PixelHugger

I followed a link to this one-button helicopter game via Penny Arcade, and then followed another link to Pixelhugger, the author. Delightful pixel graphics! Very clean. Very retro 8-bit. Makes me happy, because the PIXEL ARTS ARE STILL ALIVE.

Discussion Forum News

The discussion forum continues to grow...whew! Right now, I'd call it something of a self-empowerment strategies discussion group, which is very cool. We have a few more public background stories available in the guest area; you'll have to join in to participate in the braoder discussion. It's been a fascinating blend of personal stories mixed with project and career ideas; the analogy that comes to mind is that it's like a raw version of Po Bronson's book What Should I Do With My Life, with a little bit of Gig : Americans Talk About Their Jobs. One happy difference from that book; this is an international crowd.

Some of the topics from the past week:

• 60-second Pitches -- I'm trying to figure out how to do them, and am posting them publically for all to heckle. I've never really gotten it smooth, but trying it in the context with a bunch of people who have to deal with the same issues (or imagining that) has been nice.

• Identifying Your Benefits for Others, So They Can Connect With You -- The question on my mind lately. It's related a bit to marketing, but also toward making connections in general that produce useful collaboration. It's marketing in the sense that you have to know what your benefits are, and how to portray them to someone else so they "get it". Remarkably hard.

• Creating a Revenue Stream Based on Writing -- Also on my mind, with great perspectives from other people. It might just help to talk about this stuff in general.

• The University -- I decided to make this private again, but I'm starting to post the groundwork for various "how do I do" topics of current interest. Right now I'm looking at actionscript and rich internet application development, seriously considering Flex or OpenLaszlo. There are tons of things I want to look into, but I'm very irked at the lack of clear documentation and workflow examples. So I might as well research my own.

There's been a lot of interesting discussion in the Background stories areas too as we get to know each other. I personally am finding it inspiring and thought-provoking, hopefully others are feeling the same way.

More next week!

The Animating Engineer

My cousin John is studying Electrical Engineering at UCLA, and for fun he makes games and animates. That's sort of like saying, "Noah once had to deal with a little rain"...John is a really talented animator and programmer.

He just showed me his latest opus, Shoo Fly, a one minute animated story about a girl chasing an annoying fly (I love the character design of the fly). It's not often I choose to watch a Flash animation frame-by-frame...but really, it's that fantastic. This original piece is astonishingly awesome. Although the soundtrack is not original, all the writing, direction, and character animation is 100% John. The editing alone is phenomenal; it's well above-average.

You may have seen John's acclaimed Final Fantasy A+ hit Newgrounds a couple years ago. Submitted as his final exam for Japanese class while still in high school, John also did all the voice work in Japanese for multiple characters, on top of creating the 10 minutes of Flash animation that recreated the world of Final Fantasy in an original and witty story.

Watch Brad Draw a Horse

Illustrator buddy Brad has uploaded a video of him drawing a horse on paper. It just takes him a couple minutes, and it's fascinating to watch. First there's a piece of paper, then there are some lines, and then suddenly there's a horse head smirking at you. Amazing.

Of course, it's entirely possible that Brad was drawing from the photo reference, shown here. I wonder if that makes it easier? :-)

Drinky Crow on Flight

I find the logic behind Mr. Crow's theory delightfully plausible and wonderful; I keep a copy of this on the wall for inspiration. The panel is from Tony Millionaire's twisted Victorian tale Sock Monkey. Another fine comic book introduced to me by my sister, years ago.

More on his website maakies.com.