Early on in my digital work I was still feeling out how to properly recreate the process of painting with a Wacom Tablet and Photoshop. Here is a self portrait around the time I started to get the hang of things.
I’d like to note the fact that I was still using the basic brushes, having not yet realized the virtues of the textured brush.
A creepy rendition of my sister and her cat hiding from yours truly as one of the automaton police in the early George Lucas film THX 1138.
America’s Next Top Model was once on while I was diddling around on the internet. Out of the corner of my eye one of the models tripped and fell on a curb. Directly below her was a dark stain on the pavement. From the corner of my eye, it appeared as if her face had slid off and splatted onto the ground in a wet puddle. It was disturbing.
2015 was a year full of disappointments for me. And I’m not talking about the games here. The games were pretty stellar. No, I was let down by the lack of time I could weasel out of life for all of the great releases. I missed out on Metal Gear Solid V. I missed out on Batman: Arkham Knight. What may have very well been my personal GOTY, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, was left installed, patched up and un-played. Ori and the Blind Forest, Lisa, Until Dawn, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Pillars of Eternity… the list goes on.
While many of the games I’ve included here still sit half finished or deserving of more time put into exploring their respective virtual worlds further, it’s hard to deny the memorable nature of my personal 2015 list. Read More
The ground zips by, alternating between crumbled blacktop and unchecked sand dunes. The deformed hunchback riding in the back of my rusted out car babbles incoherently about holy relics of chrome and greased Gods. I body check the car next to me, the rusted out nails on my rims tearing his tires to shreds. Flames shoot from the sides of the enemy, roasting my and my ride. Our collective health drops, a timer begins to count down from 5. I have to bail out. And fast. But first… Time slows to a crawl and I fire two shotgun shells directly into the opposing hot rod’s gas tank, a giant barrel sitting in what used to be a car trunk. 4 seconds now and it catches, fizzles then exploding, hurtling dozens of feet into the air tumbling end over end. 3 seconds when I begin to open my driver’s side door, bailing out now my only option. 2 seconds is when the car runs over the approaching ridge at the side of the road and begins to bounce back and forth in a swaying motion, disobeying the laws of physics and beginning to glitch. At 1 second left I escape the burning wreck only to be flung like a propeller hundreds of feet into the air as the physics continue to wreak havoc on my smoldering ride. I made my escape, and it was cinematic as hell. Read More
Part One of my brief overview of what it’s like to do hobbyist freelance artwork saw me working on an iterative logo for the band Slow Train. This process involved an exploratory period, followed by further refining of the design and concluding with minor tweaks to a mostly finished image, all the while staying in constant contact with the client, an acknowledged old college buddy of mine Michael Kelly.
Out of the many commissioned projects I worked on over the years, this is the first time enough of it has been done digitally that I have a fairly large amount of the process documented. It made sense then that I could use that as the basis for a helpful, step by step account of how I tend to work from beginning to end when tasked with creating something real from another’s wispy imagination. Specifically, Part 1 will focus on the iterative, client-driven design process of making a work of art designed for commercial use. Part 2 will focus on an artistic driven, step by step process of creating a digital work of art for use in advertising and promotion.
The overall trend of many Game of the Year discussions seems to be that this was something of an off year. People have said that many of the year’s biggest titles ended up being pushed into 2015, leaving a gaming slate that felt half full. While there was an admittedly large gaming void for much of the year, I have always felt that a large hole in the ‘AAA’ lineup means that many of the less obvious games are allowed to stand out. And if there is one thing I know about myself, it’s that those are the games that I’m usually fondest of. Read More
There was a time when first person shooters were simple. You played the infallible hero, and almost everything in your world was against you. This simple setup carried you from beginning to end, with an increasingly devastating arsenal leading to an exponentially rising body count. Level layouts were complex, hiding many divergent paths that often led to dead ends, where hidden goodies were stashed for the most thorough of players to benefit from. Treasures ranged from keys necessary for progression, ammo or health which was always in short supply if sticking to the main path, or often treasure itself adding to a post-level score. Everything was in the name of fast paced fun, and no one dared to mess with the winning formula.
Then Half Life was released.
At the start of Shadow of Mordor, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the game. After a brief tutorial and story focused video, I was suddenly in the world. I dropped from the shining tower, and wandered around a bit. Having no graceful entry point into the open world itself was off putting. ‘So has the game started?’, I wondered. I decided to take a look around where I was.
The world looked great, with muddy puddles, foreboding mountains and a thick brown haze over the orc defiled land immediately surrounding the Black Gate. Orcs could be seen patrolling and whipping human slaves at various points around me, so it wasn’t safe to say the least; hostile even. I snuck off in the direction of the lone mission marker. The controls felt great, having an ease to the dynamic movement inspired very much by the Assassin’s Creed series. Simply point in a direction and the player character can handle the in between bits himself. Half way there, I came across a set of command huts set in the middle of a shallow canyon. As I rounded the corner of the last hut, there in front of me was my first captain. Read More
