Sir Lamorak’s Quest available on App Store

Sir Lamorak’s Quest is now available on the iPhone App Store!  I created the art for this game, which was made by programmer Michael Daley in conjunction a book that he was writing on making iPhone games.  It took about 3 months for me to conceptualize the look of the game and create all the enemies, characters, and environments, and it’s nice to finally see the finished product.  As usual though I’m critical of my work, and I do wish that I had an iPhone back then so that I could have tested the game on the device itself and fixed some graphical issues.  I hope to be able to work with Michael again in the future, and come up with an even better game.

Check out a video of the game here, a link to the app store here, and the book on iPhone game programming here.

Sneak Peek

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.

Standing Guard

A weary old bear warrior watches a pass into his kingdom, his sharp eyed mouse companion by his side.  Or on his helmet, as the case may be.  Started this maybe a month ago mostly as an armor study (as you can see, I still need a lot of work when it comes to armor designs), and just to paint something other than humans.

Life works in mysterious ways…

…and everything happens for a reason.  These are the kinds of events that make these trite truisms suddenly make sense.  Sorry, let me backtrack for a bit.

Last Friday, I lost my phone in the meatgrinder that was the Oktoberfest.  The D900 wasn’t the best phone ever made, design or otherwise, but it was thin and I’d molded my texting habits to match it perfectly.  PLus all my numbers and messages were there so it was a pretty annoying situation to be in.  In addition to that, the phone globe gave me was the w270, which in all fairness was a decent phone, but Motorola’s UI just takes too long to get used to.After a day of sufering through that, I was annoyed enough that I started looking for second hand units online.

Lo and behold, I found THE cellphone that I originally wanted beore I settled on the d900, the Samsung P300.  At the time, the P300 was very hard to find and was being sold at ridiculous prices, like 20 grand upwards.  But now someone was selling it for 5999, which I bargained down to a neat 5 grand.  I got it yesterday, and it’s everything I thoguth it would be.

I wanted a phone whose design stood out from the crowd, and I’l be damned if this phone doesn’t do that, especially in the supplied leather case (which doubles as an extra battery pack, how sweet is that?).  Sure, some folks will knock it for it’s 80’s style calculator look, but personally I love its industrial design.  Strong, hard lines with no unneccesary curvature.  A brushed metal aluminum front  and no nonsense gray buttons.  And that sweet, sweet leather case that just completes the sophisticated and cultured yet masculine look.

For 5 grand, this is probably the best value for money purchase I’ve ever made!

Michael Moore : Hillary Clinton tastes good, like cookie dough ice cream.

A moment away from the art and a second for politics with our good friends Larry King and Michael Moore, who were discussing the democratic candidates by way of ice cream:

MOORE: I think that maybe in some of the states, they might have voted for Hillary over Obama. But, you know, it’s like that’s — they were choosing between, you know, chocolate ice cream versus Cookie dough ice cream, I guess. I don’t know. What’s the — I mean they’re both ice cream. They both taste good.

I wonder what kind of ice cream McCain would be.  What’s old and stiff and looks like it’s about to fall apart at any moment?

DS travel guide mockup

Gravemakers and Gunslingers

I fucking hate color theory.

These past few pieces, as some astute readers may have noticed, all revolve around the latest coheed and cambria album.  A tutorial I read advised artists looking for their own styles to interpret songs that they liked.  I took it a step further by trying to interpret all the songs in an album, and giving myself the added task of finishing each artwork in less than an hour.  I’ve been spending so much time on things that took days on end, and I wanted to cut loose.  Unfortunayely this results in very poor output.

But I think I’m learning, or at least I’m forcing myself to think about certain things like layout and color theory that I didn’t really pay attention to before.

I fucking hate color theory.

Al Jazeera

I’ve taken to watching Al-Jazeera lately, and have been surprised at just how good their programs are.  I like the fact that they offer a slightly different perspective than CNN, the BBC, and *shudder* Fox news.

You don’t mess with the Zohatow

Fans of Judd Apatow who happen to walk into a screening of Zohan will be pleased that his writing makes the latest Adam Sandler vehicle just a little sharper than usual.  Also, people who know anything about world news, American politics, and tennis from the 80s (hello gaza strip, tapping Laura Bush, and John McEnroe!) will have a little extra something to enjoy.  I’m still a little embarassed/pleased that Aissa and I were the only ones in the cinema laughing at those moments.

Also, the Sulu is gay joke kinda flew over people’s heads.

Update: Dave Matthews is in the movie, as James.  No idea who that is, but I’m betting it’s one of the rednecks.

Philippine Gaming Journalism

“How many game developers do you left the country to work offshore?”