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HELP WANTED - Artwork for video game in development
Posted 7 years agoI'm not sure if this is the right channel to go about this, but we'll see what happens!
I've been developing a video game in my spare time over the past 2 years. To this point I've done most things myself, the programming and the artwork assets...sound and music have been taking a bit of a back seat but that isn't my concern at the moment.
I'm at a point where the milestone for my first publicly releasable demo is in sight, and I need to add some polish. My home-made artwork has been okay to stand in during development, but it's not where I'd like it to be for a release.
I follow a lot of very talented artists on this site that do commissions, so I'm hoping to enlist help from one or two such people. My game project is not furry-themed, however, character and environment drawing skills will still strongly apply. Right now I'm looking to contract people for a few smaller tasks, but this will likely lead to more work later. I have a humble budget to spend (out of my own pocket), so I may need to consider bids from a few people to make sure I'm getting the art style I'm looking for at a competitive rate.
I have a developer blog going on Facebook, with some screenshots and videos of the progression of my game:
http://www.facebook.com/DualNatureDesign
Some background: The genre is a little hard to describe, but I'd classify it as a fantasy space-shooter, adventure, and RPG. It's the story of the creation of the universe, centering around Egyptian gods. I've borrowed a lot from Egyptian mythology but also taken some liberties. You play the part of the god Ra, as he rises to power - hence the working title "The Rise of Ra". The gods are not humanoid, their celestial being appears in the form of a glowing eye on the exterior of their physical body - a round shell of metal.
In Egyptian mythology, Ra is represented by an iconic eye symbol. I have adapted this to be an animated eye that blinks, has expressions, and moves its pupil to look around. Furthermore, I've applied the eye concept across the other gods but with different styling. For example, Horus the Falcon god has an eye design that looks feathery like a bird, and Khepri the Scarab goddess has curvy cusped edges on the frame of her eye that resemble a beetle.
So this is where the character drawing skills come in. I need someone who can take the basic idea from the eye designs I've already created, potentially improve upon the forms, and implement a range of animated expressions for each character. The deliverable would be a sprite sheet with the animations for each expression/emotion, plus blink animations for any sustained expressions.
One challenge I foresee is that these expressions need to be readable on a single eye with no clear direction to the center of a face, so we need to avoid ambiguity with expressions that rely on facial symmetry such as downturned eyebrows for anger and upturned eyebrows for sadness.
As environmental artwork skills go, I am currently in need of a set of space backgrounds. The game world is fairly massive so I need a set of elements I can layer in different ways to fill the area, give a sense of depth, and not look repetitive. Deliverables would be a set of hi-res dust nebulas and stars in a variety of shapes and forms (in a neutral color, so that I can tint as needed).
So if you're an artist with the interest, skill and bandwidth to do any of this and potentially more in future, please introduce yourself! If you're on Facebook you can message me through my Dual Nature Design blog, or you can even send me a private message on Furaffinity (though it may be a few days before I see it), and we can discuss further from there. Feel free to direct me to pertinent examples of your work.
My hope is to choose artist(s) and get the ball rolling on the above two tasks within the next few weeks. I look forward to hearing from you - and I may even reach out to a few artists directly.
I've been developing a video game in my spare time over the past 2 years. To this point I've done most things myself, the programming and the artwork assets...sound and music have been taking a bit of a back seat but that isn't my concern at the moment.
I'm at a point where the milestone for my first publicly releasable demo is in sight, and I need to add some polish. My home-made artwork has been okay to stand in during development, but it's not where I'd like it to be for a release.
I follow a lot of very talented artists on this site that do commissions, so I'm hoping to enlist help from one or two such people. My game project is not furry-themed, however, character and environment drawing skills will still strongly apply. Right now I'm looking to contract people for a few smaller tasks, but this will likely lead to more work later. I have a humble budget to spend (out of my own pocket), so I may need to consider bids from a few people to make sure I'm getting the art style I'm looking for at a competitive rate.
I have a developer blog going on Facebook, with some screenshots and videos of the progression of my game:
http://www.facebook.com/DualNatureDesign
Some background: The genre is a little hard to describe, but I'd classify it as a fantasy space-shooter, adventure, and RPG. It's the story of the creation of the universe, centering around Egyptian gods. I've borrowed a lot from Egyptian mythology but also taken some liberties. You play the part of the god Ra, as he rises to power - hence the working title "The Rise of Ra". The gods are not humanoid, their celestial being appears in the form of a glowing eye on the exterior of their physical body - a round shell of metal.
In Egyptian mythology, Ra is represented by an iconic eye symbol. I have adapted this to be an animated eye that blinks, has expressions, and moves its pupil to look around. Furthermore, I've applied the eye concept across the other gods but with different styling. For example, Horus the Falcon god has an eye design that looks feathery like a bird, and Khepri the Scarab goddess has curvy cusped edges on the frame of her eye that resemble a beetle.
So this is where the character drawing skills come in. I need someone who can take the basic idea from the eye designs I've already created, potentially improve upon the forms, and implement a range of animated expressions for each character. The deliverable would be a sprite sheet with the animations for each expression/emotion, plus blink animations for any sustained expressions.
One challenge I foresee is that these expressions need to be readable on a single eye with no clear direction to the center of a face, so we need to avoid ambiguity with expressions that rely on facial symmetry such as downturned eyebrows for anger and upturned eyebrows for sadness.
As environmental artwork skills go, I am currently in need of a set of space backgrounds. The game world is fairly massive so I need a set of elements I can layer in different ways to fill the area, give a sense of depth, and not look repetitive. Deliverables would be a set of hi-res dust nebulas and stars in a variety of shapes and forms (in a neutral color, so that I can tint as needed).
So if you're an artist with the interest, skill and bandwidth to do any of this and potentially more in future, please introduce yourself! If you're on Facebook you can message me through my Dual Nature Design blog, or you can even send me a private message on Furaffinity (though it may be a few days before I see it), and we can discuss further from there. Feel free to direct me to pertinent examples of your work.
My hope is to choose artist(s) and get the ball rolling on the above two tasks within the next few weeks. I look forward to hearing from you - and I may even reach out to a few artists directly.
My First Tablet
Posted 17 years agoWow, I received my first Tablet last night...a belated Christmas present from my hubby. It's one of the cheaper ones - a Bamboo Fun something or other - but it looks really nice and has both a pen and a mouse so that I can use it to replace my regular mouse.
I tried doing some sketching, and all I can say is that this is going to take some major getting used to. I've thrown out just about everything so far because it looks like a 2-year-old finger painting. Hopefully with time I'll get the hang of it, and maybe doing artwork won't be such an arduous process that I will actually get back to it again.
In the mean time, at least I can write a convincing looking signature!
I tried doing some sketching, and all I can say is that this is going to take some major getting used to. I've thrown out just about everything so far because it looks like a 2-year-old finger painting. Hopefully with time I'll get the hang of it, and maybe doing artwork won't be such an arduous process that I will actually get back to it again.
In the mean time, at least I can write a convincing looking signature!
I have dog cock WHAT?
Posted 18 years agoOkay, so I get back from a 3 week holiday in Mexico and go through all of my messages on here to find that someone has created the username "d_draggorHasDogCockAIDS" and watched me to ensure I see it. Then they sent me a note containing the following:
"YIFF YIFF DOGGY CUM FILLING UP MY ANUS YIFF YIFF YIFF YIFF!
DROWN IN THE FIRES OF RIGHTEOUS HELL, FAGGOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The account has been banned, but I'm still shaking my head and wondering why. Has stuff like this happened to anyone else recently, or is it just me? I don't think I have done anything to piss anyone off on this site or elsewhere on the internet...in fact I pretty much keep to myself.
I wish I could find out more about who did this and why - whether because someone actually has a hate on for me, or whether it's just something random. I wonder if the site administrators could give me any information so that I can investigate it myself...
"YIFF YIFF DOGGY CUM FILLING UP MY ANUS YIFF YIFF YIFF YIFF!
DROWN IN THE FIRES OF RIGHTEOUS HELL, FAGGOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The account has been banned, but I'm still shaking my head and wondering why. Has stuff like this happened to anyone else recently, or is it just me? I don't think I have done anything to piss anyone off on this site or elsewhere on the internet...in fact I pretty much keep to myself.
I wish I could find out more about who did this and why - whether because someone actually has a hate on for me, or whether it's just something random. I wonder if the site administrators could give me any information so that I can investigate it myself...
Forging on Ahead
Posted 18 years agoFinally it feels like I'm making some progress in my life.
Though my Master's degree is still weighing heavy on my shoulders, I've been devoting a fair amount of time this past month toward finally finishing a project I had going for a number of years.
I started developing a website framework way back when I first got away from those freebie webpage sites like GeoCities and Tripod, and onto a server with ASP and database support. My current website (www.draggor.com) is still running the second generation of this framework...I haven't updated it in AGES!
Since then I had redeveloped it to be more sophisticated (well, as sophisticated as you can get with bloody VB Script) and named it SERUM (System to Eliminate Redundancy and Unwanted Mess). Yes, contrived acronym I know, but when it's not read as such it sounds cool.
Just recently I made the effort to learn how to use the web development features in Visual Studio .NET 2005, and started on a new iteration of the framework. It's coming along BEAUTIFULLY! I managed to get around a small piss-off that .NET web controls can't be nicely packaged in a control library, and the whole thing has turned out better for it.
Conveniently I agreed to donate my time to develop a new website for our local Gay and Lesbian Community Services Association, and I expect to have it up and running with SERUM .NET by the end of the month.
HAH! And they say Geminis never finish what they start! ...ooh...can't forget about my Master's though!
Though my Master's degree is still weighing heavy on my shoulders, I've been devoting a fair amount of time this past month toward finally finishing a project I had going for a number of years.
I started developing a website framework way back when I first got away from those freebie webpage sites like GeoCities and Tripod, and onto a server with ASP and database support. My current website (www.draggor.com) is still running the second generation of this framework...I haven't updated it in AGES!
Since then I had redeveloped it to be more sophisticated (well, as sophisticated as you can get with bloody VB Script) and named it SERUM (System to Eliminate Redundancy and Unwanted Mess). Yes, contrived acronym I know, but when it's not read as such it sounds cool.
Just recently I made the effort to learn how to use the web development features in Visual Studio .NET 2005, and started on a new iteration of the framework. It's coming along BEAUTIFULLY! I managed to get around a small piss-off that .NET web controls can't be nicely packaged in a control library, and the whole thing has turned out better for it.
Conveniently I agreed to donate my time to develop a new website for our local Gay and Lesbian Community Services Association, and I expect to have it up and running with SERUM .NET by the end of the month.
HAH! And they say Geminis never finish what they start! ...ooh...can't forget about my Master's though!
Missy's Death Day
Posted 19 years agoRound about this time last year I was on holiday with my dad in Baja, Mexico. Out of nowhere I got the urge to go check my E-mail, so I borrowed some change and headed down the beach to a windsurfing equipment shop that had an internet terminal. I found a message from my mom that read:
"I have to tell you the sad news that Missy is no longer with us.Her front legs started giving way too and I could not in clear conscience watch her struggling any more. I took her to the vet today and followed all the instructions as requested by you Rob.We will talk when you return.In cat years she was 88 which was a good old age for a Kitty."
Missy was my cat who had been with me since I was 6 years old. Sadly she didn't want to sleep at the foot of my bed the night before I left. She was 19 years old and on the decline with her health. She had gone deaf about a year prior, and started to have breathing problems when she purred. In the end she hopped off my mom's bed and curled up in pain, unable to stand on her front legs any more.
My only regret was that I couldn't have been there with her during her last moments when she was put down. My mom described the process to me, at my own request, and it seemed so cold and abrupt. They injected her with a muscle relaxant that was strong enough to stop her heart, and it only took a moment for her to...stop entirely.
I thought that the anniversary day was coming up tomorrow, the 20th, but looking back through my E-mails I realize it happened on the 15th. Perhaps it's better that it's already over, I don't have to dwell on it. Although I've had other deaths in my family, it was never someone terribly close to me, that was a part of my everyday life, that I wasn't used to being without. Hers was the first one to hit me this hard, even if she was only a cat.
It took me long enough to stop having dreams about her every night. Somehow those excessive pictures I took of her while she was alive don't seem like anything close to enough, and I only have a few fleeting home videos of her. Sometimes I have trouble trying to remember what she was like, and other times I can imagine her with crystal clarity.
You know all those corny things they say in the movies, like "they're still alive in your heart"...so totally cliche right? I must have heard it all a million times, but I didn't fathom it until I was in that headspace myself. It was a major realization for me. I had thought death closed the book on everything relating to her, but my dreams about her made me realize that I could still create new memories surrounding her. Death didn't take away anything that happened when she was alive - all the time I had spent with her, and all the happy moments.
Its tough and confusing trying to comprehend that our animal companions can go through their entire lifespan in only a fraction of our own. As I've said in the past, we don't cry because someone dies, but because we are the ones left behind...for a little while anyway, in the big scheme of things.
One year later I still miss her. I think about her every now and then, and look back on her fondly. I only feel small pangs of sadness now, compared to being overtaken by grief. I think I have learned a couple of my life lessons from it, though I know I still have many to learn.
RIP Missy
April 18th 1987 - December 15th, 2005
"I have to tell you the sad news that Missy is no longer with us.Her front legs started giving way too and I could not in clear conscience watch her struggling any more. I took her to the vet today and followed all the instructions as requested by you Rob.We will talk when you return.In cat years she was 88 which was a good old age for a Kitty."
Missy was my cat who had been with me since I was 6 years old. Sadly she didn't want to sleep at the foot of my bed the night before I left. She was 19 years old and on the decline with her health. She had gone deaf about a year prior, and started to have breathing problems when she purred. In the end she hopped off my mom's bed and curled up in pain, unable to stand on her front legs any more.
My only regret was that I couldn't have been there with her during her last moments when she was put down. My mom described the process to me, at my own request, and it seemed so cold and abrupt. They injected her with a muscle relaxant that was strong enough to stop her heart, and it only took a moment for her to...stop entirely.
I thought that the anniversary day was coming up tomorrow, the 20th, but looking back through my E-mails I realize it happened on the 15th. Perhaps it's better that it's already over, I don't have to dwell on it. Although I've had other deaths in my family, it was never someone terribly close to me, that was a part of my everyday life, that I wasn't used to being without. Hers was the first one to hit me this hard, even if she was only a cat.
It took me long enough to stop having dreams about her every night. Somehow those excessive pictures I took of her while she was alive don't seem like anything close to enough, and I only have a few fleeting home videos of her. Sometimes I have trouble trying to remember what she was like, and other times I can imagine her with crystal clarity.
You know all those corny things they say in the movies, like "they're still alive in your heart"...so totally cliche right? I must have heard it all a million times, but I didn't fathom it until I was in that headspace myself. It was a major realization for me. I had thought death closed the book on everything relating to her, but my dreams about her made me realize that I could still create new memories surrounding her. Death didn't take away anything that happened when she was alive - all the time I had spent with her, and all the happy moments.
Its tough and confusing trying to comprehend that our animal companions can go through their entire lifespan in only a fraction of our own. As I've said in the past, we don't cry because someone dies, but because we are the ones left behind...for a little while anyway, in the big scheme of things.
One year later I still miss her. I think about her every now and then, and look back on her fondly. I only feel small pangs of sadness now, compared to being overtaken by grief. I think I have learned a couple of my life lessons from it, though I know I still have many to learn.
RIP Missy
April 18th 1987 - December 15th, 2005
