Not Quite Condemned

Disgaea 3: The Heart Bank Blog

2008-07-06T10:30:57Z

We've launched a Disgaea specific blog over at the Hardcore Gamer website. I know a lot of people on my friends list are RPG players and like the Disgaea series, so I'm cluing you guys into it.

Why, you ask? Well, Disgaea 3 is coming out soon, and we're posting a bunch of exclusive English screenshots and video from the game as we work on the strategy guide over at DoubleJump.

If you like the blog, and could also spread the word, that would be awesome. We'll be posting new video every few days it looks like, so stay tuned there. The url is:

http://disgaea.hardcoregamer.com

Thanks guys! Shilling over!

Kiskaloo

2008-06-29T20:20:58Z

Kiskaloo is a fun fun webcomic by Chris Sanders that I've been following for quite a while. If that name doesn't ring a bell, he's the guy who created Lilo and Stitch, and was working on a film for Disney called American Dog... before they yanked that away from him and turned it into, well, blech. The webcomic follows a cat with an eyepatch who is on a ~~quest~~ mission to find his own name. It comes out something like once a week, and is a lot of fun to read.

I think the reason the visibility on it isn't so high is because, currently, he updates it on his blog, and mainly the only way to find it is to stumble upon it. There's no real comic system.

He says he's going to move everything to www.kiskaloo.com soon and organize it better, which is cool, but there's only 24 comics now, and they're easy to follow through:

http://www.chrissandersart.com/www/blog.php
(click on Categories, Comic)

Anyway, it's a fun comic. Spread the word!

They seem to like it, dood!

2008-06-22T19:44:32Z

I meant to post about this a while back, but I've been preoccupied with.. other stuff. While my boss and Charmwitch were at the recent NISA press event for Disgaea 3, they showed the designer and programmer for Disgaea 3 my layout for it in the most recent HGM! And they apparently really liked it! (And of course the article itself even more!)

Here's what it looked like in non-shadowvision:

Of all the things that have happened during my illustrious career, I'm really proud of this. :)

We also started a new blog over on HGM's website called The Heart Bank Blog, it's going to cover NIS and Disgaea stuff, and the aforementioned Charmy Witch is going to be writing it mainly. You can check that out here.

We're going to be posting shots from the English build of Disgaea 3 soon.

Yum, English shots.

Update Part Deux

2008-06-20T12:36:39Z

Mom is home okay, and resting! Now we're ont he slow and hard road of keeping her off cigs and keeping her taking her medication.

Update!

2008-06-16T20:18:55Z

So, the test went off without a hitch. Mom had a bunch of blockage, 90% in one artery in fact, so they amboed her right away (at over 100 miles per hour) to St. Joe's (which was decided ahead of time if this was an eventuality) where they had specialists do the stenting required to open up her heart's passageways. Go go major surgery. She was in recovery and is now stable in a room, and they are monitoring her overnight there. Hopefully, so long all is okay, she can come home tomorrow morning for a week of bedrest and recooping.

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes and happy thoughts through all of this. We're not completely out of the woods yet (we need to watch her, and then make sure she never picks up another cigarette again), but the hardest stuff is over I hope. Fingers crossed.

Again, thank you everyone. I'll keep you guys updated.

My mom is in the hospital. :(

2008-06-15T03:19:59Z

This is mainly for my local friends who I couldn't find their email address for, or anyone here I work with. My mom is in the hospital, and so if I'm not sleeping that's probably where I'm going to be for the next 3 or 4 days. She was at work on the floor (she's a nurse), and she had some kind of problem, and they've admitted her straight away. It's some sort of heart problem, but we won't know what exactly is going on until they run a special test on Monday.

Please pray or think good thoughts if you can. For those who already have, thanks so so much. If you need me, please call my cell.

Mitch Hedburgian

2008-05-30T09:38:02Z

Did you ever notice, that sometimes, if you change one letter in the name of a something, you can drastically change its purpose?

For instance, Big Lots.

Change that L to a T. What do you have? Big Tots.

Excuse me sir, what do you have for sale here in this fine establishment?

Gigantic Babies.

Weird-Ass Censorship

2008-05-29T08:26:55Z

Okay, so, I went to talk to my mom the other day and she was watching some movie on Sci Fi Channel which had the most ridiculous censorship I'd ever seen. So like, these two characters were in (I think) some kind of ancient ruins, like a temple or a pyramid or something. One guy was smoking a joint, and was holding it in his hand. Now, the hilarity comes in here:

When the guy would lift the joint up to his mouth and take a drag, they would blurr his hand out in a big circle. When his hand left his mouth, and went down, they un-blurred it out. Every time.

I almost died laughing.

I want to see this aired about 5 days ago. I was wondering if anyone in LJ-land was watching this, and if so, do you know what movie it was? It looked ridiculously low budget like most Sci Fi movies, though it looked more legit than a 'SciFi Original' if that means anything.

Please help me out!

Vavavoom.

2008-05-16T06:49:17Z

So I started drawing this mess yesterday, and realized under the uck there was some good bits there. So I started redrawing it in OC, and it's actually coming out better than I imagined. I haven't had time to finish it, and with another strat guide ramping up, I probably won't finish it until afterwards.. so I figured I'd throw up the doodle.

Magazine Revamp + Drawing

2008-05-05T09:53:20Z

So I've been incognito because I've been doing... 100 million things. Ramping up for some strategy guides, working on the Summer issue of Hardcore Gamer, completely revamping the basic DESIGN of Hardcore Gamer, as well as some other stuff I can't talk about right now.

I did sneak in some drawing last week, so, hey, there's that. :) I'm still alive, which is the important part, I'm just trying to hang on tight and get this stuff done!

Anyway, doodleage:

I redid the head for this, since I didn't like the original one so much. The shoulders and upper arms are still wrong in some manner, though. I have no idea if the breasts follow eisenkreis' advice correctly. >_< I started to draw another Ayame from MOTM at the bottom left but ran out of room.

This was done on two pieces of paper. I actually have this little notepad I got from a comic shop with Spiderman on it that is awesome and I... sort of drew all over it. Some good heads, some awful ones.

I don't know, I just liked this head.

Darkwing Duck is awesome. This is not furry, stfu.

Some good, some bad, some really weird style Darkwings.

Blame EU03 over at Mechafetus for making me draw this Pokemaster all the time.

That head on the first one comes from here.

Trying a bunch of different styles, and attempting to get some depth in the faces.

This is the original head for that one.

W00t! It's almost a real word now!

2008-04-09T15:47:33Z

Or so says Webster's:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/07words.htm

That's pretty cool. :)

Misc MGS3 Design

2008-03-29T07:11:02Z

This is a design I was playing around with for something that went unused..

However, I really liked the aging I did to the book, one that I found that was old already (though not aged enough), with blank pages in it.

Hanako and Stitch!?

2008-03-27T12:09:07Z

From:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/hanako-and-stitch

Hanako and Stitch
by amid
March 8, 2008 12:08 am

There’s an intriguing story in yesterday’s news wires about how Disney is producing a new TV version of Lilo and Stitch specifically targeted towards Japanese audiences. The new series, titled Stitch!, which will be produced by Japanese animation studio Madhouse (Ninja Scroll, Cardcaptor Sakura), replaces the orphan Lilo with a Japanese girl named Hanako, and transplants the setting from Hawaii to a tropical island in Okinawa, Japan. The series will premiere on Japan’s Disney channel in October.

This is super surprising. I understand Stitch is super popular over there, too. This is sort of like Powerpuff Girls Z almost, though that never managed to come out here so far.

Neat Mailboxes

2008-03-17T06:25:09Z

While up at the little post office in the small town we live in now, I noticed these really cool, intricate mailboxes. I've been experimenting with shutter speed and the macro mode, and there was interesting light and shadow there, so I took a bunch of pictures, and these are the best of the bunch. They're a bit moody, and as amateur as I am, this looks pretty darn good I think.

The HUUUGE versions (with exif data I spec) are up here:
http://www.wordpainter.net/stuff/photography/mailboxes/

The Waldo Ultimatum

2008-03-07T21:34:29Z

The Waldo Ultimatum - Watch more free videos

This is the greatest thing I've seen in two eons and even a deon.

WHY IS THE PLATE HUMPING THE FLOOR?!

2008-03-04T18:36:59Z

New TMNT Theme Song: You Vote

2008-03-04T17:30:44Z

4Kids is running a contest where you get to vote for the new TMNT theme.

http://www.4kids.tv/pickatheme

Please pick something that's not 2 or 3. 5 is my personal favorite, and if you don't care about TMNT, VOTE FOR THAT ONE. It actually sounds like a cartoon theme song. #4's actually kinda neat, in a Daft Punk kind of way... I don't know how well it would work as a theme though. The rest are pretty much either awful or just uninspired.

I think if either 2 or 3 are picked... the doomsday clock with advance forward a notch.

The Wire Series Finale: Sheeeeeeeit.

2008-03-03T16:34:38Z

(This should be a photo of McNulty really fed up, but as prevalent as that is in the show I couldn't find one.)

So, if you've been watching The Wire Season 5 On Demand (and if you haven't been watching The Wire, you should.), the series finale isn't going to be On Demand a week early like the rest of this season has been. (If you haven't seen it, go watch the trailer they put up - it's hilarious.)

We have to wait another week and watch it on the regular airing schedule like everyone else.

Sheeeeeeeit.

With this show, you hope everyone survives and there's a happy ending in rainbow fairy land because damnit they deserve it after the first four seasons, but you know it's never going to happen. I fully expect McNulty to die violently by the final frames.

Same as it ever was...

2008-02-29T09:37:25Z

So cute and so true:

They apparently made this machinima using this:

http://www.nhk.or.jp/strl/tvml/japanese/mini/index.html

Does anyone know anything more about this? An English resource, perhaps?

Doodles.

2008-02-21T12:43:23Z

I don't know which one of these is better. A friend of mine gave me a red line of some stuff, but. :|a

Castlevania: PoR Replacement Cover Rough

2008-02-18T10:47:36Z

So here, actual content!

I started working on this a week or two ago before I became deathly busy, and haven't had a chance to finalize it since. The real cover for this game was a big disappointment, quite honestly, so I wanted to come up with a more deserving cover using other artwork that was made available for this game later on.

The front is a promotional poster that came with the soundtrack that I did color correction on, and the back is really two pieces of art from the Japanese official homepage that I melded together into one.

MEDIUM VERSION
HUUUUUGE VERSION

I realized I should probably post it here to get some opinions. One thing I realize is the 'Portrait of Ruin' part of the logo doesn't pop very well on.. almost everything. So I should probably fix that. I break some of the design rules for coversheets here, like putting the logo at the bottom and the Konami logo at the top (when on the store shelf, the logo would be cut off, which is bad), but, it's my box, so, I can do that. :)

As a note, this is cropped to the bleed area. That is to say, the full version has the proper crop marks, so if you print it, you don't have white trim when you cut it out. This is a mistake a lot of custom cover people make when working on these things.

Be Kind, Rewind

2008-02-16T11:47:58Z

This looks like it could be the awesomest movie evar. Some people may stab me for saying that about a Jack Black movie, but damnit, so much chance for comedy, and he really is a funny dude.

Sorry for all the video posts, I'll post something worthwhile later. Been doing a lot of work lately, on a new strategy guide right now. I'll talk about that more later, too.

No Wonder Square-Enix sued them.

2008-02-13T14:07:17Z

I've seen everything. I've seen it all.

2008-02-04T10:48:11Z

Patrick Stewart on Extras. Absolutely hilarious, almost as hilarious as the Old Glory Insurance commercial with Sam Waterston.

House Superbowl Copy

2008-02-04T03:43:06Z

Man, the copy they used to promote House during the Superbowl seemed epically insane. Two seasons from now, I bet it's going to sound like this:

AS AN AILING ROBOT WITH BREAST CANCER LIES DYING ON THE MOON WHILE MUTATED BACON ZOMBIES BOMB HIS SECRET BUNKER WITH LASER BOMB DEATH LASERS, WILL TEAM HOUSE MANAGE TO SAVE THE ROBOT'S LIFE WITH ONLY TWO SALAD TONGS AND AN OLD BEATLES RECORD?