Matthew Nellis

More of practice with Adobe Illustrator rather than a design piece. I wanted to have a go at vector drawing and practice using the pen tool which I’m not too familiar with.

Hit the jump for a bit more insight and a link to the high-res version.

You can view the high-res version here

It was a nice challenge, and as a first time vector illustration I’m reasonably happy. I found shading to be the hardest part; it took quite a while to get my head around some basic techniques.

It’s strange, I’ve read comics all my life, mostly webcomics nowadays, but never have I studied the art of them. Looking at Mike Krahulik’s work over at Penny Arcade helped me a lot in terms of basic form and shading, something I have never studied up until now.

I’ve got a couple of ideas for further design pieces, the next one will probably be in After Effects, so keep an eye out.

I know I said I was only going to look at indie games, but I saw this on Steam for only £2.99 and I had to try it. I love the Alien franchise, but unfortunately I just don’t do very well with scary games. Have fun watching me be terrified…

Well, its Monday and here is last week summarised in Haiku form. Enjoy!

It’s started again,
Recording is underway.
New songs imminent

Pen tool is your friend
In Illustrator, that is.
Too bad I can’t draw

Hark! What is that sound?
Nothing, it’s just in my head
Need to get out more.

What have I got planned for this week? Well Wednesday there will be another ‘Impressions’ posted. I wasn’t looking forward to this one, simply because the game I chose scares the pants off me. And I don’t do scary games very well. You’ll see….

I thought it’d be a good idea to post some of my older work so I have something to compare to now that I am getting back into motion graphics etc.

This is an ident I created for BBC’s Big Screen in Birmingham using Combustion 3 when I didn’t really know what I was doing to be honest!

Co-designed by Matthew Hamer and Andrew Morland.

Impressions is a new weekly feature where I take a look at random games and give you my first impressions.

This week I’m taking a look at much acclaimed indie game ‘And Yet It Moves’.

You can watch it in HD on my YouTube channel
This was a lot of fun to do and I’m already looking forward to next week! If you have any suggestions for games I might want to play then please let me know!
And Yet It Moves was developed by Broken Rules
It is available from:

http://www.andyetitmoves.net
http://www.playgreenhouse.com
And also via Steam http://www.steamcommunity.com

It is priced at £7.99 ($10).

I thought it’d be nice to have a regular feature for the website, and seeing as how I love haikus I’ve decided to summarise each week via the medium of this ancient Japanese verse…

fingers hurt a lot
not played guitar in a while
one way to solve that…

move pen move, come on
surely writing isn’t this hard
it won’t write itself

night shifts this weekend
plenty of time to write stuff
must stay awake first

Oh, and apparently the plural of Haiku is ‘Haiku’. Who would have thought?

In part two of my 2010 preview of ‘things I’m looking forward to’ I enter the world of Technology and Music….

Tech

Chrome OS

Google’s next step in world domination sees them enter the world of operating systems with their Chromium OS, an open source lightweight uber web browser it seems. Contrary to what some people thought, Chrome isn’t designed to be a windows beater and I think this is its major strength.

You see, Google already own the internet. And whether you like it or not it’s nigh on impossible to browse the internet without using a Google service, or a service owned by Google. From email, to maps, blogging, web analytics, photo storage, file sharing, voice-over-IP and of course the infamous search engine, chances are whatever you do on the web Google has a hand in. Oh, and they also own a little video sharing site called YouTube…

With all this dominance in web based applications, what would be the point in Google trying to beat Microsoft Windows? Microsoft already has the desktop operating system market tied up, so what do you do? Create your own market.

Chrome OS will essentially be a web browser running on specialist hardware (ie, netbooks). Now, I don’t own a netbook but I imagine people who do bought one because that’s all they really need one for: accessing the internet. And with enough Google web apps around to run your life/manage your business why would you need anything more?

For these reasons I’m super excited about Chrome OS. You see, I happen to be in the market for a netbook; my website revolves around Gmail/GDocs/Youtube/FlickR, all web based services. Hell, I even own an Android powered HTC Hero. If these two operating systems happen to converge sometime in the future, then I for one welcome our new Google overlords.

Music

Meatloaf

Seriously? Meatloaf has a new album coming out? That. Is. Awesome.

I remember my dad taking me to see Meat Loaf live at Aberdeen Exhibition Centre way back in the day and just being absolutely blown away by the performance. As a young man who hadn’t seen many live performances, the sight of Meatloaf taking the stage and belting out hit after hit was simply extraordinary.

For starters, he had a giant hydraulic bat suspended from the rafters. A GIANT HYDRAULIC BAT. In my book that already grants a five star review, let alone the epic length of his live songs. See, his songs are already quite long, but naturally when you play live you want to give the fans a little something extra and so he extends them a bit. I swear to the maker, in one hour he played perhaps only three songs. The man likes to jam!

So basically I’m excited because it’ll probably mean I get to see him live again once the album is out. I’m sure the album will be decent too, but with Meatloaf I’ve always thought it was about the live show.

Devo

Not much to say about this, other than I’m more curious than excited. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think much of ‘Watch us Work’. ‘Dont Shoot (I’m a Man)’ was ok, partly because the title (and subsequent chorus) makes me chuckle. If rumours are true then the reason the album was delayed to 2010 is because they wanted to ‘radically remix’ it. Very intriguing….

Lets kick things off with what seems to be quite an obvious place to start: A look at what I’m most excited about in 2010 in my four areas of interest (games, tech, design, music).

And in part 1, lets take a look at what things peaked my interest in the world of games and design…

Games

Mass Effect 2

Commander Shepard is back in the sequel to a game which I found to be utterly compelling from start to finish. The first Mass Effect was one of the most engaging games I’ve ever played, mixing interesting narrative with tight third person controls, pushed along by an intuitive dialog selection wheel. Yes, that dialogue wheel.

Mass Effect 2 looks like more of the same, which is not a bad thing at all. When the ‘sameyness’ is this good, I honestly don’t care.

Apparently they’ve cut down on the tediously long lift loading limes, possibly the only thing about the original which seriously irked me. The graphics look refined, the gunplay action looks almost like Gears of War and seriously, who doesn’t want to play as a Vanguard? I’ll be picking this the day it’s released, which if you didn’t know is January 26th for North America, January 28th for Australia and January 29th for Europe.

Bioshock 2

Developing a first person shooter which stands out from the crowd must be difficult thing to achieve. But that’s what 2007’s Bioshock did with great aplomb. Sure it may have had some inspiration but the underwater dystopia of Rapture was a character in itself. My favourite sequence in the game still has to be at the taking the elevators ride down into the city. As the voice of Andrew Ryan announces ‘I chose something different, I chose the impossible, I chose….. Rapture!”  and you are greeted with an amazing view of this underwater metropolis, my skin literally tingled. It was an awesome introduction, and it was as damn near perfect as any game will get in my opinion. Are games art? Damn right they are.

So I have no doubt Bioshock 2 will be must-play game of 2010. It has the same team behind the development and whilst it may not surpass the original, it’s certainly going to be close. Bioshock 2 is slated for a February 9th worldwide release.

Design

Adobe Creative Suite 5

I don’t really consider this a must buy for me in 2010, I’m quite happy with CS3, but that still doesn’t stop me getting excited! The main reason? Flash 5:

I think Flash development has become so powerful in recent years, and is so versatile in its uses. I remember making Flash websites during university and thinking “This software is so incredible, it can’t get much better than this.”

Things did get better. What Flash 5 alone is capable of is simply astounding. From developing  native iPhone apps, to its physics simulations, and as I’m told by certain people within the broadcast industry: Bye bye VizRT, hello Flash.

Whether this becomes reality remains to be seen. What is true though, is that Flash is a far more supported, and far more accessible graphics system than VizRT ever will be.

Of course, the creative suite isn’t all about Flash. After Effects is confirmed to be 64-bit native which will no doubt speed things up, and Photoshop? Well Photoshop just looks awesome.

Well thats about it for part one of my 2010 preview. In part 2 I’ll be looking at what I’m looking forward to in the realms of Music and Tech.

Well the journey is finally over. Song 52 of 52 sees a return to the homeland. You never forget your first postcode:

Download ‘AB15 For Life’ [ mp3 | ogg | flac ]

Featuring DeProfit aka Kirk De Freitas! A school friend I grew up in with in Aberdeen. Also featuring backing vocals from Tennille De Freitas.

Aberdeen, apart from being cold wet and grey, was a great place to be raised. A lot of my friends are still up there, and I’m well overdue a visit. Some have moved on to other parts of Scotland, some to England and some even further a field. But no matter where you are now, its all about where you came from. And that’s what the song is about. You never forget where you came from because that’s what’s made you who you are today.

Its been an absolutely fantastic year. A year that has totally flown by  too. The premise of this song a week was to learn as much as possible about songwriting, guitar, production and just music in general and I’ve definitely learned a great deal.

Its really been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Each week my life was governed by the song; putting time aside each day to sit and write, recording when I can, then frantically trying to get a song together by the Friday. I basically had little to no social life!

Some weeks would be an absolute joy. The feeling of knowing I had a good song idea meant that writing and recording it was a piece of cake.
And some weeks it was just plain hard work. When everything on the guitar sound the same as previous weeks, or just sounds plain rubbish.

But it was an incredible experience overall. Something quite frankly I’m relieved is over, but with not a single regret. Thank you to everyone who took the time to listen to the songs and give me feedback. It really meant a lot, especially during the tough weeks. I hope there’s at least a few songs from the collection that you enjoyed and might listen to again.

A lot of people have asked what I’m going to do now. Well, in the immediate future I’m not going to do a thing! At least for a month I don’t think I’ll even contemplate writing a song. After that, who knows. I’d like to write a proper album, and not be constrained to a 1 week time limit. I’d also like to perform some of these songs acoustically at some point. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated!

Cheers, Matt

So, the penultimate song. Here it is:

Download ‘MotoNick’ [ mp3 | ogg | flac ]

Its a song I’ve been meaning to do since day 1, but as things went I just never got round to it. Its about my brother’s friend who set off last year on an epic journey round the world with his motorbike. You may also guess correctly that his name is nick.

His year long journey, much like mine is coming to an end so i thought it’d be nice to do a song briefly chronicling his experiences. You can read all about his adventures on his website. A jolly good read at that!