Hey folks.

I could give you a laundry list about why the finale has taken this long to get ready, but none of them really.. matter so much, truth be told. The biggest factor on my side would be the job I never expected to get over the course of Endzone. I went from being a two-bit freelancer in the beginning to having a salary job in an office doing video game work fulltime. So, needless to say, my time got chopped into tiny little pieces.

However, there's more to the story than this.

I might as well confess now that the finale is actually a group project. Me and a couple of select others have already been working on it.

Endzone was an incredible community effort. It was successful because of that, and in my opinion, that alone. Entirely independent of what setting it was in, and who was running it, it was those sixty four people that really made the biggest impact all in all. I think, anyway.

And I had in my mind that I'd like to give it it's 'official' end in that very same vein, in the hands of the community.

Now not JUST the community, mind you. Haha. I'm not using this as an excuse to shirk my duties to the much esteemed winner of Endzone (Some dude named *Unknown-person .. I dunno, have you heard of him? ). I told him he'd be getting a comic from me as the grand prize and I'm damn well gonna be doing just that. But there have been a lot of alterations on the way there. And all of them good, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, the more people who are involved, the more time things take, even if the project is just a small one. Everyone has their own lives, work, and especially finals, lately. So I think all of this will really truly get underway once the summer hits and everyone can take their time doing what is necessary.

Now don't get all hyped up. This isn't some ridiculously huge, sixty page extravaganza or anything. But it's something special, in my mind. And it'll be worth waiting for. It's been what.. about four months since Endzone concluded. One or two more won't hurt. (Not to mention there might be other things keeping you plenty busy once the summer hits. Hint hint.)


Now, I have an idea. A recent one I came up with, and I'd like to speak to any of the former Endzone contestants about contributing further to this project. If you were an Endzone participant, (or you know one and could point them to this journal), I'd like to speak with you sometime very soon about the possibility of borrowing your talent for just a liiiittle while to make something awesome even better.

So if you're interested, please send me a note. I'll get back in touch ASAP.


Take it easy, guys.

As the title says. It's time to hunker down, methinks, and bake up an artbook.

My problem is, I can't decide which series to feature in it, as the overall theme. (I'd rather that than one that encompasses all of them, would be more all-over-the-place and disorganized methinks.


Soooo. Ultimately. This is up to you guys. I just made a poll about it.

[link]

I think between now and a week or two later, whichever is at the top, I will pick as the one to green light. It won't be an easy or quick process, but that's why I'm doing this now. I want to get started. :3

I know a couple of people have been requesting an art book for a long time now, so here is your chance to get a say in which will be available first. (Also, I'm thinking of including a tutorial section in the back where I explain a lot about the series, from raw concept to finished picture, and what I did here and there for each.)

Lemme hear from you! THE DECISION IS ENTIRELY ON YOUR SHOULDERS. D8

UPDATE:

Okay you knuckleheads and buckets, to the people reasoning that EA is the most fleshed out and has the biggest cast of characters, you folks need to realize it appears that way because it was the first to come along and be featured as a webcomic. If you want facts in the matter, Living in Sin actually has the smallest cast of the three stories. You've SEEN more of EA's, however, the cast of Ree is actually larger, but comprised more of people you've never seen before. (Rex, Ree and Lilith generally get the spotlight. Never mind Stern, Father Dan, Sariel, Miriam, the nun squad, the melodramatic neighbor kid, the other humanoid Legion(s), the voodoo lady, etc etc etc.)

Now before you start wondering, don't get me wrong. I'd love to do an EA book just as much as a Ree or LiS one. But I'm just raising the issue that this is a decision that should solely be based on what world you'd want to dip into more of, never mind how much or how little you already know of it. Point is, WITH the book, everything will be expanded on in a big way. Hope that clears things up a bit.

Well, a lot of folks have been asking me lately what I do for a living. I actually spoke about it a few journals ago but to reiterate, I do concept art for a relatively new game company in Texas.

What do I do at the job? Little of this, little of that. UI (user interface) elements like buttons and displays and such, ingame assets like tiny animations, and then bigger stuff like storyboards, title screens, logos, and naturally, character art.

Now I bring this up because the XBLA (though it's coming out for the PC as well, later on) game we've been making is about ready to be wrapped up, and there are some articles about it going around that have been pretty positive. It's nice, considering it's a wee humble project based on a simple (but hopefully addictive) concept.



From Destructoid: [link]
From Game Stooge: [link]
NEW! from ThatVideoGameBlog: [link]


I mean jeez. We get compared to CRACK. It doesn't get much better than that. They manage to goof up the names of a few things, but it's funny. Roogoos and Meemoos and Moomoos and Roowhos. I like the quirky names. (The first two would be the correct terminology.)

The game is about a tiny orange Roo who has to save the world from vile, diabolical Meemoos, who are devouring all the planet's life-sustaining meteors. (Your head spinning yet?) Meemoos are fun to draw. They're like constantly starving, rabid purple bears with slick orange hair. And they are led by the evil Prince, an albino Meemoo with a glowy crown, who is by far my favorite part about the entire game, although he is a right arse when he pops up to taunt you whenever you lose the more challenging stages. (You should hear the cute chirping noises he makes ingame. You want to hate him but he's so damn adorable.) To do this he must guide meteors down to the planet through a series of rotating platforms. Seems horribly simple at first, till you reach the later stages. I'll say this, we DEVELOPED the game, and I've seen controllers very nearly thrown due to the trickiness of some of the levels, haha. (And for the score junkies, getting the par time for each stage? Forget about it. It will eat your soul in the most cheerful, colorful way possible.)

I really do hope the game does relatively well. There's a lot of bigger projects I know we'd love to do here, that I've seen the ideas/concepts/big picture of, and am RARING to provide art for. (Not at all to do with fuzzy bears and shiny meteors, not that I have anything against Roogoo and his ilk. <3)


Currently we are already developing the overall art style for the next game on our list. I can't divulge any knowledge about it, though I'll say this, the character art? Yeah. It's gonna be awesome.

Welp, that last journal was evidently a non-issue, so on with the journal I had been making before I found out about it!




1. Is Everafter updating regularly now?

Not really, no. That last page was a very happy coincidence in that I found the inspiration to make it, and that it made an excellent 'forgive me plz' for that terrible april fools joke. Heh.
I did end up storyboarding a few pages afterwards, and the next page is pencilled, actually. So it'll come around, just not on the 'ol advertised Saturday weekly ritual. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. The whole issue of EA and its future is, right now, something that needs doing about, and at the moment I'm not sure how to properly put that all together in words.

2. Where's the Endzone finale?

I finally recovered my old hard drive from the blown computer. All the finished finale pages are intact and back on track, thank goodness. So it's moving along again, at the very least.

3. Do you have any tips for my art?

I really don't. Short of years of practice and finding out what makes you happy when you put pen/pencil/stylus/paintbrush/etc to work, there's nothing I can tell you that's going to propel you along your path. Trust me. This isn't a cop-out, it's plain and simple truth. Tutorials are one thing, but random 'tips'.. I dunno. In my mind they don't really even exist. People ask me this sometimes like I have a pocket full of them I can just share, and if it were that easy, I would, believe me, haha.
Not to mention I don't feel qualified enough to be telling anybody how to go about their artistic business. Just keep at it, and keep happy with it. That's the best you can do for yourself folks.

4. Look at this piece, plz!

The people who send submissions in notes. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way, but I find that incredibly irritating. Especially when it's not even like.. a request for constructive criticism or anything. It is just flat out a link to the deviation, simple as that. You won't get a response from me if you do this, trust me there. And I don't think that's being unfair, either.



The rest of this journal will be an open-question session! Lob a question at me over this weekend and I'll answer it. Or probably die trying. But I'm feeling lucky.


Oh. And about the Guild Wars thing. Yeah. Old flame. (Especially if you remember that comic I'd done about myself and it, years ago. I recall being crushed by a giant bowling ball.) I fired it up again to twiddle away the weee tiny bits of free time I get nowadays, when my hands are all too crunched up from Photoshopping and I rely on playing the game with my face.

Anyway. MY QUESTION TO YOU. I am but a wee little neenja. Got an old account you're not using? With.. you know.. gold and crafting items and things? 8D;;

You now know an End that would gladly take that off your hands. Ahahaha. That's right. The end of this journal is one giant neon sign reading "GOLD PLZ". I have no shame, my god. My ingame name? What, you couldn't guess? It's "End Ling". Awful I know. XD (The other one is "Ashriel Gray".)


-weeps himself to sleep-

JOURNAL SUMMARY:
1. Ask questions over the weekend. I will answer them.
2. Do you/did you play Guild Wars? Omg can I has some stuff? ;w; Ingame name is "Ashriel Gray" and "End Ling"!

That link in the last journal wasn't at all the right image for Everafter, now was it? Dear me, however did I miss that. _Buwahahahah.



But here. To make up for such a grievous error, I seem to have unearthed something I think you folks might like a bit better. (Refresh if nothing seems different at first.)



[link]




Take care everyone. (The original 'joke' picture is in my scraps.)