For the past couple of weeks I’ve been racking my brains and putting together some designs for my friends at PFOM and Silent Stage Gallery.
It’s been good times looking at different source material for a new direction to take my personal work in.
Steam had a good deal this weekend for the game Zeno Clash.
My interest was originally piqued after reading Brad Shoemaker’s positive review at Giant Bomb.
The pure weirdness of the story and character design caught my eye immediately. The two day sale was enough to convince me to purchase and give it a shot. I’m only a few hours into the game and am having a fun time with it. The melee fighting system has an interesting staccato, and the story is one of the most original I’ve played in a long long time. And the characters…yes, the main characters, protagonists and antagonists are like something out of a twisted fever dream. The weapons are fun to look at and operate also. They are an architectural mish-mash of bones, rocks, and other neolithic objects.
For now the game is only out on PC, and most easily available on Steam. Check it out or at least download the demo if you have a taste for hide and sinew in first person games.
Here are six different ideas I explored in rough thumbnail format. I tried creating different dominant shapes as well as themes and lighting. The challenge was starting with the same blank space as the foundation for each concept. I’ve titled each of the sketches according to their separate stories, all scifi in theme.
A) crytrog lab: This is where they fertilize bansula eggs, grow juveniles into mature adults, and teach them to use technology for further experimentation on their cognition and reasoning capabilities. The large “arm-like” appendage stretching through the center of the composition is attached to a mature bansula, and allows it to manipulate small objects in a precise way while being monitored by the crytrogs at their stations below. Why the investment in the study of bansulas? The answer lies at the core of crytrog technology, which is powered by plasmid life-force. It appears that bansulas are one of the largest natural providers of this energy source, and further study would allow for more advanced implementation of crytrogian core technology both socially and militarily.
B) church of nil a tar: A modern day bishop in the 40th century guides his congregation into the sanctum of power, which resembles a massive egg with tentacles growing from the bottom. Inside the sanctum of power is where worship takes place. The Sanctum itself is rumored to allow magnified fortitude of prayer and ritual.
C) vektov shopping center: The pleasure spaceport on the vektov moon has one of the most advanced shopping centers in the tyro nebula. Outfitted with the newest in clothing, consumer technologies, and entertainment, it also amuses in guidance with the upgrade to an all new floating map hologram system, consisting of vertically arranged shards of joopher crystals displaying pertinent directions and information.
D) darmic spa: Built on the 6 million year old springs in the crater of toth, the darmic spa is a haven for those looking to relax and detoxify the mind and body. Large, jars of balsamic liquids populate the rooms, releasing soothing vapors similar to eucalyptus on planet earth.
E) kellarn repair center: During the philgon wars, many war machines, known as “kellarn” were developed and used in battle to subsitute human casualties. The length of the wars were millenia, with many iterations of the metal behemoths, created, destroyed, and refurbished. Although the philgon now see times of piece, the kellarn are still popular in use for more commercial tasks. Repair centers such as this are popular for modifying or repairing kellarn to serve tasks to consumers and bidders alike.
F) ruins of xayn: Long thought to be a story of legends, the ruins of xayn hidden below the dunes of xilxa where told to hold mystic treasures for those that were daring enough to seek them out. Explorer Tal and his assistant Frank have been researching the potential whereabouts xayn for roughly 200 years, and are now on the verge of making archeological history.
To see more sketches click here.
This year’s Sasuke 22 (Ninja Warrior in the US) was one of the most exciting competitions of all time. Yuuji Urushihara, the humble shoe salesman, was mere seconds away from making Sasuke history! It seems the tides are turning with the well-known Sasuke All-Star veterans being tallied out early in the first round of competitions, making way for a new crop of talent and physical prowess. I eagerly await next year’s event.
Below is Sasuke legend Makoto Nagano attempting the newly revised, increasingly difficult stage one.
Here are some detail concepts of the bansula egg and crytrog door.
The door is ceremonial in presentation, and runs off a plasmid life-force that is held in stasis by the sacred yaggridisl stems. They power the door and allow them to be used as conventional entrances between rooms and gateways to other rooms in parallel harmonic dimensions. The closeup of the egg reveals its technology and a juvenile bansula who is emerging into the new world from embryonic form. Hooray for junior.
To see a higher res version of this image click here.
SNK ups the ante of hand drawn sprites in its new 2-D fighter.
This looks to be one of the best looking King Of Fighters yet.
Nice artwork and animation.
Punker girl profile. It was a design I did for work.
I got some ideas for the character from pictures of Amy Winehouse.
To see more work click here.
This is very tasty, and is the fullest flavored milk I’ve had in a while.
I’ve lived in different parts of the country and never saw the brand before, so I assume it’s probably a local one from local farms, hence the awesome taste. The natural stuff tastes more like the food I remember eating as a child.
If I can buy some food products that circulate money into the surrounding agricultural business I try to. I grew up around farms and have a respect for people who put hard work and hours into the craft.
Drinking from cows of the Promised Land reminds me when our family used to have a milkman who brought milk in glass bottles and left them at our front porch.
That was some good milk too. Hooray for milk.
I’m a sucker for awesome puzzle games, especially ones like this. The animation and game play look really fun and exciting. Who would have thought barfing rainbows into each other’s mouths could be such a jolly good time?
Carl Fredricksen, an elderly man with a floating house traverses through an undiscovered world of flora and fauna, accompanied by a young asian cubscout, a technologically enhanced golden retriever, and exotically strange bird….and, it’s completely acceptable because of solid personality and character development.
I just saw UP with my wife over the weekend. This has got to be one of my favorite Pixar stories, and they’ve already set the bar pretty high with all the other films. What always blows my mind about these guys is the surgical care they take to every iota of the what happens, and how it weaves into the overall theme that’s being communicated. Being a guy who’s married to a supportive, funny, and weird wife also helped me appreciate it in ways that weren’t revealed in any of the movie trailers.
I loved all the characters, but found myself cheering the most for Carl throughout the film. He has this complicated yet simple personality arc, from childhood into the present day that is just….constructed so well!
I can’t say enough good things about this movie. Just go see it. 
Oh, and if you have any grandparents or older folks you’re close too, take them to see it also.
Sometimes before diving into some illustration work, I do a little warm-up sketch and painting. Here’s one from today.
I wonder if his head is to too big to stay straight when he casts spells?
Maybe his spells are crooked.
To see more sketches click here.
Does Invasion Of The Body Snatchers sound like something reserved for the silver screen only? Perhaps not, thanks to the strange and unique life cycle of the phorid fly. Instead of personally caring for their larvae, this winged insect opts for converting prey into a living nursery, zombie style.
In South America female phorid flies have developed a bizarre reproductive strategy: They hover over fire ants, then inject their eggs into the ants with a needle-like appendage.
The egg grows and the resulting larva generally migrates to the ant’s head. The larva lives there for weeks–slurping up the brain and turning the ant into a “zombie,” in some cases compelling the ant to march 55 yards (50 meters) away from its colony to avoid attack by other fire ants.
Finally the baby fly decapitates its host and hatches, exiting through the ants head, as shown in the pictures in this gallery.
Take slicing and dicing (SlapChop), courtesy of the ShamWow! guy (Vince Shlomi), put it in an audio blender via Steve Porter, and parallel edit with moments from the always classic Breakin’.
Makes me hungry….and pop lock at the same time.
Here’s the final image in vector format. I changed many of the elements in the city, per the request of who I was making it for. The flying fish have been transformed into flies, and the building are made out of found objects instead of being more traditional looking.
To see more illustration/animation work click here.
A couple development sketches from an animated project last year. I’ll be posting the finished artwork here next. I wanted to show these sketches first, as they are different in a few ways from the final vector image. For one there’s this Brahma-like head mounted on the highest skyscraper of the city, which senses in all directions.
Didn’t you know Winston? Where ever you go, there you are.
To see a higher res version of this image click here.
If you’ve linked directly to a specific article in this blog from the past, they have been changed to search-engine-friendly ones.
Just two minutes ago I’ve finished updating the permalink structure on my blog. This is the only and last time I will ever be changing the permalink structure.
For a quick guide on permalinking straight from Wordpress’s Codex go here.
Most people, when constructing the “pretty permalinks” use the “%category%” and “%postname%” fields respectively for effective SEO. On the Worpress Codex and other SEO blogs, they advise against starting any permalink with the “%category%”, “%postname%”, “%tag%”, or “%author%” fields. Why is this so? In general it adds unnecessary clutter to the database powering your blog and slows down queries to the information being called. It’s explained in better detail on Doug Cambell’s blog here. You can read it through and decide for yourself how you want to structure your posts. What’s important is knowing your options and finding the best solution to serve the needs of your blog.
1up just released a first look at the opening cinematic and battle tutorial gameplay from the Final Fantasy XIII Japanese Demo on PS3. They’ve got nine new videos, this being the first 10 minutes.
I’ve been a fan of the series since Final Fantasy IV (II locally in US). IV was one of the first role-playing games I got into for the story. The battle system interface and graphics engine have been completely overhauled, giving a new level of polish, detail, and interaction. Impressive. The baby Chocobo hiding in Sazh’s hair is one of my favorite characters.
In the seedy province of Mc Elwan there’s a pub that shouldn’t be visited unless you’re of the street-smart type. It’s occupied primarily by locals, with a hired muscle to keep the peace. If you want to speak to the owner of the bar, ask for Al: he’s the guy with the beard that pours lagers and the hat that watches the tip jar. Al’s also got a finger on all the weapons trade in the area and can slip you unwarranted advice: for a few dinars.
….like I said, don’t make any scuffle, unless you enjoy a belch-induced flame to the butt and a kick out the front door. That’s just the Pyro Piggy doing his job. Don’t hate.
To see more illustration/animation work click here.
These guys look like they are having a great time, coupling their stirring ballad with incredible arm gestures. I’ll be the first to admit that I, too, could not resist the urge to pantomime along with the tempo of the song. The elemental characteristic of each jolly incarnation of the singer reminds me of Power Rangers. That’s a plus.
“Tunak Tunak Tun”, often referred to solely as “Tunak”, is a bhangra/pop love song created by Indian artist Daler Mehndi and released in 1998. It has become an internet meme because of its catchy tune and the amusing dance in its music video, inspiring numerous spin-offs and parodies. The music video was the first made in India to use bluescreen technology, which allowed the singer to superimpose his image over various computer-generated backgrounds, one featuring St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow.
The “strange” dancing and presence of only the singer in this video was a response to criticism from the world of Bhangra pop. Many critics at the time complained that his music was popular due to his videos which featured beautiful women dancing; his response was to create a video that featured only himself. As he predicted, the song was still a huge success, but the phenomenon of foreign language and unusual dancing made the video a cult hit in other countries as well.
While watching movies, I often laugh at the expressions people make when they are acting. This sketch is from a while back, took about a minute or two. I think it’s from Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon 4. Can’t remember. I looked around online and found an image of him snarling that seems to match the spirit of the sketch.
Snarling people are funny.
To see more sketches click here.
