The dog and pony show

Ah, the joys of being an artist in the videogame industry. Being shown to emmisaries from the publisher by upper management is one of the highlights and usually goes like this:

"...and this is Jon and he's an artist. Jon, this is Jodenia Whimsy and Kraig Phlegm from Unscrupulous InterMediaWare, say hello Jon. Jon is responsible for the lead character's elbows and ass and has also done some of the more obscure european letters used in the game font. He did build some of the steam-planes but after the focus group with the MD's nephew we decided to drop the whole post apocalyptic "thing" in favor of turn based extreme sports with a medieval twist".

So there you are, your paltry contribution summed up with a few choice words. The royals nod and smile and look expectantly at your monitor for something spectacular so you save the spasm filled mocap file you were unglitching and load up your most impressively kerned umlaut. The hard drive chugs away and you watch the hourglass turn for an eternity at which point a messenger window pops up with "is that lass from marketing with the big tits still here?". Everyone pretends it hasn't happened, they smile at your lovely fontography and then the producer nervously suggests lunch at the local upscale burger joint "They do a great filet mignon and bleu cheese burger".

The entourage glides off for an hour and half of stilted chatter over deep fried brie and roquette salade while wondering how long it is before they can get out of this stifling shithole and back on to Thousand Oaks where Jodenia has a date with her life coach and Kraig is planning to rub one out over his collection of vintage retro Puma sneakers while riding naked round his studio apartment on a lovingly restored Raleigh Grifter.