Some absolute horrors I found while playing Star Wars: The Old Republic:

Terminator: Genisys Review (No Spoilers, because literally everything was spoiled in the movie's own trailer)

Terminator: Genisys is the story of how Skynet decided it was better to destroy the world by going back in time (this time starting out as the Sega Genesis) and influencing a bunch of people to destroy the Terminator series in one fell blow. Unfortunately, the nearly omniscient AI somehow forgot that it couldn't do anything as an operating system for phones, rendering it powerless. Luckily for humanity, Bill and Ted were able to bring world peace shortly thereafter through the power of their music.

The new face of the end of the world.

As silly as my synopsis may seem, it actually makes more sense than the movie itself. Genisys starts out near the end of the human/robot war. We see a heavily scarred John Connor arrive at the Skynet headquarters just shortly after the Terminator was sent back in time to kill his mother (Connor's mother, not the Terminator's mother). An oddly buff Kyle Reese (I am slightly comforted by the fact that protein shake production is unaffected by the nuclear apocalypse) volunteers to go back in time, while also inadvertently revealing that he has a well-worn picture of Sarah Connor in his wallet. Apparently unfazed by that, or just realizing that he still needs to send Reese back no matter how creepy, Connor agrees.

Reese arrives in 1984 and is pretty much immediately attacked by the T-1000 (Liquid metal Terminator). Right after that, Sarah Connor shows up in an armored truck to make sure that the movie can immediately begin fulfilling its obligatory quota of one-liners from previous films. We are also treated to a scene of the original Terminator (ironically played by a computer) fighting an older and digitally buffed up Terminator (ironically played by Schwarzenegger).

Probably not what you saw in the theater.

Sarah Connor reveals to Reese that the time he was sent back to is different from the one that he would have seen from all of the other Terminator films. HOW Connor was aware that her timeline was different from the original timeline is something that is never really explained. Sarah recounts on how the T-1000 was sent back to kill her when she was just 9 years old, at which point the Arnoldinator (T-800) was sent back to rescue her. After scaring the T-1000 off, the Arnoldinator spends the next 10 years raising Sarah Connor to be a child soldier. The T-1000 apparently spent those same 10 years just bumming around the world waiting for Reese to show up, or else it was just working as a police officer.

Reese has multiple hallucinations about an alternate past that he had where he was given the budget version of the iPad that ran on Genisys. Realizing that nothing makes sense, Reese decides that Genisys is now the new Skynet and is determined to travel to the year 2014 so that he can stop it from being released. Luckily for the plot, the Arnoldinator was sent back in time knowing how to build a time machine, which allows us to skip the 30 years it would have normally taken.

Due to his synthetic skin being damaged, the Arnoldinator is forced to just sit around for 30 years waiting (although it is explained that he worked in construction for a part of that time). Reese and Sarah suddenly appear in the middle of a highway, escaping relatively unharmed despite being hit by a speeding vehicle while they are completely naked. Unfortunately for them, the Arnoldinator is late in picking them up (despite having 30 years to prepare for it).

Even Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe, was able to be on time!

It's at this point that the plot decides that making sense is for chumps. John Connor shows up and is quickly revealed to be a Terminator. This would have been an interesting and surprising plot twist, if it weren't for the fact that the entire movie was spoiled by its own trailers. Connor explains that shortly after Reese was sent back in time, Doctor Who showed up and turned him into a Terminator. He was then tasked with going back in time and protecting the development of the Genisys operation system, because apparently Skynet knew about the new timeline despite having no way of connecting to it or even being aware of it.

The movie then descends into your typical action movie with the script writers being very careful that it was liberally sprinkled with quotes from the previous movies. It is revealed that the same company responsible for developing and releasing the Genisys operation system were also finishing up their own time machine as well as designing the liquid terminator. Apparently they decided that the Genisys system was more important, though, even if all it did was act as a simple internet cloud storage system.

The movie ends on a whimper, with the only sacrifice in the entire film having been reduced to nothing. The gang go to traumatize a young Kyle Reese so that his alternate future self would remember that Genisys was the danger when he traveled to the alternate past timeline. Oh, and John Connor (the person the previous 4 movies were centered on keeping alive) was killed by his mother, father, and Arnoldinator grandfather. However, it seems like the movie was completely fine in skipping over that little fact.

Just don't worry about it.

Time travel has been done before to reboot a series. The Star Trek movies made the interesting choice of going to an alternate universe to excuse discrepancies between the movies and the original show. "Days of Future Past", the X-Men film, used time travel in order to remove the crappy films from the timeline. However, Genisys seems determined to remove EVERY MOVIE from the official timeline, while counting on the fact that you watched all of them. As you watch this movie, just remember that Terminator 1 and Terminator 2 never happened for these characters. Instead, the creators of the movie seem to operate on the idea that if you cram everything that was loved about those two movies into a single movie, it will be better than those two movies. Hence why we have a ton of Terminators being thrown into a time machine willy-nilly.

The original Terminator (although plagiarized) presented a simple story about an unstoppable killing machine trying to kill Sarah Connor. It presented the interesting paradox of how John Connor would have never been born if Skynet had never sent a Terminator back in time to kill his mother (since Kyle Reese would have never been sent back to save her, and also accidentally impregnate her). Rather than distracting from the plot, the Terminator Paradox added to the complexity of the characters trying to alter future events they already KNOW happened. Genisys seems to think that time travel isn't complicated and therefore is just a vehicle for the plot. It ignore the relatively rich nuances of its predecessors in favor of plot twists it spoils in its own trailers and lots of explosions.

Really, the only good thing to come out of this movie is the idea of the Terminator raising Sarah Connor from the ages of 9 to 19. Frankly, the idea of a sitcom showing the struggles of the Terminator raising a teenage Sarah Connor is fantastic. There could be tons of episodes that would be delightfully funny. There could be an episode where Sarah accidentally volunteers to help someone at the same time they had agreed to go on a date with their high school crush, and so would sneakily use the Arnoldinator's time machine to be in two places at once. There could be an attractive single woman living nearby who constantly tries to flirt with the Arnoldinator, who never catching onto any of her hints since he's a cold-blooded killing machine. The T-1000 could even come up with a variety of harebrained schemes to kill Sarah Connor, thereby filling the annoying neighbor slot. You could have another episode here Sarah agrees to help out with a bake sale, but then forgets about it, which then forces the Arnoldinator to help bakes hundreds of sugar cookies at the last minute. This entire idea could be a potential goldmine! You could call it "Leave it to Terminator" or "I Dream of Skynet".

Come on! We all want this.

On a side note, given how Reese lived in a post-apocalyptic world and Sarah was raised by a robotic-acting man acting as a robotic killing machine, I guess it explains why Reese and Sarah didn't act like real human beings. Honestly, it would have been a better twist if it had turned out that they were ALSO Terminators and had never realized it. Maybe EVERYONE in the movie was a Terminator.

"Picture Perfect 2" or: Yet ANOTHER collection of Pokémon pictures

I have to admit that I've been feeling a little lazy with updating this blog. However, I haven't been lazy on my DeviantART DeviantART account! This time, though, I'm going to be focusing on character sprites rather than Pokemon.

Ghostmancer

Ghostmancers are Pokemon trainers who specialize in Ghost and Dark type Pokemon. They believe in wearing dark clothing and lightening their skin so that they are easier to perceive by the spirits of the dead. Ghostmancer's study and use Ghost Pokemon so that they can better understand what happens to humans who die. Their ultimate goal is to dominate the spirits of the dead, and through that gain immortality. 

Creator Note: So today is just my day for being lazy with my pictures.  Ghostmancer was very easy to put together. I took the head from one of the male Team Magma grunts from Emerald Version, and I stuck that on the body of Lance from FireRed version. 

I thought it was slightly strange that in a world where there is a Ghost type for Pokemon, you wouldn't have a stronger interest in the spirits of dead humans. And then you have Yamask where it is acknowledged to BE the spirit of a dead person. Hence you have a necromancer-like trainer. 

Team Justice Leader Shoshoni

Shoshoni is a descendant of the native population of the New Kanto region who were all pushed off of their land by the settlers. Another injustice that was done against her people was that they were refused the right to train the native Pokemon like they had done for generations before. Shoshoni wants nothing more than to reclaim the land that was taken. 

Creator Note: 

Please let me know if the skin color of this character fits. I wanted to have a skin color that was lighter than the black skin color they have in Black/White. 

I know that I have talked about this before, but I'm continually rankled by how there really aren't a whole lot of intimidating or confident looking women characters in Pokemon. You either have young girls in really short shorts, or in swim suits, or in really short skirts. Or you have slightly older ladies who are in dresses and looking just OH-SO pretty. Then you have the older ladies who are dressed up like it's the 1800's. 

So when I wanted to have the leader for Team Justice, I wanted them to be very confident looking. I didn't want them to be sneaky or sinister looking, and I certainly didn't want them to be dressed in school-girl outfits or short skirts. There is a time and a place for all of that, but not when you are leading a rebel force to retake your homeland. 

The sprites were taken from several different trainers. 

The head, if you can recognize it, was taken from Flannery in the Hoenn region. I merely cut off a good portion of the hair and recolored the hair AND the face. 

The body was taken from Sabrina's sprite in FireRed/LeafGreen. 

The legs and the left arm are from Giovanni's sprite in FireRed/LeafGreen. I merely thinned the legs and arm down so that they fit the Sabrina body. 

The right arm is from Flannery's sprite in Ruby/Sapphire.

Main Character Sprites for Pokemon: Manifest Destiny

Here are my two concept characters for a possible game I may do in the future. These two will be the boy and girl gender choices for the player. 

I wanted to get something that seemed a little bit more active-looking than some of the other main characters. 

The cape comes from the Elite Four member Drake in the Hoenn region, which was shown in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Versions. 

The boy's body, OUR left arm, and legs are Brawly's, from RSE versions. The head is from a Team Rocket Grunt from FireRed. I mainly changed the colors and edited the different parts together so they actually WENT together. 

The girl's body, arms, and legs, come from the psychic character sprite of FireRed. The head comes from the female ranger sprite. Again, I recolored both. With the girl, though, I colored the calf area so that it would look like there were knee high boots

Grizzled Hikers

    On the left: Grizzled Female Hiker

    On the right: Grizzled Male Hiker
    Life on Mount Moon isn't easy, as you've got cold temperatures, scarce food, and thin air. For those who are willing to make the sacrifices, it can be rewarding. Mainly for the fact that the very factors that make living so difficult for YOU make it just as difficult for others. Team Rocket and the cultists in Pewter City are very reluctant to venture onto the mountain. 
    The residents of Mount Moon are the toughest hikers in the region. They are used to the biting cold temperatures, and use Pokemon that reflect their harsh surroundings.

Want to battle the Grizzled Hikers? You can download the newest update of Pokemon: Frozen Ashes by following this link: 
www.mediafire.com/download/a54…émon_Frozen_Ashes.exe

Creator Note: 
    Why aren't there any female hikers? At least, why aren't there any in the earlier generations? Unless there ARE, and you can't tell them from the male hikers.......... *shudder*
    Anyway, I wanted to have the trainers on Mount Moon reflect the harsh conditions they live in. Because there aren't really any female hikers, I went for at least trying to get a combination of the female snow trainers. The female hiker ended up looking fairly androgynous, but when you are all bundled up to ward off the cold, it isn't very form-fitting. Unless you are the male hiker, in which case your clothes ARE form-fitting. 
    Also, I've been very careful to make sure that EVERY trainer you encounter in the entire game has a name with a special meaning behind it. They may seem like regular names (like Herobrine), until you see the other names of the trainers in that area. I'm pretty sure I didn't make them too obscure. Although I might have. Maybe it will FOREVER remain a mystery. (scary OOOOOOOH). 
Sprites Used: 

Female: 
    The head comes from the Misty Gym Leader sprite. 
    The body comes from an amalgam of the orange jumpsuit-wearing trainers in Diamond/Pearl. 
    The right arm (the one with the Pokeball) comes from the female Cool Trainer sprite from Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. 
    The hat comes from the female skier sprite in Diamond/Pearl. 
Male: 
    The head and beard come from the gambler sprite in FireRed/LeafGreen. 
        The hair comes from the Gentleman sprite in Diamond/Pearl. 
    The body comes from the Hiker sprite in FireRed/LeafGreen.

Rocket Bosses, Misty, and Lorelei

If you've been following along with my updates on Pokemon: Frozen Ashes, then you should be familiar with what I'm doing here. Pokemon: Frozen Ashes is set in a hypothetical future for the Kanto region. 10 years after the events of Pokemon Red/Blue/Green, the entire Kanto region has collapsed due to Team Rocket managing to take over several cities. The wild Pokemon also became stronger, causing entire areas to be left in ruins. 

The old gym leaders Blaine and Lt. Surge have joined Team Rocket and now rule over their respective towns. 

Koga, who used to be the gym leader for Fuschia, was killed. His daughter, Janine, has since taken over and leads Team Rocket in Fuschia. 

Team Rocket's top Leader lives in Celadon City and rules from there. Because of this, Erika doesn't have any official power but is in charge of food for the town. It is also rumored that she is rather close to the top Leader. 

The majority of the town on Cinnabar Island has now relocated to the Seafoam Islands because of the volcano on Cinnabar becoming active again. However, Team Rocket is putting a lot of effort into studying the volcano and seeing if there is a way for them to harness the power. 

Boss Surge leads Team Rocket in Vermilion City. The city is bustling with activity due to smugglers using its port to bring in valuable items. Some of the ships also make good money in smuggling people out of the Kanto region into other areas. You could say that time hasn't been as kind to Surge as the others, as he's lost his physique and put on some weight. 

When you reach the ruins of Cerulean City, you will be surprised to see that the gym is still open. However, it seems that the destruction of her city has caused Misty's mind to deteriorate. 

When you are making the trek over Mount Moon, don't be surprised if you run into ex-Elite Four member Lorelei, who has retreated into the cold of the mountain top to avoid dangerous individuals. Her hair has since gone white, even though she is still relatively young. 

The uniform of the regular Team Rocket grunt has also changed over the years. Now grunts wear a mask to increase the sense of solidarity and anonymity among each other.  

"Picture Perfect" or: Another collection of Pokémon pictures

It's time for yet ANOTHER collection of some of the pictures I've made. If you want to see even more, then make sure to check out my DeviantART account!

Popkernel

Pokedex Entry: Eventually a Kerperal will reach a time where it can no longer produce edible kernels. At this time, it dries out and becomes Popkernel. Popkernel is a very fierce species that will launch stale kernels that explode at foes. 

Grass/Fire Type

Evolves from Kerperal at level 28. 

Creator Note: I have always thought it would be cool to have a Grass/Fire type, but it would be kind of weird if you think about it. Then again, Pokemon are pretty much always weird if you think about them too hard. So don't think about them too hard. 

Popkernel is based off of the idea of popcorn, and more particularly the burnt popcorn. Having the ability to launch the kernels at foes and then explode was kind of a cool concept to me, and so I thought that I would use that. In the future I may look at changing the yellow popped kernels into more of a burnt color instead of the scrumptious buttery color they have now. 

Sprites Used: 
The leaves come from Oddish, Bellossom, Weepinbell, and Bellsprout. 
The head/body comes from Kakuna. I took the bottom of Kakuna and just flipped it upside down to get the corn shape. I then just copied the head and flipped it over to create the bottom of the body. 
The eyes come from Sandshrew. 
The arms come from Sudowoodo. 
The hands/popcorn come from the Chopleberry plant. 
The legs come from Kadabra. 
The feet come from the leaves on Exeggutor's head. I just flipped them upside down to act as the feet. 

Kerperal

Pokedex Entry: Legend says that Kerperal is a gift from the gods during a time when a great famine was in the land. The seeds (also known as kernels) are able to be picked off with no pain to the host, and are shortly regrown. 

Grass Type

Evolves into Popkernel at level 28. 

Creator Note: I've actually had the idea of creating a Pokemon based off of maize (or corn) for quite awhile. However, I really didn't have the skill needed until lately, and it all came together today!  Kerperal is probably the most ambitious Fakemon/Fuzemon that I've attempted so far, at least in my mind. 

Sprites Used: 
The leaves come from Oddish, Bellossom, Weepinbell, and Bellsprout. 
The head/body comes from Kakuna. I took the bottom of Kakuna and just flipped it upside down to get the corn shape. I then just copied the head and flipped it over to create the bottom of the body. 
The eyes come from Sandshrew. 

Kobukson

Pokedex Entry: Its movement is hampered by the heavy steel plating it is covered in. However, it enjoys the ability to shrug off even the deadliest of blows. 

Steel/Dragon Type

Creator Note: This took me several hours to put together, as I wasn't able to find the right parts. The entire idea actually came to me as I was making another fusion when I saw Pupitar's head, and realized it would make a perfect mask! I originally planning on making a Zorro Pokemon, but when I got the head finished I saw that it was too big for the lean body I wanted. I then made up for a much more massive Pokemon, which is how I got Kobukson. 

The name comes from the name for the Korean Turtle Ship. Look it up! 

Sprites Used:
With the head: 
    The mask comes from Pupitar
    The lower face and neck come from Quilava. 
    The upper head/hair comes from Zoroark. 
The body comes from Lairon's head that was just switched upside down. 
With the arms: 
    The actual arms come from Feraligatr. 
    The shoulders/pauldrons come from Excadrill's hands. 
The legs come from Aggron.  

Chartoise

Pokedex Entry: In sharp contrast to its close cousin, Blastoise, Chartoise has the barrels on its wrists. The reason for this is that the flames it spews are much more unpredictable than the spouts of water Blastoise uses, and having the barrels on the wrists grants greater control. 

Fire Type

First Evolution: Charcle
Second Evolution: Chartortle

Creator Note: Muahahahahahahahaha. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH. Seriously, I am glad that this turned out as well as it did. If you have been following the game Pokemon: Frozen Ashes that I am currently working on, then you'll know that you have a choice of 13 starting Pokemon. You have the original starters for both the Kanto and Johto regions, as well as an alternate version for each starter. Then the 13th is an Eevee that you can start with. 

Chartoise is the final evolution for the Charcle line, which is the alternate version for Squirtle. Chartoise was one of the earliest works I did, and it was just a simple recoloring. However, now that I've got a little bit more skill, I decided to tackle Chartoise again and make it more unique than just a common color change. 

Sprites Used: 
The head, arms, and legs come from Blastoise. 
The sunglasses are actually a heavily modified version of Misdreavus' eyes.
The body/shell comes from Carracosta. 
The flames come from Emboar.

Aztegeal

Pokedex Entry: Aztegeal is a ferocious fighter, as it is able to fly while keeping its hands free. When it fights on land, it uses its wings to buffet its foe into submission. 

Fighting/Flying Type

Creator Note: While this one came together really easily, I had a HUGE struggle with getting the wings to stay in the box. Because I'm creating these with the intent of actually using them in a Pokemon game, I have to keep them to within certain dimensions. 

Aztegeal is based off of the Aztec Eagle Warrior. In the game I'm planning, Azteguar and Aztegeal will act as the Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee. 

All of the sprites that I used come from Pokemon Black and White. I created this using the torso and skirt from Hitmonchan. The two arms come from Hitmonlee. The legs come from Kadabra. The wings come from Fearow. The head comes from Braviary. I also based the color scheme off of Braviary. 

Also, I have to give a GIGANTIC SHOUTOUT and thanks to Barbubary on Spriters-Resource.com. He has gone through and separated the parts out for each Pokemon from ALL FIVE GENERATIONS. I almost started crying when I discovered what they had done. THANK YOU!!!!!!

Azteguar

Pokedex Entry: Going up against one of these Pokemon alone is a recipe for disaster. Azteguar prefers to hunt by itself, and is easily capable of taking down several enemies at the same time. 

Fighting/Dark Type

Creator Note: GAH!!!! Okay, this was a bit of a hard one. It may not look like it, but it WAS. Originally the sports really didn't come out well, and so I spent awhile tweaking them. Then I decided to change the entire color scheme, which took an hour or so. Then I decided to come back to what I had started off with before. >.< 

Azteguar is based off of, of course, the Jaguar Warriors from the Aztec. The reason this is a Fighting/Dark type is because the Jaguar Warriors worshiped the Jaguar God, which was the God of the Night (at least if Wikipedia is right). 

Azteguar is made from three Pokemon sprites, all of which come from Pokemon Black and White. The head is from Persian. The body and the right arm are from Machamp. The left arm and the legs are from Machoke. The tail is my own creation. 

Also, I have to give a GIGANTIC SHOUTOUT and thanks to Barbubary on Spriters-Resource.com. He has gone through and separated the parts out for each Pokemon from ALL FIVE GENERATIONS. I almost started crying when I discovered what they had done. THANK YOU!!!!!!

Portread

Pokedex Entry: It is rumored that Portread gets into houses, where it wreaks havoc with those who live there. Eventually Portread causes the house to burn down, where it absorbs all of the pain and suffering created by its inhabitants. 

Ghost/Psychic Type

Creator Note: Wahey! Here is the final evolution for the Artread line. The name comes from combining the words Portrait and Dread. 

The background color is from the Gym Leader Fantina from Pokemon Platinum. I just darkened it up and changed the little dots into red dots. Again, the picture is from the sprite of the Pokemon trainer Marley, also from Platinum. 

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If you liked what you saw here, then I would urge you to go and check out my DeviantART account! I've got over 140 pictures uploaded there!

“Are you a BOY or a GIRL?” or: Is there sexism in Pokémon?

                 I’ve never really thought of myself as being a feminist, just as I’ve never thought of myself as being whatever it is that you call someone who is against feminists. I’ve just been pottering about with my own life and enjoying the bounties that have come my way.

                One of the reasons that I do fusions from existing sprites is that I lack the talent to properly draw my own sprite from scratch. ANOTHER reason that I like to tell people (and is true) is that I find that fusion sprites look more authentic than scratch sprites in most cases because the fusion sprites have very similar properties to the originals.

                I’ve been lucky enough to stumble upon people who have done the hard work of collecting the pictures of every single trainer from the games of Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald all the way up to Black 2 and White 2. Because of this, I’ve had a wide variety of sprites from which to take pieces to make a fusion.

                And then I came upon some things that made me frustrated. You see, in my side project right now called “Pokémon: Manifest Destiny”, I wanted to have some things be different from the games that I played, which were Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow, Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal, Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, and I only got a little into Pokémon Pearl. In each of those games, there weren’t any female professors or women in any real sort of power. There were female gym leaders, and even some women in the Elite Four for each region, but no Champions or Team Rocket/Magma/Aqua leaders who were women.

                I really hadn’t been bothered by this before, but when I went in and tried to find some parts for sprites to use to create my own professor, I had some difficulty.

                There were female sprites like this:

    Or this:

                And especially this:

                I didn't want to make a character who looked like they were either on the verge of peeing their pants, skipping through a field of flowers, or in some sort of ad for chocolate. I wanted to make a sprite of a woman who is serious and powerful. I didn't want a sprite of a woman who was showing off her beauty or sexuality, because there have been plenty of strong women in history who didn't rely on their looks. I wanted a sprite like these:

                Or these:

                Eventually I had to go in and adapt some parts from male characters and fuse them with female sprites to get what I wanted:

                It was actually a little bit concerning for me. As I went through making each of the characters, I noticed that there were some patterns. Either you wore a really short skirt, really short shorts, a bikini, or you were old or out of shape and wearing a full dress. Granted, there are some characters who don’t fall into these categories, but it seemed to me that the majority of the feminine characters do.

                Why is this? I thought it was kind of strange how I had never noticed this while growing up and playing the games. Could it be that I was just involved in the game? I’m thinking that it is more likely that I wasn’t old enough to notice these discrepancies. The Pokémon games are marketed to a rather young audience, and as such you don’t really see a lot of what would be considered ‘inappropriate’ for young kids. By far (unless you think Pokémon is all about cruelty to animals) Pokémon games are much safer for kids to play than a lot of other games or shows that are marketed to this same audience.

Just stare into the eyes....STARE INTO THE EYES...

I don’t think that children are in danger of being ‘indoctrinated’ by these characters, because they are there to play Pokémon. I don’t think there is any justification in saying that boys who play this game will then have their relations with the other sex affected. I would think that they would be much more likely to attempt to cram animals into small balls and then make them fight against each other.

                Besides, Nintendo has recently made some advancements in how they have portrayed characters. While I haven’t seen much of the new X and Y Pokémon games, they did have a female professor in the Black and White Pokémon games, as well as characters who were black. So maybe there is some hope that what has been a little unsettling for me is changing.   

Or not...sigh....

Frozen Ashes V0.2

A new update!!!!

                So I realize that it’s been awhile since I updated the game, and so I’ve been pushing myself to get a new update out. Before I receive a lot of complaints, I would like to point out that I am fully planning on going back through at a later point to fix some of the smaller bugs. Right now I’m merely trying to get the game-breaking bugs fixed. And hopefully I’ve done that. HOPEFULLY.

Changes from previous version (v0.01):

Did the Viridian Forest map.

Did the Viridian Forest City map.

Created Female Viridian Ranger sprite.

Created Male Viridian Ranger sprite.

Did the title splash screen.

Created the Crazy Cultist sprite.

Did the Pewter City map.

Did the route Pewter City to Mount Moon map.

Did the Over Mount Moon Map.

Created Lorelei sprite.

Created route from Mount Moon to Cerulean City map.

Created Nugget Bridge to Bill's House map.

Fixed problem (hopefully) to allow player to choose female gender.

                Please note that when I was first planning the game I was intending the player to choose the male character. Because of that, there are certain comments in the game that refer to the player as being male, or to things only the male character has. They will be fixed soon.

Added animations for attacks.

Created Grizzled Hiker (both male and female) sprites.

Created Rival sprite.

Added in the sprites for Dragados, Maglavix, and Skullgeance.

                If you have any complaints or have noticed small issues (whether they be grammatical or issues with bugs), please comment on this post to let me know. Otherwise I might not notice. It gets difficult to go bug-hunting when I’ve got several hours of gameplay done. But let me know, and I’ll make sure to get them fixed.

Also, if you want to be further informed about what I’m up to, follow me on DeviantART. I have been very diligent about updating my account with various pictures I’ve been working on for both Frozen Ashes AND my future/current side project called “Pokémon: Manifest Destiny”. 

Follow this link to go and download the EXE file to get the newest version!

Or, if that doesn't work, just copy and paste this into your search bar:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/a54g5zybvk86ex1/v0.2Pokémon_Frozen_Ashes.exe

“What? Your skill is evolving!” or: How I learned to draw better

In the month of November, 2013, I was struck with the idea of creating my own videogame. To be completely honest, I have no idea as to why I thought that I should create my own game. I do remember that I realized I could do it because of what I saw with the fan-made game Pokémon Fusion Generation.

                I got a demo of the program RPGMaker XP and then promptly realized that I had a lot to learn. A whole lot to learn. The programming was in a large part taken care of already, but there were still things that I had to learn and I didn’t have any background to draw from. Luckily I stumbled upon the Pokémon Essentials Pack, which took care of even MORE of the programming.

                However, I only had a month with the demo, and so I decided that I would instead work on the drawings or pictures until I could get the actual program. Not having the money to get Photoshop, I instead got GIMP 2.0, which was an open-source photo editing program. Again I realized that there was a learning curve ahead, as I had only used the Paint program that every Windows computer comes with.

                Here is the first picture that I did:

                It is just a basic recoloring of the original sprite. All I did was just take the Pencil tool, switch it to the Color option, and then just move it over the picture until it was all colored differently, and then I tried to make the fire on the tail look like an ice cube. In fact, the ice cube tail came along later, so the original picture was just the recolored image. The actual skill involved in creating the picture was at about the easiest level possible. I did need to have an interesting idea, but I didn’t need to have a lot of technical skill. 

                For the next few weeks, I stayed at merely recoloring. I experimented somewhat with changing up the colors, but I only used the recoloring tool to do so.

                Eventually, though, I made my first “Fusion” sprite. A fusion sprite is where you take parts from existing sprites and then combine them into something else. I like to envision it like Legos. People have created some really crazy and cool stuff from Legos, but they didn’t actually make the Lego bricks themselves.

                Here is the first fusion sprite, or Fuzemon, that I created:

                This sprite was rather simple, looking back, as I only combined the parts from three different sprites. However, this was one of the turning points where I realized that there was a whole lot more open to me. I can distinctly remember thinking about how cool it was that I could take the parts and pieces to make something new.

                As time went on, I experimented somewhat with the fusing of sprites as well as recoloring. I grew to be somewhat more skilled and then realized that I could show off what I was doing on the site DeviantART. Yes, my initial reason for joining a huge network and community for artists was to show off some of the work that I had done. However, looking at myself today, I guess that I still show off what I’m doing. I hope, though, that it’s not being too annoying to those who are watching or following what I’m doing.

                The first pictures that I uploaded were the most complex I had done at that time. 

                Luckily, there were people on DeviantART who liked them, and I was shown the much larger and much, much more talented groups of people who did art like I did. Being in groups like these caused another revolution of sorts, one where I actually started to create newer and smoother pictures.

                And I definitely had some results that I really, really, really liked. And they were popular. Because of the experience I’ve gotten from creating these sprites, I’m able to appreciate it when they look good and I’m able to pick out the things that work.

                However, I have also had some results that weren’t really that great, and I could see what the problems were. Unfortunately, I still lack the patience and ability to be able to go back and correct the mistakes.

                It became really evident when I decided to go back and redo some of my earliest drawings with the skills I have now. Here are the comparisons, with the older version on the left and the updated version on the right:

                I really hope it doesn’t sound like I’m trumpeting my own horn, or bragging about my own abilities. The nice thing about being on DeviantART is that I’m constantly exposed to those who have so much talent and skill that it makes me look at my works and realize that I have a long way to go. But I’m willing to make the steps needed to get to the top of my mountain. One should never look at another’s art and criticize themselves to the point where they fail to progress further. You should never look at something and say “Look at that! I’ll never be able to do that.” Also, DeviantART is a rather unique place (in my experience) in that almost everyone there is incredibly positive. I have very rarely received negative comments, and most people leave criticism in a positive manner.

                You cannot compare the works of Van Gogh to Picasso and say that Picasso never reached the same level of skill and talent as Van Gogh. You cannot look at the works of Beethoven and say that they are superior to the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. If there is one thing that I have learned from this entire experience, it is that there is beauty in most everything as long as you are willing to see it the right way. 

                Sometimes I'm just really lucky with what I've done, while at other points it just falls flat on its face. As a last example, here are two pictures that I worked on at the same during and finished them around the same time. Even though I was working on them at the same time and with the same skill, they didn't turn out the same quality: