Now THIS is how to do an interview

I got a big laugh out of this interview earlier today. The interview is with Cliffy B., and is conducted by my editor at GameSpy, Raymond Padilla. The interview was done during the Atari University press event in Cabo, and y'know Ray actually managed toget in a couple of gaming questions. Overall, it's definitely worth checking out.

A box of digital crayons

Well, I said I'd post some stuff up here as I learn to do digital coloring. It's been a long day and I couldn't sleep, so I decided to take a stab at applying some of what I've learned already. I know that I'm still a long way from professional work (hey, I AM a writer after all), but this was relaxing, I had fun, and hey ... I don't think it turned out half bad. Let me know what you guys think.

Original pencils

My colors

Turn left here.

Okay. So anyone who knows me also knows that I'm not the biggest race fan in the entire world. As such, what I know about the world of NASCAR could probably fit comfortably into a thimble with plenty of room to spare. Basically, I know a few of the names and that the sport has a noticeable lack of right turns. However, I AM a big fan of video games. Regardless of the type of game, if it's good then I'll play it. So where is this all leading? NASCAR 2005: Chase the Cup from Electronic Arts (PS2/Xbox). I just received review copies of this game yesterday, and it actually looks to be an interesting game to me. I'll be really digging into the game today, but it looks like EA went the extra mile to put a little more "umph" into it. Besides the online play (FINALLY EA is utilizing Xbox Live), there's acareer mode which touts that you can "be a hero or a villain". That's right ... you get to be a total ass of a driver in the game if you want, and you're rep will build as such with the other drivers. Also, EA added a few cars to the game other than your basic NASCAR fare. After I've played the game a while and written up the review, I'll let you know my thoughts ... but it's at least piqued my interest.

Moving along, I spent yesterday hanging out with Randy in a day long brainstorming session filled with Mountain Dew, video games, and a hell of a lot of creative ideas bouncing around. I'm going to have my hands full up here for a while now, but it's definitely worth it. Odds are, I'll be doing more and more of my work at his studio ... though still getting the majority of it done at home. And thanks to Randy's infinite patience, I'm going to start learning more and more about doing digital coloring. I'm blown away at all of the Photoshop tricks I never knew about. Randy's even offered to let me play around with coloring some of his art just to get in some practice. Thankfully it's digital coloring,so there's no chace of me actually screwing up the originals. As I tinker around with it, I'll be sure to post the results here so all of you can see my handiwork.

A dog-eat-dog world

It was a crunch-time review, and I think it could have been better ... but the review of A Dog's Life went live tonight over at GameSpy. You can check it out for yourself over here and tell me what you think. Tomorrow, I'll be working on some ideas for new stories and keeping myself busy. Not much else going on other than that at the moment ... but stay tuned.

One move down

Well, I got through the move fairly well this weekend. I'm in Virginia now surrounded by boxes. The drive up on Saturday was a pain, but both WonderMutt and myself made it in one piece. Speaking of my canine companion, WonderMutt served up a lot of inspiration for my latest review. I just sent off a crunch-time review of A Dog's Life (PS2) for GameSpy. The game is a kid-friendly look at the world through the eyes of a dog. It's definitely geared more for young kids ... or adults who don't play many games. But overall, it's an entertaining game worthy of a family night rental.

I should be meeting up with Randy tomorrow. We'll hang out and talk about some ideas we're bouncing around. I'm also hoping to get some more stuff set up at the place here ... like a computer desk. Right now, I'm sitting on the floor typing up this entry into the blog with my monitor sitting on a TV stand.

As always, I'll be posting whatever's happening with me on the blog, so keep checking things out. As I get settled in up here, I'll probably be posting more on a regular basis ... of course I'll also be writing a lot more too. Feel free to drop me a line and say hey any time.

Another busy weekend

Things are going to be more than a little hectic this weekend. Tomorrow I'll be moving up to Virginia for a while. I've got some projects to work on while I'm there too. So, I'll be keeping myself busy. Speaking of work, I had two reviews go live over at Gamexilla's web site. The reviews were for The Chronicles of Riddick on the Xbox and a hardware review of Tapwave's Zodiac PDA console.

Tomorrow, I should be getting a copy of the PS2 game A Dog's Life. I'm writing up a review on it for GameSpy. It's one of those crunch time interviews that needs to be finished by Monday. Considering the move tomorrow afternoon from Florida to Virginia, I'll basically be burning the midnight oil on Sunday to wrap things up. Like I said in the beginning, things are going to be more than a little hectic.

Damned embargos!

First the good news. Another article went live today on GameSpy. This time it was a preview of the upcoming Monster Hunter PS2 game from Capcom. So what's the bad news? I turned in the preview exactly one month ago. The reason it didn't go up any sooner had nothing to do with me missing any deadline, or the guys at GameSpy dropping the ball. The reason for the delay is that the article was hit by one of the little known hazards of the journalism field ... press embargos.

In a nutshell, it breaks down like this: A company provides product or information to journalists so that the journalists can write up an article on the company's product. The problem is, the company decides that it wants to grant an exclusive story to a particular outlet, or it wants to keep everything under wraps until just prior to (or just after) the product's release. Whatever the reason, the company imposes a press embargo, in effect telling the journalists that anything written up about the product can't go live until after a particular date. Most of the time, the press embargos aren't too terribly bad ... just more of a nuisance. In this case, the preview copy of Monster Hunter came across my desk way back at the tail end of June. However, due to Capcom's press embargo, nothing could go up online until after yesterday (August 17).

So, the next time you're wondering why you haven't heard the latest news about an upcoming game from your favorite magazine or website, don't so so quick to lay the blame on them. It's quite possible that their hands have been tied by the game's publisher.

Another day, another article.

This time around, the article is an interview with Ted Naifeh, the artist behind the upcoming Death Jr. comic book series ... which is based on the upcoming PSP game of the same name. I think the interview turned out nicely. You can check it out here and see for yourself. Once you read it, let me know what you think.

Just a quick update

Yeah yeah, I know it's been a week since the last posting. Things have been pretty hectic here. In terms of working, I wrote up an interview with Ted Naifeh about the Death Jr. comic book ... based on the upcoming video game for the PSP. The interview should be going live on GameSpy any day now. I'll post the link when it goes up. I'm also working on a review of Doom 3 for Gamexilla. I will say that the game looks great visually, but there are a couple of flaws. It is still a very fun game though.

I'm in a fun situation right now, where my work is pretty backed up. That's not to say I've got a lot of work to do ... but that my work is backed up at the different outlets. GameSpy does a great job of posting anything I do right away. However, due to technical problems, both Electric Playground and Gamexilla have run into delays getting new articles posted. Things have also slowed down a bit over at Play, but I expect that to change soon. The next issue should have the Randy Green BloodRayne cover I worked out the deal for, as well as my report from the floor of Comic-Con.

Not really a whole lot more to report on in terms of work. On a personal level, I've been running myself ragged lately keeping everything balanced ... but I'm getting everything taken care of. I also was one of the lucky ones in Florida to dodge the bullet in terms of Hurricane Charley. Originally, it had been expected to plow through the state and still hit this area with hurricane force winds. It veered off to the east just before and after landfall, sparing this area anything worse than rain. It still made for a long couple of days though.

I knew something was missing

Leading up to Comic-Con, I kept talking about the work I was doing for GameSpy listing out the 10 best and 10 worst comic book based video games. I was looking over the blog today and realized that although I did post a quick link to the 10 best list, but I forgot to post a link to the 10 worst. So, for those of you that missed either article, here they are:

Comics to Consoles
Comics to Consoles Part II - When Good Comics Go Bad

Moving right along, I've been working more leads on doing some new articles. I'll probably be doing an interview soon with video game personality Cliffy B. Among his credits, Cliffy B. is the lead game designer for Epic Games.

There are a few other things brewing as well. Things are about to get a lot more interesting.

Now here's a first

I've started doing writing for Gamexilla now, and they've just made the announcement on their site. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the title: "Gamexilla welcomes a REAL writer!" HA!

Slugging it out through the days

For those of you who check out the blog on a regular basis, you may have noticed that I'm not posting quite as often as I used to. Right now, it's simply a matter of making time for everything. I've got a couple of substantial projects going on right now, and I've been getting some extra writing done. I've written up reviews on The Chronicles of Riddick for the Xbox and Tapwave's Zodiac2 hardware console for Gamexilla.

Beyond that, things seem to be progressing further with Play Magazine. If you're already a regular reader of the magazine, expect some really cool things coming up in the near future. And if you're NOT a regular reader ... go out and pick up a copy today!!

I've had a few people ask me about how the filming for Electric Playground went while I was in San Diego. It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun too. Since they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a few thousand for ya. And yeah, if you haven't seen me before, that's me with Stan Lee in the last picture.

Signing for fans


Tommy realizes what his priorities are


Interviewing a legend


Excelsior!!

Showcasing some artistic talent

So, here's a little project I set up that I thought you guys might have fun taking a look at. For the upcoming issue of Play, I had Randy Green draw up a cover based off of the upcoming BloodRayne 2 video game. The cover was pencilled and inked by Randy, and the colors were provided by Val Staples from MVCreations. Here's an opportunity to see how the cover piece developed from beginning to end. It's actually a little hard to see in these smaller images, but there were some minor coloring issues fixed between the first colored piece and the final artwork. All that's left is to incorporate the magazine's title and cover graphics into the final piece and then go to press. Let me know what you guys think of the images.

Initial Sketch


Inked Art


Initial Colors


Final Image

This was also a good opportunity to toy around with the Picasa image hosting. It works pretty good, so expect to see more images in the blog now (kind of like the Audioblog). Beyond that, nothing major going on today. I'll keep you posted as soon as anything develops.

Post Con recovery

Okay, so I've been slacking a bit updating the blog. It's not intentional, but the show took a lot of my time ... and getting settled after the show took even longer. I got back into town late on Monday, and used the better part of Tuesday to recouperate. After that, I started work on my con report for Play Magazine, as well as some general writing for a few other places. Also, I've begun preliminary work on some major new projects. I'd love to actually open the floodgates and let you guys know everything that's going on, but I have to keep my lips sealed on it. (Shane, YOU know what it is ... heh). Don't worry though, as soon as I can say something, I will post it here.

More news to use

This has been a productive day to say the least.  Met w/ Dave @ Play today and disceussed my future.  It looks like Play wants to hire me on staff in order to cover games AND comics, since they're adding a new section for comics.  Another nice aspect is that I'm not required to give up my freelance gigs if I take the job at Play.  Also, Vic has decided to bump up my title now.  This means that instead of being listed as a production assistant for the show, things have been bumped up for me so I'll be listed as the "Comic editor"

More big news to come, but right now I'm too beat.  Will talk later.

Con news on the run .. literally

Let the circus begin

Okay, so I made it to San Diego in one piece.  I spent the day dead on my feet though.  I wrapped up GameSpy's 10 Worst Comic Game list at 3:00a, then got about an hour and a half worth of sleep before getting up to get to the airport.

Preview Night for Comic-Con has come and gone now.  I spent the time running around confirming interviews for Electric Playground's Comic of the Week segments.  I also found some new projects to do interviews on.  I'll be running the list by Vic tomorrow to see what he thinks.  I'm even trying to work in a few surprise celebrity interviews if things come together well.

Like last year, I beat everyone I'm working with into town by a day.  Starting tomorrow, I've got to meet with the usual suspects (EP, GameSpy, and Play), as well as set up some meetings w/ a few other media outlets.  I'll be splitting my time up a lot, while still making sure to leave a little time for myself to have some fun.

Look for updates here as I get news, and expect to see some Audioblog entries over the next few days. 

Bound for Comic-Con

Well, things are going to be hectic for the next few days.  Tomorrow I'm flying out to San Diego for Comic-Con International for a whole pile of projects.  I've got filming with Electric Playground, articles and panels with GameSpy, con coverage for Play Magazine, and host of meetings and interviews to handle.  I'll be updating the blog regularly while I'm there, both via email and via Audioblog entries.  I'll also post some pictures of the show after I get back into town.

Keep checking in to see what's happening.

Another day another .. well, you get the picture

Still a busy time in preparation for Comic-Con.  I've got most of EP's Comic of the Week interviews nailed down.  I've also got some meetings before the show w/ GameSpy and Play Magazine to discuss coverage of the con.  I'm also talking with the guys at GameXilla about doing some work with them.  If you haven't checked out their site, go do it ... you won't be disappointed.  Also, I've just found out about a new game "magazine" on the market called Konsole Kingz.  The magazine is sent out in DVD format and it's set up with a Hip Hop flair.  Their website is over at http://www.konsolekingz.com
 
Moving right along, the last of the 10 Best Comic Games went up on GameSpy's site today.  You can check out the complete list over here.  I'll get more updated to the blog soon.  Keep checking in, okay?