Wii Warrior!

I consider myself as much a gamer (I really hate that term) as I do an artist. I play almost every day (to my wife's dismay). I own a DS, Wii, and Playstation 3 (60gb). I don't know who visits my blog and plays games but I want to occasionally do some video game themed art and list what I'm playing in hopes that people can see what good games are out there and post suggestions for other games I might enjoy. I'm fortunate to have 3 brothers who are all gamers and I feel like we're in our own little game club, so I at least expect them to contribute.

Right now I'm playing:

Zak and Wiki: the Quest for Barbaros Treasure - If you own a Wii I would seriously consider getting this game. It is fantastic and one of the few 3rd party Wii games to really "get" the platform.

Silent Hill: Origins - A worthy addition to the series, and considering how amazing the series is, being called a worthy addition is high praise.

Chrono Trigger - I've wanted to play this for a long time since it is generally considered one of the best console RPGs out there. Younger players might be turned off by it's 32 bit presentation (it was originally a SNES title), but don't let that stop you. It has it's reputation for a reason, the story is great the characters are charming and the gameplay is really smooth. I'm really digging it.

Rock Band - Awesome.

I've recently finished:

LOST: Via Domus - Fun for LOST fans (like me), but I can't imagine anyone else liking it.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village - If you own a DS get this game!

Bigfoot

I guess Totoro was grossing people out so I've updated my blog with another woodland creature. This one painted with watercolors about 20 years ago. I think I was 7 or 8 at the time.

Alan Tew's Totoro

This is a painting I did from a sketch by my friend Alan Tew. Check out his blog here.

"My Friends..."

I've been doing a lot of caricatures lately (as you can probably tell). They're pretty quick, plus I feel like I learn so much doing them. What is a group of caricatures without politicians like John McCain? I'm having fun with these so I'll probably keep doing them for a while.

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

Captain Ahab

"..the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey-more a demon than a man!"

-Herman Melville

Happy Birthday Heather

My wife's birthday is on Sunday and she loves to cook. She has a binder which she keeps original recipes, recipes off the internet, and recipes from magazines in and has expressed an interest in me drawing a cover for it. So I did this for her birthday and gave it to her a little early.

Happy Valentine's Day from Chicago, 1929

I did this for the Avalanche Blog. The theme is 1920's gangster and, this being Valentine's Day, I could think of no more fitting a piece than a tribute to the Saint Valentine's Day massacre of 1929. Al Capone's men took out 5 of 'Bugs' Moran's men (plus 2 others), execution style, in a warehouse on Chicago's north side. Al Capone was conveniently out of town at the time. My favorite part of the story is the dude who's full of about ten bullets telling the cops "I'm not gonna talk - nobody shot me." before dying. That's dedication!

"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

I can't help but get excited about the new Indiana Jones movie.

Knighty Knight

This is a concept painting I did from a design by my brother Josh. He's the main character for a little animation we're working on. Should be fun.

The Queen of Snow - 2

I made some changes based on the suggestions of my fellow artists here at Avalanche. I took some of the warmth out of her face and simplified the background. Subtle changes, but I think for the better. Do you agree?

The Queen of Snow

Battling a Beast

Christmas Card

This is a card I did last year for DWHP. They requested I not go too crazy with the charicatures, but it was a pretty fun project. Some turned out better than others.

Woodsy Elf, the Making of...

For those that may be interested, I know there's at least one out there, I've provided an insight into how I work to create the images I do, using my recent Elf picture as an example:

1. I start in Photoshop, the background is generally a flat, neutral color. The sketch is on a multiply layer on top of that.

2. I then take the .psd to Painter and do a quick, dirty color/rendering pass with the Digital Airbrush tool on a layer between the background and the drawing. I was at first going for a green/purple color palette though it always changes as I go along.

3. Then, in a new layer on top of the others I do the actual painting usually with the Cover Pencil brush. Here, in addition to rendering the character, I refine the colors and shape.

4. Back in Photoshop I hide the original drawing and, in a new top layer, block out the shape of the character in flat color. I then modify a copy of that shape to display these color gradients.

5. Next, I make the layer I created in step 4 a color layer at about 50% opacity. This gives the colors more depth and variety. I like the effect of one color fading into another that this provides as well.

6. I like wallpaper designs for backgrounds because...well, because. I just make these in Photoshop using the selection tools, Fill command, and Rotate/Translate commands.

7. I pull the opacity of the wallpaper design way down and add gradients and new colors to the background. I then use the Magic Wand tool to select the edges of the character by using the flat color shape I created in part 4. Then using the Edit/Stroke tool I get an outline around the subject.

8. Bringing back the character and adding a little texture to the background gives me the final image.

Woodsy Elf

Blue Braids

Sam the Squirrel - Part 2

Here's the second batch of drawings from the character design workshop here at Avalanche. The last filter we put our characters through was style.The lower image is just a couple of the style explorations I tried, the one on the left is inspired by, but not an exact copy of Miah Alcorn's art. The one on the right is inspired by Stephen Silver. For the final I took the elements I liked from the style exercise (mostly from Stephen Silver) and worked my own style back into the character to hopefully end up with a design that is consistent and appealing. We were asked to render the final image in a way that provided enough information for a modeler to build it in 3D. I'm considering building a model of him myself, we'll see if I end up having the time or not.