First Year: Get!

It's official, I passed first year! :D 

The above image is my official reaction image, by the way. 

I'm mega happy with the result I got :D there were some areas I felt I let myself down in along the year, so to pass with a grade I'm happy with came as a nice surprise. I can definitely say that I've been given extra motivation to give it my all next year so September, if you're reading this, please hurry up and get here!

Other than getting my grade, this week has been filled with a lot of half finished digital paintings and things I wanted to do but couldn't because of various reasons. Also for those of you that care, Jason got fired in the Apprentice. My heart weeps.* ): 

I did however, make a 'comic' about our new dog Toby. :D 

He's a huge cutie and very sweet but he just won't leave me alone. I don't really mind this because dog cuddles are the best but when I'm trying to work/draw/sleep or drink delicious tea and a Yorkshire Terrier decides to land on my knees, it can cause a few issues!

Something else that I guess I don't really need to talk about but would like to is the possibility of using a laptop that has UDK being snatched away from me... again. ;>_> The first time I thought that the charger was broken - my dad fixed it in about half a second by plugging the socket in properly. Yeah. That really happened.

This time, however, with the charger working and all looking great, I turned it on with high expectations to find a blue screen and a reboot 'Steph help me I'm broken' screen. Great! So now I don't quite know if I'll ever be able to form a bond with UDK, I guess it'll have to wait a little longer.

Sorry for the lack of content AGAIN. I may as well just change the title of this blog to that. Screw 'Life in Games Design', 'Sorry I didn't do squat' is where it's at. 

Have an awesome week and thanks for sticking with me! :D 

*I'm not using a spoiler tag, it was over a week ago and if that's a spoiler for you then you need to sort your priorities out by watching The Apprentice instead of reading this blog! 

(~^-^)~

"You posted WHAT on Youtube?!"

Apparently I started writing an entry with this title before I went to York but for some reason it went to drafts... ;>_> So here I am using it, finally! 

This week I've spent a lot of time away from my tablet in terms of personal projects as I've been moving back to Newcastle from uni for the holidays. Combine that with a housemate moving out and visiting my Grandma every day and you're left with not much stuff to show. Sorry. :C 

Fortunately, though, I do have some things to show! Not much, though they're better than nothing. :)


The first thing is the actual reason for the title of this post and can be found here.

I've always loved watching speed painting videos. Probably more than I should do, actually. Another thing I've always loved the idea of is actually making my own... and here it is! The quality isn't too great because I used the video that I got saved from a livestream of the painting, so I apologise for that. I have however figured out a way to do it in much better quality so the next one will be much better. :D 

Either way I hope you enjoy watching it if you do - I'd love to get some feedback on it. :)

The second thing I have to show this week is a digital painting. I've wanted to do another one for a while and since I had a friend's birthday coming up I saw it as the perfect opportunity! :D So, here's Bang Yongguk from B.A.P:

He was a tonne of fun to paint and actually didn't take as long as I thought he would :D it took me about 3 hours give or take. It's still a fair amount of time but I'm getting there!

Taking a step back from digital painting for a little while has made me realise how much I really enjoy it, so look forward to some more of these popping up in the next few weeks including the half finished one I'm currently working on.

That's all I've got for this week ): I'll have way more time to do my own thing come the end of June though, so this lack of things is only temporary. :D 

I hope you have an awesome week and thanks for reading!

(~^-^)~

I love Nintendo

So how about dat E3 conference? Things I learned while watching each one:

- I liked XBox's games
- I liked PS4's games better
- PS4 is a nicer price
- I'm cheap so will probably get PS4
- I still love Nintendo most

Okay, now that's out of the way, onto the art. :D 


This week I've mostly been making comics. :O Well, by mostly I mean I've made two... which is two more than last week! 

The first one is about Animal Crossing (of course) and how I'm incapable of talking to people about it in a calm and composed manner:

I actually posted this one onto my Tumblr and it got 760+ notes, so thanks everyone that liked/reblogged for that! :D It was a load of fun to make, so I'm happy that people seemed to like it.

Next is my second NON-Animal Crossing related comic. 

Instead, this one is about Mario Kart and my inability to play it like a sane person:

(Way to make yourself sound incapable of doing many things, Steph!)

I didn't put this one on my tumblr, hence why the 'watermark' links to my Twitter instead. :'D

Other than these two comics, the only things I've really done have been more Animal Crossing Villager portrait type things because of how many people on Tumblr requested. ;>_> So here are those:

These (in order) are of Cyrus, Reese, Mabel, Stitches, Rosie and Tangy. The last 4 were actually done BEFORE I went to York, though obviously because I didn't post a blog I couldn't show you guys before now. Sorry!

That's all I've got for this week. I'm desperate to get back into digital painting so I want to do some studies, though with New Leaf releasing on Friday I can't make too many promises. >_> I will try!

Thanks for reading if you did and have an awesome week. :)

(~^-^)~

In the Forest~

Lot's of forest related stuff going on this week - mostly down to Animal Crossing... :'D I WARNED YOU. 

I've done a little mix of things, though. Some digital painty stuff, some not so painty stuff and a model in Maya. I'm quite happy with what I've done this week, so I'll get on with it and start showing you what I did. :D 

I'll start off with the digital pieces I've painted:

This one was a request from someone on Tumblr called Kristen. :D She wanted me to paint her in the style of an Animal Crossing character and since I wanted to paint something along those lines I made this~ It was actually a lot of fun to work on, I really enjoy the style and it's always fun to discover new techniques. Might do a few more sometime. :)

Next up is another sooort of Animal Crossing related piece (;>_>) and is pretty much just an accurate representation of what I'm gonna be like when the game actually releases. :'D My face will be glued to the screen and I'll have it super close to my eyes because that's totally good for them.  

The 3DS model I chose was the Animal Crossing themed one, by the way! 

Moving swiftly on from all the fangirl related stuff, here is the tree stump I mentioned. :D I'm probably gonna go back and do a few more designs for this one because I screwed up the UV mapping  really enjoy painting wood textures, so maybe I'll have some more of these to show next week. ;D

Also just because it's probably kinda tricky to tell on the model, here's a closeup of some of the painting from the model itself:

It's a bit of a crappy size I know but it's SOMETHING. ;-; 

Finally to finish off, here's a picture of my favourite cat villager - Moe. He's a cutie and was fun to draw so why not. :D 

Aaand that's everything! Thanks for reading if you did and have an awesome week. :) 

(~^-^)~

Animal Crossing is killing me

Okay guys, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't have very much to share with you this week. :(

I've had a pretty slow week in terms of doing art for personal projects. The time I have spent drawing has been mostly on something I can't share (I know, I'm sorry!) and the time I've spent drawing things for myself has been, well, small.

Here's some Fan Art of Mitey from Ni No Kuni to get things going:

NNK is a game that I've been playing quite a bit recently. I didn't get to play it all that much when I was doing work for uni so I'm somewhat making up for lost time. This is part of the reason why I haven't been very productive this week. :C I do plan on making more fan art of it, though, so look out for that. :D 

PS if you have a Playstation account and are looking for more buddies on it, feel free to add me - my ID is Stephasaur.

The OTHER thing that has been taking over my life for the last 10 months week in particular is the release of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. This has resulted in me religiously looking up pictures, crying, playing Wild World for the DS, crying, then finally making this:

Yep, that's right, I broke in a new save/character on the Game Cube version. That's when you know it's serious. :( 

Just for the record I'm the one in the pointy hat, not the monkey (sadly) but you get the idea. There will almost certainly be some fan art of this game within the next week, so I do apologise in advance if it gets too much. I'm also putting in an official warning in advance of June 14th as that is when the game will release and I can't promise any form of life outside of my New Leaf save file.

Finally, because there has been a poor amount of art in this update, have a half finished painting of Sungjong from Infinite: 

So to summarise:

- There will be more next week

- I like playing Ni No Kuni so I drew Mitey

- ANIMAL CROSSING IS RUINING MY LIFE

- I still didn't finish painting Sunjong

- There will be more next week

Thanks for reading if you did and have an awesome week! <3 

(~^-^)~

Level Up!

/Absolutely totally original blog title relating to finishing first year.

So, that's it! D: First year is officially done and dusted and I now have a few months to do whatever I like. I had my one-to-one today which I was pleased with and I'm already looking forward to next year. :D 

This week I've been doing a few digital paintings of pretty Korean males some of my favourite artists to get some painting & realism practice in, so here they are:

The top one is Key from SHINee and the bottom is Yesung from Super Junior. I've also started on a 3rd one, though it isn't really at a stage that I feel I can post it at yet as there's not much to see. :'D 

I also made some fanart for a game that was recently released called Paper Titans. It was super fun to make and I'm pretty happy with how it came out:

Other than that I haven't drawn all that much that I can show, sadly. :( I do plan on getting some stuff pumped out during the next week though, along with (hopefully) some maya things too, so look out for those! :D 

--

Along with posting some art, I also mentioned last week that I wanted to talk a bit about this first year of Games Design and how I felt about it, things I've enjoyed, found challenging, overcome, etc. So here it is :D it may be a bit lengthy but I'll try not to ramble too much!

I've learned a lot this year (both art-wise and when it comes to myself) and I'm extremely thankful for the people that helped me learn those things. I started the year without really touching realism (out of lack of interest and knowledge that I suck :'D ) and now I adore it, wanting to make as much and improve as much as I can. I'd consider that a bit of an extreme change. :P

Another thing is my self confidence. I started the year having a lot more anxiety around other people than I do now and while I still have a long way to go, I feel that just being around the people on my course is helping me every day. I feel accepted and that's amazing. So, if you're on my course (be it as a student or a tutor), thank you. :) I couldn't do it without the support of my friends outside of Games Design either of course, they just both help in very different ways. 

The Blitz Open Day has certainly been something that I completely didn't expect to happen when I first started uni. I remember us being told about it and wanting to apply, though I never expected to actually get accepted. That day has really changed a lot of things for me in positive ways - made me more determined to get into the industry, made me more confident in myself and helped me have a clearer idea of what I want to do. 

Overall I just feel so much better about a lot of things and I hope to keep that going. Expect a LOT of art from me over the summer, regular updates and (hopefully) some improvement! 

Thanks for reading if you did and have an awesome week. :)

(~^-^)~

Bye bye First Year. :(

At the time of writing this, I have about an hour until the last day of my 'first' year at university (if we ignore the Foundation course I did last year). This year has been amazing and I've loved every single second of my time as a Games Design student so far, so I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into second year. I really feel like this is where I belong and I'm super-massively-incredibly happy about that. :D 

This week I've spent a lot of time making sure that I had everything for my portfolio hand-in tomorrow. That includes making folders in folders, printing things out, checking folders and then checking them again. Knowing me, though, I'll probably still forget something and remember it last second. Just you wait and see. >_>

The plus side to all of this chaos is that it's really nice to look through my work from the start of the year and compare it with where I'm at now. I can't say there's as much improvement as I would have liked, though there are definitely some areas that I feel I've improved in. Realism in particular I think I feel more confident in, as before the start of this year I never really bothered to try it because I knew I was going to be terrible!

Alongside the checking and scribbling out lists and checking again I have done a bit more work this week to go with that, so here it is! :D 

That guy from the God of War games that always looks really pee'd off. 

"It's-a me, Derpio*!"

These guys were for some work I revamped about mechanics in games. I didn't realise how much I enjoy trying to draw pre-existing game characters in my own style. I'm quite fond of Mario, I want to sleep in his moustache. :D 

Was that too creepy? I think that might have been too creepy... I'm sorry. ;-; 

Next up are some Golems that I did as part of a collab for a group project:

The very talented Paul Wolfe on my course did the character designs/lineart for the Golems and then gave them to me to colour. They were so much fun to work on! :D I think out of the four the first Golem (fire) is probably my favourite, it was definitely the one I enjoyed working on the most. I'd be more than happy to do something like this again! 

That's all of the work I can show you at the moment sadly ): I am working on something else, though I'm not 100% sure if I'm allowed to share anything from it yet. D: I'm sorry!

I am, however, really looking forward to getting a load of my own work drawn out and done now that a lot of my time will have been freed up. :D Lot's of studies, characters and 3D modelling, so look out for those! 

Thanks so much for reading if you did and have an awesome week. :) 

*Not a licensed Nintendo character but if you're reading this Nintendo I'm more than happy to sell you the rights, just sayin'. ££££££££££££££

(~^-^)~