of a Lego-style Minecraft box opening and the instructions and blocks falling out to start the video rather than just a title card. Finally, a friend's idea, I will add a page at the start of the instructions listing all the blocks required for the entire build.

 That's all for now bye

March 2012 Update (with added Star Wars)

 Hello.
It's been too long since I posted anything and I've lost the knack of starting a post with a load of bullshit so I'm just going to post pictures and tell you what they are etc... (Don't forget to right-click > new tab if you want to see the images in full resolution)

 I decided to add a lightsaber to my graduation photo and it received a massive amount of positive feedback on Facebook (I graduated last year with a 2:1 with hons in Computer Games Design):

 Then my friend Dan of Toxic Games (creators of Q.U.B.E) asked me to do one for him! I'm in the Q.U.B.E credits as a tester! My first credit in a game :) It's a great game and you should definitely check it out. You can find it on Steam and loads of other places.

 Similar stuff again here although a lot more recent. A friend asked me to Star Wars up some photos of his brother and nephew, both of whom love the films, so here they are. I'm very happy with how they turned out and they are probably some of my best photo manipulating in Photoshop so far:

Jack

and Jamie

  Next up is an image I have only finished tonight. It's a Photoshop painting of an angry parrot, created as a promotional image for my friend Steve aka Phrazer for his soon to be released track 'Angry Parrot'. Visit his Soundcloud and listen now!

 This last picture is a WIP of a creepy Mario drawing I am slowly doing. I made the mistake of posting it on Facebook as it is here and got some really positive feedback meaning that I decided it was good enough like this. I really want to finish it though:

 In other artwork related news I had my first potentially paid commission for a website header but it fell through and they used their own design. I was very happy with the work I did and it showed progression in my design skills but I won't be posting the work on here as it might act as promotion for their website and basically fuck that. I learnt quite a bit from the experience though which is great!  

 Finally my two housemates (Pete and Ollie) and I have been playing a lot of multiplayer Minecraft on the Exiled Gaming server and have made some really cool stuff. We have set up a Youtube channel for videos of our adventures on the servers as well as some up-and-coming building instruction videos by me.

 Here's our first video. I'm blocodile and I don't have a mic (subscribe, like, comment, share etc):

 Hope you like what I've had to show. Hopefully Blogodile droppings will become more frequent again soon. Please like, follow, comment and all that stuff if you feel like helping me out :) 

 Bye.

Raiden Loses

 Last post I mentioned I was working on an original picture. It's taking quite a while but I hit a checkpoint today so I thought I'd post a snippet of what I've done. Here's two versions lit differently:

 It's Raiden from Mortal Kombat if you couldn't tell. More coming soon.
Feedback wanted as always.
Bye.

Jenson Button

 After today's return of F1 and Jenson Button's impressive race I thought it was time I actually did the picture I mentioned a few weeks ago. In the final Grand Prix before the mid-season break in Hungary, Jenson won the race. It was his 200th F1 race as well as being exactly 10 years since his first F1 win, at the same track, so it was the perfect opportunity to draw him. But I couldn't be bothered. 

 Today, in Belgium, Button rose from 13th place to 3rd and ended up on the podium so I had to draw him. Anyway here it is:  

 It's kind of a partner piece to the one I did of Lewis Hamilton a few weeks ago but I expect they look shit together. There's a few things wrong with it but it ended up pretty good, especially for the short time it took, so I'm happy.
 I've been working on another fairly big, original picture that will hopefully be finished and up sometime this week. I think it's looking pretty good so far.
 Comment and the usual. Thanks. Bye.

Batman Returns

 More Batman copying. This is Batman from the "The Batman" series. I don't really know much about the cartoon series' but this is my favourite design of the character in the cartoons. The character design is by Jeff Matsuda, the same guy who did the amazing Jackie Chan Adventures series which I used to love.

 Anyway here it is: 

Not 100% happy with it, here's the original:

Going to do a couple more of this character soon.
Also you can now Google +1 my blog posts now if you're that way inclined.
Bye.

nana nana nana nana na... BATMAN!

 More digital drawing practise. This time I decided to draw Batman. Again it's a copy of another picture. I think I'm gradually picking things up and learning from doing this so it's all good:

 Here's the original:

 Let me know what you think. More soon hopefully. Bye.

P.S.


"Del... Let's go!" hahaha

Bit of drawing practice

 I decided I really need to practise drawing again and was particularly inspired by Feng Zhu's incredible design videos.

 I thought I'd post what I've done so far over the past month or so, it's not much but there you go.

Here's one of Boba Fett in a simplified costume: 

 

  I was planning to draw Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and after Lewis won the German grand prix I drew him. I couldn't be bothered to draw Button but, as he had a great win the week after, I might come back to it. I was going to do a more detailed drawing but thought this looked cool:

 

 Finally a quick drawing of Gaz from Modern Warfare, great character design and voice acting as ever. Unlike the other two this is a straight copy from an in-game screenshot. I'm still trying to get my photoshop brushes nailed and this was practise for that, among other things. 

 

 Thanks for looking. Let me know what you think. BYE

Skyway update 25th April 2011 EXTRA!

 We've been doing a lot of stuff in UDK over the past few weeks, working out some of the different gameplay      elements such as moving water cubes, putting in a skybox, checkpoints etc. It's all very important stuff but unfortunately there's not much to show of it, but here's a screenshot of the skybox in engine. It looks really close as there are no distance markers and the sun is slightly too big:

 But anyway here's some more interesting stuff. I finished rigging and weight painting Oscar. It's not perfect but it needs to be out of the way so it'll do for now. Here he is posed:

 We've also been working on prop assets to decorate the pier and it's surroundings. Here are some potted bushes:

 A lovely welsh daffodil:

 A life ring (not finished):

 and a pair of beach umbrellas:

 Not much else for Skyway really, any other stuff is on our indiedb and/or facebook page so check them out :)
 In other news I've started trying to model Simon and Lewis from the Yogscast as I'm thinking about animating a few short segments from the Yogpod in 3D as they attract a lot of attention on Youtube and could be good promotion for EB. Also it's all good practice for modelling, facial rigging, character design and other stuff.
 So here's Simon's head so far:

 The new Doctor Who started on Saturday and was great. I'm not sure if everyone picked up on the Easter Island joke but I thought it was very funny. Really like Matt Smith's Doctor.

Bye