While trying to write up all my blog entries for university work and other goings on, I decided to write up a really quick one, which takes a lot less time of course.

As some people may know I'm quite a fan of Jon Burgerman's work, I still kick myself over not going to GameCity in 2007 as of course Jon attended it (along with Keita Takahashi), he's also signing things at the Forbidden Planet in London on Saturday, but I can't attend that either.

I had a really awesome birthday card this year (a few weeks back) from my sister, I didn't expect it one bit.

I coloured him in myself of course. But I also got another amazing present from my sister which was this.

As you can see I've started doing a bit of colouring in, which I actually did a few hours ago, I can't wait to see it all brightly coloured. (It's wallpaper for those that haven't seen the stuff Jon has made in the past.)

Also the other week I went to videogames live, but before that I managed to pop to Jon's exhibit in London, down Tottenham court road, I'm happy I got to go, especially as it's finished now, was a bit of a small space, but he managed to fit a fair amount of stuff in.

The best part of it though was the anxiety wall, which I have bought two pieces of, off of Jon's website, I can't wait to see which ones I get. I also picked up a packet of stickers from the exhibit, I then also felt I had to buy some more off his website, and a few stickers later my lovely new computer is decorated, I would buy more to put on it, but I ordered a couple of packs and got the same packet I got from London. So I'm afraid I'd get even more duplicates.

Watch this space for more entries soon (hopefully).

Ok well after a long eventful summer of working with a few things on the side (I will try and do some entries for some events) I am now back at university, so expect to see some work here soon, or as soon as I find out what I?m doing. In the mean time I might try some sketching to keep me in the mood for drawing.

I'm also testing Windows Live Writer when I write this, seems quite good, if it comes out ok then I may use this for all my future blog entries. It?s a lot nicer to be able to open up a program installed on my computer and just write stuff without the hassle of opening up my browser and then logging into my blog.

With the launch of Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots just around the corner, Hideo Kojima being the amazing person that he is planned his MGS4 world tour. Starting off with London, so my sister and I had to go.

We headed off to back home in Essex Sunday evening, and headed out to the train station at about 4:30am, we finally made it to the HMV on Oxford street at about 20 past 6 maybe, would have been quicker but the train was slower than usual. We then prepared to wait, after having picked up the Metro earlier I flicked through it and noticed a little advert about the event, and also how it mentioned Yumi Kikuchi going, we weren't too sure of what else she had been in, so I ventured off to McDonalds to grab some breakfast and to use their free wifi.

We were about number 62 and 63 in the queue although that went up when a guy a few people in front let his friends push in just before we were about to go in.

After eating the food and feeling ill time somehow managed to pass until about 9am, where we then started to move, after a bit of waiting and nudging forwards every so often we got to the tills and pre-ordered the game & bought the sleeve.

We then decided to queue up again, so we joined the end of a small line, once the last of the 300 people filled in (and the rest were turned away) there was then a mad rush to start a new line, where previously I was near the front everyone decided to squidge up together and push me to the back. Thankfully the nice HMV security guard said we could pop in where he was standing as he knew we had been there before others in the second queue.

After another few hours of waiting we finally started to file in at about 11:20, then after much standing and leaning around Kojima, Shinkawa and Yumi came out, everyone of course cheered, and then there was more waiting and standing.

We were quite close to the front so we went through within a matter of minutes.

I was panicking over if I should try and get my Metal Gear lovely nes copy signed, or the sleeve, but I thought I'd respect the wishes of the HMV staff and maybe the Konami PR people and get the sleeve signed. I was going to show my Metal Gear to Kojima but I got too shy.

It started at Shinkawa, who was so cute and smiley, and he looks so adorable in my picture

Then it went onto Kojima who was just as cute and smiley, Charlotte managed to get a nice picture, and he was looking at me instead of the camera as I was giggling away .

Then it went onto Yumi who is super cute, and I can't believe I missed her amazing nails, I should have said something

After we got down Charlotte was approached by Kojima's tour guys with a large camera wanting to ask her why she came and if she said anything to Kojima san, and then after that she was asked a few questions from an English guy as well.

After that rush we hung about and then went around London a bit, only to get myself an awesome top

Which came in an amazing bag

We also went to Game Focus, where I got a Japanese copy of Kartia

And Forbidden Planet

Which is a laynard for me to use at conventions now

I also finally picked up Zelda on the DS as I've just been waiting too long to play it, and it was getting to me, once I finish Tingle I'll give Zelda a go.

All in all it was an amazing day, and I only hope that he comes to the UK once again, so I can maybe show him my Metal Gear and get it signed

I am now scheduled to be on Gamercast episode 120, to talk about things, I'd reckon some Alone in the Dark info, the Kojima signing that took place on the 2nd and any other new releases I have played or have views on.

You can check out the website at www.gamercast.net as linked above, you can listen to all past shows from there as well.

You can subscribe to the feed for it Here or on iTunes if you use it. There will be a show this Sunday, and then I'll be on next Sunday's show on the 15th of June.

After the lovely game project that is "Toy Invasion" two of our groups programmers Jim and Damian have asked if I'd like to help them try to produce a game over the summer, which of course I agreed to.

I'm currently undergoing research for the project, and will then jump onto doing some concept art for the characters and level design.

Look forward to some work up on here soon.

Wow well I must say I'm surprised a little, back on the 23rd of May myself and my sister went off to an Alone in the Dark presentation, as we were invited to go thanks to Tenebra on the Atari EU forums. As there was originally going to be a test/play day for Alone in the Dark, but it got cancelled due to not enough people signing up. So she thought for the people that really wanted to go, she'd get us the chance to go to this instead.

So the day started with popping down to Hampstead in London to the Everyman's Cinema Club, which was a delightful venue, it also wasn't hard to miss with this poster outside.

Then after a bit of waiting, saying hi to a few people and a free apple juice later the presentation was about to start so we all shifted into the screening room, which had piles of freebies, sprawled on chairs, tables and anywhere possible. I must say I felt a little out of place at this event as the majority of people attending were press, but in my case I get to meet new people.

The presentation started with Atari introducing themselves, then Phil Harrison, and then finally Nour from Eden games went on, the presentation was amazing, I hadn't really looked into Alone in the Dark that much, other than seeing a few trailers and planning on buying the game that was it. So when I actually saw what they had done with the game I was pleasantly surprised. Charlotte loved the fire (who wouldn't) and I really liked the structure of the game, was also nice to hear that they looked into television narrative structures other than film. (Alone in the Dark now going to have a piece in my dissertation)

After the presentation had finished we were urged to go to their room with pods and give it a play. Instead we made our way over to Nour and Emile down the front and asked them a few questions of our own related to the industry, where we then got an Alone in the Dark sleeve signed.

With our mountains of freebies we headed out to the lobby area to have sit down and rest, where then we were asked by some nice guys from Xbox.com if we'd like to give our opinion on the game and also ask any questions to Nour on camera. So we did, which has scarily gone onto Inside Xbox on the 360, and as myself and my sister were asked our gamertags ( Kittydog )we have gained a bit of attention on xbox live, which has made me a recent receiver of at least 70 friend requests so far.

Anyway after a bit of waiting around and cooling off we decided to try and get a go on one of the pods, I had a bit of fun beating a door down with a lamp, only finding out the fire extinguisher did a much better job. I won't spoil anything though, but a little after we stopped taking turns and playing, so as not to take too much fun out of the game.

We then managed to grab Nour and Emile and thank them for the presentation and the whole day really, and grabbed a picture with the two of them. We were going to have the picture taken in front of the Alone in the Dark poster, but it was either taken down or nicked so we couldn't.

All in all it was a lovely experience as I hadn't had the opportunity to attend such an event before, and I feel Alone in the Dark is going to be a very interesting game to play.

I feel the best bit of it in my eyes though is always going to be the way of which it is split into episodes while utilising a catch-up like system to remind the player.

It was also a treat leaving with Alone in the Dark t-shirts, hats, mini fire extinguisher keyrings and a cute Atari wristband.

Ok so back in March on the weekends of the 1st & 2nd, 8th & 9th and 14th-16th I attended three conventions, Collectormain Midlands (Coventry) Collectormania Manchester and Eclipse (Heroes weekend convention)

Now I planned on writing blog entries on each one, but instead I'll just point you in the direction of pictures and write a little. If you click on the image from the convention it will take you to the gallery section with the others ^__^.

Collectormania Midlands was first, and it was amazing, Bruce Campbell was there, along with a couple of other cool guests and was a great weekend, you can see the pictures on my website

Collectormania Manchester was a weekend full with Buffy, Heroes and Life on Mars guests, I had a lovely time and with my first time in Manchester too. We managed to get so much done in one day, I will gladly go there again, especially as it's a straight train. You can see the pictures on my website

Eclipse, was showmasters first ever weekend convention, and I must say it was great, I had more fun than I imagined I would, and it was amazing staying so close to the convention (in the hotel) the guests were lovely and Christine Rose is so much nicer in person and of course David Anders was the star of the weekend though. You can see the pictures on my website

All the links to pictures just point to the specific part of my gallery, which is full of photos from other conventions and random other stuff, feel free to have a looksee

I apologise for not writing up entries on each one individually, but I've been so busy with university work I just haven't found the time.

Ongoing work: Looking about for music and sound effects

Work Assigned: Get the starting fmv completely finished and rendered off with the same export settings as the other fmv.

Ok so my work was slightly carried on from last week, but even if I had finished it completely I would have had to render it out again, plus Dave made some good comments on how I could improve it, so here's the final .avi.

I am now in search of a composer to get the music done hopefully all will go well and I'll have a nice piece to present at the presentation.

I must say I'm really happy with it as I managed to finish, render and edit it, while working all of over the weekend and do the GTA IV launch, that all aside now I just have to finish off the paperwork and it's all finished.

And I now hopefully plan to over the summer brush up on my modelling, rigging and animation skills

EDIT: As you can tell it has music now

Ongoing work: getting used to animating

Work Assigned: cat run animation
cat looking up animation
model & texture a ball for the starting cutscene
scale bear
any other cat animations needed
starting fmv
maybe look about for sound effects & music

Ok so we all decided to try and get pretty much everything finished for this week, and everyone agreed on what we all should do. Firstly I did the pieces that other people may need, and that would take less time than bigger pieces of work.

So I did the cat's run cycle:

And then the cat being afraid (the big purple rectangle is a placeholder for the boss robot)

I then started getting the scene together for the starting fmv.

Although after spending so much time on it, I didn't managed to completely finish a tiny bit of it, being one of the robots arms moving around, plus the bomb-bots weren't walking as I didn't recieve the walk cycle from Chris.

So I didn't manage to render it off for the meeting, but that means I am then able to make sure I render it the same as everyone else, and now I've had people comment on things that could change, which will make it much better.

We have also now had an engine change so everything is now going into unreal, instead of torque.

Ongoing work: learning to rig

Work Assigned: Draw up animation assest list and hand out models (yes somehow I've become the producer of the art side of the project) I got the cat to animate

Ok so I knew this week would be harder than the previous as animating a main character is a big deal, so I started with the most integral animation, a walk cycle, which I then re-did as it was too slow, I'm not sure if I'm completely happy with it though, but being the bad person I am I've never been too keen on walk cycles.

I then decided to do a jump for the cat, as everyone loves to jump about in games.

Then I decided next would be an idle animation.

I had a little more time left, not as much as I hoped, but I had the choice of doing a death or run cycle, so I went with death.

I would have had a run cycle finished like I planned but I ended up having to export everything for myself and the other members of the group which took a lot longer than I planned, so my time was cut short.

Overall I'm pleased with my work, it could always get a tweak here and there as if maybe I had a week longer I would have had more time to spend on each animation.