Oh yeah I have a blog

Oh yeah. I have a blog. How about that.
Let's see... Has stuff happened during these past... 5 months!? Geez.

Kumoon

So as far as school goes, I'm doing few months of internship right now. We're working on this neat puzzle shooter called Kumoon (pronounced almost like "come on"), where you have to get enough points in each room by shooting piles of boxes via multiplier-walls.

We released a free demo during December on gamejolt.com and indiedb.com. We're still working on the full version, but if this looks interesting to you, feel free to give us feedback, or do the whole sharing and social media thing.

If that's your thing.

New DS Vita XL 2

I bough 3DS XL last week. In retrospect, I probably could have waited 3 more weeks to get New 3DS XL with same price.

Oh well, no matter. Streetpassing is fun, and Shin Megami Tensei IV is awesome so far.

I also got PS Vita early September, so that's already some time ago. It's neat device with couple of good exclusives. I had fun with Gravity Rush, I'm still occasionally playing Freedom Wars, and of course I got Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4: The golden.

Yeah, I guess I've been playing a lot of RPGs.

Holidays happened

Spent 2 weeks with my family, not doing much anything. It was a good time; I ate bunch of food and got my batteries recharged.

That's pretty much it, summarized.

What's coming up? Let's see... Tampere Kuplii-comic festivals are approaching again, so probably gonna go there to meet old friends and buy some comics. I hope Tuuli has something new about Saattaja by then.

Also, school's ending this spring, so I guess I should start knowing enough to get a job on game industry. Or something.

As for games, 2015 seems like amazing year. With releases like Bloodborne, MGS 5, Persona 5, No Man's Sky, Yakuza 5, Zelda WiiU, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Hover: Revolt of Gamers, Superhot and bunch of indies, there's barely going to be enough time (OR money) to play everything!

I'm expecting overall good year with best kind of prolems.

That being said, I hope you have a great year too!

Archer: Work In Progress

I'm making a game!

Or, well, at least creating assets for it. Coding isn't really my speciality, but at the very least I'm creating all the assets and User Interface-objects to create "fake" screenshots, mockup-pictures, to show what the finished game would look like.

Anyway, about the game: Archer is 2D target shooter, where your goal is to, by using accurate and tricky shots to break obstacles, hit every target in each level. Basic gameplay is not that different from, say, Angry Birds, but instead of trying to destroy pigs by making their block-buildings fall on them, you are trying to break correct walls in your path to make a final shot that hits the target ring -all this with as few arrows as possible-.

Above you see four arrows you use in the game. Normal Arrow is light and travels far, and can break some walls. Bomb Arrow is heavy and explodes on impact, breaking any wall it hits. Radar Arrow is mid-weight, and shows it's flight trajectory in advance. Light Arrow has no weight, and travels straight through any walls, except glass...

Coming up with distinct features to each arrow was good practice on my Illustrator and Photoshop skills. That being said, were this game to ever be released on tablets or flash-websites, those lighting-effects may already be TOO detailed even as they are now. I may end up downgrading them if needed, but regardless, those are the first drafts.

Tip of the week: Color-code your assets. One of the first things you want to understand when creating game assets (be they anything from simple boxes to main character) is that you want the player to be able to easily and immediately notice what is going on in the screen. This is always worth remembering, but especially important on games that you play on small screens (such as handhelds and smartphones), since everything is super-tiny anyway. Great examples of color coding are all the different angry birds, and Mario and Luigi, for example. It's easier and faster to spot color differences than different shapes.

On other things, school is starting again, so I got that going on with me.
Anyway, I'll keep you updated!

Thing: Sorry about your ass

...There's not enough new stuff in my everyday life since last month to write proper Diary-thing. I bought Dark Souls from Steam sale 3 weeks ago, and suddenly 3 weeks have passed.

Man, Dark Souls is so damn awesome.The world is dark and interesting, level design is godlike, sound design is remarkable, I love the crushing challenge game throws you behind every corner over and over and over again, and the way of telling the story by not telling it is just... damnit, Dark Souls is pretty much perfect, alright? Praise the Sun!

Speaking of games where you protect your head with cooking pots, I decided to wait for Shovel Knight's Wii U release because I'm poor and really want to play it on console. Man, Shovel Knight is so damn awesome too.

Also, I've been learning fighting game basics. Skullgirls is so damn awesome.

Basically it's summer and I've been counter-productive. I'll go back to school to do school-things next month.
Praise the Sun!

Diary-thing: It's hard to be a tonttu

My second short 3D-animation is finally finished. Most of the work was done around late february / early march, but after missing the assigned deadline, I pretty much dropped it due to other projects. This was one of those projects where you just start to get frustrated the more you keep working on it, and by the end you just see more flaws than successes.
Still, it's better to try and finish your projects, if for nothing else, at least for the sake of learning to complete your work.

Anyway.

E3's been happening this week. First person shooters are still not going away. Tomb Raider looks like Uncharted. Kojima is still godlike when it comes to making trailers. Dragon Age made everyone yawn. Ubisoft is losing respect of gaming community because animating girls is super hard because reasons. Uncharted looked like Tomb Raider. Nintendo actually had new IP; kind of like Team Fortress 2, except fun-looking. Bayonetta 2 is still happening, and Smash tournament was HYPE!

At this point, I think I'm about ready to jump on Smash-wagon. How hard can it be to catch up to people who have been playing it for like 15 years?

 I'm probably spending most of my summer by further honing my skills on art of game design. Probably going to come up with some small project of my own and keeping myself busy with that.
That, and playing Mario Kart and Shovel Knight.
I'll keep you all posted!

Diary-thing: Oh no, there goes Tokyo.

So yesterday I ended up going to see the new Godzilla.
It was -unfortunately so- different from what I expected.
[SPOILERS FOLLOWING]
The first half of the movie was mostly just exposition of plot and introduction of this giant flying spider-lizard that runs on nuclear waste. It's alright, good at best, and Bryan Cranston pulls a good role, but for the first hour Godzilla is nowhere to be seen, or heard. Then it kind of just appears, and the rest of the movie is army planning how to kill both monsters, while they fight against each other.

My main problem with the movie was how Godzilla itself was surprisingly meaningless deus-ex-machina side character. The main focus of movie was always in the main character guy, and while Godzilla and the other monster do fight at the end, even that happens at background, while the main focus stays on main character and his team of soldiers trying to plant nukes or whatever.
I don't come from the background of being huge Godzilla-fan, but I get the feeling that long-time fans may unfortunately be bit disappointed. It has entertainment value, I'll give that, but Pacific Rim came out year ago, and did this kind of movie much better.

That being said, if I didn't like the movie at all, or didn't care, I wouldn't have bothered writing this much about it. It was just kind of "Why isn't Godzilla bigger character in it's own movie?"-experience for me.

Still, it inspired me to make that picture earlier today. Made it entirely on Adobe Illustrator in about 2-3 hours. Good practice, and one of the best works I've done in a long time, I'd say.


School is going fine. There's been lots of stuff about 3D-animation and post-production, with week or two of Photoshop's and Illustrator's basics. I'm learning stuff, even if final products are far from Pixar-quality.


With videogames, I've been hooked HARD on Metal Gear-franchise!
I could quite literally talk hours about Metal Gear's attention to detail, amazing gameplay gimmicks, dumb-awesome plot, gameplay-flow and anything really, but the post's pretty long already. I'll just say that especially Metal Gear Solid 3 has become my favourite game.

Still waiting for Shovel Knight's release. Should be any day now, really. Hopefully before E3, maybe?

Finally, I want to mention Hover - Revolt Of Gamers. It's interesting-looking project that mixes some Mirror's Edge (no guns though, fortunately) and Jet Set Radio, and seems to even throw some elements from old Tony Hawk's Pro Skater-games. Concept looks definitely interesting, and Hideki Naganuma, composer of Jet Set Radio is making the soundtrack, so if you're into backing Kickstarter games, I'd strongly suggest this one (I threw $30 into it's direction). There's still week to go to pledge, and every dollar makes the game a bit better.

That's pretty much everything. See you again!

Last update was gloomy and boring

My friend Jerico Pretzel (who is not only still alive, but out of hospital and getting better!) wanted suggestions for new hair color.
I got some ideas. Just go and pick one, Ziisa.

Diary-thing: Breaking point

Two years ago I was alone. Back then, I was fine with that.
During these past two years, that has changed. I met people, and we became friends. Good friends. Even more than that, for the first time, I felt I had friends who I couldn't afford to lose. I feared -and I still do- that losing them would break me.

Meawhile, they had their own struggles to go through. Some of them were physically weak and had to fight for their literal survival. Some of them had started to believe their bullies, thinking that they were worthless. For some of them, life was almost too much.
For me, I wanted to help them, because they accepted me.

So I forced myself to grow strong. I wanted to be someone to depend on, someone to share the pain with.
And maybe I did help. My friends are all strong, and I would never take take the credit of something they achieved, but today things seem better for them than what they were, and maybe I managed to help on their darkest hours, even if I didn't notice it myself.

And now it's starting to break me.
I feel like I'm losing one of my friends. I don't know why, I don't know if there's anything to do, and it's tearing me apart.

I feel I grew strong for the wrong reasons. Even if I can be there for others, I don't feel strong enough to help myself. Have I even been a friend, or just a "pillar" to support others? If so, if I break, will there be anyone to help me back up? Does thinking about these things mean I don't trust my friends enough?
If I can't do friendship right, then what the fuck am I even good for?

I can still see colors, but I don't want this to get worse.
It's scary to know my family will read this.

I think I grew too strong
I'm starting to break

Groovy time for a movie time!

So this is what I've been working on for the past 6-7 weeks.

While still decades away from Pixar-quality, during January I learned to build 3D-character that resembles human enough to be described as such, and succeeded in making it move with passable quality.

Sarcasm aside, what we need to learn from this is that making videogames and animation is slow, slow process that takes remarkable amount of skill and often more than 10 hours of work per day. Before your project is over, you have worked on, and looked at, your creation so much that you have started to hate what you've made.

That being said, seeing the result in the end is rewarding, and if your dream is on the field of animation or game-design, nothing I say can -or should- discourage you.

Diary-Thing: Creating Worlds

 Instead of spending all of some of my time playing videogames this weekend, I've been practicing 3D-modelling. Earlier today I crafted this neat battleaxe, using it's 2D-drawing as referenece point.

Some of you might recognize this. Maybe. I'm not even sure if you are there.

I actually had to do quite a lot of 3D-modelling during holidays due to school assingments. We're practicing character animation, so expect that in the future. Probably maybe.
This friday I did some character unwrapping. What that means is "breaking" your 3D-model to pieces that can be "flattened" to 2D-surface so that you can apply textures on them.
See picture below.

Can also Not to be used as reference for how to skin actual humans.

In both videogames and animation alike, it's textures that make characters, objects and enviroments look like anything. Take that away, and what is left is shape and motion of characters, in a world that's literally nothing but few different shades of grey.
Below is character with no textures.

Imagine Nathan Drake looking like that.

 ...And here's the same character with poor textures.

Imagine Nathan Drake looking like THAT.

...You get the idea.
Anyway, been learning this kind of stuff. Haven't drawn comics in a long while. I might try to draw something funny later this... year...?
I don't know. At least you can expect this blog having more videogame-related things and less comics in the future.

Diary-thing: I drew a Tardis

Doodled this one in 10 or so minutes just now. Earlier this week school gave us drawing pads, so I might as well learn how to use it. Seems to work all right.

Started watching Sherlock today. After pilot and first proper episode, seems like decent series. Benedict Cumberbatch pulls a good role, whereas I feel Martin Freeman overplays his character at times. Some individual shots, especially close-ups, seemed to have odd camera angles, where person who's talking isn't at shot at all, and instead camera's zooming on back of Cumberbatch's neck.
That kind of small stuff.
Writing's good though, and that's really the core part. Moffat can be good at his job when Tumblr's not hating him.

I don't recall anyone ever telling me I'm a bad artist. Right now I feel like I could maybe use that.
Value of straight-up negative feedback is not appreciated enough. Maybe all those "I'm so ugly"-status updates on facebook and "Look at this shitty art I made"-posts on every site ever aren't just for attention-whoring. There are people who sometimes legitimately want others to tear their work down and deny all the skill and talent they have.
Of course, the problem is with the commenting itself. Once you have to ask certain kind of feedback, indirectly or not, it has already lost it's meaning. And of course sometimes negative feedback is not what you want.
It's difficult, having emotions.

I wonder how many of you there are, out there. In a year this blog has been visited over 3000 times. probably over 500 are me popping in, checking those other blogs on the left. I guess my familymembers visit on weekly basis. I have 3 to 5 friends who, I strongly assume, are stalking this blog. Maybe one or two of you Orivesi-students even look up to my work. Nah, I wonder, you guys are better than me already.
Thinking that there are people who not only know this blog exists, but even check it out once or twice every week, hoping to see something new... It's a... nice thought.

I'm worried about my best friend. She's been fighting for too long already, and she doesn't deserve everything she's going through. She deserves more than to be alone on christmas.
I'm definitely going to pay her a visit when I get a chance on holidays.

I'm just writing down my thoughts here. Still, I'm grateful you're interested. Thank you.

*Falls to knees* TUMBLUUUUUR!!

It's not even midnight yet, I shouldn't be tired enough to do shit like this.

Seriously tho, Gurren Lagann and Shingegu no Hingegu are amazing. You should take time out of your everyday life to watch those shows.

I'm not a Fan of missing the Fest

Kolmosruudussa Mikkoa esittää lehmä.

Mutta joo.
Kuulemma kaikki Orivesi-senpait ja muutamat kaverit ja kaiken kaikkiaan kaikki coolit tyypit oli siellä ja kaikilla oli hauskaa.

En muista

...yksi?

CONTENT, y'all!

So apparently I didn't update on september.

Anyway, I've moved to Helsinki and started new school. Animation and Game Design. It's been a challenge and a blast!
First weeks' studies were mostly everything script-related, so there's little to tell about that.

And this week we started learning 3D.

So let's see what I've learned since tuesday.

Whoops.

There's some other stuff of which I don't have JPGs right now. Point being, things are moving FAST!
Next week we'll make Half-Life 3.

Besides that, been playing some videogames and not drawing comics. Mass Effect is alright storywise. Gameplay-wise... Meh, has it's flaws. Not a masterpiece per-say.

Rayman (original from -95) is about the hardest platformer ever!

Hellou Orivesi!

Jessus, Orivedellähän on muuten alkanut uusi opistovuosi tällä viikolla! Uudet sarjisorjat saattaa tutustua vanhojen blogeihin, ja mun edellinen päivitys on supermasentava! Pakko laittaa jotain uutta ja mahtavaa!

...No okei. En ole nyt muutamaan viikkoon hirveästi ehtinyt piirtää, ja vielä vähemmän skannata piirroksia. Omakin koulunkäynti alkaa tässä kohta, ja pitäisi vielä muuttaakin ennen sitä.

...Anyway.
Tervetuloa Orivedelle, uudet sarjislinjalaiset! Olette yhdessä Suomen parhaista kansanopistoista, ympärillänne toista sataa innokasta kanssaopiskelijaa. Saatte heti alkuun muutamia vinkkejä siitä mitä odottaa tulevalta vuodelta:

Jokerikortti
Sarjislinja itsessään on yleensä ollut se linja jonka olemassaolosta muut linjat hädin tuskin tietävät (oikeasti: viime kevätjuhlassa sarjislinja oli ainoa jota rehtori ei maininnut erikseen). Silloin tällöin pari yksittäistä opiskelijaa saattaa harhailla luokan ovelle tutkimaan tilannetta, mutta luultavasti siihen mennessä olette jo täyttäneet luokan seinät lievästi häiriintyneillä / eroottisilla piirroksilla (on tapahtunut ennenkin, tulee tapahtumaan jatkossakin!) jotka ajavat vieraat kauhuissaan pakoon. Käyttäkää tämä "Jokerikortti"-maine eduksenne. On tosiasia että luokkana teistä tulee parempi kuin yksikään missä olette tähän mennessä olleet, mutta saatte itse päättää tulevatko muut kurssit tuntemaan teidät sinä yhtenä porukkana joka on koko ajan nauramassa oudoille sisäpiirin jutuille, vai oppivatko tuntemaan ollenkaan.

Vierailevat tähdet
Real talk: Opistolla pyörii paljon opettajia, ja ne kaikki ovat loistavia. Karriin oottekin jo tutustuneet, Sampsa on reilu tyyppi, Pirisen Ville on uniikki persoona, Jukka Tilsalla on enemmän juttuja ja ideoita kuin mitä jaksatte kuunnella, Milla Paloniemi, Anni Nykänen, Tea Tauriainen ja Emmi Nieminen tulevat kyllä opettamaan jos pyydätte Karrilta, ja Teknogekko... voi veljet, odottakaa vain!

Vakiokuokkija
Sukupolvelta toiselle kerrotun tarinan mukaan jokaisella vuosikurssilla on ollut oma vakikuokkijansa, joka opiskelee toisella linjalla, mutta viettää valtaosan vapaa-ajasta sarjisluokassa selailemassa luokan sarjakuvia ja nauramassa teidän jutuille. Kirjoittajalukio ja Kuvislinja on ollut yleisiä linjoja, viime vuonna se oli musiikkilinjan nörtein tyttö.
Vakiokuokkija on koko opiston paras tyyppi, ottakaa se mukaan ryhmäänne!

Loistavat tilat
Teillä on luokan kaapit täynnä sarjakuvia ja referenssimateriaalia mihin vain! Katossa on videotykki elokuvien katsomista ja pelaamista varten! Kaapeissa on lautapelejä! Viereisessä huoneessa on sähköautorata (kysykää Karrilta siitä)! Rakennuksessa asuu luultavasti lähinnä sarjislinjan ja musalinjan oppilaita, joten iltaisin luokassa VOI bilettää!

Loistava kaupunki
Orivesi on itse asiassa yllättävän hyvä paikka. Kunhan jossain vaiheessa ehditte niin käykää tutustumassa kaupungin parhaisiin maisemiin. Katsokaa ainakin juna-aseman järvimaisema ja kiivetkää tuulimyllylle.

Loistava ryhmä
Sarjislinja on aina ollut opiston pienin ryhmä, mikä omalta osaltaan helpottaa paitsi loistavan yhteishengen saavuttamista, myös laskee rimaa toteuttaa spontaaneja ideoita. Haluaako joku katsoa elokuvan illalla? Hakekaa juotavaa ja pitäkää elokuvamaratoni! Joku tykkää Doctor Whosta? Katsokaa kokonainen kausi viikossa ja pirtäkää noloa fan-arttia! Pitäisikö käydä huomenna Tampereella? Käykää TÄNÄÄN koko porukalla Tampereella!

Moral boost
Ootteko jo huomanneet että kaikki luokkalaiset tuntuu olevan parempia piirtäjiä? Ensinnäkin: väärin, ja toiseksi: Sarjakuvien tekeminen ei vaadi piirtotaitoa! Itse piirsin tämmöisiä viime syyskuussa:

Loppuu se turha stressaaminen ennen kuin alkaakaan. Stana.

Teillä tulee olemaan niin parasta aikaa.

PS: Muutama teistä on varmaan majoitettu siihen luokkaa vastapäätä olevaan soluhuoneistoon. Ne creepyt taulut voi kääntää ympäri tai ottaa pois seinältä jos ne on liian creepyjä, mutta on toki muitakin vaihtoehtoja:

Peace off.
PPS: Kun teette omat bloginne, en suosittele sarjakuvablogit.com:ia. Siinä on ollut aika pahoja käyttöongelmia, ja kerran se vaan poisti mun oman blogin automaattisesti ilman mitään syytä. Blogspot on toimivampi järjestelmä.

God.

Please let me be there when people close to me need help.

The ones who have to fight through everyday, to search for the reason to go on: Please let me carry some of their pain.

Don't let life overpower them. Don't let them suffer alone. No-one deserves something like that.

Please give them strength to carry on, and courage to cry for help when they really need it.

Please give me wisdom to see when there is anything I can do, and courage to say "I am here to help."

Please don't let them fall into loneliness and depression. Don't allow them to forget that every life is precious and worth living.

I'm grateful of the life I've lived and friends I've made.

Please don't let them get lost into darkness alone.

Please let me be there when I'm needed. Please let me bring joy and share their pain.

Please let me help.

Why am I doing this I don't even have to

There are real things happening in my life!
I was at FinnCon! I'm starting new school this fall! I'm moving to Helsinki with two girls!
Why am I making memes about my ass!?

Fine literature

This is exactly how it went down.

So what do I think of tumblr so far?

Obviously enough, following applies to minorities in general.

So, earlier today I was browsing around tumblr, when one of my friends I follow reblogged certain article. This article, in all it's simplicity, was picture of man and woman (the kind you see public places, like bathroom or elevator signs) holding hands, followed by text "Straight Pride". Below the picture, original creator raised a question of why doesn't Straight Pride (as opposed to Gay Pride) exist.
Now, obviously (at least for me) this was somewhat ironic post, since we live in a world where you don't have to keep your heterosexuality a secret in fear of your friends and family abandoning you. That fear doesn't exist, since being straight is widely acceptable norm.
Regardless, that question was worth asking, and since homosexuality is constantly becoming more and more acceptable worldwide, this could have turned into pretty good debate of whether or not gays have become "more equal" in some ways.

First response was, to summarize the whole comment: "**** you ***hole, you have NOTHING to be proud of, you haven't suffered like we have, I can't believe people like you exist, go **** yourself!"

This particular post had about 15 000 responses. About 1000 of them were among the same lines, about 200 were peaceful responses to first group, such as: "Please calm down, that's not what he meant." and about 400 were hateful responses to the second group, such as: "**** you also for taking his patriarchy-defending side!" Rest were people liking and reblogging this fight all over tumblr.

Now, I've been in internet for a long time, so I'm familiar with trolls, flame wars, and overall people fighting over nothing for nothing. Usually I tend to not participate on any online arguments, even to try to calm the situation down, and even if I go as far as to write something, I rarely get to the end before I decide to press delete, let the whole thing slide, and go do something else, like eat ice cream.

That being said, I'm pretty ****ing angry and disappointed how individuals of such widely acknowledged minority as gays (and people who support them) choose to represent itself.

It's widely known how much gays have had to fight in order to get even as much acknowledgement as they have today. Less than 100 years ago homosexuality was not only illegal, but considered mental disorder, and even today it's considered sin in many religions.
People who have come out of the closet have been abandoned by their best friends.
Children have been kicked out of their homes because they were foolish enough to think that their parents, who raised, cared of, and loved them for years, would accept them.
Even today, in some corners of the world, people are being shot and stoned to death by mere assumption of  them being gay.

And now it's year 2013, and world is heading closer to equality in every front. Gays are more accepted and respected -admired, even- than ever before, gay marriage is getting legalized all over the place, and overall, public opinion is pretty encouraging. You would think that sun is shining.

And then your average "you" goes to the internet, visits your average chat forum, notices topic about "Straight Pride", and finds that the first response is "**** you!"
A little bit of browsing later, it occurs that this is not an opinion of one angry teenager (or grown adult, fair enough), but there are thousands of people who support this opinion.

Now, wouldn't-
No, shouldn't this individual think: "Such disrespectful and angry community as this doesn't deserve to be respected."

Following applies to every group ever:

If you have been fighting for decades to gain public acknowledgement and respect, you cannot afford to ruin the whole thing by attacking someone who doesn't respect you, with same anger and disrespect you have received over the time!


Personally? I don't hate any community.
Not any religious group. Not internet trolls. Not telemarketers. Not nazis. Not grammar-nazis. Not gays. Not Justin Bieber-fans or haters. Not goths. Not cartoonists. Nobody.

If I ever hate someone, that someone is/will be individual person, not the group s/he is part of, or represents, and my hatred will be based on his/her actions towards me or people I care about most, not his/her opinions.

I will not stop supporting gay rights -or any group that strives for equality- because of this, but I am pretty damn enraged of how this community seems to treat people who don't share it's opinions.

Fuck you, tumblr.

I somehow Tumblr.

It's debatable whether or not these background-colors make otherwise black-and-white picture better or worse.

Anyways, I'm trying out Tumblr. Ziisa has occasionally been pestering me about that, and to be fair, I've seen some fun and/or weird stuff. You'll find me there if you know me.