Rhythos RPG Builder Launched!

Yesterday, we launched our first Kickstarter campaign! Rhythos RPG Builder will be a free, open source game builder that will feature the awesome art, music and battle system of Rhythos Arcade BETA, David's April "One Game a Month"! It will also have a lot of other cool features and be really easy to use and flexible.

My involvement with the project has been fairly small since it mainly requires programming work, which I am useless at. However, I did have a really good time designing the Rhythos magician mascot and logo!

My initial sketch/idea:

I knew I wanted an action-filled pose that would be exciting, as well as an open book to indicate the "open source" nature of the project. We also wanted to somehow show the rhythm/music side of the project since Rhythos Arcade is a music-based battle system. Since we knew the character was a magician, we thought a staff would fit, and decided to do a subtle visual pun by making her staff into a "treble staff" :P

Here's the final character:

A close-up because that image is huge:

Aaand, the full logo:

I was fairly pleased with how this came out, although the character's right foot (the one on the ground) continues to boggle me and look weird, despite many re-dos and fixes. However, I am glad I was able to get a more motion-filled pose happening with decent success, since I'm usually drawing more static characters.

Here's another image I put together for the campaign - it's a collection of sprites from the LPC graphics the Rhythos editor uses. I modified one to create the cute little pixel mascot in the front! ^_^

So, please check out the Kickstarter if you have a minute, and share/like/back it if it looks interesting to you!! I really hope this project will be a success - I think it will be an amazing, super accessible tool for the game development community, allowing even a non-programmer (like me!) to create complete games! And that's pretty darn exciting!

"Trip Through Time" Released!

Trip Through Time, our March "One Game a Month" game has finally been released!!! Please check it out on Newgrounds: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/617393.

Trip Through Time is a runner game where you play as a time traveling robot and run through 7 eras of human history, in order to determine the true nature of humanity. To avoid paradoxes, you must phase shift through all obstacles you encounter - including historical figures and iconic objects.

The game was completed at the end of March, but during April we were considering several different release options, and so delayed releasing it publicly until now, when those options fell through/didn't make sense anymore.

I created 100% of the art and animations for TTT, going with a style that is somewhere between my "natural" semi-realistic style (as in Havencall), and a simpler/messier speed sketch style. The game required a lot of art and animations, so March was a constant guessing game for me. Several questions kept running through my head over and over: mainly: "Can I do this?" and also: "Am I going to make the deadline???" and often: "What do I need to do first? What is most important?" The whole month was a pretty intense crunch for me, as I'm naturally a fairly slow artist with perfectionist tendencies.

Happily, I was able to ignore my perfectionist side while making this game, because I knew it had to be done by the end of the month, and I wasn't going to make it if I worried over every little thing. I just needed to get it done! And I did! I finished the art with just a few days to spare in the month for final tweaks and testing!

Trip Through Time was the first game I completed using our animation toolkit, VIDE! Havencall uses VIDE as well, so I'm really glad I got the chance to get a lot of practice with it while making TTT. I really enjoyed learning to use VIDE better, and while I still have much to learn about animation (I've just started trying my hand at animations this year!), I feel I've come a long way already.

One interesting tidbit: TTT originated from a Twitter conversation in which @indiepetey challenged @DavidMaletz to make a game based solely upon a song he (Petey) wrote! David accepted the challenge, and when Pete sent him the music, he immediately felt as though it sounded like a trip through time, starting off slow and primitive and becoming more technological and crazier. Thus, the idea for the game was born!

Final fun fact: I am horrible at runner games, and couldn't believe we were making one at first! However, I warmed up to the idea when David explained the movement through time side of things, which sounded like great fun for me as an artist! I mean, I got to draw robots, medieval knights, Darwin, Einstein, hippies, and futuristic soldiers with laser guns, all for the same game. It was pretty amazing!

Please check out the game and rate/review! We want to know what you think! ^_^

Havencall Update, Long Post(s) in the works...

First of all, check out the latest Havencall development update on IndieDB, which has a lot of art and animations and a new music track!
http://www.indiedb.com/games/havencall/news/april-development-update
A few things from the article:

In other news...it has been a WHILE since I updated my blog! But interestingly, that is not for lack of writing posts...the posts just haven't been published! Why in the world would I do that, you ask? Well, here's what happened:

The other day, I was struck with a great idea for a blog post: all of the things that have been on my mind suddenly coagulated (woah, weird word) into a brilliant guide/personal reference about staying motivated. Yeah, really original, I know. But this post was going to be different! It was going to have lots of nitty-gritty details and get really cognitive, and be really personal and of course, super awesome!

So I started writing the post. And then I realized I needed to write an outline and some notes so I didn't forget all the ideas I'd had. And then I wrote for quite a while, and somehow, the simple topic of "staying motivated" morphed into the massive subject of "staying motivated, productive and balanced in work and life" And somehow it had developed into several large, distinct sections. Before I knew it, I was starting to feel like I could write a full book. Or at least, more than one little blog post.

So that's what I've decided to do! I will do a series of blog posts about, basically, how to be awesome! :P Or at least, what helps me stay motivated, productive and balanced (mentally & physically), and stuff like that. Look forward to it!

Daily Speed Sketches - Try It!

Hey Folks!

I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about daily speed sketching, a great habit that has seriously been helping me improve my art speed and skill over the past month. For those of you who aren’t aware, I work with an independent game studio making 2d art and animations for games. For many years I've been trying hard to constantly improve my digital drawing and painting abilities. I’ve had several roadblocks standing in my way however, largest of which is a very loud internal critic, my “perfectionist” side that is never satisfied and can cause very slow progress and loss of motivation.

A few 5-minute color sketches from yesterday.

In the last years I’ve made a little headway in quieting the perfectionist in me, but I have not found anything that has been nearly as helpful and inspirational as doing daily speed sketches over the past month. I take a few minutes every single day, no matter how tired I am, no matter how much I have already drawn for work that day, etc. etc. to do some speed sketches. Here are a few reasons why making this daily commitment is so great and why I would encourage any artist, beginner or advanced, to try it too:

1. Timing my sketches helps me get in the habit of using the proper progression from big blocks -> smaller blocks -> details. I can't get stuck on one area because I know the clock is ticking and if I don’t move on I won’t get the whole thing down on the [digital] page in time.

2. Timing sketches forces me to turn off my inner critic, and just draw without thinking about stupid stuff like "how does this look?" "is this terrible?" "should I be doing this totally differently?" I only get to think about that stuff once the drawings are done. After all my speed sketching is done for the day I do some healthy self-critique, only aimed at doing better the next day and not beating myself up over what I just did.

3. Drawing or painting a broad range of different subjects from many different angles every day helps me keep my eyes fresh and inspires the other artwork I am doing.

4. Speed sketching helps me get really good mark making, motion and fluidity into my work. It's great to do before more serious work to warm up and get going, or after serious work to loosen up and relax.

5. Doing a few minutes of speed sketching every day is a realistic and easy way to make sure I am constantly working on improving my artistic abilities. Doing longer pieces for practice is also great and necessary, but with speed sketches I can quickly do many iterations of a subject and see tangible progress even within a few minutes...which leads me to...

6. It's rewarding! It lets me see real progress in a short period of time, which is incredibly motivational.

A 5-minute seascape

All that said, here are a few online speed sketching tools that I use: artists.pixelovely.com/ , lovecastle.org/draw (caution, there are some nude models in there). I’ll also sometimes sketch from life if I have a good subject nearby. And there is always google image search if I have a specific thing I feel like drawing.

A compilation of various 30-second line sketches from various days.

Here's where I post my daily speed sketches: sketches.nataliemaletz.com (linked to this blog as the “Sketches” page in the navigation above). Please check them out – I’d love to hear suggestions for what techniques I should focus on, what subjects I should sketch, and whether or not you are seeing the improvement that I am!

Hopefully this will inspire some artists out there as it has inspired me! Happy speed sketching! ^_^