After drawing it, I thought sort of summed up my life right now. Japan Studies continue to rock. And as you can see, I’m still drawing away. I also still contemplate comics. A short story about Guinness has especially been something that I’ve wanted to do.

I also started another blog with my girlfriend Xiao. It’s supposed to be less personal, and more about… well still random stuff, but if I want to write say… an article about something, then that would be the place I’d post it.

きょう、私は大学にです。

日本語の先生がはやかったはなしました。そして、日本語はむずかしかったです。

でも、私がべんきょします。でわ、あしたはあまりむずかしいです。

でわ、また。

Ah, starting university again has been fun! I’ve been reading up on hiragana again and it’s just… fun! I hardly drew anything this week, but got drunk quite a lot \( ^ _^)/

But I’ve finally gotten some time to just sit and sketch.

When I draw, I’m often inspired by what I see by Takehito Harada. But since I still don’t speak Japanese, I haven’t gotten to read any of his manga or quite understand his website or his posts, but the weird mix of fanatasy elements and modern objects is so compelling, I want to make stories like that, or stories that include those elements. They might not be anything like his, and they certainly won’t look it, since I can’t draw like him, but he seems to be a great souce of inspiration.

But isn’t it nice to be able to be inspired by something, and then the outcome purposely doesn’t look anything like the source? Otherwise it wouldn’t anything but copy?

Oh god I’m so tired… comic is done. Homework too. Going to see my family tomorrow. Dim Sum is awesome food… need oxygen.

I like this new comic a lot, but my scanner ruins watercolours… I like Samuel the fishbot, and I hope I can keep improving how I try and mix finished comic with the looseness and creativity of sketches. Perhaps the next comic? I’m sketching it out right now, but I hope I can some really crazy drawings in it. I’m also considering drawing a comic either on my iPhone or in msPaint…

EDIT: Scribd wasn’t really for me… so instead, I’ve gone the way of mr. Enrico Casarosa, and will be using my Flickr account to post comics from now on:

Our Flimsy Companions

I don’t think I was wrong when I wrote I had lost faith and interest in video games. But it was jumping the gun a little considering the amount of indie games being produced at the moment. Olivier Lejade was quick to remind me of this. But I still lack the qualities that I look for in games. That might not be fair either, considering that these qualities are mostly found in books and independent movies and might not be inherit to video games? When I see somebody trying to apply them, it seems forced and I loose interest.

Perhaps the only game that I’ve experienced where I can say I truly find the qualities I’m looking for is Braid. While Yatzee of Zero Punctuation mentions that it keeps gameplay and story seperate, he fails to recognize that it also lets the player intertwine, mix and match the story as the sees fit, making it very open to interpretation.

List to myself of indie games I need to complete/buy:

• Aquaria
• Braid
• Dyson
• The Spirit Engine 2
• Noitu Love 2

I’ve finally gotten Spelunky. By gotten, I mean understood. The controls are awesome in that they do not leave room for failure, or newbies. I also really dig Derek Yus attempt at making the playing chosen actions, feel like self-involved stories. I’ve also died 132 times and still haven’t gotten past level 11.

This year was terrible. Quitting that disgusting video game education and then spending the year almost completely alone in a new town… ARGH. Finally over. Taking a history class now so I can start studying Japanese next month in a bigger and better city.

Tiny Cartridge is gonna publish the article I was writing on Contact, which is making me… even more happy!

And my I was out of paper, so I bought a moleskine sketchbook, which is like the best sketchbook I’ve every been near, but also the most expensive.

I finished thumbnailing a comic, but I’m out of paper as I mentioned, so I won’t start drawing it fully till some time next week. But other than that, I’m already working on another story.

I’ve also been playing video games again. I know I’ve become too critical of games. It would be easier to just enjoy whatever comes my way but… they just don’t cut it. Knytt Stories was quite a fantastic experience Deserves all it’s praise. Mass Effect is good but… the kinetic feel of battles is missing, making me long for Bioshock, and the characters, while fantastically acted, are stiff as hell, making me long for Half-Life 2. But I do LIKE the characters, especially Wrex and the various Hanar. Wish the Hanar were playable.

Sketches! Bring in the SKETCHES!

If I were to make a video game, I would like this character to be the main.

This a map of my next comic.

This is the Sewer-Slug-Hag. She lives on an island.

This Moth-Slug reminds me of the dragonfly boss from Beyond Good & Evil.

In my next comic, this guy is present. I think he’ll be less crazy.

This is Samuel, the Fish-Droid-Butler. He’s in the comic I’m currently making.

This guy spies for fish.

]]> http://sketchwhales.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/im-happy-again/feed/ 2 Horatio http://sketchwhales.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/sketches-for-the-sake-of-sketches/ http://sketchwhales.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/sketches-for-the-sake-of-sketches/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:39:27 +0000 Jacob Hartmann http://sketchwhales.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/sketches-for-the-sake-of-sketches/ ]]>

It feels good abandoning a need to do pretty and just do what feels good… What a stupid sentence.
I like the new iPhone os 3.0. Camera is much better now.

Even with no scanner readily available, the blog has gotta be updated.
My dad bought a cool tv and hid all the wires away to preserve the aesthetics. It looks great but I couldn’t help feel that at some point I will start to miss the look of wires everywhere. Like craftsmen enjoy being flooded in their tools to get a feeling of really being in there, I guess there’s something personal about being in your ow. Personally designed zone with wires and cables everywhere, all connected to an active purpose.

I’m still drawing my comic, very slowly, one page at a time and I’m writing a review of Contact, a fun and deep Nintendo DS adventure. But I have to complete the game first.

A little piece.

Iphone photos (edited on the phone aswell) of sketches.
Laziest time ever. I read books and comics and draw. Somehow this is an optimal life, but this city is so dull. Can’t wait to start university.
Still drawing comics. Very inspired by Haruki Murakami right now and visually by Fred Gallagher and Yukon Makoto. You gain such a huge respect when you try to do it yourself. But still I try to remember what I’ve always been critical of.