Sunday, May 31, 2009

The Daily Blur

I can't believe that May is almost over. Here it is, 3 weeks into the Summer and I haven't even started on anything I was going to do. Well this week I'm changing all that. I'm making a conscious decision right now that I am going to get started on every one of my projects this week.

Project #1: Getting a License
This Summer I will be spending as much time as I can relearning how to drive. To start off, I need to get my permit which means passing the written driving test that I haven't taken in forever. Shouldn't be too bad though. I'm more worried about when I take the actual driving portion of the test. Fortunately, I should have plenty of opportunities to practice driving this Summer.

Project #2: Learning to Draw
So for a while now, I've had this idea for a webcomic. I even made two strips of the comic using pictures made in The Sims 2. Unfortunately, I learned that while getting a computer program to look the way you want is easy, getting it to do what you want is hard. I stopped trying to make comics, but the idea stayed with me.

Recently, I took a class in game design. After a few classes, we suddenly found ourselves without an artist. Unfortunately, none of the remaining class had what could be considered traditional artistic skills. Thankfully, we did have some free sprites we could manipulate into backgrounds and we used simple designs for the creeps and towers.

My Mother is an artist and I have started wonder if I am missing out on something that I in fact can do. These events have made me determined to learn how to draw. Of course, it's not like I could take a class to learn this. What I want to do isn't something that can really be taught. Instead, I intend to teach myself. I will discover my inner artist by starting my webcomic again. This time, it will be hand drawn. I just need to get my hands on some tracing paper and I will start drawing. (I will be penciling and Inking by hand but I'll be using photoshop for colors).

Project #3: Get Back on Track with Weight Watchers
So yeah. I haven't been to a Weight Watchers meeting since May 1st. I gained weight that week and I haven't been able to stick to the plan for more than a day at a time since then, I'm almost sure that I'm back over 200lbs. and I'm afraid that I won't be able to lose it again. I need to start exercising and I need to relearn how to control my cravings. Far too often I've had the desire to eat large amounts of unhealthily prepared meat and followed my urges. I keep sleeping in on scheduled meeting days thinking "I'll go to the next one". Well I need to go now. And I definitely need to start working out again.

Project #4: Games
After all the projects listed above, "playing games" doesn't seem like such a big deal. Well it is to me. I have a number of games that I likely won't have much chance to play once the school year starts back up.


Well, that's all I got for now. Later!
-Ben

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Grakus Version 2

Ok, we've done some work and I think we have a finished project. Check out Grakus on Kongregate! If you don't have an account, sign up for one, and please, please, please, rate it 5 stars!