Man, this blog was uhhh… silly at best.

Guess I wanted to express and amuse myself. Sorta just bullshitting around and telling dumb stories. Most of it was stream of consciousness jank.

Nowadays I do basically the same shit but it’s drawn instead. COOL.
Haven’t developed that skill as much as I would have liked though. Fuckin… being a lazy piece of shit and all.

The only reason I’m here right now is because I’m bored and procrastinating.
Trying to kick my gaming habit, as if that’ll somehow turn everything around. I dunno. Maybe it will.

Here’s something from early November. Maybe I’ll come back and post another in a year.

Some cleanup, some renewed interest

I went to some of my old entries on the blog here. They had originally been written up on the old MSN Spaces blog site. Good lord, was that thing bloated and terrible.
Not too terribly different from WordPress in terms of functionality, but I suppose that’s why they merged.
Have I talked about this already? I’m too lazy and hungry to go look…

Anyway, there was a lot of jank in the HTML, lots of issues with font colors (used to be bright-color font over a black background). It’s not all done just yet, still a few issues here and there, but a good chunk of it has been handled now.

As for renewed interest, I’d like to post art here more often. I see people using this tumblr thing for art blogs pretty often.. but let’s stick with WordPress for now, even though they won’t let me edit one small tag of my CSS without paying a subscription.
Man, this text window is really small… I wonder what tumblr’s looks like.
Well, at the very least, I’m going to go look later.

Besides the art thing, I think I would also enjoy doing some sort of write-up on Harvest Moon. It will likely be both an analysis of the games themselves as well as an introspective look; it might also be more for me than any prospective readers out there, but we’ll see how it goes.
I’m hardly a Harvest Moon expert, but I still feel a strong desire to highlight a few of the things I enjoyed and some things I did not. Hopefully I can avoid turning the thing into some boring wishlist or game concept piece.

For now, I’ll post some art I made in February. We’ll discuss my procrastination some other time.

Right click + view image (or whatever) for full size

And again (I think?), check me out on my deviantart page– http://gauphastus.deviantart.com/

Time travel or something

Yeah, I’ve gone to the future and skipped a bunch of silly stuff! OooooOOOooo!

Well, not really. I’ve just been absent for a couple of years. No big deal there.

Obviously, there is no more webcomic. It was lousy and terrible. The drawing and artwork has continued however. Here’s my latest doodlepage..

You can right click > view image to see it in full size. It is quite large, as large as my monitor resolution in fact. Autodesk Sketchbook likes to use my whole screen, which is fine by me. Not as bloated and slow as Photoshop.

In other news, I’m taking piano lessons. I had my first lesson just yesterday. I’ve always enjoyed music, I’ve enjoyed plunking about on my keyboard.. thought I’d take it to the next level. It’s very exciting.

I suppose there’s not much else going on then. I’m aware that there are some issues with the font colors on some pages. This will be corrected when I’m not half-asleep.

You see, I used to be on a black background, which I can no longer do now that I’m on wordpress. Kind of a pain in the ass, like I have to pay for the theme I want or if I’d like to change the CSS. Worse is that it’s a monthly fee.

Yeah. Don’t think so, guys. That’s dumb.

Anyway, I’m out for now. Look forward to more bored textual vomit on here in the future.

Computer Get

 

As you may have heard, I have an awesome new computer.

 

Here! Specs!

 

 With a hell of a lot of research into what I wanted, what tech was up and coming, and the stuff that was old and lame (floppy drives), I chose these parts.

I read loads of reviews and watched as many videos as I could find.

You see, it was necessary that I build this thing myself. The last machine had parts selected for me by a friend of mine; he also built the thing.

 

It didn’t seem so hard. The most difficult phase of the operation is the power connections, and even then, everything is color-coded and labeled.

And even if you’re color blind or.. just regular blind, pretty much every device uses a different connector.

 

 

Moving on, when I arrived at the store to order these parts, I had a huge chunk of money in hand. When it was all ready to be paid for, I handed over two grand to the employee helping me. He told me that it was the largest wad of money he’d ever handled directly at one time.

Also, seeing as I was getting a board with tri-SLI (that’s three graphics card slots for NVidia brand motherboards, FYI (that’s "For Your Information", FYI)), he made sure to check with me earlier on that I was only getting a single 8800 GT. He seemed rather flabbergasted, I must say.

I told him what I’ll tell you folks now: my plan is to step it up later on when more awesome cards come out. I’m hearing buzz about some "GT200 architecture" or something.

 

So I picked up everything right then and there.

Except for one piece.

The processor! The one I wanted was a special order, as it’s fairly new-ish. A little hard to get it seems, from what I read after I ordered the damn thing.

I had to sleep in my bedroom surrounded by all these awesome computer components for like two and a half weeks before receiving the notice that my processor was available at a post office a block away.

I paid ten bucks shipping on that thing and they didn’t even try. Stupid Canada Post.

 

But whatever. We’re here now.

Let the party begin!

 

 

 

 

So here we have all the parts we’ll be using. Well… most of them.

Not shown — the case (huge), processor (it came in an anti-static baggie), speakers, and monitor.

I’d already been using the mouse and keyboard for some time.

Actually, same for the monitor.

 

 

 

 

Fumbling my way through the mildly intimidating small box of spare parts that came with the case, I located a set of wheels.

I put those bitches on right away. Now all I need is a steering wheel and horn and then I can drive my computer to work.

 

 

 

 

Ah, very good. A removable motherboard tray. Rodney Reynolds would be proud.

 

 

 

 

With the motherboard mounted, it is now time for that damned processor I waited over two weeks for.

 

 

 

 

But OH! YOU DON’T GET TO SEE IT.

Why? Because I went to lunch; when I came back, I forgot I was taking pictures. By the time I remembered, the heatsink was already on there.

This particular heatsink was extremely easy to mount. Just clips right in, like Lego. Also, it comes with thermal paste preapplied. I think it was called MX2, but I can’t remember now.

 

On another note, please look at that huge heatsink surrounding the processor slot. That came with the motherboard. Do people’s processors really run that hot while gaming? I’m assuming since this board comes with tri-SLI and enthusiast BIOS options that it was intended for gaming, so…

I dunno. Might be to keep it cool for ambient temperature increase caused by having THREE GODDAMN CARDS in there.

Whatever. Anyways…

 

 

 

 

The power supply, even as large as it was, slid right in with no problems.

Sorry if that sounded sexual.

 

 

 

 

The CD drive is mounted without incident. The installation has been pretty normal so far.

 

 

 

 

Just down below, I pop off three front plates and slide out the hard drive holding thing. Yes, that is a fan on there. Came with the case.

This little box was really difficult to slide out, and for good reason. There are two plates on the side meant to absorb a couple hundred pounds of direct force. Or something like that.

 

 

 

 

Sorry for blurry picture. You won’t believe how many pictures I had to delete because of smudgy crap all over the lens.

Never let a baby play with your $250+ digital camera.

 

In any case, the hard drive is in. It goes back in its place no problemo.

 

 

 

 

Another piece a little like Lego, my 120mm fans snap right in to these fan slots on the case’s side door.

 

 

 

 

Here we have the sound card installed in a bad spot given the size of the graphics card. I would later move it to a slot further away.

Oh, hey. Look. My knee.

That’s just lovely.

 

 

 

 

Now to free up the power cables for conne– OH GOD THERE ARE LIKE FIVE MILLION WHAT THE HELL DO I DO

 

 

 

 

OH GOD IT ACTUALLY WORKS I DID IT RIGHT WHAT THE HELL DO I DO

 

 

 

 

OH GOD I’M… oh, just formatting. I’ve done this before a few times.

Please note that this took forever. I think I watched the full run of Spiderman 3 on TV while it formatted.

 

 

 

 

Just a little longer.

 

 

 

 

Temperatures are nominal, Captain.

 

 

 

 

Suddenly, speakers all over my desk. And note the size of my penis. I mean my monitor.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, in the other room, my old computer plots revenge.

But actually, I now use that machine entirely for my music making stuff. Sure, I still have all my old games installed on there, and it is still a decent computer, but I just don’t have much use for it other than for music.

Please note that my mouse pad (bottom left) is the processor shipping box.

 

 

For a short time, I simply could not get the internet to work.

Then I remembered that power cycling the modem mostly fixed every network issue I’ve ever had.

 

 

 

And there we go.

 

Since I’d not done this before, it took me about a day’s work. The main issue was in getting the power connections all set up; now that I’ve done it once, it’ll surely be much quicker next time.

But that’ll be a few years.

 

I hope.

 

For a review on my monitor, check out what I wrote on the store’s site.

As for everything else, I can’t say the graphics card allows me to max everything out, but it is a hell of an improvement over my 6800 GS.

The G5 mouse is a great step forward over the basic one I’d been using for years.

The G15 keyboard is also quite nice; it took time, but I’ve finally gotten used to how hard you need to press the keys (they’re not very sensitive).

The Coolermaster Stacker case is amazing. I can’t imagine how difficult this all would have been had I settled on a mid-tower case like I’d planned at the start.

The processor is snappy. Documents and files open instantly, and there have been no stability issues so far.

Not much I can say about the RAM really. No memory errors, unlike my old computer. I’m pleased.

Can’t say much about the motherboard either. I don’t know from motherboards that well.

The fans are amazing. You can hear them, but the noise is much softer and whiter than on my old machine. Everything is perfectly cool.

Windows XP 64-bit runs just fine. There are a few programs that refuse to be run, and Microsoft did a bit of dicking around with Messenger, but I worked it out.

Power supply is sufficient. That is all I ask.

 

Zero instability. Zero crashes. Zero lockups. Zero memory errors.

 

This is fantastic. No major problems.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any problems or issues at all however.

 

 

MINOR PROBLEMS

The holes in the back of the case where your USB ports and graphics cards and stuff stick out — there is a slight issue with the motherboard being slightly off from where it should be in relation to the back of the case. It is certainly tricky getting the sound card to fit in properly.

In fact, the sound card is out. I could not get it to work. I probably need drivers, but I’ll get around to that when I actually have games that require 7.1 surround sound or whatever it offers.

One other issue with the sound card is that the ports are not color coded. There are icons embossed into the metal on the bracket, but they’re very difficult to see.

 

Not sure what I did wrong, but the audio ports on the front of the case do not work. My headset has to go around back.

 

Windows Live Messenger, as of a recent version, refuses to run on Windows XP 64-bit. There’s a way around this of course: downloading the installer directly. Microsoft used their Live updater program to block folks like me, probably to push Vista. Even if that theory is not true, it is still a real dick move on their part.

Not only that, they won’t let you update Flash on 64-bit browsers. I really don’t see what the hell the difference is…

 

Some programs are specifically made to refuse to work on 64-bit XP, such as oecake.

That was disappointing. 

 

 

 

That’s my tale.

I just need a moment to work on those projects I put off, particularly that little (huge) avatar drawing thing.

Too bad work is starting to get going here and I hardly have time between eating, working, sleeping, and Dwarf Fortress.

 

Nyuk nyuk.

 

Dear Capcom

Dear Capcom,

 

 

Make Megaman Legends 3.

Stop screwing around.

 

 

Sincerely,

every single person who played Megaman Legends 1 and 2

Alien

Wanted to sketch out a full-blown scene this time, as I’m not that great with backgrounds.

Mostly though, I just wanted to color something again.

 

 

I give you…

 

ALIEN!

 

 

I think it looks alright. The rock he’s on is a bit blotchy, but I still need to learn how to texture and stuff.

That’ll be later though.

I can do simple metallic objects quite well now. I learned the basics back when I used to dabble in pixel art sort of stuff.

Makes me wonder about how much I could take back to pixel art now that I’ve learned so much in regular drawing. Probably won’t bother though. I find this much more amusing.

 

Let’s come up with some backstory…

So Earth becomes quite big on the whole space thing. They’re out and about in the galaxy, meeting with other civilizations. Many years later, immigration begins, and thus, crossbreeding.

This guy was born of an alien species and human.

Earth is unfortunately obliterated by an unseen force. Probably terrorists. ALIEN terrorists.

 

In any case, this guy was visiting his alien homeworld. Upon returning to Earth, he finds nothing but floating rubble.

So he sets up camp and grimaces at the stars for awhile.

 

I… guess these aliens can breathe.. space?

I don’t care. I’m too tired to come up with anything better. Or anything more for that matter.

 

 

Go to bed.

Okay, see you tomorrow, Gau.

Yeah, see you later.

 

 

 

 

That guy’s a dick.

 

 

Yeah, I know.

Fightin’ Chick

Looks like we’ve got us another girlie to gawk at. C’mere, you!

 

**BAM**

 

Awp, my nose. Faaaack!

 

 

Well, you know the drill by now.

I drew me up another chick.

She’s a scrapper!

 

 

 

 

And thar be the color!

 

Lovely. Note that I got in a few actual shadows this time, rather than just plain ol’ shading.

There’s a difference you see.

Though I realize the only reason there would be a difference in my case is my skill level.

Eventually everything will flow together much nicer. But for now, she is as is.

 

I pictured her on a pirate ship of some kind. She is outed as a female and must now wrestle the entire crew in order to establish her ability as a fighter and sailor.

Or you know, maybe nobody cared a chick came on board, and she’s instead fighting the first mate for the last bottle of alcohol; he cheats and stabs her in the arm with a dirty knife. The doctor, who, due to the length of the voyage, has become the manager of the entire ship so as to prevent any losses before they arrive at their destination, demands he use the alcohol to treat the wound.

Ah, yes. And the first mate’s buddies drag him to the hold and force-feed him rat droppings for that one.

 

A day in the life of a bunch of pirates, eh?

Or not. Whatever.

 

Punk Chick

So, I’m doing this massive project on GamingSteve. I’m taking many of the prominent member’s avatars and redrawing them in this huge sort of group shot.

There’s almost 100 people involved. Anyone I missed that wants in gets added as soon as I can.

I’m coming up with all kinds of interactions and stuff between the characters.

 

Here are some examples of what I have in there already —

Sephiroth

A beheaded dragon

Will Wright

A robot

The moon from Majora’s Mask

Skull Kid

Slartibartfast

Robot Santa

An alien

 

And many more. And more to be added, even.

 

What does that all have to do with a punk chick? Well…

See, after stopping those painting studies I did, I slowly lost confidence in my ability to color/paint digitally. I hadn’t done it in a long time.

During April Fool’s day, I temporarily became Hank Hill. But afterward, I decided I wanted a fresh avatar.

So I colored the face of my avatar from the project I’ve been doing.

 

I didn’t like the coloring job I did, but it looked… alright. I guess.

 

I was about to get back to work on sketching for the project, but I decided I wanted an actual painting exercise. To warm myself up for the work I’ve got ahead of me.

After I do the cleanup and inking on the sketches, I’ve gotta color them.

So what the hell.

 

 

I wanted to paint. That was all well and good, but I needed a picture.

I’d been drawing a lot of female types lately ’cause I normally suck at them. So I went ahead and drew me up a hottie.

 

 

Okay then. Now I needs me some flat colors, something to base the shading from later.

 

 

 

 

And now comes the hard part.

Actually, I already did it. There is no now. There is only —

 

 

 

I still say it’s not that amazing, but it’s certainly a hell of a lot better than I did before I did them painting studies.

 

FOR EXAMPLE

 

Yeah, wut.

 

Studies (third study)

The third study has been revealed!

The following took place during sometime on December 17, 2007.

 

 

If you do not know who this man is, kindly go to another restaurant. I don’t want your business.

 

I started to work on this guy. As you know, I’d start with basic color shape blobs and define from there.

I got going on the definitions. All those leather creases and stuff… pretty challenging.

It began to look something like this.

 

 

So I gave up for a day, for obvious reasons. I’d become frustrated in my failure to grasp what seemed so simple.

I didn’t bother myself to continue the day after.

Or the day after that.

But then the day after that, probably, I picked it up again. Ended up pausing (stopping) around this point —

 

And yeah. It took a long time to do this stuff, as I’m really damn slow.

That last one there was a huge improvement as I slowly came to understand how the creases and lighting worked. It’s still a little rough, but if it were complete, you could swear it was the real thing. And you’d all be bowing before me, offering me various forms of pleasure.

 

However, that was not to be. I did not complete it.

I know, I know. But dry your tears! It wasn’t a complete failure. As I’ve already stated in the past, you learn a lot doing these things whether you realize it or not.

 

 

I’ll be sure to try something again soon.

Perhaps I’ll attempt a vehicle. I can say quite comfortably that I’ve never successfully drawn a car.

Maybe.

Or maybe I’ll do a self portrait. Sure, they’re self-centered, but what part of a human’s life isn’t at all? And besides that, I’ll do as I please. Screw you.

 

Get the hell out of here.

HAIR

 

 

HAIR

 

 

 

 

SERIOUS BUSINESS

 

 

I shouldn’t have to tell you how this came about.

No, it wasn’t another fixer upper. This time, it was all me, baby.

 

But to the point, hair is very serious business. Did you know there are people out there like me who are running short on shampoo and don’t have the time to get it?

It’s terrible! I will certainly come upon hard times soon.

If I wasn’t doing this webcomic stuff around the clock, I estimate I would have about six tons of shampoo available. You know you folks run me pretty ragged… but I don’t mind making some sacrifices.

 

So I say to those of you out there who are perfectly able to take good care of your hair:

DO IT.

 

It is the most important part of living a good life. You have good hair, you are good person.

Bad hair day? You’re a bad person for the whole day! If you don’t believe me, just keep an eye on what you’re doing throughout the day, take notes on your activities. When you next have a good hair day, read the list. That is way too many dead puppies for anyone’s liking, among other atrocities.

 

But I’m telling you now! Avoid being a bad person altogether, and just take good care of your hair!

 

 

I do not look forward to the future.

It frightens me so.

 

 

😦