Tambra

Just a quick little upload of something I drew.

Uh... Happy New Year?

Long time no see. I hope this isn't too awkward for you.

It's been a fairly turbulent few months since the end of last year, and my creative output has suffered somewhat. I've been job-hunting and then job-finding and then double-job-working for a while. Now that I'm down to one regular-sized job (pictured above), I'm hoping to get back on with the creation of things.

This weekend I got back into working on TF:DE. As before, it is fairly near completion, so I very much hope to have it finished soon - if only because I want to start something new. It's driving me mad.

Ron the Sasquatch (Pictoplasma Missing Link Project submission)

Ron grew tired of foraging in the forests; he decided that he wanted a mobile phone and a Facebook account. He now rents a small studio apartment in the outskirts of Seattle. After discovering an unexpected talent for filing, he began working on a temporary basis at a local insurance company. His manager has implied that they may offer him a permanent position next year.

I feel as though I am getting to grips with pixel art now. I can see that there are some areas that I can improve upon (such as light/shadow and clothing creases), but I am hoping that this will come with practise.

Heroes' Guild game concept images

I've been a little blog-quiet recently. That is because I'm working on a new game and didn't really have any pretty pictures to show for it. I do have a lot of pieces of paper with notes and a growing prototype deck of cards.

Here are some concept images. I'm using the working title 'Heroes' Guild' and I have been describing it as 'Fantasy Bureaucracy'. Does that intrigue you? I'm aiming for it to have a feel roughly similar to Munchkin. I've already done some early playtests and tweaked a few things. Watch this space for more news.

The powers of Tony Blair

(YOU HAVE TO CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE THE ANIMATION)

Have you noticed that in video games (I guess mainly Japanese RPGs), heroes often get to summon historical figures to cause magical chaos upon their enemies? For example - The Knights of the Round in Final Fantasy VII or Ramses in the new Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.I figured - Why do we never get the chance to use the magical powers of recent figures? So here's a hero summoning Tony Blair to devastate his foes.

Score your day

Score your day! Who wins? Who loses? Who cares?
Feel free to print it off and let me know how you scored on a particular day.
I've been interested in meta-games recently. This is the beginnings of my foray into that area. There are some ideas that I hope to develop.

Thank you, computer

Sometimes it can lead to new, amazing experiences when you get something that you didn't ask for.

Honest grafitti

The Adventures of Millibland - Boy Prime Minister

Does anybody else think Ed Milliband looks like Beaker from the Muppets? I thought 'The Adventures of Millibland - Boy Prime Minister' would make a neat little comic. "Gee whiz Davey, that knife is pretty deep in your back there!"

Guardian g2 cover redesigns - after critique

These are the g2 cover redesigns from my previous post. After a bit of a critique I took on some suggestions and had a go at touching them up.
It was said that the cover involving the hamburger didn't evoke enough empathy. I would have liked to have taken an actual photo, but I didn't have the time. I made the above edit, which got a few laughs. The consensus was that this version is better. More "me", apparently.
The background of the original version of the Pulitzer cover didn't go down well, so I tried a more "hand-made" approach. To be honest, I think it confuses the cover. I prefered the original. Also, I pointed out that few people probably know what a Pulitzer medal looks like, so it was suggested that I label it. I think that takes away from the image.
The Andrew Rawnsley one, I'm still not sure of. The original didn't quite work, and neither does this version. I haven't been able to nail it down.

Guardian g2 cover redesigns

I know it's been a while since I've posted. I've been very busy recently with a couple of projects and the organisation of our show - SCATTER - which I shall write a post about soon.
These are a few redesigns of the g2 covers - Monday 22nd to Wednesday 24th February. These were each created within one day. A bit of pen and paper, a bit of Photoshop.

Benefits System The Game complete!

And here it is. All done and playable. There's no box because the idea is that it would be given away flat-packed with a newspaper, everything folds down to A4 or smaller, but could comfortably be scaled to a similar size. Given that I produced this at home, the quality is lower than a potential finshed product. I would think that it would be printed on higher quality, glossy card. Probably double-sided too, and maybe the Wages, Benefits and Events cards wouldn't all be hand-written. All 56 of them.
It plays just about as I planned. The games should average out to be fairly short, and it's nigh-on impossible for a Worker to win, which was kind of the point. Hopefully people would engage with the humour and take away an irritation with our benefits system.
Information Illustration? Let's hope so. I'll see what people say when they play it.

Benefits System The Game example Character Cards

It's all coming together now. Here are two of the Character Cards from Benefits System The Game. They show the special rules for Workers and Scroungers which, along with the other rules and cards, form my illustration of our benefits system.
I posted these character designs previously, so you know about those. I stuck with the hand-made feel for the designs of the cards. So far, the only thing that isn't hand drawn is the rule sheet. Although I did use Photoshop to colour everything.

Final board layout for Benefits System The Game

There we go, the final board layout. I've gone for a hand-drawn, cartoony overall feel. I think it matches the humour of the game. Most parts were individually hand-drawn, scanned in, coloured and then combined in Photoshop. I will be using the same character graphics on the character cards and player pieces.
So all that's left to do now is finish the rule booklet, character cards, player pieces, Fraud Investigator piece and Wages, Benefits and Events cards. Easy! I'd best crack on.

More sketchbook pages

As previous post.

Sketchbook pages

As implied, pages from my sketchbook. These are all from the same project.