This wallpaper is for Silver Soul Secret Santa 4 Event on The-Gintamards on deviantART! The smaller resized version (1024 x 600) can be found here [here]...
I had a lot of trouble with the hair and parfait... I think I did a great job on the parfait, especially on the strawberries... xD but maybe that's just me hehehehe~
More of my artwork rant can be found on the original deviantART post [here]!
This is Zurako from Gintama, in a Wedding Resume photo! Zurako is actually a crossdressed male character, Katsura, from Gintama. This picture also features Elizabeth (his pet), fake Elizabeth, and Justaway~~
Elizabeth (on the right): Please marry her!
Fake Elizabeth (on the left): It's a trap!
Go watch Gintama! It's awesome!!!
Meow~~ I've been working on this for wayyy too long, but I'm still not pleased with it. Anyone with suggestions how to improve this drawing? TTnTT
The bigger image (twice the size then the uploaded image here) can be found here~
I finished this drawing in a record time of 1 day! But by the time I was done I was too tired to think of uploading this here. This drawing is for a Crack Pairing contest by a fan group called The Gintamards on DeviantART...
This turned out much better than I've expected... But as usual, please give me advice on how to improve!!! ^^
After 3 weeks of slogging here and there, and surviving my 1 week of gastric pain... FINALLY I FINISHED COLOURING YOU KAGURA! (Yu Chun sorry you're wrong, this is supposed to be Kagura from Gintama. You're close though, they're both china girls... or maybe my drawing just sucked hahahahaha)
Lesson Learnt: NEVER EVER make humongous drawings, thinking this would be good for making lineart. Or at least, shrink the canvas size down to a not so humongous size. I did this drawing on a 2000 x 2000 px canvas. And I puked blood on everything, the lineart, and especially the colouring. The final drawing I exported out is a mere 500 x 500 px. So much work for a small painting. I'm never going to do this again... TTnTT
I know the face shadow is weird. Or rather all the shadows are weird. I did an experiment with KT yesterday and I know I ought to fix the facial shadows to give it more volume and stuff, but I've got enough blood puked already so I figure I'll give it a pass. One day when I'm crazy enough I might come back and make adjustments though.
Or does anybody have any idea how to fix the shadow real quick? :D
I welcome all comments regarding this drawing!
PS. Whenever there's a change in layouts, I feel my hair thinning from all the head-scratching. First facebook, now blogger... RAWR. Or maybe I shouldn't have opt to try out the new blogger layout. LOL.
PSS. I'm totally lost as to my next drawing/colouring project. Ideas anyone? :D
After I have finally recovered from my bout of gastric pain throughout the entire week, I've finally managed to cough out something over the weekend...
How's the line art for this? I hope I've got time to do the coloring tomorrow =D
I haven't been slacking! I've been drawing and colouring (but I admit I procrastinate) Stopped on a colouring midway, need to work on inking this one below...
Had to redraw the body quite a few times... but it still feels weird. Something's wrong with the proportions... and I don't know how to draw the shoes!!! Will probably have to redraw this a few more times...
My second attempt at colouring hair... It seems better than my previous try... But the ribbon feels weird~!
And I intended to draw a male elf... He looks more like a girl than a bishounen though... =(
Another attempt at drawing & colouring... I tried to pay more attention to the eyes and the hair, but somehow the hair feels kinda stiff? =X I need comments to improve my drawing and colouring!!!
No thanks to someone who put my computer out of commission, and then refuse to get a replacement laptop for me to work on while I wait for my computer to be repaired. Take that you idiots!
I've always wanted to make a game that's different, that leaves a lingering emotion in its wake. Watching the interview with the creative director of the upcoming Assassin's Creed Revelations, Alexandre Amancio, has shared some light on this issue which I had been pondering for some time.
In this video, Amancio mentions that one way to achieve this is to allow narrative and gameplay to merge. In the example he cited, if the actions of the player has a meaning (that could be given through the narrative) and has a direct impact on the outcome, the player would be able to establish a connection with the character in the game.
I couldn't resist thinking about one of my latest emotional experiences with a game -- Dragon Quest V.
*SPOILERS AHEAD!*
At the beginning of the game, we are introduced to the main protagonist and his father. There seems to be nothing special about this narrative, it seems to be a typical setting for a family. But the game makers took a step further and made the father help you tremendously every time after the battle by giving you a full heal, whether you need it or not. As the player, I was thinking -- wow it's cool to have "my" father around to give me free heals! I grew stronger through the subsequent battles and with "my" father's help. But towards the end of the first story arc, my father tried to protect me and a prince and died in battle. I felt a sense of loss and a huge "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!" screaming inside me. It wasn't so much about the after-battle heals, but I grew attached to the fatherly character in the game, to the extent I wish my father in real life was like that... just kidding~ *END SPOILERS*
I feel that the narration in Dragon Quest V aid in the gameplay, which in turn affects the narration when the player reaches a certain point in game, where the narration takes over and make another hit to the gameplay. It's an endless chicken-and-egg cycle, where one gives rise to the other. Most games these days disconnect the endless cycle and make it either narration->gameplay or simply gameplay->narration.
Most, if not all, game designers have long established that for a game to be "fun", one of the underlying criteria is feedback to the players. If the feedback is persistently inconsistent with the previous experience the player has encountered, the player starts to lose interest in it. However, many designers apply this rule to the game mechanics and neglected this aspect for narration with the introduction of long cut scenes. Cut scenes are cool in their own right, but I do recall nodding off at one of the final long ending "movies" as i was just watching, and not performing any input for that period of time.
If there is some way that players can perform certain actions that impact the outcome of the movie, that'll be totally cool. A good example would be Heavy Rain, which treads on the border of being a game and an interactive movie. Players can perform action sequences, and how well they have performed will affect the outcome of the game, and sometimes put the plot on a different path. However, in another action role playing game, Bayonetta, I remember being very frustrated during one of the cut scenes straight after defeating a boss, which required me to input a particular button at a particular instance. I personally feel no one would be able to do it right at least viewing the cut scene once. As a result, I was thrown back into this sequence again and again for failing to pay attention to the cut scene.
Maybe one of the reasons why visual novels are fun to some, despite their lack of interactive visual environments, is due to the connected cycles of gameplay and narration. Well, in this case, game play would refer to the decisions the player makes. Role playing games can hinge on the "fun" factor of visual novels and keep players engaged, rather than to disengage them with narration that is broken off from game mechanics.
10 April 2011
Maybe I have been too easygoing in the past, and always listening to others without making much of a fuss when they don't treat me similarly... That's why nobody really listens to me. Because I wouldn't make a huge fuss out of it.
Maybe that's why I'm so angry and sad. Even when they apologize for having not listened. Because I know they're the way they are. The same thing will probably happen over and over again. Maybe the fault lies in me in the first place.
