joe randel's art dump

This guy has decided to draw a wicked picture on his kids lunch bag every day!  Two words… awesome sauce!

This is cool on two levels for me.  One… because it just plain rocks and I plan on doing the same thing with my kids one day (assuming they take a brown bag for lunches) and two, because my Mom used to do this on my lunch bags. ^_^   I’m not sure what I’ll do if they take a lunch box.  Also, I’d want them to bringg the bag home if I really liked the picture ^_^

I noticed that this guy draws pictures of anime and cartoon characters from probably before his kids where born.  This would be a neat way if exposing them to thing he enjoyed as a kid.

Did your parents put fun things in to your lunches, or maybe make them in to cool shapes when you where a kid?

Today I finished Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

Woo!

I’ve been playing it off and on again for over a year now but it all came together this morning before my morning meeting (and during a little.  I love having meetings at my desk ^_^).  For the past week and a bit now I’ve been stocking up on items for the final battle.  Getting money is a bit of a pain in the game so I traveled to the casino and traded in my winnings for items and then took them to the local chef so they could be made in to even better items.  Wow… what a shore that was… o_O  I usually try and find all the items and such when I play though, but because my game time is so limited I’m just going to move on.  Over all though, a very nice game.  Fun to play and actually quite challenging.  I give it 4 out of 5.

So after the credits rolled I got thinking… I don’t remember the last console game that I finished was.  I play DS all the time and beat lots of games on it.  I beat Half Life 2 and Portal on PC earlier this year, but I couldn’t tell you the last time I finished a console title.  I’ve started a bunch, but due to lack of time I’ve wandered away from them.  That makes me kind of sad.

Next on my list to play is Killer 7 (talk about opposite end of the game spectrum eh ^_^).  I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time now.

So what’s the last game you’ve completed recently?  Or, how long has it been since you’ve beat a game.

There, I said it.  People like to ask where I work and while I won’t let that out I figured it won’t hurt to let it known where I used to work.  So Gameloft was the place (Montreal studio) and I was a pretty heavy hitter there from what producers tell me.  I actually had the studio director tell me one day that when new projects start up the local producers would always ask if I would be on their team.  He said he’d never seen anything like it.  I worked there for about 5 years before I packed it all up for greener pastures.

I was generally the guy that designed the menus and interfaces.  It wasn’t uncommon for me to be on my primary project and helping two other ones with their interface.  Ah yes…  good times.

Why did I leave?  Well, I was only allowed to go so high in the ranks.  I wanted to be the lead 2D artist at my studio and they wouldn’t let me (a position I held previously and was screwed over for).  Senior artist was all that I could get and I only got that title because I was the art that was there the longest.  I wanted to be more involved in the creative process and design but what always held back.  So away I went.  But it was also during my time there that I was asked to be a speaker at the Montreal International Game Summit (talked to over 100 people about my area of expertise) and was asked to be in a book called “Character Design for Mobile Devices” so even though the job might have ended on a bit of a sour note I learned a ton about the industry and grew so much in my field.

So now you know.  So next time you play a Gameloft game, you might just be playing a game I was involved in. ^_^

Bad mood tonight…

Fought with the wife…

I’ll do a better post tomorrow…

Do you like to play video games?

Do you like to watch people play video games?

Well, if you answered “yes” to both then this show is for you. It’s called Game Center CX (or Retro Game Master) and it’s about a guy that plays video games… and you watch him. Actually, it’s a bit more in depth. It stars Shinya Arino, one part of a comedy duo in Japan, and he plays some of the best classics from the golden years of gaming. His challenge for each episode is to beat the game he’s playing in one day (sometimes it goes over for two days). He has Assisstant Directors there to help him if things get really challenging during the game play in the way of moral support or level help. He even has titles for his position at the game center. The better he does (more games he beats) the higher his rank and the better the office he gets to play in. If he does poorly and doens’t complete his challenges, he might drop down a rank have to go back to a lower standing office. This actully happend once when he failed to complete 4 games in a row (UltraMan, Final Fight, Adventure Island and ActRaiser).

One of the neatest angles of the show is that Shinya Arino has never played these games before. So you get to see, and sort of relive the experience of these games though his as a first time gamer. How cool is that? He plays game that we know and love like Contra NES, Super Mario Bros 3, Mega Man 2, Ninja Gaiden and Prince of Persia and less known or Japanese only ones like Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, JJ & Jeff and Doraemon. There are also segments where he visits old arcades, plays old systems in his home and even interviews some game desingers.

The show has gone on for 10 seasons now and even has DVD released boxsets in Japan (and maybe in North America too). You can watch a lot of the episodes here as I’ve been doing but be warned, they are all in Japanese. But that doesn’t mean you can’t watch and understand the frustration or joy on Shinya Arino’s face and he attemps these game challenges.

Oh, here is a site with full info on the show. Check it out. I higly recomend it. ^_^

This past weekend I helped my Mom move.  That part was easy.  The driving part sucked balls.  I put just under 2000 km on my van in 3 days.  One way trip was about 6 hours.  With the van and the trailer packed to the tits, it was about a 10 hour drive from there to the new place.  Then I had to drive home.  Well… me and my brother in law really.  He came to help me, and boy am I glad.  Just having someone to divide the driving time was a great asset.

I drove to his place on Friday (2hs) and slept over.  We left at 7:30 am and drove for about 7 hours.  Pack up the van.  Slept.  Got up and packed the trailer.  Headed out at 12:30 pm and got to our destination at 10:30 pm (10 hrs).  Slept over.  Drove back home which took another 3.5 hours.

Ugh… I don’t think I want to drive for a good long while now.

So what’s the most you’ve ever driven in one day or a short span of days.