Generic Update Post

So, we went to the Halifax Public Gardens and the Museum of Natural History yesterday, I have pictures but the camera is all the way on the other side of the room and I also have to go get started on supper in a minute. Luckily it was a nice day outside but sadly the Gardens hadn't really started to bloom yet and most of the trees were still leave-less. So yeah, pictures on the incoming, tomorrow or the next day.

Finished up Silent Hill 3 on Saturday. Looking back on it I enjoyed the game as a whole (except for a couple of enemies who are really annoying to deal with (Pendulums jump to mind)). Can't really comment on the ending because unlike most SH games, you get the same ending on the first time through regardless. It was harder then Silent Hill 2, or at least harder then I remember SH2 being. I actually messed up the second last boss fight so much that I hit the next area with no ammo and 5% hp. I explored for a bit, got as far as I could and died, so I loaded a previous save and redid the fight. Don't ever remember running out of ammo, or health for that matter in SH2. Anyway, moved on to Silent Hill 4, although I've actually already played through it, I'll probably go through it again, plus Dee likes to watch and she hasn't seen it yet.

Actually hoping to get Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance tonight, its been a while since I enjoyed a hack and slash rpg, plus co-op so I have high hopes.

And finally, was looking around at recently released Prog rock/metal albums and found a couple I like so maybe music review soon.

Dragon Sculpting

A couple of weeks ago, Dee (my fiancee) and I went to a place called Clay Cafe, they let you pick up (or make your own) clay objects to paint. It was our first time but we both picked dragons, which were probably the more complex things there.

Man did we underestimate how long this was going to take, and good thing we went early. The entire process, which was just painting took about 5+ hours for us to complete. As you can see, he's not all that big, or even complicated for that matter, but in order to get a decent coat of paint on, you have to paint and dry everything three times.

 First thing I got squared away was the base. I tried to go for a hot-rock look by brushing in some red, its there but not very noticeable.

Moved on to the base body and outer wings, around this time I figured out I was going to make him blue-teal and red  (I had been debating it the entire time, well debating what colors to make him)

The finished, pre-fired product actually turned out pretty decent. There were some dabbers to add like globs of paint, so I used it to again try and make the rock base look more like lava was pouring over it. In this state it looked decent, didn't quite make it to the final cut but it was a nice shot. You can't really see it here, nor in the next photo but his face didn't turn out very good. The reason being, I didn't put enough coats of paint on it, partially because I couldn't tell what I had painted and what I didn't and also because this was heading into the final hour of our 5 hour stretch, and frankly I was tired.

The final result! I was pretty pleased with how well it turned out, save the face. All in all we had a lot of fun and it wasn't too expensive, like ~25$ and that covered the clay base and the 5 hours we spent there using their paints and what not. Definitely an experience I would recommend trying out.

Guitarin'

I've been trying to get back into playing Guitar, on a level of skill I'd rate myself as extreme beginner. So far I've just been learning random part of video game themes, such as Lucca's theme from Chrono Trigger and the main theme from Super Metroid.

Guitar + Cat

On another note it also desperately needed new strings, which is why I haven't really tried to learn any chords or songs with chords in them. My E string is completely busted, A isn't in much better shape, so anything low sounds like garbage. When I had it restrung for the first time, the place I took it to really messed it up, its also has a floating bridge so its a jerk to tune. So needless to say its needs some work, which it will hopefully get on the little break I get between work and school.

If I learn anything new you'll be the first to know.

Exploration

Today my fiancee and I decided to go and explore behind our apartment building a bit. We live in a rural-esc part of Halifax so its not really dense city. There's a bit of forestry in the back and since Spring is starting to come upon us we figured there might be some wildlife to check out. Sadly all we could really find was some wood/pill bugs (idk what they're called exactly, they live under rocks and stuff). Will probably check back once its a bit more into spring.

One thing we did find was a The Game documentary, thought it was funny so snapped a picture of it.

I was hoping to find a hidden stash of bad movies buried under a tree stump, but alas.

Silent Hill 3

I played through Silent Hill 2 sometime last year, and while at the time I was no overly impressed with it (as it was pretty hyped), I often found myself thinking about it afterwards and it really grew on me. Shortly after getting through SH2 I started Silent Hill 3, got about 1.5 hours into and it stopped playing, I don't remember why but I did.

Two-ish days ago I picked it back up, for no particular reason. I was in the mood for something scary and current-gen games just don't scare me as much as SH2, or 3 for that matter do.

Wanted to throw a screenshot up but most are pretty gory and whatnot, but hell its a SH game. For anyone not familiar with the series, you spent practically all of your time wandering around in complete darkness (save a flash light that illuminates 1.5 feet in front of you). Scenery ranges from dark, dilapidated buildings to horror scared amusement parks. Often, once you spend some time in an area, you will black out and wind up on the other side of Silent Hill. Once that happens, the mood shifts from darkness, to blood and rust stained darkness. Monsters are more grotesque, every area is drenched in blood.

Its been a while since a game has actually put me on edge like a Silent Hill game does, hell I even get a sicking, sick feeling when I know that something that might just put me out of my misery is lurking around the corner.

Check it out =D

Lonely Blog

Three months of no updates? Blogging was just another thing I tried to do that wasn't video games that I ended up losing interest in. Mostly because no one is here, but also because time and stuff. I promised my fiancée that for every blog post that she makes I'll force one out in return so here goes.

But beyond video games I've also been pretty busy with work, I can't remember what I've posted on here before but I'm a Computer Engineering student, currently in my third year and on a work term right now, although its soon to be over (end of April), then its back to school so who knows maybe posts bitching about school and stuff.

But for now I wanted to talk about my job because I really love it there. I work for a small internet marketing company called Simplycast.com. Its a great work enviroment and everyday I enjoy going to work, I'm a PHP Developer. One of the things I really enjoyed about my entire co-op there (although this is my first co-op) is that they treat you like a real employee. I'm not being babysat or treated like some kid everyone has to put up with, I'm trusted to work on and deliver features for their live product, where if mistakes happen, it could potentially hurt clients.

Because of this I feel like I've gained a lot of real-world experience, also gotten better at programming but the project management skills and experience is what I'll really carry forward.

So yeah, in closing: great place to work, great people and work environment. I've had a lot of fun there, but everyday is still a new challenge. I'm hoping to go back next term if they'll take me.

The Family

As I mentioned yesterday, more on my cat (as well as the other members of my family). First off I live with my fiancee, we have a wide assortment of children, running from fury to scaly to smooth and boa-like. A pre-note, all our pets are named after characters from Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, its a great series you should really check it out.

First off is our son Fiddler, and Dee my fiancee hiding behind him. We've had him for a little under two years now, he's a pretty unique cat (but all cats are pretty insane anyway). He's a bit like a dog and misses me like crazy when I'm not around, he also has a habit of chewing on plastic or any cord that is remotely important (power cords or game controller cords for instance). He often wakes us up in the middle of the night by jumping on me or the bed, and also by chewing on something and then excitedly meowing at me when I grudgingly look at him. He also comes with the feature of rag-dolling the second you pick him up (you can kinda see that below). Anyway I love him to death (oh and her too). This first picture was taken with Dee's D90, the following with my P500 (no PP on the P500 shots).

Thil (Kathillion), our bearded dragon, she is the first reptile either of us have ever owned and our only female. Two years ago we built her a completely custom 4x2x2 enclosure, with a shelf, stairs, and lots of room. Sadly she spends most of her time lazing on the shelf and being fat. She is often cranky, featuring a darker beard and over-all complexion, but once you take her out for a little bit she brightens right up. She's sitting on the back of the couch right now, enjoying some time out and about.

Brood (Caladran Brood), a spider Ball Python, he was our first snake. Prior to meeting him I had never really been formally introduced to snakes, and even when we went to see the guy we were (at the time potentially) buying him off of, I was pretty iffy on the subject. Brood has the power to turn anyone who thinks of snakes as scary or dangerous and wrap them around his little (figurative) finger. He's scared or spooked by pretty much anything and will immediately ball up and hide, often using his own tail to cover his eyes so you can't see him. He'll make you want to protect him and teach him to not be afraid of the world. He's truly unique.

Pearl, on the left and, Anomander (Anomander Rake), on the right. We got both of them at the same time, this past October. I decided put both in the same post since they are the most recent additions. Pearl is a pastel Ball Python and Anomander is a red tail Boa, our first Boa as well. Neither are like their brother and are both very adventurous.

Catpaper

Hey, not a long post today, heading to sleep in a sec. I whipped this up earlier, mostly on my lunch break. Stock subject was my cat, Fiddler, more on him and the rest of the family tomorrow. Enjoy and Good Night!

Place Holder

Reviews to come, music most likely (Im a prog lover), also perahps tv/anime and movies if I see anything that I find interesting enough to share (or bad enough to rant about).

Brief History of Mitch Media

Hey, I felt like I should write up a little background on myself or this blog, so prepare for a bunch of text without any pictures or fun, at all. I've been playing around with digital media for a while now, I started using Flash when I was ~12. My computer at the time couldn't really run any games and I didn't really have any friends to hang out with, so I started hanging out on the internet. My first stop was Newgrounds.com, from there I picked up Flash and started drawing and animating. As you might as guess I wasn't all that great, raw drawing isn't my perticular talent. I had fun and eventually moved into flash game design. Being very young, I had no programming knowledge so all of my games were so crudely coding, looking back I wonder how I even got by and why I didn't pick up on what a variable was. For example instead of using a variable to log an enemies hp, I would create a hidden object that was told to "nextFrame" every time the enemies hp was to decrease, and on the fifth frame, it would go to a dieing animation or something. If this sounds overly complicated, it was. The simple way would be: hp--.

So after a couple amateur games (mostly shooters because then all the enemies could just be button (far less coding then anything else)), I got out of the world of Flash. Around this time I got hooked on Photoshop, I started making forum signatures for random people on the web, opened up places where I would take requests and try to fill them as quickly as possible. It eventually hit a point where I had some 20+ requests and eventually had to close shop because it was becoming far too time consuming for me to keep up with.

After taking a break for a bit I started trying to create more wall-paper orientated projects, and although I didn't make a whole lot, I'm pretty proud of what I was able to churn out.

Last summer, prior to moving (more on that in another post) I started work on Flood Commander, a game for Android. The demo is out on the market, but I'm not sure of the compatibility with most phones (developping for every kind of android phone is hell, I envy iPhone developers). The basic game mechanics are similar to FloodIt!, you have a grid of colors and every selection you make allows you to take over adjacent blocks. Thats the normal game, I aimed to take it a step further, and to add more strategy into the game, the demo features different terrain (bridges, walls) and also different weapons to allow you to hit not just adjacent blocks but also the ones behind them, and in other directs.
Sadly the development of my game has been put on hold until I can find the time, school takes a huge chunk of my spare time, and I thought that maybe on my work term I'd have more time to do stuff, but I'm barely home for 4 hours before I have to goto bed again.

Phew long post, if you bothered, thanks for reading.

Happy Infection

This background was half designed to be a wallpaper and half to be a t-shirt, sadly the t-shirt aspect of it never really took off, mostly due to the fact that anywhere online that I tried to have it printed and shipped to me always printed it way too small or way too low on the shirt itself (think stomach art). Mostly based on the flower you have to collect in Yoshi's Island () crossed with some sort of computer virus. Hope you like it.

After posting I can see that blogger puts a gross background around a transparent gif. Aw well.

Moonlit Night

One of my older works, one of the first I did primarily without relying on brush packs or random vectors. I followed a tutorial on DeviantArt to get the water to look nice (this one to be precise). Overall I was pretty satisfied with what it turned out like, it was simple but eye catching at the same time. I couldn't decide on a color so I made three variants, but I do prefer the purpler one.

First Post

Hey, first post here, might as well explain why I created this blog. Basically I just wanted somewhere I can keep all the random stuff I make, or photograph, and hell if people besides me are reading it then everything will be great. So I'll be uploading random digital artsy stuffs, photos and whatnot, posting about work and school and all that jazz (currently in my third year of computer engineering, and on my first work term working at SimplyCast.com).

Might as well start things rolling with something new, cooked this up earlier, a BioShock Infinite background that I made for my fiancée.

Really happy with how it turned out, almost looks official imo =] 

Stock credits:

Bioshock logo:

http://planetrenders.net/renders/albums/userpics/101697/BioShock_InfiniteLogo.png

The "Old Paper" texture

http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/?q=paper%20fire#/d1aed5s

The Fire
http://sampsonx.deviantart.com/art/Old-Paper-52606629?q=boost%3Apopular%20old%20paper&qo=2

Steampunk Machine Brush Pack

http://necrosensual-art.deviantart.com/art/Steampunk-machine-Brushes-77107548?q=boost%3Apopular%20in%3Aresources%2Fapplications%20steampunk&qo=3