Well, I'll find out soon.

My studio's first game, Drains, is done after almost 2 years. And it'll be to market in the next few days on Direct2Drive and Impulse. Now I just wait and see how the consumers react to such a product. Fingers crossed!

You can view the trailer here: [link]

My studio's already starting on the next game, we're applying everything we learned from the first game and applying it here. Should be interesting. Heh.

In the mean time, I have some free time! I don't have to work overtime everyday for a long while. So, gonna relax and do some art!

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've been on. Over the last year I've been super busy setting up my own game studio. Remember those concepts of a project called Drains? Well, I'm turning that from concept to the real thing!

It's been a fun and hard process, making a game from scratch and starting a real business are all harder than I would have liked, but it's also very rewarding when a problem gets solved or some effect finally comes together.

Now, we're a few month away from finishing up the game, it'll be released for PC sometimes during winter of 2010.

Oh yeah, to all the people that asked, yes, I will complete the Kim Possible College Years series, once I have some free time.

So, I've been working at Blue Fang for a month now. They're the ones who made Zoo Tycoon. We're making a Wii game right now. I'm actually one of the lucky ones, I found a job pretty much right away. I know a lot of people who've been laid off in the games industry. It's a pretty bad time right now since studios can't get credit financing so they're not hiring as much.

Anyway, hope everyone have a safe and happy holidays. I'll have a piece done before the year ends, maybe 2.

Oh, and if you have a PS3, like RPGs, and don't buy Valkyria Chronicles...you're part of the problem.

So the studio I worked at (Helixe) got closed down by THQ last week...even though we have always been (sometimes, very) profitable...so no idea exactly why. But now I'm readying my portfolio again and am pretty, what's the word, not busy. The thing I regret the most is that the game I was working on got canned. I can't name it since it's not announced, but personally, I thought it would have sold millions. Just goes to show that when corporate suits who don't understand games make decisions...everyone suffers.

Surprisingly, even in this economic climate, the job market in the game industry is actually quiet strong. So I don't think I'll have a problem finding a job before my severance pay ends.

Anyway, I haven't been on here for a while, 'cause I've been getting fat and lazy at home. Well, actually, just the lazy part. I think this jolt sorta woke me to the reality of always having an awesome-wowsome portfolio on standby. So I think from now on, I'll be producing a lot work while not working, both 2D and 3D.

Finally, WTH happened to this place, the layout's completely changed again! Oh yeah, Xam'd Lost Memories rocks, thank you Bones and Sony for spending money on this type of shows.

Just got back from New York, here are my impressions of the comic convention:

1. Way too many people. They need to set a limit there, sometimes, it was impossible to move around. The organization by some of the security and volunteers were horrible, I'm not going to use the word "incompetent" to describe them, but their efforts leave much to be desired.

2. With that out of the way, I can say it a fun experience. I got to see a lot of cool art and toys, as well as goto several panels which I'll discuss below.

3. I saw the premiere for the Code Geass English dub, they showed episodes 1 and 2. Whatever player they used had horrible quality, as the DVD froze half way through episode 2. As for the dub itself...it's not very good. The dub's filled with super high pitched voices you [sadly] associate with low budge American anime dubs. The thing I really didn't like was that Lelouch's and Zero's voices sounded pretty much the same, hopefully, that was due to the terrible audio setup for that panel.

4. The next panel I went to was the One Piece panel. They showed the dub for episode 4. I must say, I was very impressed by what they showed. I think all the voice actors are getting their roles down now. They said that they wanted to roll out 4 DVD packs a year, each pack being around 13 episodes long (depending on arc ending.)

5. After that, I pushed into the very crowed Avatar panel. This was no doubt the most crowed panel at the convention (other than the Star Wars one maybe). They showed the trailer for the second half of season 3 as well as clips from several episodes. I'm sure you can find these on Youtube by now as I saw many people with cameras/camera phones/video recorders taping the entire thing. It was indeed hilarious to see the creators bait the shippers with the trailer. They also hinted at much more to come for the Avatar universe after the series ends, including perhaps the story of Iroh through the Spirit World and what happened to his wife. They also hinted that they will resolve the situation of Zuko's mother in the second half of season 3.

6. Finally, the highlight for me was the English premiere for "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time." The dub was perfect. You may ask, what exactly, do I consider a perfect dub. Well, imo, Cowboy Bebop had a perfect dub, Whisper of the Heart had a perfect dub...etc. This dub did a great job in explaining what's going on through very natural dialogue, so I applaud the translation team and the dub team for their excellent work. The film will come out here on DVD and Bluray sometimes this year.  

7. Other than that, I caught pieces of the Narnia panel and the trailer for the Star Wars Clone War cg movie coming out this year. The Clone War movie looked really nice and dramatic, it wasn't all super high tech like Pixar films, but it had the Star Wars feel to it (lots of Star Wars cosplayers showed up). I missed the Walle panel 'cause me and my friend took a while to get through registration.   

I am going on Saturday if plans don't change. This has to be the best scheduled convention that I've ever been to. Here's my plan:

11am IGN Theater Disney: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and WALL•E
1pm 1E04 CODE GEASS
1pm 1E10-1E11 Spotlight on Orson Scott Card
2pm 1E03 One Piece: Behind the Scenes
3pm 1E10-1E11 Into the Inferno: Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender Finale
5pm 1E10-1E11 The Girl Who Leapt Through Time English premiere

Too awesome. Before and in between, I'll have time to walk around and check out the booth as well. If you're going and want to say hi, I'll be the Asian dude with the Nike shirt and Walle bag.

Also, the new anime season just started, and from the look of things, this has to be one of the best seasons EVER. Here are some of the top shows so far (not all have aired yet):

Code Geass R2
Macross Frontier
Kure-nai
Soul Eater
Allison and Lillia
Library War
Real Drive

Of course, there's the possibility that they all turn out craptastic by the end of the season, but who knows. Check 'em out!

Ya know, sometimes being lazy is fun. Like right now, I'm too lazy to continue typing what I wanted to type about being lazy.

I went to Anime Boston this year, it was pretty fun. I got to see a lot of cool cosplays and such. I went mostly for merchandise that were on sell there. A lot of that were insanely expensive...I think I'll stick with online. Anyone else went? I plan to go again next year.

I'm going to post 5 pieces of art this week. Starting with CY#6.

And dang it, I so very much dislike True Tears' ending (for those that watched that show.) Oh well. At least Code Geass R2's coming up this weekend.

Yay! Another year is here, at this rate, it won't be long until we have a cure for cancer, a solution for world poverty, and free nachos. Yeah, '07 went by really fast. Here's to everyone having an excellent year in 2008.

I saw a few films over the holidays:

I am Legend - Very entertaining. Will Smith is awesome. Some plot holes. SEE!
Charlie Wilson's War - Dramatic, realistic. A commentary on Iraq based on history. Hey, it's got Tom Hanks. SEE!
National Treasure: Book of Secrets - First movie recycled. Drags a bit. Not as exciting. WAIT FOR DVD/BR!
Alvin and the Chipmunks - Just NO. Go see Enchanted.

Now more Photoshop tips:

I'm still going to keep it to simple tips this time, next 2 times, we'll dive into using layers. If you have any questions here, ask and I'll answer (if I know the answer.) If you have any info to add, that's also welcome.

Tip 4 - You press "b" for brush. You can change the brush sizes with the "[" and "]" keys. This is very useful. Press "enter" to access opacity levels, press "tab" to scroll over to flow levels. you can change the levels with the middle mouse button or the up and down arrow keys. When in brush mode, if you press alt, it'll give you the color dropper and you can pick another color.

Tip 5 - The lasso and marquee tools, once you have a selected area, if you press alt, you will be able to subtract from that selection; if you press shift, you'll be able to add to the selection. This is especially useful. By pressing v (move tool) you'll be able to move the selection.

Tip 6 - This is one of the most useful knowledges of Photoshop and it'll save you a lot of time, so remember this. Once you have a selection by lasso or marquee, press "control t" to enter the transform node. In this mode, if you right click, you'll have the full option of the transform tool. This applies to path and layers as well (but I'll get into that when I get to them.) Once you have completed your transformation, double click in the selection area to rasterize it.

Tip 7 - Stepping back from tools, as a common note, you should try to use as much RAM as possible for Photoshop when possible. This will speed up the process quiet a bit as you'll never hit a hickup where you're out of RAM and the computer starts using the harddrive as the cache. Goto Edit > Preferences > Memory & Image Cache, here pick a percentage of total RAM that fits your computer (I use 75%). If you're running a quad-core with 4GB of RAM, ignore what I just typed. Still in preferences, goto Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks, make sure the first option is pointed at one of your drives that has ample space (3GB+).  

That's all for this time.

First, we just had around 15 inches of snow here in Boston over the last 4 days. Even having lived in Utah for 5 years, I have never seen that much precipitation in such a short time. Basically, my point in, snow is nice, until you're in college, then it becomes craptastic. Then, when you start working, snow becomes a hazard to your health.

Last Thursday, I was stuck in the studio until 9pm before deciding it's safe to go home (I had co-workers who took 6-8 hours to get home.) The drive home was slow, a 20 minute drive became an hour. That's ok though, I can live with slow traffic. Everything was hakuna until I arrived at the parking lot for the house...it was covered in 8 inches of snow with a huge wall of mush (from the snow clearing trucks) blocking the way. Observing that I had 4-wheel drive, I decided to ram that wall...bad idea. So, long story short, I spend a good part of another hour trying to get the damn car unstuck. Eventually, a neighbor let me park in her driveway. Moral of the story? We all need to drive tanks around here.

Now, I've had many people ask me about how to use Photoshop, so for the next several entries, I'll tell you a few tips of how I use the program. I have been using PS since 4.0, and I can tell you that there's no correct way of using it. You can get the same result with many different paths. But anyway, hope this will help some of you:

Tip 1 - Use Photoshop Help. Or press F1. If you have a question, it's in there most likely. I'm really surprised at the amount of people that just refuse to read the instructions (I'm looking at you).

Tip 2 - I like to press "F" when starting to work on an image. What this does is to make the image full screen. Press F again to get a black background, press it again to go back to original style. The reason full screen is helpful is that you get more space to work with; you get to work on the edges of the image much more easily; and you can press "space bar" to move the image by dragging the mouse.

Tip 3 - "Ctrl -/+" This is the hotkey for changing image size very quickly. "Control -" shrinks the image, "control +" enlarges it. The largest upscale size is 1600% in Photoshop. Try to use this in conjunction with the spacebar in full screen mode and you'll be able to easily navigate an image.

Anyway, that's all the tips for this time. Have a safe trip (if you're going on a trip) during the holidays!

There sure are a lot of cool stuff to watch and play this fall, I'm missing a lot but here are some I find very cool:

Gundam 00 - the new Gundam series is completely different, so far, from anything beforehand. It's based more on possible political structures and massive military actions on Earth over resources. After 8 eps, it's a gust of freshness after the Gundam Seeds. Rate: A

Avatar Day of the Black Sun - Like probably everyone else...hmm, I saw this a while ago. But it's actually showing up on tv today in the US at 8pm. So watch it. It's awesome wowsome. There are some faults if you analyze the details, but as a whole, it's one of the best animated battle sequences on television...ever. Rate: A+

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3) - Bar none, this is the best looking console game ever. It's one "holy !@#$" moment after another. If you like Indiana Jones...you'll love this game. There's a Jeep level where you'll probably spend more time staring at the gorgeous backgrounds than fighting actually enemies (and die). Rate: A

Call of Duty 4 (PS3/360) - A very cinematic experience, with very nice graphics as well. IMO, this is the best shooter of the year (unless UR3 is better) I really like the way the series is going. Rate: B+

Enchanted - What can I say, I was expecting coal (based on the trailer) and ended up with a diamond. This is a very funny film, the acting helped a lot in that. I think most if not all will enjoy this feature. Must see. Rate: A+

Ok, I'm tired of typing.

Is it me, or are all the good looking KP art now days has her dressed in very little cloth? Not that it's bad, I'm not judging. But did I miss the trend somewhere?

Also, the new voices for the English dub of One Piece...I *still* think they aren't very good. But at least they are passable enough now for me to play the games again (tries to shake the nightmare of voice dubbing that is One Piece: Grand Adventure.)

And for anyone else wondering, my avatar that says BnL is from the upcoming Pixar film Wall-e.

If you're wondering where the heck I've been for the last 8 month...well, getting a job and moving to Boston! On the way, I lost a harddrive, broke the tv, lost the computer desk, and broke the chair too on top of that (I picked a really bad moving company). I'm at THQ now working on Pixar licenses and other stuff. And yes, it's really getting cold here (low 50s).

Anyway, I've been pretty out of it as far as the net's concerned. I think I'm doing more art assets in one day at work than I did for 2 weeks at college; thus when I get home, I just say screw it and pop in a dvd, bluray, game, or go for a walk in the woods or by a lake (technically, more like a pond.) But, I'm getting into a flow again, so I'll be posting stuff here again.

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Now, I want to talk about Kim Possible season 4. I watched every episode when they aired. Overall, I'm a bit disappointed with how it turned out. I know the Disney suits forced the creators to take Ron back a thousands steps...but that doesn't change the fact that lot of the episodes in season 4 were dumb dumb dumb (I'm looking at you "Mathter and Fervent" and "Grande Size Me.") There were hits as well. Graduation was a terrific episode, setting up the movies very well(if they make any.)

I've followed the show since the beginning, it got me through some tough midnight last minute panics over papers and such. Great memories. I'm glad it went out with a bang.

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BTW, anyone with a PS3 that wants to be friends, my PSN is Zede05.

Oh, since I'm with THQ now, I've gotta pimp our games, Avatar The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth comes out on Oct 16th for the PS2, 360, Wii, and DS. Speaking of Avatar, I've posted a pencil piece here.  

Just a heads up, Kim Possible season 4's first episode "Ill Suited" is on Disney Channel.com: [link]

It'll be up until the 10th.

This episode is pretty nice, but I don't like the new intro. It's not as well edited as the original. Also, I find it funny that they left out the entire summer between the prom and the senior year to the imagination of the fanfic writers.

OK, info for Season 4, it's on Feb 10th, 8pmE, 7pmC on Disney Channel. You can see 3 promos so far below:

Promo 1: [link]
Promo 2: [link]
Promo 3: [link]

There's a 4th one, but it's not on Youtube yet.

Now if you're a Suzumiya Haruhi fan (or just like awesome animation), check out the new special ending from the DVD: [link]

Just want to say a happy new year to all and wish everyone great luck in 2007. I'll be done with my portfolio in 2 more weeks, so I hope I find a great great fun job. After my portfolio's done, I'll finally have time to do some fan art (hopefully). And I have a crapload to do.

I played this game for a while. It's really really really short (<1.5 hours). As in, don't buy this until it's $10 (or maybe $5). The graphics are of the first-gen-PS2 type of crappiness and the music is mediocre as well. The voices are nice though. As far as gameplay goes, it's similar to the GBA titles. Not my cup of tea. I want a real 3D KP adventure game.

30/100

Also beat Final Fantasy XII, now this game is terrific. The world is huge and the story for the most part is very intriguing. Yet, at the same time, I felt this FF lacked the wow moments (only one was the Star Wars-sh battle at the end, but that's FMV) prevalent in FFVI through X.

I thought Minaba did an excellent job in art direction though. The airship designs were some of the most original I've ever seen. The city of Arcadia also had a very authentic style.

91.5/100

I'm back! I've been doing an internship and working on my portfolio and doing some commissions for the last 4 month. Anyway, my plan for the last few month of this year is to find a job. I'm almost done with my portfolio, so I'll be mailing it out soon.

I failed to get a Playstation 3 pre-order last week because I woke up an hour too late. I guess I won't get one until next Spring when there's actual supply.

Everyone needs to go and get Valkyrie Profile Silmeria (if you have a PS2, if not, go buy a PS2 as well), it's the GOTY in my book. I've been listening to its soundtrack for a week now, very inspirational material.

I'll be working on fan art again as I finish up my portfolio, so look for more stuff here soon!

First, here's what I'm working on and how far they're completed:

- KP College Years #6 (70%)
- Ender's Game (30%)
- One Piece Franky (20%)
- Final Fantasy IX (70%)
- Nausicaa (10%)
- Original piece (10%)
- Original piece (5%)
- Original piece (10%)
- Original piece (20%)

Now, I'm trying to save up for a new $500 Wacom and the PS3, so I'm open to commissions. Contact me for details.

Finally, Darkwing and Talespin are coming to DVD on August 29th, that deserves a big booyah!

Due to some demand, I've uploaded all the old Kim Possible College Years drawings in high resolution; I was going to do that earlier, but I forgot. Granted, they're really only about 65% of the original .psd, but hey, I get to keep those.

Kim Possible College Years:

1. Part Time Jobs
2. Mission Mode
3. Friday Night Out
4. Buggy Economics
5. Shaolin Showdown

Since I'm graduating in August, I'm stuck around school with only 1 class left. But, it's summer, so I can't complain.

Speaking of summer, Dido's new album comes out June 3rd, 2006!!!! WOHOO!!! Hmm, in UK anyway...dunno about here.

Oh, WTH's Sony thinking marking the PS3 to $600? Do they really not care about consumers and regular people like us!? Are they completely based on profits and greed!? Why can't they just sell it for $400 loss and at $399 instead? Do it for the fans man! That said, I'll still be getting on within 6 month of launch. They had me at Dark Cloud 3. Better start saving.

Oh, there seems to be a Kim Possible game coming to the PS2 called Kim Possible: What's the Switch. Looks like crap though, hope it plays well.