So...Now What?

Hey All!

Sorry for the long silence. I've been moving in to my NEW PLACE OF RESIDENCE!!!





(just kidding, I live across the street from this place.)

I am now *officially* moved in. Well, I'm still in-process to be honest, but I've been using my new place as the base of all my operations, so it counts. I'm no longer half-in-half-out of Boston!

This new step in life is both exciting and BORING AS CRAP.
I am thrilled to have a new place. I am excited to be moving forward with post-school existence. But I am now in a waiting room full of ramen and gas bills. D:
Basically, I'm just whining because my actual job starts in 8 days and in the meantime I have nothing to do.

Alright fine, I've actually been keeping quite busy, and have found myself in the company of the most wonderful sort of people. But leave me at home alone for any length of time and I start going nuts.
It's good to me made to relax and spend some quiet time alone, though. I just come to it reluctantly. Kind of like broccoli.
My significant art supplies are all stored elsewhere right now, as well. So I don't have anything to show for my boredom except some idle doodles. All of my actual recent "artwork" is top secret until the game I was working on gets released (soon! here!)
I just figured I should post a newsy post about all of the nothing I'm doing. :D

In the meantime, I have found a number of very diverting things to occupy some of my downtime with:
I bought one of these! (excusing my frivolity with the fact that I am now a video-game professional and don't really play so many video games...so I had to buy a console! right? right???)





Of course I got the cheapest and girliest console out on the market. But I couldn't resist Professor Layton and the upcoming Studio Ghibli game. And I am cheap. And girly.
And I am now, once again, a world-class Pokemon Trainer. First time back since the late 90s :D
Once I get my internet set up here, I'll be taking all comers. So if you've got a DS and a party-full of Pokemon, then feel free to taste the wrath of my Torterra! Friend-codes, anyone?

Also: I went to go both District 9 and Ponyo. Can you guess which one I preferred?
PONYO WAS WONDERFUL! (On District 9 I know I'm in the minority but it made me sick to my stomach in a kind-of-don't-want-to-see-this-ever-again kind of way, *winces*) I've been seriously considering my fanart options, and this one *might* win out. Some of the scenes were just really sublime. The night-scene after the power-outage, the fish storm, the father-son signal scene and so on. But for me, the cake was taken as soon as the town flooded. I mean: Kids. In a plastic boat. On adventures. Over a sunken town.
Awesome.

I've also just started (and then finished, in the matter of 3 days) reading Scott Pilgrim.
Whoah.
I am really glad I gave that a chance. The american(I know, I know...Canadian)-manga-for-12-year-old-girls look didn't really grab me off the shelf initially, but I'm really hooked. I didn't even know there was gonna be a movie until yesterday! Hooray!
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I highly recommend that you slip off to the nearest bookstore and give "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" a chance. No matter how much it may look like it's gunning for the sailormoon market. I'm in love.

And lastly, my friends and I have been guffawing at this particular series of Youtube videos.
If you have never seen them , definitely check out some Viral Video Film School. Some are funnier than others. This one's my favorite: Youtube's Worst Demo Reels.

Hope you guys don't mind this very chatty post. :/
Overall: boredom or no, the Lord has been good to me, and I have been really blessed to be here. Job soon, art soon too!
Thanks for reading, even when there isn't much art I can show!

Cheers,

-Nick

Weighing In

I loved it.

I loved it.

I am referring to Half Blood Prince. I enjoyed the crap out of it, and I had to throw my blogging hat in the ring, since I have one of these and I've had to withstand much Potterhating since last night from some disappointed coworkers.

Had a great night celebrating a Jackie's birthday, and went to the theater. I was so excited: and here's the real thing...I wasn't disappointed! It was one of the very few movies this summer that didn't totally bum me out!

More than that: I liked it best of all the Potter films so far. The performances just sky-rocketed in quality, as far as I'm concerned. No more than one spit-riddled "POTTER!" from Malfoy, even! And it didn't suck!

Other people are better critics and reviewers than I, so I will resist the temptation to break it down spoiler-style. I just had to air my opinion. See it? Love it? Please?

Also: YAY! AUTO-TUNE THE NEWS 6 IS THE BEST YET!

Much love,

-Nick

Piper's Pet! For Serious! Finally!

Well...
So, there was a little problem.

You see, a few weeks back my comic for Myspace Dark Horse Presents, Piper's Pet, went live on their site. There was some sort of hiccup in the server, however, and the colors of the entire issue wound up too-green and lemony on some monitors, and completely inverted/yellow-explosion on others. Most viewers seem to have been treated to the yellow explosion variant. 

I did, however, get permission from my lovely employers to post the 2 whole pages of it on my blog and deviantart, so that I can share it with the world! (well, you guys at least :D). So, without further ado, Piper:

I hope it's been worth it :D I was really excited to do it, and I am still very pleased with the outcome. It was a very satisfying way to put a cap on my senior year at RISD. It's not a huge epic, but hopefully it touches someone out there, and hopefully some of you who were so supportive to begin with (and were rewarded for your kindness with the electric boogaloo version) will be glad to see the thing as-intended. Colors will now vary only according to your monitor. 

Myspace Dark Horse Presents is a great publication, and you can visit them here for more updates by other (more talented) artists. And if you really like this, it will be printed in a future issue of the MDHP Anthology. I keep you posted! 

I hope you are well and that you are thoroughly enjoying your summer. 

Enjoy and God bless you! 

-Nick

Rosemary Reviewed!

Hello everybody!

I have some news that is blogworthy again, which is exciting!

Over the last semester, there have been a number of things I've worked on that I wasn't allowed to post (Piper's Pet, a 7-pager called "Spring Requiem" for SofaWolf Press, and my work for GAMBIT at MIT among them). 

But today the GAMBIT Game Lab has released our work from last semester online!

Sooooo: you can actually download and play our project "Rosemary" here:

Rosemary - A GAMBIT Game

You know what's even cooler? Just a week after it's release, it's been reviewed on Destructoid, and very positively at that! You can read the review here.

Thirdly, there's another game we collaborated on was The Bridge, also just recently released on the GAMBIT site. Our RISD art team were responsible for the background art and monster animation, while the character design and animation were handled by MIT artist Alison Malouf. 

I was one of three RISD artists set to work on Rosemary and The Bridge (both projects which had been rolling long before we got there). All the UI, Characters, Settings, Menus, and Intro were drawn up, painted and implemented by myself, Fabiola Garza, and Brandon Cebenka. 

I'm actually still working with both of them at the lab over the summer, though this time we're spread across several projects, and we've been involved from the earliest conceptual process in driving the vision for the games!

Credit for the art goes all around, since we were all in eachother's work so much it's actually hard to remember who did what on Rosemary or The Bridge. 

I'm working on a particular project right now at the Lab, and I can't wait to be able to unveil when it's published, but it's not even close-to-finished yet, so that may be a few months!

Highly recommended Youtube-ed themes of recent life in Boston: 

The Go! Team - Get it Together

and

Amanda Palmer - Astronaut

(I've actually been REALLY into Amanda Palmer these last weeks...her solo album is amazing, and I highly recommend checking her out: she is a singularly weird and fascinating individual. A really powerful lyricist as well. Songs for the not-easily-offended: Strength Through Music, Delilah(better to find recorded version...AMAZING song), Runs in The Family, Leeds United)

Alright, that's it for now! Let me know what you think of the games, sorry to mac users without emulation - Rosemary is PC only!

Much love, and thanks for reading!

-Nick

Speech! (Again)

Well...ok...
This is weird, and delayed, but this just went online, and I thought some people out there might still be interested in watching it!
(mostly relatives of mine)

Without further ado:

A video of me delivering the commencement speech, RISD class of 2009

 And make sure you check out the other speeches if you have the time and interest...everyone should see the speech by Sir Ken Robinsion. It's just a good one. 

Much love you guys, thanks for reading!

-Nick

I Think I'm An Adult Now?

A little praise report, because God is good: I has a job!  

For serious, I just signed this and sent it in confirming my acceptance of the position of 'Junior Character Artist' at 38 Studios here in MA! 

I'm WAY excited. You can check out their site here.

I'm under strict NDA, so I'm not allowed to talk about the project I'll be working on, but there's some information and concept art that's been released on the site. I think the most I can say is that I'll be working as a Character Artist on an MMORPG codenamed Copernicus. :D

Other news: I'm in Cambridge, Boston  with a summer internship at MIT (continued from the Spring semester). I have a great pad, with great friends, and I get to meet a lot of really awesome new people from Singapore! (and make games!)

Speaking of which, I've got to get to work! 

Cheers!

-Nick

First Ever Published Comic Work!

Piper's Pet is live today over at Myspace, Dark Horse Presents!
I'm VERY excited to have this finally hit the web.
Above is just a preview image, and the story is only two pages, but it was a blast and a great way to end the year! (repeat: this is just a preview posted here, THE WHOLE 2 PAGE COMIC IS PUBLISHED HERE) :D

Dark Horse have been really great to work with. The gig was super-simple: they told me I could to a 2 pager or an 8 pager and that I was free to pitch whatever story I wanted to tell.
I met them up at NYComicCon this year (my first comic-con EVER!) and I went straight to the Dark Horse table to get in line with my portfolio. Apparently they liked what they saw and were very quick to offer me the opportunity!

So, please go and check it out. There's no real commenting space there, so feel free to use this post to tell me what you think! If you like it, write Dark Horse and tell them to hire me more :)

If you really like it, and want to support me and the awesome artists at Dark Horse, then wait for the anthology TPB of all the MDHP work to get released, and snag a copy! I'll make an announcement around these parts when that happens.

I feel really glad about this piece. I think it's one of the only ones recently where I've sort of "meant it"...and I'm happy to have ended my RISD career on a high note and with some published work.

I could blab on (you know I can), but I won't. I hope you guys like it...let me know!
Cheers!

-Nick