Thought I had a good inspiration source for my DC3 module project. The old runes of the norse people, the Futhark. Each rune got some sort of meaning or symbolism. Also it's an alphabet, which is what the whole assignemt is supposed to be about (or vaugely connected to, from what I hear from the teachers).

Rune	UCS	Transliteration	IPA	Proto-Germanic name	Meaning
	ᚠ	f	/f/	*fehu	"wealth, cattle"
	ᚢ	u	/u(ː)/	?*ūruz	"aurochs" (or *ûram "water/slag"?)
	ᚦ	þ	/θ/, /ð/	?*þurisaz	"the god Thor, giant"
	ᚨ	a	/a(ː)/	*ansuz	"one of the Æsir (gods)"
	ᚱ	r	/r/	*raidō	"ride, journey"
	ᚲ	k	/k/	?*kaunan	"ulcer"? (or *kenaz "torch"?)
	ᚷ	g	/g/	*gebō	"gift"
	ᚹ	w	/w/	*wunjō	"joy"
	ᚺ ᚻ	h	/h/	*hagalaz	"hail" (the precipitation)
	ᚾ	n	/n/	*naudiz	"need"
	ᛁ	i	/i(ː)/	*īsaz	"ice"
	ᛃ	j	/j/	*jēra-	"year, good year, harvest"
	ᛇ	ï (or æ)	/æː/(?)	*ī(h)waz/*ei(h)waz	"yew-tree"
	ᛈ	p	/p/	?*perþ-	meaning unclear, perhaps "pear-tree".
	ᛉ	z	/z/	?*algiz	unclear, possibly "elk".
	ᛊ	s	/s/	*sōwilō	"Sun"
	ᛏ	t	/t/	*tīwaz/*teiwaz	"the god Tiwaz"
	ᛒ	b	/b/	*berkanan	"birch"
	ᛖ	e	/e(ː)/	*ehwaz	"horse"
	ᛗ	m	/m/	*mannaz	"Man"
	ᛚ	l	/l/	*laguz	"water, lake" (or possibly *laukaz "leek")
	ᛜ ᛝ	ŋ	/ŋ/	*ingwaz	"the god Ingwaz"
	ᛟ	o	/o(ː)/	*ōþila-/*ōþala-	"heritage, estate, possession"
	ᛞ	d	/d/	*dagaz	"day"

(Copypasted of Wikipedia, so the images gets the boot. I'm mostly putting it here so I can find it whenever.)


But given a second look, it's actually quite hard to put some visual ideas down to each. And so many damn trees! o_o

Also, there needs to be some secondary research here. I mean... Ulcer? Realy? But hey, I don't need to be compleatly accurate. And I'm shure as hell won't call Yngvi Ingwaz, or Tyr Tiwas.

Anywhooo... I'm falling a bit behind on this one as well. Work work.

RESEARCH!
I've been a bit sick and fallen behind on pretty much everything, but now I think that I've at least found out what the hell I want to research in my Studiopractice and Business course.

I think I really want to research what oppertunities there are for animators in Norway, and alternativly, Canada. I don't really know too well the companies and groups that do/need animation in Norway. The major game developer is of course FunCom, but they're not the only ones methinks. There are of course quite a few companies that do mostly comercials and other stuff, like Toxic etc. But I don't have a good overview of these companies, who they are, what they do and what they need.

Alternativly, there's Canada. I don't really know why. My family have had some connections to that country, for various reasons. But I have noticed that several animation companies and even designers I come across are in Canada (Corus Entertainment Inc, the makers of Ruby Gloom. Nitrogen Studios, who did the cinematics for God of War). It's also not to far away from the US, where we've got Disney and Pixar :). I just don't think I want to be living there. I find a nation so obsessed with guns and war a bit unnerving. Still, it's close enough to take a flight to ComiCon etc., stuff I always have wanted to visit.

I don't really see myself staying in England. The people are nice, but dunno...

I think I'll forgo the research towards directing and stuff. I'll probably do more of that in private, for my own little shorts and stuff. It's more of a hobby methinks.


..gotta run to CCA.

S.W.O.T

New site ain't up yet, so I put this here for now.



SWOT!
-------------------------------------
Abilities!


S(trength): Creative, team-player, realistic

W(eaknesses): Introvert, sometimes unfocused

O(pportunities): digging in to a good bit of work and honing my focus (like a ninja!)

T(hreats): swineflu? spontanious combustion? Tyler Durden? (dunno what to write here)



Skills!


S(trength): Animation, Cinematography

W(eaknesses): rendering, advanced rigging, other "technical stuff". Lack experience.

O(pportunities): learning different software packages, getting experience

T(hreats): going blind, breaking my hands



Interests!



S(trength): Interested in films, animations and games.

W(eaknesses): Don't like "the technical stuff".

O(pportunities): Meet people from the industry, people with experience and people with the same interests (Animex, SAS, various companies around here).

T(hreats): going blind



Values! (motivations)

S(trength): Watching animations, feedback from my peers, coca-cola

W(eaknesses): poor base ideas, indifferent people (apathy spawns apathy)

O(pportunities): Working with people in CCA, live close to my peers and easly ask for feedback

T(hreats): Self doubt :(



Personal Qualities!

S(trength): Honest, calm, team-player

W(eaknesses): honest, unfocused, unconfident

O(pportunities): personal projects is good for practicing focus

T(hreats): failing everything! misserably!



Preferred Lifestyle! (This is where I'm a bit lost, 'cus is dunno)


S(trength): To work in a company as an animator for film, tv-series or games. To make personal shortfilms that might be sent to festivals. Perhaps be a film director for an animated film some day.

W(eaknesses): Feel I need some sort of job security

O(pportunities): Getting a degree here might help me get a foot into the industry.

T(hreats): The economy. Mandatory military service. Explosions.

STARTING NEW WEBSITE!

so, just about every course I have wants me to make me a productionblog. And this blog was already getting a wee bit messy.

So I'm currently trying to buy projectsofdoom.com (which was a plan I had to begin with).

One.com however, isn't making it easy for me. But a friend of mine (Simen) have been using their services for a while, and they seem mostly okey.

It'll give me the oppertunity to make a bit more structured system for the many blogs, and also give me a future base for a portfolio, and for the webcomic I still haven't given up on.

Happy surfing

Haven't used this much colour sence kindergarden, I think.

S.ROSE.VOL2!

OHMYGOOOOOOOOOOD!
(this is my impersitanion of Troll 2 with good acting, but you can't tell)

http://www.slgcomic.com/PRESS-RELEASE-Serenity-Rose-Volume-2_df_500.html



must. have. the. AWESOME!

a while ago I rambled about not finding my favorite comicbook. That comicbook is Vol.1. This is Vol.2 and I WANTS IT!

To be fair, The entire Vol.2 (as far as I know) is published online for free. Which is awesome. I've been following it's process with big googly fanboy-eyes ever sence it started (by lucky coinkidink, I frequented his website in that timeperiod. My teacher had the class find art by people we admired).

But sometimes you need the awesome in your lap when you want to read some printed format. Aaron Alexovich is a great artist, whom with exeptional storytelling and a keen eye for details, have captured my eyeballs. (Mostly because my heart have already been captured by a certain socioligy student :3). The dude did conceptart and other stuff for Invader Zim, and his personal stuff is, in my opinion, even more awesome!

If you haven't read the Serenity Rose comics, I highly recomend you begin right now. Preferably by buying Vol.1 after reading the first part of it for free at his website; http://www.heartshapedskull.com/(All art is used under the "I'm-promoting-your-stuff-please-dont-sue" agreement. Aaron Alexovich; if you don't want me to use you art in my psychotic fan-boy rant, just tell me :) )

"bring along examples of your character work to the practicalsessions"... "please upload your work onto a BLOG, vimeo, youtube or similar"....

now where the hell have I put these things?



damn youtube cuts this one about a second at the end
Can't find anything else...

...uhmm, does this one qualify for character animation? one of my first animations with a rig :P


my gods, it's horrible -_-' :P

FYI, stars are a bitch to draw.

Think I'll start with the colour from here. Dunno really what kind of coulours I'll use for the dragon... The chinese horoscope-thingie says my lucky colours are black (yeah, I know, but it says so) gold (kickass), and green (wtf?). With the background I've chosen, and intend to keep, I can't make a black dragon. green is meh, but I'll use gold for the eyes.

I might have to revisit the highlights on the head, right now the wing drags much attention away from it.

Also, it turned quite humanoid at some point... but me likes it!

I desperatly need to update here. Not only to work against the habit of not posting, but because I want to. Now I'm sick, so small updates are better.

"Draw a coloured 2D image representing your European star sign or Chinese year sign"


Of course, I'm not done yet, but you get the picture. Needs to be done by friday.

Oh, and I'm in England now.

Already I have found someone asking "What's the greatest game of the decade?!"
My reply is simple:

Portal

In a decade of gaming ruled by the physics-engines, stands a small, well written, well excecuted, well F**KING TESTED game that created more hype and viral fallout than much else that have spawned these last 10 years. All this was achieved WITHOUT A SINGLE QUICK-TIME EVENT.

True, we still have a good 3 months left (if you start with 2k) before the celtic calendar throws in the towel.
And there have been much good gaming to be had in my lifetime, but in the end, each and every one of us will have some memories for what made each game awesome. My most awesome gaming experience since Zelda:OoT, is Portal. There will be a lot back and forth what is the greatest game of the decade. Morrowind and Oblivion, Rome: Total War, Halo, Super Mario Galaxy, BioShock, WarCraft3, Zelda: Twilight Princess, GTA VI and NeverwinterNights. There are a lot of fantastic games, of different genres, of different times, themes and styles.

I will live to be very old, without forgetting any one of these great games. But I will still twitch a little, whenever I see a birthday cake...


What is your game of the decade?

I know, the perspective is horribly wrong on the left shoulder. What's really sad is that I did the top scetch less than a year ago -_-'

I've bearly put pen to paper the past weeks -_-' shame on me!

I was at GranittRock on friday, it was awesome. Saw Satyricon, or most of them anyways. I never saw the drummer, he was well hidden behind the smokemachine (I think I saw a cymbal move at some point). Also heard some happy-techno-rock-thingie. It was nice, though a bit unrefined. But the reason my girlfriend pull me with her (I'm not really a stand-in-a-shouting-crowd person), was Kaizers Orchestra. Who knew gipsy-rock could be so awesome? Also, dude in gassmask playing piano praying-mantis style was fun.

I can't imagine how horrible it must be to play through a show with that over your head, but it looked cool. I made a mess of the colour, and I had too much fun with my PS tools, but at least I did something. :)

I recomend listening to some of their music. They're a fantastic live-band, but their songs are a lot of fun as recordings too. And like most bands, the lyrics are a bit more comprehensible without the shouting crowd surrounding you.

Det står et bord midt på golvet
på bordet en revolver
på den står det Made in HongKong

:)

so yeah, I moved the two buildings in the background, and where the main characters are sitting on the fountain/statue. you can't see everything here yet, but I think it'll be good.

The statue wing (yes, it's a bitch to draw, and I need some of a second one) takes a lot of focus now. But I'm gonna lower the contrast a bit on it before I start colouring and shading (dear god, what have I've gotten myself into), and the colour will be gray. So the end result shouldn't be as chaotic and absorbing as it is now. I hope it will pull the eye from the almost empty sky in the finnished result, though. And the characters should be framed nice under both statue and church.

Large plans, we'll see if anything turns out the way I hope. I think it's worth a shot.

I was bored.

So here's my webcomic!


Can't read it? Too bad. You're not supposed to. (serriously, if you can read this, tell me)

9 pieces broken down to 6 or 7 parts. As I might have mentioned, I did this for pacing. There's really not much story in this, and nothing written in stone. It's just the main plotpoints, places where I want certain development in story or characters, and some of the nifty details I want included in the story. Also, you might notice some underlined text right next to the "Chapter numbers". It's the main theme, message or feel I want for that part of the story.

The only thing I suspect you guys can read, is the 5th line in part 9. A bit corny, I know, but it's a fantasy story. Although not an fantasy epic, I still want a decent finale.

Right now I'm trying to convert an old scetch of mine, from the same project, into a finnished piece.


FYI: convertion have not begun yet. this is pretty much the original scetch. Its only objective was to figure out just how much background detail I wanted in the comic. As you can see, I'm aiming high. (And here are the characters: http://www.simensasylum.com/ithos/the3.jpg )

I love the angle, never been the kind of artist that worries to much about correct perspective. But that only makes a lot of stuff more hard to draw. I'm gonna try not to worry too much about anatomy (I'll have to develop a personal standard for this project anyways). I'm still a bit uncertain about the composition. Should I move the fountain a bit? The church? I'm really found of my 2:3 canvas, but should I make it wider so that the fountain ends up more between the buildings?

Bah, I'll never get it right anyways. I'm a angsty, angsty artist. I just have to do my best.

IT'S A GOOD DAY TO DIIIEE!!!

And lo! He returned to the dark corners of the internets!

Yes, I'm home. Managed to survive my trip to denmark. Got home early this morning.
Been browsing the internets after that. And animooting.

http://www.simensasylum.com/ithos/warlockwalkfin.swf


It's supposed to be 400x300ish but it will show whatever the size your browser is. make it smaller for smoother run and less vomitworthy visuals.

So I really, REALLY need to learn the ToonBoom software properly. Need to find my tweening tools. As you can see I made an halfassed attempt to do the floortiles and torchholder-thingies on my own. What a mess. A workheavy, uneeded and ugly mess.

Character is my good ol' OC, "The Little Warlock" (who is still female, despite the title...)Old drawring is oooooold =^_^=
I have missed drawing something with her. True, after drawing her 20 times in a row now, it dampens the urge, but I think I'm gonna use her a bit during animationpractice, so you'll probably see more.

I'm in Denmark. The hotel computer is really old, and slower than darwinistic evolution. Gotta love the sounds of old keyboard-keys tho. Creates some nostalgia and brings back memories of old PC games. Miles away from my Wacom, and no scanner in sight, there's no scetches for you anytime soon. Haven't drawn anything on the trip anyways. Drawring and reading while driving is generally a bad idea. Only scribbled down some notes on my comic-project. I'm trying to set the pacing of the plot before writing it. Should apprehend long and angsty storyarcs, and make editing the plot later, easier. Or that's the theory, anyways.

Thus far, it's been mostly radiolistening, daydreaming, stopping here and there to be tourist or doing some reading. I got hold of the fat book collecting the Rainbow Six serries (or most of them methinks). So far, it seems alright. Got a Warhammer 40k novel and plenty of paper to draw on, should the spooks get boring.

Sweedish Radio Bandit was awesome. Or at least, from the Norwegian boarder and to Göteborg. They played some good stuff, ACDC, Metallica, some old classics of Guns & Roses, Iron Maiden, the good rock from the 80's, and a less whimpy title from Nickleback that renewed my view of the artist. I even heard some Disturbed before the signal gave out. Once in Göteborg however, Bandit radiowaves was changed with the local flavour of the same company. They still called themselves Bandit, but was clearly hit by a pussyfication-ray at some point. Angsty emo-rock, female artist who call their music rock because of daddy-issiues or because no other genre will claim them, mixes of the two and downhill from there. True, still no rap and such nonsense, but despite Dream Evils lyrics in "No Way", rock and roll DID die. Or at least, it felt like it. "Fairytale" by Rybakk is NOT, under ANY curcomstances, Rock. My father claim we have a Bandit radio-channel at home too, but from what I can remember from Norwegian radio, they must have the Göteborg-syndrome.

Finaly got some much needed e-mails from Teesside, regarding accomodation. Should have a chance to fiddle a bit with that stuph while I'm here. Tomorrow, perhaps. Sooner than later.

I miss my girlfriend. All the way over in Thailand, she be. Danish beach-girls and blond sweedish jailbait just isn't a fraction as interesting when you got someone you like. Miss you a lot, kitteh.


Will write more later-ish.
Happy surfing.

"Would you like a shave, sir? Closest shave you ever had..."
Me as Sweeny Todd. Just saw the movie. I do love a happy ending =^_^=

so the whole "scetch-a-day" thing got fux0rd. whatever. Now I just draw.
draw draw draw

I'm playing a lot of Dawn of War II now. It's awesome. Unlike most RTS-games it doesn't focus on buildings. It's more focused on fighting the right enemy with the right weapon, although it will get better at this. in competetive gaming right now, it's a bit of a grief-favoring tech-race. but I usually don't play PVP anyways, and there's a large patch coming soon this summer. still, even now, it's not your average "chose the right buildorder=win" RTS. units have very spesific roles, and things got counters.

I highly recommend it.

happy surfing

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/499082
I can't this out of my of my head, so I kept humming while I was watering the plants. My neighbors probably think I'm insane. I'm cool with that.

Yesterday, I had a Buffy;TheVampireSlayer-marathon with my sister. All friggin day. So no scetch then. Also I already were behind with one, so I have 2 more to do today.

First I'm going to work out, though. So I'll update this later today.

EDIT#1;



I think this might be the cutest comic I've ever drawn. When I play Pyro in TF2, I sometimes come down with what I call "Medic Syndrome". An unhealthy urge to support one single teammate. This isn't really the best tactic, you should support all your teammates to gain advantige. And yet, usually Medics tend to prioretize heavys, and in my case, I usually find a single engie somewhere and, well... I think it's like parental instinct or something. I find myself protecting this single engie and its contraptions from enemys and spies, without a care for if the other teammates might need me.

also, I think I've covered most of the worst ways to render fire...

EDIT#2;



pisspoor rendering of the TF2-tan sniper. Lets pretend I managed to upload this 4 minutes earlier, huh?

one to do, but might not be much updating today, I'm expecting company. But first, I sleep.

Happy surfing