Hello again! It's been a good bit of time since I last
posted an update. It certainly wasn't my intention to be gone for so long
but life happened and sometimes you just gotta do you. In my case,
shortly after Pax Dev, I ended up going through some personal hardships which, in turn, made the next eight months a little difficult.
This period was not without high points though; I landed a job at 343
Industries as a member of the Hammer team and performed daily build verification
tests. I was a proud member of the team and the studio until I was
offered a huge financial opportunity out on the east coast -- with only one
week to move there. So, in April 2015 I turned in my notice, sold my things,
packed what remained, and left in the wee hours of the morning on a long trip
to Ohio. Finally, after 8 long months of doing a job that I will describe as slightly monotonous, I finished up and began the long trip home to the Pacific Northwest. Now, in this new
and exciting year, filled with new and exciting opportunities and technologies, I make my triumphant (at least in my mind) return to the games
industry!
Which brings us to the purpose of this post (nice transition eh?). As you know, David Bowie passed away on January 10th this year. He starred in one of my favorite childhood movies, Labyrinth. While watching it over the holidays, I was inspired to recreate some of the
beautiful and imaginative environments from the movie. Originally I was going to do
so after finishing the Old Watermill, but I decided to push it to the forefront
of my agenda after he died.
So after watching the film again tonight and grabbing some screenshots, I've selected nine environments from which to narrow down to a short list.
They are (in order of film appearance):
1. The Entrance
"I thought fairies did nice things, like granting wishes."
"Hah, shows what you know."
2. The Throne room
"Dance magic dance!"
3. Doors of the Liar Paradox
"He always lies."
"I do not, I tell the truth!"
"Ohhh what a lie!"
4. The Oubliette
"Nice young girl, terrible black oubliette."
5. The wise man and the bird brain
"It's so stimulating being your head."
6. Ludo's tree
"Sawa! Sawa fweind!"
7. Old man door knockers
"Mumble mumble mumble, you're a wonderful conversational companion."
"You can talk, all I can do is moan!"
"No good, *sniff*, can't hear you."
8. Bridge over troubled bog
"I've never smelled anything like it, it's like..."
"Ohhh, it doesn't matter what it's like; it's the Bog of Eternal Stench! Help!"
9. Goblin city gate guardian
"I don't see why we have to be so quiet, it's only a goblin city."
If you were alive for any portion of the 80s and 90s, you probably love looking at these pictures as much as I do! There are other, more complicated scenes in this movie that I'd really like to work on and I may still throw them into the mix -- but for now this is enough to get started. There is a school out here in Seattle called Futurepoly and I am signed up for their Zbrush core class at the end of February -- I plan on working on the majority of this project while I'm there.
So that's all for now. I should have another update in a few weeks as I continue the planning process. I have been gone from game development for almost a year so there's going to be some kinks to work out of the ol' skill set, but then that's why I have a blog :) Thanks for reading and, as always, feedback and suggestions are most welcome. Happy 2016!
