harlancore

Wow, that’s the longest break yet, I think. My apologies to anyone coming here to see something new and finding nothing but Go-Go’s videos. But sometimes that’s how I roll.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a pretty random and occasionally unreliable person. I am easily distracted. Like many of you, I like to observe art, not just make it. I spend a lot of time saving different universes in video games as well. Typically I become really distracted when I am into a game. I am almost always into a game. Be it old or new, something pixelated or polygonal has my attention. It’s amazing how I make any papercraft at all considering how many games I have played or am currently playing.

You could separate the games I like into two categories: The good and the EPIC. The good are the games I am playing over long periods of time, stopping occasionally to play something else, but always coming back to, devoting a bunch of time to, then switching again.

The epic are the ones that skip good status and go straight from tryout to epic. Tryout status is of course any game I play and either don’t know if I like it yet, or didn’t like but tried it out. Epic status is a game that once I start, I play it all the way to the end with very few if any breaks before playing another game. There are always breaks, but few if a game REALLY impresses me for any reason. So both good and epic games are games that I think are a lot of fun.

BUT…there are epic games that are good games, meaning, ones that are just so long that I will inevitably TRYOUT a game that becomes EPIC keeping me away from the other epic game I was playing. Are you still with me?

Plus older games are just longer than newer games. I am still playing many old games, specifically playstation one games. Right now I am playing Dragon Warrior 7. I bought it way back in the day, and when I flipped the manual around I saw an advertisement for Dragon Warrior IV coming 2002. So I thought cool, they are going to remake the old games, some of which we never got here. Instead of playing number 7 I shelved it, waiting for the remakes. They never happened, until more recently of course, and on the nintendo DS instead of the playstation 1, and I have played both the Dragon Quest IV and Dragon Quest V remakes and loved both. I am still running around both worlds finding new things, these are two very long, very robust, old-school classic role playing games, I highly recommend them!

So, uh, anyway…I had to go and grab that dusty but now wonderfully attractive Dragon Warrior Seven for Sony playstation one! off of the shelf and find out what it was all about. Boy was I in for a shock.

This game was pretty much set up in the same style as the DS remakes, but this was the precursor, or whatever, regardless, its just more and more of the same but more. Does that make sense? When I started it I couldn’t put it down, it had become epic rather quickly, and I was loving it. Definitely a game where the beauty just unfolds before your eyes, and this game does that masterfully. To put it simply, in the beginning your world is very small, and it opens before you in a way that I can only compare to one of the most classic of old school rpgs, Chrono Trigger. For me to compare a game to that game, that is serious stuff, and I am serious, Dragon Quest VII is an awesome game, if you love old school rpgs of course. If not, err…I….uh….

So you can imagine me being pretty confused when I was in the xbox 360 aisle of the local Fryes department store holding a copy of Final Fantasy XIII on release day. In the back of my mind I was afraid to stop playing DQVII for as long as I suspected the game in my hand would cause. But unfortunately there was enough cash in my pocket to afford it so I was powerless to prevent myself from buying it (I tried to fight these urges in the past, I always fail) so I went home with it because you know, it was FINAL FANTASY XIII.

What do I think about it?

I think it is good, and if you like old school or new school rpgs you already have it, or have at least tried it out.

I will definitely be playing FFXIII to the end. Taking breaks occasionally to play DQVII.

Red Dead Redemption is on the horizon.

And I am trying to finish repainting the couple hundred WARHAMMER 40,000 miniatures I have collected over the past, wow, has it been twenty years? That’s incredible. But the last game I played was about 10 years ago!

The armies I built were space marines, chaos space marines, and Eldar. Vin and I have been painting and modding old stuff like fiends. Not just minis, but terrain as well. It has been, just as it was in the past, before the internet, a perfect way of clearing my mind and giving me some peace and some focus. If I am ever going to make a new boxpunx series I need time to THINK!

Looking back at all the series, I feel like I have covered so much of the landscape of my mind. At least the less than horrible parts I am willing to share, hehe.

Boxpunx basically tells a story about me. Every model gives a little insight into what I like, or what I think.

Which games do I like? It’s all in there.

Toys, shows, movies, genres, all kinds of things that entertained me through out my life. Not just anything, but things I really liked. I don’t want to just make a model about anything, I want it to have a special meaning to me. I imagine any one who designs a toy thinks and feels this way.

My political and religious views are in there. Some morality. Some tongue in cheek. I like comedy. I do not wish to know someone who doesn’t.

Hell, the last batch were a bunch of band T-shirts, because I couldn’t think of anything else I really really liked that I hadn’t done yet, except perhaps music.

Which bring us to now, I am trying to come up with something original. The problem is I haven’t come up with the ONE yet. That model that goes from TRYOUT straight to EPIC status, skipping GOOD entirely.

When I do get there, I will let you know. In the meantime, I hope you don’t mind the WH40K pics that are going to come soon.

I played first and second edition 40K heavily and now here we have returned to it in it’s fifth edition. Vin and I are still learning the new rules, but we have a few battles under our belts (right now we are just pitting space marines against orks, and I have more losses than wins! Those orks are tough! And there is too many of them COMING!)

Oh well. Life is random. Did I mention I had to go to the hospital? That was crazy, my face puffed up like a balloon! Once drained of whatever puffed me up I had to have an infected tooth removed. Very brutal. It’s gone now. The worst part is I have no insurance of any kind.

God bless America & Skulls for the Skull Throne.

I am still working on my little fiction story. I have 12 chapters of a rough draft going so far. I still have no intentions of pursuing writing over drawing and painting, but it has been fun doing it, and once it is finished, if it is something I am proud of, I will share it. If not, I will write something new. At least that’s what I Imagine I will do.

And I killed HEAVY PAPER for now. Maybe I will resurrect it with some black magic voodoo at a later date. The art I was making for it, I will just show here as I complete it over a longer period of time. The content still exists, but the format has changed, really.

I will try make a new Boxpunx about something I like next post, I want to make something 40K related, but I just haven’t nailed an attractive concept yet.

Forgive me if I don’t consider suggestions very well, but I still appreciate them, so if you want, send them! I just can’t guarantee I will ever make them! Sorry! Download the template and ask your artist friend to make you one. Don’t ask him or her to make you a whole series though, as they may have a lot on their plate already.

If you don’t have an artist friend, I suggest you get one.

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Oh my goodness! An update! It has really been a while this time. I really don’t have anything to show, only a few words to share.

Let’s get right to it, the subject of this post. I have decided to take a break from making papercraft and plan to put BOXPUNX on the back burner for a while. That only means one thing: I won’t be making new boxpunx models.

But, remember, before that thought sets in, remember that there are over 300 boxpunx models in circulation right now. A handful of blank templates waiting for people to draw all over. Boxpunx still EXISTS, I am just not making new ones.

Why not? It’s simple: I am tired. Even now, I sit here in my room, continuously drinking coffee after coffee, I think I am like on cup number twelve, yet I am still tired. I am so drowsy. Also, I really want to stop and think about new ideas, allow time for improvement, revelation, and evolution.

I watched this podcast called Lynchland, starring the very talented and very funny Liam Lynch, and I not only loved the brilliance of it, it inspired me to want to do more. Although I don’t know what “more” exactly means, I do know I have some unfinished business outside the realm of papercraft.

What I plan to do FIRST is something that probably NONE of my papercraft fans are going to like, or even care about in the slightest. That’s ok with me, because like I said, BOXPUNX Still exists, and I will one day, return to it. I Know I will. But anyone who knows anything about me knows I also like to draw, make music, and WRITE.

After reading THE DARK TOWER I was so very inspired to finish something I started on long ago. This crazy story idea I have had for a while, kind of a biography but one that isn’t true at all really, only some of it, but for the most part it is a fantasy story. It’s not a papercraft story, that’s for sure.

Writing is not a new thing for me. I have always liked writing, drawing, and making music. For the most part I think the music I make is something only I will ever enjoy, and I say that because it has never garnered the kind of response I get from my drawings or prose, most just kind of hurridly leave the room to avoid saying much. Again, that’s ok, I know with the music I try so hard to make something unique that the average person will find it unlistenable. Whatever. ^^

I can draw well, but I am no Da Vinci. I am not sure I want to be either, but I figure I will always draw. Period.

But what about writing? Well, I have always written. Poetry, stories, or role playing game campaigns. I never thought of myself as a “novelist”, simply because most of the things I write I have always thought would be less enjoyable than my music. Ever heard of an artist being his own worst critic? It’s so very true. Ask anyone who thinks he or she is an artist.

After reading a few books and seeing a few things in a way I had never seen them before gave me the strength (and courage!) to not only try to turn this series of stories banging around in my head into a full blown novel, but one that I might actually share with people.

So, in order to do this right, I need a re-education. I want to learn about a million things, one of which is grammar. A refresher course in all that is punctuation. It will take time, to learn what I need and then to actually do the work. I have already done an outline, one that gets more extensive everyday, and the introduction along with the first four chapters are written as we speak. I already know how its going to end. If it is good, I already know what book two and three will be about. Pieces of this story started forming when I was about 16, only now at age 30-something do I find myself fleshing it out, and can see it becoming more real with every word I type.

What does this mean for HEAVY PAPER? Well, you can maybe blame HEAVY PAPER ultimately for all of this. I wanted to make a comic strip, based on a different story idea I had, this one centered on BOXPUNX and papercraft, but full of crazy things as well. But when I got about 30 pages in, I couldn’t help but feeling I was putting a tremendous amount of effort into the wrong damn thing.

Why don’t you stop all this unnecessary madness, and write Damien’s fucking story already?

The world does not need a new papercraft zine, at least not of the sort I was making! I may still finish the first issue someday, if only to not completely waste what was done, but in all honesty, the comic strip was so AMBITIOUS that coloring one page could take days! It looks beautiful, I still want to show it off, but I don’t think it will be done anytime soon, it is so exhausting!

Anyway, I think that is enough of an explanation. If you are new to this site and my world, please, don’t think you missed out on BOXPUNX because there are still 100′s of posts here to browse, and 100′s of models here for you to download. If you cannot constructively kill an hour here at my site, even if it hasn’t been updated for months, then I really should take the whole thing down, because I have failed in what I have tried to do. Which was to create a website with substance, centered around topics I love.

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Happy new year.

Maybe I should have posted that on January 1st. I think I may have even wanted to. It is hard to say, so much has happened since the last time I posted something. Dec 24th was it? ( I had to cheat to know that of course^^) Not that long ago, but it seems much longer.

For the most part, I have been working hard on HEAVY PAPER, trying to create a sort of sample issue, something I could parade around to other artists who might be interested in the concept. I also have been playing Dungeons & Dragons with my roommates. This is something nerds like me do. We haven’t played it in weeks though, further back than the last post even, but it is worth noting that over the years we have made characters on more than one occasion, played thru various modules, tried different classes, had various types of fun. So even though we don’t play all the time, we do play often enough that it would be fair to say we are always in the middle of an adventure.

I had been thinking for a while that I might like to run a game. I have before, but it has been a while. I have run games using various systems, ranging from D&D to Mage: the ascension to Cyberpunk 2020. Vin and I together have run live action Vampire: the masquerade games, on more than one occasion…full-on hardcore nerd and lovin’ it, thankee-sai.

If you hadn’t got this before, the boxpunx photographer and the boxpunx creator are very good friends. Boxpunx wouldn’t be what it is without his touch.

What was I going to say again? Oh yeah, what it is I had been doing recently….so anyway I wanted to write a game and after playing Fallout 3 I thought what a beautiful time to run a Gamma World adventure! Let’s play the first three modules, old rules and all. I even as time went by decided to not just play using the old stuff, but to maybe “re-write” the old stuff, just enough, so that my friends and I could play with the old flavor, but with my own twist.

This is also something nerds like me do.

That was when Vin insisted I go and see Roland first. I really needed to. In a way I knew that I needed to, it came up too often. I guess now was as good a time as any.

Harlancore began following the gunslinger, who was following the man in black.

Vin suggested, “Before you write a Gamma World adventure, maybe you should read The Dark Tower!“. So I did.

Or I should say, so I am. I am not done yet, it’s a seven-book long series, and I am somewhere in the middle of book 5 at the moment, “Wolves of the Calla”. I am not going to say anything about the story. Not a word. But I will state a few things and then briskly move on.

1.) I have never read a Stephen King book before now, but have seen pretty much every film and TV mini-series. Although I know the books are better. ( How can I not? it’s the kind of thing people never stop saying! )
2.) I have heard about The Dark Tower books from someone somewhere pretty much since they came out. Seemingly all my life, and always glowingly.
3.) I have spent perhaps too much time dedicated to reading mostly comic books. Perhaps way too much.
4.) I am madly madly in love with these books! It’s like the coolest RPG I have ever played, entirely in my own head!

It hasn’t completely distracted me though, on certain days definitely, it couldn’t be helped really, but for the most part, a large chunk of time has been dedicated to the new project. I am so very close to being so very close. I need to make a couple new models and post them to pass the time. Maybe I will go do that now…( …as I reach for the Stephen King book lying by the bed…calling me…Ka is like the wind… )

Next time I will post something actually from the ‘zine, like maybe the cover or an un-colored page from the boxpunx comic strip. You can see some of the photos Vin has taken NOW if you can find his link in my blogroll, it’s called VIN’S TUMBLR SITE. Good luck. Here’s a clue: it’s alphabetical…

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Here are a couple photos uploaded to Nice Paper Toys by member ANDRE. The bottom two shelves of the above image show almost every boxpunx model I have made all side by side below some of the coolest models out there by a number of my favorite designers! Such a wonderful image, thanks for sharing Andre! Below is a group shot of the calling all cars series, also from Andre, very nice!

Recently I was interviewed by a really cool website called GEEK BY DESIGN. If you want to read what Angela and I had to talk about, please click this link:

HARLANCORE GEEK OF THE WEEK!

There is a lot of other interesting content at that site as well, be sure to look around!

No new models yet, but I am continuing work on the papercraft zine idea I mentioned last post. I don’t want to say too much, but as soon as I finish the cover, I will post at least post that, ultimately making it official. I feel like I have some cool ideas, and I am taking this very seriously.

I am sure the turkey is getting cold, so I better go. Did I mention I am up to my neck in the game Dragon Age: Origins? If I didn’t, well I am. Also, this is the trailer for something insane I was recently introduced to, DETROIT METAL CITY. What does it all mean? You tell me.

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