Smith & Company Creations Official Blog

Thursday 1 December 2016

FOR THOSE WHO DON'T USE DEVIANTART

So I had many commissions done for other people but sometimes I barely get any sales what so ever. So what I was going to do is take PayPal commissions as well for my fans who doesn't have a DeviantART account and prefer to pay me in real cash. Here are my planned prices:

TRADITIONAL ART:
Sketch: £3.00

Sketch with Pen Ink: £3.50

Sketch with color: £3.75

DIGITAL ART:
Black Lineart only: £4.00

Coloured: £4.50

Lineless Coloured: £4.75

50p for an additional character
50p for a background

Not only, I also do avatars, logos, wallpapers and even banners for other social media users such as Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube. Here are my samples of work that I have created in the past months:

Here are the prices for the following content that I can work on:

AVATAR: £2.50

WALLPAPER (1920x1080): £5.75

BANNER: £5.50

CUSTOM LOGO: £5.00

If you are interested with any of works being created for you or have any questions regarding my work. Simply contact me at retrok3000@yahoo.co.uk.

Thanks very much for your interest and hope you can get in touch soon.

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE COMMISSIONING:

Unfortunately I can only do Original Characters and Original Content created by you as I DO NOT use other content made by other people. I'd love too but it's against the law to sell stuff I don't own. Sorry.
I will only take PayPal payments as of right now.
I will work on your order once the payment has being received.
Please keep your questions related to my creations. I do not answer questions related to different topics.
I do not do porn, extreme violence, sex related material or even disturbing content.
Please be patient, I will work on your commissions as soon as I can.
If you live outside the UK, you can also pay in your currency since PayPal is an international service and will transfer into my currency once paid.

Thursday 4 May 2017

MANTU THE BALL, NOW REBORN IN 3D

Well it's been a long time seen I have written blogs haven't I? I was going to write about the amazing company known as called Scavenger but this is for a another time. When I was studying at college. I was able to get the hang of it with Autodesk 3DS Max. I wanted to make Mantu because he is easy and very simple to do. And this is the result:

This is the first time that Mantu has ever been created in 3D with the use of 3DS Max. All it take is a simple use of primitive shapes and then put them together to create the perfect Mantu 3D Model. I also designed many screenies with him such as this:

And this:

All created with the use of two tools with photoshop to design the textures for the models. I would love to see Mantu being transfred into Garry's Mod, but that is if anyone is willing too. I mean Mantu in real time 3D. I could dream.

Tuesday 21 March 2017

LET'S TALK ABOUT SONIC XTREME

Now before I talk on what I really wanted to talk about so bad. Apologies if this blog has been really inactive for a while since I was very busy with college and other personal stuff. Now then, does anyone remember this Sonic game called Sonic X-treme ?

Well if not, let me tell you. It was going to be first 3D Sonic game that was going to be released for the Sega Saturn and even on the PC. It was also first started as a 3D Sonic game for SEGA's ill-fated 32X addon. In the game, Sonic had to traverse through the 3D levels like in Bug! which used the similar gameplay concept were 2D sprites move within the 3D levels, even though the levels are in 3D, Sonic and the rest were 2D sprites. But however, there were screenshots that Sonic had a 3D model. The game was going to be developed by SEGA's North American studio called SEGA Technical Institute (the same studio behind Sonic Spinball, Comix Zone and The Ooze) and later on by Point of View. SEGA Technical Institute wanted to try a different way with Sonic by using the fish-eye lens view. However, STI was split into two development teams. Chris Senn and Ofer Alon was in charge of the PC port while Robert Morgan and Chris Coffin were in charge with the fixed free-roaming boss engine as well as porting it to the Saturn.

But this is where things start to get really ugly. SEGA of Japan's Hayao Nakayama hated the progress and wanted the team to use the boss engine. Even though Wallis dashed in suggested the team to use the NiGHTS engine which came out like this:

Things got even UGLIER. STI lost 2 weeks of development time and even the NiGHTS engine. One of the Sonic designers Yuki Naka even threatened to leave Sonic Team if the engine is used. And Chris Senn at the time was seriously ill at the time and only had 6 months to live. With both teams struggling. The game was unfortunately cancelled. Leaving SEGA with no true 3D Sonic game for the Saturn.

To make it up on having a no Sonic game on the SEGA Saturn. SEGA decided to request a British studio Traveller Tales on developing a Saturn port of Sonic 3D: Flickies Island/Blast. But the damage was already done. Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64 were already out and they were played beautifully with good graphics and gameplay. Sonic 3D on the other hand was just an isometric view where you run around and help the birds escape rather than play through the stage which to me I find it boring and I don't think Sonic 3D would help SEGA very much due the game already made for the Genesis/Mega Drive a year ago and so would the other two Sonic games. These two Sonic games are Sonic Jam which is just a compilation developed by Sonic Team. And Sonic R which is just a foot racing game also made by Traveller's Tales which was too short and can be beaten within around an hour.

Let's fast forward to the 2010 as we find out that many many gameplay videos of Sonic X-treme were published online (including the 32X build), even from Chris Senn himself. Then few years later. A user goes by the name of jollyroger managed to leak few builds online, including the fish-eye build and the Point of View build in which can be played on a real SEGA Saturn which is shown here:

I happen to saw a video from speedylink showing the POV build running on real hardware. The POV build did look complete, Sonic was able to collect rings, destroy enemies and even take damage from them. It even has built in debug mode and you can even rotate the screen with the shoulder buttons. Is it true that Point Of View got their build rejected too? Did they help out STI? There are quite a few interesting videos of the game worth checking out. You can also download those builds at the Sonic Retro page:
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=34255&st=0
http://forums.sonicretro.org/?showtopic=34038

Saturday 14 January 2017

TASBOT PUSHES THE NES AND SNES TO THE LIMIT WITH INSANE ARBITRARY HACKS

So Games Done Quick has finally done it again. They have raised over $1 Million towards Prevent Cancer Foundation and has been a major success. But however. TASBot has shown yet a another trick that actually vowed everyone. So we had Pong & Snake in Super Mario World at AGDQ 2014, Super Mario Bros. in Super Mario World and Twitch in Pokemon Red at AGDQ 2015 and then we had Super Mario Maker in Super Mario All-Stars. But this year, it went in a whole new direction. Wanna take a guess? It's not a NES game in a SNES game. It's actually FULL STREAMING video on an ACTUAL Super Nintendo hardware which showcased TAS videos of Super Mario 64 and Portal. Not just that, real time Skype video chat was running too. It's crazy to see an actual SNES also running Skype as well.

You know, running real-life videos on Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past really surprised me. Feel free to see the insane tricks below. Let's hope we get to see more Arbitrary tricks later down the road at future GDQ's.

Friday 13 January 2017

HONEST THOUGHTS ON THE NINTENDO SWITCH


Image Source: (c) Ars Techinica

So Nintendo has finally revealed so much information regarding Nintendo's brand new hybrid game console/handheld system that due to come out 3rd March 2017. And holy crap, there are so many good games coming out for the Nintendo Switch. You got a new Super Mario game that takes place in different worlds rather than the Mushroom Kingdom, a new Splatoon sequel, Mario Kart 8 DX, EA Sports FIFA, new Shin Megami Tensei game from Atlus, new Zenoblade Chornicles sequel from Monolithsoft, a new Fire Emblem Musou Warriors titles possibly from Koei Tecmo, Skyrim from Bethesda and heck even Puyo Puyo Tetris is finally getting localized with many thanks to Deep Sliver. And oh, Sonic Mania is also confirmed it's on getting a Switch port. Overall this is all great news.

The question is, can it sell very well and will it gain more 3rd-party support from other AA developers? The thing is, I really hope so since the Switch looks like an interesting piece of hardware and has many many great games in development. Buuut no Metroid unfortunately.

On the bright side, the Switch is region free and thank god Nintendo actually listened for once. But what I want Nintendo to see is re-consider their copyright restrictions on YouTube and possibly decent games. Just hope Nintendo doesn't slip up and drive away third-parties again like what happened to the Wii U. And what Nintendo also needs to re-consider is their censorship policy.

Overall, let's hope the system sells well and gains decent games this time.

Wednesday 7 December 2016

HOW SONY DOMINATED THIS YEAR'S PSX

So last weekend Sony hosted their 3rd PlayStation Experience event and holy crap!! Sony Interactive Entertainment are actually listening to their fans. Not only a new remastered Crash Bandicoot has a new trailer AND is even playable at PSX. We even got re-remasters and re-releases of PlayStation's classic titles such as WipEout, Parappa the Rapper, LocoRoco, Patapon . And heck, we even saw some great surprise releases such as Let It Die, Lara Croft Go (thanks to KOOP for handling the PlayStation port), SNK's Garou Mark of the Wolves . And finally. FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 gets a PS4 port with all DLC included in which I guess Capcom's contract with MARVEL may have gotten renewed.

I'm glad Sony is focusing much more on the games than actual hardware and that makes me happy. And to me I find Shawn Layden a very awesome guy. Because one, he listens to his fans and two, he cares about the games even classic franchises. I'm just really excited and happy that my classic childhood in video gaming is finally coming back. We had a Abe's Oddysee remaster, a Shadow of the Beast reboot with the classic Amiga game included, a Ratchet & Clank remaster. Everything is coming back to me now. Now if only we can get a Spyro classic trilogy next.

And with all this success, the PlayStation 4 even managed to break the 50 million unit mark.

Even though that we don't have any more information on God of War and Days Gone. I can forgive that Bend Studio and Santa Monica weren't ready to reveal it just yet. I'm just going to leave the whole PSX Experience video here in case you have missed it. No wonder why Shawn was teasing me with that WipEout shirt. Me wants.

Friday 18 November 2016

WANTS PHOTOSHOP SO BAD NOW

So finally during my Level 2 Games Design course at college. I was tasked into making animated people at college. One being puppet animation and the other my personal favorite. The traditional animation. At first, I wasn't that good at using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash Professional. But however, after a few practices and few play-arounds later. This is the results:

With that kind of style. I could like minisodes or even quick pliots with this style. If I only had Adobe Flash that is. But here's the kicker, it's too expensive and it's now subscription based. But however, I was supposed to do the stick figure for the game. But hey, it was fun doing them. No wonder why animation worns me out. Just hope I can get it sometime and make some at home. If only.