Tag Archives: arg! productions

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Spring Break (woo)

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Back in the Bandology office after Spring Break. It wasn’t particularly much of a break, but that’s okay. Several things of note happened…

1) Will and I made amazing headway in the Bryan Scary project. I’m very happy with where we stand right now, and I know we can finish the video in time for their album release. I KNOW we can! It’s just going to take continued and consistent work.

2) I started playing Urban Dead again. I’d played often when Kevan first came up with this gem, and had great fun, and then just sort of fell out of the loop. It’s a good time to start playing again, for the zombies have more of an upper hand than they ever have! It makes playing a survivor rather exciting. I have a zombie character as well, in the temporary Monroeville map, but being a low-level zombie is not much fun. I only managed to find a horde once, and the rest of the time it’s been shambling around alone, getting knocked down by survivors left and right. I enjoy playing the survivor much more.

3) I picked up one of my WoW alts, a hunter, and decided that I want to learn how to kite. Kiting is tricky business, and difficult to do well, and I want to be able to do it! There was also more WoWing in general during spring break: an instance here, a battleground there, a round of WoW-and-go-Seek to top it off…Good fun times

Now, though, it’s back to work! We’re at the halfway point with Bandology this semester, and there’s still so much left to do!

Personal Blog

Wanted: Cloud-drawer

Attention internet!

The Shredding Tears music video project is in dire need of a member with the following credentials:

1) Has Flash
2) Can draw clouds

A number of our aeronautic scenes are sitting one step away from “done” due to the fact that we need convincing clouds in the sky. Our lead artist, Will “I can draw clouds” White is too busy cranking away the animation work to render us out some good Flash clouds.

If you have the above credentials, and the thought of sitting and drawing a bunch of cloud formations per our specifications makes you say “huzzah, that sounds like fun!” or “you know, I need more clouds for my portfolio anyway…” please reply!

I can’t offer anything in terms of payment, except that you’ll be credited on the video. Reply if interested!

Personal Blog

Busy Bee

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Since the borrowed internet signal is too weak for any real WoWing, I’ve been getting lots of work done on the Bryan Scary project among other things. Productivity is the best cure for loneliness!

I finally got the ARG! Productions website updated, and boy was it due for one. There’s still some reworking to be done, for example the About section needs to be rewritten, but a clip from the LadyBug short is up there to see.

http://www.argproductions.com/

It’s not very fancy looking, and Will says he wants to spice it up visually, but what with all our work on important things it’s a low priority right now. It serves its function well enough.

Oh yeah, everyone send positive energy to San Diego today. Will is at Siggraph participating in the FJORG! Animation competition, and his team is the ONLY ONE there doing a 2D piece. He called me this morning with an update as he took an unwinding lap round the convention center. This has made them somewhat of a crowd favorite, but it’ll all come down to the judges in the end. GO WILL AND TEAM!

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

2005 Review

Year-end Review:

I must admit, 2005 started off pretty grim. I was unhappy up north and disappointed in theatre as a whole. I was miserable doing something I loved. After juggling over whether to stick it through or call it quits, I decided that it was the best course of action to end things at Long Wharf and head back home to initiate plan B, which meant ceasing the dating of Carleton as well. It was a hard time.

There were some highlights to ease the rough edges, though. A visiting trip to New York, ending my internship on a decently-run play, and confirming my adventure to Japan that would happen later in the year. My birthday was a pleasant one with the Coffrins, through which I acquired my GameCube, which has been a wonderful addition to my console repertoire.

My sacrifice for Lent of 2005 was irrational fear. Every time I felt the fear creeping in, I pushed through it and did whatever was causing it. This led to several good things, one of which was visiting Steph, and thus strengthening a friendship. I am very happy to know Steph better, and I hope to continue the trend!

The emotional blow of coming home from Connecticut was softened by welcoming arms of friends and family. The spring months were rough, though. I was job-hunting in addition to freelance web work, and anyone who’s ever been in the jobhunting phase knows how it can run you into the ground. I recall healing sleep at Brendan and Maria’s for not being able to sleep at my own home.

But there were plenty of good times to balance it all out. Playing Nobilis was a wonderful creative outlet. I got to foster mom two wonderfully loveable ratties. I started working with Will on ARG! Productions stuff. I strengthened small acquaintenceships into blossoming friendships, and got over timid fears to turn people into huggable buddies: Wheeler, Will, Ian, Yale.

The year swelled up to a high point with three events: Acquiring a job, going to visit Andrew in Japan, and moving out of the house into my own place. The Japan trip is like a dream now, and I still haven’t gotten all the pictures up from it. It was a magical place.

More lows and highs. Fish, my beloved pet, passed on that summer. On the other hand, there was much to be done with animating and learning and working on the JamJams trailer. Ken was back and Wheeler got to visit. Having an income through a job I enjoyed was a tremendous relief, but at the same time the mysterious illness crept in and took its toll on me.

Adventuring to Atlanta to play with new friends, discovering my knack for cooking, Tuesday night basketball, visits from D Flo–all wonderful. Weird emotional burdens, the loss of Mr. Laguna—not so much.

The year ended off in the best possible way. Christmastime was refreshing, especially among friends. New Year’s itself was a positive time–I got to spend time with the people I love the most, and we rang in the new year with Guillotine, The Great Dalmuti, Donkey Konga, Mario Party, and Munchkin. I am so very blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.

It has been up and down, yes? But I try so very hard to be grateful for the wonderful things I have. There continues to be things inside of me that I have to work out, but perhaps this year I will stop being a dragon who thinks she is a rabbit, because the rabbit hole is too small.

Year of the dog, that’s my year!

Personal Blog

Li’l Kitty Jam Jams

Grah! I couldn’t stand my horrible custom theme anymore, so I went back to the default one until I can get some design sense under my belt.

Anyway, I glossed over this in my Atlanta Trip post, but I feel like it deserves a little more than a passing mention.

So, since the winter, and like February or something, I have been helping Will with his “super secret project,” of which I’m sure many of you have heard me refer to. It has been good fun times and a ton of work. We spent all summer creating an animated trailer for an idea for a series.

I started out as purely a web lackey, and then turned into the producer (which just means I’m a stage manager, without the stage). And then I was taught how to animate. Anyway, the trailer isn’t totally finished, but it is certainly getting there. You all should pop over the website and check it out
http://argproductions.com/

So, Will is back at SCAD and starting to wrangle up interested people to put some episodes together for Beecon (which is SCAD’s student TV station thing-a-do). That means if you know any SCADians, send them his way 🙂

So we are way interested in feedback. I didn’t spend all summer slaving over a 2 minute animation not to get feedback (I’m still slaving, in fact, as we continue to clean up the trailer).

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Atlanta Adventure

The perk of working at a school is that I get most of their breaks for myself, so I plotted to give myself a for-real vacation over fall break. I flew down to Atlanta for some good fun times and adventuring.

I came in Friday night and met up with Marji and Hanna, whom I met through Will via the not-so-secret-anymore-secret-summer-project (that being JamJams, which Will outlines a bit in his journal). They are good awesome folk and made me feel right at home.

On Saturday Will and Cari drove up from Savannah, and the group of us went trouncing around in the city. Most of it was idle wandering, but we did at least get to the Center for Puppetry Arts and had a good look around. They have some Lion King mask prototypes there, as well as a skekse from the Dark Crystal. It was a fun place and I’m glad I was able to go (in spite of the terrifying “Puppet Storeroom” exhibit). Our former plans of also visiting the Coke museum were thwarted by the infrequency of the MARTA, so we headed back to Marji and Hanna’s for video games and cooking. Pie also happened.

Sunday was mostly lazy napping (on my part), homeworking (on Cari’s part), and visiting Cartoon Network while Hanna went to pick up work stuff (on Will’s part, much to his enthusiasm). We all reconvened for video games, which was very fun, and Will and I beat yet another Dynasty Warriors campaign. That night, we accompanied Marji to a Radical Axis party for the opening of Squidbillies, on which she works. I was fearful of a major social event at first, but fortunately for me it was an evening of exhausted animators all watching cartoons, with little to no need for mingling. Hooray! (yes I know, I’m a social cripple).

Monday, while Hanna and Marji were at work, I spent the day with Wheeler, who has conveniently relocated from Sante Fe to Atlanta. We went to the zoo, and then spent the evening at the arcade. We played quite a bit of DDR, and I’m proud to announce that my former panicky “I CAN’T DO ANY MORE THAN 3 FEET!!” bar has been raised to 4 feet, comfortably. Strother would be so proud! *tear*

We also played a bit of pool, Time Crisis 3, and then I had a go at Ms. Pacman. I immediately regretted this, for I had forgotten that Ms. Pacman is actually a VERY stressful game, most of which I spent panicking. Also, I affirmed the fact that I’m good at those light-spinny ticket games by winning the jackpot of 316 tickets, which I used to buy Marji and Hanna thank-you presents for being good hostesses. Anyways, it was great to hang out with Wheeler again.

That evening I cooked dinner for Hanna and pie happened a second time. All in all it was a fantastic visit, and I hope to make another one in the future. I feel very rested and ready to spring back to work. Boing!

(note, i haven’t forgotten about the activity i posted last entry, I’ll follow up on that soon)

Personal Blog

Drawins!

Inspired by Denali’s recent postings about successful artist tips, and the fact that I hadn’t drawn since the 2 week workathon on Jam Ja…ah..i mean the secret project, I have put my foot down and developed a strict drawing schedule from me.

My goal is to draw every day, like I used to, only more work drawing. This is how it will work…

Every weekday I will wake up at 5:30 and draw, because that is when I am in work-mode, and if I try to do work-drawing after work, it just won’t work! Of course. I will need your help in reinforcing this habit!

The deal is so: if I am a good girl and do my daily morning drawing, I get to take a nap after work. I will post proof of my deserved nap in my AIM away message (Wertle1 is my SN). If no proof exists, everyone who stumbles upon me between the times of 4:30 and whenever I go to Kempo or Tuesday Night Basketball is free to IM the crap out of me to wake me up (I promise I will leave the volume high).

I’ll be posting my work-sketches at ConceptArt.org. This will be boring stuff. Copies and figure and drapery studies. Oh GOD I hate drapery studies! Bleeeh! But yeah, I need it, then maybe I’ll play around with the daily sketch group? I know not.

Anyway, that’s that. Help me out if you can be enforcing my nap rule.

Personal Blog

Summer Review

Lisa, you used to update so frequently, what happened?

Well, I guess I got in the mindset that I shouldn’t do journal entries until I got all my Japan photos up, but I don’t think that’s reasonable anymore. Hopefully I’ll get them all up before the new year. So, how bout an update?

My new job is very good. I enjoy what I do, and the people I work with and the environment I work in is very positive and supportive. It’s a good place for me to be right now, while I work on personal things, and I don’t think it’s an accident that I wound up here. For the moment I’m doing quite a bit of programming, which I never thought I would enjoy as much as I do.

This summer was wonderful. I spent most of it working with Will on his infamous “secret project,” through which I have learned quite a few new skills. No you can’t see it yet. It’s not done. No no, it’s not going to be one of those projects that gets abandoned as we get distracted and work on other things. It’d better not be, at least *threatening glare*

The downside of the summer was my mysterious illness I posted about awhile back. It turned out it was just a viral thing that had to be waited out afterall, but the doctor put me on steroids for the pain, which was almost just as bad as the pain itself. It also fell inconveniently during the end-o-summer 2 week Workathon on aforementioned secret project. That didn’t turn out so bad, though, because the steroids made my carpal tunnels all better, so I could draw a bunch and not be in pain. Also, Will made for a good nurse in the more unpleasant reactions to my medication (thanks for that).

The upside of the summer is that I have become obsessed with cooking. Brendan wants me to start a recipe blog, but I dunno. I have a lot of site work to do, and I don’t want to go starting up new journal notebooks when my main site is so far behind in the overhaul schedule. Either way, cooking real food is a blissful new hobby, and any recipe suggestions for me to try out are very welcome.

In other news, D Flo has a new internet thing going on that is super awesome. Thinking of how successful Brendan’s Anacrusis turned out, I suggested D Flo do a similar project with his music, like 1 minute compositions. Thus, Miscelletudes. Go and watch. LJ feed here . My own follow-up project to this is that I will pluck these little 1 minute songs and make little 1 minute animations to go along with them, as practice. I have to set a goal deadline to start on that project.

So, all in all, things are going well, and I am trying very much not to take that for granted.

Personal Blog

Computer Madness

Oy vey what a weekend! It’s like being back and school, only I *want* to be frantically futzing over web sites.

The first one is the web site I’m getting paid for. Since it is my first “job” site, I wanted to be sure and make it all Dr. Professional and stuff. I’m very proud of myself, using lots of new CSS I hadn’t played with before, no tables in sight (unless I *need* one for real and not for layout), and I’ve checked it in no less than 8 BILLION different browsers to make sure it looks okay. For a simple, informational website, it is quite a lot of work! I might get to do some web database stuff for the same people once it’s up.

On the second hand, since Brendan is very busy, and since I’ve suddenly found a lot of new time on my hands, I’m helping Will (Jaster) with his super secret website for his super secret secret project of secretness. Of course I can’t say much more, but the project has been a huge learning experience for me, as I’ve thrown myself in the midst of managing and building things that i don’t *really* know how to do.

As far as “how I’m doing” in general, I’m still wavering someplace in “okay”. I am happy to be able to frequently visit Brendan and Maria and Dave (though I do miss Ken and D Flo). I have decided that the only thing I really need in my life is to be close to one or more of them, where I feel safe. However, I am still trying to reconcile my emotions and my logic, and that can cause some painful friction. I have mostly just loaded myself up with personal projects, so i am always doing something.

I think things are going to be okay.