Category Archives: Graphic Design

Illustrations, sketches, photos

New Blog Design!

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Finally, a new design for my Blog. Thanks to my wife and she made it in just 2 days!

Actually since April 2009, I’ve been planning to change my blog design. The theme dilectio was used just for temporary. Unfortunately, I was always get distracted and never start it 😛

Last Friday, while she was doing some maintenance of her blog, she offered me help to design my blog themes. I gave her some directions which basically the style and color schemes  from my portfolio page.

Then on Sunday morning … tada!

For celebration, we went out that afternoon and had a nice crepes with Italian ice cream 🙂

OMG! It’s been 3 weeks

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…since my last post on this Blog 🙁 Another busy weeks, I guess. But I try my best not to abandon this Blog 😉

This 3 weeks, I’ve been writing and making a software prototype for my master thesis. Strangely, my right brain is dying because of too much scientific and thesis work 😯 I become less creative and hardly done any designs or sketches.

CreativeLicenseLucky that I have a very good book to work out my right brain 🙂 It’s The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission To Be The Artist You Truly Are, by Danny gregory.  My wife bought this book from Kinokuniya Singapore 7 months ago but I start reading this book since the early of this month, when I was having 4 days vacation in Netherlands.

The book is very colorful with a very artistic layout. You get a lot of exercises to draw things. I am still practicing the 3rd exercise. The first excercise is to sketch a mug using a pen but you’re not allowed to look at your paper until it’s done. You have to stare at the mug and stay relax. Your eyes slowly trace the mug’s shape while your pen forms the line on the paper. It’s eye and pen coordination. Actually, you train to shut up your left brain and by tracing the mug very slowly, you brain get relax and that’s how you activate your right brain.

It really works! Well, at least it helps me to get my brain balanced :-p

You can check out the author’s website.

Portfolio Update

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I just updated my web portfolio, announcing my thesis project, some new sketches and images, including this vector image of Wiimote 😉

Wiimote

My thesis is about designing several  group games that can be played using Wiimotes.

To connect the Wiimote, I will use a C# library provided by Brian Peek. My aim is to connect as many as possible Wiimotes. At the moment, the library can only support one Wiimote but someone has extend it to support multiple wiimotes. I haven’t tried it since I only have one Wiimote 🙄

Why C# ?

Just to simplify the coding stuff 🙂 My thesis focus is not the coding but the game design, so I don’t want spend too much time doing programming.

I’ve been using C++ for 6 years but I fall in love with C# for its simplicity, especially the managed memory. Ever since I used Java, I believe that there will be a time when people stop using pointer (unmanaged memory), just like they did with ‘goto’ 🙂

So what about my shmup game? I haven’t touch it since three weeks ago. This is very sad 🙁 I hope I will be able to do them all: my thesis, my game demo, and my creative works 😐

Creativity Booster

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I’ve been doing my thesis whole week and suddenly, it’s been more than a week since the last time I updated my Blog 😐

I am still doing my proposal, which I think, should clearly state what you’re going to do for the next 6 months (5 months in my case). So, it’s a little bit of everything: your hypothesis, theory, some software designs, structure of your thesis document, and what the outcome would be. The good news is, my proposal will be done before tomorrow evening 😉

Unfortunately, doing too much academic thingy somehow makes me less creative. I barely had any idea for my daily sketches or character design for shmup project. Maybe, I just feel unbalance.

So I decided to do something different. Watching TV series like Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, Ugly Betty, or Germany’s Next Top Model is my favorite, but none of them has released the new season yet. I tried to watch anime like Lucky Star or Suzumiya Haruhi but I couldn’t enjoy them 🙁 This time I picked something new: Project Runway 😎

It’s a reality show featuring several talented fashion designers. Every week, they’re given a fashion challenge. The result is presented in front of the judges, and one of them get eliminated with Heidi saying Auf Wiedersehen. 

ProjectRunway

I really like this show. Not only because it’s Heidi Klum’s (she’s really a smart supermodel, very rare!!), but I can learn more about design. And this thing really inspires me 🙂 Since I really care about fashion and love to design game character, this show is just perfect for me 😉 

I hope it will enrich my knowledge and creativity about character design, especially their outfits, and someday I could come up with an unusual design 😈

LEGO Bricks

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I am always fascinated if someone creating his or her own game engine from scratch in order to make a game. I mean they really did a lot of work, didn’t they?

Three or four years ago, I would have done the same thing. Make my own game engine and then starts building games on top of it. But now, I realize that I’ve changed. What I will do is try to find if someone’s game engine, choose to use it, and try to use it as it is.

It’s like building sculpture using LEGO bricks, those colorful plastic blocks. You don’t have the curved shape block on the standard LEGO bricks. Some people would have chosen to make their own curvy blocks instead of using the blocky standard brick. They could end up with a really nicely curved and seamless shaped sculpture but I would choose to stick with the standard block. I know that I will get a blocky shape but it’s still a sculpture. And it’s not impossible that you’ll get a great sculpture 😉

Nathan Sawaya with his sculpture, made by using LEGO bricks (taken from CNN) 

That’s how I work using other people’s game engine. I rarely modify the engine’s source code, just stick to the provided APIs. If I need an extra function, I will search other people’s plug-ins. Not that I’m too lazy to do any programming but I want to focus more on the design and the big picture of my game (but of course, without loosing attention to the details 🙂 ). I know that my game will be slower, or without any state-of-the-art 3D graphics or shader effect but that’s the compromise for not modifying the engine. It’s just not my focus and to code or to configure a game engine is really challenging. It takes a lot of time and passion (and several days of hair-pulling moments 🙄 ). Why not just using somebody’s work?

Well, there’s nothing wrong making your own game engine :). I am just telling that game development is not only about coding or programming. So, to anyone who wants to start game development, especially game design, you can use any tools. Macromedia Flash, C++, Java, C#, LUA, XNA, or even paper and scissor for board game!!

To see more of Nathan Sawaya’s works (the LEGO sculturer above), check out this link from CNN or his website at http://www.brickartist.com/