I’ve been really out of the drawing loop and ESPECIALLY the photoshop loop. I rarely touched photoshop because I got my first tablet only a couple Christmases ago as a wonderful gift from my brother Drake. I could barely afford to shelve out for a cheap one with insurance payments, phone and whatnot.
I sketch - barely anymore - and have just felt this lackluster in drawing like I did with my writing.
Once more though I’ve punched myself out of this monotonous loop where I work, maybe hang out with friends, only to tiredly just flop and nap, or not do anything at all.
My reignite, hilariously, comes from the Portal fandom again. Specifically the one and only Bonka-chan as she come to be known by her loving stream watchers and friends.
So, to get some free-hand tablet sketching in with some line experiments and show my love to beautiful, incandescent Bonka-chan - HAVE A ROCKIN’ OUT WHEATLEY.
Hopefully conveying this new groove that has me goin’ - all smiles, nonstop - as well as helping anyone that’s in that sort of rut that I’m still gradually workin’ myself out of!
Nobody ever passed. Aperture had hired the biggest, toughest test subjects from around the world: astronauts, athletes, war heroes. And sooner or later, every single one of them had reached the point where their equipment broke, or their legs broke, or their wills broke… but not her. But this wiry Brazilian gymnast had done what none of the others could do, and made it to the final chamber.
Her contract stipulated that she be rewarded with cake and a lump sum that would keep her in comfort for the rest of her life, but they couldn’t possibly do that. Not when she’d passed. After all, the technology was bound to improve. What would they do when they’d redesigned the whole testing process and made all their old data irrelevant? No, no, they needed subjects like her far too badly to just pay her and let her go.
So they told her there was one more round of testing to do, and put her in storage. When the Brazilian government came looking for the woman who’d won them three gold medals, they altered her name in their files, using only her nickname and removing her surname so that nobody could prove Aperture still had her. When they needed her, she’d be there.
I’m at work so I can’t say much atm, but YES, GOOD. This is a Chell backstory I can get behind, and I like that it’s still vague enough that more details could potentially be added in the future.
Urrguuuh I do not have the words to express how much I love and support this idea.
Check out this fantastic animation of Chell in the rain! Someone did an amazing job!
Oh, so this is where that gif is from!
I’M GONNA CRY ;;
HNGHSDKFJ.
Remember that time I dressed up as Captain America, Annie dressed up as Thor and Lexie dressed up as Batman, then we went out to party in Chicago?
Also remember that time I couldn’t think of who my friend Robbie from New Zealand looked like until it hit me that he was some hybrid of a bunch of human Wheatleys.
An instrumental mashup? That’s right. Here’s this cool juxtaposition of the “Science is Fun” track from Portal 2 with the end credits theme from Tron Legacy. Could this get any nerdier?
Wow. What a cast — we have Ellen McLain as the unflappable GLaDOS.
She adds so much to the role, and I don’t believe it would be the same without her. The passive-aggressive matronly way she insults you throughout the course of the game, and then eventually decides to team up with you (reluctantly). It really took a lot of talent and expression in order to bring across the roles of both GLaDOS and Caroline effectively, but Ellen McLain nailed it.
Next we have the one and only Stephen Merchant as bumbling little Wheatley. It almost seems as if Wheatley would have been more suited to Merchant’s cohort, Karl Pilkington, what with the loveable idiocy of the role. Maybe this is why Stephen Merchant was able to bring Wheatley to life so well — because he works closely with a real-life version of him. Apparently the recording sessions were so intense that Merchant thought about not finishing, and then said he’d never do voice acting again. Once the fans responded to his characterization of Wheatley, however, he said he would gladly come back to voice him in future titles (if we ever see them that is).
Finally: my main man J.K. Simmons as my other main man Cave Johnson. Who else could voice a slightly-insane-country-boy-turned-science-exec? With lines about Mantis Men, gasoline for blood, and in the case of the Perpetual Testing Initiative — many Caves (including Sensitive Cave, Cat Johnson, Mantis-Man Johnson, Michigan Slim Cave Johnson, and others) he really took this character to a whole other level of intensity and insanity which fit in perfectly with the realm of Portal and Portal 2.
There may be other fine voice acting in games, but none as touching, funny and sometimes frightening as those in Portal 2.
