whoops didn't post up yesterdays so here's 2 at once!

Resources:
   We used to have more magic.  Now all we really use it for is survival.  Sanitizing water, helping with the farming, stuff like that. 
   It all has to do with our dreams.  While we sleep we generate magical energy that we use up during the day.  That’s what attracted the nightmares to us in the first place, they feed off this energy.  Those of us who can draw our energy from the ocean are the lucky ones, at least our land is the last claimed.  Some of the mountain people have come down to live with us but most can’t stay away from their mountains to long, they just have to go back even if it means entering the mist.
   The mountains used to be where we would get our iron and granite from.  Now we mostly just make due with what we have, leftovers.  We have some nice forests in our area of the coast so wood is no problem.  Same with food, we’re able to grow what we need.  The only thing that we really need the magic for is for water.  Stuck next to the ocean but with not enough fresh water, WTF.

Florra:
   It’s not just us humans who use magic, most things in our world have a bit of the magic in them, even the plants.  Most plants get some energy from magic but there are some that take it to the next level. 
   First there are the giant trees of the forest people.  They build their homes in these trees and get most everything from them.  These trees use the magic they soak up to grow incredably tall.  All the animals living in them only add to the risidual magic around them to help them grow more.
   There are also quite a few plants that put some magic into their fruit.  I guess it makes sense, the trees want to give their seeds a little magical boost but you can get a bit of magic just from eating this fruit.  Just like us the plants don’t have as much magic as they used to, but it’s still possible to find some fruit here and there.
   As for normal plants, they just soak up magic just like they do sunlight.  They grow better with people and animals around to help concentrate the magic around them.  When we grow food we try to give them as much of our magic as we can but we don’t have that much to spare anymore.  They take what they can get but there isn’t as much food to go around as there once was.

For our town the only real landmark that matters is the ocean.  Somehow it’s keeping the mist at bay, or maybe it’s just where our magic comes from.  There are plenty of other magic sources though, there’s the high mountains to our east and the great forests of the north, not to mention the tundra, desert, and jungle.  I’m sure there’s more it’s just hard for anyone to travel between them.  I’ve only ever met a couple mountain and forest people and they’re the closest to us.
   This is where the ground cracked open to spill it’s mist across the land.  I’ve seen canyons before but this is different.  It’s only a couple feet wide in most spots but goes down much farther than I can see.  Whatever happened to open it up was also what let the nightmares free.  Or rather it let the mist free.  No one really knows where the nightmares came from but they have something to do with the mist.
   

ooo I like your writing!

Day 2:
Geography:
Our world is much smaller now then it used to be.  We’re pinned in by the mist.  It started in the middle of the land and eventually rolled all the way to us on the coast.  Now there’s just a sliver of land we have near the ocean to live on.  Somehow it seems like the ocean fog is protecting us, the way it rolls in at night to blanket us and give our dreams some protection from the nightmares.  Every once in awhile people venture out into the dark fog, they don’t make it far though.  It’s apparently not too bad as long as you can stay awake.
   So that’s our world, ocean on one side mist on the other and all we can do is go north and south.  Towns dot the coastline all clinging to the ocean for protection.  There’s still a good amount of trade and communication between the towns.  Everyone has been to their neighboring town north and south, but beyond that there isn’t much travel.  I would like to see the whole coast sometime.
   There’s mountains to the east of us, some say that there are still safe points their, but we’ve never found any.  Some deep caves that the mist hasn’t entered yet. 

Super old but I just started this!

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=29767.0

Hey all, I wanted to do this (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=23011.0) 30 day world building when it first came around but I didn't really have any need  to.  Now I have a game I'm working on and want a world for it so I'm working on this while I work on the mechanics and then once those are done I hope I can come up with a story that fits both.

Plus I'm not great at writing so this is a good chance for me to practice! (also it's first person at the moment as that's the easiest for me to write in)

Day 1:
We don’t know where they came from.  Since I've been born they've always been here.  My parents say it all started happening around 30 years ago.  The mist came first and that wasn’t so bad, people didn’t really know what it was.  There were some increased cases of people getting lost but that was about it.  Then, out of the fog came the wisps.  That’s when people started to get scared.  That’s when the nightmares started.  Up until then everyone thought their dreams were their own, protected from the outside world.  The wisps proved them wrong, they feed on your dreams.  People dealt with them ok and it probably would have been fine if that was all the mist could throw at us, but a lot worse things started to come out and we just couldn’t keep up with them.  Now, we just kinda live with them, our dreams are not our own.

So today was lots of frames.  That's not very interesting so I'll just post one...


looks fine, works ok when I try to lay something over it.  Having a lot of trouble with non rigidity like eben said.  Got frustrated so I just started copying the image eben posted but I still couldn't really get it right.  Finally got it better then the start but it's still off :/



Sometimes this is so frustrating.  Anyway for tomorrow I think I'm going to do drawings from references and try to do frames for them along with getting looser.

Thanks for the tips!

As far as stiffness that is something I really have a hard time with.  Your image of the back is great!  Next up is the flat diagram (which shouldn't help) and the mannequin frame.  I'll try to concentrate on curve and hips/shoulders when doing mannequin frames.  They will be in more interesting positions and I won't have to worry as much about getting other stuff right so hopefully I should be able to do it.

At the moment I'm feeling good working through this book but I'm sure I'll get to a point where I'm not getting as much out of it and will be looking to switch to something else for a bit so I'll be sure to look dynamic figure drawing up.  I do try to do some stuff from life but most of the time it's just quick doodles as the only real chunks of time I have to draw are at night.  Plus in all honesty I'm not being very good it's a bit embarrassing for me to draw in public.  That's a horrible reason not to though so I will try!

Part of the problem I realized on the waist was it meant 1 head unit wide.  Not the width of the head :/ .  So today is 4 people at different ages.  the youngest two turned out ok, then we have a guy with his arms broken and another guy who's crotch is to high.  For the last 1 it was really a problem with measuring.  As you can see I started in the wrong place and had to draw another head lower then I should have.  This messed some of my measuring up up towards the top to...

Did the "ideal proportion female".  The waist area is super strange.  I blame Loomis partly for this.  It clearly says the waist should be 1 head wide, so I made it 1 head wide.  This made this crazy looking malnourished looking person.  My head must be to skinny....  Although it does look better then stuff from before!



Next up various ages!

First day of practice.  Did the "ideal male figure from the book".  It's annoying as I really want to say the arms look to stretched out to me but obviously in his example they are fine.  I must have just measured wrong... Also the head looks tiny... that's the case even in his refrence drawing though so I'm ok with that.  Also the butt is super messed up in the side view but I know the measuring mistake there so no big deal.  Tomorrow, the female ideal figure!



just for refrence this was when I did the same thing last time...



yay improvement!

oh and this is the doodle that made me realize I had gotten better and want to start working at it again...


for some reason the camera freaked out though...

So, I haven't been drawing as regularly and in a trying to get better way in a while.  Been bogged down with work and applying to grad school nonsense. 

Recently though I was just doodling and was better then I remember and I was like huh that's weird.  But then I remembered all the work I had done and got super pumped that it was actually helpful!  Anyway I'm going to attempt to get back into it.

One problem I felt last time was that I got all these tutorials/book suggestions so I'd start to read one.  Get to an exercise.  Do it.  And it obviously wouldn't look as good as the tutorial artist's.  This time I'm going to work my way through this book...


http://www.scribd.com/doc/255814/Andrew-Loomis-Figure-Drawing

which derek suggested

and the whole mess of tutorial which Gimmy TILBERT suggested

Instead of getting stuck on 1 exercise I plan on just doing each part 3 or so times and then moving onto the next part.  With this I feel like I'll be more likely to make it through more and then I can always just loop back to the beginning when I get done.

Also I'm drawing on paper instead of a tablet at the moment but we'll see how long that lasts.

I think the save system is really clever so far.  It's fun having a shmup that's not either me forcing myself to beat on 1 credit, or just beating each level individually (since I can save after each one.  This method I still feel like I have to practice to beat the whole thing, but it can be longer without being frustrating. 

That said so far I'm done with my first run through (get half way through the game using all 3 saves) so now I'm going to start my second run through where I will try to get halfway through before I save.  If that proves to hard I might have to do 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3 I guess but I think I should be able to do it.

@sinclair - Thanks I couldn't figure out red and green since they don't give you the power up right away (you need 5 of them...)

@windows7 it will only run for me when I right click and click toubleshoot compatibility then in that window there's a start program button.  I click that and it works, if I just go through with the check and then try to run the program it still breaks... Oh well at least I can play.


So Level 2 is way harder then level 1 for me but I eventually got it.  I'm really not used to dodging terrain and I would say 90% of my deaths are from me running into the ground/ceiling/some cave structure but i'm starting to get it in my head that I have to dodge those to...

I beat level 2 and the next level is just a joke, seriously.  I guess it's just so I can upgrade my weapons (that's even in the name).

Beating that level I took the lower path because the tree sounded cool, and boy is it!  It was another easy level but very very cool so I'm fine with that.  Beat it first try no dieing.  Then came a bug level which also doesn't seem to hard so far but I didn't beat it first try...

So far the game is really fun and the save system is unique and strategic.  I just wish there was a quick save so that I could stop the game without having to use one of my main saves.  I like to play in short bursts.

Oh snap yes I love me some SHMUPS, I'm going to rock this game, downloading it right now.  I am also running windows 7 so I'll let you know if it runs correctly.

edit: Downloaded and didn't work on windows 7 64 bit.  Gave me a black screen on the menu.  To fix this I right clicked and ran troubleshoot compatibility, this fixed it.  Also you can skip right to the main menu by clicking x or z.

Also, beat the first level.  The games really good the first level reminds me heavily of gradius.  I'm not really sure what the different colors of power up do.  sometimes i get shields sometimes weapons sometimes level up I'm not really sure...  Also I can't figure out how to bomb... Time to hook up the 360 pad and see what the later levels of this game are like!

So I just answered all the questions at the start of the game to choose my race/stats.  I'm playing a Gangrel.  I have no idea about this system so that seemed like the way to go.  I think it picked a good character for me, and I'm having fun roleplaying it.

Just played up until the beach house, which was super easy, I just walked in and killed everyone basically, lots of fun though, I really feel like a vampire.

One thing that is killing me is the load times... I hate load times in games and since I'm wandering around a lot it makes me not want to enter doors as I'm afraid I'll have to wait.

Insalling the game now, I've never played this game or even really played a crpg before so I'm looking forward to it.  The art is great!