Week #033: Community Impact, Transformed

Unfortunately, no, it isn't yet time to begin with the starters. I'm glad to see the poll getting enough hits to make it interesting, though, and I'm sure it'll just continue to pick up as we move along. You guys really seem to like the mythical starters! and it seems you really want to see the dark starters revealed as well.

What I am here to deliver, is what was asked about what I get up to when I'm not working.

Some weeks ago, I founded an "Alphabet Challenge" with a friend of mine. I believe this was just after I got over a cold and I was looking to ignite my artistic fire once more. The challenge was simple: draw a character for each letter of the alphabet, though we had the option of deciding on our own secondary themes as well (for example: for a bit I considered doing all Mega Man characters, and later considered all females).

These three are only the first three (A, B and C for those playing along at home) in the challenge, which are unfortunately all I've made time for so far.

If there's enough interest in these, I'll be sure to post the next three once I get back to the project.

In other news, there's a pretty amazing community movement happening over at the SEGA forums. Challenged by a developer from Sumo Digital, the studio behind Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (which is a game you should really look into if you like racers!), the community has assembled a large cast of petitions in an effort to show their support for a strong DLC presence to be made in the game. If you're a SEGA fan, whether it be classic or modern, I strongly encourage you to get involved and sign a few petitions to show your support for characters like Vectorman, Ristar, Bayonetta and many others! The movement is doing well, but they're looking for it to do even better before it's December 1st deadline.

It should be no surprise that I support such a movement with how much we here at SND Games like to involve our own community!

That's about it for this week, but I'll see you all again soon.

Week #032: So Many Starters and So Little Time

Oh, hey, I remember you guys.

As I've been combating the rise and fall of my "art drive" over the last few weeks, I've been attempting to gear up for some updates I could actually post here. Last week (or so), someone asked if I could post some of the stuff I do in my free time as filler, so I'm looking to do both that and share some work from the project we're all hard at work on recently.

...which brings me to why I'm here, making this post! Unfortunately, I'm not ready to post anything just yet, but you know how I favor community feedback. Oh, yes, it's that time again...

COMMUNITY IMPACT POLL #003:

Project ANPO Starters - Who's On First?

My time has been largely spent polishing up the many designs we have (now over 140!) for use in the game. Some of these are as simple as pulling the designs from other artists into the one consistent style. Others are as complicated as taking something extremely vague and making something interesting out of it. It's a challenging job, but one that I volunteered for to show my commitment towards making the game as flavorful as we all dream.

As I had been working on polishing these designs, I knew that I would one day have to take the art (what you've been seeing so far on Sam's blog in that distinctive monochrome sketch style) and finish them with full ink and color. This hasn't been a priority since they wouldn't be used for much more than promotional purposes... but promoting the game has to start at some point, right?

I've only three more starter families to go before I'm ready to start that process. So what I want to know is, who you want to see first! Some of them may be completed as you saw them on Sam's blog, but others may see varying levels of redesign and some may be redrawn completely, so there's sure to be plenty of progress shots to see.

As always, you can find the poll for CIP#003 off to the right of this very blog.

I'm looking forward to getting things going again here. I hope you are too!