Eskimo + mouse equals eskimouse. Hinrik is Henry in Icelandic, which seemed fitting based on the backdrop. After 30 minutes of sketching (seen below) I spent maybe 2 hours or so in Photoshop. Can’t say much more about this except that I know Aissa will love it.
I’m lazy by nature, and so I always need a carrot at the end of a stick to keep me going and to make sure I achieve anything. When it comes to my art, that carrot is competitions like Unearthly challenge. The carrot in this case doesn’t specifically mean the prizes (because clearly I’m not going to win), but the experience and exposure that I get just from from joining. This isn’t some Pollyanna “it’s how you play the game” kind of crap, mind you. Being freelance and not being part of a larger organization, I often feel that I’m missing out on the skills one picks up in that kind of situation, and this is my way of compensating.
The theme for this year’s unearthly challenge is “end game”. As the unearthly challenge website explains it:
In Unearthly Challenge 2009, your mission is to portray End Game as a game level, game scene or event that suggests the essence of the two words – End Game. It can be a final powerful looking boss level, the aftermath of a legendary battle scene, an epic occurrence that suggests an end is coming, a stairway to an intimidating portal, a road that ends in a pit of fire, or more. How you portray End Game and how you depict an atmosphere that entices viewers to want to know more, we leave it all up to you. Remember, your final work must be clear, with no explanations required, how the scene depicts the essence of – End Game.
In the initial thumbnails (seen above) I actually ignored the theme and just played around with an idea I’ve had for a while, a makeshift raft city inspired by China Mieville’s Armada and the rafts that people macgyvered together during Ondoy and similar meteorological phenomenon. I’ve always been oddly fascinated with makeshift things, dating back to my childhood when I cobbled together a handheld fan out of a Tamiya mini 4wd chassis, a pocket knife, and some super glue. I suppose it taps into my inner efficiency freak, where I hate having anything go to waste (I have a pair of shoes that I’ve been using since the 8th grade, almost a decade and a half ago).
The second batch of thumbnails tries to address the “end game” theme a little more closely, with mixed results. The one idea I came away with was the symbol of an anchor being the main focus of the piece. In a city that is tossed about haphazardly by the currents of the sea, the Anchor represents stability, and thus a cult has been built around the worship and control of the anchor. The cult of the anchor controls the use of numerous anchors, which have been kept down ever since the city found a spot of sea with reasonable weather to live in. However in recent times another religious organization has sprung up from the ranks of the children born on the Raft: The cult of the Sail. They represent forward movement, control over one’s destiny, and the search for dry land (hello, waterworld!). I’m imagining an image depicting the final fall of the cult of the Anchor, which is somewhat difficult considering the competition allows for no human or animal bodies in the image.
While writing this, I stumbled upon the idea of a sail being unfurled, symbolically using the torn down symbol of the anchor as a mast. Lord knows whether or not I’ll have time to finish this, but I’ll certainly do my best to keep this blog updated while I’m at it.
So one of the more creative things I tried to do to gather up donations for Ondoy victims was to email all the podcasts I listen to and basically beg them for donations. Of all the podcasts I mailed only one of them replied: Filmspotting. At about 52 minutes in I was already losing hope that they’d mention my email but they actually had a short segment where they talked about my request, something that really blew me away. I have no idea if their call for donations actually amounted to anything, but the fact that they were willing to spend some air time to talk aboutmy email really speaks highly of them.
Run by Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson (and formerly Sam Van Hallgren), Filmspotting has been on my podcasting radar for nearly 3 years now, and it continues to be my favorite film podcast. Aside from helping me understand why I love the movies that I love Filmspotting’s also responsible for such quotable quotes as “I hear what you’re saying, but you’re absolutely wrong” and “That movie made me so angry I wanted to punch it in the face!” So If you’re a fan of movies and like to dig alittle deeper into what makes a good film (at least from a viewer’s perspective), please do yourself a favor head on over to filmspotting or download their podcast on iTunes or the Zune music store, maybe even shoot them an email thanking them as well.
My friend Luis wrote an interesting post on the merits on volunteerism on his blog today, in which he expresses that volunteering your time may not be in the best interests of the people you’re trying to help. It’ll certainly be an unpopular view, especially amongst the more touchy-feely amongst us, but I find that there is some merit behind his thought experiment, even though I believe that ultimately it’s quite flawed.
His first argument is that as a web developer earning white collar wages, he and his associates are better serving people in need by simply earning more money to donate to the cause. According to him,
a given developer cannot sort relief goods any faster than your average minimum-wage employee. (In some cases, the developer, with his soft, developer hands, might even perform worse than the minimum-wage guy, who likely has more experience with manual labor.)
The thought here is that since this is manual labor we’re talking about, it’s a misallocation of resources for the developer to devote his time to packing goods instead of earning $25 an hour to doanate.
It’s a valid point, but I think he misunderstands the scale of the crisis. It’s huge. Really fucking huge, and you only begin to realize how huge once you’re there packing goods and you realize that even with all these people volunteering you’ll never be able to pack enough goods in time to help everyone. But if there were less volunteers, especially at the most critical stages of the crisis, how many less relief packages would have been sent out? I don’t know, but I’d personally assume much less. His concern about the misallocation resources is valid however, in a different manner. There are enough volunteers to go around, especially since shool’s been suspended, but they aren’t allocated properly. For example, on Sunday there were maybe a hundred people packing or sorting goods at the Balay expo in cubao, myself among them. By Monday, that number had more than doubled, and by Tuesday there were maybe 500 people in a relatively small space, leading to a gross inefficiency in the use of manpower (except in the bed-making room, where there were just enough volunteers so that it was an efficient process).
And so yesterday I stepped back to both take a rest and see what else I could do to help, and I hit upon the idea of asking all my regular podcasts to broadcast a cry for help (no responses so far) and personally emailing my current and past clients for a small donation, which I would use to purchase relief goods (made about 8 grand, 5 grand of which was donated directly to me to purchase goods, and the rest donated to their charity of choice).
So really I feel that it’s not about whether volunteering or donating is more efficient, it’s when is the right time to volunteer, and when is the right time to donate? My answer would be volunteer first, then donate later, then volunteer again when you have spare time, till things start to normalize.
His second point, and the one which I found most intriguing, was that if you didn’t have time and didn’t want to simply donate, you could theoretically hire people to do the manual labor for you , with that added bonus that for what you earn in an hour, you could hire a bunch of people and pay them minimum wage to sort and pack goods. You would be accomplishing more and generating employment at the same time. It’s quite a brilliant idea, but in real world terms I think it would be much more difficult to pull off. First, where would you find reliable manual laborers to agree to work for minimum wage to sort and pack goods? You could either troll the streets of manila looking for able bodied laborers (ie wasting time you could have spent either volunteering or working) or perhaps you could go to a manpower company and ask them for laborers, in which case they’d charge you more than minimum wage, weakening the original premise that you could simply hire people to do the work for you. Then there’d be signing contracts and whatnot and sorting out the legalities of your hiring day laborers for a few weeks.
The second real life issue that arises is motivation. Luis assumes that their output will be 10x that of your own. Will your hired laborers pack and sort as much goods as you would if you were volunteering? Volunteers are powered by adrenalin and the endorphin rush of altruism. His theoretical manual laborers would be powered by the minimum wage. Who would keep an eye on them to make sure they’re doing their job as efficiently as possible? Even with officers manning the volunteer stations the folks you paid could simply wander off, then come back to you and insist that they did a hard day’s work. So now we’re presented with another unanswerable problem: What is more efficient, the time a volunteer spends that can be verified (ie since you’re the one doing the work) or the time a “squad” of laborers spend that cannot be fully accounted for? If you’re paranoid like me I’d just rather do the work myself, but let’s give the benefit of the doubt to the laborers and assume they’ll at least match one altruistic volunteer’s energy for the entire day. Like Luis says at the very least you’ll be creating jobs. If any of you actually pull this off, please let me know.
His final argument is actually an extension of his second, which is that basically, if everyone just had the capacity to donate money they should, since then the relief organizations would be flush with cash to spend on goods, laborers, and equipment to help our countrymen.
let’s assume that we lived in a country where everyone was earning above minimum-wage. (Again, a logical impossibility, but thought experiments are strange that way.) What would happen is that the relief operations would be flush with cash because everyone would be donating in an effort to maximize the aid they were extending. The operation heads could then simply hire people to do the work of volunteers. Or, God forbid, fly low-wage workers in from other countries to do the job for us.
That would be great, except the infrastructure that should have existed to allow the relief operations to maximize the use of this money isn’t present. In fact, relief operations should always play a secondary role to rescue and relief, and the NDCC should have been far better coordinated at dealing with this issue. They weren’t, hence the relief centers, hence the need for people to immediately volunteer man them, in order to stave off a further crisis.
The bottom line for me is that both donations and volunteers are needed, and the important thing is to distinguish when and where to do it. As in most things in life, timing is everything. To be fair to luis, he says
I’m not saying that people should stop volunteering, all I’m saying is that they need to think long and hard about whether they are helping more that way or not.
Which is a good point, and thanks to him I’ve decided to hold off on relief operations tomorrow while the college kids are still getting their altruistic high (funniest line of the week, a conotic Atenean yelling “Pare, it feels so good to sve the world!”) and start volunteering once the relief operations are low on manpower.
I wanted to write this quick post to thank two of my current clients, Kenneth Gangstoe and Michael Daley for answering my email asking for donations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy. I feel incredibly guilty that I managed to get out of Ondoy with just a lack of running water and needing to move my car so I’ve been thinking of all the ways I can contribute apart from just donating goods (done last sunday) and time (been working at the balay expo cubo from sunday to tuesday). My first idea was to contact all the podcasts I listen to and basically beg them for airtime to talk about Ondoy, and the second idea, which had more immediate results, was to email all my clients to as for a small donation. Two of the first people to answer were Kenneth and Mike, so again I’d like to thank them and at the same time let them know exactly what their donations bought:
I donated these to the Philippine National Red Cross Chapter office along Shaw boulevard just a few minutes ago. This is a big help, but we can’t stop here. Lots of people still need help and donations so if any of you do freelance work and have awesome clients like mine, please don’t hesitate to tell them about Ondoy and ask for a donation. Thanks also to Tony Oakden and Paul Taylor for donating to separate aid agencies!
Tomorrow the members of IGDA Manila will be meeting for a casual meetup, and hopefully they’ll listen to my call for relief goods, and we can make a second batch of donations this weekend, before taking a trip to clean up Provident village. Still lots of work to be done people, if you really want to get involved.
Since I’m going to be drawing a robot frog, I thought it would be apt to look for robots based on animals. After doing a bit on research on designs from WE3 and all the way up to Voltron, I decided to take my cue from Yoji Shinkawa of Metal Gear fame. His designs are totally bad ass, and I think they’d be a good starting point for my own final design for Frobot. I definitely want to veer away from the original frobot, which looked like a frog’s head grafted onto a metal, man-like frame. I want to push the integration into the environment by having Frobot mk2 down on 4 legs.
As stated in the first Frobot post, the design has to take into account technological superiority using high-tech, industrial or futuristic design elements. So in addition to the previously mentioned artificial musculature, I’m also looking to have high powered solar panels at strategic locations around Frobot’s body, with a unique hexagonal design. I originally considered Fission technology, but that feels like a bit of a copout and doesn’t really lend itself to fun design elements on Frobot’s body. Anyway here’s what I have so far. Real work’s been keeping me busy, so hopefully I’ll have a design finalized by the deadline!
Palit is one of the largest makers and distributors of videocards worldwide, and they’ve recently launched a contest to remake their unfortunately named mascot, frobot. Since I have a bit of free time and I love using competitions as a way to force myself to both improve my art and possibly win some prizes (A free 3 day trip to Taiwan, all expenses paid and a video card or two), I’ve decided to enter the Frobot II competition! From the website:
The design of the Frobot II must convey environmental awareness through the use of a frog’s anatomy and green coloured elements as well as the technological superiority using high-tech, industrial or futuristic design elements.
Now I’ve never drawn frogs before, and I’ve tried to block out the memories of cutting open a frog during high school to learn about anatomy. So the first step for me was to do some research on frogs and do some quick sketches, basically familiarizing myself with frog anatomy and thinking about the color scheme I want to use for the final product. I found that I’m a big fan of the color schemes of the tree frogs found in the Amazon forest, so I’m leaning towards using elements of those colors for the final design. Looking at the musculature of the frogs will be also important for me, since I’m looking to replace what looks to a hydraulic system in Frobot 1 with a more flexible artificial muscle tissue (In line with conveying technological superiority). Next up, research on robots and mechs because surprisingly, I’m no good at drawing those either
I’m slowly trying to finish that Neo Shanghai Spy composition, in between work and games and crystalfuckery (those who know what I’m talking about will get a laugh out of this). I need to do more of this kind of work really, and frankly sometimes it really is fun just looking at different references and drawing them but sometimes it can get a little tedious.
So here’s a bunch of lamps that will be used to light the bar in the final artwork. I’m leaning towards the lamp with the white outline around the fake chinese symbol, but that’s actually more of a Japanese lamp. I’m also not sure i’m I’m going to make them look “cybered-up” since I am going for a futuristic-noir look. Ah, I’ll work it out eventually.
As mentioned in the last post I made the foolish decision to join a contest that was already closed. Seeing as I don’t have a lot to do these days though, I (after wasting most of the morning kibitzing and vacuuming the house) thought that I might as well finish the project if only for the experience. I’ll probably go back to the costume design at some point, but for now I decided to do some quick compositional sketches to figure out how I want to lay out my piece (ie where do I want the key elements like the woman, the bar, and the robot bartender).
Compositional sketches are also a fun way to loosen up when drawing, and you’ll notice my strokes get both looser and more confident as you move from sketch one to five. I’m leaning towards sketches 3 and 4, but feel free to leave comments on which ones you like best.
I’m throwing myself into a bit of a creative frenzy these days, partly because my big project is done and a) I’m sick of the Victorian era and b) focusing on a specific style of artwork has led to the minor deterioration of my overall competency as an artist. I just recently finished my entry for th ecomic-con contest, and while browsing the internet stumbled upon this contest at cgsociety called “Secret Agent”. At first Iwas hesitantt o join becuse the deadline was so close (September 10) and I didn’t have a proper concept but I remembered that I had painted two artworks before that could definitely used an overhaul, one of a female chinese secret agent in a qingpao and a sci fi girl with a cybernetic arm (I’d link you but I’m too lazy). It’s a good experiment in seeing how far I’ve improved as an artist, and the verdict so far is I’ve improved substantially, but I’ve still go to a long way to go.
Anyway, a big part of concept art that doesn’t get talked about a lot is that you have to design clothes for your characters. This is easy enough if you’re drawing modern characters or those that fit in a specific time period since you have easy access to reference material, but since my character is a mix of 1930s Shanghai and cybernetic future I have to find a way to mesh those two influences and make it work. It’s a lot harder to do than most people think. When it works it’s fantastic, but when it doesn’t …well, let’s jsut hope it does. Clothes design is far from my expertise, and I’m finding it especially difficult to come up with something that looks good on the female form. These are my first three attempts; standard qingpao with cybernetic arm, a more modern look with kungfu shoes, and a two piece qingpao with pearls and a princess leia-like bun. The hair on these sketches are variations on the typical 1930’s style, and in future sketches I’ll probably play around with the hairstyles some more.
…
So, I just checked out the contest website and found out that the Image entries are only till August 8th, and the Video entries are til September 10th. *facepalm*
This may be what I submit to the Comic con contest, apart from some more minor tweaking. I chose to go with a graphic designed background instead of what will probably be a more common painted/draw background to make it look more like a comic book. It ties in tot he comic con theme and…I just don’t have enough time to draw a proper background. So there.
Finally finished my first orthographic drawing ever, based on my Rodimus Prime design. The deadline for the contest is a week away and I’m starting to doubt I’ll finish it, but to have gotten this far was a good experience in and of itself, so I’m not complaining. Next up is thumbnail sketches for the final pose.
Update: Edited the face and added some wheels based on feedback from ET, to make him look more like Rodimus than Hot Rod. Also, looks like I needed to color the whole thing so I did just that and added a texture for good measure.
So it’s a bit late, but I thought I’d post my presentation during the IGDA Kucha event two weeks ago, where I talked about why it was important to have a vibrant game developer community. Apologies for the horrid audio and video, but we were recording this on digicams so you really can’t expect much. You can also check out the other videos here.
As I stated in an earlier blog, I do love to play city planner, and a confluence of thinking about railways and the Ayala TechnoHub inspired me to lay out a fictional rail transit line spanning from Quezon City to Manila.
To start things off, in my fictional world, the Ayala corporation would decide to run their own Rail transit for the sole purpose of supporting the young UP-Ayala Technohub. They realized that companies were hesitant to set up shop there because the location was deemed too difficult for their employees to commute to everyday. First they tried using shuttle buses from the nearest LRT-2 and MRT stations, namely SM North and Katipunan, but they figured what the hell, we’ve got money to burn so why not start a rail business?
And so the ART was brought to life through the combined efforts of the Ayala companies and city mayors (HA!). Beginning in the Ever Gotesco Mall on Commonwealth Ave and stretching all the way to the Blumentritt LRT-1 station, which by the way is near the Blumentritt PNR (our original rail network, supposedly getting a revamp) station. Along the way the train would stop at UP-Ayala technohub (obviously, but also this gives access to UP as well), Quezon Memorial Circle, SM North (for interchange with LRT-2), Amoranto Sports Complex (randomly saw it on google maps, thought it might be a good station), and Mabuhay Rotonda (for access to UST and nearby schools/colleges). Not only would this rail network ease the burden of commuters coming all the way from fairview, it also connects the MRT and LRT-1 lines while at the same time providing easier access to one of Metro Manila’s few green lungs, The Quezon Memorial Circle.
I know it seems ridiculous that I just spent an hour of my day dreaming up a fictional rail network, but for whatever reason it gives me a great sense of faux accomplishment thinking up ideas like this. Now if I could only figure out a way to get paid to do this, I’d be set for life.
In case you’re interested, a larger image of the map can be found here.
Update: According to my girlfriend a similar route was actually planned by Mitsubishi and Ayala during the Cory administration stretching from QC all the way to Laguna. Unfortunately, probably due to the usual politicking, it never happened.
So, IGDA and GDAP were asked to do a short panel on the games industry by the organizers of the MCC, which we were quite happy to oblige. We get VIP passes, which I think basically entails we get in for free, and nothing much more than that. Our panel will be on Sunday, 12-1pm, feel free to attend if you’re at the con!
Been really looking forward to taking time to draw/do anything not work orIGDA related, so it was nice to draw these Rodimus Prime sketches for the comic con contest. The way things are going I kind of doubt I’ll ever be done with this, but it’s something to push me into drawing non-work related stuff at least.
I was downing a San miguel Strong Ice at 11am yesterday, trying to fight the urge to throw a panic attack. I’m not normally lke this, and even my closest friends are surprised to find out that I have a very deep seated fear of public speaking. I can’t explain how I can be overly verbose in a small, casual setting (ie 2-4 people at a table) then scared like a deer in headlights the minutes 10 or more eyes set upon me simultaneously, but that’s just the way it is. Of course, the IGDA Kucha turned out well enough, and so did my presentation at the end, regardless of the fact that I was using index cards and still managing to flub some lines.
Anyway, for those unable to attend the event, I’ve posted my presentation here and my notes for each slide below, since it wouldn’t make much sense without them. Videos will be up soon, but in the meantime this ought to be good enough.
Update: For all you tl:dr types, the videos are up!
Slide 1:This is not the image of a man who gives a shit about anything. So, why do I care? Why did I volunteer to be the chapter coordinator of IGDA Manila? I certainly didn’t do it for the fame or fortune, so what’s in it for me?
Slide 2:I take personal offense knowing that this is the face that Philippine society shows to the world. I don’t want to be represented by a lecherous middle aged man who makes millions singing and gyrating to horrible songs. I want the world to know we’re better than that.
Slide 3:Chip Tsao called us a nation of servants. Was he wrong? Yes. Does that stereotype still exist? Yes. Stereotypes only change when people actively prove them to be wrong, something I hope to accomplish by nurturing the local game development community.
Slide 4:So at this point you’re saying, so what? What do I care? It’s a fair question, so in the next few slides I thought I’d go over some of the reasons why supporting IGDA is actually in your own self interest.
Slide 5:A few of you are here today to learn from your fellow game developers, but the rest of you, you’re only here for the free food and drinks. It’s okay, I’m one of you. I have tupperware in the back to take leftovers home. That’s a pro tip for all you freeloaders out there.
Slide 6:So, how do we get BETTER food and drinks and an even larger venue? The answer is numbers. Companies are always looking to expand their market and mindshare. But they want to reach as many people as possible, so the more of us there are, the more willing they’ll be to open their sponsorship wallets.
Slide 7:All the artists in the house know just how awesome and expensive Wacom tablets are. This intuos 4 costs between 16 to nearly 30 thousand pesos, depending on the size. Now what if I told you it would be possible to get a discount on this hardware?
Slide 8:Ynzal recently had a 40% off promo on Photoshop, but only certain organizations were entitled to it. GDAP, the Game Developers Association of the Philippines, was one of them. So imagine the kinds of discounts we could get on games, software, hardware, if only we come together as an organization.
Slide 9:That’s a picture of the 12 foot orc statue in front of Blizzard’s office. How many of you dreamed of working at a Blizzard, an EA, an Ubisoft, a Square Enix? the people who make the games that you love to play? What would it take for them to set up studios here?
Slide 10:Well, companies that are interested in opening up offshore studios will usually measure two factors: How easy is it to do business in that country AND, is there a large enough talent pool of developers for them to hire? How does the Philippines compare against other countries in these aspects?
Slide 11:Doing business in the Philippines is about as efficient as the rube goldberg machine seen here. You’re forced to jump through all sorts of hoops and bribe government officials if you want anything done in time. Unfortunately, this is something we just can’t do anything about.
Slide12:What we CAN do however, is to grow a vibrant game developer community, like this one in Austin. An active IGDA chapter is proof to a company that there is a talent pool for them to hire from, and it can help offset the the difficulty of putting up a business here.
Slide 13:Remember the other slide that said the Philippines was 140th in a list of countries in which you can do business? Singapore’s number 1. However, companies found out that Singapore’s talent pool wasn’t deep enough, which is why you’ll find many foreigners, Filipinos included, working in these companies.
Slide 14:Now assuming we manage to convince studios to set up here, it’ll be much easier to convince organizers to hold game their development conferences in Manila. That way we won’t have to fly all the way to Singapore to listen to industry luminaries like Cevat yerlin, Peter Molyneux, Hideo Kojima, maybe even Miyamoto.
Slide15:The existence of all these companies also creates an informal knowledge cluster where developers can exchange ideas and learn from each other to make even better games. These knowledge clusters are also the breeding grounds for our own future game design geniuses, some of whom may be in this very room right now.
Slide 16:OK, so, I’ve talked about why I care about IGDA, and why it’s in your own self interest to support it. But the truth is that this goes far beyond you and me. By supporting IGDA, we can actually help make our country a better place.
Slide 17:Economist Richard Florida has written a series of bestselling books with one basic theory: Each country has a creative class, and this creative class is the driving for its economic development, pushing the country forward through sheer creative energy. We’re a part of that creative class.
Slide 18:And so are all these other sectors, representing fashion, music, web design, comics, animation, and yes, even cosplaying. They’re all a part of the creative class, and a part of increasing our economic output and making us a player on the world stage.
Slide 19:For comparison, Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh, which is ranked 110th in ease of doing business. But I did a google search on Dhaka cosplayers and came up empty, and by that measure I think we’re far ahead of them in terms of having a thriving creative class.
Slide 20:I’d like to leave you with this thought. What we do matters. By showing up at IGDA events and participating in the forums you’re doing 3 things: making me happy, satisfying your own self interests, and helping out your country. And since all you really have to do is give some of your time, I think that’s a pretty good deal.
One of the things I miss most about working in an office was the camaraderie that acomes from being around a group of like-minded people. It’s one of the few advantages that working in a single location has over remote working, which I’ve been doing for the past 2 years or so. Online forums are a great way of recapturing that energy, and I’ve come to love one forum in particular for my artistic learning and output: gameartisans. This particular forum hits the sweet spot between effing useless (ie deviantart) and overwhelming (conceptart.org and cgsociety). It’s a happy balance where I can meet people with a mostly similar (mostly better, some worse) skill level as me, and we can help each other get better by doing honest critiques of our work.
I’d forgotten how much fun that can be, having been dragged down by a lot of work /financial related issues and being too frightened to participate in the recently concluded Dominance War. But I logged onto gameartisans again recently and noticed they had a new comic con contest up. It’s just a little less daunting than the Dominance War and there’s a only a little over a month to get my entry in, but it’s the camaraderie and learning process that I’m craving for so I’ll give it a shot. As “real” (aka not the movie version) transformers fans might recognize, Rodimus Prime. The same Rodimus Prime that my girlfriend gave me a Revoltech action figure of. More updates on this as I finalize it, but for now I’m just enjoying drawing the random bits and pieces and familiarizing myself with robot anatomy.
Thought it might be interesting to show a background in the making. I’d gotten tired of doing interiors and more close up esteriors so to make things interesting I chose a really long view for this town scene. It’ll take a lot more effort, but it’s a lot more fun to work with, especially if I convince myself that I’m a real Victorian town planner (note to self: possible game idea? 
). Based on some reference material I decided on having the farmland in the background, the town in the middle, and the path leading to the town in the extreme foreground.
I was initially overwhelmed by how to lay out the town since I’m no good at the “drawing stuff randomly till something comes of it” school of art. My mind’s scatterbrained enough already, so I need discipline, a guideline, to steer my art in the right direction. I took a look at some layouts for old medieval towns for inspiration and found that it made more sense to me when towns were divided up into blocks. Once I decided on breaking up the town into separate blocks everything started falling into place. The chapel was at the center, and I laid out plans for parks here and there, and sections for shops as well (though they’re not labeled here you can see them next to the park in the center).
Granted, if I were a real Victorian town planner I’d probably have been fired because I laid out the blocks willy-nilly, but I guess the moral of the story is when you have a seemingly insurmountable problem, just break the problem up into sections and you’ll have a much easier time.
Busted out another quick piece today to jar me out of my creative stupor. You can only draw so many Victorian parlours and tea sets and countrysides I suppose. Continuing the robotic streak I began last week, another humanoid robot, this stime sporting some strange Renaissance gear. I think this was based on my reading up on the life and times of Nostradamus, who lived during that time period. I’ve always found it interesting to think about what future technology would look like if you applied the design philosophies of the past to them,and this is a quick way to scratch that itch. Fancied it up with some graphic designy stuff just to make it a little more presentable.
Got inspired by this dude to do a quick sketch. Too much victorian housing lately, so it’s fun to bust out on a robot that’s quite obviously got some anatomical issues.
Another piece of spell art for Spell Wars called Ghost Knight. Far from done, but I thought I’d put it up anyway. The armor is inspired by greenwich armor of the 1500s. It’s been a pleasing distraction from my ongoing project of large, detailed backgrounds. Although ironically, I chose a type of armor that has intricately detailed designs.
Artwork for a spell on spell wars called “Moment of Peace”. Spellwars is an iPhone game being developed by Ryan Stubblefield. I’ve mostly provided UI work for Spellwars, and this is my first stab at spell art.
A lot of my friends give me shit about being so frugal, but this is one of those days that I love bing a cheapass. So a few weeks ago I was windowshopping in tipidPC, and I saw an olympus E-330 body being sold for 6500. Sure, it was a little beat up, but it was still working, so I messaged the owner about it, and managed to negotiate it down to 5500. Still, I waffled a bit, since I knew I’d have to find a lens, which oftentimes is even more expensive than the camera body. Luckily, I found a dude selling his Olympus kit lens for 5k. We had a bit of a back and forth, until I ultimately decided I really shouldn’t be spending so much money right now, and shut the whole thing out of my mind entirely (well, not entirely, I’m obssessive about these kinds of things).
A few days later, the seller of the lens messages me saying that based on my reputation in tipidPC, he’s willing to sell and ship the lens to me for just 3k. Who was I to refuse such a good deal? So now I’m the proud owner of an Olympus E-330, which while it’s already pretty old, still takes better shots than almost any point and shoot camera (or rather, it makes it easier to take better shots).
A very quick mockup for an iPhone math application that I banged out in a ciuple of hours. The ships on top are attacking the city below, with each ship’s chape correspnding to a specific trait. Green was a normal ship, red is sleeker, hence faster , and yellow is slower and more ponderous but took two hits to finish off. The city has 3 layers of shields, which correspond to “lives”, which I thought made more sense than just having a life bar or three hearts on top of the screen. Ultimately this design was discarded, but I thought it was nice enough to put up here.
Just a sneak peek at what I’m working on right now. Anything more might get me in trouble, so I’ll leave it at that.
To care about a country like hours, despite the numerous faults displayed by the people that govern it, is kind of like being in an abusive relationship. You stay there hoping that someday “they’ll change”. The alternative is to shut yourself off and not give a damn, and let the chips fall where they may. The repercussions of not giving a damn this time however, may be too much for us to bear, so I will make this one small effort to show our leaders that I, as a Filipino, am not pleased at what happened on June 2, 2009, and I hope any of you that I count as my friends will join me too.
A bunch of UI elements from an iPhone game called Piecehunters and its Chinese spinoff I made for a small Singaporean studio. Not a lot to say about this really, except my favorite’s the incense holder and the little chinese lion (that’s supposed to be a stamp or seal, like for royalty).
Another image from the zombie game files. This is supposed to be used as an information sheet of sorts for theplayers to know what character they are, and what kinds of abilities they have. The best parallel in a video game would be the inventory screen. I really liked making this, especially thinking of the little add ons tot he folder, like the clipped picture of the zombie and the post-it note.
Sometimes it’s nice to bust out with something totally non-work related to recharge the creative batteries. This is a remake of an earlier landscape piece that I kind of hacked up and jigsaw-ed back together to create a more interesting look. It’s definitely not to a point where I’d say I’m proud of it, but at least I like it better than the original artwork.
Updated my portfolio a bit today, with some of the work I’ve done the past few months or so. Been a bit lazy updating it because I really don’t have time for new projects anyway, but it’s still good to refresh it every now and then. This zombies part of the update, still for the Zombie board game I’ve been working on. Had to put that on a backburner for a while to work on a larger project, but I’m still excited to see this push through sometime this year.
Been a while since I’ve had the time, energy, or inclination to paint anything other than work related stuff, so I took 15 minutes to bust this out of my system. After some initial dabs of paint it started forming into an East German looking hitman, so I went with that idea.
I do not take politics lightly, nor do I like enforcing my political views on people who’d rather ignore politics. But I would encourage everyone to at least participate in next year’s elections by registering, educating yourself and then voting for your chosen candidates. The effects may not be immediate, but if you look at how far we’ve come since 1986 you’ll realize that things have gotten better. We can accellerate the process by being a part of the democracy we prize so much.
On that note, I’d like to invite anyone in the Makati area in the evening to “Gusto kong magrehistro, gusto kong bumoto” An event that tackles the youths’ questions on registration and voting to be held at 6PM in the Asian Institute of Management. I won’t be there myself as I’ve tons of work, but I’m already a convert anyway, and will be voting alongside millions of people come next year.
Bit of a teaser here, basically doing some test runs on drawing victorian era furniture. Connected to the project I may be working on soon. I say “may” because even though I’ve already received a contract, I won’t rest easy until I see some green. I’m paranoid that way, what can I say?
Been absent lately, I know. Lots of the ups and downs of life in general, but there’s something on the horizon that promises big things in the short term definitely, and bigger things in the long term maybe. Can’t really talk about it right now. Aside from legal reasons, I’m properly paranoid a deal will not push through until I’m (virtually) cashing a check. Too many things can go wrong till then.
Yes, it is the same zombie board game. No, I’d rather not talk about it any more, mostly cause I’m lazy. I like how it came out though, so here you go.
New Star Grand Prix has been released! I worked on this game with Simon Read a couple of months back and it’s nice to see it finally getting the finishing touches. Unfortunately, not all of the art there is mine, as I think Simon’s been hit by the recent Financial crisis as well. We had to cut back on some art assets that he wanted custom made and he he had a go at the graphics himself. Still it turned out quite well (VERY well I think, well enough to make me wonder why he needed an artist in the first place, but no need to question that eh?), and the game’s a lot of fun to play even if you’re not a hardcore F1 fan.
I pitched a basketball RPG (yes, it’s possible!) game to Simon a few months ago as well, and so we may actually be working on that in the coming months.
At some point in my career I determined that the amount of money I was making paralleled the amount of respect I felt within an organization, which in turn impacted how hard I worked for said organization.
For example, in a large telecommunications company that I knew was making billions of pesos annually, I was being paid a 10,000 peso salary (negotioated up from an insultingly low 8000 pesos a month). For the amount of work they were giving me, and for the experience I already had in that field (mobile games), I felt slighted, but took the job because I was desperate for work at the time. I lasted 3 months, a quarter of which was spent online looking at job listings. My motto at the time was “you aren’t paying me enough to do this shit!”
My next job paid roughly 35,000 pesos, working for a smaller, foreign run company that treated its staff well and had a flexi-time schedule that allowed us to check in at any time we wanted and check out once our 9 hours was up. While the work was rather monotonous at times I liked the people there and felt like my opinion was (sometimes) being listened to. I would joke to my fellow artist friend that I could no longer claim that they weren’t paying me enough to do this shit, and thus I felt pressured to work hard enough to make sure I didn’t lose this job.
After this last job, I was offered a position with an indie studio out of San Fransisco called Disco Pixel. It was made up of game industry vets and they were interested in taking me on as their lead artist, a position that I now admit I was probably wholly unprepared for. They offered me a ridiculous sum of money (cheap according to industry standards but still a veritable goldmine for me) that to this day I’m uncomfortable talking about. While it was a terrific ride and I learned a hell of a lot from the people I was working with, the amount of money they were paying me really pushed me to work as hard as I could to justify their hiring me. I was perpetually plagued with feelings of insecurity, and shrugged it off by putting more hours than I really needed to, doing and redoing art assets to as close as I could get to perfection, and basically working my ass off so that at the end of the day I wouldn’t feel guilty about the money they were paying me. I felt like they’d given me so much respect that I couldn’t afford to let them down. The jury’s still out on that, but we were hit by a series of unfortunate events (collectively called the financial crisis) and had to shut down in the 3rd quarter of last year.
As a corollary to the original theory, my feeling of respect can be adjusted by the amount of money the organization I’m working for is making. In effect, if I know you’re a multi-million dollar earning company and you’re paying me 20000 pesos a month, I’d probably feel insulted. But if I know you’re a small company or an individual paying me the same amount, I will respect that and still work as hard for you as I possibly can.
Sometimes I wonder if this makes me a bad worker. Of course I rationalize that I’m just taking care of myself and my future. Like many an overpaid basketball superstar I feel like “I gots to get paid.” But at the end of the day it again comes down to respect. If I know that I’m not being screwed with and the people I’m working for are open and honest about their financial situation I’ll be a happy worker. Hell, I worked for Disco Pixel for about 3 months on deferred pay out of respect (and the possibility of being picked up by a publisher at the last minute) alone, so I think my conscience is clear.
A cover for a zombie board game. The yellow strip running diagonally from left to right contained the title, which I’ll hold off on showing for now. All I can say is that I’m really excited to be working on an indie board game. This is one of the first larger pieces I’ve had to make, both compositionally and literally, and while I think I managed to pull off the general idea, I’m certain I could have spiffied it up some more given some more time. Like a month.
A quick, lighthearted 30 minute sketch to keep from getting rusty.
Very often while trolling message boards and forums for jobs I’ll come across an ad that promises “a lot of artistic freedom!” for the applying artist. While this always sounds great, I’ve come to find out that “artistic freedom” usually means “I’m a client who has no fricking idea what I want so you figure it out for me.”. That’s all fine and dandy when you’re working for a company or this client is so rich that he doesn’t mind paying for your time conceptualizing, but for the most part these “artistic freedom” clients are skinflints. They see advertising the job as having a lot of artistic freedom as a good thing, bonus for freelance artists. Well let me tell you something, artistic freedom is only useful for people who submerge animal carcasses into golden containers of formaldehyde and call it art.
Since maximizing the returns on your time is as important as it is when you’re a freelancer, this is not a good situation to find yourself in. Basically, if you’re being paid to be an art contractor, you shouldn’t be doing an art director’s work, but that often turns out to be the case. An art director is usually the person who looks at the design document or brief, digests what needs to be produced on the artistic end, then spits it out to the production artists, usually in the form of an art asset list, with a timeline possibly attached. He also provides artistic direction, something that’s sorely unappreciated, as far as I can tell with the clients I’ve been getting lately. One recent design brief had this particular phrase “…avatars can be any race, species, etc.” which made me wonder, if I drew a female badger, then a black widow spider, would they accept these avatars? I wasn’t even given a plot or storyline so there was absolutely no basis for me to even begin thinking about what might be useful as avatars. When you have no point of reference, creating production art (ie any art that you’ll see in-game) can be a nightmare of redoing images over and over again until your client finally sees something that hits him. Then asks you to tweak it some more, ad nauseum.
These days I’ve learned to ask clients for a lot more information before giving an estimate, in order to avoid situations like these. At the end of the day production art for games is functional. It may be pretty to look at, but it serves a purpose, and the more context you have about that purpose, the better an artist will be able to make that piece of art work for your game.
To work on this game. The idea was a top-down action RPG type iphone game with the artistic direction of Field Runners. Unfortunately the company who commisioned this mockup punked me and I haven’t heard from them since.
Parallelus (click the link only if you have itunes installed) is now available on the iTunes appstore! This is another small milestone in my time as a freelance artist, my first iPhone game! Ok no more exclamation points. Instead I’ll copy and paste the wonderful and curiously well made description of the game from my contractor’s website:
Catch hearts and avoid bombs. Do you really think this task is simple?
Try it yourself in this original arcade game.
Use your reflexes and brain to complete this double task. Two hands, two brain parts, two game fields. Parallelus it!
Features:
- original concept
- immersive multi-touch control
- over 100 levels
- 3 game modes
- shiny graphics
If you like puzzle games, left/right brain mind exercises, or me, please buy this game!
It’s been about 6 months since I was forced headfirst into the world of freelance art, and a recent run-in with a bad client made me think that this would be a good time to reflect on the past half year. Before being forced to work freelance I was working on a comfy project on the Nintendo DS that promised that I would be living comfortably for the next few years once it got picked up by a publisher. Unfortunately for me and the people I was working with, the financial crisis was looming large and publishers were very hesitant about signing unproven companies and IPs (intellectual properties). Eventually my employer ran out of money, but I persisted in working for him because I really believed that the project was marketable and could lead to bigger things. It didn’t. 3 months later I came to the realization that there was no way this was going to work out, and I had to prepare myself to look for other opportunities. I didn’t want to go back to my old job as an GUI artist for an instant messaging mobile app, and interviews with some local game studios didn’t pan out, so I had only one option left: go freelance.
The Good
Your time is your own, obviously. You can take a nap anytime you want, drink anytime you want, read anytime you want, play videogames anytime you want without anyone looking over your shoulder, as long as you manage to finish your projects on time. Also, since I’m working in the Philippines, budgets that would be scoffed at in the 1st world are enough to get by on over here. The advantage is that I can undercut other artists who may want/need a larger budget for the project. In principle it’s like I’m a one-man outsourcing business.
Of course you shouldn’t aim to undercut all the time, as the idea is to get maximum money for your work/time. The more you undercut the more used to those prices your clients will be, and since we’re assuming you want to have repeat clients, it wouldn’t be good to get them too used to ridiculously low rates. It does however give 3rd world artists a little more leeway, allowing you to price low to gain experience or during a tight period, or to negotiate as high as you want when business is good. In fact, if I wasn’t currently paying 36,000 pesos a month for a condo down payment, I wouldn’t be as stressed as I am right now. As it is I’m barely making ends meet, but hopefully this situation will improve soon.
Good clients are the usually open about their budgets and willing to pay up front or on a per piece basis depending on how large the project is. Good clients should be treated like gold. Make them happy and they’ll spread the word about your services to other people who will be more inclined to hire you since they’ve talked to someone with first hand experience with you. There’s a bit of a stigma when it comes to being a freelance anything, insofar as there are no viable penalties if you choose to simply drop out of a project all of a sudden. Developers are worried about this of course, and so building a good reputation is paramount. Another great thing about freelancing is the opportunity to work with a world-spanning client list. So far I have 1 US client, 2 British clients, and a pair of Ukrainian programmers.
The Bad
With freedom comes insecurity. There’s a lot of shit being spread around by “Rich Dad” advocates that there’s no such thing as job security anymore. While in practical terms this is certainly true (as the recession has proven), psychologically the impact not having a steady monthly paycheck has on a person cannot be understated. This all depends on your psychological profile of course, and I’ve found that I’m somewhere in the middle of being a risk taker and looking for security. I like the freedom of being a freelance artist but at the same time the lack of a monthly or bi-weekly paycheck does take its toll on me every 15th and 30th of the month.
I should also mention here that anyone looking to go freelance should either have some experience behind them or a kick ass portfolio. I had a little experience behind me as a game artist, but years of being comfortable in a corporate atmosphere atrophied whatever artistic talent I had, to the point that I was producing artwork that was really quite embarrassing. Being freelance puts you in a constant situation of panic, where you feel like you need to be continually improving your skills or get left behind. This lack of security can be a boon, as I’m only realizing my true artistic potential now, and see myself improving with every piece of artwork and every satisfied client. In short, as an artist I’m better now than I’ve ever been. This constant state of panic does take its toll however, and I’m forgetting that I need to relax (I’m sure my friends will find this hilarious, but it’s true) every now and then. I find that little things stress me out, like waking up to check my mail and seeing that no new clients have emailed.
Which leads me to bad clients. I classify bad clients as clients that respond favorably to your initial email but then fail to follow up or inform you of what’s happened. Even a simple “we found a better suited artist” would suffice to inform me that my services are no longer needed and I’m free to look for new clients. This is probably the most common client I’ve had recently, with a lot of them expressing initial interest then disappearing for no valid reason. Am I asking too much? Was there a better artist offering lower rates? This kind of information would be most helpful, plskthx. The end result is that I’m firing off as many emails as possible and sorting out the scheduling mess afterward.
The Ugly
It’s hard to get a loan when you’re not employed. Hell, it’s hard to get your bank to change your place of employment since you can’t even furnish them with a certificate of employment to prove that you are working for so and so company. This may not sound like an issue right now but it will be in the future, especially if you’re looking to get a housing loan. There are other means of course, like getting a pag-ibig loan or SSS loan, but I was too lazy to keep up my payments and so that’’s not working for me too. That’s one other thing that the prospective freelancer should take note of I guess, is to make sure you make those payments. I’m still working out how to fix this part, one of the solutions I’ve thought of is starting my own company as a sole proprietorship and thus being able to list myself as “self employed”. There are negatives to this too, most of which I haven’t uncovered yet, so there’s still a long way to go for me on this end.
Ugly clients are the types that can’t make up their minds, and will try to get as much work as possible out of you to justify their expenses. They may not be bad people, but the fact is that at some point you have to decide if a project is worth the time and effort you put into it. While I definitely believe that every experience teaches you something and is therefore never wasted, you shouldn’t let yourself be punked by an ugly client. As an example, the image above may never be finished because the client, after 4 days of work and constant updates and thumbnail samples decided that the buildings looked too similar to each other, and that we’d need to do this again. What made me decide to turn my back on the project? He was paying me a measly $60 for this artwork, hardly enough for the time and stress that its creation took.
Google Sketchup is one of the most awesome things to come out of Google labs. It’s essentially a 3d modeling application that lets you build buildings, vehicles, and whatever else you have in mind. It’s supposed to be ridiculously easy to pick up and play and considering I have forgotten almost everything I learned from my brief flirtation with Maya I can attest to this. Massive Black supposedly gives Sketchup to its artists who are similarly 3D impaired and it allows them to quickly concept things like vehicles and space ships in far less time than it would take to learn a fully fledged 3D program.
I’m using Sketchup now to do some concept work for a client who wants to see some ruined cityscapes. We went through numerous thumbnails where I was painting directly onto the canvas and frankly I was getting really tired already. Then I remembered Sketchup and why I downloaded it in the first place, and within minutes I had a cityscpape thumbnails that my client approved. Thanks, Google!
So for the past month I’ve been helping out a duo of Ukrainian iPhone developers make their/our first iPhone game. I did this game on a much lower budget than I would have wanted, but I figure it’s definitely a good portfolio piece and a bonus when applying for contracts that require iPhone experience. That icon (the one with the P, I don’t really wanna mention the name of the game because I don’t know how they’d feel about that) actually may not be the final one btw, it’s just what they sent me yesterday.
This is the first time I’ve had language barriers when working with a client, and there were definitely times were I struggled to decipher their use of tense and swapping of words. I had to learn to swap words like “picture” with “image” and get around the fact that they seem to have no concept of tense (ie “made” instead of “make”). This isn’t a knock on them by any means, these are all common mistakes for anyone who didn’t grow up using English (and even with some people who did). In fact, I think their game is quite unique though definitely not something you’d play for more than five minutes. I don’t know if it’ll make them a lot of money though, but certainly it’s enough to cover the cost of hiring me. But to go back to speaking English, I’m used to discussing things with clients, clearing up matters, making suggestions on the aesthetic of a certain sprite or button, but it’s hard to do that when you’re not sure that you’re truly being understood. Eventually after a few tries I decided to give up, and I came up with a simple mantra “if what they want isn’t ridiculous or horrible, just do it.”. I also stopped making suggestions or waiting for them to make suggestions when I saw a problem, but addressed it instead and simply told them how my solution worked. The less dialogue the better.
Hopefully the game does turn out well though, cause if they make some money off of this we have a good enough relationship that I’m almost positive they’ll come back to me for more work.
The nice thing about Dystopic Landscapes is that you can easily put one together and have something nice looking without having to think too hard. You mostly need some basic composition and afterwards you can let your imagination run wild. By their nature these types of landscapes present a world that has fallen to ruin, so you’re free to go crazy with your brushstrokes and treat mistakes like crumbled cement and rubble. It’s the perfect kind of messy playground that doesn’t stress me out too much but still (hopefully) acts as good practice for more polished material. This is definitely not done yet, so expect a finished version in the weeks to come.
I’m kind of annoyed right now. So the latest mini competition for gameartisans is baby monsters, ie Paint your favorite movie monster as a baby. I don’t really have a favorite, but I thought that Davy Jones from the Pirates movies would be interesting to draw, so I settled on that. I’m actually quite pleased at how the work has turned out, and I think this is some of my most polished work so far, but I made a huge mistake while updating on gameartisans. They encourage you to post your work while it’s being done, to get critiques and whatnot and also to build up the community aspect of the site. I usually downsample to 500×500 so my images aren’t hogging bandwidth (I do the same for this blog) on the forum, but this time I forgot to undo and go back to a 1000×1000 resolution! That may not sound like much of a difference, but in general when you put up portfolio material art directors like to see more high resolution stuff, because the lower your resolution is the more artistic cheats you can get away with (which is why I thrived in mobile games for a while, where tiny pixel art hides glaring anatomical errors). I’m going to try to salvage this by upsampling to around 800×800 and polishing it a little bit (1000×1000 is a bit much, the blurriness and artifacts are intolerable), but right now I’m too annoyed to go back and work on this piece.
I talked about Rick Rocket on a post about delayed gratification a month ago, and now it’s finally been released! I was asked by my client, Troy Hepfner of My Game Company, to make some more art for the game and expand it a little, and I convinced him to give me a shot at the UI as well. I think that the game has benefited tremendously from these additions, and I’d be thrilled if you guys would check it out. Like I said before it’s not a triple A game, and it’s probably never going to be talked about in games media, but dammit I can’t help but feel proud knowing that somewhere out there, someone’s playing a game that I helped to make, and they’re loving every minute of it.
If you have young kids and you’re worried about the games they’re playing, or you’re just tired of the blood and guts in video games (Lord knows I’m not because I do love me some Left 4 Dead) do check out My Game Company, who focus on fun and friendly games for kids (and adults!) of all ages. And if you act now (ala those As seen on TV infomercials) you can buy 2 games off their site and get 1 free! My Game Company also offers games from other developers, so that’s definitely a great deal.
Made for another gameartisans mini competition, the theme this time was mimics. Mimics, in fantasy lore, are monsters that pretend to be something else then attack when the adventurer goes near them. Traditionally they have been treasure chest that attack when you try to open them, but in this case we had the freedom to create any kind of mimic we wanted. I chose a “hat mimic” that not only feeds off of it’s host, but controls it as well.
Just a quick monochrome Bruce Lee sketch. Wanted to do something that wasn’t too stressful but still kept me exercising my drawing. Here’s a cheap trick. Us e the cutout filter and you get an instant graphic artsy T-shirt design!
If you’re my age (27) or thereabouts and live in the Philippines, you’re likely to know or have known at least a few people named Nestor, Ulysses, Hercules, or any other great Greek mythological figure. I myself had a neighbor named Nestor, a Team Leader named Ulysses, and once drew and wrote a comic strip for a man named Hercules. I’d always thought this was peculiar. Not that these are bad names by any means, it’s just that I find it extremely odd that Filipinos would name their children after Greeks, especially since we have no cultural ties with them whatsoever. Jose and Juan and Michael and Ryan are easy enough to understand, given our former colonial masters, but Hector?
What singularity brought about the sudden grecophilia that gave this generation of children their unique names, I wondered. I think I may have found the answer. I did a bit of google work, researching movies about Troy. My rationale was that it must have been some sort of pop cultural device that brought Filipinos to the the story of the Iliad. Lo and behold, in 1956 a movie called Hlen Troy was released. In the spirit of epics like Ben-Hur, which were popular at the time, the movie was released at almost the perfect time to influence young Filipino minds into naming their children after great Greek heros. This may also explain why there are many women in that same age group who are namedHelen and corresponds with the “Helen Theory”, in which my college friends claim that almost 90% of the women that work in National bookstore are named Helen.
I’m obviously pulling this out of y ass, so if anyone has done any real research into this topic (and I don’t see why you wouldn’t), please do let me know what you’ve found out.
So I read an article on the Philippine Star today, which irked me enough to merit a reply via email to the column’s author, one William Esposo. I made what I thought was an intelligent enough response to his column, certainly not a “OMGWTF ur so stupid!” kind of thing. It is as follows:
Dear sir,
I must disagree with your article entitled “The extensive damage a foreign medium of instruction unleashes”. Despite the hyperbole inherent in your article, I find that there was very little in it that convinced me that instituting English is detrimental to our society. You make broad, sweeping claims that the use of English was why we were left behind in Asia by countries we led in the 1960s, and yet you offer proof of none of this in the Filipino context, choosing instead to compare us to India and Hong Kong (whom you wrongly assume we share a lot of traits with simply because we shared a colonial master that spoke English).
In your reference to India, a certain doctor Kamat quotes that Gandhi always thought that the imposition of a foreign language was “a great evil” and that it “estranged students from the masses and made education unnecessarily expensive”. This is a very interesting premise, and I would have loved to hear you expound on it, but you simply chose to have us accept it as fact. What is the evidence, I must ask, that there is any correlation between the two? Further on, you state that Gandhi’s opinion must be taken seriously because “this relates to achieving nationhood. What good are Filipinos who are gainfully employed but has lost altogether their sense of nationalism?” Again you use sweeping generalizations, assuming that all call center employees are unpatriotic a stumbling block towards nationhood. More on that later.
Next you compare us to Hong Kong. Where in tests students who had “English-medium” capabilities fare worse than their fellows who were “chinese-medium” in a science achievement test. Specifically, you say that “They were particularly weak in problems that assess understanding of abstract concepts, the ability to discriminate between scientific terms, and the ability to apply scientific knowledge in novel or realistic situations.” Again. very interesting theories, and things that I wish had more meat behind them. For example, the chinese (as I have heard from numerous chinese friends educated in local chinese schools) have a different method of teaching math and science (or scientific formulas). Could this be the reason why the chinese-medium students were doing better in the sciences. Let’s say that I simply agree with you that English is detrimental to the study of science and mathematics. Then please explain to me why it is that India has sprouted so many engineers and programmers, and why they have nuclear weapons and a successful space program.
Do you notice the incongruence of your two arguments? You argue that English has weakened students knowledge of Science, and yet India is quite successful in producing engineers and scientists. And here’s another thing. You argue that English speaking is a threat to nationhood, and yet in Hong Kong there is a healthy suspicion with regards to mainland China. The citizens of Hong Kong are quite patriotic and fiercely protective of what they feel is their nation (Hong Kong, not China), and jealously guard their right to self rule.
But let us cast all these arguments aside. I’m sure I have inserted fallacies into my own arguments, as I’m by no means an expert in the field of education. But I must strongly, even violently disagree with the idea that one must speak Filipino to be a nationalist. You arrogantly assume that anyone who works in a call center wants to be an American and is a threat to nationhood. As if they ought to be ashamed for working there. As if it would be a better thing that they stayed home and spoke Filipino and were unable to take advantage of an opportunity to make money, have dignity, and be a part of the international workforce. Do you really believe that if we simply chose to speak Filipino that we would be better off? If we all only spoke Filipino, would that make politicians less corrupt? Would there be no insurgency in the south draining our military resources? If we only spoke Filipino, would we even be a united Philippines? Tell that to a Bisaya, a Kapampangan, an Ilocano, and see how that goes down.
You rumble on about “misguided and parochial ones who are deepening the national delusion with the English language.” I’m one of them. Instead of your examples I point to Singapore, which uses English as the primary means of instruction. The imposition of a language on a people does not destroy their culture, does not make them any less proud to be what they are. I am a Filipino, and I am far mor comfortable speaking in English. I am not lulled by the promise of milk and honey in the US. Aside from a distrust of US foreign policy, I love my country deeply, and would only choose to leave it under desperate circumstances, or to learn more so that I can come back and share my knowledge with my fellow Filipinos. I convince my friends who are thinking of leaving to stay, believing that every single one of us that stays in the Philippines and helps to try to fix the mess we’ve made can only make us stronger, and soften the blow of the constant brain drain that lures our best and brightest out of the country. Am I any less of a nationalist than you for believing that an education in English can help rather than hinder us in this increasingly globalized world? Who’s being parochial now?
I was basically letting off some steam. I considered putting it up on my blog but forgot about it, and decided to finish an entry to gameartisans instead. I hardly tought he’d bother replying to it, since I’m sure most broadsheet writers probably get tons of email. But I guess he read just enough to reply this to me:
This country is dragged down by people who think they know what they are doing – like you.
So I’m royally pissed off now. Is that it? That’s all you can offer me? You, a supposed journalist for a major broadsheet? That’s all you have to say? I reply:
It must be nice to sit on your high horse at a broadsheet and reply to well thought out responses with pithy and mean spirited replies. If you thought my arguments didn’t have enough merit you could have pointed it out to me or just ignored me entirely. Instead you chose to reply with another sweeping generalization, much like your column. Good job!
I’m trying not to get too angry because really, what’s the point right? But I’m angry and petty enough to put this up for public record because frankly, I think he’s a bit of a dick. He could have chosen to merely ignore my email if he didn’t agree with me. Or, he could have taken the high route and engaged me in discussion, pointing out any errors or flaws in my argument. I was thinking more he’d ignore because really, who the fuck am I right? Just another irate reader. But no, instead of doing any of these things he chose to insult me instead. Hell, if that’s what having Filipino as a medium of instruction teaches you, give me English any fucking day.
Well, it’s finally done, and I’ve put it up on conceptart.org to be savaged in the critique section. Which means I should probably put it up on Deviantart to soften the blow.
And for today’s “laughing so hard your stomach hurts” moment, I give you, ladies and gentlemen, VAMBIE! Brought to you by the-isb. OK so it’s less funny the more you read it, but I swear to got this caught me off guard and had me laughing my ass off for a good 5 minutes the first time I saw it.
This is one of the most intricate pieces of work I’ve done yet, and something that I’ve been attending to every now and then for the past few weeks. It’s essentially a study in composition, armor design, and texture. This is maybe halfway done. In a way it’s also been an exercise in patience. I’m learning not to rush myself and just let things take their natural course.
Note: I have tried to avoid socio-political commentary lately because a) I’m really no expert at it and b) it invites all sorts of stupid opinions that I’d rather live without. However, the internet has provided a forum for armchair U.N. Secretary generals (aka blogs) so I’ll voice out my opinions in a snarky letter to the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.
Dear Tzipi,
Despite the fact that you’re pretty hot for an Israeli Foreign Minister, I must say I have some issues with your recent CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour.
AMANPOUR: You say it will help the peace process. But every time Israel goes to war against — whether it’s Hezbollah or even whether it’s against Hamas, it does in fact end up helping those who are the victims or the targets of your war, particularly given how many civilians are being killed by your forces in Gaza.
LIVNI: I can understand that the reality — not only the pictures coming from Gaza, but the reality can provoke and can make demonstrations, and provoke demonstrations in different parts of the world, especially in the Arab world. I can understand the empathy that public and the public opinion in different parts toward the Palestinians. We are not fighting the Palestinians. We are fighting Hamas, a terrorist organization which controls Gaza strip.
Now, it is true, and you asked me, there are also civil casualties. But we are trying to avoid civil casualties, even though it’s not easy, while Hamas is targeting our civilians as a target. Now…
Yes, well, I can see how it can be difficult not to target civilians from so far away, in your jets and helicopters. Oops, hit another market next to that supposed Hamas hideout! Damn. Well, you can’t win ‘em all! Also, please don’t belittle the population of the world by saying you understand why your actions can provoke demonstrations for you to stop killing Palestinians (and let’s be clear, members of Hamas are Palestinian) because if you truly understood why people find your actions so abhorrent you’d stop immediately.
AMANPOUR: Mrs. Livni, all Israelis feel that’s a very, very bad thing, and everybody knows that — most people accept that it is Hamas who provoked the — your incursion. However, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed, many of them are children, many of them are women. More than 2,000 have been wounded, many of them children, many of them women and elderly men. There are a lot of civilians amongst the casualties. What are you going to do to avoid that, and can you in this case?
LIVNI: What we are doing is trying to avoid it. We are putting now our forces at risk because there are certain things that we didn’t want to do from the air in highly populated areas. This is what we are doing.
Wait wait wait, so to answer the question What are you going to do to avoid that, you say “What we are doing is trying to avoid it.” Nice save there Tzipi. Debate much? Glad to see you’re putting some of your forces at risk btw, I was afraid they’d get bored shooting people from a distance. I mean, that IS their job right? as soldiers? To be in the line of fire? As opposed to say, children.
AMANPOUR: The Palestinians leadership complain very bitterly about the disproportionate use of Israeli force. What is your view on the proportionality of your response?
LIVNI: I have to say that I can’t understand what is the nature of proportionality which is needed. I mean, they targeted last week a school in Beersheba, in Israel. Do you think that the proportionate action is to target a school?…
So the only measure that we are taking is to have them understand that this needs to be stopped. This is the expression of self-defense, the right of self-defense of a state.
And we tried — we tried a truce. We decided not to target at all. We decided not to retaliate at all. It didn’t help. So this time, we needed to say that, yes, maybe it is not according to — we are not answering one to one, one more to one missile to come from Israel. This needs to be stopped. So the question of proportionality I think is being misused against Israel.
I have to say that I can’t understand your inability to understand the nature of proportionality. The bottom line is that the ratio of killed is maybe 600 to 6. 100:1. 100 Palestinian lives for one Israeli life. OK, so maybe it’s not fair because, you know, Hamas is a terrorist organization, and Israel is a state, with every right to defend itself. But even if we throw all those arguments out the door the ratio 100:1 only means one thing: You’re better killers than they are.
I think I’ll leave it at that. Full interview transcript can be found here.
Not much to say this time really, as I’m just borrowing my girlfriend’s home computer to do some internetting and emailing. Still, I wanted to put something up for the new year, so here you go. Happy New Year, everyone, and thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday!
