If you just love survivin' right now, how about one of these Wallpapers? Some of them are certainly a bit different from what you'd usually expect, so, enjoy.
Clicky clicky to get full size. Just make sure you have enough room in your backpack.
DayZ painted logo
DayZ logo - VHS edition
Murky DayZ scene...
Unmistakably Chernarussian; unusually uneventful.
Why did the sneaky survivor cross the road?
Makarov, y u no drop anything?
What are you eaathen doing runnind near my tent?
Enjoy the Stary Sobor sunset before the snipers get you.
Pure and simple Chernarus hills. Suggestive is all you need.
I have spent some spare evenings creating this short animation, which I finally posted on the same day that 'DayZ' reached 1 million unique players worldwide.
DayZ is a harsh zombie survival mod, built on a hardcore military simulator game called Arma 2 - which itself is the 2009 version of Bohemia Interactive's ongoing military simulation series I have been playing for over 10 years...would you believe it?
Yes, you would.
I found myself creating two different atmospheric styles simultaneously - the serious, but tongue-in-cheek night scene, and the childrens' book-style daytime scenes. I found them rather difficult to edit together, and keeping them at opposite ends of the video was the only way to do it!
The colourful daytime style is what I was intending to pursue if ever I produced more of these. The style is inspired by the old BBC series, 'Spider!' (In the Bath)...
The watercolour paintings were fun, and were mostly produced in about 5 minutes each. Splashy and quick.
Drinking wine, eating cheese and catching some rays?
Not yet, anyway.
Well, I felt inspired by some of the minimalist movie poster art floating around the web and decided to have a go at a Kelly's Heroes art design. I like the idea of incorporating a few in-jokes from the film that you won't understand if you haven't seen it.
The thing is about Kelly's Heroes is that its internet presence is very small, and yet I've never been to a military event which isn't drenched in references to this one piece of media; ranging from the simple 'Kilroy' sketch and subtly placing a few 'gold' bullions on the back of a Sherman, to fully-fledged Donald Sutherland lookalikes and loudspeakers blaring with 'All for the Love of Sunshine.' Safe to say there is not enough crossover of internet culture with the world of military enthusiasts and tank collectors. Yet.
Okay, so you probably have no idea what's going on. To justify this poster design, the film features a hippy tank which fires paint rounds, is fitted with a loudspeaker, and hunts gold. And the slogan is one of the more popular ones to spray onto the side of your real-life Sherman tank. There.
I've started a little project that really is quite little.
Right now it's just a tiny (unfinished) picture. But at the earliest opportunity, this tiny little image of a convenient two-thousand nine-hundred and twenty-five pixels will (hopefully) take on a new life, the likes of which you have never seen before.
After my final uni project finished, I started rummaging through my hard drives to see what creative projects I had started last year. Like most arty people, I have a tendency to get excited about and start new projects in my spare time only to exhaust my enthusiasm within a couple of months because there is no real ultimate positive outcome (as there is in a uni project, for example)!
Nevertheless, I often still like the ideas, even if I may never continue them again. To cut to the chase, I started making a 2D side-scrolling shooter game last September. Take a look:
I did this in YoYo Game Maker 8 Pro, which is an amazing piece of software for anyone who wants to have a go at making games even through they have no coding experience. Through doing stuff like this, you gain some proper understanding of how coding works, and many people have started out in this program before progressing to real scripting platforms like Java.
It's also a great program for making pixely/8-bit artwork. One of my classmates - Tom Clark - made his entire final uni project animated film in an 8-bit style, but he said that the only way he could enlarge his MS Paint drawings without them being horrifically blended out was to zoom in and capture a screenshot.
GM has a built-in graphics editor, which is basically like an advanced version of MS Paint. Fundamentally it works the same as MS Paint, but with tonnes of extra features, not least the animation feature. For my sprites, I drew them in Game Maker first, then exported them to Photoshop for some precise shading and weathering - which is surprisingly difficult with such a small number of pixels!
It was particularly challenging trying to make the train's wheels look like they are spinning fast - with only 5 pixels making up each wheel!
I enjoy using GM to test out ideas. It seems that I always spend much more time on the sprites (graphics) in the game, as that is what I am most interested in.
For the past month or so I've also been working on a new game. It's inspired by a 2D version of Minecraft; which itself is not particularly original, but all I am interested in is creating the blocky, destructible environment, after which I will make it a game in its own right. Unfortunately I have spent all of that time working on the game's engine as oppose to graphics, so it still looks far too awful to show anyone...I am even using 'Billy the Garden Boy' from Lumen Soup as the character, because I haven't got round to drawing a new one! Maybe I'll post it here if it ever starts to look good...
I'm sure you've heard of Duke Nukem before - ya' know, that hedonistic game character who shoots alien invaders - Either from the new Duke Nukem Forever or the old skool Duke Nukem 3D from 1996. Don't worry, there's nothing 18+ in this post!
I have been playing Duke Nukem 3D since it first came out - when I was 6 years old. Is that bad? Safe to say Duke Nukem forms a decent chunk of my childhood!
I recently uncovered a small gathering of Duke Nukem drawings I had done when I was 7 - about half a year after the games' release.
The most inspiring thing about the game for me is the level design. 3D games before Duke Nukem 3D mostly involved endless, dull corridors as the setting; and not much better are the photo-realistic environments of modern games. Where's the creativity in that?
Duke's levels are an art. Not only can you explore the most wonderfully mediocre of settings, including police/fire stations, banks, subways and even a Japanese restaurant, but their layouts are simply brilliant.
I recently completed a piece of work with Livvy under Lumen Soup's name - a postcard design for a delightful confectionery shop in Bristol called Swinky's Sweets. The main part of the front design is a little quick-style watercolour illustration which I produced with (vague) reference to photographs!
Lookout for the whole design soon - whether it's on here, or comes through your letterbox... :D
It seems that I haven't posted on here in quite some time...however, as Lumen Soup is pretty much done, I'm making a comeback to my individual blog (but will continue to update Lumen Soup's blog too...so many commitments!)
So here's an overview...
The Lumen Soup project has pretty much taken up all of my time since Christmas, so head there to see how we've been filling up the time!
In a nutshell, we did some visual tests:
And some concept art:
Until we eventually ended up with a whole bunch of digital assets:
And after projecting, acting and filming the whole thing:
Here are some pieces of concept art from a production I am currently working on, entitled 'Attack of the Cones.' Note the flying cones and diving civilians.
Here's a very strange picture which served to visually explain my personality to my fellow students. I think perhaps it is still quite accurate.
Researches innovation, teaches kids stop motion, paints things rusty, collects toys, plays games, and makes After Effects content that lands in all sorts of strange places. Loves Gerry Anderson, carries a 7D, and always searching for the question to the answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
