Monsters!

I thought I'd post some pics of what I've been up to for the indie game. This is the first character I'm working on, a bad guy obviously :) He's all rigged up and ready for animating, has been for a few days now, I just have to get around to it :P I've also had a short freelance job that came and found me thanks to a good friend and ex Krome producer John, it was good timing as I had a month without teaching pay while the students had their mid year break.

Click to enlarge.

Clinging to the thread.

To get by these days I am teaching animation again, its something I did for a while earlier in my career so its kind of been like coming back home. Its only one day a week which makes the money tight, but at the same time I am actually not sure I could do much more anyway. The course I teach is run by two other awesome teachers, they are a delight to work with and I'm really lucky to have this to fall back on.

Teachers give out advice in spades, and most have a few extra special pearls of wisdom they keep for special occasions. This time around I've found one of my best pieces having relevance for myself, just with a slightly different context.

One of the hard facts animation students have to come to terms with is that no matter how good they are there might just not be a job around in Brisbane that is a good fit for them right away. So I often say that if there is going to be a time with no further study or paid creative work there is one thing they must do.... Keep Producing.

Once you stop, if there is a period of time where being creative stops being part of your routine then there is a good chance its over. People who manage to go on with it always seem to find something creative to keep working on.

Now I find this applies to me, if I stop now it might just be for good. The main little thread I am keeping alive, just enough to prevent that is some art for indie games I make with a coder friend. We have made two games together so far and now we are working on a dungeon based RPG. The art to create the world is all broken up into panels, its perfect for my current state of mind, I can take it one tile at a time and thanks to my understanding partner I can set my own pace. I thought I'd share a few of my favourite tiles so far, they may not be much to look at yet, but you have to imagine a whole world you can walk around in made up of this stuff :) Also some of these are animated, but I've only shown one frame here.