Story Game#1

Based on Emma Coats' "Pick a random photo and develop a story over the next 5 panels" exercise.

Leading with the original image:

Brutal Dentistry

You know what I miss?

I miss university. I miss being constantly surrounded by people so passionate about the same things you are passionate about. I really miss always having a ready audience to discuss techniques, ideas and theories from art, games, animation and more. Amazing partnerships would wax and wane spontaneously; like ebb follows flow.

Alright. Out with it. I need a partner. I am looking for the Lennon to my McCartney. The Elton to my John.

Partnerships are just so crazy empowering on so many levels. You support and challenge each other to be the best that you each can be. The sum will far outweigh the number of parts.

It is hard to sum yourself up to fit the 2 page resume rule, let alone in a 100 word blog post, but this is what I bring to the partnership:

I enjoy both words and images; But also theory and analysis as well as creative business models and strategies. Passion and enthusiasm drives everything I do. I am greedily in love with knowledge - about most any field.

The summary must read something like: Artistic renaissance man.

At any point in time, I am writing on a couple of books, putting together a prototype for a game or sketching out an animated short film, with countless journals full of other ideas and stories waiting for their chance. Why? Because I enjoy creating. I need your help with these things. Not necessarily on the legwork/execution part. But what's more, I need to share these things with you, to make them stronger and better experiences.

To this end, I am looking for a creative partner. Somebody who enjoys bouncing ideas back and forth as sparring, brainstorming or refining. An off-beat sense of creativity would be good; Flair and fluidity in expression in either images, words, sounds or actions. A great sense of humor would be... well, great. It is an area I struggle a bit with. Extremely valuable is the ability to quickly jump between paradigms, realities, genres and topics. Not precious about own work and preferably with a manageable ego. I think that's it.

If you haven't got the faintest idea what I have been on about for 200 odd words, it is not you. If it is you - I'd love to hear from you!

Let's see what amazing things we can create together. Together - I think that is the operative partnership word here. Together.

Things That Definitely Didn't Feel Like Work:

- Making silly Post-It notes with slogans & scribbles & drawings.

- Painting silly textures for my 3D version of Animal Crossing.

- Writing mockumentary press releases about my friends and getting them featured on national radio.

- Doing pencil animations for fun.

- Coming up with lists & plans instead of actually doing the work.

- Spamming out DPS in WoW.

- Drawing with charcoal sticks and sooty fingertips.

- Dreaming up epic story versions of events from my life.

- Getting others all fired up about some idea I am all fired up about.

- Painting sea slugs in Photoshop.

- Painting cartoony fir bark textures.

- Writing fake posts on forums to stir trouble.

... It's a pizza place, where you make your own pizza!

Or as Oscar Wilde definitely didn't put it, "life imitates games!"


This begs a mention: A game about running a games development studio. Doesn't that just blow your mind?


What could possibly be next? A movie about making movies, or perhaps an opera about a singer or even a book about an author? 


You know what the worst bit is? Admitting my mother was right all along: "Stick to what you know!"

What has optimism done for me lately? Overrated, I say...

(The sticker, along with the happy yellow/red vibes, was thrust onto me at a Nokia event. Said optimism culminated in angry shouting matches and large parts of the audience walking out... optimistically, of course!)

I was clearing out in my mother's basement, when I came across this little scrap of historic evidence: A seemingly innocent collection of signatures on what looks like a petition of sorts. 

Upon closer inspection this proves to be a document of a much more mischievous nature! A remnant of a long gone past, where my irrepressible antics and star spangled jacket earned me the nickname "Captain America" in the snowboarding community. Terrorising the slopes, accommodation area and dance floor at a summer camp in Norway, I hooked up with several snowboarding stars, who kindly lend their support to my letter of recommendation (Stine Brun Kjeldaas went on to become world #1 and took silver in 1998 winter olympics in Nagano).

On that trip to Norway, I even managed to give myself a black eye (landing a jump and the impact made me crouch down so deep my knee met my eye).

Completely hooked on snowboarding, I was trying to pick up a sponsorship - so you need a portfolio of photos or videos of you riding.

Didn't have a board, so what do you do?

Well, I climbed my ironing board. Somehow I figured it would hold. I hadn't even put one foot on it before the legs broke off. So I had to mount it on my trusty Samsonite + a chair. This is of course the Stalemasky trick. Just close your eyes and add the snow...

I also found my original snowboarding sponsorship collage anno 1996. Notice the incredibly complex between the legs double grab tricks, the endlessly graceful inverted tricks and my lovely old Williams pinball machine in the background.

Second page of my snowboarding shots: Including 2 images from an article in the European Onboard magazine, August 1996 edition. These printed collages I would send out with elaborate cover letters to companies I targeted for sponsorships. To make sure I would get noticed (as if...), I would post them in bright red "hazardous item" envelopes, which I would collect on plane rides (I used to bring squirt guns on air planes for entertainment. Don't ask!). Upon reflection, I suppose I was afraid to blend in with the crowds of other ironing board surfing sponsorship applicants...

The jacket against a backdrop of stale snow in the Dolomites, Italy.

And what of those sponsors? 

Japan-o-rama! 


or


Eastern delights from a far faraway place

Welcome to Japan, the land of big ear lopes, small lips and blue scalps!

It took me a while to realise that in Japan, there is no reason to smile - you got letters for that.

Less lenient is the Japanese approach to dress code. Here are a couple of Japanese boys in uniform (the one on the left with the black jacket is expressing his individuality - sticking it to the man!).


Don't believe me? Dressing influences everything in Japan! Take for example drinks...

Apparently the primary market for a cool pint of lager are demure and conservative looking women wearing traditional kimonos.

Don't believe me? Here's another one!

Want a drink? Wear a kimono!

Poor girl just want a cuppa...

Guy got caught kimono less trying to sneak a bottle of coffee and out comes the punishment by public bear costume.

A thrilling prospect.

Alternatively, you can rehydrate with a bottle of Pocari Sweat.

The Japanese say, that you live one extra day, every time you try something new. Suggestion:

Sashimi... from horse.

Yep, raw horse. That was a first for me! Horse, not to mention raw.

If raw is a tad too fresh for you, Japan provides a thrilling alternative. In fact, how can you trust the quality of a restaurant, if they are unable to accurately reproduce their menu in plastic?


Bonus round for reading along so far:

‎3 things as Japanese as middle partings and reliable trains:

Slogans on clothing, which makes little or no sense.

Girls with knees touching in the classic X-legs pose.
People trying to sporadically handle their cell phones while in various states of sleep.

My daughter Jamila drawing my portrait. On the right side, she has conveniently provided a selection of different noses. A little help for the ones, who don't know how to draw noses. So there.

End of the line


Perhaps it was never more than a beautiful dream; A dream I could let myself dream for 5 years or so...


Back to doing dirty dishes, tidying up the mess, paying off the bills.


Well, it was nice to dream. It was nice to belong. It was nice to make believe. Even if only for a little while...


The Chinese live only to make sure their children are better off than themselves. Or so I am told.


When it happens that you are standing at the brink of your dream, but your time is up, your money is spent and your energy gone, it is at least a comforting thought that your dream can live on - if nothing else through your children. That they may not only taste and dream their dreams for 5 years, but actually live them.


As for me, I have to answer the question, if you cannot change something, should you bother thinking about it then?

Pawn shops... Seedy places for desperate people with their backs so firmly against the wall, that the bricks have felt like parts of their ribcages for a long time.

My turn...

These past 365 days have held so many things that I never ever thought I would see in my life. This is just another brick in the wall.

It is all just fading into a grey blur (am I the only one who don't know when to use "grey" or "gray" about the color?). Pawned my wedding ring. Originally I purchased it from royal jeweller Peter Hertz, in Copenhagen, for more than £660. After 30 seconds of scrutinising under a magnifying glass behind a steelbarred window, the verdict was ready: £22!

My only regret, was that I wasn't scheming enough to pawn the diamond ring and gold/platinum ring I gave the snake, before she could get her hands on them.

A yellow piece of paper and a signature, and I had the £22 in my hand.

Perhaps that was what my marriage was worth all along...

Academic Suicide

Dear team,


When I found out about my wife's infidelity, I suppose I should have quit the course there and then. I thought somehow, I could manage to pull through, despite my life crashing down all around me. To be honest, I managed to pull through on my bachelor degree under similar circumstances and achieved a miraculous 2.1 degree. This time I was alone with 2 small children on top of whatever stress, heartache and confusion the rest of the situation brought. But I didn't want to quit, if only one thing in my life could remain sane and intact, this was my hope.


I know I am a laughing stock. I know I am an embarrassment. The guy who needs to be tip-toed around or "dealt with". What faith do you have in my ability and me?
As Rob put it "too little, too late. I don't trust you to get the work done."
Well, I suspect the majority of you have no idea what I have and am going through over the past few months. But statistics say that if you find yourselves in longer relationships, even marriage, you got a good shot at going through it yourselves, and when that happens, I hope for your sakes that you are not in a crunch, because then you might just also loose your job, like I have now.


Do you think I like to be like this? Do you think this is all I am capable of? Do you think this is all I want to achieve or do? I hate being like this. I hate not being able to run ahead of the project; not being able to pull my weight. Regardless of deadlines and assignment specifications, I have my own set of ambitions and criteria to answer to, to myself. I cringe every time I end up short on a deadline or a promise. I am so embarrassed when I look at most of the stuff I have "produced" for this module. Looking back from momentary glimpses of clarity, all I can claim is insanity or an aneurysm. I feel like a Tour de France rider can't even manage to ride a tricycle anymore. All you can do is put a brave face on it, while you hope and desperately pray that some miracle will help you back to the level of productivity where you should be. And then another promise is broken; another deadline is missed; another piece of crap is handed in. I know this team cares little for reasons, excuses and apologies. The depression, stress, betrayal and humiliation of having your wife cheat on you repeatedly are not going to tidy up the models. Just because the police are trampling through my life, that will not finish that texture set. Tending to my children's welfare as a lone parent, will not layout the UVWs. Keyframes, pixels and polygons are what matters at the end of the day.


You can mock me, tell me off or ignore me, but it is not going to change anything really. I have fought to the best of my heavily reduced ability, instead of just curling up and dying. And if you pull the plug on me now, which you say you already have, that will effectively be my exit from this course, since this is a team based module. I suppose I should have just quit when I found about my wife, but I hoped, that at least one thing in my life, she couldn't ruin. I guess there was never more than a fool's hope anyway.


I know the content freeze is tomorrow. I am sure you must be in full swing on my parts already. My work hard drive busting with the practically finished mill on it didn't help much. But if you care to use it, I have finished the barn. I am sure there are no doubt a million things that need to be corrected, but I am fairly pleased with it, and I honestly believe it will suit the rest of the level to an acceptable degree. The files are too big to include in this mail, but here are a few renders to show what it looks like. I am gonna work to finish the mill now, and then tweak the hay and the nut. If nothing else, then for my own sake.


Sincerely

Marque Pierre

A dark night 2005 

Need to write, need to keep alive

Need to keep from sleeping, need to keep from crying

Need to smile, need to breathe

Need to keep from falling, need to keep from dying

Flying back from Denmark yesterday. Sat next to a guy with brown skin. Well, those Jihad nitwits have threatened Denmark and Italy to be next as terrorism targets in the wake of the London bombings. So what would be better than a flight from Copenhagen to London?


Before we took off, there was all kinds of trouble. The plane had to offload some luggage belonging to a passenger, who for some reason was not onboard anyway! There were strange warning sounds (something like the Twilight Zone theme) which escaped from the cockpit and made it into the speaker system. Stewardesses (Am I the only one who cannot quite agree on that whole "Air Hostess" thing?) were running back and forth... And yet, this guy was sitting very quietly and motionless next to me. In fact, he appeared to be asleep.


By my best guess, he would be of Pakistani descent. I noticed that he was wearing a white long-sleeved t-shirt. Raking my mind I remember some of the plane jacking jihadders of the 70s wearing white, as it apparently is a kind of funeral attire for muslims. Ready to die, eh? Doesn't care whether the plane crashes or not, since he has his own sinister agenda!


I had to control myself to the utmost to keep from asking him, even jokingly, if he was carrying a bomb. Instead I tried a more polite statement of, "not the nicest sounds..." when those warning sirens came back on again. He mumbled an inaudible reply. Clearly he was told to stay low and not attract suspicion, untill his unholy deed was over. And thus my panic grew.


Here I was sitting with my wife, and 2 small children, of whom only the oldest has figured out there such a concept as death, and for the next 2 hours I would not be able to do a single thing to prevent their death, should the Jihadders deem us all worthy of extinction. I so badly wanted to talk to this man, who in this instance represented them all, Palestinians, Jews, Syrians, Hamas, Osama bin Laden, Afghans, Mujahedins and so on. At the end of the day, it all comes down to this. Do you want your children to die? No? Well, neither do I! So we gotta figure something else out. When everybody love their families, why can't we listen honestly to each other? Why can't we work out something, remembering that the others will also have widows, orphans and worse?


Back home in Boro was a letter waiting for me. Now I have been toiling for 3 full years at University of Teesside to get my degree. Close to loosing health, mind and family at times. And to prove it all, I got this:

I kid you not, this is it. The signature looks photocopied, for sure it isn't the original. No letterhead. Just a piece of paper with 14 lines of text on it. All this "being an academic" stuff sure isn't all it's hyped up to be. I mean, if I was going to fake proof of such a monumental achievement, I would go through a lot more trouble than this. How about the universities, where I seek postgraduate study, will they think I made this preposterous letter myself on a lazy Sunday afternoon? I wouldn't blame them...

Since you have been a bit slow on the responses. I will give you some more hints.


Actually there are a lot of people coming to buy... cigarettes from these people. Same pattern all the time. They take out a bundle of notes. Knock on the door. Hand the notes through the door. Door closes. They wait around. A minute later, the door opens and they get a golden box of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, and leave.


Judging by the thickness of that bundle of money changing hand for one box of cigarettes, those cigarettes are the most expensive EVER!


Anyway, drug dealing neighbours was not what were gonna talk about today.

This is just a simple question I want to pose to you.


Why would a middle aged man knock on your door at 10 PM in the night, asking if this is 'here he can buy cigarettes?'


For you wannabe Sherlocks, I will add that he also said nervously, when faced with the stern face and the commanding height of the author, that he just heard, it was either here or number so and so.


My last clue: We live 2 streets away from a Tesco convenience store, which was still open at the time, as well as a multitude of kiosks and corner stores!


I will await the answer with great anticipation...

Wow!


Middlesbrough might seem like a beaten down, poluted, ugly, crime infested sick joke for an uninteresting city, but oh no, don't be fooled! Middlesbrough is rockingly cool in a really authentic way!


I wonder if there could be a market for sociorealistic tourism? Then the café crowds of trendy assess and the intelligenzia could come here and experience real rough! Next time you watch a movie with tough guys or mean streets, you can shrug your shoulders with that knowingly unimpressed untouchable cool, and truthfully claim, that you have 'done that, been there already.'Forget the wild, wild west and ghetto fabulous, Middlesbrough is where it's at!


Why, it was in Middlesbrough I was attacked on the streets for the first time.


It was outside my bedroom window in Middlesbrough, I saw cops chasing criminals with submachine guns shouting, "Get down on the floor! Get down on the floor! Hands above your head!" for the first time.


It was of course in Middlesbrough, that I first had a police SWAT team bang my door down at 3 AM in the night. Complete with 6 black clad guys with submachine guns up in my face, and shoutings of "drop your keys!", "Hands above your head!" and of course the old classic, "who else is in this house?"


But today came my favourite.


We received an anonymously looking letter. It turned out that it was from the parole board. A Ms. so-and-so is going to be released from prison on parole soon, and she has listed our home, as the place she is planning to stay! Either this is a superbly constructed practical joke (it is not, I have already phoned the parole board), or there must have lived some pretty scary people in this house before us.


So remind me, dear imaginary readers, that come May this year, I should expect a butch woman with knuckle tatoos and very little luggage on our doorstep.

It just occured to me, that we have no less than 4 prams/pushchairs in our possession. 4 (four!), and that is not counting the 2 toy ones the girls have. As I gazed around the carpark, I noticed we also have 3 vacuum cleaners. We have a problem. We might think we are normal folks, but we have a problem. "Oh no, we are not attached to material possessions; we only have 4 prams and 3 vacuum cleaners. I can assure you that each and every one of them are just the absolutely bare essentials!"

Now follows the grim tales of rehab...

BusinessWeek


Man, it felt great seeing two stories about games in BusinessWeek.


One was about Bungie and their transition from a basement developer to an anarchistic cell inside Microsoft's headquarters.
www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2004/sb20041223_1735_sb038.htm

The other was an interview with Alex Seropian, ex-Bungie founder, and his new venture Wideload Games, where they are trying on the much debated production model from Hollywood for size for games development. As far as I am concerned, the whole games industry is carefully looking on with bated breath.
www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2004/sb20041223_7036_sb038.htm?c=bwfrontierdec28&n=link1&t=email


Why is this important?


Back in 1998, I saw an article in the financial section of major Danish business newspaper with a strong buy recommendation for the games industry as a whole. They claimed that this was the future form of entertainment (surprise!), and the growth market for massive profits within the next 5 years. We haven't quite realized that potential yet, even though we like to believe in that "bigger than Hollywood" urban legend. A good hard look at the games industry, and we are nowhere near a true mass market hit yet.


So seeing our industry mentioned again in a medium like BusinessWeek was a nice pat on the back; We are on the right track, and others than us, believe we will get there soon...

I have a new credo. Or rather a new goal, the kind of goal that shapes more than your efforts. But first a little body building lore:


Back in the day when Arnold Schwarzenegger not yet had become the greatest body builder of all time, he had a serious problem with his progression. His calves were lagging behind the rest of his body in development. Imagine a huge guy on tiny little stick legs, sort of like Mr. Incredible. Good for Pixar, bad for the future Mr. Olympia, movie star and Governor of the bear state.


What to do? Arnold, always the one to be proactive about negotiating the obstacles in front of him, resolutely cut off the lower part of all his gym pants. Thus exposing his weak body part to everybody for them to ridicule and criticize. Why would you do such a thing? Well, the results motivated Arnold to train them like crazy, and soon enough they were not lagging in development. End of story. Problem solved!


So the way I am going to apply that little anecdote to my life, is by making a bold statement and making it as publicly as possible, so I will have no chance other than to make it happen. Or face a life time of ridicule.

I am going to be the WORLD'S BEST TEXTURE ARTIST IN 2010!

This I have put in every signature on every forum I am in, as signature on my business cards and emails and where ever else I could imagine, to make sure the statement is literally being shouted from the roofs. Scary stuff. But so far, the ridicule has been a bit on the puny side, which is okay. But just doing so has focused my every endeavour immensely. And progress follows in the wake of that focus.


So just bring on 2010, I will be ready!

Debut entry


Everybody does it. Blogging. Apparently it is one of the most searched after words on Google. I only realised the meaning of the word just the other day, but hey Google, you can't argue with that.


And the thought is appealing, that somebody would actually care about your petty everyday thoughts and ramblings; watching your every keystroke for another morsel of infinite wisdom or entertainment. So I am gonna do it too. Can't be left behind in blogging arms race. So this is very much the unveiling of my latest piece of not-yet-so-important work: My personal blog!


I suppose I am today the artist, all alone at the unveiling of his latest greatest, yet the whole world didn't care to show. And what better way to kick this baby off, than by insulting everybody? PHILLISTINES!!!