My friend Andy has also left Rare this week. We worked together for over 11 years, making Banjo-Tooie, Ghoulies, and Viva Pinata. You've never met anyone who can build 3D models faster than Andy. Fact.
Andrew Pollington - Showreel 2011 from Andrew Pollington on Vimeo.
I have been quite for such a long, long time, and this is why. The Three Little Pigs is to be published by Nosy Crow on the 17th February, if everything with Apple goes according to plan.
An exciting time, and a sad time too, as I have decided to move on from Rare which has been my home for the last 15 years and devote myself full time to building apps for children. A very difficult decision to make, but I am extremely excitied about getting back to drawing, colouring, animating, and all that other stuff. It's going to be fun.
Sick and tired of woodchip?
Had enough of floral prints?
Don't want anything more to do with Anaglypta?
Then you need these really rather cool wall decals from Blik. My fave is this one - Asteroids, followed closely by Donkey Kong. When I final manage to redecorate the study/studio I might have to pay Blik a visit.
We like books in our house. We probably like them too much (if you can ever do that?) We have lots of new books, and lots and lots of old books.
A favourite new book of mine, that I picked up last year, is this one. A book about books. Well, typesetting books anyway. 'Book Typography, a designer's manual' was fisrt publish in 2005, and is a must for anyone who is interested in how to design a good book.
As you'd expect it is beautifully laid out and a pleasure to read ... even if it's not everyone's cup of tea. As someone who has quite a fondness for books, type, and such like, this tome has been a great introduction to the dark secrets of typesetting.
A great many of our old books are children's books. I'll show you a fine example after the break ...
'Modern Tales and Fables' was first published in 1967, and this edition is from 1969. All the illustrations are by Vaclav Sivko, and the stories are by several Czechoslovakian authors. The stories cover all manner of subjects, and are very different from the usual tales we grew up with, which makes a nice change.
One of the endpapers.
From 'A Strange Top Hat and an Even Stranger Zoo'
Here's a much bigger version of the forest. I've made a few more trees, and changed the palette quite a bit. Not so imposing now.
An interactive installation from lab212. A very cool and very colourful idea.
A very early go at a outside scene. I'm still working out how I want the ground to look, how I want the trees to look, etc, but think I've kind of got the direction I'm after.
Now I just need to do it full size!
If you haven't already seen this, then I suggest you have a play of 'Windosill' by Vectorpark. Windosill is a game where you have to guide the little toy train through the door on the right of the screen. The problem is the door is looked, and to unlock the door requires you to find the little cube in the scene and place it in the hole above the door.
The beautifully visuals are 3D but rendered in a very flat fashion which only adds to the charm of this game. On top of that, the animation and interactive bits are just wonderful. Go and have a play!
It's time for the youngest members of the Bacon family to leave home, and make the way in the world. Wish them luck ...'cos Mr Wolf looks peckish!
And see that little picture of the house and the trees? Gabrielle's work, no less!
Playe Super Mario Bros. street style with this great video from Surfap.
Super Mario Bros. from Surfap on Vimeo.
Yes, I know it's been a month. Yes, I know I'm rubbish at this blogging lark.
Anyway, I have been very busy, and my house has a roof made from blue plastic sheets, although that's probably not a legitamate excuse for not even managing a single post ...So to try and make it up, here is a recent page of doodles from my sketchbook.
I found this doodle sitting on top of the scanner this evening. Hey, I thought, I know, I'll colour him in. So I did. Why not pop over to Flickr to check out his song ...
This is a bit fancy, eh? Old school sprites invade New York. Super!
The Hoof & The Heel - "King Finds Out" from elliot glass on Vimeo.
I had to put this up. Such a great song. Their EP 'And All the Tigers' is available from iTunes, so why not have a listen?
Happy Easter everyone! Only a couple of eggs for the boys today. The main event is tomorrow with the folks. We did manage to have an extremely tasty roast lunch though. Yum, yum!
Here's that sneaky troll Spigby. I think I caught him just in time. Naughty boy.
I drew this little fellow a few days back, but couldn't think of anything for him to say. So I went begging to my Flickr friends for help. So thanks to @rewedagain and @pikaland, Mr turkey has been spared the roasting tin with his quick wits and a little misdirection. For now.
This weekends efforts. The boys have a great old version of The Three Little Pigs, and I thought that would be a fun story to draw.
The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.
This is the most amazing film I've seen for a while. Just imagine how much work must have gone into building the entire city of New York in miniture. And then animating it all. Wow!
What do you mean it's real? You say it's all been filmed with a fancy camera? It wasn't? To find out how it was done, why not head over to Aero Film and be inspired ...
Such a long time between updates! But at last, a new illustration.
I've tried to mix my different styles together a little; so I've got the more painted, cutey look from my earlier work and blended it with the more sketchy stuff I've done recently. I hope you like it.
Here is a video of a new Nintendo DSi game called, I think, Rittai Kakushi e Attakoreda (Hidden 3D Image: There It Is!). The built in camera tracks the players head and so as you tilt the machine the view changes. The result is incredible. Clever stuff.
Nosy Crow is a new, independent publisher of Children's books, and in a exciting move they are also going to be developing apps too.
As someone who makes videogames for my day job, I see a great opportunity to get great stories, engaging characters and magical worlds in front of many adults and children by embracing these new toys.
A straight forward thing to do is to produce an animated version of the book such as Guess How Much I Love You which you could download straight to your mobile/iPod for 59p.
There is a opportunity to take children’s stories and bring them to life and add further depth to them by giving children the chance to take a role within the story and take on the choices and challenges that many a protagonist face. A good example of a puzzle game derived from a children’s story is ‘Gretel and Hansel’. The game itself is perhaps aimed at older children and adults, however the art style and simple nature of the gameplay illustrates what you can do with a story as your starting point – I’m sure I could make a pretty fun ‘Gruffalo’ game if Julia Donaldson let me :)
Another approach is to expand the universe within which the story takes place. My children have those beautiful flash cards designed by Eric Carle. I could animate the characters, add music and SFX, add a simple game mechanic that allows children to spell the names of the animals and I’ve got a flash card iPhone app which I’m able to push towards 37 million owners, at 59p a pop. What about a Mr Men advent calendar app which reveals a new character every day during December? Or a Cat-in-the-Hat jigsaw puzzle app?
What about episodic content? You can release chapter 1-5 for free, get your readers hooked then a couple of months later out comes chapters 6-10 for 59p. What about talking with your readers and use them to shape the stories as they develop. What about letting your characters live outside the book, with Twitter and Facebook? Attract your readers and keep them coming back. Brilliant.
Also there is a real opportunity for those who are currently unpublished, as the cost to develop for iPhone is cheap ( compared to Nintendo/Sony/MS) - £500 for a Mac Mini, and about £100 to join Apple’s development program. Here is a real chance for small independent publishers give the big boys a run for their money and reach a massive audience with many more stories.
Like I’ve said, this is pretty exciting stuff.
Here's the TV ad for Viva Pinata. A great game don't you know! Especially those trees ...
Cheesy I know. Well, not so much cheesy as chickeny. Friday evening was homemade chicken pie for dinner. So a quick snap with the camera and a quick doodle and I've got a got myself an appropriate picture for Valentines day! Saves me a fortune on all those cards and roses etc...
I'm going to try to draw a new doodle everyday. Might prove too much, given work, the wife, the children, the writing, the washing up, the ironing, Silent Whitness, and everything else the requires my attention in the evenings. Anyway, this is today's effort...
Ah man, that is just beyond cool.