The only reason I am bothering to write this is that I won something. I never win anything. That isn't strictly true. I won a Digimon and McDonalds competition when I was a child but the prizes were basically nothing. I'm just happy to win things, even if you prizes are complete crap. In this case, I'm not so sure. In fact, I don't know the value of what I have won really. There is a British mu...
Been an exciting past few weeks in games for me. Went to Rezzed in Brighton, played some Borderlands 2 and met some Giant Bomb fans. Nice to meet some real life duders. The talks with Peter Molyneux and Randy Pitchford were very good. I won't talk about that in great detail, but I will say that Peter is a very pleasant man and captivating on stage. I've also been finishing games. Multiple games...
I finished Skyrim after 377 hours . MOVING ON. Diablo 3 Diablo III Box Art I don't have a history with the Diablo series but I really enjoy those style of games. Torchlight is amazing, and that has satisfied me up until this point. I played the open beta and couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it. I expected it to be good, of course, but not enjoy it all that much. I chose a monk and spent the...
It has been 5 months since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , and over those 5 months I have put in 300 hours across 3 characters. Am I done? Not even close. I haven't touched the story. I haven't done any guilds. There is so much content I might never get around to the main quest. Well, that's not likely as that is what I am most excited about doing next. So what have I been doing? E...
I really liked the look of Pid when Adam Boyes first showed it here on Giant Bomb. Pid Even visually it has a lot of things going on that speak to me. Especially the colours. Going over information for the game there isn't much to go on... but I couldn't help but notice everyone has a hat. The kid you play as wear a hat, almost all the robots have hats built in to them. What's going on there? I...
I had an idea for a Whiskey Media calendar. A real, printed calendar that you can hang on your wall. People still do that, right? My mum does. So if you are over 40 I guess. The photoshop thread would have been a perfect source of money shots for the monthly photo, but they're too low res for print. In the end, I just made a couple of months using the amazing Chat Dragon and Whiskey Warrior by...
In my last blog I was 140 hours in to Skyrim . I recently broke 240 hours, so I figured it was time to talk about it again. I took a break for quite a while due to some glitches and wanting to wait for the modding community to mature. The creation Kit isn't out until this tuesday, but modders have already done some amazing stuff. Before the landscape gets crowded I'd like to outline and give cr...
Let me start out by thanking LordXavierBritish , the asshole who gave me this game after I 'won' his Photoshop competition. My prize? A wonderful game by the name of Secret of the Magic Crystals , available on Steam now. We are about to embark on a magical adventure full of unicorns, elves, and low resolution textures. I wasn't sure what I was in for, but the startup screen gives me a great ind...
I feel like these end of year awards (especially from users) devalue the point of them. You should play these games. By limiting it to 5, or 10, you leave out some other games that you might want to include. Still unemployed, I've been playing a lot of games so I need to give props to those that I can't fit on a neat list. The important thing is that I'm not saying... HEY! YOU! THESE ARE THE BE...
I'm just going to say it. One hundred and forty hours is a long time. A really, really large amount of time. I am not proud of how much I have played this game. As a friend of mine pointed out, that is 10 hours a day for fourteen days (2 weeks). I lost my job over a month ago and apart from looking for work, I haven't had anything to do. Kids, listen up. Not having a job sounds great, because y...
Been quite a while since I wrote a blog. Well, 3 weeks doesn't really mean quite a while. A lot has happened though. Lost my job, had the humiliation of going to the Job Centre. My PC very quickly went from failing to boot to not working at all, and after a week I finally ordered new parts, built it back up and now have a working PC again. Who cares about that miserable stuff though? We have VI...
Only a week since my last blog. Not much has happened, except Gears of War 3 being released. I also got paid for the first time. As is tradition, first paycheck means a stupid purchase which I will be getting in to shortly. Happy Birthday Dave! It is Dave's Birthday today, and as a creepy tribute people are wearing hardcore dave as their avatar for the weekend. Get involved! You can also have H...
Been a busy time for me lately. Got my first job coming out of university as a freelance graphic designer. Not as sexy as it sounds, believe me. I haven't had a lot of time for games as a result but I'm finding the time occasionally. As always I keep up with my daily design and have done a few videogame related ones which I will post here. Hardcore Dave Says... As I said, I do a daily design bl...
A lot going on at the moment. Start a new job on monday. Not exactly looking forward to it. Being greeted in to the wonderful world of self employment and taxes, don't understand a thing. Other than that: games! Oh, and I also just cancelled my Whiskey Media Premium Membership. I pay monthly, and I think it's good value for how I use the sites but I should be getting a free years membership fro...
Despite still not having a job and my graduation ceremony soon, it has been a packed week. Full, mostly, of indie games. I tend to collect them in my room, filling the floor and tripping me up in the night when I go to the bathroom. Illustrations I talk about this quite a lot, but I have still been keeping up with my daily design blog. It has become soul crushing and something of a chore at tim...
Haven't posted a blog in 2 weeks. Haven't even been doing anything except playing some games. As always I've been keeping up with my daily design, making something creative every day . Today I did something for Journey. Journey I hadn't heard of this game until Jenova Chen appeared on the E3 bombcast. I didn't really look it up until Brad posted the quicklook this week. Visually stunning, conce...
I have spent some time with my 3DS now and felt like blogging about my experience with it. Hopefuly this will help some of you decide if you want a 3DS. Why? My Console Collection I just graduated (well, the ceremony is a month off but I have finished my degree) and this is a really bad time to buy a new console. I'm unemployed, I have little money and time to play all the games I already own....
Been a busy week. Handed in my final University project. Went to church. Played some games. Church Gareth, RIP This week I ventured in to a church for the first time since my childhood. My family is not religious, and neither am I but this was a special occasion. Last July my best friend died of Cystic Fibrosis (google it). It wasn't unexpected, but devestating to his friends and family. To tie...
It's been a long day... Mass Effect 3 Design Been watching press conferences all day. It is now 4am in the UK. While I was watching the Sony conference I started work on my daily design , and so excited by Mass Effect 3 I put together this design. Won't call it a poster because it's just shepard from the ME3 box art, but still... here it is. View High Res LA Noire I am in love with that Omni-To...
Poor Bulbasaur... I have basically finished my third year of University, hopefully earning myself a BA degree. We decided to put on a graduation show in a local gallery space for industry people and family/friends to come and look at our work. Most of the stuff I submitted was not actually done on the course, but in my personal time and some of you may have even seen it on here before. I was de...
I have almost completed my degree, so I haven't had much time for the site or blogging. I'll post a blog about my graduation show soon, as I managed to sneak in some of my game art (though I didn't get a Pokemon on the gallery wall like I wanted). Majora's Mask I was looking at a lot of World War 2 posters and ended up making a poster inspired by these authoritative designs. The message comes f...
I have been running my Year in Design blog for a while now. 136 days to be exact. Every day since January first, and will continue until the end of the year. Blog? I'm an up and coming designer, and unsatisfied with just my education I have been doing these daily designs to do as much work as I can. I do work based on what inspires me, and in a lot of cases that is gaming. A bit less than 1/3 o...
What do all these games have in common? Nothing! Nothing I had in mind anyway, except I'm going to write about them in this blog. Red Dead Redemption I may be a year late, but I was thinking about Red Dead Redemption and I have 2 designs to do today for my daily design blog . Looking at vintage movie posters (mainly mean streets and the birds) I wanted to make a movie poster for the game. Initi...
Finishing so many games this week... Limbo I started and finished Limbo today. Fantastic game with a lot of style. Very short, but it didn't repeat itself too much or outstay its welcome. I do a daily design and inspired by Limbo here is day #120 . The broken swing set represents the boy and his lost sister. Also, here is the Portal 2 poster I made yesterday. Please leave comments, I love to re...
Ordered Portal 2. Waited. Didn't arrive. Played and finished Portal 1. Didn't arrive. So I made some portal 2 fan art. Portal 2 Poster I am a big fan of Saul Bass and made a Portal 2 poster in the style of his Anatomy of a Murder poster. I'm really pleased with it, but that always wears off. I do a daily design blog, and this is design #119, Check it out. Give me feedback, I love it. Here it is...
It's day #100 of my design challenge , and I decided to do something I've been thinking of for a long time. I've been playing Pokemon Black and White (up the elite 4), Dragon Age 2 (second run) and Persona 4... which is probably what prompted me to do this. The Date I did an illustration of Jeff on a date with Chie, and how I imagine it would go. He is far too obsessed with his steak whereas sh...
Lots of stuff happening at the moment. Plus some art. SUPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR MEAT BOY! Another one of my daily designs . This time of Meat Boy, gettin' cut up. Please leave comments, I love reading them. View High Res Ouch. Sorry, Meatboy Crysis 2 I finished Crysis 2 earlier in the week. Very happy with the final product. Incredible graphics and cinematic presentation. Interesting story, if not...
For my daily design I made something based on Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill series. The actual image is more based on how he looks in the movie. Silent Hill Design Comments are recommended, I like to hear what people think. I also made a wallpaper version for anyone interested. Here it is: View High Res Pyramid Head is coming to get you... Dragon Age 2 After 40 hours I finished Dragon Age 2...
I've done a blog every day for the past few days, but don't worry. Today is the last. I have put together all my Pokemon designs in to one wallpaper image, at the suggestion of AlwaysBeClothing. I'm doing a design every day for a year and these Pokemon were from Wednesday to Friday. I am addicted to Dragon Age 2 at the moment. More than perhaps any other Bioware game you are forced to live with...
Day #077 of my year in design challenge. Rounding out my illustrations of the original Pokemon starters I present Charmander. Played a lot more Dragon Age 2 and really enjoying the second act. Lots of follow up to choices made in the first which is really great to see. Daily Design Blog Squirtle Design Bulbasaur Design Here is the design: View High Res CHARMANDER!
Following on from yesterday, I have illustrated Bulbasaur. Tomorrow I'll be doing Charmander and then puttng all 3 original starters in to a wallpaper. Still plugging away at Pokemon and Dragon Age 2. Should really devote some time to Dead Space 2 but... I have a 7K dissertation due in next week. Should probably start that. Daily Design Blog Squirtle Design Here it is: View High Res Bulba, Bulb...
Day #075 of my year in design, I did Squirtle since I've been playing Pokemon white a hell of a lot the last couple of days. Could have done one of the new Pokemon but I have fond memories of Squirtle. My first Pokemon all those years ago in Pokemon Blue. I have also been playing a lot of Dragon Age 2 still. There's a lot of interesting things in there, especially the qunari. If you take the ti...
So, as I have mentioned in all of my blogs I've been doing a design a day since January and planning to keep it up for a whole year. I do a ton of videogame related designs so check out my previous blogs on here or my year in design blog here . Dragon Age 2 Today I did a design inspired by Dragon Age 2's loading screens. I find them very attractive and I like how they use a very dark blurred fo...
So, I have been posting my art here for a while. Currently dong a year in design, some creative every day. Some days it's really hard. Haven't posted them here for a month so here is a backlog of videogame based designs. Check out my blog to see what I've been up to since January. http://ayearindesign.blogspot.com/ Cloud Strife Luke Atmey My entry in the stacking competition Bullet Bill Super G...
So, Day #037 of my design challenge and I finally got round to doing an illustration of Phoenix Wright. If you look back in my blogs you'll see that I've done several characters from the series before but I put off doing Phoenix until now. In other news, I bought Magicka . Quick Look had me interested so I played it with a friend of steam and I found that more than any other game I've played fr...
So it's day 30 of my design challenge and I did Isaac Clarke from Dead Space 2 . Please leave comments and stuff, I like to hear what people think. High Res Version Update : Wallpaper Version Dead Space 2 Art - Isaac Clarke
So, Day #026 of my design challenge . Personals ad for a lonely Tetris block. Poor guy. He's still hopeful though.
So, I've been posting a lot of art blogs lately. Doing this daily design challenge is... exhausting some days. I have a lot of other stuff to do but I don't want to miss my daily design so I put it off and then have to go back to it. I've been playing through Final Fantasy IX again and loving it. Wish I had more time to spend playing it but that's life. Watching the Dead Space 2 live quicklook...
So, I made some Portal 2 posters as part of my year in design challenge . Enjoy. Feedback and comments are always welcome. View high res version... Companion Cubes are my friends
So, been a couple of weeks since my last blog. My PC blew up last week... which was a pain. Thanks to the wonderful members of the giant bomb community I was able to identify the problem, test it and fix it by replacing the part. I've also started playing Dino Crisis again. I got too scared when I was a kid to play much of it. Now that I am an adult, I can still feel the tension. Maybe it's the...
So, Day #010 of my design challenge. Haven't missed a day yet and have been keeping up with my blog (and I post them on Facebook). Today I had another crack at videogame ties. Not necessarily for fashion but just as references to games or ties that represent characters. I think these are better than the first lot I made. Here are the first set. Can you guess the characters or games? As always,...
So it's Day #004 for my design a day challenge and I ended up making a batch of ties that videogame characters might wear. Can you guess which ones? The first one is free because he really does wear that tie. It's honestly quite easy but I might as well make a game out of it as it looks better without putting the names on there. As always feedback and comments are welcome. Love to hear what you...
So it's Day #002 of my design challenge and I somehow made this one videogame related too. I wanted to recreate the look and feel of an original gameboy screen and then put in a little christmas/new year message. I wanted to capture the feel of that dirty, grimy plastic (more of a memory, less that brand new gameboys were sold dirty). I think I did OK. Doesn't look at cool as yesterday but I've...
So... it's a new year. I don't much believe in New Years resolutions. I did however decide that it would be a good time to challenge myself. My confidence in my design abilities is pathetic at best and I need to be able to generate more pieces. My portfolio is surprisingly empty . I need to do something that gets me feeling creative each day and doing something so that I can improve. I want and...
So it's Christmas, and it's time's like this that I am reminded that I am surrounded by wonderful people. First of all, my mum saw some Plants vs Zombies models on the internet but they were very expensive. She decided instead to make some herself and give them to me as a Christmas present. She obviously put a lot of work in to them and it is such a sweet gift. I love it. Before that though, ea...
So... I was looking at the Christmas wallpaper thread and realised I haven't changed my wallpaper in a long time. I don't change it often. I didn't change it for 3 years until a few months ago. I once saw an image of a heart rendered as Breakout, and I thought it would be cool to do a T-Shirt design that I could use as a wallpaper in a similar style, but with Space Invaders (nothing is original...
I'm posting this now since I won't have a chance to do it any other time until next year... I detest placing unnecessary importance on completely abstract orders of value on games. Which game is the best? is Mario Galaxy better than GTA IV? If you're smart about things, you don't always have to choose. You can enjoy more than one thing and saying something is the best sort of detracts from the...
So, I foolishly decided to start yet another Phoenix Wright character illustration (I guess I should call them ace attorney illustrations but screw it). This time it's Trucy Wright. I really love her magician look, and I think I did a good job on this one. I didn't fuck it up this time. However, I'm starting to find my style a bit flat (I know that's what I was going for but I'm bored with it a...
So, it's December. I figure on the lead up to the new year I would honour my favourite games of the year. Sure, I might do a Game of the Year award but there are so many good games it's a disservice to just list the very best. For each week in December I'll write a blog listing some of the best games this year, starting with the top 5 Indie games. These are 5 games I think you should play, not...
So... back on the work train I've done another illustration. I decided to finally upload my illustrations to my website which you can view here . I made a front page banner for my previous illustrations, as before I only had one of them. Here it is: Godot, Gant, Gumshoe, Edgeworth Anyway, back to the new illustration. Frankly, I shouldn't have bothered. After Damon Gant which I thought turned o...
So, been a while since I blogged (not that long really) but even longer since I released a Phoenix Wright Illustration. The last 6 months have been pretty awful, getting better recently though I guess. I started these because my friend was in the hospital, never going to come out. I got distracted, some took longer. Then I started my Chief of Police Damon Gant in early August I guess, but Unive...
I seem to have accumulated quite a few pieces of gaming merchandise/memorabilia. Some of it I am proud of, some have deep personal meaning and others are just cool. I do collect games and gaming consoles but they are practical. They serve a purpose in my hobby. These are items which serve no purpose but I have chose to keep anyway. Below I'll post a photo of each and describe what it is, and wh...
So... back to University this week. I've been rather dreading it but enrolling yesterday wasn't all that bad. I'm just worried about some of the interactive projects I'll be doing. I really enjoy Photoshop and some motion graphics work in After Effects but things like Flash and programming in Javascript don't interest me which means I will struggle. Oh well. I've tried playing as many games as...
So... I've been thinking about getting back in to Mass Effect 2 . I haven't bought any of the DLC so far, so I looked it up and I was quite shocked at what had been released, for both good and bad reasons. I figured I would wait until the next batch in the form of 'Lair of the Shadow Broker' before buying it all up, so I have some time and decided to do the math. Maybe this will help people out...
So... I've been blogging a lot lately. Weird. I finished Starcraft 2 again today and realised I really like the between mission loading screen for Char so I took a screenshot, touched it up and removed the loading bar in Photoshop. I thought other people might want to use it so I've uploaded it. The image is 1920x1080 so pretty big, and the file is almost 1MB. Below is the original loading scre...
So, what's been going on? I realised I spend way too much time on Giant Bomb and way too much time submitting Wiki entries for Phoenix Wright characters. Seriously. My entire Wiki list is 1,138 points on the Wendy Oldbag page. 452 points on the now deleted Yatagarasu page. 361 points on the Calisto Yew page. Then there are all the characters I have added, including Damon Gant , Marvin Grossberg...
So, yet another Phoenix Wright illustration. This time Miles Edgeworth is up. I really enjoy Miles Edgeworth as a character. He provides a good antagonist in the first game and then evolves as a character rather quickly, and is very enjoyable to play as during the final case of the third game. Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations however... not so much. He's a good character but the spr...
So, back with another Phoenix Wright illustration. I admit this is a little lazy. It's not a completely new unique illustration, it's just a recolour and small edit to the Godot illustration that I posted in my previous blog a couple of days ago but it had to be done. After all, Diego is an interesting character and I like his look before he became Godot. Before we get to that though, I've been...
So... this month sucks. Following on from my previous blog, this has been a bad month. My best friend, one of the most important people in my life died 3 weeks ago. It's been tough, and I don't expect it to get any easier in the coming weeks but I'm trying. He went peacefully and had a good funeral. I won't go in to details. It's been hard signing on to Steam and Xbox Live and seeing his profil...
So... this week sucks. My friend has been in hospital for quite some time, yet again, but it looks like this time he wont make it. He's terminal and we thought he wasn't going to make it to the morning. At the moment he's still alive but I don't know how long he has left. It's not practical for me to go and see him, so I've been at a loss for what to do. I stayed up all night playing games, try...
Hey all (if anyone will ever read this). I am a massive fan of giant bomb. I love Vinny, Jeff, Ryan and Brad as well as all the fantastic work they do. The a look of the site, the attitude, the forum and what the site is trying to accomplish. Been coming here for a while now and decided to sign up. A huge mistake. I am a sucker for RPG mechanics and if you add a levelling system to anything I w...