Meetings are a good place to sketch

I like to call meetings Anti-Work Interludes. They are kind of like smoke breaks for people who like to talk. I pass the time by doodling in my sketchbook. In this meeting I forgot my sketch book and had to rely on lined paper and ball point pens.

The Power of the TIKI

I have been lucky enough to work beside some very amazing artists. It is these same artists that painfully remind me of how much of a lousy artist I really am. One artist I worked with was El Coro. Coro not only was an awesome artist but a very cool, awesomely awesome type of dude. On top of all that he turned out to be a very cool, awesomely awesome type of instructor as well. He held a few classes at work that included an oil painting workshop. I have done only a scant few oil paintings in my time. Every oil painting I have done, with the exception of two, have been crappy. Here is one of them.

Needless to say this painting was produced in El Coro's class.

A slow Speed Painting

So I ordered the amazingly awesome version of Massive Black's New Art Book. I was lucky enough to get the limited edition version with signatures on the inside covers and an original sketch from one of the Massive Black dudes. (wait, that don't sound right does it?) Along with the aforementioned goodies you also get two free downloads from Massive Black's download library.

From the download options I chose the Environment Speedpaints Volume 1 by Whit Brachna.
Watching the speed painting one inspired me so I tried to do one using Mr. Brachna's brushes and tips.

Gah, pretty lousy, huh. Hopefully, the more I do the closer I will get to the quality of Mr. Brachna's examples. I actually spent more time setting up Photoshop and learning shortcuts to achieve a faster workflow then actually painting. Which is why this took me hours instead of minutes. I actually learned a considerable amount however and am going to try more speed painting environments when I get the chance. They can only get better...right?

Oh, if anyone is curious that is supposed to be Madame Webb's lair. Yeah, beneath my sexy, thuggish exterior is a complete geek.

Happy Valentine's Day

More Concept Art

While rooting around in old files I found some concept art that I kind of forgot about.
If you ever played Shrek Super Slam then you might remember G-nome. He was basically a thuggish garden gnome. Well, I really wanted to bring that into the Shrek 3 game with a whole village of garden gnome thugs. Below is a concept for some gnomes in a low-rider carriage.

Alas, the gnomes never made it into the game. Not even close.

The sunken ship below was also for the Shrek 3 game. This one has all sorts of problems as far as technique but I kind of liked it anyway. Again, this was mostly me trying to push my ideas onto the designers so this was never a serious contender for being in the game.

This concept is from a personal project that I remember not really caring for upon completion. I actually kind of like it now. I remember trying out new techniques and saying to myself, "Man, I really need to remember how to do this. I think I am on to something".
Unfortunately, I forgot what those techniques where.

Oh, the little red thing is supposed to be a person. You know, for scale.

Let's get this lousy party started.

I suck.
I have accepted that for a long time.
Now the time has come to embrace it.
Why would I create a blog celebrating my lack of artistic ability?
It is because I want to get better. I am getting on in years and what I have done to further my artistic skill so far has not worked. So now I am doing what is the equivalent of open mic night for people who are scared of speaking in front of a crowd.


You might be surprised to know that, technically, I am a professional artist at a video game studio. I am lucky enough to work at a game company that encourages generalization. So I have been able to move around a little in my artistic endeavors. Mostly I do 3D environmental stuff. On our last game I did Visual Effects. I have even done a little concept art here and there. I have learned that concept art is not just about how well it looks. You need to be able to creatively answer whatever question is asked of the concept and you need to do it quickly. If you are successful with those two aspects of concepting you are more of an asset then the guy that just draws pretty pictures.



This is probably my most successful concept. It was for Shrek Super Slam. I was lucky enough to design this level as well. I quickly added shapes to the arena..played it a little. When I was happy I took a screenshot and painted over it. The level at the end was surprisingly close to the concept.



Here is a crappy screenshot of the level in game.

While looking through these images I came upon a lousy screenshot of another level I did for Shrek Super Slam. This one is a scary version of Gepetto's Workshop. The concept was drawn by someone else but it did not quite work out so I ended up just making this one up as I went. I had a lot of fun making these levels.



Next up is the latest concept art I did. This one is of Luke Cage for the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows game. I think I was allowed to concept him because I was so adamant about putting him in the game (He has always been one of my favorite Marvel Characters. I still got a bunch of Power-Man and Iron Fist comics). This concept was not so succesful. The question that needed to be answered was what does Luke Cage look like? So I drew a quick body and experimented with different clothes. If you look closely you will notice that I put a tatoo on one of the figures. It was not until later that my inner geek kicked in and reminded me that no needle could possibly penetrate Cage's skin. So maybe its a rub on.

Once I got a go-ahead for a direction I drew a more detailed image. In the end certain things had to be changed. Enough was changed that personally I felt the the concept failed to do it's job. I also did not adequately describe Cage's face. I should have put more detail into that.

I think the Belt Buckle could have been cooler.