Simeon is playing Saturn, Ananke's husband, who works for the goddess of Time, who is dying. (Oh, Shadowtext, you cut up, that's not what he meant by time passing) She has heard that her servant Saturn's wife is pregnant, and has convinced him to let her pass her powers on to his unborn child. Saturn's nervous about the whole thing, but who doesn't want his child to be a god?

The assignment I'm currently working on for my art class is to show time passing. I'm doing a comic....the medium's just inherently suited to it.

But I'm low on time, so I decided that instead of using original characters, I would just let Simeon and Alyson (and one other person, who I haven't decided on yet....might end up being Will) "play the parts" as though they're acting in a play.

It worked for Osamu Tezuka

Maria, who shares a body with Alyson, has an entirely different attitude towards life from her host. As such, she's also got a different personal style.

This is the design for how Alyson/Maria looks when Maria is in control when they're getting dressed or whatever.

Following up on the Simeon design from earlier, here's Alyson.

Alyson's always been sort of a problem for me. While I've had Simeon's look down for quite a while (minus a few tweaks here and there), Alyson keeps changing. Mostly because I've never found a look that really captured her well.

This one actually feels a lot better to me. I think I've finally found Alyson's look.

I just realized today--I've only got like two months before I'm planning to start the big Hurricane Simeon comic/storyboard-y dealie, and I haven't really finalized my character designs.

I don't know if this really counts as a modelsheet since it's just the character, including construction lines and a the character with his usual clothing next to each other.

I'm throwing out so much of what I've presently got regarding Hurricane Simeon....and in about a week I've got to have a pretty big chunk of writing done on it. I don't know exactly how I'm going to manage it.

Still, it's a labor of love. Also a labor of getting passing grades, but mostly of love. Maybe I'll pull through. I must succeed, after all!

I'm getting just about ready for my next big thing. I've got outlines ready and some notes on final character designs for the major characters. Here's the first of one of my attempts to get something final.

I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today. I'll spare you the spoilers, but I'm fairly pleased with it, but I read through it way too fast in my eagerness. I think I missed a lot.

More from that new project I mentioned a bit ago today. What do wolves have to do with anything, though? Things might start to come together more next time, but even then only a little.

I'm planning on starting something up pretty soon. I won't give any details just now, but today's sketch is a big clue.

Sorta like last time, I cover a character that it's been a while since I've drawn in a proper picture, Hurricane Simeon. I tried taking some cues from Penzen. Man, I'd love to be as good as that guy someday.

So I got some concept stuff up after all. This was a really quick sketch, and I didn't bother finishing it.

The pictured characters are two thirds of the Demonic Trio, a band that shows up several times in Hurricane Simeon. From the left, Tess and Shana. Tess is the drummer and Shana the bassist....Joanie, who plays the electric fiddle, will appear sometime in the future.

I'm going to run out of Wind-related song titles before long.

Hurricane Simeon Progress Report

I made a little progress today in terms of fixing quite a few bugs. Unfortunately I've made myself a bunch more. Oh well. On the bright side, I've made some sprite-related progress.

So a bit of progress, then. The engine's really beginning to take shape, so my mood is good at any rate.

I've been playing around in a newly acquired copy of Corel Painter, and I might put up some new Simeon concept art tonight. But maybe not. Whatever.

Another Hurricane Simeon Progress Report!!!

Today I have fixed both jumping and slopes to where they're working about how I want them to, in terms of positioning and all. Animation still isn't done, and there's still some balancing that needs to be done in terms of how fast the jump goes and sprite offsets and things, but it's shaping up quite nicely.

I also implemented a neato Debugging Console. I've added the script to the RMXP section of my site.

My next step, after the fine tuning, will be to start trying to finish up the Simeon sprite, and then I've got to start making attacks work. Then comes enemies and NPCs. -_- Ughh. That part's going to be tough. But I must succeed!

Today we at Shiningbeam bring you the first ever Hurricane Simeon Progress Report. Hopefully this'll become a regular fixture of the site (and eventually, Taret Blade progress reports as well)....we'll see. After all, you've all seen my previous success with ongoing projects

So here goes: I've gotten slopes for the platforming engine working fairly well now. Simeon walks up slopes and goes down slopes and for the first time ever, doesn't fall through the floor for no reason! So things are really shaping up. Now I've got to get jumping working, which ought not to be that difficult....though for some reason or another, I can't get the "launch" animation to trigger correctly. Maybe later this week.

And of course you saw (or I hope you saw....no one commented on it, so I'm not sure) my new designs for Maria and Alyson. I didn't hear a response, so I'm not sure whether or not I should base my sprites on those drawings yet. Oh well.

Today's drawing brings me back to trying to mimic Takehito Harada of Nippon Ichi fame. Disgaea 2 is warping me. Anyway, here are Maria and Alyson, who actually share the same body. It's slightly more complex than that, but suffice to say the reason they're mirrors of each other there is because they are physically identical.

I'm afraid the character designs might be a little unoriginal....not so much in that I copied another deisgn (not that I'm denying copying the style for this drawing), but because they ended up looking like other characters I've seen before. Maria, the one on the left, I can't place but I've definitely seen her before....and Alyson, the one on the right, looks like every other introverted pseudo goth ever. I like that she wears a suit and tie, though. That's neato.

Not certain about Maria's sundress thingy, though. I considered putting her in a bathing suit and sarong, since she's supposed to be tied to water....but I wanted something that would be a little more appropriate for when she's away from the beach.

Another trial at some comic-style stuff. A little more complex this time, it has a background and is in color. I think I prefer the black and white look, though.

I don't even know if you can count this as a proper entry, it's so simple.

This sketch is me trying to get an idea of what Odin looks like. As in, the Odin. The All-Father, y'know? I game him a hat like the one Harrison Ford had in "Witness" because I like that hat. And they specifically mention Odin as having a wide-brimmed hat.

Sometimes I wonder if experimentation is everything it's cracked up to be.

Okay, so I missed a few days. I've been ill. Dream ninja attacked me and bruised my ribs, but it's okay, I'm healing. And I think I must've beaten them pretty bad, since they only got in one blow. I'm clearly a force to be reckoned with, even in my sleep.