Izak Smells

Parachute 2012: Relient K

2012-01-31T00:30:00.001+13:00

Relient K's drawings

I would be editing together footage at the moment of this event so I don't need to type to you about it, but my camera isn't within arms reach so I'm calling a halt to that endeavor. Parachute is a weekend long christian based music festival held in Mystery Creek. I'm splitting everything up into managable chunks that I can write about, so here goes.

Relient K was fantastic. They played a sweet set which ended with Deathbed, which was quite moving. throughout the weekend they did interviews and workshops. Becky & Matt were awesome enough to get me tickets to that part, so I managed to get all the crew to draw on a merch shirt I got (which was also bought by Becky, seriously guys, to kind.)

Ethan Luck did the angry face, Matt Hoopes flicked out the christmas tree, Jon Schneck the Bart ("Don't have a cow man!" possibly in reference to me telling him off for signing my shirt instead of drawing on it,) Matt Thiessen did the fluffy cat(?) & John Warne had fun drawing out a plane with teeth. Huh.. I wish I had seen how cool Schnecks site was before just now..

Anyway, other than being a little girl about telling them that they were my first band there isn't a whole lot to say. They're nice guys, buy their CD's. Oh yeah, they said the new album will be "ready when it's ready." but maybe this year sometime.

Filesonic & Upload.to

2012-01-24T15:32:00.003+13:00

So last night sometime in a moment of weakness Filesonic went and shot itself in the face due to Megauploads FBI takedown. Essentially now only the uploader can download their files, making it useless for sharing any kind of file. The only way you can get around that now is by giving out your account details, which isn't going to happen, even if people who share legitimate files. What I wanna know is, IF Megaupload goes to court and is found not guilty, and then is allowed to reboot their site, what will Filesonic and uploaded.to do then? You would feel rather sheepish wouldn't you? Either way I can imagine they are facing a huge financial blow right now. Maybe it will be offset by all this free advertising they're getting for a suddenly downsized service.

Things to consider about Megaupload: The terms of service stated that Megaupload was not liable for any illegal files, the user was, and if any illegal files were found on the site, they would be taken down. They WERE taking down files, and maybe they weren't as draconian as Hollywood would hope, but at no point did they condone or encourage illegal activity on their website. Unless you consider this video condoning nicking off with P Diddy Music.

If someone goes on a killing spree with a George Forman grill, is George Forman liable? Some would say that he was enabling these people to cause grievous bodily harm with the grill. But I would argue that they were misusing the product.
Also, who is going to pay all these guys for all their files going down. I'm sure they need those files for something. That's a lot of companies that have been put in a tough spot because of an ugly FBI jpeg on megauploads homepage.

Last point, I live in New Zealand, Auckland, Where Mr. Dotcom was snatched up, and it would totally suck to get busted by laws on the opposite side of the planet, and then get dragged there. But maybe we should keep this in mind.

Blobby Lore Pt.1

2012-01-22T01:32:00.000+13:00

Here's the first bit of art penciled by me and painted by Becky. I'll get a better version of it up as soon as I get it inside a scanner. You may recognize this location actually.
Blobbies mark time based on when their city was first settled. Before then they lead a carefree life of following the wandering heards of squox. The current year is y502. their 500th year is marked from our 2010. Yes that's right, they went from wandering hunters to urbanites in 500 years. They are what I like to think of as being in a pre-babylonian state. They all speak the same language, work together well, and above all don't war among themselves. This united collaborative society was able to create inventions in leaps and bounds, hindered only by passing monsters and Skullies. There is only one known Blobby city and hardly any Blobbys live outside of it.
Months don't exist in the way we think of them. Rather seasons have a descriptor tacked on the end, splitting it into three distinct parts. Summerwax, Summer, Summerwane, using that pattern with all the seasons.
Weapons are limited only to the army and may not be purchased by civilians. Why would they want them? Although obsolete weaponry is readily available to any interested blobby, because lets face it, bows are fun.
No deities exist either, or at least are worshiped by Blobbies. There are plenty of "god like" beings inhabiting the world, but none of them have expressed any interest in being worshiped by the Blobbies.
Cynics may point out that this lack of worship is a main contribution to the Blobbies unwarlike behaviour, but it should be noted that the sorts of people that would point this out also don't exist in the Blobby world.

Thanks for listening to my late night note taking. I don't think I would have been able to sleep if I had held onto all this stuff in my head that's been rattling around. I'm hoping that I'll be able to conduct my first proper test of the game in a week! So I better hurry up and get the back-end monster stuff finished.

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18T14:57:00.000+13:00

The Blog will be going down for 12 hours to protest SOPA.
If you want to raise awareness for it yourself then I recommend you get the ribbon, or get the blackout code for your own blog as well.
American readers! Email your senate or head honchos and make them see how bad an idea that bill is!
Signed - Foreign Thief (Apparently)

Run Away Together

2012-01-15T14:08:00.003+13:00

Co-written with Matt.

I've finally got my ears cleaned out after 2 weeks of mono hearing. After the nurse washed them out I stood up and went "Huh. That's it?" expecting to be able to hear crys for help a mile away. When you loose your hearing you suddenly value the sense a whole lot more. To the point where you start Obama'ing it. In your imagination it was always so kick ass being able to hear with both ears. You list all the awesome things you can do with two ears. And then you get them both back and you suddenly realized you super over hyped them, and they can't possibly live up to your expectations.
Don't worry ears, when all is said and done, I love you guys. Cuddles ears

Marcus Fenix - Blobs of War 3

2012-01-10T23:02:00.002+13:00

This is probably the first one I've drawn where taking out the neck wouldn't be an issue. Just had to lower his head down an inch or two. I appreciate the Gears of War Asthetic. There's something different about it. The liberties they have taken with the human form is one that Rob Liefeld would be proud of. Although that's pretty harsh, I think the art of Gears of War is awesome, but the actual gameplay doesn't hold any appeal for me.
Oh yeah, if your interested in Rob Liefeld you should check this out. It made me lol more than once. In fact I had to read the whole thing before finishing this post.

Gordon Freeman - Blob Life

2012-01-10T20:55:00.000+13:00

Here's your favourite science hero with a crowbar! Gordon Freeman from Half Life! I still need to play episode 2. It was all glitchy on me so I gave up trying. Awesome series though. I loved every moment of it. The level design was impeccable. It actually felt like I was getting chased through a city. Not a lot of other games have captured that feeling of freedom in a totally linear environment.

Storm Trooper - Star Blobs

2012-01-10T17:43:00.000+13:00

Suggested by Becky!
Because the internet can never have to many stormtroopers! It's true, the Internet is massive. Unfortunatly there is lots of things it can't have to much of physically, like nyan cats or whatever it is. Whether the users can have to much of it or not is of course entirely different.
On another note. Since when did typing in my (or Beckys) URL change it to a .co.nz after you get to our sites?

Chell - Portal 2

2012-01-10T17:15:00.002+13:00

Matts suggestion here. Chell from Portal 2. The main difference between her outfit in Portal 1 from Portal 2 is that she decides to shed half a layer... Yep... I think this project is slowly going to make me a costume connoisseur. It's already helping me notice things like the hidden penis on Master Chiefs suit.

Lightning - Final Fantasy X3

2012-01-10T16:01:00.000+13:00

Another suggestion from Quin. Lightning. I don't know a whole lot about her really. She's a soldier I'm pretty sure. Pretty liberal army if you ask me. Something that all video game characters seem to have accentuated on their female cast is their legs. And that's exactly what my blobby people lack. I have enough room to shove some booties on their feet and that's about it. So you get to miss out on the fetish level of straps that they stick around their legs.
Dungeons and Dragons is starting work on their next edition. And they seem to be (at least in advertising) gearing it to be made by the users. I have mixed feelings about all this. One: Snakes on a Plane was the last thing I remember being fan made. Two: The red box came out like last year! Now your telling newbies that all that sweat and tears learning 4e is all for naught. Three: What if you fix everything to the point my blobby game becomes redundant?? Yes. My games a pen & paper RPG.

Spartan Warrior - Blobo Reach

2012-01-09T21:48:00.000+13:00

This was a special one I did just for Quin and his character model. I'm assuming it's from Halo: Reach. I was trying a new setting on my scanner so that's why the lines look a little speckly. It made less little white bits floating around though! So that's solved one problem and created another.

Tails - Sonic the Hedgeblob

2012-01-09T19:45:00.001+13:00

Sonics counterpart. They say he's a fox, but I probably would have guessed a retarded eevee. I thought Tails was cool as well by the way. He could fly. What sort of game gives you a ground based guy, and then goes "Oh you have a friend playing? They can fly then. Just because we said."
Thanks for the suggestion Becky. =)

Link - Skyward Blob

2012-01-09T17:41:00.001+13:00

This is for all you Legend of Zelda fans. I took his costume from the latest game, Skyward Sword. But to be fair, he's been wearing the same costume for 25 years now.
Apparently there are two camps of Zelda fans. One seems to like the "real" looking Link while the others like the cartoony Link. I'm gonna have to side with the cartoony guys on this one... I probably side with the cartoony guys on everything tbh. I'm probably the only person who quite liked the animated cut scenes of Mirrors Edge.
But try and tell me Wind Waker doesn't look awesome. Blobby Link would probably fit in there quite well. He would be the runty Link that's always having trouble keeping up with the big Links.

Ezio Auditore de Frienze - Ablobins Creed

2012-01-09T16:59:00.003+13:00

I went for the starter gear from Assassins Creed 2 for this one. Ezio has a lot of outfits 0_0. What a nancy boy. When he isn't prancing around on roof tops he's trying on the latest 15th century Italian fashions.
Ok Riddle me this. Everyone is pretty much expecting the last game in the Assassins creed series to be set in modern times. The Descendent whatever his name is, is slowly absorbing all the experience from his ancestors, and will one day run around kicking ass. You get to do a little bit of this. But what happens when everyone expects to go into a modern day metropolise to jump around in? He takes ten minutes to clamber up the side of a glass building with misplaced sticky outy bricks in it, to eventually get to the top, grab a flag and then eagle jump off the side of the building, 20 stories into a handy hay bail or rubbish bin or something?

Sonic the Blobhog

2012-01-09T13:20:00.001+13:00

When I was a kid I used to think the definition of cool was Sonic. I wanted to be Sonic. There wasn't anything about him that sucked. I had a Sonic comic once. I treasured that thing. I still remember dad buying it for me, I must have been about 5. One day it disappeared and I have no idea where it went. For years afterwards I hunted through my bookshelf looking for it, but to no avail. It was gone. And so was my guide on how to be cool.
This one was requested by Jo! Thanks for the suggestion man. Sonic hadn't even crossed my mind.

Lara Croft - Blob Raider

2012-01-09T12:32:00.003+13:00

I decided to draw the new Lara Croft instead of the triple D short shorts Lara. Apparently they're rebooting the series and making all the other games non canon. I never really played any of them, and last time I did, it was pretty cool looking. I have to say the trailer looks pretty neato. Apart from the fact it shows you a big fat zero of gameplay. It's a bit like dressing up like the Monopoly man for your friends, dancing around for 2 minutes, and then telling them that's exactly like playing monopoly "So we should totally play it now!"
But they still wont. Because no one likes committing for that amount of time to a game they're pretty sure they will lose.
But anyway, She's looking pretty bad ass in this trailer either way.

Master Chief - Blabo

2012-01-09T01:03:00.000+13:00

Master Chief is one of those characters that's always gonna crop up these days. He's always going to be the figurehead of console first person shooters. A close second would be an american trooper. But I don't think anyone really recalls to many Call Of Duty characters. Not enough to set them apart anyway. Maybe that one guy with the skull on his bandanna?

Kasumi - Dead or a Blob

2012-01-09T00:00:00.003+13:00

As I spend more and more time on making the Blobby game I figure I should start doing some proactive awareness for the little guys. What better way but by starting with popular sexy video game character parodies! The most awkward part of drawing this was the underwear. As a rule blobby people don't show a whole lot of skin. They are quite conservative. They also don't have hips. The ties usually a lot higher on Kasumi, but if I had tried the same thing on my version, she would look like she's getting an enormous wedgie.

If there are any characters you wanna see drawn leave a comment! Either here or over at G+. Cartoon/comic characters, video games, anything. I would prefer to stick away from real lifers though.

Caveman Blobby Guy

2012-01-08T12:58:00.001+13:00

This is what the early blobbys looked like in the year 100. Fortunatly they got sick and tired of looking ugly and carrying around sharpened star trek insignia that they got to modern technology by the year 500 where the comics are mostly set.
I'm up to version 0.2 of my blobby game project. Not because I reached any specific goals, but just cause I've redesigned the layouts and have enough rules to move on to details.

How To Blobby People

2012-01-04T20:52:00.000+13:00

The simpler method is still to draw a circle and make it look awesome. But this is for people who can't draw circles, and are more inclined to draw curvy lower case N's and staples.
My blobby people game project is getting to a point where I think I'm past the basic rules and now moving onto content generation. Or at least until it gets play tested. No you didn't miss a post, this is the first time I've properly mentioned it, but still highly cryptic I know.

Dovakorn, UNICORN BORN

2011-12-31T16:16:00.000+13:00

Well that's it. Very last doodle of the year, drawn at 11 at night on new years eve. I did it. The feeling of accomplishment is insurmountable. Actually that's a lie, it's pretty mountable. I took my notebooks with me on New years to share with everyone. It was fun flicking through them. Matt commented that it just felt like the other day when he remembers me publishing each one. It's amazing how much memory is attached to each drawing. 2011 will probably go down as one of my most remembered years because of these drawings. I'll probably spend the next couple days feeling guilty I'm not doing doodles, and have an overwhelming urge to post all the time.

A year of Doodles & Sketches

Thanks to everyone who supported me over the year and took the time to log in and check out what i've been drawing. I probably couldn't have done it (as well) without you all.
The blog isn't dead by the way. I'll continue to post drawings, comics, and anecdotes as they come along. The bare minimum will probably be about 1 a week. I have a couple of fun projects knocking around in my head and in word files that I may share with you over the next little while. I hope you guys like Blobby People. Oh yeah, I totally did a collection of all the official blobby strips from this year. You can check 'em out over in the library. Or just check it out right here.

Flotsam and Jetsam Pt.2

2011-12-30T14:56:00.002+13:00

There are 5 Femurs in this picture. Try not to get them mixed up with Gamerlad. This one goes from May to midway through September.
Wow, this is kind of a little emotional. Second to last doodle ever. After tomorrow I wont be obliged to post every day ever again. It kind of feels like I'm going to be losing a friend or something.

Flotsam and Jetsam

2011-12-30T13:11:00.002+13:00

This picture contains objects found in each of the doodles done from January to the end of April. It's really for anyone planning on going through my doodles at the end of the year to get a good round summary. There are four drawings of Femur in this drawing. You should only have a little bit of trouble finding one of them I think.

Floating Island Birthplace

2011-12-29T22:57:00.001+13:00

There exists a crater in the blobby world. It's common knowledge that this crater was not created by an explosion or even a natural occurence. An Alchemist known only as Egamat created an elixer, that when digested would cause the user to float away from the world, as if repelled by gravity. It didn't really take off in the market. Most people were afraid of the cold embrace of space waiting just above them. Egamat was left with a huge pile of the stuff. He couldn't get rid of it. He couldn't leave it lying around, who knows what sort of pickle someone might get themselves into if they drank any of the stuff. He couldn't dump it in the ocean either. What if it had even a small effect on all the wildlife, it would float out of the water and drown in air. So he dumped it in some plains. It spread through roots and crevices's, saturating the land around the dumping ground. A few weeks later clumps of world started to break off and float away. There was enough uncontaminated earth on the clots that they wouldn't float away in space, so they just hang out there in the sky either crumbling away or being held together by trees and things that grow on them.

I gots a Stratagaaaaaaay

2011-12-29T21:45:00.002+13:00

Read the title in Forest Gumps voice.
I should probably leave Paul alone now, He's never done anything to me. And I'm pretty much over hearing about the whole thing. But at the moment he just happens to be a source of cheap jokes for me. He should probably stop alternating between tough talk and plea's of mercy. It makes very little strategic sense for making people calm down. If he quiets down and lets the local memeries thrash the concept to death he might be able to continue on unhindered.