Eric J. Stover

Stranger Things Fan Shirt Design

2017-01-08T15:41:00.000-08:00

Late in 2016 I was approached about drawing a parody mash-up for a fun design mixing Stranger Things with Abbey Road (Stranger Roads?) and the final work is up online now!

The original pitch was for the four main kids to be walking down a train track, referencing the scene where they are trying to use a compass to locate the portal distortion. The final production of that design can be seen to the right.

Playing around with the design some more though, we wanted to incorporate more of the woods and background. After a few attempts, we came to the design featured below with the mirrored woods referencing the Upside-down.

Poor Will is there by himself (or is he?) while his 3 friends and their new crazy friend are often to try to find him.

Both designs, free of watermarks, are available online here!

Keep and eye out for more awesome and fun designs in 2017 as I launch my own designs as well!

Kangaroo plus Elephant equals a what?

2013-06-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

Just a random drawing made for an old colleague. I've always loved drawing animals and imaginary creatures and one of my favorite games was to take two animals and mix them together to form a new hybrid beast. And by was I don't mean when I was little, but I mean is as I still do this in my own free time or on request. This is a kangaroo mixed with an elephant as the title suggests.

At the summer camp I worked at we had a lot of homesick little kids so to try to distract them I would ask them what their favorite animals were and start drawing these crazy mash ups of the two. Most kids were completely mesmerized by this and promptly forgot what they were upset about. I'm drawn a fair share of cat crossbreeds over the times I've done this. Some I am proud of, some aren't much to write home about.

Moral of the story, a cat-dolphin is much more interesting than a cat-dog mix.

Make a request via my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/EJStover

Iron Man Armor Name Generator

2013-05-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks have pasted since Iron Man 3 came out. Was a fun ride with quite possibly too much action in it. Definitely more than enough explosions and, what's that you say? Not enough suits of power armor? I'm not sure I believe you! To be fair, as Tony pointed out, you can never have too many Iron Mans (Iron Men?) running (errr, flying?) around.

In honor of the third installation of the Iron Man movie series, here is an Iron Man Armor Name Generator I put together. Feel free to try it out and pass it around the internet! Share it with your Marvel friends and compare names!

When I made this I was using the template set up from my Super Apartment Bros, "What would your game's title be?" chart. [link] Changed the set up of the letters a bit to see how it worked, now it reads from top to bottom more. Left space at the bottom for all those pesty Facebook "options" that pop up when sharing images online. Didn't want to let anything overlaying the image mess with how it worked, watermarks included. Iron was included but not Man because there should only ever be one real Iron Man suit, and ___-Man is a little boring after a while and not gender neutral enough. Also, as many names/words as possible were taken from actual Iron Man suit titles. Hulk Buster, Thor Buster, Iron Patriot, Hammer Drone, etc. (in hindsight, should have included Shield as a first name option)

Again, please feel free to try, share and pass around the internet!

Guerrilla Advertising Super Apartment Bros

2013-05-06T13:49:00.001-07:00

On Facebook and Twitter we work to promote the Super Apartment Bros series to friends and fans, getting them excited and talking in hopes that they share it with their friends. When we're not actually releasing the episodic video content that makes up the series, it can be a bit trickier to keep their attention. We don't want to overstimulate them, posting so much they become annoyed and Unlike, yet we still want to keep on their radar with funny and engaging content.

To do that the past year plus, we've tried a few different tactics. We've had contests for the series, created free to download and use cover images and songs, parodied movie posters, memes, and shared fan art. Other content we're shared has been non-Super Apartment Bros pictures, links and videos that are humorous to gaming and geek cultures. It can be hard to find the right mix between entertaining while still representing our series' brand.

The most successful posts made in the last few months have mainly been images, with a little more than half of them being original SAB content while the other half reposts of other gaming related reposted. While the more original and creative an image is can help bring in more comments and likes, content that calls for a reply gets better interaction. Questions, jests, jokes, polls and semi-game like subjects prompt viewers to take part in the discussion and express their own opinions.

The image below was recently created for and shared via the Super Apartment Bros Facebook page to generate impressions, getting in front of new audiences while entertaining our current fan base. It's a simple mechanic, seen plenty of times on Facebook. Users are prompted to figure out their "game's name" by using the first letter of their first and last names. It's a simple thing that interests our viewers and gives them something to contribute via comment, sharing their game's name.

At this time the image has been posted for about 4 hours and has reached 382 unique people, engaged 46 people and generated 26 new stories in their Facebook feeds. Additionally a new person has Liked the Facebook page, though this may or may not be because of the image being posted. Compare that to images posted a few days ago averaging at reaching about 75 unique people, engaging 9 people and generating 4 stories.

It's obvious that content more like this, that engages the audience more than just a promotion image does, generates more interest and causes more sharing. It gets the viewers to become involved with the spread of the image without directly asking them to. The hard part companies usually find generally is continuing to create content that is both relevant to their brand as well as enticing. More on that next post.

Assassin's Creed 3 Top 5 Game Types

2013-02-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

Want to know what the best gametypes are for Assassin's Creed III's online multiplayer? We'll we've got our own list for that and you can see it here on Youtube.

Agree? Disagree? Let us know on the video. We'd like to make more like this but of course that all depends on if anyone still plays AC3 anymore. A fan of the game? Let it be known you're still slitting throats and gunning down redcoats!

The basic characters for Assassin's Creed 3 multiplayer.

Assassin's Creed 3 Characters Compared

2013-01-07T08:21:00.001-08:00

I did a blog post a while back comparing the characters of Assassin's Creed Revelations and Brotherhood and I think it's about time to compare them both to AC3.

I haven't had a chance to play AC3 yet, though my brother has been keeping me updated on how it plays compared to the other games. You can check out our list of top gametypes here on youtube. AC3 is set in colonial America and brings even more characters to multiplayer than before. Without further delay here's the comparison image:

(click the image for a closer view)

Personally I think they brought a more visually diverse cast to the table this time around, which was a problem I had with the shift from Brotherhood to Revelations. Besides being an all around more colorful (hues and shades, actual colors) we also have characters that are much more interesting and from all walks of life. We have pick-pockets, Native Americans, Canadians, British soldiers, woodsmen and night assassins, just to name a few! It's so much easier to pick out a favorite than last time around and I hope they keep them coming!

Bottom line, I say well done Ubisoft! Looking forward to any DLC characters you have, as well as any future installments of Assassin's Creed!

If you want to know what we think are the top 5 gametypes of Assassin's Creed 3 check out our list! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tneE0KcxPrI

Assassin's Creed Revelations Character Comments

2011-11-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong, I've pre-ordered the new Assassin's Creed Revelations game and I can't wait for the multiplayer, which I thought they did amazing with in Brotherhood. I just have to say it, I'm a little disappointed with the multiplayer characters you can pick from this time around. They all just kind of blend together in my mind.

We have lots of angry, bearded, robed guys now, as well as plenty of angry, slightly less robed girls too. They don't stand out to me, and it's because I can't read them. Looking at them I have no idea what they do, how they act, or how I should feel playing as them. They look nice, visually fitting with the new setting for the game, but I don't pick up any visual clues about them.

I can't seem to stress it enough, we've got different clothing, different weapons, different body sizes, but something is missing. If you look at the Brotherhood characters it is very easy to pick out difference, pick out character, pick out which ones you want to play as. The Brotherhood characters look like characters, interesting people I want to play as. Do I want to be the grinning masked jester, or the burly bearded black smith? For Revelations I've got to choose between from a crowd of unfamiliar people, that look like they should be NPCs, not my list of choices for assassins.

Click the image for a closer look or get a closer view of the comments from my deviantart page.

Creative Commons Work

2011-10-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

Follow m on this, it may take a bit to explain properly.

Creative Commons License.

It's a copyright license that allows works to be shared, used and reworked, depending on the license, without having to gain permission from the original creator. Most of these licenses allow use of the content in some form as long as the original creator is credited.

Why would you ever want to release your work under a CC license? Why wouldn't you just want to stick with a basic copyright and keep complete control over it?

Seems crazy, but here is the thought process:

A lot of people will love a series and its characters, creating libraries of their own fiction, designing wardrobes full of t-shirts and accessories and redrawing the characters into every scene imaginable. All of this done with them only loving the series from the outside, having no real owner ship of the work. The greatest thing that can happen to a series is for it to develop a devoted fan base, one that grows, gets excited and shares what they love with others.

Now here's the thing. How much more would the people in the fan base love something, how much more time would they give to their projects based around it, if they could call it their own too? If they could create and sell their own works based off the original series, with the blessings and support of the original creator?

Take a series, create characters and supporting cast, imagine up a whole world of stories, and then turn it over for any and everyone to join in and create content for. Using a Creative Commons license like Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike, you can create work and allow it to be shared, tweaked, remixed, and built upon commercially. All works that use your work though must give credit as well as keep their material under the same Creative Commons Licenses so others can use it too.

Imagine a community creating and building upon itself. The original creator sets up a world and characters people like. One of the fans likes a certain character more and makes their own webcomic about that character. Someone else likes the costume design the fan added and makes a real version to sell on their site. The original creator sees the clothes, loves them and turns around and incorporates them into another story with that character, but now with the fan made content.

Even if someone used the characters and had a lot of commercial success with it, the original creator would still benefit from it. So someone makes another video based off the original work, and it get millions of views. People who like the new video will also come across the original work, expanding the fanbase further than the original content could on its own.

Also since the original CC license states that all work using that content must also be released under the same CC license, everyone would share in its success and could build off it again. Someone could take the idea and run with it, making bigger and better things based off of the original, but they would all be tied together and no one could cut others off from taking that work and making something based off that.

To learn more about Creative Commons Licenses, hit the link
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/