Pseudo-Blog : Art and Event of Mike Kime

Gears of War 3 - RAAM's Shadow DLC

2011-12-14T13:27:00.001-08:00

The DLC is out! This is one of the best DLC's i've seen. Lots of good effort behind it and I personally see it as a kinda cool B-Side to Gears 3. The team here at Epic really kicked ass on this! Its quite different and has a lot of new stuff going on including new characters that hopefully I can post soon.

Check out trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cFAmVRJpOM&feature=g-u

Megaman Tribute Book

2011-12-06T21:29:00.001-08:00

The book arrived (awhile ago. I've been slacking on the Blog big time). This is where he be in the book! There was some really great images in this massive art book.

HAGGAR

2011-12-06T21:18:00.000-08:00

== I participated in a BRAWL competition at Polycount.com around April 2011. I chose Haggar from Final Fight. He came in 3rd place.

Third Place Trophy

Competition Results

== I felt he could use some uprezing after the competition so I took him to completion with a scene after it was over.

Link to Haggar-Revisited here

Gears of War 3 Ships ::: Art Dump

2011-12-06T21:03:00.001-08:00

== Gears of War 3 Has shipped and is doing well. The team did a kick ass job! GameHere

== Art Dump where you can see what others and myself contributed to Gears 3 -=HERE=-

I contributed to a very large portion of the Lambent you see in the game as well as a lot of the Savage Locusts. Hoffman, Prescott, Commando Dom, Civ Cole, Armored Kantus, Onyx Guard to name a few. Thanks to everybody who played the game and all the Gears fans out there! It was great to be a part of this series!

Air Man and Mega Man Tribute book at Comic-Con 2011

2011-07-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

MEGA MAN TRIBUTE LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER

-The book is premiering at the San Diego Comic-con at the UDON booth (#5037), July 20-24

-For fans not attending the show, you can preorder the book at UDONstore.com

-(LINK TO UDON STORE )

- The standard softcover edition is also available for preorder on amazon.com

MEGA MAN TRIBUTE SOFTCOVER

- (LINK TO AMAZON)

Click here to see : AIR MAN

Air Man, 31, and things

2011-01-31T19:17:00.000-08:00

A few things that have been happening lately. I was busy all January with Epic work which ended a few days ago.

A few days ago I turned 31! The 1 is a spear with a little barb on it to make sure I know I'm in my 30's.... If last year I had any doubt. :)

I didn't get time to really celebrate, especially during this weekend, because I've been working away in my free time on a submission for the Udon Mega Man Tribute book. I was inspired to do an Airman. He's a character that is cool and really stands out. Even though my favorite character is Metal Man. Mega Man 2 is my favorite of the series and I've beaten it countless times. Infact I should go play through it again!!!

Latest Air Man Images
He will be updated eventually. I have not had the time to put everything I want into the image or the model. His back has a flathead engine and some wings. I would like to take him a little further

Its been awhile!

2011-01-31T18:38:00.000-08:00

Wow its been a long time since I've posted!

I went home for Christmas. This included Portland at my brothers place and then my home town in California. Leading up to Christmas I worked on a piece for my brother/wife/daughter. My brothers wife is pregnant and so I sculpted up a piece and had it printed by Offload Studios. You can see it here:

Apple Sculpt and Print

It was very fragile and came in pieces. 2 Leaves and the Apple. I had to hollow out the apple and separate the pieces. When I got it I had to take it with me on the plane in a box covered in "Fragile" logos. It looked.... bad. A lady actually switched seats on one of the flights. But I wasn't going to let anybody touch it.

We had to assemble it with glue. It does stand on its own with out any help, which is nice.

The print process was pretty grueling and taxed my machine heavily. Hollowing it out after the fact was hard to do. The big thing I wanted to do was have high res texture maps baked into it at print which Offload does. That process was tough and I think UV Master for Zbrush helped save me, even though the hand-paint-seams function seemed totally broken. In the end the final result was great. The piece feels solid and has a "grain" to it that really ads to it.

TED - Niels Diffrient Talks Freedom Chair

2010-02-18T17:07:00.000-08:00

I like to listen to Ted talks while I'm working. Recently I happened across a talk by Niels Different where he talks about his design background and then into his decisions on the Humanscale Freedom Chair. Its one of the major and decently known Task Chairs available.

I tried a Freedom chair out for about a week (not long enough- I had to give it back). Its a really nice chair. Solid construction and a head rest like no other. The first thing you will notice is the firm back that you can still lean back with a bit of force. Once you start leaning back the head rest moves to counter that. Its very different.

Video Below:
http://www.ted.com/talks/niels_diffrient_rethinks_the_way_we_sit_at_work.html

SONIC BOOSH! - GamePro article

2010-01-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

GamePro February issue hit stands today (if you can find it! hehe). It includes a 3 page article/interview about Guile and M.Bison with full images. I really like the layout they did and effort they put into it.

......Now if I would get off my lazy ass and actually pose them or something.

Guile/Bison - GamePro

2009-11-29T16:42:00.000-08:00

The article is at GamePro.com and touches on the Guile/Bison characters.

A larger article with more details on my thoughts and process will be in an upcoming GamePro magazine. I talk about the struggle of taking iconic characters from one style and trying to make them work in another. etc...

-Click Here for GamePro.com Article-

UDK is out.

2009-11-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

UDK has now launched. The Toolset that is used for creating Gears of War etc... is now available in the same way it was when it came with games like UT3, only now there is no purchase necessary. You can just download it! Its updated since UT3 ofcourse, and there is also options available for developement now.

Check it out here: http://www.udk.com/index.html

M.Bison

2009-10-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

!PSYCHO POWER!

I recently finished up M. Bison! He is in much need of posing and a scene etc.. but I decided to go this far with it for now, and hopefully I will get around to rigging him later. I would like to get that smirk back on his face :).

LINK TO IMAGES

Steelcase Leap Chair - Office Task Chair

2009-08-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

A few months ago i bought a Steelcase Leap Chair. First a little background: I have looked into office equipment and ergonomic solutions for a long time, and the typical top 3 chairs were always Herman Miller Aeron, Humanscale Freedom, and Steelcase Leap. My experience and opinions lead me to thinking that the Leap Chair would probably be the best solution for me for a few key reasons-- despite the fact that in a quick overview it appears to be the most expensive yet cheapest looking of the bunch. I never had the chance to try one out until i found a shop that sells them locally in Raliegh NC.

Now that i've had the chair for a few months i can say that it is working out quite nicely. I consider the chair to be a (near) perfect chair for me because of how highly adjustable it is. In looking around at chairs you will probably notice right away that the big focus is usually on the back. This is important as your back is a big part of your health, especially in the long run. But for me i personally care equally as much, if not more, right now in the arms. Depending on your build it may be easier for you to find a chair cheap->expensive that has decent back support, but it may be nearly impossible to find a chair with arms that fit a large range of comforts. Below i've gone over a few of the chairs features.

Arms: The chair comes stock with a fully adjustable set of (modified) "t-style" arms. Key things are:
1. The arms go down and up beyond any level you'd care for! In fact they go so low that they are just above the seat. This is especially good if you like to put pads over the top (see pics and information below)
2. The arms top slide towards your body. This is a rare feature as most highly adjustable chairs will have arms that pivot, but do not "slide" left and right. For some of you this may be a great feature as you may have been looking for a chair with arms that can come close to your side so your arm is not sitting way out to the side.
3. Adjustable sliding forward and back. The tops also move forward and back along the body. Yet another pretty rare feature.

Back: The lumbar support is quite adjustable and is probably the first thing to stand out when you sit down. Everybody notices how different the lumbar feels. Its quite sturdy but has enough play in it to feel nice and comfortable. You should look at pictures of the back on their web site to see how it functions. It has this sort of fake-vertebrae look to it that flexes.

Seat: The seat moves forward and back unlike some other high-end task chairs. I really like this since its quite proper to move the seat to the point where the cushion is some-what close to (but not touching) the back of your legs/knees. And given that i'm about 6ft 1 i'm dependent on the build of the chair. Many high end task chairs seem to have smaller and thinner pads. The Leap Chairs pad could have more motion imo. I have it set all the way forward.

And ofcourse the chair can go up and down and the back can be set to be lax or more rigid. And i believe you can play with the tension. In fact i heard that it is set up so that as you lean back the seat moves up a bit so your eyes can stay level. I keep mine upright and set in place.

I urge anybody to find a place that sells them locally (if you can) and try it out before buying. I found mine at Healthy Back. I not only got to try out the fabric, leather, and stool versions of the chair but i also tried out the aforementioned chairs at the same time. I also brought my Perflex Gel Pads in to see if they fit - And they do! I use them on every computer setup and highly recommend them. They fit nicely (but tightly i might add) onto the arms and given that the arms can adjust well beyond my needs i can easily compensate for the extra 1/2 inch the pads put on them. The Healthy Back employees were knowledgeable about the chair.

Pros:
- Heavily Adjustable across the entire chair
- Very sturdy/quality build.
- Sleak and simple design

Cons:
-Price: You don't want to know.
-Arms: When i was at the store i noticed that the stool versions arm tops were loose. They moved around too easily. My only real worry with my chair is that over time the arms will become more and more loose. Right now it takes a bit of pressure to move them so that the frequency of re-adjusting them back is pretty low. If it gets to a point where they are floating around easily i will have to contact Steelcase about it and see what can be done.
- Some people might not care for how short the back is (though you can get head rests to attach) and how thin the padding is.

Dominance War IV Finals Posted / Judging

2009-07-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

I had the honor of being a primary (and final) judge in Dominance War IV. It was a difficult yet fun task that included cutting over 600 entries down to 75 with a couple of other artists. Then after that i put my top 15 in order and wrote some comments about the entries. Since i have been in past Domwars i took this on with a certain level of seriousness, constantly weighing out why one was better than another. I cut all 75 thumbnails into pieces using Image Ready and then ordered them by dragging them around in Dreamweaver, and using the built in Contrast/Brightness tools to darking ones i didn't go for to help focus things down to the final 15.

Check out the final entries and judging ---here---

Achron and Time Travel

2009-06-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Recently i had the pleasure of watching the creators of Achron speak about Time Travel in games (and other mediums). They are local here in NC and come straight out of NCSU. Achron is an RTS game that uses a Time Travel mechanic in a multiplayer setting. Players have a limited resource to spend on going back in time to alter it (sending units and change events) which then propogates those changes as waves moving ~2x's real-time to the present. I reccomend watching the video on it :).
Sadly there are no 1982 Deloreon units..... or barn buildings, at this time. :)

Achron Game

GDC 2009 Complete

2009-05-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

This years GDC was one i was waiting for for ages. There was so much going on that it was very hard figure out what to do with my time. I met artists i had wanted to meet for ages, epic fans, and saw my friend win 2 IGF awards for Cortex Command. This year i sculpted at the Dominance War Booth along with other artists i admire which was good fun. Pictures can be seen here: DW Booth Pics

Highlights included:
Dominance War Booth
Polycount.com Dinner
IGF Awards
Art Direction - Horror in Deadspace
Art of Brutal Legend
Alcohol

GDC 2009!

2009-03-20T21:20:00.001-07:00

It is here! GDC 2009 is just around the corner. I look forward to a fun and educational week. I will be doing a quick zbrush sculpting demo on the Expo floor at the Dominance War Booth. Other great artists will be doing demos throughout the GDC as well. The DW booth is sponsored by Pixologic and Wacom and will feature people demoing Zbrush with a Cintiq. There will also be a Dominance War gallery, so i hear. Also a cool Polycount/GA.org get-together hopefully sometime during the week.

M. Bison Places 2nd!

2009-02-24T16:34:00.001-08:00

M.Bison landed in a close 2nd place in the mini competition with 829 vs the 1st place winner with 863 votes.

I voted the win for the guy who got it - his presentation is great and you get a sense that he is challenging you, the viewer. I'm always a fan of that sense of immersion. There were some great entries and the total reaching just over 100! Link is below for the entries.

-The Verdict-

M.Bison Bust

2009-02-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

I "completed" and submitted an M.Bison bust for the Street Fighter Bust Mini Competition at Game Artisans. I felt inspired to go as a far as i did (with the time i had) but hope to get time to perhaps complete him in full detail in the future.

Bison is a cool character, dispite having bad memories of losing to him :). I really liked the original take on Bison from Shadaloo, being an older heavy-set asiatic man rather than the later young watered-down Henry Rollins (no offense) Bison. I went with a sort-of Chinese Pagoda/Pavillion theme for his garb/plated armor. I listened to much Fear Factory while modeling.

The character was created flying by the seat of my pants for the most part. Images can be found below.

-M.Bison Images-

Guile on Digg.com

2009-02-12T11:49:00.001-08:00

Guile has hit Digg.com's Gaming section with links to the Game Artisans Gallery.

http://digg.com/images/gaming

Kotaku post!

2009-02-11T20:01:00.000-08:00

Guile plus the mini sculpting SF competition hit Kotaku Today. It came to my attention by way of an email from somebody sent at the office who didn't know i had done it :). It would be cool to have a link to the story and all that. But i'm not complaining! link below.

http://kotaku.com---->StreetFighter

Capcom'd

2009-02-10T17:36:00.001-08:00

Guile has been posted over at Capcom Unity along with the GA.org SF mini comp.

http://www.capcom-unity.com/

Guile Posted

2009-02-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

Guile has been posted!
LINK HERE

I would still like to do more renders in poses and scenes etc... I don't see getting around to that any time soon though. Also creating a 15k tri 4096 game version of him would be cool too.

I look forward to checking out SF4 when it is released.

I am currently working on a quicky M.Bison bust for a mini competition surrounding the release.

New Years Update. - its 2009! -

2009-02-07T18:19:00.001-08:00

It is already February! Where does the time go!?

I have listed up some new resolutions for the year including attempting Dominance War 4 and also posting on my blog more often. Which is obviously going splendid!

2009 Events!:

Dominance War 4

GDC 2009 - Iincluding an awesome talk about Epics character pipeline by Chris Wells as well as many other cool Epic talks.

E3 2009 - It looks like E3 will be full blown this year.

I'm also looking forward to things like a new Zbrush coming out

Rise of the Argonauts hits shelves

2008-12-16T18:18:00.001-08:00

Rise of the Argonauts hits shelves at Game Stop on the 16th and Best Buy on the 18th. Check it out!

Gears of War 2 - Behind the Scenes

2008-12-15T20:54:00.000-08:00

Gears of War 2 - Behind the Scenes posted on CGTalk.com check it out!
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4831

Ergonomic Keyboard Arm/Tray installed

2008-11-27T19:05:00.000-08:00

I modified my metal/glass desk to have a board running between the 2 metal bars so that i could screw down a highly adjustable keyboard arm and tray.

The ergonomic keyboard setups can be purchased --here--
I recommended them regardless of the price. They are quite versatile and a nice quality.

<-- Click Image

Work Setup:
AM-19 Arm: Very long! It has been working great so far, but probably doesn't fit on many desks.

Ergonomic Keyboard Tray: This tray works great and is very large.
-----------
Home Setup:
Dual Swivel Arm: Expenive but will move tray in just about every way you would ever need. Tilts, Swivels, Lifts, Glides.

Mouse Forward Keyboard Tray: This board has a nice mouse forward feature (same with ergo) that i recommend. You should not be extending your arm very far while mousing. Arm shoudl be at a 90deg. This tray is pretty short in length though and just barely fits what i need. The Ergo Keyboard Board seems to be better for this.

They trays often come with little walls mounted into the back which are easily removed (they get in the way) also the pads are sold separatly - Do not rest your wrist!

Also, my LANCER!

Guile Style

2008-11-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

I am currently working (slowly) on a Guile character. Guile was my favorite SF2 character growing up and i used to draw him often.

Liberties will be taken with the characters design/look although much is going into research such as Air Force dog tags, AF Hair spray, and combs etc... Thank you Wikipedia! :)

Guile Wikipedia

News Backlog

2008-11-16T14:17:00.000-08:00

11.07.08:: Gears of War 2 Launches! Metacritic

11.03.08:: IGDA meeting "Getting into the Game Industry" / Gears 2 Launch -flier-

IGDA meeting went well. Panel discussed how to break into the industry. Part of the panel was The Escapist Magazine which is local to Raliegh NC. I did an interview with them that will never be used :). Meeting featured a Panel, Gears 2 launch tournament, Beer, and bright eyed students.

07.31.08: Started work at Epic Games as a Character artist. Moved over to North Carolina. -Company Photo- very middle :)

06.28.08:: Ruhtz places 5th in Dominance War III -link-

Pseudo-Blog created!

2008-11-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

This is the start of my *gulp* "Blog". The point of this blog is to showcase updates to my art website :: www.pseudo-pod.com :: while also logging major events.

Pseudo-pod.com will continue to be my primary site as i believe a picture is worth a thousand words. I also think the site shouldn't be cluttered with tedius information.

This blog will contain the major events and information, for now.

p.s. I ate hard boiled eggs today, and they were good. Plus i don't own a TV. BWAAAAHHH! :)