The Archives

Animals, Video
Cobra cryout for cat compassion
01.30.11 | Permalink | Comment?

The Niagara Falls Humane Society has been a ‘No-Kill’ policy organization for a long time. Recently they have had no choice but to euthanize sick/unwanted cats. Apparently people from all over the region bring their cats to the Falls because of their policy against killing, and now they just have too many. We’ve done all we can as far as adoption goes (we’ve got 3 from there), and I’m constantly telling people to go adopt. So please, if you have the ability to care for an animal (even a sick one with limited days), now is a better time than ever to go get a cat from the NFHS.

Maybe they need an ad campaign like the Winnipeg Humane Society to boost adoptions.
Roanisms
Classic tales condensed by cobra cohort
01.28.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Yesterday Roan brought home a bunch of little Freytag Pyramids he made at school. They are used to show the anatomy of a story (although they seem to have excluded the dénouement in this lesson). He left them sitting on the kitchen table, and when I found them I sat and read them. They are great. They remind me of how much I hated doing book reports as a kid. Looking back now, it’s one of the easier things you get forced to do, but that doesn’t change how much I hated it then, or how little effort I ever exerted on anything book related (oh irony, fuck you).

I think I want to ask him to do some of these for a few video games. Holly and I were discussing last night, whether or not he pays attention to the stories in the games, or just plays them. She reminded me that he’s watched Gage play umpteen hours of Bioshock 1 & 2, but had no idea what Rapture was (for those who don’t know, Rapture is the under water city where those games take place).

Anyway, here’s Roan’s breakdowns of some classic tales.

*Spoiler Alert!!!

If you’ve never read some of these the ends may get ruined for you, so stop reading here.

China’s BRVeST GiRL:

iintruduction:

who: chia’s Braves girl

were: in fighightiing felds

Rising Action:

they were losing the fight it was hard

Climax:

they started wining the fight Becuse of the girl

Solution:

the girl Saved china and her Dad

Conclution:

the emperer gave her a rerored for HelPing china

the Pied PiPer

introDution:

it took Place at a littLe Town now

the PiPer

rising Atcinn:

there were alot of rats

Climax:

the rats Started to falow Him

Solution:

So they fallowed Him into a lake

Conluion:

and the rats were never seen again

the little Hero of Holland

introdutcion:

Walking alon the Dik holland Peter Alon time ago

rising Action:

its Dark He’s Runing Home

Climax:

He finds a hole in the Dik He is holding it Bake from flooDing

Solution:

He’s calling for Help nowon comes to Help Him for a night

conclution:

next morning somwon’s going to work He finds Him got Help and Saved the country

King Arther

introduction:

King Arthar At a Beatch

rising Action:

they are fiing At at a Bech King got Hite

climax:

he got a new sord He was just About to Kill Him the Ather Prson DefeteD Him to x

Solution:

He Knoked Him out

Conclusion:

He need A new Sord.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Co(bra)taku
01.27.11 | Permalink | Comment?

For years I have been reading Kotaku on basically a daily basis. It’s a great source for all things game related. One thing I like about their site is that they feature a lot of fan made art and game related crafts. Another thing I like is that they seem to share my love for the old arcades. I decided to send them some images of my Bully cabinet, and they were kind enough to post them on the front page.

I’m happy to finally contribute to that community after years of following it quite loyally. It’s also neat to have a place to show these things to people who appreciate them. My blog doesn’t get a lot of traffic, and what little it does seems to shy away from commenting. I am really enjoying reading the comments people are leaving, even though the majority of them have nothing to do with my creation. It’s just neat to see how many other Bully fanatics are still out there.

Here’s some of the nice things people said:

“Bully is easily one of my favorite games ever. I would literally drool over this arcade cabinet… awesome, awesome stuff.”

LucasReis

“Bully was such an awesome game. I’d love to have this.”

Chewblaha

And here is my favourite comment thus far:

“Take the exercise bike out. Nothing can glorify exercise for me. Not even awesome games. NOTHING! ”

SgtBarry

Another neat thing… I think the first ‘tweet‘ in history that had (indirectly) anything at all to do with me was posted by one of gaming’s most notorious writers, Stephen Totilo.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
When there’s no more room in hell… the dead will play arcade shooters
01.26.11 | Permalink | Comment?

As I said earlier, I saved the best for last. This is my favourite of the three arcade cabinet concepts I made the other day. This one is specifically for killing the reanimated third reich. I’m not sure if it’s my favourite to look at, but it’s definitely the one I’d like to play with the most. Originally I had planned to make the cabinet look like it was a window from in the game (for those who aren’t familiar with Nazi Zombies, the players battle against undead soldiers who enter the map via windows which the player can board back up for points and a brief delay of imminent death). I quickly realized that the easiest way for people to identify it as a window from the game would be to have the boards on it. Unfortunately boards over the screen would be a little impractical.

I also considered changing the texture on the PPSH in this one to make it look more like the upgraded version – The Reaper. I changed my mind after I remembered the terrible shiny tribal patterns that the game designers decided to use in World at War. I also considered changing the crates on the cabinet to the Mystery Box. I only changed my mind on that one because I figured with my lack of texturing knowledge I’d spend a few hours trying to get it textured, and it’s a fucking box. I have no doubt that I could do it, but for what. It looks neat like this in my opinion.

The only thing I’m sad I wasn’t able to include was a Monkey Bomb. I wanted to model one to plant dead center of the top of the machine, but I decided the monkey alone would take me more time to make than both machines did combined. I even looked for a pre-made cymbal monkey in the 3d warehouse, but it seems those aren’t big on the Sketchup community’s to-do-list. I suppose I could have searched for teddy bears though, and used one of these. Maybe I’ll add one later.

I think for now, this will be the last arcade cabinet I model just for fun. I probably could have done a fair bit of work on Jon’s project instead, but I got sidetracked. It happens…

If I ever get mega-rich, I will commission whoever I have to in order to actually own one of these.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
World at War at the arcade
01.26.11 | Permalink | Comment?

I wish I was more talented and had the resources to turn these concepts into a reality. Maybe someone like Ben Heckendorn will read this and see it as either a great idea or a challenge. I doubt it, but still… a dream got us this far. And by this far, I mean my badass model of a Call of Duty: World at War arcade cabinet! I made a pair of these last night (the second is coming shortly) after dinner. I used a few components I already had, mainly the PPSH and the bullets. To be honest this was the second of the pair, but I like the other one better so I’m saving it until last.

The way I see it, this cabinet is for playing the campaign mode in WAW. Players would use the PPSH replica to defeat the Wermacht, while hiding behind crates for cover. The major flaw in this design is the lack of player movement control. For it to work at all, the game would have to be redesigned as a rail shooter, but it still looks cool. And at 25₵ a play, that’s a steal!

Like with my Bully cabinet concept, the idea of rendering a “realistic” version of this is impossible. Although I did manage to make a material for the cabinet graphics (minus the title), there is still no way for me to render the screenshot. I suppose I could do one where it looks like the screen is off, but that’s just not as cool.

I have one more to come, but since Holly just came home in dire need of food it’ll have to wait.
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Bully: Cobra Canem Edit
01.26.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Lately I’ve been playing through Bully: Scholarship Edition for the third time. The first time I played it was the day it came out on the PS2 (or perhaps a few days before… man I miss the old days of simple video game piracy) back in 2006. I instantly fell in love with it. I was already a big fan of Rockstar’s sandbox games which seemed to get better every time, and this game quickly became my favourite of the bunch. It had my two favourite modes of transportation from the Grand Theft Auto series; bicycles and go-karts, along with some fun game play and an amazing soundtrack. I still listen to this soundtrack regularly, if you’re interested most of it is up on youtube.

When the game was re-released for the xbox 360 I got a copy and decided to finally get 100% completion (never quite got it on the PS2 I don’t think). The game had other plans, and I got stuck with 99.9% and no way to get the last point. If you’ve never played the game (or one like it), there are many random (nothing is REALLY random when everything is programmed, but whatever…) missions which pop up when you’re in the right place at the right time. In my game however, one of these instances refused to trigger. I got frustrated and gave up trying to get my last achievement.

I am currently 78.9% of the way to my goal. I lost my old game saves along with all my old save data when I lent my xbox to my brother. I have played a lot of games (thousands… maybe tens of thousands?), but rarely do I ever play a game twice. Even more rare is when I play it a third time. I can only think of about a dozen off the top of my head. This time I’m loving it more than the others. I’m not sure what it is about this game, but I can’t get enough of it.

Well, since I was in an arcade cabinet modeling mood the other day I decided to get imaginative (even though Roan says I’m incapable) and model something that I wish already existed (even though I’d be incapable of affording it). I present to you all my concept for a Bully arcade game. It features a slingshot controller, 1p and 2p joysticks, a beam cola dispenser, and a working bicycle for leaving Johnny Vincent and the Greasers in a trail of dust, while inadvertently getting Lola hot to dance – in her pants.

I had intended on doing a sweet rendering of this machine, but that idea got scrapped once I realized the imported images (meaning the screenshot on the display and all the graphics and logos on the cab) don’t work with Indigo. It would have been pretty sweet, but whatever. I still dig it.

There are a few more of these to come. I’ve had some spare time…
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Cobra cabinets
01.24.11 | Permalink | 1 Comment

This weekend I decided to model some old arcade cabinets after my xbox crashed and I lost a bunch of unsaved progress in my re-play through of Bully: Scholarship Edition. I didn’t feel like redoing all the missions I had just completed so I thought I’d get to work on some models for Jon’s project. I need to make environments as well as weapons, so that means I need lots of little items to fill these environments (think furniture, crates, common everyday items).

I have recently had an urge to go spend a few hours at an arcade. A few days ago I watched a short documentary about arcade-fighter tournaments (which don’t really happen on arcade cabinets anymore), and one on the evolution of the first person shooter (which is more about PC gaming than it is arcades, but it still reminded me of tons of games I used to love as a kid and haven’t seen in years) while I was working. I’ve also been talking about pinball table restoration with my dad a lot since we brought the family table out of storage, so all these things lead to modeling the above cabinets.

Originally I had planned to just model the cabinets and leave the screens blank (as if they were unplugged), but then I decided to have some fun and make up some games that never existed (but if they did, I’d want to play them). I tried to keep with the tradition of retro arcade games and put far more impressive visuals on the cabinet than actually appear within the game.

The machine on the left takes it’s inspiration from one of my favourite games to play at the 7-11 when I was a kid: Golden Axe. Originally I planned to call it Swordious the Savage Slayer, after my very short lived World of Warcraft character – Swordious. Then my hatred for all things WOW prevented me from doing so. The game on the right is my own original concept for a space shooter called Pew³ (or Pew Pew Pew: Space Shooter Awesome!). I would pump quarters into both these machines based on name and cabinet graphics alone.

I did my best to make the text and images on the displays look like shitty 8-bit graphics, but I don’t think it shows up well. You can click the images if you want to see a slightly bigger version. I doubt these cabinets will actually get used for Jon’s project, but I had a lot of fun making them and imagining what they would actually be like (in terms of game play, story, etc.). I may still use the cabinet model, but I’ll strip it right down probably. It all depends on what environments they decide to use really.

I also plan to make a cabinet for Bully. I want to write an entry about why I love that game, and I thought it would be cool to make an image of an arcade version to go along with it. First I have to finish it again. last time I played it was in 2006! I almost couldn’t remember the hot art teacher’s name…
Angry Art, Gaming, Sketchup
Misreads: As Ed rims, Me ass rid, Mars is Ed
01.24.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Here’s my attempt at illustrating what the recoil would look like on this gun if it were to actually fire (which it never will).

I’ll dedicate an entire blog post to commending the cleverness of the cobra who can correctly identify what the hell the deal is with this posts’ title.

Send your guesses to cobrachronic@gmail.com.
Random
Cobra comrades are officially cool
01.24.11 | Permalink | Comment?

A while back (October 2009 to be exact) my good friend set a world record during a live preformance on Vancouver’s Breakfast TV. The record was for: Most mouse traps released on the tongue in one minute – 27. The Guinness World Record website apparently just made official recognition of this finally.

For those who don’t know, the man above is Sweet Pepper Klopek. Aside from being a world record holder, he was also the front man for two of the best bands to ever come out of Niagara, and is currently one half of the Monsters of Schlock. If you’ve never seen their show, I highly recommend it. It’s a great way to spend an evening, and they never disappoint. Check out their website and watch some of their interviews.
Book stuff, Life, Roanisms
I just want to give up
01.19.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Yesterday was supposed to be the day to end my financial woes and cheer me up about life in general. Instead the day consisted of 3 hours on the phone with James (which I don’t get paid for) going over Bents corrections, 4000 phone calls to his secretary, 8ooo logins to my online banking, 12000 instances of me shouting ‘FUCK’ as loud as I can and slamming my fist against something I wished was a human head, and finally an angry phone call where I informed James I was seconds away from putting my fist through my computer and backups of everything I’ve done for him and washing my hands of the whole thing.

I’m so sick and tired of being treated like I am the reason this project has dragged on so long, while at the same time working my ass off and not getting paid. I went to school to learn to build houses because I WANT TO BUILD HOUSES. I only agreed to do the book for fear that I wouldn’t qualify as an ideal candidate for a timber frame company with basic schooling alone. I figured the experience of illustrating a book on the field I wish to be a part of was a great way to show the world I know what I am doing (when it comes to timber framing).

I am so depressed I just want to smash everything I own then curl up in the pile of destruction and wait for death to find me. The only thing that made me happy (although it also made me real sad) was coming home from grocery shopping with Holly (which I was supposed to pay for, fuck) to a handmade card from the Roanster.

The card came in a halloween themed pouch with ghosts on the front, along with a $5 bill. Upon seeing the $5 I got bummed right out. Both because a nine year old has more money than I do, and because I should be the one helping him, not the other way around. I gave the money back immediately and gave him a hug. I told him I loved the card, and although I really appreciated the money I couldn’t accept it. He hugged me back then went to bed.

This morning I woke up miserable (surprise!). If I don’t hear from James or his secretary today a good reason why my money isn’t in my account, then I’m giving up. I will delete everything I’ve done for him and he can start over with someone new who doesn’t have an issue with starving or wearing tattered clothes. Me, I’m done.