['A rush and a push and the land is ours']

Steve, right - will do.

[Once more, with teeth.]

Absolutely. Although cobras are very poisonous, it wouldn't be much of a game if you had to stagger about for 7 hours before losing a life. Instant death, that's what we need

['A rush and a push and the land is ours']

The Cobra is intentionally a bit lopsided (in his front teeth as well). This is an ancient evil that's lurked here for a very long time. My first sketches were symmetrical but it just looked too damn healthy.

 

Regarding the addition of teeth. Yeah, I've looked at a few more photos of cobras. There do seem to be two rear facing, almost transparent, teeth in the lower jaw. I'll be adding those.

['A rush and a push and the land is ours']

Hmmm. Looking at the label, there's a stone in the bottom right foreground that I'm not at all happy with.

 

Expect version 1.1 tomorrow

['A rush and a push and the land is ours']

Thanks for the kind words guys!

 

Of course, this blog is far from over. Still got the manual to do and then, well, many other games I expect.

[Playing Paperboy (Sega Master System)]

I always preferred the Amiga version. Great little game.

[Damn and blast!]

I'm a sucker for punishment so I'm doing it by hand. Actually, on reflection, all of the 'auto mosaic's' I've seen do quite convincing 'well preserved Roman' mosaics. I'm going for the 'in very bad shape' ancient Mayan style

[Armed and Calibrated!]

Haha! I totally do that as well.

[Armed and Calibrated!]

It's not your LCD. First rule of painting - NEVER use black. All of the dark areas in this painting are reds, greens, blues etc.

Using black flattens the space and ruins the depth of the picture. See, a dark blue space recedes while a warmer red space suggests foreground. Black is flat and, in any case, if this were a photograph there wouldn't be any black in it as the presence of any light source negates the presence of true black.

 

That was a longer answer than anyone needed.

 

As for the line work, while this picture could exist without the linework layer, I want to keep a level of comic-art style. Not just in this painting, the same ethos runs through pretty much all my work. In fact, the linework used to be much more prominent on my older stuff (see Gunfight and StarFire). When I used to do it in 'real' paint, I'd have a sheet of acetate over the acrylic board with the linework in black pen. Glad those days are gone. Real paint is expensive, never does what you want and has no undo command!!

[Armed and Calibrated!]

Good points both.

 

@Manuel: Yes, it does seem that, now I've added lighter colour to the linework, it suggests light passing through hair. Well spotted, I'm going to tone that shading down a bit later on.

 

@Thomas: In my mind, the darker section is a much larger chamber. Perhaps I've brought the brightness level up a little too much for screen viewing. However, printing always makes it a touch darker so I'm a little reticent to drop the levels again. When I'm done on the title surround (which does encroach on the black space a little) I'll print it out and maybe fiddle with it a bit more then.

[Everything but the firearms]

Well, it is darker than I originally planned. Might lighten the image up, not sure yet. It's looking good dark.

[Mayan Temple Chic]

I have admired the minutiae of the Squish 'Em background. That's a damn nice label.

 

@Cybergoth - Couldn't wait for the Wii release and I'm glad I didn't. Seems to suit the control layout of a laptop trackpad and button very nicely. We've finished season 1 and we're already hitting season 2. Honestly the funniest games ever. Heck, I even installed Windows on my lovely new macbook for it, they'd have to be good to justify that kind of abuse!

[Mayan Temple Chic]

That said, I'm off to play Sam & Max now

[A bit more detail]

Sorry! A mistake in my blog settings. Fixed

 

@Nathan - Yeah, I must drop some deeper shadows in on the snake head, particularly around that eye. I do tend to favour the lighter tones when painting and I always find that I have to go back and add shadow to what always becomes a very pastel shaded picture. I really must learn to use the full tonal range when painting, I think it's a confidence thing.

[I won't sleep tonight...]

C64 games on the Wii already? God damn! Might go for IK, great game. As for Uridium, slick game but if I want to die in 10 seconds, I'll just go and stand in the road

[Leop of faith]

I'm loving Leopard. Time machine in particular is pretty damn cool, as is Quick look. Stacks are pretty useful too.

On the speed issue, what Mac are you running? Although I've only ever known Leopard on this new MBP, my wife's Macbook is definitely running slicker on the new OS.

[A new label. Starting Out.]

/subscribed

 

Bless you!

[Playing Head over Heels (C64)]

Great game. My wife, Kate, finished it. I feel I must point out, though, that you are playing rather a crippled version of the game on the C64. Because of it's rather limited RAM (64k - they wish!) some objects and details had to be simplified. It's best played on the Spectrum or, at a push, Amstrad. Alternatively, here's a rather lovely remake for PC.