The Captain's Log

: spacecaptsteve; June 20th, 22:26

Some things you'll find in my back yard

grass
dog house
weeds
dog poo
holes (dug by dog)
some bushes of some sort
an Echidna

Skiffy was at the back patio door growling at something in the back yard tonight. It was raining so I thought it might be that cane toad that's been making an appearance.

But as I turned the lights on and stood at the doo the black shadowy mound made it's way along the back fence line towards the bushes and raised garden. At first I thought it was a possum or maybe a a big rat so I popped back in and got a torch. When I came back out it had made it into the bushes. So I shine the torch in there only to notice it had spikes. And what do you know I actually have a live adult echidna digging up my garden.

That's SO cool! These things are super rare to see in the wild and I don't think I'd ever imagine seeing one in the back yard of this place. See it's not all giant spiders and killer snakes here - we have dangerously spikey egg laying mammals too.

I'm going to ring Parks and Wildlife tomorrow to see if they have someone who can come out and movie it someplace safer for it. Though I really don't mind having it dig up my garden - at least I get a good story to tell out of it!

More Pictures here www.flickr.com/photos/falterdan/sets/72157619899176245/

Skiffy goes one better

: spacecaptsteve; May 30th, 12:18

Nothing better than coming home to find you have a new dog...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/falterdan/sets/72157613499680438/

This is what my dog does on the weekends

: spacecaptsteve; May 25th, 22:48

Best dog ever!

More pics here

Doggie time!

: spacecaptsteve; January 30th, 20:46

I picked up my puppy today and I have to say I really made the right choice.Not only is he gorgeous he's got a great temperament and is good around people. I had him in the office and he was totally unphased but yet not hyper either. SKiffy is a Chocolate Merle Border Collie. He's got blue eyes but one is a greeny blue and the other is really blue.So far he's been really amazing - nice and quiet in the car and he's already finding his way around the house and following me around. Right now he's asleep at my feet having his little doggie running dreams.

( Some Big pics of my new puppy Skiffy after the cut )

New Doctor!

: spacecaptsteve; January 4th, 5:40

Matt Smith? Never heard of him. He's young too.

http://io9.com/5122734/and-the-new-doctor-is

Watching the interview makes me think he's going to be an interesting Doctor.

Happy planets is happy

: spacecaptsteve; December 1st, 2008

http://www.spacecaptainsteve.com/share/emotiplanets.jpg

Yup Crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus does look like a great big smiley face in the sky. Taken from my back yard about 8:15 this evening with a 20 second exposure on my little point and snap Sony. Wishing I had bought the Canon 50D in Tokyo now.

Best & Brightest

: spacecaptsteve; November 22nd, 2008

The weekend magazine of the local paper, the Courier Mail ran an article on the 50 Best & Brightest Queenslanders. Myself and Krome Co-founder Robert Walsh were chosen to be part of the list and it's a bit of an honor to be listed with others.

Actually it's REALLY, REALLY cool.

You can find a little bit of info and my latest mug shot here :) (I love not having hair.I look like an evil Buddha-thug)

Other than that coolness I've been working my way though the very dull task of relettering the entire run of Blade Kitten so far, all 104 pages. Just so it all matches when I do the collected book very soon.

The other Doctor...

: spacecaptsteve; November 15th, 2008

Doctor Who Christmas Special Preview

Not far off now. I'll take whatever Doctor Who I can get at the moment. These couple of minutes put a huge smile on my face and it just makes me sad that Tennant is leaving - he really is one of my favorites and I grew up watching most of them. Still the show is in good hands and it just makes me look forward to whatever surprise they have in store even more.

Bested man

: spacecaptsteve; November 3rd, 2008

So I was best man at my brother's wedding on the weekend and down in Sydney. I'm pleased to report that the whole event went off fine and a great time was had by all.

Now I just have to sit back and wait until I'm an uncle - I have made it known that I am to be referred to as "Crazy Uncle Steve" as is my want.

So in short congratulations to George and Alesandra. Live long and Prosper!

Seven Legged Mutant Cyclops... IN MY HOME!

: spacecaptsteve; October 27th, 2008

Got home late tonight because I was visiting my aunt in Hospital.

I got home, opened the door and turned on the light to notice a large black shape heaing up towards the light switch and door where I was standing. It was of course a lovely huntsman spider that was just saying "Welcome Home Human! Now I am going to EAT YOU!". So after I jumped into the room about two meters and realized what it was - Huntsman are pretty fast and a most scary because they surprise you in the way most horror films can only dream of. Luckily they're not very aggressive, rarely bite and aren't poisonous. Just big and Hairy and have a tendency to RUN RIGHT FOR YOU.

I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots before I sent it to the great spider house in the sky. (A few squirts of fly spray and a good couple of whacks with a broom did the trick.

( Giant Freak Spider pic after the cut.... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! )

Cool spots #1

: spacecaptsteve; October 26th, 2008

One of my favorite blogs to visit is "The Big Picture".

A few days ago they added some really great shots of Saturn's moon, Enceladus (pronounced "Enchiladas")that are really inspiring from a sci fi imagery point of view as you can see it in relation to Saturn and it's rings in a lot of shots. Even in black and white they're a level of majestic that I've not seen in a movie - though I'm sure they will inspire fx artists as much as they've inspired me.

In Steve News...

Working on BK games is the awesome. The graphics are really starting to come together as we focus on capturing the style of the comics. Starting to get some of the game play in as well. It's also nice NOT having to work on a Giant AAA title - more of a aaa small game that's about the game and fun more than anything else. Also no publishers at the moment is making it more fun to do stuff. Though I have to put my publisher hat on sometimes to make tougher decisions.

Next weekend I'm best man at my brother's wedding which is cool on very many levels.

TGS Tokyo trip was pretty cool this year. Very busy. Found myself in the hotel bar from "Lost in Translation" did some shopping and had a good time. Though I got pretty sick when I got back and am still getting over that cold.

Got a bunch of new games - Fable 2, Dead Space, Lego Batman. Lego Batman is my current favorite. I have a soft spot for Catwoman, She's o cute even though she's plastic minfig. I can just imagine her as a chubby chick in real life - except with claws for hands :)

TFU still selling pretty damn well. Our versions have done over a million worldwide in the first month. I'm pretty happy with that. Now I'm just going to sit back and wait for Hasbro to make a Darth Phobos figure.

More news at 10... or whenever.

PS its not actually pronounced the same as enchiladas :)

Pretty cool!

: spacecaptsteve; September 24th, 2008

Star Wars(R): The Force Unleashed(TM) Sells 1.5 Million Units Worldwide in Under One Week

Not bad at all.

Henching has its advantages

: spacecaptsteve; September 20th, 2008

http://www.spacecaptainsteve.com/share/Henchmen01.jpg

The Krome Halloween party was last night ( we had it early this year). We did a group from Venture Bros. I was 21, Tony P as 24, Lindsay as Number 1 (My name is Scott Hall!) - we also had a Monarch, Dr Girlfriend and Dr Venture but I don't have a group pic yet. I'll post more later for sure.

Me on the left as 21, with Tony and Lindsay. KT did all the sewing work and we made the wings and props. Thanks to Kath for taking the pic.

We didn't win the group prize but that's ok it was one by the guys from QA that did the best Village People group you've ever seen. Kudos to them! Team Fortress 2 group was also damn fine.

Had a great night and it managed to top last year's party. BTW wearing rubber washing up gloves for hours is really not that comfortable - and don't take them off half way though the night because they're icky to put back on later.

Time off

: spacecaptsteve; August 9th, 2008

http://www.bladekitten.com/share/Yori.jpg

I'm taking a week off of work to just hang around the house and take it easy for a bit.

So today i did some fanart (which I rarely do) of one of my favorite films which had a big impact on my life TRON. I can pretty much trace my entire career in games pack to the night I saw the movie in a theater in downtown Brisbane with my brother back in the early 80s. I came out of that movie blown away by the visuals and the ideas only to have my parents announce that they were getting us a computer for Christmas. The rest is, as they say, history.

So I guess this is as good a place as any to thank my folks for such a cool present. I'm pretty sure they never expected thing to turn out the way they did but then again do any of us?

EOL

Calm before the storm

: spacecaptsteve; August 4th, 2008

Managed to see Dark Knight and Speed Racer last week. I liked both a lot but I think Speed Racer pushed the right buttons for me. It had a lot of real heart to it. Sure I would have tone the color down a notch but in general it feel right and fun. Out of the two films it's the one I most want to see again right away.

Print version of Issue #3 is available now if anyone is interested. Blade Kitten Issue #3 print version

I'm in the process of fixing up the first issue to compile them all into a big book and look for a publisher or distributor in the US. It's not at the top of my list of priorities so I'd not expect much movement on that front for a while.

Tags: blade kitten, comic, movies

Crazy drunk cat girl is crazy drunk

: spacecaptsteve; July 26th, 2008

http://www.bladekitten.com/share/rec2.jpg

Another in a series of Blade Kitten duets. This time drunk Alamo and her new Lithorian drinking buddy just before the fight breaks out...

Awww

: spacecaptsteve; July 22nd, 2008

http://www.bladekitten.com/share/bff.jpg

For the record that's not Kit - Kit has black eyebrows, that's a Kit-poster! New characters for a new BK short I'm planning, short being 8-20 pages.

Worked this picture a little different. Penciled in Photoshop then I tried inking it in Flash for the first time and that actually seemed to work out ok. Then back into photoshop to color it. I went with a softer look than usual and toned down the colors a bit. Need to do more of this sort of stuff.

Also Australian Gamer has an interview with me up on their site here I talk a bit about Krome, SW:TFU and Blade Kitten. Make sure you checkout the screenshots for some pics of my office, toys and a couple of BK teaser shots.

Nothing much to report

: spacecaptsteve; July 20th, 2008

In the end I didn't go to E3. It just didn't seem worth the effort. It's far more fun being able to work on Blade Kitten right now after something like 7 years of thinking about it. It's very cool seeing some of the stuff come to life... finally.

http://www.bladekitten.com/share/Hunting_justice.jpg

Last week I was playing with some different line styles. I know I really should make an attempt to have a break or something but I'm just not interested. Like I said work is too much fun. Really I don't think its' even right to call it work.

On the TFU front the release date is approaching ever faster. It was cool to see the PSP and PS2 versions as part of Sony's highlight video at their E3 Press conference. I wasn't expecting that.

Doubly cool seeing out Clone Wars game as one of only three third party games shown at Nintendo's Press conference.

And Trippley cool was that Scene-It was announced at Microsoft's do.

Three games, all the hardware manufactures presentations, all Krome Studios represented at the one E3. It's a first for us and a pretty rare occurrence for any developer. Pretty cool. It might have been nice to be able to see that in person but I've never gone to a press conference at E3 and I doubt I would have been at these anyway - at least this way I knew about it. :)

Nothing much to report on the life front. Same old nothing as usual. Well it's worth noting that I realize Life likes to dangle carrots right in front of me while sticking them in a glass cage so that I can NEVER get to them but have to see them all the time. It's all terribly frustrating sometimes.

Here's an updated picture of myself...

http://www.bladekitten.com/share/id2k8.jpg

Gen Con approaches

: spacecaptsteve; June 17th, 2008

I haven't really had a lot to post the last few weeks. Did a talk in Melbourne for the GameOn exhibition there about TFU. Very odd to see TY on display there but good to see it was getting as much attention as the Nintendo stuff. Since my work on TFU is all but done I've moved over to Blade Kitten full time with a small team. We'll be focusing on Next gen platforms and most likely episodic releases. Probably a four "issue" mini-series - one episode every month for four months. I have a brand new story worked out just for the game with plenty of cool features and characters.

In a few weeks at Gen Con in Brisbane we'll be screening a teaser trailer we've been working on for the first time and Krome will have the above poster available as well as the next comic if it gets here in time. BTW the FULL issue of the comic "Darque" is available to read at www.bladekitten.com I put the whole thing up in one go because I couldn't be bothered updating every week to try and lure people along to the site.

And for those of you still interested in my drawings there's always http://falterdan.deviantart.com/ where I tend to update a lot more often.

The greatest TV intro EVER

: spacecaptsteve; April 29th, 2008

I was looking around YouTube at some old cartoon intros like Bailey's comets, Valley of the Dinosaurs and all the other great cartoon series of the 60s and 70s when I decided to look for my favorite TV intro ever, The Six Million Dollar Man. It was one of the biggest things in my life as a kid - I had my Steve Austin (not the wrestler) action figure with the bionic eye and removable bionic arm and legs. But watching the intro to the series again I really don't think I've seen a classier show intro than this in over 30 years. Sure the show might have been dumb and cheap looking inplaces but this intro is pure class on every level.

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