I think I’ve finally spent enough money on prints, and I still have all those video game paintings hanging too. Anyway, I’ll provide links to the prints should you feel inclined to get one – I have no intentions of getting rich off them, but I did the work to make them so I may as well open it up for anyone else who wants some art to hang!

THE FOUR HATS

Happyface 1

Happyface 2

Emo Boy 1

Emo Boy 2

Emo Boy 3

Emo Boy 4

AND OF COURSE, the FOUR HATS game for iPhone and iPad is OUT NOW, please buy and spread the word, it is MUCH APPRECIATED.

Hopefully having a dedicated space for writing will help me be more productive with my time. I’ve been working, but it’s been hard to finish any one project because I’m juggling so many! I had made progress on Book 3 but that stopped when the FOUR HATS game came along, and the goal was to finish a full game in about a month. That took up most of my time for a while. In addition to that, writing the occasional blog, and sslloowwllyy working on Book 3 pitch revisions, I wrote a short GRETCHEN story that I still need to tinker with, but it’s a low priority currently. More on that soon. Also working on another WINTER TOWN related piece and there’s a few other potentially large projects on the horizon I can’t talk about.

TACO GRAVEYARD and BOOK 3 are my main priorities. TG has quite a few game ideas in various states of completion and I really want to get a bunch of them out this year and hope something takes. I think they’re all really cool but it’s very hard to get noticed and sometimes cool things slip through the cracks. And of course BOOK 3 I’m just trying to get a pitch approved at this point – I have a good idea I really like and want to do, but nailing the tone and pieces is proving difficult. I’m hoping once the flow and tone and overall outline is approved it’ll be a faster process than it’s been.

As for THE FOUR HATS, it’s OUT NOW, only 99 cents, try the lite version if you’d like, and if you dig it, buy and pass the word – I will consider it a personal favor and be forever in your debt!

Remember, if I’m not posting here you can always find me on facebook, twitter, or occasionally posting on the TACO GRAVEYARD blog about my video game projects.

Here’s the first page in my sketchbook the day we hatched the idea for a band on the run from it’s crazed fans.

Here’s a pencil/ink of Parker done in Flash.

Some background assets from the first level.

Here’s a sprite sheet of the character animations all tidied up.

Some notes on how we could do the psychedelic level…

Thumbnail art of the promo image.

Drawing the promo image…

Background put in…

Flat colors…

And the final promo image on my monitor!

The game is AVAILABLE NOW, for only .99! Buy it if you feel inclined and spreading the word would be very appreciated!

A little bit of pleading: Taco Graveyard is mostly myself and my friend Sal, he’s a programmer and I’m the artist and we collaborate on game ideas. Our friend Chris Negrini is an awesome musician and is doing the music for our games. This is a small operation, I don’t have a big company doing press and putting my games out there for everyone, this is basically two of us sending out emails and tweeting into the void, so we really need your help in getting the word out there. You have a small window of time to make an impact with an app game before it’s drowned in the flood of competitors, so if you’re thinking “I’ve gotta try that game out eventually,” or “I’ll help out steve when I find the time” – the time is now, the sooner the better!

I wouldn’t even ask if I didn’t think this was a fun game. We’re putting gameplay footage out, there’s a FREE lite version if you want to play a few levels and try it out, the entire soundtrack is up on bandcamp to listen to. All I ask is if you like it, buy it, it’s 99 cents. If you want to help me out, tell your friends, let them play it, show them the footage, play the songs, share the video. I have no delusions of getting rich off this, but we have a lot of really cool game ideas and I just want to make a statement with this game – the statement is “We’re here, we’re going to be putting out a lot of games, please look forward to them.” It’s a hard market to break, and we could be tossing a lot of great ideas into a black hole, so we need to shine light them! That’s YOU! You are the flashlight. Please make this damaged metaphor work.

As promised: STUFF.

Gameplay trailer!

The soundtrack on Bandcamp:
http://thefourhats.bandcamp.com/

And THE GAME on itunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/four-hats/id493969910?ls=1&mt=8

Thank you for reading this far! Let’s hope for an exciting week!

The Four Hats preview from fanzine.com!

Also check out the TACO GRAVEYARD blog which i post frequently to.

This is a painting I did for my friend Briana, who requested a fairy painting involving honey bees.

I made my editor Connie a HAPPYFACE painting for Christmas when we’d finished up that book so I had to do a new one for WINTER TOWN! Connie is on the left, giggling at Evan’s misfortune.

Here’s a promotional piece of art I did for the FOUR HATS game. It’s an iOS/app store game but it’s still good to have “box art” for any articles or reviews that may want more than a screenshot to show. I designed it so I could have it go length-wise or across.

Speaking of FOUR HATS, it’s nice to finally be doing a project I can actually openly talk about and share art and experiences from! Make sure to check out/ bookmark/ RSS the Taco Graveyard site, which we’ve been updating frequently. Taco Graveyard is a game development company comprised of myself, and my friend Sal, an awesome programmer. We plan to release a bunch of games this year and have some big ideas in mind!

Fri

Intended: Day: Go to the mall to write – Blogs.
Night- write out, Gretchen short story edits and finish blogs.

DID: Did write a series of blogs, my iPod broke. Ended up getting new iPod and spent a lot of time organizing music files and rebuilding playlists.
Did write out at night, ended up cleaning up Book 3 notes, did not get to Gretchen Edits.

Sat

Intended: Four Hats Press materials

DID: Did write Four Hats press materials. Had evening plans and then spent more time organizing music.

Sun

Intended: Edit Book 3 character bios, chapter summaries, mission statement

DID: Worked on the Gretchen edits. Did not get to any of the book 3 stuff. Watched Golden Globes.

Mon (off from work)

Intended: Finish up Gretchen, Blogs, Four Hats Press, Book 3 character bios, chapter summaries and mission statement. Basically I had the day free, just make sure I did what I meant to do Fri-Sun.

DID: Gretchen, Blogs and Press were done. Did chores, went on a hike, evening got away from me, BUT – iPod ready to go! Sorry Book 3.

NEW LIST – back to work, reorganized, made a new list.

Tues

Intended: Needed assets for Four Hats, title screen, end screen

DID: New assets finished. Did title screen and drew pretty cool end screen. Success!

Wed

Intended: Edit Book 3 character bios, chapter summaries, mission statement. Let’s get Book 3 moving already!

DID: Cooked, cleaned, played around with photoshop brushes. Evening escaped me.

Thurs

Intended: Work on new game concept art at friend’s house.

DID: Decided Four Hats needed promo art, and penciled image for that instead.

Fri

Intended: Write out, Book 3 stuff

DID: Normal writing place was packed full of teenagers!! Went home and worked on promo Four Hats art instead.

What we learned: Book 3 is the easiest thing to put off. Things do get done eventually, but rarely as fast as I intend or in the right order

As a creative dude-meister this is always a good time to take inventory of all my various projects, look back on what I accomplished, what’s being worked on, what’s on the burner.

Of course the big thing for 2011 was WINTER TOWN. At the start of the year I was still doing some revisions, working on art. By spring the advance copies were storming the nation. And in late fall the reviews started to trickle in and now it’s in stores, closing out my second book! You can read my other blog posts to read some reviews and accolades of that one.

So the assumption would be I spent summer and fall working on a third book, and that’s partially accurate. It always takes me a bit to figure out exactly what I want to do for a next book, and I certainly went through a few ideas before landing on the one I’m working on now. I’m having a hard time currently trying to get a few minutes to actually work on it, though, so I can’t say I’m powering through it with no problem. I’ve been sick for over a week now, I had a speech and signing before that, holiday things to do. I’ve been very busy and running around non-stop it seems. That said, Book 3 is a big goal for 2012. I’d like to have a contract and a solid outline and chunk of the book done by midyear. I’d like to spend the latter half of the year finishing it up.

Another thing I was doing this year was working on an iPhone game as “TACO GRAVEYARD” with my friend Sal doing the programming. We ended up with one massive game that’s about a third done so far, though the hardest part is designing the whole thing. Hopefully the next 2/3rds will move along faster. We also have a demo game called THE FOUR HATS that we are currently expanding into a full game with a deadline of finishing it within the month. So these things are fun and rewarding but add to the slow production time on my next book. Finishing the primary game and FOUR HATS are immediate 2012 goals and we have 5 other ideas on the backburner for games too.

Personal goals include getting in better shape, budgeting my time better so juggling these projects doesn’t kill me, and the big goal is to make enough money to do this stuff full time. It’s a hard jump to make but it’s always been my goal. If I continue to get Happyface royalties, if Winter Town starts making royalties, if I can get a few games on the app store, if I can sell this third book, who knows? Maybe 2012 will be a special year.

The concept: The Four Hats in “Room to Roam”: Rockstars have it hard. Millions of adoring fans, mountains of cash, and no alone time. How is a musician supposed to write new music when chased by the paparazzi or the hordes of adoring fans? In order to find the solitude that you crave and unlock your inner muse, you must outrun fans and make your way to the studio. Don’t get caught by the paparazzi on your way there or your creative energy will be sapped dry.

You can read Sal’s summary of the whole weekend and see some more screenshots here.

As for my thoughts, I think a weird thing happens when you have such a sturdy deadline or goal like that. We probably could have tossed the idea of The Four Hats around at any other time and spent a night thinking up ideas, a week passing emails on how to best accomplish them. A few hours a night working on any one mechanic or art asset. But when you say “I want to have something we can call a game in three days,” you just do it. That was the biggest appeal in doing the project. It’s just too easy to procrastinate, or say “when we have time,” or “after this project.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, and that was part of the excitement. I like the fact that we didn’t know what it was ahead of time. There was a slight urge to retrofit one of our other game ideas into the topic but starting from scratch was creatively rewarding. And when we got the topic, “alone,” we really didn’t have anything that fit it. A good hour was spent tossing around ideas – not all bad ones – but none of them felt like something I wanted our first public project to be. Maybe we could have come up with some kind of ghost story thing but I wasn’t sure it was going to feel like “Taco Graveyard.” And somehow I knew when we hit it, we’d know.

The Four Hats was definitely it, and I knew it from the second the idea was brought up, we had to do it – if not that weekend, then sometime. The idea was funny, it worked well to my strong suit in cartooning, and it felt personal to us. The characters are even drawn as our music guy, sal, myself, and sal’s girlfriend Cori. I don’t think I explained where The Four Hats actually came from to Sal until after we finished the game. Their original appearance was in a photo back in 2007 – I was working on the tenth issue of EMO BOY, and Emo Boy and Maxine were going to walk around a record store. At a party at Cori’s house we made a bunch of fake band posters – The Four Hats being one of the bands, each of us holding a random instrument and wearing a different type of hat. Who knew they’d star in their own video game years later?

I knew the idea was good and I was having fun making the assets but honestly, right up until I left on Sunday, the game still consisted of this cloud far off behind our character as he walked around jumping over mailboxes. It was SOMETHING, just maybe not…. fun. Sal left Monday open for level building, but I still didn’t see it. So you can jump on some building tops, it’s still too simple. When I started playing though, it wasn’t simple – it was challenging! It turned out TOO challenging at first as my 4S had something going on that made the crowd too fast. Even when I knew it was IMPOSSIBLE to get past halfway, I kept playing. Sal fixed it for me and by then I’d had half the level memorized. From there I did pretty good and can beat it easily now – it’s that old school play and learn the level mechanic – but I still keep playing. It’s one level. But you get into it, you kinda live in the level, with the bright colors and fun music. I think we could make a whole game for no other reason than to hear more songs from Toph/Negapixel/Four Hats.

We’re going to do a few more levels for a light version and ultimately a full game with this – and we fully intend for it to take FAR LESS TIME than our “primary” game. That’s part of the beauty of the game too, it’s fun but simple.

I can only imagine we’ll have more game-making weekends in our future. It was too productive and fun not to.

Despite a week or so of nerves leading up to it, it went well. Mid-December and mid-week made it tough for people to come out but there was a good bunch of people there, friends, family, a few teachers and an assistant at Little, Brown. The last time I spoke there was for the HAPPYFACE release and I wasn’t prepared for the long speech I ended up making – I had planned for 5 minutes and was told to aim for 30. This time I was well prepared! I brought a bunch of art and my sketchbooks and went over every angle of the project. There were plenty of questions and I signed a bunch of books so I’m gonna call it a success! Now I just need some more places to wear my christmas vest.