PIGSQUAD DAY and other things
Posted: April 4, 2012 Filed under: Animation, Art, Events, Failsafe Clothing, Games, Music, PIGSquad | Tags: ah, fun, happy, inspired, lol, stuff Leave a comment »So yesterday was PIGSquad Day! As of yesterday, it’s been one year since the first Portland Indie Game Squad meeting took place, and it totally shows! There are about 20 of us who are showing up to a vast majority of events/meetings with a huge pool of irregulars who stop by/say hi every once and awhile, we’ve hosted chiptune shows, held OMSI exhibitions, met regularly every month, curated two Game Jams, etc. etc. etc.! So many of us are coming out with our first games (some our second and third) with the support of everyone in our great community, and it’s been a wonderful experience! Makes me want a GROUP PHOTO.
But alas. No group photo 
This past week, we helped host Indie Game: The Movie (a very very very very inspiring experience, to say the least), held a discussion about crowd funding and indie game projects at Portland’s Barcamp, and had a general meeting on our normal Sunday day day! After dreading such a busy half week and then thoroughly enjoying the whole thing, I’m super excited. Not only am I crawling with ideas – I’m ready to capitalize on so many projects. Space Eulogy, So There’s This Game (finally), Bullet William, Failsafe stuff, some album art for a friend, new business cards, the arcade cabinet, a music making contest… ETC.
ETC. I SAY. ETC.!
What are you working on!?!?!?!?
Last Day at the Failsafe Shop!
Posted: January 28, 2012 Filed under: Art, Events, Failsafe Clothing, Music, PIGSquad | Tags: apparel, bar, beer, clothing, decals, drunk, ggj, moving, party, stunna shades, vinyl 2 Comments »So today was the last day that the Failsafe storefront was open. To commemorate the year we had, we threw a huge party last weekend at Pioneer Pub in Oregon City, and it turned out to be a blast. We invaded one of the regular EDM Sunday nights that’s hosted by DJ Downpour and accented by Maltron and Gnarkill, threw out free shirts/beer/fake mustaches/stunna shades, and danced the night away! It was a great way to see the store off with a bang, and we’re super stoked about the stunna shades idea because they turned out to be DOPE.
So yeah, it was a fun year. As I’ve said in the past, I learned a lot, we made some sick stuff, and had fun while it lasted, but we’re making the right move by moving out of a storefront we don’t need. Online outlets will be up and running soon, which you’ll hear about when we announce something on the Facebook or update the website or whateverr. Always feel free to let us know if you need any ‘o that sweet sweet swag, and we’ll see what we can do!
I’m also writing this while at Global Game Jam 2012, which we’re currently just over half way through with at 25 hours. More on that after the fact, but, in case everything goes to shit for whatever reason, I must say that everything’s been going very well thus far!
January 2012 PIGSquad Meeting
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Events, Failsafe Clothing, PIGSquad | Tags: event coordination, game jam, global game jam, i need to go to sleep, indie games, meeting, networking, videogames Leave a comment »Quick post before bed. The PIGSquad meeting to precede the fast upcoming Global Game Jam 2012 had much to do with this weekend – we had quite a few new people show up to the meeting to ask about some Jam logistics, and I got some great feedback. Members are very interested in having suggested deadlines for the event, I was told to look out for data loss issues on the Art Institute’s computers, and there was a good point brought up about the resources necessary for the brainstorming portion of the first night (I’m not sure there’s as much whiteboard space as there was at the Halloween PIGJam). As of RIGHT NOW, there are 51 Jammers registered, and I have yet to make the suggested schedule for the weekend, solidify ideas for icebreaker activities at the beginning of the night, coordinate food help, figure out the keynote video, and figure out the upload process. Oof.
In other news, I’ve been making great progress on the Space Funeral project, and I still need to report in on how the Failsafe Moving Party went, which was held the same night as THIS VERY PIGSQUAD MEETING (dun dun DUN). More to come lata, I g2g2sleep.
Stoked for the Failsafe Moving Party and PIGSquad Stuff!
Posted: January 13, 2012 Filed under: Events, Failsafe Clothing, Games, Music, PIGSquad | Tags: closing, clothing, DJ, events, game jam, global game jam, live music, networking, party, promotion, stickers, vinyl 2 Comments »Whoa man! Today’s got me stoked; I’ve been slinging links left ‘n right for the Failsafe Moving Party, the Global Game Jam, and the first PIGSquad meeting we will’ve had in a month and a half!
Failsafe’s hopefully gonna turn out to be insane (cray, at the very least). DJs Downpour and Maltron will be killing it with a regular EDM Sunday at Pioneer Pub, and Logan and I are hoping to pull in the entirety of Oregon City to raise a ruckus. We’re throwing out free shirts, buying people drinks, making it rain (Cash/Stickers/Pokemon cards), and distributing other various goodies all night. We’ve got a dance party at 10. We’ll be wearing sunglasses at night. It’ll be off the Hook. We’re all ready to party, but are YOU? I want everyone I know to spread this link around as much as they can so that >329402305 people show up. The fate of Failsafe (Fatesafe) depends on it.
And this whole deal is taking place right after this month’s PIGSquad meeting, at which we’ll be talking a lot about the Global Game Jam! I juuust responded to a couple of e-mails regarding the Jam, and we’ve got about 33 participants signed up already! Our max is approx. 50, so if you’re lookin’ to Jam and Jam hard, you best register, gameboy!
WAT an excellent month.
January 2012 PDXFC Meeting
Posted: January 10, 2012 Filed under: Events, Failsafe Clothing, Film, Music, PDX Film Collective | Tags: EDM, film, filmmaker, local, meetup, nonprofit, party, pubby mcpubberson Leave a comment »Last Sunday’s PDX Film Collective meeting was awesome! Sasha, Anthony, and I have been meeting super consistently as a leadership team to delve further and further into what it means to become a nonprofit corporation, and I’m very impressed with how organized we’ve become. In addition to being in the middle of writing bylaws/contacting venues for events/coming up with some great marketing opportunities, we nailed our previous meeting by being prepared and in sync (AKA N’SYNC).
We invited local filmmaker Justin Alpern to give a presentation on the filmmaking workshops he’ll be offering to the Collective in the near future, and he gave a quick 2-point lighting demo/showed a short to further demonstrate that he’s a great guy who knows what he’s doing. Members Ben Mercer and Josh Lunden then showed their short film, “Thieves,” which I still hadn’t seen (though I was on set at one point), and we continued on with the regular meeting. Afterwards, my first film teacher and continued friend Kelley Baker (AKA The Angry Filmmaker) stayed behind for some conversation. The flow and structure of the meeting was a wild success in my opinion, and I’m stoked to be surrounded by so many enthusiastic, fun people (and filmmakers I GUESS).
Went to my friend‘s EDM Sundays at Pioneer Pub afterwards, and I’m glad that Logan and I will be throwing some Failsafe moving parties in that setting on the 22nd and 29th. That’s right, we’ll be having a bit of partytime since we’re moving out of the Molalla shop at the end of the month! Follow us on Facebook ‘n schtuff for deets ‘n all that..!
HERE’S A PICTURE OF THAT PUBBIE LATE AT NIGHT.
The Failsafe shop is closing..!
Posted: January 2, 2012 Filed under: Art, Failsafe Clothing | Tags: art, christmas, clothing, design, local business, shirts, stickers, tees, vinyl 2 Comments »Yes, it’s true. Logan and I have decided to close the Failsafe Clothing shop on 614 Molalla, Oregon City because ees jus not riiight. Most of our business comes from vinyl (stickers and heat press shirts), which is all custom and doesn’t require a storefront (or our time at a storefront) to follow through, so we’re packing up at the end of January to go online/in person. So heads up, we’re still up and running, but we’ll be able to give everyone much more quality attention, have more reasonable schedules for ourselves, and offer a larger variety of products (aka colors of vinyl [lol]) to all’a yous guys at the cost of nixing a pretty sweet little setup in Oregon City.
I dunno. I’m excited. I’ll miss the diggety floral vinyl flooring, but it’s been a great year, I’ve picked up some great skills as a designer/colorist/tee dude/vinyl guy, and nothing’s even really over.
So come down to get some stuff at 40% off until we close down at the end of Jan! We may throw some party (/series of parties), too, so follow us on Facebook ‘n stuff for news. Other than that, Happy New Years from Failsafe – we’ll see you soon! And here’re some examps I made as Christmas presents 
Party Month is finally over.
Posted: January 1, 2012 Filed under: Animation, Art, Failsafe Clothing, Games | Tags: animation, art, character, christmas, forever alone, new year, party, sprite, sticker Leave a comment »So Happy New Years ‘n all that. As happy as I was to be totally unproductive and take a break from planning and stuff, it sure was tiring. I calculate that over 205 birthdays, 70.2 party times (2 of which were birthday parties for myself), and 15 Christmas presents were had/witnessed this recent December, and gatdam I’m ready to take a lil break.
I guess I made a few things that were out of the ordinary. Coupl’a t-shirts and stickers, some animations. Ooo, I dreamt a really great idea for a videogame that I plan on pursuing in the future, but I don’t want to talk much about it because it’s not necessarily a complete conception. But dang, it’ll be cool.
So yeah! PIGSquad and PDXFC stuff will pick up again shortly, and that. I don’t know. Here’s some stuff I did this past month:
That’s a forever alone sticker that I made for a friend’s Christmas, by the way (lololol) ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ
Breakin’ Point
Posted: December 8, 2011 Filed under: Failsafe Clothing, Games, PIGSquad | Tags: clothing, forum, indie games, project, space funeral, stickers, vinyl 1 Comment »Whoof, things are getting a little crazy. In addition to prompts from fellow group organizers, I’ve finally run into a lack of immediate events to plan, which means it’s time to start hitting a few things hard.
Logan and I have been talking about revamping the Failsafe storefront to make it a better use of our time for quite awhile now. We’ve got plans for pricing pamphlets and all that kinda stuff so that we can do more work for local businesses, then have store hours for normal sticker cutting and more novelty shirt printing/pressing. We’ll see what happens.
We also just got our new forum with PIGSquad, and the rest of the site’s (re)construction will happen soon after. After that, things like dev teams and providing classes/seminars will become much more possible.
I’ve also had my eye on a project revolving around thecatamites’s “Space Funeral,” and more word on that will come in the near future. Play it if you haven’t already – it’s the best!
