Well the “rest of the week off” thing turned out to be….well….not true.  Everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off today.
It looks like the atgunpit1 is going to need a little more work.  It amazes me how a “dress up” of an existing art asset can turn into a complete redesign over night.  I’m not complaining too much, at least I still have a job in these tough times.

On a personal note, I got my PC back up and running with Windows 7, my new Wacom tablet, and the UDK.  I’m am now ready to dive right in after next Weds.  The Wacom was giving me fits with it’s darn zoom bar.  I was constantly dragging my arm across it and causing the current document/psd to wig out.  I finally disabled it and things are rosie again.

So Gophur tells me and Jeremy, as soon as we finish the urbans, we can take the rest of the week off.  I wonder if he will stick by it.

I got my 64bit version of Windows 7 installed on my home box (thanks Gophur), I got my new Wacom hooked up, all of my programs re-installed now I’m ready for my Christmas time off to dive into some Unreal Dev Kit stuff.   I’ll probably spend the time finishing Dragon Age for the second play-through, or drawing funny faces in Photoshop.

Babble yeah I get it.  With some new code going in to BE we artists (Jeremy and I) find ourselves having to make some changes to a lot of the buildings and structures we have been working on over the course of this latest patch.  Some are small, some not so, but in the end it should benefit the end user with better performance.  How much you ask?  Mileage may vary as is all things that are attached to computers and computing.

Yes gang, I’m still pushing for an infantry redo, as far as the 3rd person part of it goes.  As a matter of fact I get to evaluate something related to that as soon as I can close out my important 1.31 tickets.  Probably won’t be until after the Christmas holiday at this rate.

On the home front, I bought myself a new Wacom tablet, and Windows 7 with 4G more RAM.  I know it’s not real exciting for you folks, but for me…it’s like…..well….it’s like Christmas.

I got my collectors edition, 2 DVD set of the documentary: “Frazetta Painting With Fire” in last week, so I watched it this weekend. I had already seen it twice before, but it always sparks a small inspirational flame in me to do some good old fashioned illustration afterward.
If you have never heard of it, shame on you. It’s a documentary about Frank Frazetta. In my opinion; one of the best, if not THE best fantasy illustrator of this century.

After watching, I get all jazzed up, break out the paper and pencil and try and tackle an idea I have in my head. Always fun.

I’ve been playing a lot of Dragon Age over the last couple of weeks and having a blast.  I totally dig Bioware’s ability to put together a decent RPG.  I’ve easily gotten my moneys worth out of it at over 60 hours played and I haven’t finished it yet.

So I decided to download the Toolkit and play around with it.   I don’t know for sure but I think they have a modified version of the Unreal Engine powering that thing.  Like I said I could be wrong so if you know, let me know.   The tool set is very straight forward and easy to use.  The only thing I am a tad bit disappointed in right now is my inability to import new meshes into the dev kit.  Hoefully I can get that worked out soon, before I move on to Assassin’s Creed 2 and then Mass Effect 2.

Well, I will still have my UDK to mess around with.