Happy holidays, everyone! I've done some thinking over these last few weeks about what else I can do with my numerous talents. I have ideas about what to do and rough plans for where to go next in my continuing journey through life.
One thing I want to do in 2015 is release the next part of my debut book series, Dawn Chronicles (the first part of which is available here). I've begun early work on it and have a good idea of where I shall take the further adventures of Laurel Dawn and Mason Valero.
Another thing I want to do is finally complete my swimsuit magazine featuring my varying original characters. This is a project that will hit the decade mark in 2015 from when I first began it.
The future is most certainly bright. All one needs is to keep moving forward.
Been playing through Mass Effect 3 on Wii U these last few weeks. Though I am aware the full experience can only be had by playing through all 3 games, I played ME3 on its own merits. I wasn't completely new to the series as I've watched my brother play through all of them, so I was already familiar with some of it. That said, after spending somewhere close to 70 hours through back-to-back playthroughs, I have to say that it amazed me.
The Wii U version stacks up pretty well next to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, though loading on the Citadel and shifting between levels on the Normandy feel a bit cumbersome. Graphics, audio, and controls are all pretty well done. The gamepad offers the ability to quickmap 8 powers to the touch screen to use during battle, but I found myself just using the power wheel in-game as it was more efficient to use. The gamepad also functions as a map, which can be very handy if you find yourself confused on how many enemies are left and where they're coming from.
With regards to the story, Mass Effect 3 stacks up there with that rare breed of games that resonates with me on an emotional level (for reference, other games on that list include Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Skyward Sword). Despite not having a character that's lived through two games previous, I was still able to very much enjoy everything it had to offer. Mass Effect 3 is at its strongest not during its epic battle sequences (of which there are a couple), but during its character moments.
Being the grand conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy, ME3 does not pull any punches. The first time you play through the game, you are faced with many choices that often result in someone either living or dying. With some of the characters, there's no other options. *SPOILERS AHEAD* One such death scene that was so heartbreaking when I encountered it involved the Quarian fan favorite, Tali.
During my first playthrough, I ended up with the decision to either allow the Geth to regain their high-level intelligence or allow them to be destroyed by the Quarians. I opted to allow them to regain it and in doing so, doomed the Quarians to death. I didn't think it would happen that way until they showed the scene with all the Quarian ships breaking apart. Tali, devastated at the near complete elimination of her species, takes off her mask and faces your character. She says she's sorry and then falls off the cliff to her death. I learned later that there was a way to save both, but you had to be at a higher reputation level to do it. I did save both on my second playthrough.
I didn't play Mass Effect 3 when it was brand new, so I didn't encounter the problems that many had with the endings upon release. ME3 on Wii U includes the Extended Cut DLC, so there was never anything missing from this release's ending. Though I have now seen all the endings, the one that I feel is the best choice is the Control Ending.
If your military readiness is at the full level (green bar all filled), you will have a choice of 4 endings: Control, Destroy, Synthesize, Reject. Having seen them all, Control is the one that I feel best fits the finale of Mass Effect. In the Control ending, your character sacrifices their life in order to become an immortal consciousness that will forever control and guide the Reapers. All the endings are somewhat depressing, but I felt this one best closed things out. Through death, Shepard could now be a savior in a way that would never be possible in an organic form. The Reapers are shown helping to rebuild and repair the damage their assault did to the galaxy and Shepard proclaims that she (or "he", depending on how you chose to play the series) will be the guardian for those too weak to protect themselves.
All in all, Mass Effect 3 is one of the best games I've ever played and if you're a fan of action-RPGs or just science fiction in general, I would highly recommend playing it. At moments, it very much feels like a modern Star Wars in terms of space action.
I have watched and rewatched the recently released Avengers 2: Age of Ultron teaser trailer and I am now officially hyped. I wasn't really sure what to think of this film as I am not very familiar with the Ultron character outside of him being an uncontrollable, somewhat insane robot. But after seeing this first look at the film, I am excited.
I saw the concept art for the Hulkbuster armor quite some time ago and wondered if that would make it into the final film and indeed it has. After being teased somewhat near the ending of Iron Man 3, the Hulkbuster armor will make its cinematic debut in Avengers 2. As the name suggests, the armor was designed specifically for fighting the Hulk as Hulk is too strong to face down in regular armor. It's unclear when the Iron Man vs Hulk battle takes place in the movie, but I do wonder if it will lead to *POSSIBLE SPOILER* Hulk being sent out into space.
Another interesting aspect shown in the trailer is Captain America's broken shield. His shield has previously been shown and described as being unbreakable vibranium. Mjolnir can't shatter it and neither can Hulk, so it's curious as to what can break it assuming it isn't part of a dream sequence. Some have speculated that the broken shield could end up involving Black Panther as he's the ruler of Wakanda, the only known location in the world that has vibranium.
The last thing that I want to comment on is Ultron's grand cinematic debut. Being very unfamiliar with the character means I have very little expectation for what he should or shouldn't sound or look like. However, what I've seen of him in this trailer cements that he will be an intimidating, amazing, and memorable screen villain. I admittedly wasn't all that fond of Loki and the Chitauri being the villains in Avengers as I didn't think they were imposing enough. It looks like Ultron is going to be more than a match for the heroes and will probably end up being the starting point for the path to Civil War. His visual design is pretty slick and it looks like he will have multiple forms throughout the film as the older picture from Entertainment Weekly shows (or that could be some type of a combat mode that he switches into).
Before I published the final version of Dawn Chronicles: Legacy (now available here at Amazon), I had written several versions. The idea was the same of it being a massive story spanning across three books, but edits and creative changes altered the story. That's not to say that everything written during that time will never be used. Ideas evolve and transform, but they are never completely trashed.
I've been rereading material from what was to be the third act of the Dawn Chronicles tale and given that it's been many years since I read it, a lot of it feels new to me. There's bunches of stuff that wouldn't work in the story now since much has changed, but there's also a lot of good stuff that can (and likely will be) dusted off and brought back into the fold. One such idea was the introduction of a character named Paul Saunders.
Paul Saunders' character arc was of an operative working for a certain character as a means of protecting his teenage daughter. He was very much intended as a reluctant villain that would eventually turn against his employer. I didn't layout his arc as that final act went unfinished, but he is one element that is being brought back into the fold in Dawn Chronicles: Ghosts. His storyline is similar, though this time he is essentially a one-man army who seeks to kill every werewolf he encounters in order to protect his daughter. The characters in Legacy largely fought each other on somewhat even ground, but the introduction of Paul Saunders into Ghosts will give them a more dangerous threat.
I've been playing a lot of Resident Evil lately. Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 to be precise. Ever since I first played Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64, I was hooked on the series. I had never played anything like it to that point in time. I have many fond memories of running around the Raccoon Police Department and being hunted by Mr. X and of the numerous confrontations with constantly mutating William Birkin. Resident Evil 2 was actually pretty short once you knew where to go and what to get. It debuted a concept in the form of a relentless hunter that was much stronger than your regular enemies and able to pursue you at seemingly random times (though once you've played through the scenarios once, you'll know exactly when to expect Mr. X to show up).
The Mr. X concept was essentially ramped up and intensified to become Nemesis in Resident Evil 3. Nemesis was much tougher, faster, and smarter than Mr. X in RE2. Whereas Mr. X could only attack you at scripted points in the game, Nemesis could strike you almost anywhere in the game in addition to the regular scripted encounters. There's only a few times in the game where you must fight Nemesis and don't have an option to escape. The rest of the time you can choose to run rather than fight, but he will chase you until you take him down or you advance forward to certain parts of the game. Though I still hold the Gamecube remake of the original Resident Evil to be the best game the series has ever produced to this point, Nemesis had its moments when it was pretty slick.
The main protagonist of RE3 is Jill Valentine, one of the original characters from the first game. Pretty much all of the Resident Evil ladies have developed their own fan bases in a way, but Jill still reigns supreme as the most popular of them second perhaps only to Claire Redfield of RE2. Nevertheless, all the time spent playing RE3 lately inspired me to draw this pic on the right. It's a simple concept of Jill posing in a very sexy manner with a silhouette of the Nemesis behind her serving as a semi-bodyguard as well as a convenient placer of tentacles. For anyone wondering, the "X"s all over his silhouette are marks used to indicate sections that should be all black. Sometimes artists will choose to shade those spots in pencil and sometimes they use the "X" mark to indicate to an inker what it should be colored in.
In an earlier post (this one as a matter of fact) I posted a sketch of Claire Redfield I was working on. This was what the final colorized version ended up becoming. Fans of the RE series will no doubt be able to recognize all the nods on the monitors behind her.
Been testing out a new arena these past couple weeks. I've been dabbling in coloring other artists' works. I don't typically do that, but I decided I wanted to improve my coloring skill set and the best way is to first find something worth coloring.
When coloring somebody else's work, I view it as kinda interpreting their intention. With my own stuff, I have an idea already of what colors would look like. With someone else's, I piece together the details and suggestions they worked into their lines and go from there.
I've colorized a few pieces from the highly talented LCFreitas (you can view his work here). The first collaboration was this piece featuring Supergirl. I thought it came out well all things considered. As with anything in life, there is a learning curve. There is always room for improvement and I know I will improve as I color more and varied images.
Every story needs an antagonist and every hero needs a villain to face. When I wrote the short story, Twilight, there wasn't originally a dedicated villain. The story was just about one woman's terrifying encounter with a werewolf and the unexpected ending to that event with the heavy implication that she was now to become one herself.
The Lobos family grew out of that event as the story and its universe expanded. After I penned the short story sequel to Twilight, Dusk, I began formulating who the primary enemies would be. Michael was the first since he is the owner of the company where Laurel works at the beginning. Victor was the next one, whose debut is in Dusk. Nicholas, Helena, and Luna came later to fill out the current incarnation of the Lobos family.
I had the numbers down. It was time to figure out what their relationships with each other were. Michael is the oldest followed by Victor, Nicholas, Helena, and then Luna. Michael is generally considered the smartest, Victor the most conniving, Nicholas the loose cannon, Helena the smart and beautiful sister, and Luna the baby of the family and the one who needs protecting. Michael has a more annihilistic view of the world in that he believes mankind would seek to wipe out all werewolves were they to learn of their existence. As a guard against that inevitability, he wants to merge the Lobos and Dawn bloodlines and create a potential generation of superwolves. When Legacy begins, he thinks that Laurel is the last surviving Dawn woman and his last chance to realize his goal. In early drafts Michael was a somewhat more cut-and-dried villain, but later edits would seek to humanize him a bit more and suggest that although he does a lot of bad things, he may not be all bad. Whereas Michael has a somewhat "good" intention to his plans, Viktor only desires power and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get it. He has no problems with undermining Michael or even killing his own siblings if he must. The power struggle between the two isn't something explored much in Legacy, but it is something that I touched on somewhat in previous drafts. Luna was an interesting character to write because she doesn't technically start the story as an antagonist. At the beginning, she's just caught in the middle of the conflict between Michael and Laurel. She puts her life at risk to save Laurel during a scene in the first half of the book. However, her own feelings of jealousy and her inability to cope with them ultimately lead her down a dark path.
Dawn Chronicles: Legacy is available here in both printed and Kindle formats!
After flirting with the concept for a few weeks, I finally went ahead and ordered a number of small posters of my art in the 11x17 format. They came out pretty good! I was concerned at the time how they would show up because I wasn't getting consistent color reads on my own printer at home, but thankfully the skin tone on the image came out just right to me.
Now that I've dipped my toes in the water of larger format printing, there's a couple of images I have in mind that I want to also be able to offer in 11x17 size. I would need to essentially redo them at least partially to ensure that they would print crisply at the bigger scale, but I don't think that will take me too much time. My only real obstacle at this point is the necessary funds to do so. However, it's good to have a plan. Executing said plan is the real trick...
I watched this episode of the Twilight Zone a couple of nights ago. I was first exposed to it a number of months back at my work (my locker is in the team center, so they usually have something playing on the TV most of the time). I wasn't able to finish the episode at that time, but what I did see of it had me intrigued. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the basis of the episode is simple: A man obsessed with being called the best pool player around gets his chance to play for eternal glory when the spirit of the best pool player in town comes back for one high-stakes game where victory means life and defeat means death. The concept is simple, but the theme is universal: Sometimes being the best comes with unintended consequences. In the case of this episode, the man does ultimately become the legend he always wanted to be, but in doing so becomes tied to the burden of being the best even in the afterlife. I think in any field there's a price to pay if you want to be the king of the mountain. The man in this episode has allowed his life to be completely devoured by his obsession of being the best pool player in history. The spirit, "Fats" Brown, tries to warn him at numerous points throughout the story that there is more to life than just the game. He was the best not just because he put in the time, but because he also lived outside of the game too. I think it's easy to forget to actually live life sometimes when we're being consumed by the daily minutia of our Facebook-infused and Internet-lined lives. That status update will always be there when you return. Get outside and enjoy the sun.
I've been printing out physical copies of my sketches for my long-gestating swimsuit magazine. At this point I have 14 sketches either done or close enough to being done that I can consider them finished. My estimated sketch count is 20, so at this point I need to do 6 more to have the final number of sketches for my swimsuit magazine. Completing the sketches is just the beginning. The next part is to go back over them and ink them to get them ready for coloring. I'm not sure yet if I will do that digitally or physically. The images are the biggest chunk of the project, but even once those are completed, I have a bit of writing I'll need to do. Besides featuring gorgeous art, I also want the magazine to function as a type of introduction to several of my characters and their respective debut stories. I wouldn't be the first to produce an illustrated swimsuit magazine (though it's really going to be more of a cross between American Curves and Playboy), but I think I would be among the first to create a project of this type. Just gotta keep moving along!
"No one can ever give you what you do for yourself."
I read that poignant quote a couple of weeks ago while at a doctor's office with my parents. It was from an article in Reader's Digest where the writer was recalling the construction of a toy boat he was inspired to build by his grandpa. His grandpa told him that phrase and he carried it with him all his life.
Sometimes a certain word or phrase can unlock feelings and thoughts in the mind that were previously unreachable. All manners of things can be gifted in life. You can be given money, clothes, vehicles, houses, toys, and the like, but you can never be gifted what you do for yourself. An artist can never be given a sketch he created for himself. A musician can never be gifted a song he composed on his own.
My birthday was just a couple of weeks ago and every year I find myself wondering what it is I'm accomplishing in life. I've done a lot of art, yes. I've published a book, yes. In spite of those things, I still feel hollow like I've not yet ascended to my potential. Perhaps I'm just a bit impatient for as far as I feel I've come, I still have a ways yet to go. I know these types of doubts are not unique to me as everyone faces their own fears and obstacles in life. That said, I know I am the only one who can change my future for I hold the keys of will.
For those of you who haven't seen the finished image, this was the completed Sarah from Titanfall pic. I was more or less pleased with how this finally came out. For coloring this image, I used a picture reference for capturing the way light would be falling on the character. Another fun thing I put in here that nobody to this point has noticed is the Call of Duty: Ghosts logo faintly crossed out in the background. I own both games for Xbox One, but the number of hours I've spent on Titanfall has thus far outweighed the time spent on Ghosts. I may do more of Sarah in the future, but at this point in time I'm spending most of my creative energies into getting an original project off the ground.
Titanfall! I've been playing Titanfall (available for PC and Xbox One) since launch and I love it! I feel it's less fast-paced and more balanced than the Call of Duty series. Oh, and the ability to run-n-gun in giant mechs is a huge plus. One of the characters from Titanfall is Sarah. Sarah is a part of the Frontier Militia (there isn't a whole lot known about her simply because there isn't much of a story to Titanfall to begin with). Nevertheless, I was taken by her model and decided to draw her in my own style. I opted to go with something highly erotic, but not overtly so. I thought it would be a nice contrast to the constant combat and shooting environment she appears in within Titanfall.
Ever since I was a young boy, I always dreamed of being a novel writer and a comic book artist. Some people dream of being rich, of being a big football star, or of being a famous actor. I dreamt of writing stories and drawing pictures. That was what I fell in love with and ultimately wanted to do with my life.
Dawn Chronicles began as a short story titled Twilight in 2005. The original idea was something straight out of a horror movie: A woman alone in an empty building at night has to fend off a supernatural creature. The creature in this scenario was a werewolf, a monster that I've always felt was heavily underrepresented in a lot of modern entertainment (probably because it's a bit simpler to throw some makeup and a pair of fangs on someone than it is to create a functional full-body werewolf suit).
Twilight was intended as a single piece, but I later wrote another short story that functioned as a semi-sequel to it called Dusk, which upped the stakes as it revolved around a group of people trapped in a building during a blizzard with a clan of werewolves attempting to get in. Both Dusk and Twilight would later be integrated into the Dawn Chronicles book, albeit in altered forms.
It was after I wrote Dusk that the idea of expanding the universe created within those two tales into a novel came to me. Laurel Dawn would be the central figure in the story. At its birth, the book was simply titled Legacy. However, before I decided to publish it, I changed it to Dawn Chronicles: Legacy to keep the series together once future installments were published. That was just the starting point. The next challenge would be developing a compelling antagonist to carry a full book. I believe in duality and opposing forces and that for every up must be a down. If the Dawn family was going to be poised as the "good" set of werewolves, then there needed to be a "bad" set as well. Enter the creation of the Lobos family, a complex group that I will elaborate on in my next post.
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