Mr London Irish. Dec Danaher 250th appearence Tribute.

This video was made as a tribute to the London Irish Captain Declan Danaher for his 250th appearence for the club. It was released on LITV and shown on the big screen at half time.

Tribute Video Dec Danaher

I used all the footage from their first home game of the season against Bath. Their previous coach of last season was now in the coaching set up of Bath for this current season so it had more value and impack then a regular game. I decided to go with the Johnny Cash song because I felt and bass heavy new age or modern  RnB song wouldnt do Dec justice and wanted to give the feel of experience and wisdom and not power and smash which is what you get from alot of rugby tribute videos. This is one of the first videos I have done for London Irish While I am working on the green sox trailer. I must apologise for the quality but the camera I was using was not amazing and the game footage I was given was also roughly compressed and the wrong scale ratio.

Games Ireland Gathering.

This week I was up in Dublin attending Games Ireland Gathering(GIG). If I was going to describe it in one word it would be Hope. I know it's cheesier then a cheesy garlic chip to say that but honestly that's how I feel.

I have to admit that as far as the idea of there being a games industry springing up in ireland and staying here successfully has always alluded me. This is why I went to university in Wales and got my first job in the England. I didn't see there being a games industry in Ireland any time soon so I sought education and work outside Ireland. When I came back to Ireland I still wasn't fully convinced and even though a lot of people kept telling and reminding me that there was a abundance of jobs in the games industry over here I still had my doubts. Now I'm not saying we are Canada but after the GIG it gave me a lot of hope that someday we might be. I saw companies and people that were passionate about the games industry and not just people who love playing games (don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with loving games). That is what we need, people who love to develop or design games and a supportive government or enterprise company.

Now with casual, social and mobile / app games becoming so easy to manufacture at a low cost mixed with the ability to make them with a small start up company we should hopefully start to see small time companies grow and multiple in Ireland. This along with the bigger companies starting to show face in Ireland is also promising. One thing that I really enjoyed about the GIG was the look at cloud gaming, casual and social gaming.

If I had my way with the Irish government I would put most the company pulling hours into getting those companies tied in with cloud , social and casual gaming. This side of the industry is growing rapidly and still growing but importantly it is accessible by small companies to be competitive, we need to pull in big foreign companies that will skill Irish people and bring awareness and jobs. Once these jobs become common place it will only be a matter of time were Ireland with a new skill base and strong industry can start making it own 5 star companies and export some of there skills overseas.

I am probably going to dedicate another post to this later but as for now I got to make like the housing market and split.

Yes I played Bioshock.

And I loved playing Bioshock. It is one of those games that gets over hyped but just like a Coen Brothers movie it lived up to its hype. I think Ayn Rand would be happy ... If she was still alive.... and she liked video games .... and was cool with it being turned into a first person shooter adventure .... and ..... actually on second thought maybe not but what the hell it's a good game.

Characters in progress.

Here are some new characters I have been working on. I shall endeavor to push myself to get more drawings out there and update this more frequently.

I have always liked the idea of characters that are more damaging to themselves then their enemies can ever be. One series I thought that accomplished this really nicely was a episode of Doctor Who (I did like the 1,2,3 series but am no longer a fan) where the Doctor and his companions get trapped on their ship and a dream but do not know which one is the dream and which is the reality. Anyway long story short he finds out his greatest enemy and person who is out to get him the most in the universe is actually himself because he hates himself for everything he has done. It's nice to see a hero reflect. I mean when other heros save the day they never feel remorse for his enemy or who ever they just defeated/ killed.
I also like the idea of hidden powers but not in the secret hero clark kent way. I like it when characters have a hidden card up their sleeve that they can pull out in times of desperation. Two instances that pull this off perfectly is Mustang in Full Metal Alchemist, when Mustang has his glove ripped and therefore rendered useless you think he is done for but then it turns he has the same type of glove on the other hand but he has always just simply kept it in his other pocket unnoticed. Another effective instance is Batman V Superman when you think Batman is going to be turned into bat stew but then for the first time he Batman shows his trump card. This showed how ultra prepared this character is for every scenario, Kriptonite in the batbelt was genius and the first time I saw him use it Batman went up to a whole new level for me.

Slan.