joe randel's art dump

I saw this question over on Kotaku and I thought it was great and wanted to post it here.  ^_^

What’s the worst game gift (or game related gift) you’ve ever got?

I’ve made it a habit to make sure that if someone is planning on getting me a game gift they have names of quality games.  So often people that don’t play games have no clue on what to buy and so they just go with the box art… bad, bad, bad.  My step brother suffered this fate every birthday and Christmas with his GameBoy until I broke down and bought him Ninja Gaiden for GB.

As for me.  The worst would have to be Dick Tracey for NES that my Mom bought me.  Although it was a used game so at least she wasn’t paying full price for it and I learned to love it.  Oh, I also got Qix got GameBoy too one Christmas.  Not really bad, but not great either.  Gals Panic has it way over Qix I tell ya ^_^

Have you heard?  I’m sure you have since the news is about a week old but… Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) is coming to WiiWare.  If you don’t know what Cave Story is, it’s and indie game made by one guy that calls himself PIXEL.  It took him 5 years to make and easily is the best indie game out there.  No kidding.  It seriously puts a lot of developed for money buy big studio games to shame in terms of charm and story.  It’s a really epic game too and, I would have to say, my favorite indie game.

The game is out there for free right now so anyone can try it.  That means PIXEL will have to work in some new stuff for those that download the game.  But best of all, this will bring to Cave Story a whole new set of players that might not have heard of the game.  Just thinking that makes me happy.

Cave Story is a great game.  It’s a game that deserves to be played.  Finally, four years after it’s release, it’s getting the attention that it deserves.

Go download it here if you haven’t played it before.

Sometimes I think to myself… self, I should try and sculpt something sometime.  I did some back in animation class.  Just a skull and some muscle structure stuff.  Nothing special.  But I often wonder how I’d do if I tried to actually sculpt something, like maybe one of my pictures.  That would be cool!  I sometimes have my eye on my Gwen in the park pose to try out but that might be too much to start.  Maybe something simple like the Cheets pose or maybe Ping.

I’m not exactly sure how to start such a project.  I know in class we had to make a skeletal pose with tinfoil and then build the sculpy off of that.  But I’ve seen others start with a wire frame too.  I guess I’d have to look in to it more.

So what brought all this on?  Well, I saw this clip.

Someone make a custom AirMan toy from a Gundam toy.  It’s not something I would do but it looks so cool that it brought back my desire to try some modeling.  Someday when my project list isn’t so heavey I think I’ll give it a try.

Somthing to look forward to. ^_^

I honestly can’t think of anything to post about tonight… so I asked my wife for an idea.  She told me to post about So You Think You Can Dance Canada.  The series of SYTYCD is her favorite show and she’s super excited about being able to vote for the dancers.  She sitting here beside me very giddy about the whole thing.

So yeah… So You Think You Can Dance Canada is shaping up to be just as good as the American counterpart and not some watered down version.

And the costumes the ladies are wearing are hot too.  ^_^

Looks like the DSi will have regional lock out. Boo! One of the things that made the DS so great was that you knew you could import games and they would play with no worries. It was and awesome free for all orgy of games from every corner of the earth all on your DS. Everyone was welcome and no one was turned away. I know I love it, but those days will be over with the DSi. Yup, now everyone has to go home any play only with in their own yards. Suck.

Why is Nintendo doing this? Because of the new extended WiFi functions of the DSi they’re locking it out so they can tailor the WiFi download abilities for each content. Just like they’ve done with the Wii. It makes sense why they’re doing it, but I still don’t like it and makes me kind of not want want one. Now I really have to think about this. I’m sure that with the SD slot someone will make a hack program that will allow you to play other region games. Just look at the PSP and all the hacks it has.

Hmmm… how about you? Still interested in a DSi?

Okay I saw this clip this morning and I thought… COOL!  I can’t imagine that suit being all that light or easy to control but the guy makes it look pretty easy.  Testing the limits of the suit though must have been rough.

So who wins?  You’ll have to watch and find out. ^_^