PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, OCTOBER 5, 2018
Opinion
Him vs. her
Will that event in Washington,
D.C. a few days ago along with its lin-
gering implications rank as the worst
in U.S. history? If so, will we ever get
over it? Is our demise underway? The
answers to these questions
by this opinion writer are
No! No! and No!
Many events have
transpired over the course
of the last 230 years that
could have led those who
came before us to con-
clude that the U.S. was
fi nished. This list could
include the day in 1804
when Vice President Aaron Burr shot
Alexander Hamilton, the day during
the War of 1812 when the British
burned our national capital, the fi ring
on Fort Sumpter in 1861 launching
the American Civil War, those days
when American presidents were as-
sassinated, the bombing of Pearl Har-
bor in 1941, and the war in Vietnam.
The point is many things have
happened to cause Americans con-
siderable concern over the nation’s
fate and will probably happen again
in one form or another. After all,
our U.S. Constitution was written
for moments like this. The framers
made a good bet that we Americans
would be making a mess now and
then before getting this and that right
and thereby prepared a navigational
chart by which to proceed through
the ages, the U.S. Constitution.
Whatever the example, we’ve
proven our resilience. We are now in
another cultural moment where our
people are reckoning with offenses to
determine how we can improve our
treatment of one another, specifi -
cally our female members. We now
witness in the Brett Kavanaugh pro-
ceedings a battle in tribalism, where
a fundamental instinct to believe in
something because one’s fellow tribal
members believe it...over an open-
ness in search of the truth which has
proven so far to avoid a fi rm grip.
The world before our nation was
in vertical mode or top-down, un-
der the thumb of kings, princes and
popes. The Declaration of Indepen-
dence and, later, U.S. Constitution
built a horizontal, new order where
all humankind are cre-
ated equal. Of course,
there have been the
inevitable bumps when
many people held
tightly to old beliefs
and practices, such as
when slavery and lack
of rights for women
held fi rm.
Passion before rea-
son was on display in D.C. the other
day accompanied by one man’s word
against a women’s in a case of sexual
assault accuser and accused. Most
Americans, it’s ventured, have taken
sides and remain unmovable while
a U.S. Senate confi rmation vote
is pending. Thereafter, something
like half the population will experi-
ence vindication; the other half will
be disappointed. As for a personal
opinion on Kavanaugh, many of his
statements regarding Dr. Ford have
been proven untrue while his angry
outbursts, temper tantrums, emo-
tional immaturity, elitist demands,
and close-minded partisanship make
his temperament and character unfi t
to serve as an associate justice on the
Supreme Court of the United States.
Opinion also offers that there
is no better way to heed the U.S.
citizenship each of us owns by our
Constitution than by acting on our
sovereign right to vote. What that
means is that all of us have recourse
when we disagree to assert our opin-
ions in support of that we want saved,
changed or discontinued. We do so
by registering to vote, educating our-
selves on ballot measures and can-
didates, and, in Oregon, completing
the ballot sent by mail and returning
it to the county clerk ahead of the
deadline.
gene
h.
mcintyre
(Gene H. McIntyre shares his opin-
ion frequently in the Keizetimes.)
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KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Illustrator and character designer Mike Smith designed all the characters for the game Paperbound and has advice
for young artists. .
Keizer’s game character designer
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of No Adults Allowed
Mike Smith, a Keizer resident, is
an illustrator and character design-
er. His project for the past few years
has been a video game, Paperbound.
Mike designed all of the charac-
ters from the original game, and
it’s coming out for the Nintendo
Switch soon. Ever since he started
working on the game, seeing his
characters on a Nintendo system
has been something of a dream and
he’s redesigned all of them and the
game’s menus to get ready for the
Nintendo reveal. No Adults Al-
Around 2013, I found a website
lowed talked with Mike about how
where
people were putting up their
he got his start in art and in video
work
online
and seeing if anybody
games. This is what he had to say.
wanted
to
hire
them. I posted my
How do you describe your
profi
le
and
said
I wanted to work
work?
on
a
small
thing.
I got about two
In my case, I don’t work in ani-
dozen
offers.
There
were people
mation, but I make the characters
who
didn’t
know
what
they were
you get to play in Paperbound. It’s
doing
or
the
concept
wasn’t
strong
very entertaining and incredibly
enough
or
just
not
taking
it
seri-
challenging.
ously.
I
would
research
them
all
When did you start working
online
to
try
to
fi
gure
out
their
on your drawing skills?
I started with stick fi gures when commitment level. Dan Holbert,
I was a kid and made a whole uni- the creator of Paperbound, replied to
verse. I had notebook paper and I one of my comments and I went
could unroll it like a scroll. I would through the same process. There
have 60-70 pages and I just kept was YouTube video where he’d tak-
building. I tried art classes in middle en the game to a local Gamestop,
school, but I wasn’t good at what set up a kiosk and let people play it.
they wanted me to do. I wanted to That was commitment unlike any
draw the characters I saw in comic I’d seen before.
How did you fi t into the game
books, so I really started working
design?
on copying those. In high school,
All the characters in Paperbound
I got to do a comic for the school
are based on char-
paper.
acters or creatures
Did you go to
from books. Dan
school for art or
had kind of set up
design?
this world where
I tried, but I
FREE SOFTWARE:
those
characters
Sketchbook Pro
ran into the same
GIMP
would
fi
ght,
but I
problem I had in
Inkscape
got
to
fi
gure
out
middle school. The
Manga Studio
how
all
of
them
problem was there
Krita
looked. That was
wasn’t
anyone
HARDWARE:
both a blessing and
teaching the type
Wacom tablets
a curse. Sometimes
of work I wanted to
(start with a small one
I was running with
do. All those teach-
and work your way up)
50 or 60 ideas from
ers lived in other
ONLINE LESSONS:
a single book. We
places. The cool
YouTube.com
started with 10
Udemy.com
thing now is there
Skillshare.com
characters in the
is a computer ani-
original game and I
mation program in
designed two more
the Salem-Keizer
for
a
downloadable
expansion.
School District [at CTEC]. I went
What
was
the
hardest
one to
there and got to see the types of
do?
technology they get to work with
Journey to the Center of the Earth
and they get to learn from someone
was
the hardest. In the book, all the
who has actually worked in video
characters
were just kind of going
games. I’ve also been a mentor to
to
the
center
of the world and the
students at Chemeketa Commu-
author
would
take like fi ve pages to
nity College.There’s also lots of
describe
a
fi
sh.
I came up with a
places to learn online.
rock
creature
and
a turtle guy, but
Has your job always been as a
we
ended
up
going
with a mast-
character designer?
odon
that
lives
in
the
dome at the
I worked a lot of jobs when I
center
of
the
earth.
He’s
now one
was younger and then my wife
my
favorite
redesigned
characters.
went to work after we had kids. I
What was it like seeing oth-
stayed home and took care of them.
er
people working on the game
The art was kind of a side thing.
bring
your characters to life?
I wrote it off as a hobby when it
That
was amazing because the
should have been a moneymaker.
characters
all start as a two-dimen-
How did you get into video
sional
drawing
that goes into my
games?
coolcareers
cooltools
portfolio. I don’t think much about
life getting inserted into my sketch.
There was a moment in July 2014
when I was stressed out and ready
to quit. In the middle of that, the
animator sent me a video of Nin-
jeddy running all over one of the
levels running and jumping and
pulling out a sword. The timing was
perfect because the stress fl ipped
and I was energetic again. Seeing
the characters come to life, when
they come to life, is really reward-
ing because everyone else on the
team adds something a little differ-
ent to their personality or the way
they move.
What’s been the best part of
working to launch the game on
the Nintendo Switch?
Well, we thought it would be
good to update the look of the
menus because we were never re-
ally happy with them. They just be-
came part of the fi nal game when
we ran out of energy. So, I started
redesigning the menus and after I
got fi nished with each part, I would
work on redesigning the characters.
I didn’t even tell Dan until I had
redesigned fi ve of the 12, but he
got really excited, too, once he saw
them.
What’s the hardest part of
your job?
I work with a team, but none of
us are in the same place. If you’re
going to try to do this, you have to
be incredibly disciplined and com-
mitted. It’s tempting to stop and
play on the Playstation or watch
a movie, and it can also feel very
lonely. We found that we worked
better when we had a way to com-
municate quickly so I set up a
Facebook group where we could
post stuff quick and then get quick
feedback from the other people on
the team. That helped us all feel
more connected and motivated.
What’s your advice for young
artists who might want to do
what you do?
Start a sketchbook. If you have
a sketchbook and you work at it
on a regular basis, you are going to
be able to see how you improve.
And your teachers are going to be
able to see how you’ve improved.
There’s also a lot of free software
out there that you can get to help
you try out different things (See
the Cool Tools list).