Sunday, July 02, 2006

Game Artist Pic



Okay, so a couple of folks asked me to post this here, so here it is... a Game Artist in his Natural Habitat... along with the goofy copy that it goes with:


1. They typically mark their territory with small fetishes of their favorite pop culture icons.
2. Streamlined forehead, a sign of advanced maturity. Senility is not uncommon.
3. They often have failing eyesight from staring into computer monitors for too long.
4. Caffeinated beverage... it is said they can survive for weeks on just this and pizza.
5. Normally in this spot you would find a t-shirt from the last game the dev worked on, but here the artist decided to plug his alma mater instead.
6. Reference materials to remind the artist what various real world items look like.
7. Pictures of the artist's family to remind the artist of what they look like... very helpful for their periodic reunions.
8. Bagel day bagel. Game Artists believe that free food is the best tasting. They can often be found lurking outside noontime meetings in the hopes of scoring leftovers.
9. A donut container carcass. This is the typical location of such an artifact... it is very rare to find them occupied as they are emptied almost immediately upon sighting.

Thank You Notes


"Thank you" notes are always a problem. Don't you guys often find yourself pressured or guilted (from outside forces or the mysterious "within"), to spend your precious artistic gift on dressing up Xmas cards, birthday cards or "thank you" cards? I think a full fifty percent of my lifetime artistic output has been rendered on the inside flap of something from Hallmark...

But I think this may be the last one I ever have to draw--at least for "thank you's". Now I can just take this to the printers and have a few hundred notecards made up--what a lot of trouble this will save me!

It started as a doodle. Done for my Sister-in-Law. The gift was an iPod in-car charger/player. That deserves something special, don't you think?

p.s. My word ballons and lettering continue to be a liability.

Check Out The Flash Movie of Junkyard Split

I'm getting all the prep work done tearing into the comic book art. Since I had the single frames I imported it into a single Flash file. Whew, I had to republish the thing about three times to get it right. Added a back button. Deleted someout of place frames and added some frames that were misnamed. I think it's ready for primetime now


JunkYardSplit

Thursday, June 29, 2006

My Project For the Next Couple Of Months. You Guys Can Help



I'm going to take my rough storyboards I did for the pitch about the Junkyard dogs and turn it into a comic book. I'll be using that Wahl technique of printing the rough blue and inking something finished. I'll give you guys some details on the dag characters and maybe some of you could take a pass on character design. The premise, it used to be a single dog, it was around the explosion that killed Pop, the junkyard owner, and the dog was rebuilt as two dogs, both with bionic parts. That may be all I should do, not share my own version. I want ideas, what goes through your heads when you think of half robot dogs. I'll post panels as I do them. Maybe on my blog instead of this one.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

More Mustard ...









Free Models!

Want a free model to build? Check this out:

http://www.currell.net/models/mod_free.htm

Just print these out on card stock, get out your zacto knife and get to work. I guy at the office has made one of the airships and it's a beauty!

Also, I have a "Dev Diary" that was posted on the LOTRO website yesterday:

http://lotro.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=20&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=115

There are some drawings and objects that I've made for the game. Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom to see a game artist in its natural habitat!

Flintsones and a Duck


For the Barney Rubble=Joe Pesci alternate universe fans
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ragingfred.html
And a Duck

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Creative Session Preview (Mr. Mustard)


As always, the day prior to the Rockstar Creative Session is a Tuesday, so I post what I'm working on for that session. In this case, it is a series of concepts sketches of a character called "Mr. Mustard." He is involved in the inciting incident for a novel I'm writing called "The Transdimensioners." Here is the paragraph I have (so far) that first describes Mr. Mustard:

"Ever the word meister, Hank believes calling Mr. Mustard’s face long is a disservice to the word long. Stretched out, lean, augmented, elongated, extended don’t really do it, either. He feels that the adjective hasn’t been invented that accurately describes the length of his mug. If the length of an ordinary person’s face was an hour, Mr. Mustards would be a full work day, work through lunch, plus overtime. Hank’s friend Jeremy maintains that Mr. Mustard’s face and hands have a leathery quality as though they had been bronzed by heat of hundreds of tropical suns, but just like Hank, Jeremy is prone to exaggeration. All in all, Mr. Mustard’s darkened skin blends nicely with the golden tone of his suit and hat, and even his shoes. Everything about Mr. Mustard is gold or yellow.

"And that’s why Hank and Jeremy started calling him Mr. Mustard."

There will be three more unique sketches by tomorrow and perhaps one that I've dressed up a bit in Photoshop. More postings after the session!

Sharkman Source


Here is the Kirby Sharkman splashpage I lifted.

I don't want you guys to think I'm taking any credit from the King.

I'm trying to copy the inking style, and the archaic anatomy; but you can see my ink lines are a lot less parallel, and my lower leg, ankle and foot anatomy is actually an improvement over the original--though I like the original much more!

Having learned so much dry anatomy, I now find myself wowed by the simple charms of an impossibly twisted tibia. Unfortunately, I was too timid to maintain the hyper-stylized shape of the female's feet in my version. I would have preferred she look more like the Kirby, more bizzare and elfin....

(This splashpage image came from The Jack Kirby Collector--they were doing a survey of the Simon & Kirby 1940 {!} "Vision" run in Marvel Mystery--a comic book done for Timely Comics, apparently before the dawn of the Marvel Comics imprint.)

(Fascinating.)

Monday, June 26, 2006

Chris Wahl Draws Using His Mind ONLY!

Okay, maybe not with ONLY his mind. I think a computer was involved somehow.



You can check out more goodness here:

  • Chriswahlart


  • Drawings and a few other videos too!

  • The top secret secrets of Chris Wahl. You must kill yourself after looking at this.
  • The Indomitable Jimmy Bowles


    I am working on my comic form. I have filched this image from a Jack Kirby splashpage from the year 1940! Jimmy Bowles, Sharkfighter is my new character, and I couldn't resist redoing this great, early Kirby image with my boy Jimmy as the protagonist.

    I am really intrigued by that early Kirby style, and the style of inks that his pencil got back then; the drawings are kind of primitive, the inks are done with brushes, and it's all a great premonition of the Silver Age done in a Golden Age style.(And that's about as much comics history as I know.)

    I am trying to learn how to ink in this odd style. It's a chaotic image, and I like that, but my version would benefit greatly from patches of color/tone to help group things visually.

    Sunday, June 25, 2006

    Waiting in Line at Starbucks

    Fill in your own caption. Even heroes need some caffeine from time to time. I tried to mimic Tom's style a bit, but I think my own style intrudes too much.

    Friday, June 23, 2006

    Thursday, June 22, 2006

    While Watching Lake Placid


    I did the drawing with a gray marker and did my inking with a pigma brush. I scanned it in color and selected the grey color and filled it with white to get rid of it and then pushed contrast and brightness to get rid of the rest. Photoshop color after that. All done before Lake Placid was over.

    Wednesday, June 21, 2006

    Monday, June 19, 2006

    This Guy Does a Drawing Every Day

  • kahnehteh.blogspot.com


  • Yongwoo, a friend at work, gave out this link to His friends Blog. I asked about his process, how he used the 90 minutes he allots himself to do the drawings. Apparently it's minutes for a very rough thumbnail and the rest of the time is doing the finished inking. Thought I'd try that myself. Sometime.

    How do you make something an active link?

    Edit: Hey Ellis! Fixed! Go back and edit your post and look at the code I added. Just copy that in a clipboard or something and just paste and change the http address...voila! --Jeff

    Friday, June 16, 2006

    Fillipi fun



    see you at Fillipi's!