Magicians and Looters: Spiked Frisbee

Yeah...

Probably not the most exciting post of all time.

Magicians and Looters: Smoke Poof Study

Poof 1 

My first poof was built on the concept of the smoke being a bunch of balls that you shrink down; but as you can see, despite using 11 frames (or maybe because of the 11 frames), it looks a little off; like the smoke is flying away down a tunnel, or something.

Poof 2

I wish I saved a few more versions of this somewhere in the middle of development, but what I did was take the original poof and instead of continuing to shrink it down, I fragmented the pieces and finished the poof with something almost completely different from where it started. I also changed the initial frame to be a bit smaller than the following, giving it more pop; and the poof doesn't shrink uniformly (like in the first one). Instead, it keeps most of its width and loses its height.

Poof 2 is a step in the right direction, but I'm already seeing where there could be big improvements.

The important lesson I'm taking from this is that, even in a stupid poof animation, there's a huge amount of room for adding character, and most of that character comes alive when you respect the little things.

Magicians and Looters: Bear in a Hamster Ball

So this bear is only about halfway finished. I'm going from four frames to eight.

I just wanted to show it right now because four frames actually looks pretty funny.

Oh, wait! Crap! Hold on!

180px*8 frames = 1440 pixels

I can't do eight frames. That's waaay too big for the sprite sheet.

Okay. So I guess I'm done, then.

Planetside 2: Tutorial: Leading a Public Squad

One of the side-effects of playing way too much Planetside 2 is that I know a lot about the game, or at least I think that I do, and that's all that's really necessary to write a tutorial! With low-bit art!

PLANETSIDE 2 : LEADING A PUBLIC SQUAD

Planetside 2: How to Avoid Being a Douche

 - Don't deconstruct your vehicle before the enemy can take it out. Losing that vehicle costs you nothing, because it was about to explode, anyways. Your opponent earned that XP. Show them some respect.

 - The same goes for pilots jumping out of their aircraft before the kill-shot. You're a douche, and you look stupid falling to your death. Go out with a little dignity and attempt a kamikaze run on your opponent.

 - And if you're that one guy who not only deconstructed your sunderer but went so far as to log out so I couldn't get XP for blasting you with my lightning, then congratulations; you're an alpha douche. Work on that.

 - If your faction has 45% pop on the continent, another faction has 45%, and the third faction has 10% and no territories, don't zerg the third faction. Granted, reenacting Helm's Deep with assault rifles is a fun time for me, and you're probably going to be all bunched up into grenade-friendly clusters, but you're still a douche.

 - Are you capping a point? Is victory guaranteed? Don't trash the fucking base. Leave the terminals and the turrets alone, because the more competent and responsible members of your team are going to have to turn around and fix everything you broke before they can move on to the next point.

 - Did an enemy just take you out in a totally awesome way? Give them a '/t' and let them know it, because (surprise, surprise) your opposition is also playing Planetside 2 because they want to have a good time and challenge themselves against opponents they can respect. I've got players on my friends list that aren't even in my faction. You know why? Because I'm not a douche.

(Is bragging about not being a douche something a douche would do? I need to self-analyze.)

Magicians and Looters: Morg Minion Enjoying Music

I wanted to do something more horizontal instead of vertical.

The result is a pretty odd looking minion.

Magicians and Looters: Minions Love Swords

They love 'em.