Check it out at austindlight.squarespace.com

Make sure to look at the Illustration and Design page. It uses Lightbox for the galleries, which gives them that pretty animation when they open, and keeps them nice and organized when in thumbnail view.

I’ll keep exploring SquareSpace. In the meantime, let me know what you think.

Is it time to leave WordPress behind? SquareSpace will cost me $8 a month. I have another 12 days to decide, but I’m leaning toward switching. I just can’t get over how customizable it is, and how easy it is to customize.

For example, most social media success boils down to common sense. Don’t say things that could get you in trouble later. Duh. Also, if you want to carve out your own little niche on the internet/get followers/be talked about on message boards, you need to be about something. Write a blog that reviews straight-to-video movies. Make a series of posts that chronicle your journey through something—like your addiction to Farmville. Do whatever you want, just pick something and stick to it. Here are some great examples of that: Run Theoden Run, Write It Sideways, Light Whimsy.

Those people know what they are writing for, and who they are writing to. From there it’s just a matter of tagging, linking, guest blogging, commenting, etc. Give it a few months and your website will be rolling with followers, fans, and even critics.

I should totally write a book about this, call myself a Social Media Strategy Consultant and make millions.

My thing is I don’t want this site to be about one thing. It’s Austin D Light dot com. It’s about me, and I’m about more than one thing. That being said, I’m going to try and categorize things better, and bring in some more structure to my posts. You can boil my interests into the four things below my name—writing, illustrating, design, and all things geeky. In the next few weeks, I’ll hammer out some structure for my blog. Something like two art posts a month, reviews of games I’m playing, or make my writing posts about writing—how I do it, tips on writing, good and bad examples, etc.

Hang in there while I make these changes. I promise Austin D Light (the person and the dot com) will be better for it.

Is he late to save the day, or late for science class? I don’t know, but it was a good thing he sewed that watch into his costume…

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Sometimes Brooke gets in the mood to play a game with me. As much as that excites me, it rarely works out the way I hope. The games I like are too complex, she calls them “boy games.” It’s hard to find a game we both enjoy equally.

This weekend she was in the mood for a Mario Kart-esque experience. I suggested Mod Nation Racers, but it was out at Blockbuster, so I convinced her that Blur was the same thing, only not cartoony. I had a blast with it, and she enjoyed it too. Despite the fact that she often ignored “complex” actions like braking, drifting, and switching power-ups, in favor of slamming into walls and other cars. Blur is a great game because she could still win races and have fun, and I could go back later and work on the meta-game–all those fun race requirements and extra goals.

As much as she enjoyed Blur (and as much as I enjoyed watching her play it and wince at the wrecks and yell at the other racers), it was nothing compared to last night’s discovery. I was working on my laptop and she was bored, so I told her to surf the XBLA marketplace. She read a few descriptions, but again, complained there were too many “boy games.” Then she found Peggle.

Watching and listening to Brooke play Peggle was like seeing myself play Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time as a kid. She was laughing, cheering, yelling, having a blast. That simple game pulled her in and it was fascinating to me. After 20 plus years of playing games, and three years of getting paid to play them, I forgot how much fun they can be. I forgot that they’re games.

I feel like a lot of video game sites and game journalists could use that reminder. There’s this Louis C.K. clip that I love, and that I quote quite frequently. He’s on the Conan O’Brien show talking about how young people take things for granted and don’t marvel at technology. He riffs on people getting mad when their phone takes longer than three seconds to load, and then shouts, “Give it a second! It’s going to space!” People forget that the thing in their hand is a tiny computer that is sending information through the air.

That’s amazing.

And so are video games. They are made to entertain us. We are supposed to have fun with them. Brooke had fun playing Peggle. I would go as far as calling it genuine joy. She wasn’t picking apart the graphics, the animation, the weird quirks. Spend too much time on the small things, and the big picture starts looking bad. There are always details that need touching up–not just in games but everything. When we were in Italy, my mom pointed out the size of the hands on Michelangelo’s David. They’re huge! Seriously, look that junk up, it’s weird.

It’s refreshing to take a step back, look at the big picture, and marvel. Give it a shot, you might have more fun.

While the concert was unbelievably awesome, my favorite part was before it started. Jack Johnson is all about helping the environment and aiding nonprofits. One hundred percent of the profits of the To The Sea tour go to charity. They had a bunch of booths set up in a place they call the Village Green. The tents housed a number of local nonprofits, all of which were handpicked by Jack’s All At Once foundation. Before the concert G.Love, Jack and Zach Gill played a few songs by the tents. Getting to stand 20 feet away from them while they played “Girl I Wanna Lay You Down” was very cool.  Here’s some video of it:

I had a blast at the concert, and what I really like is that it seems like Jack and his friends did too. They just look like they have fun jamming together. One funny side note, a fight between two presumably drunk guys broke out down front while they played “Banana Pancakes,” and Jack said, “Ah man, how could you possibly fight to this song?” Then Zach Gill launched into an amazing accordion solo and Jack said something about accordions bringing people together, it was funny…maybe you just had to be there. Anyways, now that that’s crossed off the list, I just need to see Regina Spektor and I can die a happy man.

So I was working through the sketches and I decided to do one on the computer so I could see the build up from sketch to final. It was simple running pose. I haven’t taken any of the other poses too far past sketch level, because I want to work all the way through the book before I “finish” any of them. The moment I decided to make this the Prince of Persia though, I had to finish it. Here he is rewinding time:

It’s not the most dynamic picture, but it was fun to do, and it didn’t take that long.

Here’s how it all came together:

Started with the loose frame to get the pose. Ben breaks his body parts into cylinders in the book, which has been helpful for perspective stuff.
Next came the rough figure sketch. This is pretty much where the exercise ends in the book.

This is when I decided to make this running guy the Prince of Persia. Of course he was way too bulky to be the prince, so slimmed him down with another sketch.

Next I did the line work. I ended up going with the most recent armor, from The Forgotten Sands. When it comes to fan art, I like to try things on my own. I might glance at some pictures for broad ideas, but I fill in the details myself–it helps me make it my own.

Then I threw in the flat colors.

Then I did…the rest of it.

My shading and background layers are kind of jumbled–after the flat colors I lazily threw everything else together. The background consists of some pillars, bricks, some scribbling with a texture brush, and gratuitous motion blur. I wanted to put more time in to it, but I also want to keep moving through the book. I think I’m going to pick up the next book in his series called Fantasy Cartooning. If you’re interested in art, or you just want to brush up on your skills (and you like Caldwell’s style), I highly recommend picking up his books.