Over the weekend I completed the first illustration in, what I hope to be, a series of illustrations I call "Robo-Girls." The concept is simple: Anime girls cosplaying as famous sci-fi robots on t-shirts.
This first illustration I drew the line art more than a year ago, January of 2020. I was working at a trade show convention for my employer at the time and I would use my breaks to spend time to draw. I was going to use it as a mascot, of sorts, for a different project that I shelved a few months later due to possible legal ramifications if implemented. So, I hung on to the sketch vowing to do something with it in the future.
Well, that future is now!
Starting off with one of the "'Heroic' Robo-Girls" here. I haven't come up with an official name for the character but you can tell who the character is spoofing here.
If you're interested in purchasing the design on a t-shirt, click "WHAT!? Studio Art Store" in the links panel or for a direct product link, CLICK HERE!
Four years ago I was shopping at a local Hobby Lobby store and came across packets of baseball card sized (2.5" x 3.5") Bristol board and watercolor paper and I bought a packet of each. Out of curiosity, I searched the net and I discovered that there is a niche for baseball card sized original artwork. I told myself, "hey, I can, at least, sketch and draw a mini-pic within two days!" So, I set aside my lunch breaks drawing and painting. I'd prepare my lunch the night before, a sandwich and a bag of chips. I'd take the first 20-minutes of the hour break eating and then spend the last 40-minutes drawing and painting. The hardest part is coming up with a subject to illustrate. In this first instance, I went with my "go to" subject, Godzilla! Over two days I spent my lunches getting the pencils down and painting.
After completing the painting I put it away and then, like so many of us do, forgot the place where I had put it away at. This week I took the time to start some "spring cleaning" and discovered a small box full of junk papers. In the box among all the papers was a Ziploc sandwich bag filled with a stack of old Dallas Stars, Texas Rangers and NASCAR ticket stubs as well as stubs from other events like concerts that I'd attended over the years. On the very top of the stack was my Godzilla painting!
Last week we celebrated our first anniversary with our 50th episode! I'm honored to be part of the Taskforce: Geek community! In this episode, we bring back a few guests and reminisce over the ups and downs of the past year. I'm honored to be back in touch with old friends, meeting and making new friends!
I can't say this enough... Special thanks to Dirk, Scott, and Shawn for including me! Here's to a great year during some trying times and looking forward to another year of being a part of something, I feel, is bigger than me!
After an 8-year hiatus, I've been back at playing video games for a little over 3 years. My curiosity of three specific games influenced my decision to purchase a PlayStation 4. Those games were Spider-man and Ace Combat 7, which I purchased with the PS4. The third game, Gran Turismo Sport, I would buy a few months later.
Of the three games, Ace Combat 7, and Gran Turismo Sport are franchise games that I've played since their first versions for the original PlayStation game console (Air Combat, 1995, and Gran Turismo, 1997). Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the makers of Gran Turismo Sport added a function to allow players to design their own liveries for game play into it!
liv-er-y noun – chiefly British: an identifying design (as on a vehicle) that designates ownership
There have been many games that allow such a thing but have been mostly limited to PC games. For instance Ace Combat 7 allows such creativity but only for the PC version, not on the PS4 consoles. Immediately, me taking time to actually play the game became unimportant. If you've wondered about the race featured in the masthead of my blog, it was created within the Gran Turismo Sport game, and I've spent more hours creating liveries than actually racing!
Depending on how much detail one wants to put into a livery, creating one for the game can be a time consuming process. The game itself provides a number of basic pre-made graphics, such as letters and shapes, as well as actual corporate logos of companies known for their involvement with motorsports. The best part is that the game allows you to create, upload, use your own graphics into the game! It also allows you to share your creations with other players to use for their own designs. But this is just the beginning... Now that you've got the look of your car, you might as well design the look of your helmet and racing suit to match!
After you've made your livery, it's time to go race! Here is on of my Taskforce: Geek liveries in game play action!
Need a photo of that awesome pass you made to take the lead of the race? There's also an option to take photos of the action from various angles! You can adjust exposures, shutter speeds as well as add visual effects.
The game also provides what they call "Scapes," which is a collection of landscape photos for players to take "vanity shots" of their creations.
If you'd like to know more about how to create liveries within Gran Turismo Sport I recommend watching this tutorial by Doughtinator on YouTube.
