Wednesday, November 26, 2008

They're not the most flashy, but they do the job!

I've been playing Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts since it's release date. Funny that this game is cheap at $39.99, but then I also spent $20 in an S-Video cable because the text was unreadable on my SDTV (It makes such a difference), and another $30 on a Messenger Kit after I stressed out for days using the damn Xbox 360 controller to type blueprint and photo information! These purchases feel like such rubbish in the long run buy my gaming has been much more enjoyable! HUR HUR!

But anyway, I was asked by my friend Katzii on Xbox Live to offer some advice on vehicle-building for the game. Given what I DO know would be a TLDR, I decided to dig through my pile of 48 blueprints for some of my more used contraptions and explain what makes em tick!

Or fail!

By the way, I'm 100 jiggies into the game! HEEEYAH!
This is a slightly-modified version of a bike I made in the demo: The Rubbish Arrow. With just the arrow and seat, it runs ok. The addons made it a wobbly pile of junk. Either way you do it, it's best not to ride this thing up hills, hence why this is rubbish.



My first main vehicle here. The Strawberry-Banana. I have a wierd thing with naming things in video games. My Pokemon are named after my dead pets, my Harvest Moon/Viva Piñata sheep are named after Mexican foods, my Viva Piñata Horstachios after characters voice-acted by Dan Green, my Disgaea 1 soldiers are named after characters from Rareware games (except for my throwaway magic users who were named after condiments) and my Disgaea 2 soldiers are named after my original characters, it goes on. For BK:N/B, I decided out of nowhere to name all of my vehicles after dessert flavors, and Strawberry-Banana was born. This was a simple racer built from the Land Chasis 1 with some fuel jars, high-grip wheels, and an egg gun in case needed.

I used this for a lot of my earlier races and general driving around. The balloon is there became completely useless, but I didn't bother to get rid of it.



L.O.G KICK
This is merely the LOG pusher with a boot-in-box addon (two is pictured now but before there was just one, so this is actually LOG KICK 3.0). This simple modification has gotten me through many Jinjo Brawling/Hurling challenges with incredible ease. Just have it in your grasp and launch that kick to see that Jinjo fly!

Later challenges will require power upgrades, so just change the engine.

This vehicle also works well in the Stony Kickball challenge.


Water Polo
Lacks a real name because this was originally a throw-away vehicle assuming I'll never need it again after the Water Polo challenge at the Jiggoseum. This is a water version of the LOG KICK built from the Boat Chasis 2. Works the same way, but with extra space for the Jiggoseum's huge balls.



Strawberry-Banana 2.0
When the races get faster, you'll need a faster car. This one was upgraded to one medium engine and later on an extra small engine was added on. The balloon was replaced with the spec-o-spy to look for Jinjos, the Radio came from Jingaling's Bingo Hall and some blocks were altered to compact the car a bit.



Rubbish Delivery Service
Good for quickly hauling lots of small things around an island. Bad for lugging giant coconuts. Modified version was never saved because I found a better way to complete that challenge.



Hardcore Lime
Building this thing felt like an Xbox plane. Originally built from an Air Chasis 2, I needed something that would race to the air where I'd finally stop leeching and modifying LOG's Trainer Plane with more engines. Spec o Spy was added for above-ground jinjo searching, but otherwise, the back of this plane was so clunky and pointless. It felt like I was flying a garbage pile.

Still, it won me plenty of air races.



Hardcore Lime Bomber (Hardcore Lime 3.0)
Loaded with tons of weaponry to pop some patches on Mr. Patch. BAD IDEA as it was too heavy to fly decently and adding more engines, fuel and ammo just made this a larger pile of garbage.

It was after this that the my Hardcore Lime series was retired.




Strawberry-Banana 3.0
Faster! We need faster! AAAAH! TOO MUCH JUNK IN THE TRUNK!

With no more room to load on anymore power, The Strawberry-Banana series was also retired, but not before Strawberry-Banana Flyer (4.0) was developed to take to the air with folding wings. That was a failed upgrade.



Strawberry-Kiwi
Also built from the Air Chasis 1, I made this one as a lighter, faster alternative to the Hardcore Lime to be used specifically for races. I had just then got my first small Jet so that became the power source.

Speed is not a problem here at all. However, try racing through the LOGBOX 720 stage without crashing about in every manner possible over the course of five seconds.



Barbo Kenkiller 2
Pink, girly, and will fill your intestines with all manner of launchables. What?


I like Frozen Yogurt!
Folding wings allows this to convert from car to plane while grenade guns shoot targets, floaters give sailing access, and large box with rail add-ons for carrying extra large rubbish.

A 2.0 is in the works


Box O' Chocolates 2
It has clockwork Kaz bombers, homing torpedos, a laser, grenade guns, two small jets, one large jet, large engine, energy shield, many many fuel and ammo canisters, and two foldaway propellers to fly when needed. After I took that picture, I upgraded it to have a Spirit of Pants and replaced the floaters with more ammo crates.

Guaranteed to knock out some teeth.

Upgrades are also in the works.




Mixed Berry (1.0)
With the game beat and upgrades to all basic parts availible, it was time to create a new main. Now it's possible to create the compact car of my dreams without the weighdown of tetrising engines and fuel tanks that so slaughtered my Strawberry-Banana baby. This one was built completely from scratch by stacking together just the bare necessities: Seat, wheels, engine, fuel, folding wings, floaters, and Fulgore's Fist. A total of six blocks and four poles were used for cosmetic appeal while two L-poles held together small frontal propellers.

Unfortunately, racing is impossible on this vehicle since its excess speed and lack of weight will have me flung into the air at every tight corner and hill slope, so right now it's just an explorer vehicle.



Wings spurt out when you believe it can fly!

There's also not enough floaters to keep the car completely high and dry, but it serves it's purpose nonetheless!



Moral of Mishaps:
When building go-things in this game to serve a purpose, stick with what you absolutely need and use as little else as possible. If anything, you'll probably make fifty mods on any single vehicle until it runs absolutely perfect for a challenge. That's always been my case.


???

Fwarrgh!

No updates in nearly six months here? That's terrible! Huge slump is definitely one of them, but if there's anything I need to make posts of when I get back in gear is of the following:

Comic-Con 2008 and the portfolio crits I've endured
Crash: Mind over Mutant
Anything that looks like art that I seemed to have vomitted out over the last five months

And stuff I don't remember.

But today...

You'll see...

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

MASTER PLAN IS FAIL.


Okay, so the daily doodle thing didn't work out for very long after all! Annnnnd... well, pretty much NOTHING worked out this year so far when it comes to artwork. I have a few important things to draw when I get around to it, and then the Billy and Mandy comic needs to be continued. I.... will eventually work on that. When I can.

My homepage has a slight update where the pointless projects page has been replaced with a link to my new Tegaki Blog which is more of a hand-drawn version of this blog. I don't do any amazing things on it currently like I did a couple months ago, but it all comes down to the same reason why nothing ELSE has been worked on seriously.

I do have artwork to post, but most of it is junk and connected to a roleplay I started popping in at, which most of my later Tegaki entries have been relevant to. For the meanwhile, here's some Banjo-Threeie sketches done based on the rumores Rare posted on their website on April Fools day. I'm sure most Banjo fans already know which of the five rumors ended up as true!



Thursday, February 28, 2008

Moar Daily doodles

February 26, 27, 28, and 29th!




Monday, February 25, 2008

Klavier Gavin: Rock God Prosecutor!

Hay gays! I'm playing Apollo Justice: Ace Attourney!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A Scribble a Day

Originally it started on New Years day and i kept up in DeviantArt, but when February came along, life got so busy that I was behind by .... around 20 days.

But I'm starting again, and perhaps it's an awesome idea to post the pics here from now on! Let's see how long this can go on!

February 21-23
Sometimes I make Banjo so pretty! it becomes fun to overdo it!



Aaaand Falco Lombardi! Yup!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Anyone up for a Tea Party?


Explanatory sketch version.

BTW, I'm an aunt now! My big sister had a baby boy yesterday! <3


Ain't he precious?

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy Holidays!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Big Fat Sketch Post December 2007


Kirby Anime scribbles- drawn the morning after Dedede was announced for Brawl! Ahahaha!



Trying out some new eyes for the Evo gang. I dunno what to think!



That face is just awesome!


A very old character of mine gets a makeover. He made a background appearance near the end of Lost Resort, but who is he?


Deres head sketches and ANYONE can look good in Kamina's gAR glasses! Even Bottles and Mario!


Unfinished group sketch. I'm really likin Maurey's new glasses!

What you're looking at here is a panel sketch to my Chowder fancomic idea: "Roffle House". I'll keep this a mystery for now, too, but I plan to have a two-page trailer up on DeviantArse around Christmastime and the actual comic will come around Summer 2008 depending on how busy I am with other things.

Oh Grim! How i miss you!

Oh yes, "Billy Goes Shopping/Nergal Gets a Job" will be unhaitused around January 2008!

Drawing genova in different glasses has been fun this week!


Random square glasses, Truffles' glasses... Scoutmaster Lumpus' glasses are my favorites to try out! Maybe I should actually draw Scoutmaster Lumpus sometime! I've already drawn Truffles a few times!


"I'm onto you!"

Chowder and Fred Fredburger are awesome!



Oh wow!


More HiEx sketches. Mainly the hairstyles and a few things were tweaked around a bit. Bodie's not in here, though. He and Katrina have never needed appearance work (which is why Kat was barely worked on here)! how amazing is that?

Are those pills? Am I watching too much House to the point where it's influencing ideas into my stories?


Well. That's that! good night, everybody!

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Dictionary Words can Bite Me.

Apparantly I HAD to change my password at my account renewal and I totally didnt remember why! but anihoo, I have access to my webspace again! I'm fixing one subsite a day any day i get to work on it, so please pardon some further delays. I also have a new subsite planned so updates can keep cranking in!

The dust continues, but progress will be made!


Saturday, December 1, 2007

CHOWDER WANTS!



This was requested♥

Five years and still in Circly Circles!

Or close to it, anyway. I came across an old written document that described all the characters, towns, and ideas to my Evo project, and it dates back to December 2002 while the oldest artwork i could find dated to March of 2003. No worries on Chronological Details, but the project is close to five years in the making (while no progress has been completed to launch another comic). That's pretty awesome, though somewhat sad at the same time, since all I have is the pilot comic up for show.

But that's okay in the end. I hope to complete something amazing. At least amazing to me!

Anihoo, since tons of changes have been made to the stories of this series, I'm re-writing the outline document right now, under the advice of my pal Frankie/Chicobo329. I'm not reading the old one because I want to compare the two and I think some of my old ideas are stupid, anyway! All I know is that the 2002 premise of the story was FIRST about Azu being followed by a magician prince (Deres) reincarnated into a small boy, and the 2003 premise was about Azu and Prince Deres (as a teenager) being caught up in a war of magicks and the evolution of such powers. From the summer of 2005 onward, It was simplified to just follow the odd couple as Deres was sent on a scavenger hunt for spellcasting equipment (under the direction of an ex-pirate) and Azu follows him to leave the simplistic tribal life for something more. I was stumped from there for years. That's about it.

There were some ideas from the earliest incarnation that included a normal inn that attracted many NOT-NORMAL customers, a hero-wannabee that visited there, and a pie-delivery girl

Anihoo, here's some of that old 2003 artwork.



That in the lower left is the kid Deres I mentioned. People did like him a lot, so in later adaptations of my progress, I decided to throw in some childhood/flashback stories! I still plan to!

For early versions of Azu in this story, she actually WASN'T a tribal. There's actually a bit of an explanation for that which'll happen soon!
Some of you remember this guy, right
? Early Maurey sketch (formally "Mauriku" but it sounds too Japanese). Unlike Azu and Deres who underwent many changes, He today is still the same guy. A normal guy with no supernatural abilities who tinkers with small electronics. Back in the day, though, he had a tiny flying turtle mech that always followed him and done his work for him. This was based on a random scientist character I created back in 2001.

Maurey works at an inn that attracts wierdos and he delivers pies. More on him personally will come soon!

Oh boy! Azu!



The comic was started at LEAST four times before the true pilot got officialized. None of the previous story attempts made it past page 4.


Here's an attempt that had more of a major focus on the ex-pirate and his sister-assistant-who's-not-really-a-pirate in a flashback. He still has major importance to the story, and he has quite a background. In present day, he's a sorceror's apprentice. How and why, it'll come soon.




One of the last few pages I've made public. I really love the coloring style and the texture, but I could only pull it off in Painter 5 and with their lack of layers and inability to use the color picker on wet watercolors, it became too much work for me to fork out more pages all by myself.

Also, this next chapter of the comic has to bridge my old ideas from the pilot (which originally wasn't intended for the series in the first place but became a local hit) into the ideas I have for the rest of the series- and new designs.

And that's where I've been since summer. :)

Azu changed a lot over the years. But she was around before the EvoRelution project was even thought of- as an anthro bird-type thing for a Kirby Fancomic.

Her very first drawing was at an oekaki. My skills were very sad on the Oekaki. Still are.

The Azu in the old comic was much different. She was a lot more intelligent on everything there is to know- except food!