A couple of years back I wrote a blog post on how I’d like to make iPhone games. Everyone has ideas, right? (Link to that post)

I’m well trained for the task at hand, having worked in a games company as an art director for a few years, I was often planning games for clients. How wrong can it go?

Not that wrong as fate would have it; I had my arm unceremoniously twisted late last year to become freelance once again. The only thing I was lacking to start my own games company was time and money (like most of us, I guess).

Now I had time, plenty of it. Money, not so much.

I have ideas, I have something called Facemakr. What to do?

Several business plans and much grovelling to investors later, I was pretty much back where I started. Tokyo is a hard town to find capital in! As many people will let you know, the tried and tested way to get investment here is to move.
Tokyo is my home, I’m not about to upsticks just for the sake of starting a company.
Realising that the only way to start this is on my own, I set out to make a games company with whatever finance I had. I begged, borrowed and stole. I ate noodles for months. I made agreements for delayed payments. I crammed incredible amounts of new knowledge into my tired peanut brain.

And the rest, as they say, is history!

My first title “Facemakr” was published in March of this year, maybe a little prematurely, but now in full swing – it’s been reviewed in 9 languages across the internet, to growing acclaim! It’s the first application on the iPhone that uses my custom technological solution. (although, no one really cares about the tech – it’s the reason the application exists.)

I am just about to release a new version & start rolling a new project into development with 3 freelance staff. Ironically I can be based anywhere in the world with this setup.

To say this process has been hard, is probably the greatest understatement of my life. I have accumulated a mountain of unpaid bills, bar tabs and an angry landladies. (Which, I can now happily un-accumulate.) No one said it would be easy, but it is possible, without investors. Thank you to everyone who helped me along the way, your encouragement and kind words were investment enough.

That is how I learned to stop worrying and love iOS4

www.facemakr.com

www.dadako.com

Worked on the layout and illustration for this custom face-building for my good friends at USN

Check it out here: RedBull Me

Couldn’t find one so I made one. Please use freely. Cite me at this URL if you are feeling generous.

(click on the image above to download a vector EPS)

The National Maritime Museum of Cornwall have a new exhibition this year, focusing on lighthouses throughout the ages around the once treacherous peninsula.

I was asked to produce some more rotating cubes for the NMMC. These are 1.7m tall, and need adequate detailing for this kind of resolution.

The 3 lighthouses shown here are (from left to right):

I wish you all a very happy 2010.

Site (design) template I did for Edvec Japan.

My internets had all run out so it was a good chance for me to retain my electronic gentlemen status by investing in new gadgets, namely; WiMax!

The process is rather simple – I went to an electronics store, filled out the form, got a 15 day free trial & the hardware. There is only one device per brand / store. Mine is i-o data (LABI), which was cheaper than the BIC CAMERA model (by 4000 yen) – they are essentially the same.

The hardware consists of a router and a usb key. The key is the arial, which can be plugged into my laptop while I’m out and about, and the router works at home. (it also makes my $300 apple router rather obsolete) Getting connected is as simple as typing in the WEP key printed on the router.

Out and about is a little trickier – there are no drivers for the mac. So it’s a windows only experience right now.

Speeds are actually realistically faster than my old old wired 100mbit connection, however it’s only 40mbit – and only works in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. I tested this by greedily getting my hands on the largest files possible at such short notice – 1080p apple trailers. My old connection would have to sit and load half way through. No such woes here.

Costiness is also rather reasonable, about the same as you would pay for your home connection. Hardware is a little over 17,000 yen (about $185 all in)

Out of the box WiMax lets you connect all the computers within your house by simply logging onto the wifi network the router creates. No fuss.

WiMax works globally too. So say for example for some reason I need to go to London or New York, tomorrow, I only need to bring my USB key and it’ll use my account, with no change in monthly fee. Roaming is essentially part of the deal.

Maybe when they get it working on the mac, I’ll be able to do that.

Good afternoon, my name is Hawken and I trust the cloud.

For years I knew there was something missing from my life. I felt this emptiness inside. All these different computers I have but none of them are connected to one another.

Then, I heard of this thing called .mac. I was hooked. All my data synchronised between machines, bookmarks all the same on my browsers – whether it be my iPhone, work machines, home machine or laptop.

Names changed but the service remained the same, in-fact it got better! Now I could sync all my files! This was just getting better and better, my experience was peaking! No more swapping and burning of CD’s. No more instances of “not having the right file”. No more did I need a USB key just to carry my data home. The iDisk solved all my problems and I lavished my hard earned cash on it willingly.

Until today.

Whilst re-naming some files, the all knowing iDisk had a technical error and decided to delete my data from all synchronised computers, and from the cloud. This was a bombshell – 3 months of work and a year of steady use, *poof* gone, in a blink of the eye.

I got in touch with my dealer and told them I need my fix. They told me there is no way back, and in two weeks time they will “have a look”.

How can I run my business with this shoddy service? I can’t wait two weeks! Does the rival drug “dropbox” do this? (no – they have user editable delete/restore histories)

Climbing into my time-machine offered no respite.

Good afternoon, my name is Hawken and I trusted the cloud.

Luckily, one of the synced computers was bound to have kept the files, because it hasn’t been online for a bit. I got in there, turned off the wi-fi and copied the iDisk. Situation averted. Re-populated. A virtual “V” for victory against the evil empire.

I got lucky. Maybe next time this won’t be the case. They are out to get you.

My addiction to the cloud, is over.?

Come and chat me up at the Tokyo 2.0 web event on Monday the 19th of October.

For a few years now Tokyo2.0 has been holding its monthly web seminar at various locations in Tokyo. Due to it's ever expanding size the event is currently held at Super Deluxe in Nishi Azabu.

Facemakr was initially invited to participate in this event, however this month instead of holding a seminar, Tokyo2.0 shall be playing host to 10 independent web startups. Informal chats can be held with these different web folks, who will be manning mini-booth style islands.

Super Deluxe will probably start filling up from around 7pm, if you are around drop in for a chat – I can tell you all about Facemakr and my freelance work. Maybe buy me a beer if you're feeling generous. 

About 3 months passed before I could get this project finished, after a few hours here and many hours there, it was finally done. A lot of the main text on the site are images, I did this to make the site look pretty on windows, where fonts are not rendered so smoothly. However, upon checking the source code of the site, can see that actually the text really is there – it’s replaced with a trick – this means that screen readers and google can still get on with the site.

Ramping up the campaigns for traffic and customers, the site also runs in both English and Japanese.

Come have a look: facemakr