SpyroManiac’s Quest for creativity!

Welcome! Time for a bit of change around here I think! I started this blog in Nov 2015 as a way to set myself some monthly goals. Each month I’d write myself a quest log and some achievements and at the end of the month I’d see how I did. This was to get myself on track with some goals and aspirations i had, when in fact it made it all worse.

Before I tired to focus on lots of different things which was mental! Now this blog is going to focus on my quest to be creative! 2016 saw me be a lazy, unmotivated and sad bum. While I’m still working on all that, being creative is what really made me happy. So from here on out, I’m using this blog to track all thing creative in hopes a bit of art therapy will help make everything feel a little better 🙂

So stick around while I explore all the true creative in me from Game dev, cross stitch, sewing, painting, doodling, filming (one day), streaming and whatever else might catch my fancy!

Plushie: A wild rapidash appears!

Rapidash

This plushie is based on one of my favorite Pokemon! Of course I wanted the unicorn based Pokemon, Rapidash. First finished creation of 2017.

side by side with original Pokemon and TY beanie baby inspiration

I kind of cheated as I got most of the work done by the end of last year but kept putting off finishing over the Christmas rush. It was a massive learning curve as it’s been a while since i last created a plushie like this. I based her on the old beanie baby patterns which I grew up with and have been my biggest inspiration.

Making Of

Not perfect but least she’s finished. Made with felt, thread and stuffing. Nothing fancy! Completely hand sewn, I miss my sewing machine!

GO, RAPIDASH! I CHOOSE YOU!

 

 

2016 Reflections – What’s next?

Today is the first day of dedicating a little bit of time each day to being creative. Less time worrying, aimlessly scrolling through social media and working on my crafts! I’m not going to go into why 2016 was poopy for me but I will say I lost a LOT of focus and drive. I ended the year having no idea what I really want. Last year was full of stress and panic…it still is. So I want to spend more time with some art and crafts. I might not know what I want right now but now is the time to work on me and let the creativity flow! l want to work on what ever the hell I want. As long as I work on *something*.

Just because I’m not being paid to do what I love doesn’t mean I’m not doing well. Working on myself it what I need, and that’s OK 🙂

As a bit of reflection and as my first piece of creativity I’ve revamped this blog, started some journals for initial projects and created this little collage of everything I made in 2016:

Lots of unfinished work here, so this year I am dedicating time to getting stuff done! As long as I work on what I love each day then I’m sure it will lead me to some real happiness!

Cosplay: Team Rocket Grunt

Oops! Almost went a whole month without posting! Even if I’m not setting quests right now I refuse to let another blog die! In work we had a costume competition for the pokemon sun & moon launch! I needed a quick and easy costume so I went for a team rocket grunt! PREPARE FOR TROUBLE!

This was the final result! 

Side by side with original character.

I created it using red and white felt and a cheap hat and top from primark. I hand stitched the R onto the top and sewed the pokeballs together. Man I miss my sewing machine 😦 I then safety pinned the pokeballs to my belt!

BioShock Infinite – Pixel Stitches 01

From my list of favorite games I’ve created my first mini cross stitch with water colour too! I started with Bioshock Infinite.

Quest complete: August+ September Quest Log

Another busy month! I went to the BAFTA talk by Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen which was very inspiring. I also traveled loads across London in the space of 4 days to work at The Legends of Gaming event! Kicked anxiety’s butt hard! Even got to meet some really cool gamey people!

Quests:

• GameDev Therapy / poop alert
  • Quest complete: Wrote out lots of ideas and research last month as you can see in my previous posts.
    
  • Achievement: 1 pager posted
  • Achievement: Work on doc and mechs
• Lumberyard
  
  • Quest Failed – However i did buy the humble bundle game maker pro + modules crazy cheap! I think i think to change this engine choice.
    
• Review writing
  
  • Quest Failed – I didn’t write any personal reviews but i wrote another review for the digital fix on hyper light drifter.
    

Side Quests:

• Stream – 2x week
• run – 24miles
• reading: Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
• Playing: Hyper Light Drifter – FINISHED!
  

I’m not sure I will be sticking to this quest setting each month anymore. I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment, I think i need to mix things up. We are already 13 days into September anyway so i think I’ll take a break this month and see how i feel in October. I’m not even sure I’ll continue with Poop alert either. I got some thinking to do 🙂 New life goals!

Hello Maya, my old nemesis

I lost a lot of motivated lately for designing my current project so I’ve decided to take a step back and do something a little creative. Considering I want to use Lumberyard I thought I’d try a bit of 3d modelling again…which I haven’t done for I’d say about 2 – 2 1/2 years. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing. I originally tried using blender but my brain couldn’t compute the controls.

As I mentioned before I want to make a cutesie chibi style look, basically something easy to model. I spent all day following the shape of a Pop Funko figure. It wasn’t great but hey, practice! I’m totally hiding the worst topology on the back, heh. Onward and upwards!

So from the top of my head these are the kind of body shapes I’m looking for. I’ll look for some more references when  I get back into this. I also want to revamp some of my graphics across social media and I have some ideas in mind with these little models! For now, I really should get back into the design of things now, maybe I’ll create a one page doc to lay it all out.

Oh crap! writing this I’ve just realized it’s the 1st of September! Better get on those goals!

Game Dev Therapy #5

Last week I spent some time with my cute little whiteboard and jotted down all the ideas I’ve had for this little “Gassy Bailey Simulator”. Today I’ve been trying to sort out those thoughts so I can start prototyping on paper but it’s so hard! So I’m taking a break to share  failed development of today.

(Warning the use of the word effect/affect has probably been used incorrectly throughout this post. I request you deal with it)

Game Flow: The player will start their week and be presented with the 7 days of the week split into 6 sections.  A series of events will be split across each day for pie to take part in. The day will then start and it will be up to the player to make sure Pie can meet these goals/tasks by interacting with different parts of the world.

Moods: Started off thinking about the mood bars and how each one would affect each other. This got way too complicated so I’ve decided to scrap it. 

First of all I thought each mood will have a positive or negative effect on Pie’s mood so for example if her hunger meter is low she will feel “hangry” which will make her mood bar decrease to make her feel “sad” and her stress meter decrease to make her feel “anxious”. This will get way to complicated to track as I started trying to test it below.

Game Dev Therapy #4

Worked with my white board yesterday and got ALL my ideas out ma head!

Game Dev Therapy #3

Research: As I said at the end of my last post my ideas are starting to sound way too similar to The Sims. For the last 2 days I decided to do some play through and streamed it to get a better idea of how it might work.

So the main thing I’ve taken away from these play through is the Sim Mood system.

 

Each Sim has 6 needs: hunger, bladder, energy, hygiene, social & fun.