Edge of Heaven

Edge of Heaven

So, my "The Making Of: E258 Vice City cover" went up on Edge's website today and this evening my phone has been notifying me of all sorts of things. I'd like to thank all the people who have sent me some aces messages. I'd also like to thank Tony Mott, who gave me the opportunity. Cheers, Tony.

If you've come here via "The Making Of" link, don't click on the link above or you could end up in some endless loop!

10 GO TO 20

20 GO TO 10

I tried my best to describe the how and why I do things in the article and I hope I've managed that. I found it difficult to express in words the things I do without really thinking about it as I do it. Somebody said that I make it look easy. Those that know me will know just how much I put into it and that I can agonise over every pixel. Anyway, I hope you like what you see here and keep returning to see what new artwork I have to offer.

Now, what I did this evening, other than testing a game that I worked on - but more on that later - was something that I was quite interested in doing. I create these Spectrum graphics on a PC using Photoshop and a utility called SevenUp, which is a Spectrum graphics utility, but sometimes I just want to see what I do loaded up on a real ZX Spectrum and appearing right there on my telly. This evening I did that with all my GTA Vice City and Red Dead Redemption loading screens. It's also a way of showing those people that say, "Naaah, that wasn't done on a Spectrum."

So, let's begin.

Here we are all set up and ready to go. My, that's a thing of beauty, isn't it? That's a ZX Spectrum+128 there, the PSU humming away just off camera like the sound emanating from a Nuclear Reactor*. Although, you can't see it very well, the 128 Menu is displayed and I'm going to go old-skool and switch to 48 Basic.

*may not be true.

That's some efficient coding right there.
Each panel is a SCREEN$ and will be loaded separately, overwriting the previous one. I've got a pause after each one is loaded so I can take a photo. A simple key press will load the other once a press play on the tape again, of course.

Oh, now that's art!

 The beauty of attributes.

I don't blame you for checking out my door reflected on the screen. As doors go, it's something to behold. It's also lucky that I wasn't naked while taking these photos. Or was I!?

Here we are on the Diaz panel. This is my favourite panel of the lot. Just. I love them all, of course, but there's just something about this that I love.

Finally, we are now onto the Red Dead Redemption loading screens...

John Marston looking better than I thought in glorious monochrome.

I hope you've not lost interest by now. I was excited to see something that I created working on the thing it was made for. The slightly blurry analogue images just adding to the overwhelming feeling I was getting tonight.....okay, enough....MOAR ARTWORK to come.