After a week in Shanghai, things have been going really really well. I’m continuously pleased with the city and the friends I’ve already found at Juggling club. Today isn’t the best update in the world after I realized that my digital drawings are still back at home. So, while I wait to get back home to upload those, here are the missing sketches that I did during my late April black out.
Moving to shanghai
I have been pretty inactive for the last 2, nearly 3 weeks (egad, that’s nearly a whole month). After fidgeting over packing, shipping, and general life I have finally completed my move to Shanghai and gotten settled again. I’ve been continuing to draw, but that cycle has been rather disrupted. Now that internet is much less of a hurdle to upload, there will be some albums coming up.
Here’s the full album:
Travel
In the meantime, I want to come back to traveling and what’s needed. It should be noted that this is what I’ve got with me for Shanghai summer which could be considerably less. Much of what I’m bringing around with me is either going to get mailed back later, or handed off to friends or family. Part of the problem of this last move was a heavy checked bag. Was rather pricey to get it moved, but easily the path of least resistance when it came to getting things from point A to B. I managed to fit everything into a back and one large checked bag.
Easily the thing taking up the most space for me clothes, empty bags, and a sleeping bag. I’ve sent home nearly all cold wear (hat, gloves, coat, wool blanket, etc) in the hope opening up some space. I DEFINITELY managed that, but that space was almost immediately filled by empty suitcases, and other bags that I no longer have an actual need for. These also added a lot of unnecessary weight to an otherwise light load. There are also a few things such as stuffed animals and cups that just didn’t make their way into boxes to head home, so I’ll have to pick up on that the next time I’m able.
Clothes
I figure it’s worth noting that I pretty much was wearing 5 tshirts while flying in order to fit towel, jeans and whatever else into the backpack. That’s something that really points towards trying to see what I can do with less clothes. As I mention later on, there is a little more space I could probably squeeze out of the back pack, and to be fair if I didn’t have to deal with so many other bags and things I couldn’t mail, I’d be in a pretty good spot already as far as clothes are concerned.
Bags
I have to say, that I was quite impressed with the amount that I was able to get into my little backpack. I would have to wager a guess that it is probably around 25 and 28 liters if I had to make a random guess. Otherwise, the problem I have with is that it made more for hiking than anything else. The shoulder straps are great, and especially if you are going to be packing heavy, having a waist buckle really, really helps. What this means is that there are straps going everywhere and can whip people on trains, or get caught on doors. They also obviously pick you at as a tourist which for some could be a problem. The body of the bag has a kind of soft hourglass to it. This is especially frustrating when you are trying to pack and are unable to open the main compartment completely flat. If you are top loading the bag, and there is a bottle neck then your stuffing abilities will similarly be bottle necked. I imagine this is to allow fitting larger, heavier items down low, but.. it just doesn’t make sense for me at all. Otherwise, I could have fit even more inside the back pack.
What I Already Don’t Need
-Sleeping Bag
I already don’t need to be traveling with sleeping things. I’m learning that it is nice to have a sleeping bag around, but is definitely not a necessary item. If you know you are going to be heading somewhere with a couch, pillow, bed, and blankets then the only reason I can suggest a sleeping bag is because it is compact (ultra light hiking type) and you’re going to be in winter with horrible insulation.
– Camera
The longer that I use my nexus as a decent swap for my actual hand held digital camera, the more age difference are cropping up. Even with the advantages of a wider, larger viewing angle of the stand alone camera, the nexus easily captures images with a higher pixel density. Right now the only thing going for old camera is that it clearly is a better low light/night camera and also has more manual settings I can play with. Having a smartphone around, and not being anything more than a casual picture person, I haven’t yet felt like I needed something more. It’s definitely nice to have a real camera about, but time is starting to catch up to the ol’ girl.
Wires
This comes with drives, and the speakers I don’t really need to be bringing around with me. I need to have some sort of back up, but right now I’m juggling 3 of them, and that doesn’t need to happen.
And that does it for packing for a while. I’ve gotten way to into this and it’s time to get back to other projects and getting them up. Again, I apologize for the mini break, but I’m back again.
If I’ve done my job right, this should be a very short update. I’ve posted a few random pictures of my living space up until now, but nothing too detailed.
This week was finally, actually art filled. I’ve already thrown up a bonus comic. Here’s my current progress in the other Star Wars projects. I maaay have accidentally poured more time into reading through the Republic Commando’s novel series than I really had to this week, but I’ve been really enjoying it so far, and helps ground my Mandalorian kick.
Art Progress
I cleaned up this desktop from earlier. There’s still a number of obvious problems to work on but I finally felt that it was worth shelving for the time being. It’s in a good spot and I’m willing to say it’s 95% done.
I did not expect drawing the troopers to take so long, but mimicking the style has been harder than I previously tough. Not to mention it’s obvious that I’m still getting my head around some basic spatial navigating. This is one that I”m getting more and more into the longer I work on it. Hopefully next week I’ll have enough finished that I can take the translucent layer out and finally start seeing the near finish results. I could probably be moving twice as fast, except for the blaring truth that my methods are crap. The order that I’m trying to layer things, apply background/foreground, as well as lights/darks is obviously not efficient. Probably for the better, shows I’m learning something.
Chinese
Again, took a back seat. Have been figuring out how to properly maneuver my data plan to get the most out of my phone’s flash card abilities. That said, I did manage to correctly order things at both the Thai and sandwich shop I frequent, so there’s that.
Coming Down the Pipe
Coming this week are a number of apartment posts and discussion on light living and Nexus 5 talk. Like, an actual number. Not zero. Non-zero posts imminent. I also learned how to knit a bit! Nothing big, so I won’t say more about it. Once I’ve made something worth showing off I’ll drop it on.
Good Journey
This week I’m late because i couldn’t get over 4 kbs of internet speeds this weekend and was completely unable to load the site let alone post or upload pictures.
I got a little preoccupied this week packing and practicing with different methods of organization. By far, the best way to get an understanding of what you want out of your travel gear is simply trying to pack the hell out of your backpack. Consider your options, where you’ll be headed and then try packing it again without one or two things that you could maybe live without for a few weeks. If you really can’t, take heart that you can usually internet buy and replace it (unless you don’t want to muck with that. I definitely Understand that sentiment). When I left, I was able to fit everything into one large checked bag, and 2 carry-ons. I thought I had done a pretty good job considering the extra things I had to consider dropping into a city that likes to average -40F regularly in the winter. This caused me to bring my sleeping bag, wool blanket, and wool peacoat. All of which I got regular use out of except for the wool blanket. It so happens that if you have lots and lots of cold winters, you get pretty good at insulating buildings. There were times I had my window open at 20 below for the whole day just because it was a boiler in my room.
As far as unknown bedding goes, I know that with my clothes, sleeping bag, and blanket I can pretty much set down anywhere. Wool blanket/sleeping bag combo has already proved itself a very comfy combo through several winters. With luck, I’ll be able to use it in Shanghai during the fall. From what I’ve seen of Shanghai in the colder months, I think it’s actually colder to be inside.
So. Packing talk will ramp up as we get closer to dust off. As of now, I have a little over a month to get set up and head out.
April:
I wanted to start the first week off a little slower than in the past since I’ve obviously botched a number plans by taking on too much at once. This time I take my own advice and rather than jump right into my 1 hour of thing, I aimed for 30 minutes a day. That said, I was able to hit that goal. Good stuff.
Chinese
I know from practicing Japanese that I’m pretty good at reading. I can pick up characters rather fast. To build off of that and to keep the long range goal in mind, I found practice vocab for the HSK level 3 test. This is not the way I would recommend others take a stab at this, but I just needed to get started. And what that means is a vocab pool. One thing that I’ve got to agree with how we teach English at school is by going through nouns and numbers first. Once you have some of those, you can start verbing them. More importantly, you can make more practice sentences then if you are just drilling the verbs. So, even though this isn’t the best way to be doing things, I’m literally just going straight down the list and copying them onto paper in alphabetical order. I figure that’s not too exciting to look at.
What’s coming immediately down the pipe is my mini review about the Nexus 5. It’s been nearly an entire year since I first had a taste of a smartphone before having it all pulled back from me by region locks. I quickly mention this because this phone is going to be instrumental in my language learning. Off the top of my head I’ll be using Memrize, Duolingo, iTalki, and Anki as learning tools for bus rides and on waking up. Running around to get plans and this phone have been 2 other reasons why I’ve been a little slow, but this post is starting to sound like a lot of excuses, so let’s stop that immediately.
Drawing
Got a fair bit of drawing done this week. Making up a little from last week since the internet was bad then, too. I’m definitely finding that even now I’m still suffering from procrastination just to start. Once I get going, after about 15~20 minutes into the drawing is when I start getting into rhythm and can continue on for a few hours. This is especially the case with digital drawing. Right now, I still need to get it figured out so that I can work entirely from my pc laptop. As it is, the set up of connecting other computers, wires, clearing space just takes a few minutes, but it’s long enough that I can put it off for a few hours before getting ashamed of my self.
Obviously this is still a work in progress but I wanted to show work so far. It might be a little sad, but each of these images is about 3 hours apart. It took about 4 hours to get to the initial point you see in the first image. I really like where this one is going, and will be exploring it more in the future!
That wraps it up for this week. There’s been a lot of little things in the way but they were good for getting some actual writing done. I’ve already thrown up my minimal kitchen post and in the coming two weeks expect to see more of the same.
As is the usual, I got side slammed by a project that’s touched again on packing and general nomading. I can smell the day I’m able to travel about on 2 carry-on bags. This reality is getting closer every day. Currently, There are some obvious items that are taking up refuge in my checked luggage case. I think one of the biggest things that will determine just how little you’re able to bring around with you is if you know you are going to be cooking for yourself or eating out, and other general kitchen equipment. This stuff can take up a ton of space or none at all depending on your plans. Over the last month I’ve been slowly experimenting with how expensive eating out is in Harbin, and what tools I actually use in the kitchen. For comparison, here’s what I had last year soon after I dropped in with nothing.
I’m pretty sure I could pretty happily subsist off of just a few bowls. I really like having bowls. Bowl mugs are close to the ideal dish ware except for the obvious fact that it can’t be stacked. Right now, this is what I’d have to say is optimal for a single male who is eating out and cooking for himself about 60% of the time. It is also noteworthy that I don’t have too many visitors. However, if I did, I could pretty easily ask them to bring their own dishes if I wanted to be super scrooge. I go through absolutely everything here.
Kitchen List:
APPLIANCES
1 Electric Kettle: For me this is an absolute must. So. Much. Tea.
1 Toaster oven
1 Rice cooker
1 Microwave: It could be argued that you don’t need either a toaster oven or a microwave, but I’m going to include them for sanity. You can do so much with both and especially if you are living by yourself or just another person, these two things can completely rehaul what’s possible in your kitchen. I’m a huge fan of just throwing things in the toaster oven for a few hours and coming back to delicious.
Refrigerator/Freezer
SUGGESTIONS : I would highly suggest picking up a slow cooker or rice cooker. I have a rice cooker that came with the apartment which has been very helpful for no nonsense good tastes. Also, I have no idea what size my fridge is, but this is probably getting close to the smallest I’d ever want to be. I COULD maybe go smaller, but that would be a bit limiting, and require some more thinking.
COOKWARE
1 Chief’s knife: This is vital. Easily the most important thing
1 Paring knife (optional): I opt for this again to help limit cross contaminating things, but also because it’s better at some tasks than the chief’s knife
2 Cutting Mats: One for meats, one for veggies.
Some spoons just to stir things around with or taste test
3 Huge Tupperwares: For the weeks dinner/lunch. One should be glass and able to fit in a toaster oven so you can oven it up.
2 Medium Tupperwares: For the snack and storage
2 Spatulas: For flipping and moving things
1 Rubber Spatula
1 Prongs
1 Horizontally Set Vegetable Peeler
1 Wooden Spoon or Stirring Thing
1 Saucepan: This is just about the only thing I cook in.
1 Large-ish Glass Liquid Measuring Cup/Bowl: I don’t have one of these, but it would be a good thing to grab. Measures liquids, and since I’ve gotten into making coffee, it would be nice to have a place to put all the fresh brew rather than just having them sit in cups because I don’t have any one place to put it all at once. If I was setting up a home base, I’d definitely have one of these. Can also be just a big glass when not cooking.
1 Massive Soup Thing/Crockpot: Not quite sure what to call this other than a huge pot that you can put a lot of things in and get a soup or chili out of. This is great for liquid-y things as well as just having surface area at the bottom.
3 Large Serving Bowls: These should ideally be microwavable, and oven-able. Mine are not and I would love fore them to be able to do this.
1 or 2 Mixing Bowls: This probably should be distinct from your eating bowls unless you know something I don’t.
2 or 3 Mugs: I just mug it out. Love ’em, and I pound them with tea, coffee and whatever else every day. These I don’t mind having a few extra around because I enjoy making tea for people who drop by. I would be pretty happy with 2, but 3 or would be helpful if others were dropping by unexpected.
1 Coffee Press: Lately I’ve been trying to use some real coffees. Gotta say, this stuff is good.
Enough utensils to make you happy
SUGGESTIONS: As I’ve mentioned, probably don’t need too many different knives unless you’re cooking requires them pretty frequently. I’ve gotten pretty good at just eying things. It’s also worth mentioning that my meals usually are large, last for a while, and don’t require too much precision. If you are trying more delicate creations, this may not be an all encompassing list for you, but it is definitely good for the basics. I think If I had 1 or 2 medium/large sized woks I could get rid of just about all pans. Woks, in combo with the appliances I mentioned above would likely yield the most versatility. If I were aiming to be less mobile and settle down, I’d be giving cast iron pans a long hard look. Sadly, their weight has been a factor in not picking them up even when I have had the chance. If I could have stackable large mug/bowls, I’d be so pleased with myself.
Spices and Thangs
Some butter and olive oil. Maybe vegetable oil based on what you’re usually cooking.
Salt and black pepper
Cumin
Paprika
Basil
Rosemary
Oregano
Cinnamon
Chili powder
Garlic powder
Ginger
Italian spice mix
White/Brown sugar
Lemon Salt: If you’re super cool
SUGGESTIONS: Not much to say here. I find that I tend to live in the Italian spices. I’d probably add vanilla but I can’t find any local here. If you want your own herbs, I’ll leave you to decided what’s good/bad to have around. I get a lot of millage out of these.
ADDITIONAL ACCESSORIES
Dish soap
A sponge/scour pad
Steal wool
A place to put things to dry (I just put them down on a towel)
A towel to dry hands (could get away with one, but two is helpful to keep from cross contaminating everything).
An acceptable light source that doesn’t cast shadows over your work space
A place to cut things up
Knife sharpening rod
Paper towels
Plastic wrap
Maybe some ziplock bags: Storage and fun boiling experiments
Tupperwares
Storage jars or whatever
Now, that’s quite a long list for anything claiming to be “minimal” kitchen. Compared to some monster kitchens out there, this is pretty laughable. I mainly just cook in the sauce pan and use the chief’s knife to be completely honest. Right now there isn’t much reason to need anything else.
Internet is still pretty bad, so no pictures, but coming up is a small apartment tour now that things are settling down. Hilariously, this comes at the same time that I’m getting ready to move. Funny how those things just sort of fall into place. I hope you enjoyed my ramble and I hope you’ll stick around to see some more!
So Shcmoove
The streamlined minimal apartment is working. I’ve been able to keep a home workout routine, get a decent amount of drawing in, and as always, continue to make progress in my readings. This week was difficult to get in around, but at the least there are some note worthy items for this week.
Pictures imminent.
Books and Game Design
I managed to complete an online class (coursera.org) on gamification as well as get deep into some advance game design books. I’m glad I read the other books in the order I have because this would have been way over my head. A much denser read, but certainly a wonderfully detailed account of the structures necessary to game design and the underlying game mechanics for any other interested reader.
As I mentioned last time I’m making big headway in Martin Seligmen’s massive tome “Character Strengths and Virtues”. I only feel a massive regret that all of my college text could be this smooth to read. For a book primarily focused toward those already familiar with psychology’s history and theories in this area, I honestly feel like I’m rubbing my eyes with butter. This book is appropriately a joy to work through and does a fabulous job of displaying content matter.
For a specific example of game design practice, I tried introducing a new spur of the moment game with my classes. I teach kids ages 6 to 14 for referencing. I’m extremely lucky in that my school specifically focuses on playing games as an integral part of the lesson plan, and so I have a number of advantages others don’t. This last week I introduced “Sam Game”. The idea was to create a game that was quick to play, could scale in difficulty for my kids but was just as fun at all levels. A big thing I’ve been trying to work on is the idea of cooperation amongst my kids. I have honestly never seen such competitive kids for their age. Maybe it’s just their broken English that makes it all the worse, but wow. These kids will kill each other over a missed call if you let them. The set up for the game is simple. 2 kids from one “team” are on opposite sides of a circular target. The target usually has 2 zones. One of low points, and the small center zone which gives the most points. If I’m feeling mean, I will add another zone and the largest/easiest of which to hit results in the team dancing for our mutual enjoyment. Player A tosses a small ball to Player B. Player B is holding a large, stuffed dice and uses it to deflect the ball back at the target and get points. There is a small amount of danger to this game and any game that allows one kid the ability to pelt the other out of nowhere, however these chances are quite low for the personalities in my classes.
Drawing
Manged to sneak away and draw this week. I admit that I didn’t quite meet the hourly quota, but I was at least able to do something everyday. This is the more important stat for the week. This week I tried to draw as quickly as I could without many corrections. I wanted to see how much I had internalized the circles and lines I’ve been practicing this much. It is worth realizing that even though I spent a decent amount of time on these, that there are less than 100 face attempts here. This is something that needs reckoning with if I want to improve. Of course my drawings aren’t going to look better if there is only a difference of 8 attempts between weeks. This is one of the reasons that drawing quickly is so important. Even if I mess it up, it was another attempt. Progress comes from intensive practice over time and many, MANY screw ups. I am not working through my screw up phase nearly fast enough. Here are my speed attempts.
Chinese
No Chinese was accomplished this week. I was dumb : C
Upcoming: April Plans
Now that March is effectively over, it’s time to pick a new theme for April. I’ve decided that my efforts will be focused primarily on drawing and Chinese. These are two areas that I suspect will lend themselves well to actual study. The progress through either discipline is tangible, and once I get through the first two weeks I should start to get some decent reinforcement for being awesome.
There are a number of goals I have for April that are going to make it my busiest month ever. I need to get myself ready to leave for Shanghai and all that entails with paper work, being places, and making sure everything is on lock. That means traveling around Harbin and getting the pictures I’ve been meaning to to prove I’ve actually been here. So, let’s get the goals for April hammered out below:
Blog goals: At least 1 post a week with Sunday Success updates
Drawing Goals: Be able to quickly draw full human sketch ups. Produce at least 1000 face attempts. As a secondary goal, I have a number of half filled sketchbooks. It would be great if I could fill them up so I feel better about sending them home, or letting go of them so that I can subtract another book from my luggage.
Chinese: Be able to hold a 10 minute conversation with someone on italki, skype, or on the street without using English.
Travel goals: Substitute as many books as possible into ebook form and send physical books back home. Become a mobile wizard through creative use of cloud tools and mobile tech.
Reading: Continue to at least read 30 minutes everyday. I spend 2 hrs. on a bus every day so this is totally possible. Make progress through game design and positive psychology papers.
This week, we continued getting some hard reading in. Books that were destroyed:
Drive by Daniel H. Pink
The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin
Currently working on: Character Strengths and Virtues (CSV) by Martin Seligman
CSV is basically the DSM for positive psychology. It is a hefty tome, but I’m moving through it pretty steadily. I know this blog hasn’t been too spritely of late, but when you’re main objective for a month is reading and research, it can become difficult to make that sound more interesting than what it is. Pulling yourself out of books long enough to break them down into digestible posts can take more time away from reading than I’m willing. Chalk that one up for the learning curve of writing this blog.
Game Design Progress
The best I can really do is mention that I’ve been taking what I’ve been reading and trying to apply it to my classroom activities. I have had to do some tweaking, but I am getting closer to constant games. One of the best things I’ve done so far is take notice of what classes behave most like common player types and then to alter my default games/activities to match those impulses. It’s kind of neat to see how some classes absolutely respond, and others just don’t care. Right now I am still the weak link in these games as I am usually trying to be teaching and moving around the classroom rather than managing points, or feedback systems. This sometimes leads me into one of two traps. If the class is really engaged then I am too and we both tend to forget about the game. This results in them not seeing that their efforts are gaining progress. It also means that the classes were this happens more often than others might be stifled by the extrinsic rewards that my game offers and that I should be looking to encourage different rewards rather than outside forces. Another main point is competition. Some classes are very, very competitive while others visibly just look dejected when they have to participate in a non-zero sum game.
Something that I wanted to reaffirm was just how much your environment can alter your ability to focus and work through something. Over the last 2 weeks here in Harbin, we have jumped from being in the single digits F to about 60 degrees. The sun is out for nearly 3 hours longer than it used to be and the smog is slowly moving back to normal densely populated urban area level of air pollution. This has made cooking, cleaning, and all around emotions do a complete flip. At the beginning of this month I was doing a lot of soul searching and was on the verge of a few mini breakdowns a day. With the sun and temperature back on my side, it is absolutely astounding how much more I read. How much earlier I can get up. I don’t feel depressed nearly as much, and it’s harder to shake my default resting emotions for the worse. If I wasn’t moving to Shanghai in the coming weeks, I would be rather content to stay in Harbin, dust off with the thawing city, and actually do some exploring and speaking. The obvious response to this is “Well, what the hell have you been sitting on your hands for for the last half a year”? This is absolutely valid and something that I’ll have to take in stride. My Mandarin is aided by my Japanese kanji recognition, but to be completely honest, anyone could probably catch right up to my functional ability in about 2-3 hours of dedicated study. When I say Mandarin has been taking a back seat, I mean it’s been sitting on the moon slowly freezing to death. It’s embarrassing and is going to cost me big money when my bet rolls around in September if I don’t dig into it.
I’m dangerously close to a ramble at this point, but it’s also important. I’ve recently done a first drat packing. I am currently living about 50/50 out of my suitcases. It has pulled much of the unnecessary crap to surface as space fills up, or is waiting for specific in use items to retire. I am quite close to having everything I own just sprawled out on the floor where I can see it. This has streamlined the apartment down to bare practices and makes it look and feel like a place to get things done. Sadly, this can back fire. This week I wasted an hour in a near bare apartment box not going outside on a perfect to buy groceries because I was concerned about interacting with some of the locals and messing up my Chinese. These are people that I do have to regularly see to buy my produce. They know I’m awkward, and to be completely honest, bad case scenario I can complete purchases without any words at all. Things like this are the scourge of my being. There was no reason not to just get it out of the way and save myself an extra hour of time. On top of this it robbed me of my momentum. I was all stoked and ready to go hot off of one completed task and read to meet the next one. Then I let it die on me. This has been a reoccuring problem that seems to be associated with my preoccupation of having things be ‘just right’ before attempting something. Maybe it’s memorizing some phrases, or even just making triple sure that I’m going to be purchasing the most cost effective food for later recipes. It’s stupid-dumb, but it’s hard to get around. These are the times when having someone else around as a team member or roommate can be extremely useful. Just that little extra push.
Ok, that’s my mini rant on the environment as well as getting caught up on details rather than just jumping into something. It’s not ever that bad. Especially if you go into it knowing that you’re going to look silly. People like it when they see people trying. It’s like social butter.
Drawing
I got really into reading this week. Which is good, because that’s the theme of the month, but not the best for drawing. Some how, the internet seems to know this and has been so bad I can’t upload any images this week. They will be clumped into next week. Just as so, it was a pretty thin showing this week.
Mandarin
I did manage to get a little mandarin practice in this week. Here’s what I got:
1)我是英文老师.
wo3shi4 ying1wen2 lao3shi.
I’m an English language teacher.
2)昨天我去了学校并且教了英语.
zuo2tian wo3 qu4le xue2xiao4 bing4qie3 jiao4le ying1wen2.
Yesterday, I went to school and taught English.
3)我学生很好！
wo3 xue2sheng4 hen3 hao3!
My students were good!
4)虽然我上课很无聊但是学生还是继续听了
sui1ran4 wo3 sheng4ke hen3 wu2liao2 dan4shi xue2sheng4 huan2 shi ji4xu4 ting4le.
Although I was boring, the students continued to listen.
This week I got completely blind sided by a project. I have spent way over 10 hours on art and reading this week. I managed to read 2 books and have 2 more arts for you. Chinese is still taking a back seat for right now as I am slamming the books. Here’s why.
Shanghai, So-Flai
In 2 months, I’ll be moving to Shanghai to test out new and interesting opportunities. In order to do that, I need to continue reading lots, and lots. For those interested, here’s the books that I’ve read so far this month. I STRONGLY recommend picking these up at some point even you aren’t a fan of games. Game Feel is especially delightful, and dives into a deep analysis of what specifically makes some games so sticky as well as the underlying factors that contribute to flow.
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How TheyCan Change the World Jane McGonigal
Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Senation
Steve Swink
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
Jesse Schell
For The Win
Werback, Kevin, Hunter, Dan
Hard Contact
Karen Traviss
Triple ZeroKaren Traviss
Come the end of the week, I got hooked on Star Wars (again..) and have poured more than a few hours into just reading over Mandalorian culture/history. This has resulted in the themes for this week’s art. I was only able to complete 2 images to varying degrees, but I think they represent some of my best work so far. I absolutely felt as if I was able translate more of what I wanted to see on the screen than before. Certainly much faster than before. I don’t have too many progress photos because I got pretty into this. For the first image, I’m just trying to get reacquainted with the brushes and try a few new ones.
Here are the reference images I used.
MONDAY-TUESDAY: 2-3 HOURS
Clearly, there are some problems here. Nothing much to see here.
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY: 10 HOURS
I did not expect to get so caught up with this image. It just..kept..happening. There still is a lot to do especially over the torso, arm, and helmet. This is a great start though, and feels really good.
FINAL: 13+ HOURS
Cleaner, and the current form of the project. Some of the lighting and texture doesn’t quite make sense. There is still a lot to be done with the just about all parts, but the character’s left shoulder and arm look quite nice. Consistency is another area to work on. The way I show lighting isn’t doing the same thing when it should be.
Stepping Stones and Comfort Zones 