Got a new scanner yesterday, so I can finally scan in some sketches I’ve been meaning to. These are from my sketchbook, not off the Cintiq. Which I guess is kinda a redundant point, since I wouldn’t have to scan in anything from the Cintiq now would I…

My husband is an avid gamer and game reviewer. One of his passions is tackling the matter of narrative in games by examining their current state in the medium, and anticipating their development. This piece was done to accompany one such feature article in C&G Monthly, a Canadian pop culture magazine focusing on comics and video games.

Being married to someone who is passionate about games, it’s inevitable I suppose that I share some of his love for them. I’ll admit I’m much more of a backseat gamer than one that actually plays games, mostly because I don’t have the reflexes for many games and I tend to panic under the time-sensitive stresses that are core to the gameplay of most games. But I do enjoy watching the games that we buy, in  particular the ones that have good storylines.

Rough concepts for the illustration

To me, the current attitudes towards stories in games is similar to the attitude people had towards comics when I was growing up. Comics were viewed as this sub-par combination of badly drawn pictures and bland, 2-dimensional stories for children and no-too-bright adults. In recent years, thanks to successful movie adaptations (or so i think), the public has come to accept that it is possible to tell a deep, meaningful and engaging story through comics, and at some level  it’s more socially acceptable now. Games, in turn, have moved in to fill the spot vacated by comics to being the pariahs of  storytelling.

Which is a darn shame because while some games still have bad stories, there are some stories to be enjoyed in the still-developing medium.  Stories in games are uniquely experienced, both as gamer and observer, and the bottom line is that it’s a bit unfair for people to dismiss the stories or to simply say that there is no story to be had.

So, when my husband said he was doing a piece about narrative in games, I wanted to cook up something that helped illustrate the article in a nutshell, in a way that looked hopefully more mature and intelligent. It’s not much, but I hope that combining a thoughtful essay with a picture that isn’t just space marine/bikini warrior will help to eventually get people to realize the same thing they did about comics – that both comics and games don’t need to be stupid entertainment for kids, and that you can get some good stories out of both.

]]> http://blog.charlenechua.com/2010/06/cg-narrative-in-games/feed/ 2 http://blog.charlenechua.com/2010/06/zoo-sketches/ http://blog.charlenechua.com/2010/06/zoo-sketches/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:33:22 +0000 Charlene Chua http://blog.charlenechua.com/?p=899

Went to the Toronto Zoo a couple of weeks ago with some friends, and we had a great day just drawing the animals. It was rather so most of the animals seemed to be rather inactive, which made it easier for us to draw them. Below are more sketches of various critters:

These were some of the unused sketches that I did last year for the laptop skin project for Acco Brands. You can see the final art of the ones the picked here and here.

Spring is here! Happy Spring! This piece went out as a email promo with the message ‘spring cleaning is good for your soul’. Below are some of the rough concepts I drew up beforehand – thank you to everyone who gave their input!

Santa Fe Reporter cover

Did this recently for Santa Fe Reporter, for their 2009 ‘Sweat’ issue. The art director wanted a kickboxing girl (since that is a feature article), and it so happened that I already had a girl in a kickboxing pose from an old illustration. I showed it to her and she was happy with reusing it, with some new elements in the background.

santa fe reporter, cover sketch

So this was the sketch for the cover. I was asked to do something dynamic, with Chinese dragons, so I came up with the dragon and various lines and elements behind the girl to make her look cooler. I asked for the masthead so that I could work the design around the main elements on the page.

This was the final art, without the masthead.

Went life drawing at TSA today. Man, I miss going for life drawing. I wish I could do it more regularly – so hard to find the time! Anyway there are a bunch of sketches, click the link below if you want to see them all.

Various 1 minute poses

5 min

5 min

10 min pose

10 min pose

15 min pose

15min pose

15 min pose

15 min pose

Apologies for the crappy scans – scanner is dying. My fingers smell like turpentine or something after touching my sketchbook – think it has something to do with the painting session that was going on in the next class. All sketches in charcoal pencil, with a bit of conte and graphite, on 9×12 oatmeal paper.

Here’s the latest cover for OWL Kids. Halloween this year features Mummies thanks to the upcoming King Tut exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Here’s a better look at the cover.

These were some of the sketches that didn’t make the cut. Originally I was planning to have a more Egyptian theme but it was decided that the issue didn’t have enough Egypt-mummy content to warrant the history lesson!

Also in this issue (I think) is a how-to spread on how to make your own headless man costume. The illustrations were actually done last year for the previous Halloween issue. However, at the time, an incident in Canada made the article seem to be in poor taste and the magazine decided to keep the article for this year instead. Will try to take some pics of this when I get the magazine.

Sketch of crow. Ink pen and watercolor. I think I need a new scanner to scan anything that’s not black and white. This one is making my browns look purple and neon-ish. This was the best I could do to adjust the color in Photoshop to look like the original.

Sketches for some new pinups I made for FanExpo at the end of the month. The ‘school’ series actually has 5 pinups but I’ve only had the time to do up these 3. And really, 3 is enough I think…

From the top: Headmistress, teacher, student