De-rail ag-ain

Devoted to procrastination I once again faulter to put up anything interesting in a long while. InkShell will never die however.

Recently I have been conjuring ideas to make InkShell a bit more... I don't know / I am unsure how to put it in better wording other then "stylized" but that seems to pop out in my head more then anything else. Logos that will make InkShell recognizable.. simple character designs besides Toof. Something.. It'll jump out at me sooner or later, I'd think.

Anyhow, the Mario game did not die as well, I need to learn much more about Lunar Magic to fully understand everything I can do and make it look pretty instead of using default graphics. Sure, the original game had some spot on artwork, but the things available to change all that, well, are stunning.




I need a better imagintaion.

Design and Play. Updates

Trendy header design yay! A hell of a lot better then that dual border box with plain text inside.. Just had to do some minor HTML editing to get rid it. Funny blogger won't let you remove it in the layout editor, but will allow you to destroy the widget entirely inside the HTML editor..

Anyhow, here is how current projects are looking currently.

The current Mario poster idea is still in early planning stages. I decided not to jump right in to it and decided to do the age old strategy of planning it out. Aside from taking one look at Illustrator and resiting the urge to have an annurism, I really sat down and looked at how I could work it out digitally since I have no way of scanning in a hard copy done by hand, save for the tried and true method of using a camera, but even that ruins the perspective at times. I need a scanner. Hardcore. This poster will also be the "box art" if you will, for the next paragraph.

--

As for the Play front. While learning Lunar Magic has been a daunting experience, I have not lost sight of trying to lay down a rough story idea to design the hack around. I figure having one of them in the woodwork would make the overworld desinging process (something I know how to do now) a lot more, organized, and not so much creating random land masses and hoping for the best that something tangible and usable comes out of it. Kinda like slapping paint onto a canvas. But even then, some big wig would even find "expression" in a random explosion of color and buy it for cash,  so, analogy crushed.

 The Story

The Yoshis have been long an icon to those living in the Mario world, and just now, a group of islands have been discovered off in a remote region of the vast oceans. A large island amongst the others, sits as the main plot of land. Upon these landmasses have been constructed 9 temples as a symbol of idolizing the Yoshi race. Until recently only the ancient civilization who built these temples knew about them. Enter Bowser, who had found the islands, and believes of a great power to be hidden deep away within them. Wanting the power all to himself, he sent his trusted Koopas to convert all the temples into horrific fortified castles to place his foot hold on the Yoshi Islands, as a symbol to all that he is not leaving, and further that he will be using the islands as his base of operations for controlling the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond. Mario can't let this come to pass! Even the Yoshi's existance is on the line yet again.

Ha! Eat that, Nintendo writers. I didn't even mention *Toadstool* Thats right, that is her name, not Peach. Nyah..


Shell out. 

Upload, the Play Module

     See that? That is the inner workings of two things. A) The first level of Super Mario World, and B) Most of the overworld to Super Mario World. That program? Well that makes magic.

When I was in my younger days I attempted to create my own Zelda game using a program called "ZQuest", which took the ancient game engine that ran Zelda 1, enhanced it far past the abilities of that from it's cart release, and allowed the editing of your own overworld and dungeons, items, pallettes, monsters, bosses, wepons.. ANYTHING.. basically..

Whats this have to do with Mario? Well, nothing directly. This program in the screen shot called "Lunar Magic".. Allows the creation of your own Super Mario World hack! As soon as I figure out how to use it, I plan to create my own SMW game to share with, who ever wants to play.


Might need a tester or two later on..

Lunar Magic Website

ReFill

     So, this is a post explaining the lack of creative stuff over the last few weeks or so. A severe artist block hit me hard and quick. Suddenly I was stricken with no motivation and inspiration to mark down the ideas I've had onto paper to get them out to the world. My artwork, and t-shirts as a result, suffered directly, obviously.

What I didn't seem to understand was the fact that maybe this was not an artist block at the root. While it would certainly look as such from first glance, after I looked into the situation deeper in my own mind I found what my problem was. My depression was getting deeper. It wasn't so much a loss of inspiration as much as it was a total loss of interest. Of course it didn't stop here, as I noticed myself loosing interest in many other things around me. It was frightening to say the least.

How could I loose interest in this? It didn't seem so possible to me. My drawings are the one thing I've held closest to me my entire life, and the fact I have been getting better in my style and hey, even cashing in on it a little bit, just pushed me to get better. Thats my goal, to get better at it.

After giving it thought, I believe I may have found it's not gone. Lately I have been feeling myself get worse from all these thoughts and feelings swirling around in my brain, so I need that rescue ladder. My drawings are  tools of my emotions. That blank canvas is the window. Putting the two together allows my thoughts to become clear not only to others, but to myself. Because of all this, I have came to a clear conclusion.

I will attack this head on. Letting myself fall to the ground and letting this feeling win will destroy everything for me, and I am not about to give that up now, not now.

InkShell returns with a full cartridge of ink.

A planned "storyline" will take place as well, I am going to bring this higher then it ever was before, just watch.

A small snippit.

4 hours of sleep, working on a project. After this is out of the way this week I look forward to some other things I have been planning in my head. One of which being some of my own interpretations of some Little Big Planet stuff. I got re-hooked on the game and I've been simply obsessed.

First new notes.

So, forgetting WordPress, this will now be the official working blog for the InkShell project, and everything that falls under it. Im more familiar with Blogger, and I personally find it easier to work with. Sure, the bells and whistles might not be there, but I don't have money to pay for that junk, so this works just as well. =)


Anyhow, ideas, finished things, new products in the store and so on will be posted here along with random ideas and thought processes that jump into my head. Things that are written down are easier to remember after all. My projects will also be listed on the right as well, which will make me keep things a bit more organized, and remind me what I need to do still.

Onward to new horizons and fields.