Sai's Asylum

More On Coloring

Sai — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:46:50 +0000

My second coloring timelapse that doubles as a tutorial! My Rhode Island accent comes out BAD in this one, see if you can spot where I slip into it. I did slice and dice the footage on this one a bit because I didn’t want to make another 10 minute long video. I’ll try to keep them around 6 – 8 minutes now.

Sorry that it’s a bit jumpy at the beginning, getting used to some new capture software. Stick with it, it smooths out!

And of course here’s the finished piece:

Elves? You Bet.

Sai — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:45:24 +0000

Coloring Tutorial & Timelapse

Sai — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:42:19 +0000

This is my most complicated video yet! I even have voice over now! Footage and audio taken over several days, this would have been done sooner but… heh… um… Mass Effect 2 came out.

This video comes close to 10 minutes long, but I pop in now and then to explain some techniques I use or why I’m doing certain things and narrate while constantly losing my train of thought, so hopefully it’s informative to someone out there.

And here’s the finished image:

If you like, feel free to comment! I crave feedback!

Mass Effect 2

Sai — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:05:08 +0000

So Mass Effect 2 came out on the 26th. I got it at a midnight launch and played it until 6:00 am. I have since been playing it at least 2 or 3 hours a day. Suffice to say… I like it.

I found the first Mass Effect pretty addictive too, which is strange because I don’t really like sci-fi, especially Star Trek-esque space operas. And that’s exactly what Mass Effect is. And yet these games suck me right in, it helps that you can design and direct your own Commander Shepard, getting to pretty much decide who this person is. And I have to say when I got to see my Shepard again (because you can import your ME1 character) I was elated. I guess I got pretty attached to her over the course of the first game, and she hasn’t changed. She’s still a Vanguard and still a crazily equal mix of Paragon and Renegade.

My Commander Shepard. You don't mess, bitches. ...Yes I took this with my digital camera.

That’s right, the primary system of deciding who your Commander Shepard is and how the people of the Mass Effect world react to him/her is still intact. Though I found I had dialog options based on my Paragon and Renegade rankings pretty early on. Besides responses and choices that determine these rankings you also get actions in the middle of dialogs you can preform, interrupting the character who is talking to you to by preforming a Paragon action with the left trigger or a Renegade action with the right trigger when the option flashes.

Those aren’t the only things that have changed. You can once again mine planets for precious materials, only this time you don’t have to land on the planet and wrestle with unwieldy Mako controls and the materials actually serve a purpose. At first I was a little put off that there were no level ups for gun skills or upgrades to attach to your weapons, but now you can use mined materials to research and create upgrade schematics you find, a better and much more interesting system. You also need to gain certain squad members to use features like this aboard the ship. And this not only goes for weapons but areas of your ship, omni-tools, cybernetics and armor.

Speaking of armor, it’s modular this time around. You can swap around individual chest plates, helmets, leg guards, arms, etc. with various bonuses on them to create your own armor. You can also choose the pattern and colors, which is a welcome addition considering that in the last game you were often stuck in ugly yellow armor for 10 hours because it was the best one you could find. You can also choose Shepard’s casual outfit that he/she will wear aboard the Normandy.

What do the aliens want, Cancer Man!? Oh... oh right, they're on my ship. I should probably ask them myself.

Mass Effect 1 always struck me as cinematic, but Mass Effect 2 takes that to a different level. The aesthetics, the camera angles used during dialogs, everything has been amped up. Though like Tycho said over at Penny Arcade, the levels sometimes seem a bit too designed. From a gameplay angle this is a good thing as it’s much easier to take advantage of the cover system (and you’ll need to, they’ve really emphasized the “Shooter” in RPG Shooter this time), but it can be a bit distracting at times. The story structure also seems a bit more tight, more unified to me. You answer basically to the equivilant of an intergalactic Cancer Man, and he’s an interesting device to structure the story around, tie events together and inject a bit of mystery all in one.

You don’t get the same squad as in the first game (on account of everyone thinking Shepard was dead for 2 years, long story, play the damn game) but familiar faces keep finding you which is a nice touch. Also it doesn’t bother me because, sliiight spoiler, my absolute favorite squad member Garrus returns. I won’t tell you where you find him, but I will say when I was hunting down a particular character and they mentioned he was a Turian I just kept saying “please be Garrus, please be Garrus” over and over until I found him.

So far I haven’t managed to relocate Liara, who was my Shepard’s lover (seeing as she was the only choice for lesbian!Sheps) and despite finding her to be insufferably dull in the first game (though, admittedly, more appealing than Ashley. Didn’t miss anything there, I let her blow up) I’m so attached to my Shepard that I’ve become eager to track her down by association. On the other hand, lesbian!Sheps can at least romance a female human this time (albeit bisexual and… er… panaliensexual? Why do we only get chicks who swing both ways?) , though I’m a little perturbed that the mega-butch, full-body-tattooed female named Jack isn’t available for girl on girl.

Really? Straight?

I mean really? And once again I might note that you can’t have a gay male!Shep. Come on Bioware, stop pussing out. You let our male characters have a roll in the hay with a dude elf in Dragon Age. Though, again, a bisexual dude elf (is it really that hard to depict full-on gayness guys?) Though according to some it’s not gay if it’s an elf.

Anyway, enough about gay gamer issues, how does the game hold up? Very well, I think. Though I’ve heard some complaints about the ending I’ve yet to get there, I’m a sidequest junkie and would like to make my experience last. Not to mention the game is so massive it’s stored on two discs.

This isn’t a sequel you can dive into without playing the first one, though apparently when creating a new character you can check off key decisions from the first game and see the results in Mass Effect 2. And you can only import your Mass Effect 1 character if you beat the first game. Going through this epic with a legacy character is very satisfying and I think with a character you’ve designed and characterized yourself you just get drawn in all the more intensely.

Digital Ink Timelapse 2: The Artist’s Bane

Sai — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:21:21 +0000

I was really struggling with this drawing. You don’t see the very beginning of it because I thought I shouldn’t record it. But then it occurred to me: timelapses make people look far more competent than they really are so it might be fun to watch me messing up and erasing and getting frustrated as artists do (also didn’t help I was working on that arm like an hour and a half before I had to go to work.) So that’s basically the beginning of the video. This one comes in at a whopping 6 1/2 minutes as the rest of it is nearly the entire drawing so it’s twice as long as the last two, but it’s also funnier so I hope you enjoy it!

I’m really hammering these videos out aren’t I? Like I’ve said before they’re pretty easy to make and quite fun, I spend the most time selecting the damn music. Shout out again to Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com who freely offers his awesome music to internet goblins such as myself who would otherwise pilfer commercial music for her own selfish needs (though even trying to choose from my own music collection for the first video was difficult.)

I like doing this because it gives me a reason to update the site more often and actually keeps me motivated when drawing. When struggling like this I may have gone away from the inking process and goofed off instead, but realizing I could entertain people with my frustration made me dive back into it. I’ve also been watching/listening to (not pictured) a lot of the behind-the-scenes and commentary stuff on the extended Lord of the Rings DVDs while I work, which has been quite inspiring. I’m a whore for commentary tracks, what can I say.

Anyway a few notes: I made the part where I’m inking the hair slower because a lot of people comment on the way I draw hair. Lately I’ve been realizing that less is more when it comes to rendering hair as most cartoonists either East or West tend to draw hair in big, chunky, clean shapes. That’s not to say I haven’t seen people also successfully contrast fluffy, detailed hair with clean, open character lines but it’s not for me. At least not on these elves.

I also finally made a good Sai’s Asylum logo bug! I kinda liked my fancy cut-out text in the last two but it just wasn’t reading well, so this will be the logo from now on.

How to Cheat at Backgrounds

Sai — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:51:15 +0000

It’s a sad truth that most people can’t draw everything. Artists who are good at drawing organic things like trees and people are usually bad at drawing man-made things like cars and buildings, and vice versa. This is why in comics and animation you generally have a specialized background artist working on the project. Or in the more manga-centric world the use of screentones, which you’ll see me use screentone flowers in this video. Despite the fact they are indeed organic flowers are surprisingly one of the hardest things to draw.

There’s been a rise in artists using 3D to pick up the slack in their backgrounds. I’m doing the same, though using Google Sketchup which makes it very, very easy to make simple models. And when you only need them for outlines it’s perfect. While producing comics it’s a great alternative when you’re unable to hire a background artist!

I’m having alot of fun doing these, it gives me something to show while I’m working on new art so I don’t feel rushed. These videos are quite easy to make, the hardest part is music selection. Doesn’t help that I decided to look for free-to-use music if I’m going to keep doing this. Shout out to Incompetech.com, by the way.

You’ll notice this is the same drawing as in the last video, I’ll be coloring this one soon, but I’m actually working on 3 pieces at the moment. I may show myself inking the third, the first one I inked I was having trouble getting the video right still.

Digital Inking Timelapse

Sai — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:55:11 +0000

I know this isn’t really a tutorial but I’d rather not have too many categories. Besides it might teach someone something. Maybe. I’ve seen timelapses of people drawing before and thought it would be fun to make one. Sadly this isn’t the whole drawing, I had more footage but I messed up the compression on the rest of the video I recorded. I’d like to do more so definitely tell me if you enjoy it!

As you can see in the video I’m not all digital still, I sketch in pencil and scan it into the computer, though it is faster and cleaner to do digital inking (not to mention you can easily change your mind.) I’m still not totally comfortable with a tablet so you often see me shaping lines with the eraser.

Bayonetta

Sai — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:06:09 +0000

Bayonetta is a difficult game to describe, at the same time I can sum it up in a single word: camp. It’s pure, unadulterated camp. It’s outrageously over-the-top absolutely revels in being so. This is a very self-aware game that seems to seek to above all be entertaining and it does this very well.

On top of that it has the best action control scheme yet seen in a game. I’m serious. It’s not a God of War ripoff, it’s everything Devil May Cry 4 should have been except with hot chicks with guns on their shoes and a ludicrous sense of style. So, yeah, it’s pretty rad.

It seems it was more apt than I realized to mention Bayonetta in my discussion about Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders and how, like Hollywood, several games with similar themes keep coming out all at the same time. Although I begin to wonder if Dante’s and Darksiders were both developed as a response to Bayonetta.

Bayonetta also focuses on a heaven and hell theme, even using the terms Paradiso, Inferno and Purgatorio for different levels of reality. However its concepts of demons and angels are refreshingly imaginative and original, yet at the same time I can see so much in the angel designs that derive from actual descriptions of angels in ancient religious writings (namely that they have animal heads, multiple faces, etc.), as well as some that are designed straight after depictions in classical paintings (such as when you see angelic figures that are just heads with wings.) Also they’re your enemies. You’re a demon-summoning, dark magic using witch after all.

The opening of the game does give you an expositive narration about the witches and their downfall, but you get to engage in an action scene the entire time. After that a lot of the cutscenes are actually kind of long, however they are so entertainingly, and often times hilariously, over-the-top, cinematic and oozing with style that you can’t take your eyes from the screen. These scenes are skippable though, which is a good thing as the game’s scoring system and unlockables seem to suggest it’s intended for multiple playthroughs.

Witch Time trailer

I can say without a doubt that the action in this game consists of the most incredible controls I have ever experienced. It’s really something that’s difficult to describe and you just have to feel to believe. Everything is so fast, so fluid, and there are so many different combinations and moves you can preform that the game stats tell me I’ve yet to do them all. It isn’t a button masher either (at least not on Normal mode), Bayonetta will only flow from one move to the other if you time your button presses correctly and you’re rewarded with Witch Time, a brief spell of slow motion, when you deftly dodge an attack at the last moment. There’s also torture attacks that you can do when you’ve wracked up enough combo points, climax attacks to finish off boss enemies (where Bayonetta gets almost naked and her hair turns into a giant, roaring monster), and you can even pick up the various weapons of vanquished angels and use them against their comrades, and each of these also has their own unique attack animations. There’s so much going on and so much you can do that the battle system never gets old. And it doesn’t feel frantic, you feel in control the entire time and you feel like you’re actually accomplishing something, that you’re doing the wide variety of moves on purpose (and most of the time you are, most moves have specific button and joystick combinations.)

Really so far the game has been fairly easy, but I think that’s the point. It’s supposed to be fun and you’re supposed to feel like an absolute, unstoppable badass. I have managed to die a few times, though, as healing items are far and few between (and you get points off your final level and chapter scores for using them, the gameplay expects you to time your movements intelligently and not get hit) but the game has a great checkpoint system that gets you back into the action right away and doesn’t waste your time.

The overall style and humor in this game is some weird hybrid of Japanese and American tropes, but granted alot of good can come out of Japanese tributes to American pop culture and media (Silent Hill and Cowboy Bebop come to mind.) It’s kind of like Kill Bill meets The Matrix with a bit of Bebop actually, it’s intentionally over the top and purposefully lampooning exploitation film styles but at the same time is seeped in non-stop action and impossible badassery that teeters perilously on that line between awesome and stupid. The music is pretty great too, full of fast jazz, sensual J-pop and several different versions of the song “Fly Me to the Moon”.

But underneath all of this high-flying so-unabashedly-silly-it’s-just-plain-awesome action there is a deeper story brewing about Bayonetta’s past. At first I was a little miffed to hear she has amnesia (an amnesiac hero? Again?) and really it is more for plot convenience than anything, but it isn’t really focused on much. Bayonetta isn’t brooding and emo about her lost memories, she’s always cool, confident and cheeky, she’s more aloofly curious about her past than anything but she doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush to remember.

Unless it’s something I know I’m really going to want (Sims 3, Assassin’s Creed 2, Fable 2 etc.) I tend to rent games first and not buy them on day one. Well I bought Bayonetta on day 3 without renting it first. I noticed that almost every website and magazine has given it straight 9’s, that is an unprecedented amount of consistency from the reviewing sphere, don’t you think? It doesn’t happen too often. Well, granted, the clumsy PS3 port has gotten mostly 8’s, but that’s to be expected.

I’d have to say it was a good purchase, it’s so nice to see such a strange game be so high profile, many gamers today only seem interested in me-too first person shooters. No surprise that Bayonetta was developed by Platinum Games, which is made up of former members of Clover the people behind equally strange games like Okami and Viewtiful Joe. Gaming is in desperate need of an injection of variety, and even though they used the old “sex sells” tactic to boost this game to a high profile it’s mostly played for laughs and Bayonetta, in both design and personality, is a very unconventional game heroine.

Improvement Meme!

Sai — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:47:19 +0000

Since it’s a new year, and a new decade, there’s been a new meme floating around old deviantART. It’s the only one I’ve ever taken part in because it looked pretty fun. I encourage any artist out there to do one, makes you feel a bit better about yourself ;P

Making Comics With Scott McCloud

Dante’s Vs Darksiders

Sai — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:08:48 +0000

The video games industry is turning into Hollywood. You know how a handful of movies based on the same theme, time period or subject matter will all come out around the same time? That’s because movie markers will find out what other studios are producing and make their own similar movie. So like the big Prototype vs Infamous debate we now have Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders, two games surrounding Biblical apocalypse/hell themes.

Now I know I have a bad habit of hating games before they even come out, but I HATE Dante’s Inferno already. Let me tell you why.

First of all, anyone could find EA’s fucktarded shock marketing for this game loathsome. I may be an atheist but even I thought that their staged religious protest at E3 was in extremely poor taste. And don’t even get me started on their campaign that set up “booth babes” that didn’t even work for EA for sexual harassment and inappropriate pinching. Chances are, if you have to try this hard to promote a game it probably sucks.

The other thing is that even the subject matter shows that the developers are illiterate morons who couldn’t even pay attention in high school humanities class. I understand wanting to make a game about heaven and hell and biblical imagery and apocalypse stuff, that’s fine. It can make for some pretty cool shit. However, why Dante’s Inferno of all things?

In case you as well don’t realize this, the Divine Comedy (the larger work of which Inferno is part of), is not literally about heaven and hell. Yeah I know it dubbed the idea of the 9 circles of hell and all (which, by the way, isn’t a Biblical idea) but really, Inferno especially was part political satire, part a criticism of the 14th century church and general Christian hypocrisy.

via Penny Arcade

So what does EA and Visceral Games do? They turn Dante, who was a real person by the way, into a roided up Crusader knight with a cross stitched into his chest wielding badass scythe that he got by murdering Death himself.

…..Yeah, there are many, MANY things wrong with that sentence but there is one MAJOR problem here guys: at the time Inferno was written…

THE CRUSADES HAD ALREADY BEEN OVER FOR 20 YEARS!

Auuughh, it hurts my history dork souuul! And you know, if you wanted to raid some classical literature as a source for a heaven and hell themed game… WHY WOULDN’T YOU CHOOSE PARADISE LOST? I mean… GOD! What is wrong with these people!? Or hell, even go for the Book of Enoch, that has some deliciously messed up stuff in it and also features a tour of heaven and hell. But really? The Divine Comedy? A book about politics? I genuinely believe that the developers of this game just went “Duuurhhh, we wanna do a game about hell, Dante’s Inferno is about hell right? Let’s do that without really reading it! Huurhhduurr.”

On the flipside, as I said in my opening paragraph the games industry has become like Hollywood, with different studios creating games of similar themes all around the same time. And that brings me to Darksiders, a game by Vigil Games and THQ. Now, I’m not sure of the quality of this one, but it definitely looks better than Dante’s.

Darksiders seems to be based on bits of the Book of Revelation, which is a crazy acid trip of different supernatural events and prophetic signs and bullshit. But that gives you alot to work with! They can easily take creative liberties with it because it barely makes sense in the first place. And notice how they didn’t go and call it “Revelations” as if it’s accurately based on the source material.

In Darksiders you also play a roid-monkey badass, but he at least has some flaws. He’s one of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse and he’s basically tricked into starting the end of the world early. He has to find the other Horsemen and is constantly being watched by the Charred Council, sort of mediator creatures striving to keep a balance in the continuing conflict between heaven and hell.

That’s pretty creative, they took a basic idea and expanded on it. You may say Dante’s Inferno does the same but need I remind you by naming it after that part of the Divine Comedy they’re implying its in any way an accurate portrayal of its contents. And once more, it was allegory, it wasn’t literally about heaven and hell.

Either way, both games may suck, and both are clearly God of War ripoffs. I intend to rent and play both anyway and may do a review in the future. Or I may not, depends on what I feel like! Either way I’m still holding out for Bayonetta to be the top contender, I’ll take a God of War ripoff where a lady takes off her clothes to use her special moves and wears boots with guns for heels any day.

Above: Hot.