Over the holiday break, I had the chance to get reacquainted with an old friend. Not one of my high school chums, I see them fairly often. I'm talking about graphic adventure games.
The story starts when I got an iPhone! (<-- Read in Oprah voice) First app I purchased proper- THE SECRET OF MOTHERFUCKING MONKEY ISLAND!
It is so awesome to have that game in my hands. I'm not too hot on the Special Edition graphics (though it's fun listening to the new voice overs), but with a simple two finger swipe you're back in original game mode. Only complaint, I think the music from the forests on Mêlée Island™ weren't included. That was one of my hauntingly favorite synth reggae tracks.
After all the excitement of having an app everyone else played months ago, I got sick and was stuck in bed with a fever. I found myself rocking even more graphic adventure games. Legend of Kyrandia 2 and Telltale's Back to the Future: The Game and Tales of Monkey Island. I love the writing, acting and graphics in both of Telltale's ventures. Tales is an especially welcome sight for sore eyes. Between the third and fourth iteration of the Monkey Island series, the graphics had moved from this, with Curse of Monkey Island:
To this, with Escape from Monkey Island:
I was sad too, Guybrush. Personally, nothing tops my nostalgic love for the EGA graphics in the first two Monkey Island games, or the way the box art captured my imagination (I know at least one guy feels the same). But we can't live in the past, and I really dig what Telltale is doing.
So I was moved to do a little Monkey Island tribute. Click HERE to see the original.
I got some new Ronin Dojo Community College DX artwork finished up. Hum some Pokemon music and watch this one evolve. Dum dum dum dum. . . 
Did some experimenting with a lot of elements in these. I really wanted the characters to pop off their surroundings, but I didn't want to paint everything by hand. Since I had drawn the characters and the background on separate layers in Photoshop, I decided I would just make the background lines lighter.
When coloring, I selected each background object using the magic wand, expanded the selection at least 3 or 4 pixels into the line, and filled it with the paint bucket on it's own layer. This really bit deep into my line, and made each layer essentially over lap one another.
I stacked the layers in the order they actually be on each other. Then I dropped the line layer down to 30% opacity. This left the line slightly gray, and because I had 'over filled' each object, no uncolored white space showed through. 
I also added in shadows and highlights with a textured brush, and made a layer with the blending mode set to "overlay" and lightly brushed some flat areas to give them a faux, painted feel. Again, an attempt to make the characters stand out from the background.
For a final touch, I tried putting a slight airbrushed vignette around the edges. To help keep the focus. Just brushed some black on a layer with the blending mode set to "overlay". 
I'm still experimenting with diff ways to color and paint backgrounds, if anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them. I'd really like to try some with no lines at all, but that might involve just straight up painting in Photoshop. That is not my forté. Also, these three drawings will have text on them, if you're wondering why there's so much extra space on the top and bottom.
Side note: messy rooms are a pain to draw. Lots of details, lots of colors to pick out. But it pays to push yourself extra mile, otherwise it just feels empty and flat. If you can't push yourself to do it, just find someone to yell at you about it. I had Ms. Jordie Bellaire on my case this time around.
I need to get better with my background details I think, more photo reference or something. There is an awesome example of a fully fleshed out, messy room over at Meaghan Carters blog. Great specifics. It's the little things. . .
Phew, it feels good to be back on the ol' internet. For a couple months I was on a little work hiatus. As in a hiatus from being on the internet because of work. Not to be confused with a hiatus from working, or the 1954 B-Movie Hiatus From The Black Lagoon. 
So now that I have nothing going, what better to do than blog.
I took a little break and went back home to Maryland. My parents requested I clear out some of the mess I've accumulated in the basement storage room, or they'd call whoever cleans up the houses on Hoarders. During my digging and crying, I ran across a couple boxes worth of animation.
This represents only a fraction of For Tax Reasons' work. I think some of IM IN UR MANGER is in there, the heads from the G.O.P. P.S.A.'s, and part of my Got My Number music video.
It's almost as tall as Marley! And would be even taller if Matt and I didn't cut so many corners when we animate. Of course, if we didn't cut any corners, we'd probably only have two shorts online. I kept a few of the drawings, but threw most of them into the recycling bin. They're all scanned and saved on various hard drives; pretty pointless to keep around. Even if I became ridiculously famous in some bizarre twist of fate, nobody would ever want the majority of these drawings. Since Matt and I work with so many layers and libraries, they're mostly bodies without heads and random arms:
The only way someone would EVER want those drawings is if I become a crazy eccentric billionaire- and after I die Sotheby's auctions off my state and includes them in some 2 for 1 deal with a real live genetically engineered Centaur. Only then would somebody MAYBE want those drawings. Fancy auctions do 2 for 1 deals, right?
As you can see, I work hard to validate my decisions to toss anything.
My lasts two posts referenced the snow, and this one again is about the weather. I know, very mundane. But I was super pysched about it getting a tiny bit warm in New York. So I drew this.
Initially, I couldn't decide which warm weather outfit to put her in- so I made outfits for each season. I was pretty much playing dress up with my drawings. Whatever, I'm comfortable with that. I may break up each figure and make a separate season surrounding for them. I dunno.
Everyone in New York gets excited when it's a tad bit warmer. We're so brutally demoralized by walking in the winter, that any warmth feels like the Keys or something. Ok, enough weather talk.
In other news, I've almost finished updating the Ronin Dojo Community College DX heads. Last up, Mark. If you can't tell the difference between the old and the new- JUST LOOK AT HOW CROOKED THOSE EYES ARE. Man, so glad I have guides in Photoshop.
I also gave a little update to the For Tax Reasons website banner and logo. Following the nice pixel art tutorial on Derek Yu's site. I took our old logo:
And made this!
Whoops, that ear should be self-lined. Whatever, this won't probably stay as is for long. I am totally losing my hair, so eventually this will have to be updated to reflect Bald Ben. Comparing the two logos you can see I receded my hair line a little bit to keep it true to life.
Anyways, thanks to Derek Yu. That tutorial is super helpful. Also, thanks to Andrew WK. I just came back from his NYC show, and oh man it was awesome! I partied so hard I got diarrhea. Shwarma is not the thing to eat before you're gonna go jump up and down for an hour. I can't stop telling people about this.
Mr. Matt Burnett (the other half of For Tax Reasons) and I had a fun radio interview last Friday. We called in to the Popmedia Primecast, to have a chat with Dom and Dusty. The show was originally broadcast on KANE Radio AM 1240 but you can listen to the whole episode in mp3 format here. We kinda rambled a lot, so if you get bored with hearing our voices, check out the other episodes they've got posted. There are some sweet guests talking about fun nerdy pop culture stuff.
In other For Tax Reasons news, I've started updating all the head files for the Ronin Dojo Community College DX characters.
They were originally drawn on paper and scanned in. So I'm redrawing them straight into the Photoshop using my Cintiq. Making them hi res enough for HD, and doing some slight redesigns along the way. And by that I mean, fixing my shitty drawings.
I've also been working on some sketches for this band The Heat Machine. They're an awesome ska band from Nebraska, or NebraSKA as I say. I definitely urge any third wave fans to go to their myspace and check 'em out. One of my favorite new bands out there for sure. Or at least, new to me. They just released a "No Coast Dance Party" on Asbestos Records. BUY IT. It is good.
Not sure which of these we're gonna use, but I thought I'd post the roughs here anyways.
That's all for nows, I'll post the final stuff when it's done.
It is so awesome to have that game in my hands. I'm not too hot on the Special Edition graphics (though it's fun listening to the new voice overs), but with a simple two finger swipe you're back in original game mode. Only complaint, I think the music from the forests on Mêlée Island™ weren't included. That was one of my hauntingly favorite synth reggae tracks.
To this, with Escape from Monkey Island:
I was sad too, Guybrush. Personally, nothing tops my nostalgic love for the EGA graphics in the first two Monkey Island games, or the way the box art captured my imagination (I know at least one guy feels the same). But we can't live in the past, and I really dig what Telltale is doing.
