ndhill

I have everything set up. I can log into my control pannel and I can access everything through my FTP client...But for some reason, my browser can't find anything. I uploaded my site to the "www" where a new folder called "webpages" seems to have been automatically created to contain everything. After this I tried loading ndhill.astahost.com and my browser says that it can't find it. I figured since everything else seems to be working perfectly for me, that I probably put everything in the wrong place where my index page wouldn't be recognised. Any help would be appreciated.Btw, I sincerely thank you guys for the free hosting! -Noel

The Marathon Trilogy is being re-released by Bungie as a free download. You can get all three of the original games as well as the editing tools. For those who don't know, Marathon was one of the very first 3-D shooters ever made. This game is an (unfortunately) obscure cult classic. It was such a cool little title on so many levels. It was dark, atmospheric and it had a very complicated and emersive plot that put you on a moon-sized colony ship that had been over run by alien Pirates. What's not to love? The first one had a pretty simple premise. You're alone on a massive spaceship that's under siege by alien slavers. It sounds simple but when you throw in the ship's Rampant artifical intelegence and missions that have you trying to convice alien slaves to rise up against their masters, you can't help but be drawn in. The next two games take place in a wider range of locations like ancient alien ruins and deserted space stations of unknown design and have you trying to uncover alien history in order to stop the Universe's destruction. I'm a huge Mac fanatic from way back. I still remember playing the first Marathon game on my ancient Centris 650. I know a lot of you are probably look at those cheesy sprites in the screenshots and wondering what all the fuss is about, but for me this is my Pacman or Asteroid. It's a classic and will never be dated .

I love the classic Mortal Kombat games. The first two, mainly. After that, when they had to go and make crappy movies of them and a cheesy third and fourth game, they just seemed to be exploiting the novelty of them instead of making innovative games. I have MK: Deadly Alliance and I like it for the most part, but I'd take good 'ol Mortal Kombat and MKII over it anyday.Other fighters I enjoy are the Samurai Showdown games by Neo-Geo. I love the characters, music, dialog and mood of those games, which are all barrowed from some of my favorite samurai films. I really liked the Darkstalker games as well; very fresh and lively.Over all though. I'd say that my favorite fighter right now is Soul Calibur II. I love everything about this game. The animation, environments, music, characters, game play and even that infamously corny announcer. The game just feels like a lot of love and effort went into it.

Thank you. I used to scan a quick pencil sketch as the foundation for each piece, but in time, I got so comfortable the tablet that it became unnecissary. So yes, they are all done digitally. I do work with traditional mediums and I think traditional skill is essential for any digital painter but in the end digital painting is my prefered medium.

I know what you mean. Really, the best way to think about the two programs is that photoshop is more of generalized image editor while painter is a highly specialized Paint program. Photoshop will always surpass painter when it comes to flexibility and the sheer amount of the control you have over every aspect of the image. Painter however is much better at making fluid and natural looking paintings. The amount of brush building options you have with Painter will astound you. I've been an rabid Painter fanatic for about five years and I'm still always finding cool new stuff. The possibilities are limitless when it comes to the active painting side of the program. It all depends on your priorities. Some digital Painters even prefer photoshop's more utilitarian painting approach. Check out goodbrush.com for instance to see the work of Craig Mullins, the god of photoshop painting. I guess the only way to find out what you're best suited for is to just put in the hours. See which one you gravitate to.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. NilsC: Thanks man. I guess, to answer your question, right now my main aim would be to just get my name out there. Landing a small freelance gig would be great but the good ones are extremely rare. I've done a few low profile things for people who tried to wave the "I'll pay you once this project gets off the ground" carrot in front of my face but those always go nowhere. I learned my lesson the hard way when it comes to working without a contractual agreement. Now, I really want to focus on my studies for the most part and just build a good solid portfolio and some name recognition so when I get out of school and finally have to do something with myself, I won't be starting from scratch.overture: Thanks. Yes, those are digital. I use Corel Painter and a Wacom tablet...Two tools which I cannot live without. I would recomend either of them to anyone who's interested in 2-D image making let alone digital painting.Frisco: Thanks. I actually subscribed just last month (under the same name). I like it for the most part. It's definitely a great concept. The problem I have with it is that it's very hard to find what your looking there and I imagine it's just as easy to get lost in the mix. I've fallen in with a core croud of some excellent and humbling artists though, and it's definitely cool to get their feedback.chris1234: I've only tried my hand at 3-D once and the results were... Umm... Less than satysfying. Let's just say that my appreciation for the guys who can do that kind of stuff has quadrupled. Thanks for the feedback man. You ought to check out cgnetworks.com and cgtalk.com if you want to see some more great examples of 3-D and 2-D art.avalon: Haha. I get that a lot. I never really considered my stuff to be dark. I've just always found myself gravitating towards weird subject matter for as long as I can remember. I love good atmosphere too. I love using overwhelming red or mirky earthtone color schemes too. Nothing engages me more, anyway. Thanks for the feedback.

I agree. If you're looking for some good ones, I'm afraid that your pretty much forced to scout out arcades that still have one of the old Neo-Geo Samurai Showdown games. I think a couple of them may have come out for PS1 but I wouldn't know since I never had one myself. those were some great 2-D fighters that barrowed a lot of from classic samurai flicks. I know I recognised at least two classic characters like Yagyu Jubei (who even has the eye patch like his movie counter-part) and Hatori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba's classic ninja character from the 'Shadow Warriors' TV serials). Everything from the over-the-top blood spraying and cheesy poorly translated dialog is there. The closest modern counter-part I've found was Soul Calibur II. It's not a samurai game but it is a pretty decent swordplay fighter. It has a pretty unmistakable Japanese animation look and feel with some original characters (two or three samurai included). The graphics and gameplay are both superb.

Hey everyone. I introduced myself in the lobby forum but in case you didn't see that, my name is Noel Hill and I'm a fine arts student at the University of Southern Maine. Anyway, I'm in the process of building an online portfolio and I could use all the help I can get. Like I said, I'm a fine arts major, but despite this, my school wouldn't really know where to start when it comes to instruction and advice regarding my genre and how to go about gaining exposure with it. I'm primarily a conceptual designer and illustrator, which basically means that I create artwork that's aimed mostly for entertainment purposes such as film, games, comics, and graphic novels. In this broad field you'll find that people primarily promote their work and services online... A medium that most of my professors are terrified of for some reason. Anyway, I've maintained my own websites before but none of them were very successful. I joined here because I'm looking to give it another try and I figured that some of you guys might be able to help me out with promotion methods, and the actual design process of the site itself. That's probably asking a bit much for me being a newbie here but I thought it never hurts to ask. I also thought I'd post some of my work here for some feedback. Any comments and feedback would appreciated. -Noel Here's a sample of what I do just so you can get a feel for it. This piece is a creature design inspired by Douglas Preston's and Lincoln Child's novel, 'Relic.' Here's a piece from an independent project. This is a quick illustration I just finished a few weeks ago. ...and here are a few self portraits I did as an excecise.

Metroid Prime is definitely under appreciated. Everything about is so huge and emmersive. I swear I was little a little sad once I finally finished echoes... back the real world which is unfortunately lacking in monsters and laser beams. It's one of those rare games that should be savored.The art director, Andrew Jones, is one of the admins over at Conceptart.org, and the guy's tallent it awe-inspiring. The look and atmosphere is one of the main things I appreciated about metroid too. Anyway, that's who you can thank for that.

Actually, you can find some really innexpensive intuos tablets on ebay. Some as low as 30 bucks. If you want a general meat-and-potatos tablet and don't want to buy something used, I suggest a graphire. You can find those at around $60. Personally, I'd go for the used Intuos. All the parts that may suffer from any type of wear can be easily replaced. You'll probably be all set just getting a cheap pack of those little plastic nibs.

Just out of curiosity, do you own a Wacom tablet? This is a great little tool for creating digital art of any kind. I would not survive without mine. I know they just released an intuos III which has all the modifier keys right on the tablet itself so you can move your keyboard out of the way while you draw. Used Intuos IIs can be found on ebay for as low as $30 and those great too. really, I can't say enough good things about anything Wacom makes. If you'd like to see some great digital artwork, I suggest visiting cgnetwork's website. There, you'll find some great articles on digital artistic application. Check out the forums too. The tallent displayed there is jaw-dropping. People typically use photoshop and another program called Corel Painter (which I prefer, personally). You'll find tutorials as well if you do a bit of poking around.

Hi everyone. My name's Noel and I'm a full-time finearts student at the University of Southern Maine. I see you guys have a nice little community of web-savy folks here and I thought I'd join in. I'm a conceptual designer/ illustrator and I work mostly in digital media. I'm a tech nut but only as far as artistic application and games are concerned so you'll have to bear with me. In other words, I'm pretty much a classic stereotypical Mac user.Cheers folk.-Noel