This post is cross-posted at Fesoes.net and LiveJournal.com because I keep wanting to make the other blog aware of the other blog, even though I should be using the Fesoes.net one more than the LiveJournal one now.

Anyway, on to the list of resources that I find useful for people doing creative things. As some of my closest friends know, I want to do pretty much anything creative, although all the things I want to do can be summed up in the phrase 'telling some stories'.

To do this, especially in the ways I would love to tell my stories (comics, cartoons, games(?)), you need the skills, and you need resources, and you need a good story.

Hmm, looking at that last paragraph, I can't see where I'm going with it, so I probably just ought to get onto making these lists. I'm going to keep a focus on what is freely available as I like free, and there are indeed, a surprising amount of free things on the internet for the budding creative.

One last thing, this is just a general list, and by all means, doesn't cover every site I've ever used (sites missed out might be due to link decay, or more likely, general forgetfulness from not bookmarking the place). Most likely I'll keep updating this post or keep making smaller posts about sites and resources for more specific creative activities/genres.

World Creation

• Seventh Sanctum - Probably one of the most well known and largest generator sites known to the creative side of the internet. It's useful for those times when you simply cannot come up with all those names and designs for attacks/locations/items/spells/characters/etc. and sometimes even forms a way to grab potential things for later use. Contains links to other high-quality generator sites, my favourites being Serendipity (Nine.Frenchboys.net), Majin Gajita's Generators, and Namator. It also contains a link to an archive of (extremely good-quality) articles about World Building and what you should be thinking about when you make this world (if it's not based on the current Earth of course).
• Wikipedia - Legendary Creatures - Should really be part of research resources, but fantasy worlds need fantasy creatures, and what better way to get an idea of what fantasy creatures would exist there would be to see what our predecessors have already come up with. This is already sorted into common catergories including the creatures based/associated with the animals of the world, artificial creatures and creatures associated with things like the sun, the moon, blood, etc.

Story Making

Sites

• Cool Bits Story Generator - Generates a brief outline of a story. Could be good for writing challenges, or if you suddenly cannot think of what happens.
• The Big List of RPG Plots - By S. John Ross (you should totally check out the rest of his website though - he is the creator of Risus and various other free things - he is a generous man! (PS: he is also very creative and has made lots of RPG campaigns that I'll have to try one day)). Although this list was made for Game Masters of various Pen and Paper RPGs to have a base campaign, it can still be put to good use for either the base of a story, or perhaps a smaller story arc. Like the name suggests, it's a list of plots.

Software

• Labyrinth - Supports relationship maps between anything (although characters are generally used), 'annotations' for 'Elements', which can be used to describe events, descriptions, or even to write brief notes about a possible idea for something, and has a timeline component. As its site says (probably better than I could at the moment); "Labyrinth is an integrated development environment for developing and recording storylines and plots". I love this piece of software so much. Once you tackle the learning curve (the documentation is very very limited) it is incredible useful and efficient. The best thing about it, is it's free.
• FreeMind - Before I found Labyrinth, I used this to make notes on characters and individual elements of a story - rather than the story itself. It's a mind-mapping program with potentially unlimited space (I haven't quite written enough to see if there is a limit). It supports images and hyperlinks and is useful for splitting up components of your story into categorised sections (unlike Labyrinth which displays all the elements at once in alphabetical order).
• Ren'Py - Nothing like the previous two. Ren'Py is a free visual novel engine built upon Python. It's akin to Blade Engine, which has a free, lighter version of its own engine, but the general consentus of the Visual Novel community is that Ren'Py offers more freedom thanks to the extendibility added with the Python programming language (which can turn Ren'Py from a mere visual novel engine to a game engine). Documentation for Ren'Py is adequate, with plenty of examples to learn from. Also, if you're planning on writing a visual novel, you should take a look at the Lemma Soft website, which has a section dedicated entirely to Ren'Ai games.

Character Building

• NaNoFiMo - Although aimed at NaNoWriMo writers, the resource page contains a good number of plot sheets and character sheets, some with prompts, some without. Contains links to other useful sites for story making (including some of those linked here).

Artwork

Anatomy/Figure Drawing Reference

• Posemaniacs - A godsend for artists like me who didn't take an art course/are self-taught, and thus, do not get the chance to draw from life. A site, constantly updated with models of the (average) human body. It shows the muscles to get a sense of why the body is shaped as so, which is good for getting the idea of the body's structure - but not particularly good for learning how the body shadows with different light sources. The limited time feature is a really good way to hone your sketching skills with difficult poses though.
• Character Designs - Also another godsend, similar to Posemaniacs in that it is a really really good resource for anatomy and pose reference, but unlike Posemaniacs (which uses 3D models), Character Designs uploads high-res photosets of models (in various states of undress - so be warned if you're offended by partial/full nudity) but under different lighting conditions. Plus benefits include artwork from industry professionals and upcoming artists, some tutorials, texture sets, and face shots of various emotions.

Other Reference

• Flickr - Amazing place for reference photos, it would be my best friend if I kept on remembering to go there. Remember to keep an eye out on the copyrights of each photo of course and be sure to drop a line to the photographer if you ever do use one.
• Kosta Trimovski - A photographer with plenty of beautiful photos that can be used for reference, but not to be used in work without permission.

Character Design

• Fashion sites, Catalogues, and even costume sites (there are far too many that I use to list here) are great resources for inspiring clothing design. Because people's tastes differ, and the fashion style changes with the genre, I decided not to list the sites I am addicted to use. Places like eBay can be surprisingly useful, and Google is your best friend for this.

Programs

• GraphicsGale - Relatively unknown-esque, it's a really really good graphics editor aimed mainly at animated sprite-making. There is a free version and a 'shareware' (you get a trial and then you have to pay for it) version. Naturally the shareware version supports more things, like .GIFs .ICOs, etc, but the free version, in my opinion, has enough features to aid sprite making (supports Alpha Channeled .PNGs) if you don't mind doing a little bit of work yourself to convert things to .gifs.
• Blender - Open Source 3D modelling software that rivals the quality of many high-end commerical software (although is naturally, not as powerful as them). I've only just started to attempt using it again, but it's free and is now well-documented, so that even people new to modelling can learn to use it.

Misc

• Random Art Prompt Generator - From the same girl who brought you the Cool Bits Story Generator. Good for times when you're feeling that lovely phenomena known as artists block.
• StumbleUpon - A plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer that literally lets you stumble on to sites that you may have never ever seen before. A lot of the sites I use for reference, particularly the software sites, I have found thanks to StumbleUpon, so I guess I owe it this mention. You just tell it what categories you are interested in, then go Stumbling away!
• deviantART - It's rare that I ever pick up on dA, it's large community has pushed me away from the site. However, there is no denying that a site full of artists would have a category purely for resources. With some clever searching (or just patient browsing) you can find a treasure chest of resource delight, poses, anatomy references, even fashion designs to inspire your own fashions, not to mention plugins and addons for commonly used programs.
• TVTropes - An excellent site that records and explains various ideas or themes that are found not just on TV, but on the internet, in albums, movies, modern media, you get the idea. Not just a good site for information about tropes commonly used (which can spur ideas of your own) but also a good time waster (I can easily waste hours figuring out which tropes I've used in my own planned stories) and perhaps can even help strengthen your characters and story.

Remember to share the love with others, only feedback can make this article better!

Here, have some comics I've been working on;

( Read more... )( Read more... )

Cross-posting on both my normal LJ and community account, apologies to those who have added both!

So I've been working on some more concept stuff for Helmos Lockresh. The layout is going to be revamped to look something like this;

Except this was just a test to see how Ren'Py would display everything on screen. Instead of having just one character in the middle of the screen, I'd like to have more characters, at least Helmos and one other person. If I can figure out how to displace and how to manage layers, I could get Helmos and Fuchsia on the same side of the screen.

Anyway, concept stuff;

Introduction pictures for the novel.

The first guy (in brown) is, hopefully, the final design of Helmos Lockresh, the protagonist and titular character. He's been sent to live with his uncle in the village of Bookhall, the place where his father and uncle were raised, for his A-Level education. He is known for his girly eyes and cowlicked hair.

The girl (pink) is Fuchsia Twist, a girl who is Helmos' closest friend in Bookhall. She's highly energetic, very loyal and likes cute things. Like most girls her age (around 14), she crushes over older guys, particularly "Police Constable: Captain Policeman".

The third (green) is Adrian Lockresh, Helmos' uncle. He's very grouchy, and works as one of the village's detectives. He regularly pokes fun at Helmos, insulting his cowlick and girly eyes.

The last (yellow) is PC Willams, but is known as Police Constable: Captain Policeman. He's a very eccentric policeman, and is known to run faster than a car. He has a habit of accidentally colliding with an old woman called Mrs. Amber, and consequently getting beaten up for it.

I'm hoping to find voice actors for them!

One last picture before I go;

As you can tell my style is rather sketchy.

http://fesoes.net

That is all.

00:00 - Notice that NaNoWriMo has begun. Proceed to not write, and Plurks instead.
00:20 - Decide that designing the novel cover will be a good way to make me sleepy while I wait for whatever whiskey cocktail it was that I was drinking wears off.
02:00 - Thinks that doodling for 30 mins in bed might make me tired. Proceed to doodle Mac A Roni, Pepper Roni and an unfinished man before drawing a character from the next book.
02:30 - Stumble down corridor to toilet and then stumble back to bed.
04:30 - Coughing hurts. Drink alot of water to soothe throat. Fall asleep.
09:30 - Wake up. Stumble to toilet, walking towards the wall because I had a dizzy spell.
10:00 - Open Q10. Proceed to make crackers and jam, with tea. Get distracted by corridor pal who needs a fork.
10:30 - Finally start writing. Insert getting dressed, messing with the radio and tidying room in between spells of writing.
12:20 - Head down to lunch after spending 5 mins trying to figure out how to associate .q10 files with Q10
13:30 - Get back from lunch and checking mail to find my new medical card.
16:30 - Finish Chapter -1, having written 2337 words.
16:51 - Eat orange after sharing first day victory with friends and Plurk.

Q10 Stats (Chapter -1)


Words: 2,337
Pages: 11
Lines: 242
Paragraphs: 48
Characters: 13,219
Non spaces: 11,009

I'll sort out these jerks! 

I wish this had been extended into a full song. Wouldn't this be totally rad on an mp3 player or something?!

</div>

More songs need more cowbell, it's a fact.

In the light of all this LHC trollop, I give to you the following link: Large Hadron Collider Q&A

Now I'm going to paste my absolute favourite part from the page, because this issue is, quite naturally, bugging everyone and leading to paranoid thoughts, which in turn, bugs me.

Q: Safety Concerns

Cern have been confident in the prediction that there are no major risks associated with the LHC's operation. How robust is this prediction? In particular, how reliant is it upon unsupported theoretical assumptions? (Chris)

Okay, so how do we know this thing won't make planet Earth implode then? (Stephen)

A: Let me answer all of these at once.

The LHC has absolutely no chance of destroying anything bigger than a few protons, let alone the Earth. This is not based on theoretical assumptions.

It is, of course, essential that all scientific research at the frontiers of knowledge, from genetics to particle physics, is subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny to ensure that our voyages into the unknown do not result in unforeseen, perhaps dangerous outcomes.

Cern, and indeed all research establishments, do this routinely and to the satisfaction of their host governments. In the case of the LHC, a report in plain English is available here:

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html

For the record, the LHC collides particles together at energies far below those naturally occurring in many places in the Universe, including the upper atmosphere of our planet every second of every day.

If the LHC can produce micro black holes, for example, then nature is doing it right now by smashing ultra-high energy cosmic ray particles into the Earth directly above our heads with no discernable consequences.

The overwhelmingly most likely explanation for our continued existence in the face of this potentially prolific production of black holes is that they aren't produced at all because there are either no extra dimensions in the Universe, or they aren't set up right for us to see them.

If black holes are being produced, then next on the list of explanations for our continued existence is the broad theoretical consensus that sub-atomic black holes should fizzle back into the Universe very quickly, billionths of a second after they are created in a little flash of particles via a process known as Hawking radiation.

In other words, they evaporate away very quickly indeed. This process, which is perhaps Steven Hawking's greatest contribution to theoretical physics, is on significantly firmer theoretical ground than the extra dimensions theories required to create the little black holes in the first place.

Even if Hawking is wrong, and therefore much of our understanding of modern physics is also wrong, the little black holes would be so tiny that they would rarely come close enough to a particle of matter in the Earth to eat it and grow.

And even if you don't buy any of this, then you can still relax in the knowledge that we have no evidence anywhere in the Universe of a little black hole eating anything - not just Earth but the Sun and planets and every star we can see in the sky, including the immensely dense neutron stars and white dwarfs, remnants of ancient Suns that populate the sky in their millions and which because of their density would make great black hole food.

So - the only theoretical bit is in the proposition that you can make little black holes in the first place. From then on, observation tells us that these things either (a) don't exist - the most likely explanation; or (b) exist, but do not eat neutron stars and are therefore harmless, probably because they evaporate away very quickly indeed!

I am in fact immensely irritated by the conspiracy theorists who spread this nonsense around and try to scare people. This non-story is symptomatic of a larger mistrust in science, particularly in the US, which includes intelligent design amongst other things.

The only serious issue is why so many people who don't have the time or inclination to discover for themselves why this stuff is total crap have to be exposed to the opinions of these half-wits. (BC)

Very yes. Professor Cox, you win my internet.

So me, being the smelly Firefox addict I am, have decided to pimp up the ol' browser with some new extensions, and mainly stuff to make spontaneous blogging easier. I already have a 'post this video' to blog thing set up for my GooTube account, and now I have the ScribeFire extension to just write if I ever find an interesting page.

Anyway, here's a weird YouTube video of the infamous Ronarudo Makudonarudo commercial being mixed up to Gigyas' Theme from Earthbound. I love weird crap like this.

Okay, I am going to try and explain this comic without hopefully spoiling anything. Firstly, I need to explain why it even exists, haha.

BBx has been an idea I've held onto and refined gradually since I was 13. It's probably the only idea I made around this period that has stuck with me for so long. When I was 13, I was a big weeaboo, and this was evident in the story and the characters, so recently I decided to give the story a much needed revamp.

This revamp changed the location of the story from Japan to a fictional Euro-Asian island, named Phi. As a mix of culture, it allowed me to get away with some Japanese influences, but I can also add lots of other influences too. The ko previously attached to Miyo's name was dropped and her  wardrobe was switched from dark Loli to chic geek, in order to fit with the technological side of the story, although she retained her oddly coloured hair. Likewise, a lot of character that I personally made had their names tweaked and 'Phinyanfied'. Zashi became Zander, Shin became Sheldon. Osamu became Oscar, and so on. (I also went from Ryan to Risco - don't ask).

One plot-important character was completely re-written, particularly the boy in the upcoming comic. Too much gothic lolita stuff made me want him to be a little lost emo boy, because it was kinda cute at the time. Recently refining of the plot and of how characters work together means that emo boy would be completely useless, so he was re-written to be a nerdy strategy-loving boy. Since this makes him much more normal, I wanted him to have a cute, but kinda normal look to him, in the Phinyan sense of normal, so we have the new one, who is much more relaxed than emo boy. I was amused at how the old and the new version would interact with each other so decided to make a comic.

Although the emo one is much much cuter. I do prefer the geeky strategist. Anyway, here's the comic!


Oh, and don't worry, the emo one's design is being recycled as strategy-boy's father.

EDIT: I have a treat for you all. A comparision between the first design of Miyoko and the latest design of Miyoko. It's quite shocking what 5 years of style development can do to a character.


Just pretend Miyoko's colourful scarf has been coloured in.

Be weary, for I have passed my practical driving test today, and it's taken me over 12 hours to warn the internet.


9 minors. Most (at least 6) won't be repeated frequently. This is good.
I hope I get a car, and the money to run a car.

It doesn't feel quite real because I had my provisional licence taken off me so that they can scan in the details, and get my full licence sent to me in the post. So the only pieces of evidence I passed is my test report, where the pass box has been marked, and a pass certificate.

Oh man, oh man, oh man.
I'm stoked.


PS: I got banned on Sheezy for about 20 mins. Haha thoughtpolice.

So it's a horrible horrible way for me to finally have a video in my account - but hey, it's better than nothing, right?

And at least now, it might show up the video in RSS feed readers, haha. There seems to be more support for YouTube embeds than Photobucket.

Ah well.

ISN'T HE SO CUTE?!?!?!
Also, new LJ picture get.

Instead of finishing the 7...eh...countless Free Sketches I've been offering over at devART, this is the lameeeenesssss that I've been up to.
I may finish the other free sketches with my graphics tablet, because I am far too lazy to pick up a pencil now...

Also OpenCanvas and Manga Studio have become fun to use again...especially Manga Studio. I blame CLAMP'S Tsubasa, the latest book in the series came out and I love the style used in Tsubasa. Contrary to popular opinion, I detest CLAMP's main style. Well...I don't detest it, because it's pretty and detailed and very 'holy shi-' but it just gets really annoying very easily (too much going on due to the detail) - so I prefer their more simple-styled works such as Chobits, Angelic Layer, xXxHolic and Tsubasa.

Major Characters
BBx Commanders
+ Miyo Zener (Koen - Fire Dragon Robot)
+ Zander Zener (Ness - Water Plesiosaurus Robot)
+ Brier Fontaine (Brie - Fighting Rabbit Robot/"Bunny Bot") <- no, not named after two characters in the dubbed version of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
+ Tahl McGregor (Fell - Ice Wolf Robot)
+ Faran Honjuu (Komo - Earth Komodo Dragon Robot)
+ Kira Honjuu (Imi - Air Kestral Robot)

Semi-Major Characters
BBx Commanders
+ Risco Tooch (Theel - Electric Eel Robot)
+ Kohana Matamo (Raidon - Electric Wildcat Robot) <- Sheldon's Girlfriend
+ Tekaru Saito (Reki - Electric Liger Robot)
+ Aketo Bravo (Swish - Water Dragon Robot)
+ Ursula Bytes
+ Draken Star (Seraphic Radiance - Fire Phoenix Robot)
+ Genryu (Kaiser Blade - Typeless Griffin Robot)

Others
+ Sheldon Zener
+ Oscar Zener
+ Paxton Bravo
+ Harriet Bytes

Minor Characters
BBx Commanders
+ Afanasii Nakhoslav (Ace - Manipulation West Siberian Laika Robot)
+ Afoniki Nakhoslav (Deuce -  Manipulation West Siberian Laika Robot)
+ Flitz (Quill - Support Panda Robot) <- Also joined by Tinsel
+ Maigana
+ Jayden
+ Dakota Mielle (Kincade - Air Piebald Pegasus Robot)
+ Lance Reaver (Emerald Ragnarok - Plasma Dragon Robot)
+ Alex Rosenburg (Floppy - Rabbit Robot)
+ Keno Confortel (Serpente - Poison Cobra Robot)
+ Natalie
+ Jenny

Others
+ Vladimir Von Hutchingson
+ Posinurse Pop
+ Neutrinurse Nen
+ Neganurse Navi

Not finished. I need more minors for the tournament arc, haha.
Anyone wanna make one? I'll post the template for a character up soon if you do.

Yeah. Like I'll finish this. I must say, though, that I do love Ulead VideoStudio, getting all that stuff as a 2.1 MB large avi. Oh, how is the timing for the subtitles as well? Something went a bit wrong between the porting of the subs from Subtitle Studio to VideoStudio, so I had to change it around a bit, and lost some of the awesome timing, what do you think though?

In other news: say hello to my BBx index card database system. Ironic as the concept of BBx is all digital.

Zander's details are already wrong - smelly robots and my constant changing of them.

Sorry for the lack of posting of doodles - I haven't really done much on the doodle side lately...or the art side in general. I've been focusing on planning on balancing the damage system for a pen and paper version of BBx, been focusing on the characters, and have been heavily sorting out my music into inspiring pieces for each project of mine - as well as some fan projects.

Someone introduced me to Ren'Py, a very simple to use engine for creating Visual Novels. Wuh-oh!
Still, it's pretty cool - I've been wanting to try making a visual novel out of Helmos Lockresh, and I guess I can now. If I'm not lazy enough - I should get quite a bit of work done (but how many times have I said that? - eeks!)

So now I have some doodles from trying to work out how tall each character could be in relation to the screen and other characters are.
They can be seen, as with most of my doodle stuff, after the cut.


The art for the novel is probably gonna be done using vectors, or something like that - because I don't really have any other nice useable programs that can handle transparent pngs and I think I'll be going for a simple cell-shaded look for the novel.

Non-spoiler, of course.


I should get around to doing some non-BBx stuff...haha