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RichardAHallett

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I have now watched the anime Attack on Titan.

I have now changed the name of one of the characters in a book I am planning and have written an outline for.

It is an odd feeling to notice, when watching something I have never watched before, that there are that many similarities to something I'm making. The stories, worlds, and characters are very different, but the things it did have in common were enough to get me to, at the very least, change the name of my character.

(Major spoilers for Attack on Titan follow.)

In both things, one of the main characters is a white-skinned, brown-haired character named Eren. Eren lives in a fantasy world where most of the planet is unsafe for humans so is believed to be uninhabited. There are giants in that world. Something important about Eren's nature is due to something a parent/their parents did to them. Eren gets the powers of a type of vicious, non-human monster that does not need to eat but hunts humans anyway. While using these powers, Eren's eyes glow green. How much control Eren has over themself, whether they will just become another one of those monsters and lose their humanity, is a major plot point. One of the other main characters is a girl who grew up in the same household as Eren and is worried for them and tries to help.

(End of Attack on Titan spoilers.)

So, yeah, I changed her name.

I had originally named the character Eryn, a kind of fantasy-ish different spelling of Erin. Then, thinking that was lame, I changed her name to Eren, so it would be pronounced differently hence had a reason to be spelled differently other than just looking less usual. For now, I have changed her name to Jen, but seeing as I haven't even yet started writing the first draft of the current version of that book (I am currently focussing on making a computer game set in the same world, and I am likely going to write at least one other book first to become a better writer) nothing is final.

Jen and Mertag by RichardAHallett
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In response to Celebrate DeviantArt's 15th Birthday!As DeviantArt enters its 15th year on the Internet, we want to take a moment before blowing out our candles to thank the community for allowing us the honor of hosting the site that you call your home for art. After all, it's the community's 15th birthday, too, and in the past few months, we've been making it our top priority to share with you our plans for the future, celebrate the successes of our past, and look to you for guidance on how best we can serve each of you while entering this new phase of DeviantArt's existence.
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As DeviantArt enters its 15th year on the Internet, we want to take a moment before blowing out our candles to thank the community for allowing us the honor of hosting the site that you call your

  1. How long have you been on DeviantArt? About 10 years, according to my profile page. Since I was in secondary school.

  2. What does your username mean? It is my name. I include the A because I hope to someday become a published author, and there are already published books by someone named Richard Hallett. I don't include my full middle name, Arthur, because Richard Arthur Hallett is a bit too long a name to brand myself as, I think.

  3. Describe yourself in three words. Imaginative. Ambitious. Depressed.

  4. Are you left or right handed? I am right-handed. More so even than I was when I was younger, because I have minor nerve damage in my left hand from an accident with a glass in which I saw my tendons and had to have one stitch to hold my wrist together so it could heal.

  5. What was your first deviation? The oldest one still in my gallery is a poem named Affliction:

      I am not completely certain whether that was the first thing I submitted though.

  6. What is your favourite type of art to create? I get different enjoyment from making different forms of art. I love writing and drawing. Currently the thing I find the most fulfilling is solo computer game development, doing all the code and sprites and sound effects myself. I am currently making a top-down fantasy combat game called Nightmare Arena.

  7. If you could instantly master a different art style, what would it be? Realistic digital painting.

  8. What was your first favourite? Apparently it was Frozen Wasteland: Frozen Wasteland by nakiro

  9. What type of art do you tend to favourite the most? Digital paintings of visually interesting characters.

  10. Who is your all-time favourite deviant artist? Difficult to choose, but maybe Kate-FoX. Got to admire someone who is so good at such a variety of styles. Random portrait by Kate-FoX Fairy by Kate-FoX Dive by Kate-FoX Lights by Kate-FoX

  11. If you could meet anyone on DeviantArt in person, who would it be? I don't know. I lack confidence and feel very nervous when meeting people I don't already know, so to be honest maybe no-one.

  12. How has a fellow deviant impacted your life? In general receiving positive or useful feedback from people here on DA has helped a bit with my self confidence. Every favourite or positive comment on my artwork has helped me feel that I can create things people can enjoy, which is one of the pillars my shaky self esteem rests on.

  13. What are your preferred tools to create art?  For digital art and photo post-processing, I use and love Photoshop CS4. For text stuff, Notepad++. For traditional art, I like pencils, coloured pencils, and oil pastels. For computer game development, I am currently still on my first project and am using GameMaker: Studio.

  14. What is the most inspirational place for you to create art? I dunno about inspirational, but the place I get the most done is the living room in my flat, where my computer is. It is my safe refuge, where I am in control and where there are few distractions.

  15. What is your favourite DeviantArt memory? When my good friend SplodgeOfDoom got a daily deviation.

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After a lot of seemingly-futile struggling against depression, anxiety and creative block, I am finally writing again.

I have written 1.5 chapters so far (amazing! /s) of the new version of my fantasy story starring Eren and Mertag. I have masses of notes, and while I don't have a written outline this time, I know the gist of the story, the characters, the world, the history, the magic, what I want to include and what is outside the scope of this first tale. I always seemed to get lost iterating on the outline and never getting any prose written, and when I did write prose I inevitably discovery-wrote slightly away from the outline and then got bogged down revising the outline to include the changes I had wrought in one writing session. So no outline this time. I don't interact well with precise planning, it would seem.

Jen and Mertag by RichardAHallett

Of all the stuff relating to it I have done concept art of over the years, Eren and Mertag (previously named Eryn and Cameron) are the only characters who are still in the first story set in that world.

Lots of the things I did concept art of, such as the character Gorph (later renamed to Hyl, when I no longer thought frog spelled backward was a clever character name - I have been developing this story/world for a long time), the goblins (such as the Goblin Raider), the elves (such as in this picture of Laeana exploring the Southside Dungeon in some location that's no longer relevant) are no longer part of that world at all. In the process of refining thing, deciding what I wanted the story to be, I realised there was no need for non-human sapient races living alongside the humans. It is needless complexity, which younger me included because that was what I assumed I had to do when writing a fantasy story.

Lots of characters, including Eren and Mertag, and also the mercenary monster-hunter Brutus (now probably named Brut) and the elven adventurer/spy/guard/mage Laeana (now probably a male human named Laean), have changed in various ways. Things like names, backstories and genders. Brut and Laean aren't in this first story anyway though, so I am intentionally not giving them too much thought right now.

Mertag (previously Cameron) is now female because I felt it made her mind-linked twin relationship with Eren fit better, and because I didn't want to, like I mentioned in the paragraph before last, just do things because that is the normal way lots of fantasy stories go - in this case the main perspective character being a competent, powerful straight white male orphan. They are not orphans any more either. God, I was such a generic hack when I was younger.

I settled on the name Mertag by deriving it from Murdoch/Murtagh, an Irish name meaning navigator or skilled-sea-going-person. It seemed to fit, as Eren (previously Eryn) is obviously derived from the Irish name Erin, meaning Ireland. Mertag fits better than Cameron, anyway, as Cameron is a Scottish name meaning crooked-nose. The name meanings have never really had any relevance to the story, I just wanted people from the same tribe to have names that kind of sound like they come from the same culture.

While in some ways I wish I could release the story as a web serial, in a similar format to the absolutely brilliant Worm by wildbow, I am not confident enough in my prose yet to do so. Instead I am going to try to get an entire first draft finished and then edit it and look into publishing/distribution options once/if I feel it is good enough.

Also, I haven't thought of a new title yet. Previous ideas include Char Grilled, which is just silly, Voidlight, which no longer has any link to the story at all, and Faeglow, which is relevant but I don't particularly love. If it has to have a title, Faeglow kind of works for now. Alternatively, its title in the document I am typing it in is The First Story about Mertag and Eren. Snappy.

Could be that this will be the start of a vast fanstasy series with many novels set in it. Could be the embarrassing practice novel that I write before my first actually good one. Could be that I get part way through then my depression gets bad enough again that I can't bring myself to write. We'll see.

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Years ago, I made some user levels in the LittleBigPlanet games on the PlayStation 3. LittleBigPlanet is a platforming game series which lets users create their own levels, but the tools it gives the player are so powerful that you can make much more than just platforming levels. I found the process very enjoyable and I am quite happy with how some of them turned out. I am going to list them here, in reverse-chronological order and with links to the official website listing for them, in case anyone is interested.

Made in LittleBigPlanet 2:
The Ever-Shifting Lightning Zombie Grapple Arena A survival challenge, using grapple hooks to navigate a transforming maze while being chased by angry, electrified zombies. Can be done solo or multiplayer.
Retro City Blitz Defender This is a completely custom game mode, not using the platforming gameplay. I based it on the gameplay of an old typing shooter we had on a DOS computer, where bombs in the form of various keyboard characters would fall toward the pixel city at the bottom of the screen and you could press the corresponding keyboard button to shoot them down. As opposed to making them simply explode, I implemented a laser cannon which swings around to aim at the nearest bomb corresponding to the controller button you press then blasts it out of the sky. It works perfectly, most of the time.
Dragon Attack in Scuttlebug Swamp A platforming level with a steampunk-fantasy storyline. I am quite pleased with the gamplay, aesthetic and NPC interactions. It is a remix of my LittleBigPlanet level The Swamp of Devastation, using the more powerful level design tools available in LittleBigPlanet 2.

Made in LittleBigPlanet:
Frankenstein's Monster: Boss Battle An abandoned concept for a final boss battle for The Swamp of Devastation, built as a standalone, if brief, combat platforming level.
MGS VR Training: Snow Guards & Flying Diamonds A brief level in which I attempt to reimplement some of the gameplay and aesthetic from the original Metal Gear Solid expansion pack Special Missions, one of my first favourite games, using the materials and stuff added in the Metal Gear Solid expansion pack for LittleBigPlanet.
The Swamp of Devastation A journey through a fantasy swamp, filled with dangerous insects and territorial dragons. A straightforward platforming adventure.
Rotary Checkpoint Arrays A tech demo of a feature I made just before an update made it totally redundant. Not that I am complaining. Shows they agreed that running out of respawn charges was a problem. And having properly implemented infinite-checkpoints works way better than sticking lots of checkpoints together and spinning them around.
Tank Rush A mixture of platforming and driving a big, heavy tank forward and blowing stuff up, in a snowy mountainous environment. It is relatively simple, just driving and jump-and-swing platforming, but I feel quite nostalgic over it because it was my first LBP level.

I would so very much love for there to be a sequel to LittleBigPlanet on PC, but with Sony owning the developers, MediaMolecule, I doubt that is going to happen. Still, I am pretty sure that a free-to-play PC version with payed-for expansion packs introducing new building materials and gameplay features (like the expansions to the PS3 games), released via Steam, would make more money and build a larger more active community than the PlayStation 3 versions ever had.

I have been playing Star Trek Online a bit recently and have been considering making a Foundry level for it. Foundry is Star Trek Online's system for user generated content (UGC), and while it is nowhere near as powerful as LittleBigPlanet's UGC systems, it is alright.

I basically just wish there was a LBP-like UGC platform on PC with the same kind of fun, creative atmosphere and an active community. I have considered making an adventure map for Minecraft, but I don't have many ideas for that which haven't been done before gameplay-wise so it would probably end up being a standard fantasy quest, which has been pretty much done to death in Minecraft adventure maps. Also, from what I have seen of it, the process of making adventure maps for Minecraft seems very time-consuming and dull.

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I have finished the detailed outline for the first volume of the my fantasy series. I am now writing some short stories to get into the flow before writing the first full draft of the novel.

Some history: it is a fantasy story which I have been working on for years. I tried doing it as a webcomic but failed. Twice. I kept wanting to go too much into narration and struggled to keep up any sort of pace or quality in the artwork. I eventually realised that I am much better suited to being a writer than a webcomic artist, so I decided to follow that path. I am planning for it to be two trilogies.

Artwork, both ancient and not at all related to the current version and recent and very related to the current version can be seen in my Fantasy Series Concept Art gallery folder. Despite being predominantly a writer I think very visually, so I tend to do concept art as being able to properly visualise something helps me describe it. Not that I can't visualise my characters, scenes, etc- I can. I just like to be able to look at something and think That is what ~ looks like. Of course, ideas change over time and I like to experiment with ideas by doing concept art of it, so the vast majority even of what's submitted here, which in itself is a tiny fraction, is not right.

So, onward!

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Featured

Character name coincidence and change by RichardAHallett, journal

DeviantArtist Questionnaire by RichardAHallett, journal

Fantasy story progress by RichardAHallett, journal

LittleBigPlanet and other UGC by RichardAHallett, journal

Outline complete, now to write a book! by RichardAHallett, journal