Sunday, December 6, 2009

Pyroghast!





Here is the new image I did for my band Pyroghast. If you are into metal, or want to be highly annoyed, head over here to the Pyroghast MySpace page and get a dose. There is also a Pyroghast YouTube page for you to 'watch' the songs in HD, which really means staring at a demon face for five minutes. The songs might take a while to show up in HD.

I think I was channeling Druillet, Mike Mignola, and Guy Davis. Somehow a bit of nouveau got in there.

If you want some wall paper type images, you can grab from here or if you want one with the band logo, head over to the Pyroghast MySpace page and grab one from the pics section.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

A New Post From My New Home in Seattle.



















Here are some pages from my last days with the guys at PlayFirst(much respect), my flight to Seattle to find a house, my buddy Cory's hockey game, and TAG. TAG is a drawing night held at PopCap for industry folks to come by, hang out, and draw. Sometimes there is a subject to riff on, but I love just sketching everyone.

Materials: home made sketch book with animation paper, a ballpoint pen, brush pen, and some white out every now and again.

Please note: if you are using Firefox, and looking at the large version of an image, click on it just to make sure the magnification is at maximum. If it's just a few pixels off, the images look really blurry.

Monday, September 28, 2009

A Big Pile of Sketches






















These were done in my usual places like Emeryville Food Court (probably has an official name), The Westfield in SF, Bodega Festival, and a good figure drawing session in a studio in the Mission.

My materials are a home made sketch book with animation paper, a ballpoint pen, brush pen, and some white out every now and again.

Please note: if you are using Firefox, and looking at the large version of an image, click on it just to make sure the magnification is at maximum. If it's just a few pixels off, the images look really blurry.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Fan Art





Here's an image I did as a piece of fan art for
Kowloon Walled City. They have a new record coming out soon. You should get it. Really.

The rest of the images are all the roughs carried through to final inking. The roughs were done in pencil, and then scanned. I put in a font, recomposed the image, and printed it out. Then I light boxed pencils on top of the sketch, scanned it, and messed around with it some more in Photoshop. Next, I turned the pencils blue, and printed them out on Blue Line Pro comic book paper. The inks were done with a Pilot Precision V5 ballpoint, my trusty Pilot .25 ballpoint, Pitt Brush Marker, and a real brush and ink. Finally, after scanning that in and playing with the levels, I used a bit of Photoshop magic to get the rest done.

I like the way the red pops on the 'final', but I think I actually prefer the black and white.

I'm getting ready to start a short comic, and this is probably the style I'll be using. It was a lot of fun.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Time Line Reversal

Here are some sketches from the last couple of pages of the sketchbook I just finished. I left the book at work and didn't get a chance to scan a few in until now.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

New Sketchbook - Site Back Up and Running



Ok, first of all, I hope the site is back up and running for everyone. As it turns out, the one day you don't monitor your site, is the day it mysteriously goes off-line. Hooray internets!

These new sketches were done as usual, during lunch or dinner. All ballpoint pen. I decided to be crafty and make my own sketchbook from scratch this time around. A friend of mine over at the magic world of Pixar did it, and I just had to try it for myself. Take regular animation paper, get some matte board cut just a bit bigger, and have Popcopy put a ring binding on it. Then tape that bad boy up with some electrical tape so your edges don't get thrashed. It's magic.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

More Tiny Soldiers

Same deal as before. All of these guys are products of lunch sketching.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Tiny Soldiers




Seriously. They are tiny, maxing at about 2 to 2 and 1/2 inches, tops.

Fear them.

Straight Pilot .25 ballpoint and some white out.

Send in the Troops

Here's the latest in the line of unplanned ink sketches. This was done with the trusty old .25 Pilot ballpoint, with my Pitt brush marker for the line thickness. However, all the of the sketch was not done at the same time, or on the same page. I started doodling out the troopers first. They take up an entire sketchbook page (hence the unplanned part). I wanted to put them in some sort of context, so I did the ramp and the rest of the scene on another page, and assembled it all in Photoshop. I also resorted to a Cheap Trick (tm), but I think it adds some extra depth the scene needed.

Too Jin-Roh/Stormtrooper/Vader? Answer: Yes.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Starship Sketches: Part 4

Imperial Inspection.

This image is a continuation of my recent themes and working methods. I used .25 Pilot Ballpoint straight to my book, no pencil. I did some minor line cleanup and correction in Photoshop, and added color. Perhaps I'll do some character work next, but I have to admit, starships are a ton of fun.


Monday, June 22, 2009

Explorer

This was a heavily modified sketch that started out in my book. Again, it was unplanned and was executed entirely in ink, and as no surprise didn't turn out how I wanted. So I brought it into Photoshop, edited, re-inked and redrew some parts, sprayed some color over it, and here ya' have it.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Starship Sketches: Part 3


This image was done the same way as the one in the post below. I sketched it all with a Pilot Hi-Tech .25 ballpoint on a 8.5x11 sketchbook page. There was little to no planning of the image (no pencils). I started noodling out the main ship, and just let the rest of the image 'happen'. You know, one of those artsy things. I cleaned up some of my failed and eyeballed perspective lines, and vomited out some colors...probably more than a sketch deserves, but it was fun.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Starship Sketches: Part 2



The black and white version was done with a .25 guage ballpoint, no pencil, straight to an 8x11 book page. I cleaned it up just a bit and slapped on some color.


This one is has the same story except I used a brush marker for spot blacks and a bit of white out.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Starship Sketches: Part 1








I've been in a starship mood for the longest time now. These are just a few pages from the old sketchbook. Pardon me while I wear my Moebius hat on the last one.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Colonial Defense Force Arrives at Coral


To say I've been impressed by the Old Man's War by John Scalzi is quite an understatement. This little painting is far from perfect, but I think you get the basic idea...things go boom.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Wandering Willows - Giant Post

Wandering Willows is the game I've been working on over at PlayFirst,Inc. You can also check out the snazzy reviews we've gotten over on Gamezebo. 4.5 stars! Not too shabby :) More reviews here, and here.

Below are a few of the pieces I did for Wandering Willows. It was my responsibility to set the style and tone of the game.




The images above represent how our characters look in the game today.



Just above are early character explorations. If I posted every character direction we tried I'd have to start another blog.






This is just a portion of the concept drawings done for our cute little animals.



This was a joint illustration by Jack Balingit and myself. Jack did the bridge and the space ship. I painted the scene and populated it with characters and trees I'd done at an earlier time. This was an exercise to showcase how the game could look...a visual road map if you will.



Here is an early version of the grasslands (upper left) before we switched to a tile based system. The rest of the images to the right are tree types and instructions for how to make trees. Erin Middendorf gave the in-game versions a pretty new coat of paint.

Here are some ideas for buildings and structures for the game. The Professor's Lab in the upper left set the style. The color version is the actual version in the game.




These little nuggets were made to set the style for the icons.



These are screen shots of the actual game. I also did the User Interface and the special effects/animation. I can't show the special effects here because they are animations, so...go download it here!

Wandering Willows was a mucho fun project, and one of which I am extremely proud. I must give props to my team, simply because they are completely awesome. Dan Chao - our games beloved designer. Dan is passionate, creative, and most importantly smart. He is one of the most fun people with whom you could ever have the pleasure to work. Erin Middendorf - She can draw like most people walk through the air. Do you like those cute animals? How about 98% of all the cool clothes in the game? Let's not forget those gorgeous cinematics! Shuffle on over to her blog and give her a pat on the back. Jim Brooks - Knight in Shining Code. When Jim get's on the case, all your troubles melt away. Nick Stern - Studio Art Director. This man let me run the the ball, giving valued input, and for that I simply can't say enough. Solveig Zarubin - Producer, all out organizer. During the entire game, I think I touched maybe 2 spreadsheets. She shielded me from so much red tape, it's simply astounding. PlayFirst management also needs to be given a big nod here. Hell, they paid for the game! They also gave us a lot of trust, and that's a special thing. For all you non-game developers who read this little old blog 'o mine note this: it takes an entire company to make a game, not just our little team. Quality Assurance, Marketing, PlayFirst Site Team...jeez, the list goes on. All fine folks doing a damn fine job.

I can't leave out the Drawing Crew. You keep a brother sane.