BOOTY BLOCKS!

Planet Moon Studios first iphone & ipod Touch game!




This game really is a steal at $1.99! There is a lot of crap on the app store and this game has really high production values. I saw all of the work that went into this game and I can honestly say it shows. Very FUN!

Check out the website too!
http://www.planetmoon.com/bootyblocks/

Traditional

So my brother Mike got married last Saturday! As a small present to accompany the real gift I painted him a card. Nothing crazy, just a sort of family crest as he starts his new family...

Wowzers

So this has been up for a little while, but I still think it's cool enough to share.

Yesir! That is the Planet Moon Studios website with one of my models front and center! Pretty cool, and I think it says a lot about the caliber of my art! :)

Anyway nothing really new to show so I thought I'd share that.

Cheers.

Colors!!!

So I finally got on the Nintendo DS "Colors" bandwagon. I can see what all the fuss is about. It's a nifty little program that is basically the program "Painter" The only things that suck is that there is no undo or layers, but that's kind of cool. It removes that as a crutch. Anyway these are my first two "pretty" lame attempts with the software....

We have to smoke him, from the bottle...

Another piece for Ronin Fitness. I had a lot of fun with this one and it was really inspired by the look and feeling of the Metal Gear Solid games.

The theme for Ronin Fitness is pretty much the work outs conducted by the military, so I felt that the look would be a perfect fit.

BOOT CAMP!

So I am still awaiting approval on this piece from my client/personal trainer Gary. However I like and feel confident he will too so I decided I'd post it up here.


Obviously with the boot camp theme I went military. But I wanted it to feel a bit modern as well. This is San Francisco after all.

Fliers and venue posters are an interesting problem. One you have to make them interesting so people stop and look at them instead of immediately throwing them away. But you also have to make sure all of the necessary information is present so you can sell whatever it is on the flyer.

So how do present and interesting image, with all of the information. It's a balancing act that I still have yet to master...

Anyways I am still training with Ronin Fitness and it is still awesome and intense as ever. I really recomend it if you're in the SF bay area.

Ronin Fitness

Kind of old...

I made this as part of a gift to my girlfriend last Christmas. It was heavily inspired by the work of artist Andrew Jones. Anyway I thought I'd post it up since I have nothing new to show.

Random Sketches...

Just some random doodles.

I did this one while waiting for "The Dark Knight" to begin (amazing movie btw).


I did this last night, while sketching my cat Myu jumped up on my leg. He was so engrossed with the pencil movement that he actually stood still long enough to sketch.

Something new...

I've been super busy with work and I'm pumping out some really excellent (in my opinion at least) concepts. I did have some time however to work on a logo for my friend and personal trainer Gary.

His fitness group is called Ronin Fitness and it's pretty kick ass!

If you live in the bay area and are looking for a kick ass work out routine I highly recommend them.

Ronin Fitness

Ok well hopefully I will have some new personal stuff to show soon.

Blah!!!

Man! It is so frustrating to have a great idea (at least to me) and then the execution just falls so flat. sigh. Oh well maybe if I do about 10,000 or so more of these I will suck less....

Thumbnail:
This was inspired by an idea my brother Mike told me long ago about hills where giants were buried. I imagined that ancient peoples would see this hills and imagine giants underneath.

Holy Calamity!

Scream Insanity! Two NEW art posts in as many days? Surely a sign of the coming apocalypse.

I may just start a series of castles and temples. It's been pretty fun, but those who know me know I never finish and projects. :) I'll just take it piece by piece...


This is my thumbnail sketch...


And the finished piece...




Also, I am SO stoked that Obama won the Democratic nomination!!! WOOT!

NEW ART! For reals!

So I finally threw the gauntlet down and created some non work related 2d art.

A homage to one of my favorite games ICO.... in spirit only I just wanted to paint a castle scene at sunset.

The Castle of Auvers:

Junk!

Because I don't create any new art (non professional that is) I thought I'd put up some stuff that didn't make it into Battle of the Bands.


This was a quick pre-vis model I did to establish mood and scale for a Train Graveyard level (one day I will work on a game that has one!) based on one of my concepts.



Before we came up with the insane asylum idea for the goth band we were going to go with the tried and true gothic cathedral idea. The model never made it past this point in the process, but I was pretty happy with how it was progressing.

Due to time constrictions I "kit bashed" (i.e. stole from) an old model I had made that had some gothic windows. I was actually able to salvage some of this model though and use it in Hongs Castle Ballroom.

Putting on the Ritz

Ok so here is the last batch of artwork I will be posting for Battle of the Bands. There is actualy more I have but I don't have the paitence to render it out

So basicly it bears saying again, this is the most pride I've ever had for a project regardless of what critics, or people in general say.

The work I've posted here shows a lot of growth in me as an artist and it also shows the process a game goes through in it's development. If that means something to you I hope you got something out of these last few posts.

So without futher adu here is the last of my Battle of the Bands art...

Battle of the Bands art dump 4

More Art! The Heavy Metal Band Sinisister was a company favorite. One of the first bands brought to completion. I got to come up with the devil character as well as name him Von Steel!

A homage to my favorite band Type O Negative (the lead singer is Peter Steele) Von Steel is probably my favorite character in the game.





I created this concept for the witch Lucretia, which was then taken to final by my art Lead Thomas. You can see that concept in the magazine spread a few posts down.

Speechless...

The new Portishead album is pretty good, it's not Earth shattering but I am enjoying it.

Here is more Battle of the Bands artwork including early versions of Faust the vampire for the Goth band "Silence Asylum"

More Battle of the Bands Concepts!

So everyone out there is enjoying their copy of Battle of the Bands right? :)

Well the game has been getting some pretty decent reviews. Average review is about 70% which I can live with. It is a casual party game and not that deep, so I can understand why the hardcore gaming press isn't that crazy about it... plus with Grand Theft Auto IV (Meh) coming out on Tuesday I'm sure excitment (amongst the hardcore) is directed elsewhere...

Anyway... here is more artwork from the Battle of the Bands development...

Battle of the Bands!!!

So Battle of the Bands is in stores today! As many of you know I am insanly proud of this title. The work the team put into it is nothing short of amazing.

So far we seem to be receaving pretty positive reviews. We're averaging a 70%. I can accept that. It is above average.

So I got permission to post up my concepts and artwork from the project! As there are tons I will be slowly showing them as the week goes on. So here is the the first batch which includes the very first sketches done on the project.

The game has a pretty cool website as well!

Battle of the Bands Website





We also have TV commercials! They are being shown on MTV, MTV2, VH1 and USA, at night in programs like Real World, Flavor of Love etc

This is the first time I've ever worked on a project that has actual TV marketing...which in the video game world is HUGE.


The TV spots are really funny and well done.

If you see it let me know!

Pistolas Gigantes!!!

So THQ (Publisher of Battle of the Bands) held a press event yesterday and there is a bunch of new videos and screen shots coming out for the game.

This one features Pistolas Gigantes! The Outlaw Mariachi band that I modeled and textured. I also came up with the midget luchador character and the huge sombraro character.





You can check out more videos here:
IGN Videos of Battle of the Bands

Crap indeed....

2 posts in 2 days!? Madness! I wish I had something better to show, but frankly I got bored of this piece and therefore didn't give it the extra layer of polish it needs. But whatever. It was supposed to be my concept for the Dominance War challenge, which to the uninformed is this massive art competition. I wanted to stray away from the super textured space marine look that seems to dominate high res 3d artwork these days. I'm in love with the art style of Team Fortress 2 and The Incredibles so I was hoping to try and model him in that style... I may still do so... we'll see.

Silence Asylum

So the latest Game Informer is on newstands now, but if you're too lazy or cheap to go out and buy a copy ;) here is a scan from my copy... which Myu (my cat has already torn).

So the goth band is very near and dear to me as they were almost cut from the game. I worked overtime (voluntary) to get them modeled out and in the game.

The concept for the Vampire Faust is mine and so is the witch, although she was illustrated by Thomas my art lead. I hope I can put up the original concept before long.

The screen shots Game Informer used are pretty old and the game is much better looking than what is represented here...

New, Old ART!!!

So I finally got permission to show the concepts I did on the PSP game AfterBurner: Black Falcon!

Basically these isometrics were meant for our outsourcing partners. We had separate 3d chunks that each had a basic theme. On top of that there were separate levels, like one based on the Middle East, or South East Asia and so on...