Cómic published the last summer is the webcómic “Caniculadas”.
Special thanks to Andre for the translation!
Yes. Thanks.
My favourite tragic love story is that of an artist and their art
Bioshock- Infinite OST: ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’
Vocals by Courtnee Draper.
Jon Laing Studios: How NOT to get work as an illustrator or designer
I recently received this email from my website (emphasis mine and edited to protect people’s privacy):
Hi Jon,
This is [REDACTED] from [REDACTED] and we are fascinated by your work. Congratulations! I’d like to extend a personal and exclusive invitation to you to join our […] Studio platform.
This. A hundred-million-billion times this. I think that the avoidance of “spec-work” should be more widespread among artists (especially young ones on the internet, who sometimes don’t even know any better and end up getting screwed). It’s so easy to just say “OMG somebody likes my art! HERE, HAVE IT” and forget that you need to, like, feed yourself. I think the problem needs to be addressed more in the super-independent games world as well (like with GameMaker game creators who want artists on their teams) because, while it’s true nobody has any money to begin with, things still need to be fair in the end, and people need to be compensated for their work.
Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer:
Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me, was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people’s willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining it’s destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.
Progress, progress…
I made a Shy Guy for GuilelessMonk (an excellent games essayist and also a game designer), as one of my small commissions! Thanks, Chris!
Reworking this sprite for Seep for Machines. I looked harder at sprites from other games and realized what I’d been doing wrong, namely using a side view when a 3/4 view gives better depth. Trial and error!
So, wouldn’t you know it, I got all excited about this new game-animation software called Spine, got the trial version, learned to use it, and then the MINUTE I turn to grab my wallet, I find that my car is on fire and my mailbox is full of angry letters from the student loan sharks! Shucks! So, now that I have to throw all my real-job money into the Bottomless Pit of Adulthood for the next few months, I figured I should open up commissions again, in hopes of getting my game’s animations done before the programmer flips his desk into orbit. So please! Read on if interested!
I’m doing one-color ($5) and black+white ($3) drawings of anything you like, either with no background or a very simple one. I’ll do fan art, original characters, avatars, cute animals, whatever! Okay, well, “whatever” excludes porn. Sorry! These will be loose drawings, like in the image above, in my usual style. Payment will be through Paypal. Interested? Email me at mikitharp@gmail.com or drop a note in my Ask!.
If you’d like to help me out, you’ll also be helping my team’s game Sleep for Machines, because I’ll be putting the proceeds toward better software! Better software makes more pretty! More pretty makes better game!
Thank you!
