It’s been a while since I’ve posted, here’s what is new:

• Slingo has launched the “Merry Poppings” game which is a match three game with balloons. I was Art Director.

  Apparently an exploit was found and patched, and the community seems to be embracing it; it scores consistently in the top ten for player counts on the website on a daily basis.

  The design was by a departed game designer (not deceased, just jumped ship) who I was looking forward to working with. I was suprised at my anger to lose such talent.

• I’ll be attending my first ever Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco in a few weeks. Pretty excited!
• I’m obsessed with an innovative 3-D sculpting tool – and I haven’t been this jazzed since PhotoShop added layers. Not a big fan of the interface. Likely samples will start to be added to my website as they are commpleted. This allows me to resurrect some abandoned personal projects, and it’s the only reason I turn on my PC at home.

I’m whole hog into console gaming now.

Okay – more accurately – all three consoles are now in the house. I treated myself to the Playstation 3 bundle wisely priced by Sony to sell for Christmas, and a few weeks prior to that traded a bass for an Xbox 360.

It doesn’t change the fact I’m not very good at hardcore games, but I’m improving.

I feel strongly that to both a) assimilate with gamers at work, and b) become conversant with the next-gen art techniques and 3D advancements, I have to at least own them.

Atonement (the film) – even Keira Knightley couldn’t make that adaptation interesting. Long, tracking camera shots purely for technical bravura. I was starting to roll my eyes when subtitles like “Three Weeks Earlier” and “Six Months Ago” started appearing. No! Move forward – put an end to this thing.

I promise to read the book, even if I now know the twist. Therese raves about what a better read it was vs. the film adaption.