Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

I backed this Kickstarter project last year, and by doing so I'm (unofficially) contractually bound to support Anita Sarkeesian in her effort to educate the masses about true feminism and the role of women in video games. I bet you never guessed I'd be a feminist eh? (Also men can be feminists, look it up.) Well guess what, women are awesome, and we still treat them pretty badly. So if you want to see an interesting and enlightening video please watch this.

Also, check out their tumblr of games where the Damsel in Distress trope is used.

Life

Well... Lots to say here. I'll try and make it short and sweet. If I fail, well you can just get over it.

Life has been going a million miles a minute it seems, which I know is impossible given that the light barrier is unbreakable. But suffice it to say, I am totally beat! As you may or may not know Emma G. Russell, our first child, was born into this world on January 4th, 2013 (hey, that's the year that's this year!). Since that moment, I've had little time for, well... anything it seems. School, work, chores, and playtime have taken a backseat for now; not that I'm not doing them. I'm just a great procrastinator.

But I digress.

Life has been interesting; full of joy, and frustration. Winter is all but gone now (finally!), and the fertile bounty of spring is about to burst forth, only to suddenly die and turn into blisteringly hot summer.

Anyway, after all that crapola: in September Steph and I, along with some high school buddies of mine, are going to attend PAX Prime in Seattle. It'll be a rich experience; one that I've never had before. To be among a bunch of smelly nerds exploring the landscape of new consoles and video games as well as card games and tabletop board games. Minecon came a little close, but it'll be nothing compared to this.

Speaking of which, I'm still hosting a Pathfinder nights on Monday's. It's the longest I've ever been DM for a group. I think we started back in June of last year. It's been a fun adventure, but I long to be a player again.

I've also started a new Minecraft server; Survival only. It's in its early days, and nobody seems to care about it's existence, but it is mine and I enjoy playing on it. (man, I said 'it' a lot in that sentence.)

This year Sony is coming out with the PS4 (big freaking surprise), and I can only assume that the next Xbox is ready to launch this holiday season as well, whatever it's going to be called (720, Nexus, whatever . But due to a restrictive budget I doubt I'll be able to afford any of these new consoles for at least another year. In retrospect I got to upgrade my PC last year so I'm happy with what I've got.

In other news, Steph and I have been binge'ing on Star Trek TOS and TNG episodes, as well as other notable Sci-Fi Television series such as Eureka  Red Dwarf (which apparently got renewed for a 10th season after so many years...weird.) and Futurama, which starts up again this Summer. I can hardly wait.

I finished reading Dune, finally, and I've started reading the Shadow and Claw, which is the first two books in a series I can't remember the name of.

Well, that's my life in a nutshell. Stay tuned for more crap you probably don't care about because it has nothing to do with you. However, try to enjoy life, because it's pretty crazy and goes by quick. Heck I lost two months on my blog due to a new child. That shows you where my priorities are... I think. Well, don't read into it that much, just grab life by the hojos and don't let go.

5 Reasons Why Final Fantasy VI Is The Best Final Fantasy Ever

I don’t think I've been able to adequately explain my love of this particular Final Fantasy to anyone. Perhaps it is because it’s practically impossible to quickly sum up such an immensely influential Final Fantasy. In terms of overall Final Fantasy game experience it is the complete package. As far as I’m concerned no other Final Fantasy comes close to topping it, but I digress. This is a list, nay an explanation of the 5 reasons why Final Fantasy VI is the best Final Fantasy. Hopefully you will understand what I’m getting at here, and you will see how it influenced my life as a gamer and maybe even how it still does.

   Final Fantasy VI was not the first Final Fantasy game I played, the very first was Final Fantasy IV, but back then it was known as Final Fantasy II. However, that wasn't even the first Square title I ever played, the very first was Chrono Trigger, which is one of my more favorite Square games, but I won’t go into that.

The Inevitable

I was just thinking about this earlier today. Now that Disney owns Lucas Film and all it's subsidiaries. They could totally incorporate Star Wars, Indiana Jones and whatever else they own into Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts games. So, I did this little mockup of such a game. It's not great, but I thought it was funny.

Gentlemen, A Blob

Here's a quick little blob character I made in Illustrator. It didn't take long, but he was fun to make. Heck, he looks like he could just start moving.

Illustrator Doodlepoop

I enjoyed making the color graphic earlier, and I really liked how the Blood piece turned out. So I decided to create this in Illustrator. Using vectors is much better than what I was doing in Photoshop, the overall balance, and cleanliness of this simple design makes me extremely happy. This could be on a T-Shirt someday. I used Neutraface Bold Type for the text. The blood puddle was done with the brush tool, the cross with the rectangle tool, and the blood droplets with the ellipse tool. Just for fun I made a variant with rounded corners for the cross.

Colors: Positive Connotations

I'm in a color theory class right now, and I thought it would be fun to create a simple design that touts a singular color attribute for the primary, secondary, and neutral colors. (Blood is positive in the sense that it embodies life, determination, and passion.) I used the Jeopardy font, a.k.a. Korinna Extra Bold for the text. (the same font is used by Capcom for their logo.)

Long Live House Atreides!

I started reading Frank Herbert's Dune series. (I also watched the movie adaptation by director David Lynch, which is pretty cool actually.) Anyway, it's a really awesome book; kinda confusing, but awesome.

Anyway, enjoy this 1920x1080 Photoshop'ped bit of artwork. It's a combination of a stock image of sand dunes, stock image of a dust cloud, and a Shai Hulud from a book cover of the novel. I used Futura Heavy typeface for the title. I also used various filters, and a paper texture to get a sort of washed out look.

Faux Webpage

I decided that I would make up a website, and then draft a single page for it. It was a lot of fun. I used various weights of the Univers typeface, and Frutiger at the bottom. All images were pulled from stock.xchng except for the twitter, facebook, and google+ logos. For the speech bubble effect I used the pen tool. For the background and header I added noise to spice things up a bit. I created cells with the roundrect tool, but instead of a fill I used a brushstroke.

Disclaimer: All company names appearing in this design are fictitious. Any resemblance to real company names, active or inactive, are purely coincidental.

Anarchy!

This is a joke. I'm just testing out different fonts. Smash the state is the anarchist's battle cry. I remember it from Deus Ex (PC) where it was used as a password in the very first mission. It made me laugh because it sounds so childish. Also the AI in that game is kinda goofy, so in my mind this phrase became synonymous with the terrorist group known as NSF (National Secessionist Forces) in that same first mission. Silliness aside that game is amazing, hilariously amazing.

Strange Things on Netflix

I was just perusing Netflix, mostly looking at the different typefaces of movie titles, and their designs when I happened upon something very strange. I don't know if it is intentional, but there is a whole series of videos featuring the Netflix HQ and a performer doing different things. I capture some screen shots to illustrate my find. The link to this 'series' is here.

Curious, I've never seen a show like this.

Seems legit.

Bonus!

The Hunter

HYPERBEAM!

Samus is hyped up!

Masking Rules!

Final assignment for one of my classes. This is just the web preview, the actual poster is a lot larger, and nicer looking.

Metroid Title GIF

Here's another fun animated gif.

I Made an Animated GIF!

It's incredibly easy to create basic animations in Photoshop. If you have PS, just click on the windows menu then select animation. From there on you can create any type of animation you want. This one is really basic, and it took about 15 minutes to complete. Enjoy! :D

Time...

Just farting around

Here's a couple random thing's I've made recently.

HAL 9000 Icon

I created this 1024x1024 pixel icon of Hal's "eye" from scratch in CS5 Photoshop. I also turned it into an .icon file as well so you can use it to change shortcut icon's on your desktop or taskbar.

Time to end this pathetic hoedown!

Red

Red ink is fun.

Thief (Color)

previously

Psych!

Brene: helmet on. pencil drawing.

Shooty Hand Guy

It's an android of some sort, who can shoot a very powerful beam of energy from the palm of his hand.

Stand Off'ish

Brene (no-suit) vs. whoever that guy is...

Another Vamp Huntah!

Vampire Hunter D again ya'll. this time in Pen.

Blood Red Velvet

For this composition I started by creating a new layer within a 10x8 canvas. I then randomly painted single daubs of white using a basic paint brush. I applied the wind>blast filter to the paint daubs, and duplicated that layer. I then flipped the second paint daub layer horizontally and matched it up. I went into liquify, and ran the push brush through the daubs to make abstract shapes. After that I created another layer at the bottom, and filled it with black. I took the smudge tool to the paint daub layer, and rearranged the shapes to make them look like brush strokes. It eventually started to look like silk or velvet. After touching up spots to make them look smooth, I created another layer, and filled it with red and a blending mode of overlay to produce a sheen on the brighter parts.

Personal Use Album Covers: Yeah Kick Butt Yo!

Mecha Mecca

 Concept "Metal Gear" RID

Vampire Hunter D

Dhampir Badass

Dunedain Ranger

Shortly after the first Lord of the Rings film came out I penciled this dude. He might be Aragorn, he might not be. At any rate, the proportions are way off, but still a good drawing for someone who was only 15 years old.