James Paige

Whenever I try to draw a cute animal on my phone they come out a little bit creepy. They make me laugh though, so I still like them.

Last week I finished a new game for the 2012 Week Long OHR Random Collab Contest. This was a collaboration, and my randomly chosen team-mate was Sid “Thespazztikone” Tyler. He happens to be a master at making maptiles, which is one of my biggest weakpoints, so I was very happy to be teamed with him, and he didn’t seem too mad about me hogging all the plotscripting and textbox-writing fun.

The game we made is called The Death of Von Stabbingmore, and you can download it from here: slimesalad

The game is intended to be in the style of a point-and-click puzzle-adventure, although there is no pointing and clicking. All the controls are the standard OHRRPGCE interface for running around the map and fighting RPG battles. The puzzles are all built into the battles, requiring you to use the correct sequence of commands to win. I tried to make the dialog funny, and based on reactions I have gotten to it so far, I think I succeeded.

The game uses tall hero walkabouts, based on the WalkTall tech demo scripts that I wrote a few months back. In writing this game I found a fixed a few bugs with the OHR’s support for modifying walkabout sprite slices.

NeoTA clued me in to MyPaint which is a nifty paint program. Unlike most computer programs for making pictures, this one attempts to simulate the feel of actually working with pencils and brushes and inks. At this it failed, because I did not get any paint on my clothing, or in my hair, or in my eyes. I didn’t get dizzy from chemichal fumes. I actually did not make any mess at all, nor did I have to spend any time with turpentine cleaning my brushes. But for the non-unpleasant aspects of painting, it has done a great job of simulating the painting experience, which the caveat that it provides so many fancy magic brushes that it almost feels like I am cheating sometime.

For example, I did most of the work on this one using a brush tool that simulates a flurry of vertical brush strokes along a gradient of shades. Cheating? Well… actually, it is probably not really possible to “cheat” when it comes to creativity.

I know I can do better with this tool. I have always had a dual fascination/fear with painting, and this tool takes away most of the things that I dislike about painting and adds UNDO and LAYERS. That can’t be anything but good.

Raku is made of burning. It is sort of like love, except that it is done with ceramics and a lot of flammable natural gas. Raku glows red hot, and you drop it in a bucket full of newspaper and let it burn, and when you take it out it is beautiful.

Current mood: blog-urged

I am still alive. The blog-urge has not left me, it is just hard to find time to draw anymore, and I hate posting a blog without a drawing.

Here is a sculpture I am working on:

And here is something Genevieve painted recently (which I think is beautiful!):

Current mood: pixelated

I drew this inside the OHRRPGCE‘s built-in sprite editor. I drew it for the Castle Paradox Miss Pixel 2007 contest, but I was just a few hours too late for the ending deadline :(

A few more pictures at gilgamesh

Current mood: patchy

This is Bosco. He is applying to join the Black Rabbits Scootering Club. He owns his own motorcycle, and has been riding solo for about a year-and-a-half. He has never been in a motorcycle gang before. He is secretly hoping to meed a nice biker babe and start a family.

He doesn’t know a lot about motorcycles, but he is totally pretty sure that his isn’t a cardboard box.

Current mood: no text

Current mood: Mitteny

Thanks to my friends at CastleParadox, I bring you Revenge Of The Kitten Wearing Mittens!:

Current mood: Chocolate Cake