I was supposed to go back to work as a concept artist for Spera, but I started thinking about a few things, as well as found out some lovely news, which made me decide that going back would be a very, very big waste of time and be bad overall, especially for my career.

Reasons for quitting 1: The game itself.
The game Spera has an incredulous amount of religious overtones - the lead developer wants to club people with Christianity, and by god, he's going to do it by invading the horror/fps genre. The "alien" creatures featured in the game, at least the ones I was supposed to design but became disgusted with, were merely conglomerations of terrestrial creatures, and looking hardly alien at all, no matter how much work I could have put into them. The game was supposed to take place far into the future, but use relatively current-looking weapons, although very weathered. My immediate reaction to this was "What." Not a "what" in a questing matter, but one of incredulity. This game has been in the works for years, and just like Duke Nukem Forever, has been switching engines. In the past few weeks, it got it's first coder, and switched from the S2 engine to the Source engine, meaning every bit of work has to be redone. Should this game want to see the light of day and actually have a chance at selling or becoming popular, it'd need a complete rewrite and redesign. Also, the main focus of any concept art was towards photo-realism, distinctly against stylized art. I dunno about you guys, but I think that stylized work looks a hell of a lot better than another Gears of War ripoff that tries to beat you to death with the bible.

Reasons for quitting 2: The team.
Now, I'm not really knocking the team itself. There's a lot of good people, and that's just the thing. They all jump ship after they figure out what's going on as well, and that the game itself is doomed. The dev lead just recently fired the rest of the concept artists, leaving only myself. During this month that I've been away from the game, I would have expected that he'd be searching for another artist in my absence, but this is not the case. While there are roughly 5 3d modelers of varying skill, from professional to amateur, I WAS the ONLY concept artist slated to work on this game. That encompasses everything from storyboarding to scene layout to creature design, as well as working as a texture artist. Mind that the dev lead also nags every 15-20 minutes for updates on whatever I'm working on, preventing any real work from getting done, then complaining that I'm not working fast enough.
Oh, and I forgot to mention : when I signed on, I was under the assumption that I would be compensated for my services. I was paid twice, a sum of $30 for nearly two month's work. After that, the dev lead said I was "working to get (my) name on a blockbuster game and get my foot in the door at other companies." I'm sorry, but no. After reading up on the game and sitting in for game design discussions regarding the story, I figure the best it'll give me is a worrisome stain on my name, and prevent me from getting work at all. My art isn't that great, but even still, that's fucked up. That's like going down to a car dealership and telling them you want a car for free, and that people can see their craftsmanship and a demonstration of their cars as you drive it. I'm not that naive.

Reasons for quitting 3: Other pressing issues.

Here comes the fun part; Alembic Grimoire has restarted, and I'll be damned if I let anything stop it. It was dead for months because of Spera and the huge workload for no compensation it put on me, and I'm not letting that happen again. I'll also be attending AnimeFest in September in Texas, and I'm definitely going to have more than just three recent pictures to sell. In the two months prior to Anime Evolution, I battled with the dev lead in order to get time to knock out a few pieces of artwork for the upcoming convention, and over that course of time only three images were produced. Three images which took less than a week in total, and it was that week just prior to leaving for the convention.
There's also another game that has come up that I'll be working on, and it's not going to be nearly as much of a massive pain in the ass as Spera was. is the writer for this upcoming game, and it's the prequel to his story, "The New Dream," which is also slated to be developed into a game after this one is. I'll be doing the art direction on it, and it'll be developed using the Torque game engine and will be released on Xbox Live, possibly multi-platform if we can swing it. I'll be developing a new style for it, working on something in the vein of Odin Sphere or Grim Grimoire. Basically ditching anatomical accuracy for flowing lines and impressive visual effects. It's slated to be a Metroidvania style game, with emphasis on exploration and using powerups in order to access previously unreachable areas, unlocking newer and harder challenges as the game goes on. We'll also be working on several surprises which may turn the genre on it's head... but telling would be spoiling the surprise, wouldn't it?
Some of the concept art will be posted here, while some of it will be collected for a book later should the game become popular. It's got the potential.

In summary: Spera looks like it's going to tank faster than North Korea's popularity ratings after it's recent sabre-rattling, like a ship making a hard turn starboard straight into the mouth of Charybdis, so I'm bailing while I can. Ditching in favor of things a lot more fun that I'll actually ENJOY working on.

Aside from that crap, things are going pretty allright. Still working on commissions and MAX adoptions and things, looking for jobs and all sorts of good stuff. Saving up for a new computer, since this old laptop is running out of life. Figure I'll either get another lappy or build something - not sure which. Depends on how much I travel over the course of the next year or so - that'll be the clincher.
I also got my Axiom 61 in the mail! I'll be making some songs with it in the near future, now that I'll actually have some time to. I'm also going to up Alembic's update schedule! 2x a week at least. I'm also working out some business cards for conventions and stuff, as well as T-shirts and other things, like the "Derp" headband - I still need to build that plasma pen so I can engrave them!

I've not slept much over the past month, so I think I'll go and try to make up for it later today, maybe tonight, dunno. Probably get a picture or two done first.
Take it easy and don't let them get you down!

~Aphex



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Art project progress
Multiple Artist eXchange artwork adoptions - 4 complete.
Alembic Grimoire website revamp - IN PROGRESS! Working on layout.
Sister's Birthday pic - Drafted, Inked, 40% colored (Working).
Alembic character/monster designs - some/200(est)
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Commissions
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Mystic Suburb : Pending
Victorianesque character for Carmle.desu : Inked
Freya Valentine : Pencilled
Corporation-tans : Pending
Anime portrait of Marion : Pending
Anime portrait of Mike : Pending
Elven Samhain - Queued

Open slots : 0
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The Old Dream :
Conceptual artwork : None as of current
Code : Pending Engine download and licensing.
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Comics
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Alembic Grimoire - Page 12 - Pencilled, ready for inking.
Plague of Witches - I think we're on page three or four? I'll have to recheck
Slixxor - Indefinite hold for rewrite - [link] for archive