Recap!

Well, two weeks later it is! The exam went alright, I managed to stay within the time limit I was told to work with. (actually, I made my presentation for 10 minutes, expecting to be long-winded enough to fill 20, which I nailed nearly to the second.)

I got an alright grade for presentation as it was, but since I'm incapable of keeping information really concentrated and tend to get lost in my enthousiasm for what I've done, that they downed the grade lower to keep me aware of this. (which I think is thoroughly unfair. Its quite harsh to give someone who has an incredible phobia for presentations a fairly low grade to start with and THEN pull it down even lower. Hows that for my confidence? It's pretty mean, but I can understand their reasoning. Agreeing is something else, but oh well.)
The concept itself, the basic thought and idea behind my game, got an awesome grade, and I'm fecking proud of it.
In the end it became a 84 page book, and I think it looks very pretty. I've been complimented by the looks of the book that it invited to be read. The questioned my colour choice, but after a few minutes showing my optioned colours, they agreed that my, yes.. chocolate brown, was in fact the best option. In all its a very floppy, long, big and colourful book, but I'm really happy with it. It's done and yay!

Now, stage 2. I'm currently finishing up my last points to get my diploma (dutchies, it's the 26th at 5, in Utrecht Hofman, with Mark and Sander (and hopefully the Pirate and the Duke) and working on my portfolio to be sent around (or rather, cleaning it out). Besides that, I really enjoy having the time to play warcraft, watch movies, watch silly video's, listen to new music, and draw again. And I really notice how my hands are rusty. Sitting behind my tablet is uncomfortable as bum, my shoulders aren't used to it anymore. My fancy brushes seem awkward now, I've gone straight back to hardedge only penpressured brushes to paint with. I've also sketched a lot in my sketchbooks, and even stranger.. they are all humans. Worse still, they're all women! (and one tree for Isak)
I forgot my camera cable at my parents though, and my scanner has been broken for a long time, so I can't transfer those sketches at all. But I could show you some of the drabbles. They're no good, I'm clearly very rusty, but alas.. I didn't take on this blog to be in a comfort zone. Mind you, I'm so rusty with drawing humans (its been almost three years I've looked into humans seriously, somewhat) that I'm training with references.






Interesting lighting to train with.. but I definately need more practice. A lot more. But I see things I'm starting to like. The skin colour of the japanese girls chest and her kimono, and the spots of light on the red face (who is Arcipello, but did not quite succeed in likeliness). Thats nice, have to keep that in mind.

Other than that, it's spring today. One of those days that the seasons visibly turn. When the world appears happy, I'm a lot more happy too. I'm not really very happy on other days, but I will not talk about it :)

One month untill the redhead comes over, I'm quite scared. One month untill I come over to the Swedes, I'm quite scared too.

Oh Shi-

Well, it finally happened. Just now I lost Photoshop. I was resizing my books pages (in case the printshop wouldn't do that for me tomorrow), and when I was on opening the 8th picture, the computer went into its usual funk of not responding to anything. Rebooted the blighter, but when I wanted to fire up Photoshop it gave warnings that some things in the C drive couldn't be found. And along sank the ship of Photoshop.

Tan isn't happy. I'm very worried even. This most likely means that I won't be able to make a powerpoint presentation either for tuesday (even though it should only have 6 slides. 10 minutes is SHORT). Perhaps I should just do it hardcopy. Bring the big flowchart, bring the book, adress the pages involved, discuss my personal point of view and game trademarks and have it done with.

Glad I have three back-ups of the book. But the pages are supersize. I'm just hoping by the gods that the printshop will allow me to go "hey, erm.. these pages, can you print them as 50x20 instead of 127xsomething? Its not good to have nearly 3 meters of book when you have it open. 1 meter is insane as it is.. but the font is about 10 px at that, so heavens hope people can read it.

Am panicked about it, really. I really won't be able to make ANOTHER presentation. Four prelims and two majors exams is about all my nerves can take. I hate this phobia. Why am I so goddamn scared of doing presentations? I've danced in front of a 2000-head audience, solo. I've done numerous plays and performances. I've been to job interviews that had me defending my art, and none of it was nearly as frightening and paralysing as doing presentations.

What am I worrying about? The teachers have all told me they were excited about my book, they had a good feeling about the final outcome, the book is finished, the games work, tests have been conducted, people have been talked to, research was done, graphics are finalised, I reached my goals, it's all there. I think it's the mere idea of the possibility of failing it AGAIN is what freaks me out very, very much. All signs point into me become a Bachelor of arts and technology, but all my mind is looking at is that 5% of not being there yet. It's like standing on a well-travelled path over a grassy field. No rocks, no obstructions, nothing. But my head will only look at the one big tree somewhere in the field, worried that I'll bash my head into it and break my skull.

It's stupid. But rationality is just... not.. working.

Hmm.. Coffee

Wondrous, divine, unrivaled sweet sweet coffee. How I love thee!

It's that time again. Right before the exams. That time where you just can't care about certain things and have to work. I've pulled almost three all-nighters in a row now. Going to bed at 6, waking up at 10 or 11 and continue working. It's exhausting, but it some ways it's pretty nifty too (although seriously bad for your health. I find myself eating kiwi's and red bell-peppers during the day to feel at bit balanced. No cookies, no candy. Oh, I don't like sweet though so I guess that's not a big problem.) I'm at two cups of coffee a day now. I'm being a pretty innocent boy with that.
The first one gets chucked somewhere around 12 or 13. The second one is 10 hours later, at 23. By then I usually have finished dinner two hours before at least, and I know I have to work all night. At around 3 or 4 though begins the really weird stuff. Small black spots and tiny hallucinations kick in. At 5 I always need to watch some video's to keep my eyes from drifting all over the screen. At 6 it's about setting the goals.. "have to finish this and that before I sleep", using sleep as a reward for my work.
It's really a bad, bad thing. It's all part of the process but I want to be done with it.

I underestimated the remaining work that needed to be done on my book. Most books that I used for reference points in size, layout and subject are all extremely small compared to the stunt I'm pulling. I'm so stupid.. How could I possibly think that numbering pages in Photoshop would be done in a jiffy? This is not Word! This is an 84-page book! Checking all the pages, writing the last and new chapters in it is mindbreaking. My teachers aren't too clear about it either. It's taken me a very long time to figure out what the hell they are meaning with 'overall conclusion' on the game, and I'm still unsure, so I'm taking the guess and wrote a 2 page essay reflecting my process as maker and the final game compared to the original two goals I've set myself. I'll be keeping my appendages crossed and hope it's alright. It's pretty damned hard finding an overal conclusion about something that was a creative progress and product. It felt as if I had drawn a tree. Then showed it to them "This is my tree." And they would ask "What is your overall conclusion?" ....What do you say? "It's a tree."? Very confusing. So I wrote down how I came to certain decisions, how I've implemented my goals in my games based on what, and what the setbacks were. Basically now this part is a "I wanted to have multiple people play my game. It needs to work for three kinds. See? Here's part one, here's two, and there is three. Oooh, there they are again. And over there again too. No progress without it." Urgh, I still find it hard to explain.

So, the book originally was a 74-page illustration of a walkthrough, with back up and reasoning, of a newly created, open ended, multi-player based alternate reality game.
I've added:
Index
Introduction to the project
Intro to the book
Intro and short short dictionairy to alternate reality games
... about me (joy..)
Layout explanation for each page
Story Summary before it starts
-entire game sits here-
Flowchart explanation and index
Flowcharts 01 and 02 (You've seen these), Flowchart 03, Flowchart 04
Final conclusion essay
Tools list
Credits
Removed a couple of pages, added these new pages, switched the design around, adjusted the remaining ones and checked for consistency (which.. I'm afraid to say, isn't always that strong), making the total number of pages at 84.
Mind you, this thing is 45 cm in length, and 20 cm high. Thats nearly one meter of book you'll have in front of you when reading, and then 84 pages of it. I'm so worried that my lettering is too small. Or that the colours don't work out. Or that the flowcharts are simply too big for this book (so I'm having a few of that file posterprinted, like a map). Too many things to worry about.. too little time.
I've only got the index to do now. After that I need to take a quick look at what pages are most important and then I'm sending it out to my three teachers who will take my exam. They'll have 5 days to read the designated pages and view the charts. I can't do much better than this.. Time is already running short and the standard I've set myself is so high.. It's very rewarding and depressing at the same time. Like making a giant elaborate glass sculpture, without ever having worked with glass whatsoever at all, and that in about 6 months. I'm proud of where I am though. This project is exactly how I wanted it to be, and it looks great. It's elaborate, it's all thought out, most parts work, and the book exists. Heh, and to think that the previous one who did this in my study made a 22 normal-page text walkthrough about just a sequence of puzzles. Even my midterm exam was more than that.. Still, I'm worried. I'm always worried. Next tuesday we'll know the verdict.

I want to go to Sweden..

I'm going to have a smoke now.

Synesthesia

Apparently, I have it. Am not sure what to think of it, really, but somehow discovering it made me burst out in tears that it actually existed and that I wasn't a complete lunatic.

Wikipedia says: neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

In short it means that two sensory paths blend together in some ways, and get mixed up. So taste, colour perception, smell, touch, it gets a bit jumbled up together. You can hear something in a picture. Or smell something in a sound. A banana can taste blue, or a violin smells like smoke, it's a bit hard to explain. I don't have those, though, apparently I'm a grapheme synesthesiast. That means that when I see a word, a letter, a number, or hear things, I see colours.

Some of you may remember me liking the name of Tangrim, or building the name of Tangrim, because the colours are nice. I've always thought I was blooming mad when I created my names like that, and I hardly spoke of it. ((turns out my mother knew I had this all along. I do tell her things like some names or numberplates of cars have nice colours, but I always thought she just nodded her head and went with my foolishness. Well, no, it seems. Darn her. She could have told me.. )) But thats what happens. When I see a letter on paper, or a screen, or hear a word, it registers just normally, it just gets colours assigned to it. Like a sort of an overlay, or as if you see it in your head, all coloured up.
For instance. When I see the name of Tangrim, I just see the word. But my head sees each letter separate, and coloured. Tangrim becomes; dark green, warm yellow, orange, grey, black, white and red. As a whole, the name of Tangrim looks like an orange grove on a warm summer day, with heavy shading, small flowers, a few fruits, crisp dark green leaves, dusty sand and a few clouds in a big blue sky.

My own name, which has letters that Tangrim also has, has some of the same colours because of that. Maartje becomes red, yellow, yellow, black, dark grey, and blue. A very icky colour combination.. It's mostly yellow, red and blue, none of which are colours I am particularly fond of, especially not together. The only picture I see with my name is that of a child's beach. With yellow sand, a blue sea, and small ribbons of red in parasols, towels and beachballs..

Sebastian is a very nice one. His name is like a very early summer morning, when the sky turns in shades of blue going from a greyish teal to blue-black, when the moon is yellow instead of white but you can still see the stars, and right below it are smooth hills with a few bits of forest silhouetted. His name is dark blue, light blue, dark tealish green, yellow, dark blue, dark green, white, yellow and orange. Very nightsky!

Duq is also a favorite name, thats why I call you Duq actually, and not Stephan. Duq is a warm grey, darkish orange, and light grey. I like names with grey in them. Gabriel is yellow and greys, for instance.

Hehe, Raoul looks like.. either a car park, or a forest larp. His colours are madly strong, very dark, and very bright. He has blacks, dark greys, yellows, whites, and browns in there, kind of like the colours cars have when they're in a showroom, all clean, or forest larp, where the natural forest colours contrast with the very clean and bright clothes of larpers and their leather gear. I like this name too, but more because its so unusual and heavy. (his lady, Hannah, is all warm and balanced in redpinks, yellows and oranges, like a heavily saturated sundown, or a bed of roses.) The name I met him with, Saeros, is a wonderfully balanced combination of rich greens, blues and yellow. That name is like a willow next to a pond, in a beautiful garden. Thats probably why I still call him Sae, because his new name Tookie, is a rough white, green and orange combination that I don't find my way in. Sorry Sae..

Numbers are the same thing. I don't remember codes as numbers, but more like colour schemes. And it's bloody tough to get these out of my head. My mothers friend once told me her pin number when I was about 9, and I've never forgotten it. Simply because its colours were so damned easy. Red, blue, green, red.



When I started thinking about it, I found out I like certain people just because of their colour codes. Smells have colour too. Banana's smell a light green to me, apples are pink, meat is a very rich blue, Sebastian smells like warm terracotta, Erwin smells a very cool purple/teal combination, and so on. It's in their personalities too. I'll always remember Duq as a warm bright yellow, Sebastian as a darker rich yellow with bits of dark purple. One of my clan mates, Jim, is a very nice fresh very light orange. Heskaar, another clan mate, is a wonderful dark green. Raoul is a very dark grey, almost black, but Hannah sounds like she's a vibrant reddish pink one. Sam is an autumn kind of colour, with lots of rich browns and muted reds. Coley, his lady, is a cream white. Danny is a sky blue. My middle brother is a mild yellow, my youngest brother is both a light and a medium green. Evert is a warm coffee colour, whereas one of my advisors is such a nasty dull grey..

Aah, its lots of stuff. It's always unconscious, but its a big part of why I like certain things. Music is like a painting in my mind, there isnt a single thing that isn't visual in there. It makes things hard to explain though, and I bet that whoever is reading this blog post must think I'm absolutely bonkers. Which I thought too, to be fair. Bloomin' mad. Some wiring being complete off-key.
And thats what it is. Somewhere the wiring in my head went wrong and got interconnected. Well, nothing special, really. I just have double senses, I guess. And thank god not on everything. Imagine listening to AC/DC and smelling daisies, that won't do! Or vivaldi, and smelling a toilet.. urgh no. Combichrists' Bodybeat sounds like white, moss, bright vibrant green and black. Goldfrapps music is often a dark smooth green with pink and I'd like to listen to Sting, who brings up all sorts of oranges and light blue's and teals.

To me though, it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. What I've had since I was very young and kept very secret actually exists, it has a name, and I'm not the only one. I found out about it because someone posted up several video's of people on the conceptart forums' lounge. One was of a boy with a strong past life connection. One of a painted who never had eyes. And one of a lady who was a synethesiast, who saw colour and had a sense of smell or taste with sound. What a revelation..

(so I always wondered why I had a slight aversity to deathmetal and hardrock.. They are very sharp tiny brushstroked dirty brown coloured sounds.. Electro music is really smooth tones of blue, white and greens..)

Here's some stuff on youtube about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvwTSEwVBfc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R_A4tUMOtI

So, there you go. Had to get that out of my system :)

----

Now then! What am I doing? Mapping out the flowchart of my game. Its a lot harder than I thought, and I need to have it done as quickly as possible. I'm halfway through now, and this is kind of what it looks like. It's basically a roadmap of what road players must take to get from the start to the end, and then divided up in four sections. First is the camera hunt, second the graphics card hunt, third is the Sero council search and last is the final card, or endgame line.

It's rather big at the moment.. but this is half of it. Hehe, and yes.. that is my clan name in there, I couldn't leave it out. I'm such a hide geek...

Need more texture practice. Am afraid I pushed this one too far, so I'm stopping before I kill it too much.




Working from sketch this time. Lighting practice, about 20 minutes in, so it's just blocked in colours.
Am not happy with windows, need to make more sense with the other shapes. Hence no lighting on the floor, have to fix those things first. Lets see if I can texture and light with coloured walls. Been such a long time since I sketched.. this looks like standard Tan stuff. I can't wait till my hands free up. Wish I had painter to paint with, instead of photoshops safe clinical neatness.

It's wet. Very pretty and sunny outside, but I had to make my first drawing in two months a wet one.. Oh well! Not finished yet, but trying to get back to training. Need more work with greys, muted tones and natural colours.

On other notes, archeaological illustrations are strange things, and I wonder what whiskey swedish people like most, as well as waiting for more clocks to demolish. Also, book is about done on the extra bits. 74 pages so far, all double regular book sized. Woot.

Also, need more music.