Rugged Rock Studio

Comic Book Art: Django Unchained by Frank Quitely

Craig Lotter — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:00:53 +0000

Quentin Tarantino once again stunned movie lovers with his latest project Django Unchained, which of course provided some great material for a comic book conversion. Enter this dramatic piece of comic book art by the talented Frank Quitely, an artist I’ve been following since his early days back in the British comic book realm.

Fatal Fury | The King of Fighters Cosplay: Mai Shiranui (Giorgia Vecchini)

Craig Lotter — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:00:35 +0000

Mai Shiranui is pretty much the poster girl for the Sexy Girl in fighting video games phenomena, recognized for her skimpy clothing, ample bust, and of course dripping sex appeal (and she’s not that bad a fighter either!). Popular and well-known Italian cosplay star Giorgia Vecchini takes it upon herself to bring to life this premier fighting lady for this particular cosplay shoot! Mai Shiranui is a player character in both the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series of fighting games by SNK and in related media, also appearing in a large number of other games. Since her first appearance in 1992, Mai has been converted and recognized as the main sex symbol of SNK, becoming one of the most popular female characters of video gaming in general. Mai Shiranui is the granddaughter of Hanzo Shiranui, the now-deceased master of ninjitsu and an art of Shiranui-ryū ninja hand-to-hand combat called koppo-ken. In her mind, Andy Bogard, who studied Shiranui ninjutsu with her grandfather since their early teens, is her fiancé; the relationship between the two is often ambiguous (usually on the part of Andy). Mai has also studied at her grandfather’s friend, the judo master Jubei Yamada. She uses a closed fan while fighting and is able to create and control fire (“Shiranui” is the Japanese name for will-o’-the-wisp). Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mai_Shiranui

David Finch: The Waking #1 Cover (2010)

Craig Lotter — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:00:32 +0000

Writer Raven Gregory with the help of artist Vic Drujiniu and Zenescope Entertainment unleashed the four part Zombie miniseries The Waking early 2010. From their release note: In the big city, four police detectives investigating two routine murders discover that the victims of these crimes are coming back from the dead in search of those responsible for their murders. Now the detectives are in a race against time to find the source of the recent “wakings.” Meanwhile, a father with an incredible ability must choose between avenging his daughter’s death or losing her forever. Zenescope Entertainment tries something new by stepping away from their usual Babe in Lingerie format of cover artwork and instead employ the fantastic David Finch to paint up this eerie and atmospheric bit of hauntingly beautiful cover art.

Dead or Alive (DOA) Cosplay: Kasumi (Tsukiya)

Craig Lotter — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:11 +0000

The main character of the Dead or Alive (DOA) fighting game franchise since 1996 bursts into our cosplay feature this week, none other than the deadly Kasumi! (Brought to life here by the always happy to dress risqué Japanese cosplayer Tsukiya, also known as Jet Hyp!). One of gaming’s foremost sex symbols, Kasumi also happens to be the personal favourite of Team Ninja’s founder and the series creator, Tomonobu Itagaki. According to the game canon, Kasumi, also known as the Kunoichi of Destiny, is a teenage female shinobi (ninja) skilled in the Mugen style of ninjutsu. Selected as the18th Master of the Mugen Tenshin ninja clan, Kasumi deserted her duties and entered the Dead or Alive tournament in order to defeat Raidou, the man who crippled her brother, in a revenge attack. Although compassionate and not particularly at ease with violence and conflict most of the time, this highly skilled ninja is however not someone you wish to cross swords with, as she is quite simply, as deadly as she is beautiful! In terms of gameplay, although altering slightly through the series’ various iterations, Kasumi is primarily a very balanced fighter with good speed, execution and fairly simplistic input commands, and is thus considered a mid-to-top tier character by most. Her range is however fairly lacking and her single strikes not particularly powerful, meaning she is best used as a pressure fighter, in other words constantly attacking without giving her opponent an opportunity to launch an attack. Related Link: http://deadoralive.wikia.com/wiki/Kasumi

Android Gaming Update (Part 1)

Craig Lotter — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:00:34 +0000

I recently purchased a Proline Smart AK888-13 9.7″ Dual-Core Tablet from Loot.co.za for the low price of R2,099, featuring a 1.6GHz Cortex A9 Dual-Core CPU, a 10 point multi-touch capacitive screen with a resolution of 1024×768 (4:3), 1GB memory backed up by a 16GB NAND memory capacity, and running the fantastic Android 4.1 Jellybean OS. No 3G but obviously Wi-Fi and BlueTooth capable. In other words, not a high-spec tablet like your Apple iPad or your Samsung Galaxy Tab, but a very serviceable, extremely well priced, Chinese manufactured (Proline simple imports and brands them) mid-range tablet with a nice solid and fashionable design, good handling and the surprising ability to play 3D games rather well. An unexpected but rather nice bonus I might add. So with the wonderous Google Play store at my finger tips, this is the list of games I find myself currently playing (and enjoying) on my new entertainment device: Note that all of these follow the so-called ‘Free-mium’ model, i.e. they are free to download and play, but do offer additional in-app purchases that allow you to progress through the game faster or gain access to better equipment or abilities. Temple Run 2 (2013): The follow-up to the original popular and successful Temple Run endless running game, and is basically a fun time waster which sees you running through an endless maze collecting coins and power-ups, all while dodging, jumping over gaps and sliding under obstacles, trying to stay one step ahead of a hairy bunch [...]

The Avengers Cosplay: Ms. Marvel (Belle Chere)

Craig Lotter — Thu, 16 May 2013 06:00:34 +0000

The talented American cosplayer Belle Chere puts together today’s great Avengers cosplay, featuring none other than one of the strongest female heroes in the Marvel superhero lineup, Ms. Marvel! Carol Danvers, a.k.a Ms. Marvel a.k.a Warbird a.k.a Binary has certainly been put through the wringer over the years in terms of continuity and back story, but as one of Marvel’s premier female superheroes, Ms. Marvel has served as a team member on The Avengers, X-Men, Starjammers and S.H.I.E.L.D. She’s the reason Rogue has her more useful abilities and currently sports the powers of flight (at the speed of sound), strength, stamina, a useful “seventh sense” and of course the ability to blow things up. In other words, a dangerous woman to be around. Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Marvel

How to Exclude Tables from a mysqldump SQL Export

Craig Lotter — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:00:40 +0000

When backing up or copying across a MySQL database, the command line mysqldump executable is invaluable in automating the creation of SQL dump files which can be used to create or populate database instances. Now there are a myriad of options available to this little command, but the one I want to highlight today is the ability to ignore specific tables when doing a mysqldump of an entire database. This is particularly useful if you have an overly large table which doesn’t play nicely with an import process, say for example if you were storing base-encoded images in your database. –ignore-table is the switch, and in practice it looks like this: As you can see from the line above, it is possible to specify multiple tables to exclude by simply passing it in multiple times. Also worthwhile to note is the fact that you do need to prefix the table which is to be omitted with the database name. Failing to do this will result in an Illegal Usage error from mysqldump. Nifty.

Mom’s Banana Loaf Recipe

Craig Lotter — Tue, 14 May 2013 06:00:31 +0000

When I first moved out of my parents’ home in my early twenties, mom provided me with a little handwritten book containing recipes of things that I enjoyed and might enjoy making now that I was on my own. This happens to be her super awesome banana loaf recipe: Banana Loaf 130ml margarine 250ml brown sugar 2 large eggs 3-4 ripe bananas, mashed 500ml flour 10ml baking powder 5ml bicarbonate of soda mixed with 80ml water 100ml nuts, chopped (optional) 5ml cinnamon Step 1: Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy. Step 2: Beat in eggs one at a time, add bananas and mix well. Step 3: Add flour and baking powder, alternating with bicarbonate of soda and water, to obtain a soft dropping consistency. Step 4: Add nuts and cinnamon. Mix well. Step 5: Pour into a greased 22cm x 17cm loaf pan lined with paper towel. Cook on Medium for 10-12 minutes. There. Sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it?

Tekken Cosplay: Lili de Rochefort (Toro)

Craig Lotter — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:00:51 +0000

Lili, full name Emilie de Rochefort, is a video game character from the Tekken series by Namco Bandai. Along with Sergei Dragunov and Armor King II, she is one of the three characters that were introduced in Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection in 2005. Lili’s storyline in the Tekken series typically involves pleasing her father and her rivalry with Asuka Kazama. Her fighting style is street fighting mixed with gymnastics and is among the faster characters in the Tekken series. Today’s cosplay outing comes to us courtesy of Japanese cosplayer Toro. Lili is the only daughter of a wealthy and pacifistic oil magnate. She resides in a very luxurious suburban mansion with her father and her butler, Sebastian. At the age of 12, Lili struggled violently to free herself from a group of kidnappers, and she unexpectedly took out one of her captors. At that moment, she first realized she took pleasure in defeating her opponents. Lili only wants to please her father, but she knows that he despises fighting because he wants his daughter to be a prim and proper lady and not a thug. Her desire to fight could not be controlled, and for this reason, she secretly used her family’s private jet to travel abroad to take part in worldwide street fighting tournaments, which she enjoyed immensely. This was done under the guise of a vacation from her homeland. One day, after defeating an opponent in San Francisco, she acquired an invitation to the King of Iron Fist [...]

Photo Gallery: Mother’s Day at Bamboo Garden Restaurant (2013-05-12 )

Craig Lotter — Sun, 12 May 2013 08:00:08 +0000

Mother’s Day morning saw Chantelle, Jessie and I join up with Mom, Dad, Ryan, Ma, and Robert (Monty was unfortunately working and Claire and Riley had other plans) at the always enjoyable Bamboo Garden restaurant, situated in the Cape Garden Centre. I’m rather pleased we made a booking because by the time we eventually left the establishment, the queue of people waiting to get in was rather lengthy! Breakfast itself was really yummy as expected, and we enjoyed a nice morning as a family on what turned out to be a really pleasant Mother’s Day.

Titans Cosplay: Troia [Donna Troy] (Unknown)

Craig Lotter — Sun, 12 May 2013 06:00:03 +0000

An unidentified American cosplayer appeared at the 2011 Super Megafest convention, bringing with her all the spandex that comes with Troia, aka Donna Troy, also known as Wonder Girl during her younger years, and who is almost always associated with the Titans brand… Donna’s superhuman powers have changed several times over the years, but in all of her various incarnations, they have always consisted of considerable superhuman strength, endurance, speed, and the power of flight. In her pre-Crisis origin, Donna was granted those powers by the Amazon’s Purple Ray, and these powers increased as she grew older. She also wielded a lasso of her own, but it apparently had no magical properties like Diana’s Lasso of Truth. This particular costume made its appearance in July 2008 when DC started up the Titans line again, restricting the series name to simply “Titans”, so as not to clash with its kiddie “Teen Titans” property. Related Link: http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Donna_Troy_%28New_Earth%29

Photo Gallery: Craig’s Birthday Cake (2013-05-11)

Craig Lotter — Sat, 11 May 2013 08:00:56 +0000

I enjoyed a pretty good birthday weekend, thanks to the fact that my birthday fell on a Saturday this year, resulting in a nice long weekend for me thanks to Touchwork’s policy of getting a day off on one’s birthday. Anyway, Saturday afternoon we took over Mom and Dad’s house in Bellville, and with all the usual suspects in tow, we enjoyed a day of braai, boerewors rolls, rainbow cake and the all important table tennis! But man, that rainbow cake. Did Chantelle do awesome or what?!? :)

Breath of Fire II Cosplay: Katt (Heidi Rogers)

Craig Lotter — Sat, 11 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

American cosplayer Heidi Rogers, aka Cosplay Kitten, goes old school with this cosplay outing, bringing to life Katt from Japanese RPG Breath of Fire II. Katt is a character within Breath of Fire II. A sassy young competitor from Coursair, Ryu meets her at the coliseum, where she is introduced as a natural born fighter that wields staffs in battle. Katt is a Woren and the first one to appear in the series. She also serves as the other possible love interest of Ryu. Katt has the highest attack and speed in the party, but suffers from low defense and average HP. Katt is not magically inclined like the rest of the cast. She can learn a few powerful offensive spells early in the game, but will only be able to use them once her AP grows large enough; this means she won’t be able to use these spells until much later in the game because her AP growth is extremely poor (merging her with the Devil Shaman does incidentally boost her AP enough to use these high cost power spells earlier so less time can be spent on leveling her up). Her field abilities are Hunt and Smash, and her fighting ability is Dare (where she provokes the enemy party, concentrating all aggression on her). She changes her abilities and appearance when combined with the Devil Shaman. When combined with the Devil Shaman, Katt can no longer hunt, but her combat abilities skyrocket immensely. Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire_II

Comic Book Art: Absolute Superman/Batman by Ed McGuinness and Dexter Vines

Craig Lotter — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:00:41 +0000

Superman and Batman always make for a dynamic duo team-up, and this is showcased here by this fun piece of comic book art courtesy of Ed McGuinness and Dexter Vines.

BlazBlue Cosplay: Litchi Faye-Ling (Giorgia Vecchini)

Craig Lotter — Thu, 09 May 2013 06:00:35 +0000

Litchi Faye-Ling is a renowned doctor living in Orient Town, located in the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi. She is a playable character in the BlazBlue series, and is expertly brought to life here by Italian cosplayer Giorgia Vecchini. Litchi Faye-Ling owns a clinic in the main throng of Orient Town, and is helped by her assistant Linhua. For a time, she worked with Tager and Kokonoe in Sector Seven, until an incident, where a man by the name of Lotte Carmine, who seemed to hold much importance to Litchi, became Arakune. She defends the local townspeople from Arakune’s assaults, and seeks to restore him to his former self through any means necessary; even through death. She also seems to respect Bang, apologizing to him if she defeats him in a match, although she remains unaware of the true extent of his feelings for her. She is often subject to adoration for her noticeably large breasts, and can be quite persistent when inebriated. Related Link: http://blazblue.wikia.com/wiki/Litchi_Faye-Ling