Sounds of My Childhood

Shivers of nostalgic joy.

My Record is 6.5 Meters. Beat it. I dare you.

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

Hey! Listen!

I've been finding wonderful things on the Interwebs in the last 24 hours and this is no exception. 80's teen movies and an NES game? Ummmmmmm... Yes, please!

...Cannot Contain... Awesomeness...

The Tower of Babel

Ok, so I acknowledge the fact that no one has heard of Xenogears and that the only person who'll even know what I'm referring to (and I highly doubt that he'll even remember) is my brother. But I made this in photoshop forever ago and it's always reminded me of the Tower of Babel from Xenogears, not that anyone even knows what I mean.

And it matches my blog's fresh coat of paint!

We Live in an 8-bit World

I am... Dracula.

Dracula is awesome.

Many years ago, I drew this picture (which is based off of the manual from Castlevania Symphony of the Night, one of the best games of all time btw) and I thought I'd post it. Mainly because I want to get into drawing so I thought it'd be fun to post some of my older drawings. I'm also thinking of attempting to recreate this in Illustrator, which would be way more difficult than any other project I've ever attempted. 

Anyways, happy Superbowl Sunday! (Congrats to all you Packers fans and better luck next year to all you Stealers fans. And keep on keepin' on to all you who really don't care)

50 Reasons Why You Should Think that Stop Motion Video is Awesome.

Note: I don't actually have 50 reasons. 

I totally lied. 

But here are 3 (And if you look at all the stuff I have, it's really more like 9!) reasons I think it's awesome:

1. The medium. Think about it. You're either playing with clay or action figures or LEGOs! I think all educated parties agree that any time an adult can "work" with an action figure (or Play Doh or LEGOs!) and not feel judged, an angel gets its wings. 
2. The stilted animation is reminiscent of a video game. And there's something beautiful about capturing that awkward stilted movement in real life scenarios, right? 
3. These. 

There's a bajillion more on youtube. But here's a few stop motion related items that you should have seen already on my blog that I made while on my mission.

Check these out too. 

Let's be honest...

I might just pick the piano back up just so I can learn to do this.



...and buy a harpsichord. What's the point without a harpsichord?

In case you were wondering (and just in case you actually listened to it) the song was from Castlevania Curse of Darkness (not my favorite of the franchise) but this song just happens to be one of my favorites...

Anyone else in love with Baroque?

Success!

So, I've been engaging in a plethera of different projects, and as of yet, have been unable to finish a one of them. However, I finally found success in this t-shirt! I've had a thing for shirts lately (hopefully I'll be able to post pics of a homemade t-shirt and a button-up shirt I've been working on soon...) This shirt started out as a Fruit of the Loom white undershirt that I dyed blue, stenciled a bleach stain onto, and cross-stitched a Black Mage onto. The overall effect I was shooting for was that of BM casting a spell which it kind of hits and kind of doesn't. Also the cross-stitching turned out to be kind of spacey for whatever reason, which I'm not too happy with. However, I'm very happy with the overall product and I'm satisfied that I'm finally able to put a project to rest!

Two more sprites and a chair...

So these are my most recent creations: Fighter from Final Fantasy and Mad Dog, from Contra. (That one's for you Cams!) I would have 50 more made, but these freaking beads are expensive and I can't seem to get enough black! But it's been a super-fun hobby and I'm looking forward to more to come...



My other project that I've finished is a chair. $5 from DI. I sanded it down, stained it black, and threw on the new fabric ($3). Not too shabby! I forgot to take a "before" picture, suffice it to say, it looks 20 X cooler now! I'm thinking about trying to sell it...

Pixel-art

So I have a new hobby. Years ago in high school I got really into 8 bit sprite art. OK, that really doesn't sound like art, but we all know how I love video games, especially the retro NES kind. Thus far I've only made one piece and I'm working on a second. Both come from the NES Final Fantasy I. The completed one is the Black Mage and the unfinished one is the Fighter. The process consists of placing beads on the boards and then fusing them together with an iron. I'm planning on making more and maybe even trying to sell them.

Psychonauts

So I've been out of the video gaming loop for a little while, it's been a struggle to get any game to hold my attention for long (much to the horror of my child within). However, my favorite-est brother hooked me up with a copy of the 2005 platformer Psychonauts. While I definitely had some problems with the game (parts of it were downright glitchy, though that might have been attributed to the fact that it was a used copy) I found it to be positively delightful. The storytelling was freaking hilarious, parts of it felt like an interactive cartoon. The gameplay was enjoyable with innovative techniques and a wide variety of levels. The storyline follows the young hero Raz, who sneaked his way into a summer camp for psychic children who are being trained to be psychic agents of the US. Raz has to thwart the schemes of an evil dentist intent on stealing the children's brains to take over the world! Classic. It's been a while since I've enjoyed a game so much. Here's the trailer.

We'll be honest...

Ok, I have NO desire to do my homework right now! I have a crapload of h-work for my Europe tour and I've whittled it down to two essays and one huge one and a journal that I didn't keep up with and they're all due tomorrow. But I don't feel like doing those right now... What I have been doing is watching these AWESOME midi animation videos on Youtube! Super Mario Bros. fans, this one's for you!

The Blue Bomber

So it's finals week. Sigh. Anyways, as I was feverishly doing homework and studying, I was struck by a sudden desire to blog (and as anyone who has been following this blog knows, I'm not struck by that feeling all that often) so I pondered what it was I wanted to blog about.

And I came up with Megaman. I don't know why. So here we go.

Megaman is a video game series heralding back to the 8 bit era featuring a cyborg-ish protagonist named Megaman who had been created by Dr. Light to fend of the scores of evil robot masters created by the evil Dr. Wily. Each level begins with Megaman warping in, defeating hordes of lesser robots and ends with a showdown between Megaman and the Wily TM Robot Master. Each Robot Master had some kind of theme like "Fireman" or "Woodman" or "Airman" and had attacks somehow related to their theme. Upon their defeat, Megaman would absorb whatever power they had and could use it against other robot masters, exploiting each one's weaknesses according to whatever weapons he has been able to obtain. Each special weapon has an energy bar that is quickly depleted and whenever Megaman adopts a new weapon, his classic blue coloring changes to whatever matches the weapon (i.e. he turns red and yellow when equipping Fireman's weapon. And that is the awesomeness, that is Megaman. (In Japan, he is known as Rockman, just in case you were wondering.)


Megaman vs Blobman


This was created by me on my mission when my companion was sick and in bed. I purchased a Megaman Action figure from a dollar store and had him stop motion battle a big blob of silly putty. Awesomeness.




This is a video that sums up the 8 bit video game experience. Music. Frustration. Awesomeness.
By way of explanation, the singer is getting frustrated because he keeps playing the Airman level and can't beat it. He's just venting his frustration at not being able to defeat Airman, who just won't die.



And for those of you that don't speak Japanese and don't like the subtitles... (Though the singing isn't nearly as enjoyable.)


And as an added bonus, here's a stopmotion video I made of Protoman (a contemporary of Megaman) taking his turn fighting the Shapeshifting Blobman!

All right, so I have a new addiction. It is known as Tap Defense and it's a free app for the iPod Touch. I just saw that it was on the top of the free apps list and decided that I would try it. Holy crap. I can't put it down. I barely forced myself to do my homework and go to Spanish. Oh, electronic crack, what would I do without you?

Oh, I had to link to this video-
A) So you'll know what this game is like
B) How old is this kid?

Jeff Strife?... Cloud Farnworth... ?

All right, so a while ago I found out about a free image editing program called GIMP or GNU Image Manipulation Program (think of it as a free version of Photoshop, though it's a bit different) and I've just finally decided to buckle down and learn about it. So with the help of my Darling Lindsay and my darling YouTube, I have been experimenting with image manipulation. This is pretty much my first project. Pretty sweet, I know. :)
So yeah, I guess we'll see if I can figure out how to do even cooler stuff (but let's be honest, what on earth could be cooler than my head on Cloud's body!?)

"All right everyone, let's mosey!"