Patches

I think she lives in this city I painted last year.

I wish I could make more time to create art for the public but my time is so very thin these days for things like that. I love working on the Defiance game here at Trion though and I'll most likely be able to share much of that work later on. Speaking of, the talented John Powell is joining my team but I still have openings. If you'd like to join us I'd love to hear from you!

Check some of these out! They're just beautiful! The blog itself is a treasure trove.
http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/01/paja-jovanovic-vrsac-1859-vienna-1957.html

Distraction Stage Left

I hope this post finds you all well.

It's not like you haven't been to this link before: http://broadviewgraphics.blogspot.com/
I love how he's experimenting with a subtly graphic expression. It really does it for me.

A Friend's Gotta Do ...

These were some sketches I did for a friends low budget movie. The characters are costume designs for the actors that he had worked up in written form. He had envisioned them made from things that would be fairly inexpensive and accessible so they are pretty basic. The scene sketch was a concept for a digital matte shot that another friend was going to create in 3D. So ya, just something I did last year.

I've got to mention it again but I need a top notch, well rounded concept artist for my team at Trion Worlds. I'm looking for someone who can do a realistic look, is good with characters and environments and wants to work on something sci-fi with me and the team.

I'm a sucker for peeps doing this sort of look, and this guy does it perfect: http://saigonradio.blogspot.com/

The Dynamic Duo

This one's for you Dave and Jason. These two guys reminded me of you two. I'd link to both Dave and Jason but Jason's a ghost on the internet. Dave on the other hand you've probably already seen and loved but in case you haven't here's his blogging home: http://davidsketch.blogspot.com/

Have a fantastic weekend people! See you next post ...

Sketchy Saturday

Nothing special, just some thoughts on paper. Gotta run, busy day. Why don't you swing on by here for a treat: http://claudioacciari.blogspot.com/

Pirates

Goes with this character. Also, check out Konstantin.

The 6pm

Sigh: http://artofkevinnelson.blogspot.com/

The Prime Minister's Witch

Thanks guys for the comments on the last one.

Fantastic animator this guy. And he's obsessed with the best so you can't go wrong there: http://inspectorcleuzo.blogspot.com/

Some morning maintenance ...

Check out my coworker Ian's blog if you haven't already. It's pretty dang awesome.

Style test

Marks on paper

By the light of the fireflies ...

I'm not able to test this on another monitor so the dark values might all be crunched together for you. I hope not. It sure is annoying how varied monitors and their settings are. Although, some of my favorite artists can do a dark image that looks good on any monitor. I have this feeling that if your value range and value arrangement are both solid nothing but the worst monitor (and maybe not even then) can destroy it.

2nd encounter ...

Eerily quiet ...

Thanks everybody who takes the time to check out my blog. I appreciate it! And I doubly appreciate the comments that are left. On another note, I can't keep up with all the Red Dead news we're putting out now so I'm abandoning putting all the updates here. Just check out the official Red Dead page and check back often. I'm actually looking forward to playing this game proper as a gamer when we finish it all up. It's pretty cool.

Working at it ...

Workshop post mortem

The character design workshop went well other than there not being a microphone for me. I guess the people in the back had a really hard time hearing me and it was really distracting having to remember to raise my voice as loud as was needed. It felt like I needed to shout for them to hear me. It would have been easier were I standing in front just lecturing but I was hunched over a computer trying to draw too ... I'll need a mic for the next workshop I do. Other than that though I thought the presentation and demo went well. The turnout was pretty good and I'm appreciative of all the people who came. I hope it was instructional/inspiring for them as that's what I was shooting for. My favorite workshops always hit those two points for me. The format worked pretty well. I lectured on broad character design principles for the first 30 minutes and then spent about 30 minutes demoing random head sketches and talking a bit on the importance of the head/face as the focal point of a character. After that I spent the next hour turning one of those heads into a full character sketch (the girl on my sketch page with her hand on her hip). So that was the first half of the workshop and then we took a short break. After the break I showed some sketches I'd done the night before (those other sketches next to the girl plus the pirate sketch) and took a poll to see if people preferred I paint up the girl I'd just sketched or the pirate. The pirate won so I spent the next hour and a half painting the pirate up to the level you see here. The last half hour I spent on student paint/draw overs. Some of the students had put their own character paintings in a folder and I had time to draw/paint over two of them. I had a great time and hope to do more of these types of things in the future. Thanks again to all of you who came!

They're back ...

Some rough sketches and concepts ...

Character Design Workshop

I'm doing a character design workshop in a week and a half on the 20th of this month. It's primarily for students but also open to the public so I'm mentioning it here. It'll be down at the Art Institute of San Diego, Saturday the 20th from 1-5pm and it costs $20 to attend. Basically I'll lecture a bit and demo a bit. Call ahead to the school or swing by (if there's still room).

One Year

My youngest is turning a year old and I did this of her. A bit different than the one I did of my oldest a few years back. In other news we released another gameplay trailer for Red Dead, this one highlighting the weapons and combat.

Gameplay

Here's a cool gameplay feature on Red Dead you might enjoy. This one's for you Agadoni: Gameplay Trailer HD

Oh Ya ...

New trailer up for Red Dead Redemption: HD Trailer #2

Sketchbook 01

Some friends and I went up to Burbank two and a have weeks ago for the CTN Animation Expo and I left feeling like my life had been changed. That sounds a bit heavy and I don't mean like finding Jesus sort of life changing but it was artistically a big bundle of encouragement, inspiration, clarity, awakening ... I really felt at home there. The animation crowd was so happy and light spirited compared to the video game arts crowd I've been immersed in for the last 10 years. I dug it. And the level of artistic skill was through the roof! Anyway, my immediate goal that I started on as soon as I got home was to really learn how to draw. So I've been drawing like there's no tomorrow. I started a sketchbook at the expo and finished it tonight so here's a few of the pages from it. I'll start a new one tomorrow. The milestone I set for myself was six months from the expo. So, I'm going to cram as much study and practice as I can into my head in the next six months and see where I land. I'll set a new goal after that. I'm drawing from photos and life a lot but forcing myself to caricature what I'm seeing, trying to focus on personality and story. I haven't had so much fun at art in over a year!

Syfy

What's up with the new spelling of the Sci Fi channel? I keep seeing 'syfylys' when I see the logo. Unpleasant. My blog has sat dormant for so long because of a mix of big life changes and work. I did have some time the last few weeks to design out a sci fi character in my bits of spare time. It's definitely out of the mold of the work I do for R*Games and it's nice to shake things up like this as often as I can. Anyway, here's hoping the next update comes sooner than this one did. I don't know about things mellowing out quite yet but eventually they will. Seasons come and seasons go.

The Dutchess

I was studying some art and stumbled upon the above painting. I liked elements of the painting a lot which inspired me to make the sketch up top. I also watched the movie The Dutchess last night and found it visually just stunning. They always light and shoot those victorian movies like paintings. The movie itself was profoundly sad though.

RED DEAD REDEMPTION

Announced today. So this is what I've been designing for three and a half years. Lots of fun. I'm excited to be able to share it finally and I'm looking forward to all of you getting a chance to play it later this year. There are a few characters in the screenshots that I designed and art directed including the main player. For more screenshots and info on the game visit this link. Larger screenshots can be found on the official site: RED DEAD REDEMPTION