Rob Stenzinger

Underwater Tomato Ninja: Beginning Game Development

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:15:35 -0500

One thing I know for certain: this workshop will invove the Underwater Tomato Ninja.

What workshop you say? I’ve been making a game development workshop. Or perhaps it’s a series of workshops. Or then again perhaps it’s a game based workshop to make a game.

Along the way I’ve played with many ideas as to the workshop’s form and flow. As I’ve been coding, writing, and designing away these last few months I’ve followed my muse and love for the subject a bit too much. On one hand it’s great to have generated a bunch of material, on the other I need to keep the live presentation version of this thing to an hour.

The workshop is for beginners to intermediates, looks at both design and development, and uses HTML 5 + JavaScript as the game platform.

Whatever shape it finally takes, I’m excited to be presenting it at Kids Read Comics in July and at Lean Into Art in a different form with a date to be announced!

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The Big Web Show’s archive is impressive. Take this...

Fri, 04 May 2012 08:33:41 -0500

The Big Web Show’s archive is impressive. Take this interview with Andy Rutledge for example.

Polytechnicast - Juggling Part 2, De facto Hiatuses

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:58:01 -0500

In this mostly “art journal” style episode of the Polytechnicast I reflect on how I’ve been applying something I learned via juggling to my creative projects. I also share how that relates to which projects are getting my time and attention.

Links Mentioned and Related

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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Polytechnicast - Juggling Metaphor and Actual Juggling

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:28:08 -0500

In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share a few observations about why juggling interests me and a basic overview of how to juggle a three ball cascade.

Links Mentioned and Related

Juggling for the Complete Klutz (affiliate link)
Charlie Dancey’s Encyclopaedia of Ball Juggling (affiliate link)

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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Game Workshop Card Prototypes

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:47:14 -0500

On Episode 30 of the Lean Into Art Cast, I mention my upcoming game development workshop. Here’s a sneak peek at the prototype card deck. Nope, not a “slide deck”.

The workshop itself is a game - a multiplayer card game to be precise. Everyone starts with a basic working game engine and over the course of 90 minutes, everyone plays, designs, and develops new features and assets for their game.

I’ll be performing this workshop in-person (and online at Lean Into Art) later this year. More details to come! Meanwhile here’s a preview of 12 of the 300 cards.

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Creature Design, The Wormbug Completed

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 08:48:13 -0500

I spent about an hour playing in Photoshop to finish the Wormbug’s linework and coloring.

The flatting stage went faster than normal as I already had the silhouette. I played around with a cool color palette for the creature. Instead of my normal flat shading with tones of black and white I chose to shade and with warm colors, something I’ve been working on since taking Kevin Cross’s color theory class.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Polytechnicast - Comic UI with guest Krishna Sadasivam

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:45:42 -0500

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In this episode of the Polytechnicast I have special guest, cartoonist and art instructor, Krishna Sadasivam of PCWeenies.com.

I’ve always found Krishna’s continuous refinement of the PC Weenies comic user interface very informative. Krishna and I talk about some of his recent UI updates and what constraints and goals he had in mind when revising the site.

Links Mentioned and Related Links

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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Creature Design, Work in Progress

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:09:33 -0600

Bug creature design, work in progress. Started it as a rough-sketch iPad painting and I found the creature looked too blocky/brick-wallish to communicate clearly in silhouette (that stage isn’t depicted in the screencap). I refined the silhouette in Inkpad (image on the left) then started fleshing out details in the desktop version of SketchBook Pro (image on the right).

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Polytechnicast - Interactive Empathy

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:05:40 -0600

In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share some thoughts on using empathy as a way to guide design choices in interactive projects.

Links Mentioned and Related Links

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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Polytechnicast - A One-Off Solution

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:17:52 -0600

In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share an overiew of the technical details of my move from Google App Engine to Squarespace. It’s a bit about RSS, XML, why text formats rock and how web browsers are a fantastic place to build a little one-use data transformation.

Links Mentioned and Related Links

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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Polytechnicast - Moving Away from Google App Engine

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:10:44 -0600

In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share an overview of why I moved my comic to Google App Engine and how things evolved to considering moving away from that platform. I’m leaning toward moving to S3 or GitHub, using a static generated blog styled as a web comic approach. Then again, Tumblr is a pretty tempting option!

Along the way I give an overview of why I chose a cloud computing platform, my initial move from Wordpress and shared hosting.

I haven’t made my final choice, feel free to tweet, email, or comment your recommendations!

Links Mentioned and Related Links

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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The entire graphic novel The Front! Plus there’s a new The...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:38:01 -0600

The entire graphic novel The Front! Plus there’s a new The Front series coming “Petty Dreadful”, can’t wait!

Polytechnicast - Hunting for and Interviewing with Clients

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:00:08 -0600

In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share thoughts on seeking a job doing what I love, serving a community I care about, using tools and methods I believe in, to engage in a fair and sustainable trade.

Along the way I share observations on the process of job/contract hunting and some of the tools I find helpful.

Links Mentioned

Comic - Independent Voice (the first place I published my “do what I love mantra”)
My Illustration Portfolio
My Interactive/UI/UX/Game Design Portfolio
Prezi - a good tool to rapidly create interesting looking portfolios for online and print.
Prezi Portfolio of Sample Work Products (available on request)
Rob’s Video Application to Lullabot on Vimeo
Search tools:
- Combine Google with Glassdoor
- Break out of your search bubble via Duck Duck Go
Tools I use to manage reusable email sections and templates:
- NvALT
- TextExpander

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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Polytechnicast - Preparing and Topic Potpourri

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:34:28 -0600

In this episode of the Polytechnicast I have “preparing” on the mind. Working on a few projects simultaneously I find myself in the cycle of preparing, making, and finding useful connections between my projects quite often.

In addition to “preparing”, this episode is also a bit of Topic Potpourri!

Links Mentioned and Links That Came to Mind While Writing These Show Notes

Oxford Notecard Pocket
Notecards
Hipster PDA
Moleskine Plain Reporter
Web Comic Alliance
Ira Glass on the Creative Process
Ann Arbor District Library Comic Artist Forum
Mac Power Users Podcast - Automating
Sikuli - open source/free deskop automation via screen capture
Rube Goldberg

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art

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Principles of Perception, Design, and Comics

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:43:30 -0600

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Filling in the gaps. Bobby McFerrin didn’t ask everyone to guess a sound - he started a pattern with one sound, then another, and another. The relationship between those sounds is design (the Pentatonic Scale), the audience participating to fill in the gaps demonstrates the Closure principle of perception.

I came across this video while preparing for a special series of the Lean Into Art Cast centered on the topic of Design. Andy Rutlege’s blog is a fantastic resource on Design. A great place to start exploring his writing is his 5 part Gestalt Principles of Perception series.

Worth noting: both Uniform Connectedness/Good Continuation and Closure have extra strong ties to the underlying mechanisms of comics as a highly participatory form of communication.

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joamette: Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli (1997) Favorite...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:46:38 -0600

joamette:

Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli (1997)

Favorite movie.

Just realized I’ve misplaced my making-of Princess Mononoke book. The art and process were fascinating though the highlight of the book for me is the poetry Miyazaki wrote to capture the essence of the characters. I recall Yakul’s as being especially awesome.

Gohan sketch card. Both DBZ sketches due to my recent...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:09:34 -0600

Gohan sketch card. Both DBZ sketches due to my recent re-watching of the Garlic Jr. Saga.

Piccolo sketch card.

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:05:14 -0600

Piccolo sketch card.

The Ice King Approaches #adventutretime #sketchcard

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:22:56 -0600

The Ice King Approaches #adventutretime #sketchcard

Polytechnicast - Service of a Game

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:00:25 -0600

In this episode of the Polytechnicast, I delve into some behind the scenes planning and development I do to support Guitar Fretter.

Recently I received an email from an Android user who is rather good at the game. On her Android device once she gets past level 12 or so the game has problems. I share details on how I’ll tackle that issue, ponder the complexities of the Android market, future updates for Guitar Fretter and behind the scenes thoughts on Guitar Fretter’s game design.

Links Mentioned and Links That Came to Mind While Writing These Show Notes

Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com

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