Early morning thoughts

Woke up at 4 this morning. Just couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about the ending and if it was clear enough what was going on, so I set right down and started on a revised final frame. I'm really happy with the way it came out . . . so much so that after I replaced the frame in the short, I made a wallpaper for my desktop and thought I might share it with you . . .

The link in the last post will now show you the updated version of the short. Cheers!

annnnnddd . . . ACTION!

As most of you know (my faithful 6 followers), I have been taking 3D modeling, animation and video game design courses for the past year in an effort to transition from art directing table top games to art directing video games and animation. I've learned quite a bit and this animation really shows off some of my new skills. I'm going to continue working on this (adding additional characters, sets, animation and dialog) - so consider this just a taste of what's to come.

Click here to see Gertie's Garden in HD (warning: if it runs slow or jerky, hit the "Turn HD Off" button in the upper right corner).

Okay, let the job offers begin!

An update on Grandma . . .

Just thought I might share a little progress . . .

Grandma

Just thought I'd share a character I've been working on for a game and animated short. Her name is Gertie.

What if . . . Xeko had been a video game?

Greetings! Well, I am up for this gig at a software/console maker... let's call them "MiSo." They are looking for someone to help develop some UIs for internally developed IPs for their uber cool new motion tracker hardware peripheral. The team was having a hard time understanding how my card UI could translate to a video game - so I spent a few hours and developed these 2 samples based on the Xeko collectible card game I Art Directed. They turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd share 'em. Let me know what you think!

By the way, if you have kids, and they like games and animals, you should really check out the Xeko game. Go to xeko.com to find a store near you!

Game UI

For the past twelve years, my "day job" has involved the creation of UI designs. Whether it's for games, kiosks, websites or interactive museums, one thing remains constant: Make it so seamless and intuitive that most users don't even notice it.

To do this, you first need to have a clear understanding of the brand and how you want the user to interact with it. The next step is to work with the Art Director or Creative Director to extend elements of the brand (or Intellectual Property) into the UI. Getting these things worked out up front can save you a lot of time and effort. When designing UIs for tabletop games, this planning stage is critical.

Unlike video games -- which can have any number of inventory screens and can change based on what the character is holding or doing -- collectible card game UIs require ALL elements to be presented at ALL times. They also require a lot of forward engineering for maximum backwards compatibility (once it's printed, there's no going back and releasing a patch/update for the UI) - so it is extremely important to always ask a lot of questions up front. These questions often lead to discoveries and opportunities to improve the UI. The key challenge, of course, is to fit all of the necessary information into one tiny 63mm x 88mm space (or an even smaller space, if you happen to be creating a base for a miniatures game).

Now, I'm not saying that designing a tabletop game UI is any harder than designing UI for video games. But tabletop game UI design presents its own unique set of challenges -- and having developed an expertise in this area, it gives me a unique respect for maximizing space through creative simplicity.

Above are a few examples of tabletop game UIs I've designed . . .

Greetings from the jungle!

My little sister is going to have a baby. She's done the nursery up in a "jungle theme" (which, apparently, is theeee hot theme right now), and asked if I could contribute some artwork.

So, I set out on a mission (safari, if you like) to create some animals to look after my little niece-to-be. Each started off as the same white ball of clay. They were formed, shot on a black background, and then rolled up again to become the next animal. I opened them up in Photoshop, clipped them out, placed them on some royalty free and very composited backgrounds, and then colored each animal. If you look closely, you can see my fingerprints in their little clay faces.

Please forgive the watermark. I'm considering putting prints of these up for sale and while I would love to see these in every jungle themed baby room across the nation/world, I'd like to make a little money in the process.

Feel free to drop me a line if you're interested in these . . . or maybe something specially made just for you.

honeycomb engine

corvus, a fellow game nerd i met a couple months back posted some logo options for his new rpg game engine on his blog . . . and while the engine itself is really exciting and interesting, the logos feel very old school tsr . . . sorry corvus :)

anyway, i wanted to show him a concept that had more juice. i think this captures an element of his engine (you place tokens into various hex-shaped holders) as well as being a bit more dynamic.

more grumpy orc . . .

here's my final for my 3d animation class check it out

an interview with franklin fly

just posted the new franklin fly video . . .

watch the video

a sneak peek . . .

here's a quick snap from the set of the franklin fly interview. i should have a video done and posted by tuesday (on the vimeo account). wish me luck!

one blunt orc

here's my very first animated 3d character. it's made using just simple nurbs made in maya. i've also posted it on my vimeo account (which does not compress and shrink the video - so it's easier to see). in the future, that's where all my videos will go - and i'll keep this blog just for stills and non-animated work. 

what's the time? it's time to get orc!

here's some snaps of my first 3d character! built with nurbs in maya, it's coming along great.

catching up

hi everybody! here's a few things that i've been working on. 

the first is my fly who wishes he was a bee. his name is franklin. this is a quick screen test. big thanks to heidi (who knit franklin's bee sweater)

the second is the final 3d building built in maya and animated in after effects. it's my first project using maya.

3d building

here's something that is in the works for my midterm at the academy of art university. it's my first (of many to come) maya project. we had to go photograph a building, and then build a 3d model of it . . .

03.02.09 group chalk

chalk is hard to use for animation . . . and doing animation outside in the winter makes it worse, but our class did it. the theme for each of our pieces is "escape" and i came up with the supporting design element of the "red ball". a fellow classmate (roland white) edited them all together. mine are at the end (the "paddle ball" and "i h8 chalk" - and i should have added that i h8 glare).

02.23.09 : tiger!

this was a 2 week project where we had to design and build paper puppets and a set. here are some pics of the progress and final animation.

02.23.09 : direct hit games

here's a logo i designed and animated . . .

02.23.09 : clay

here's my clay animation project . . . 

02.23.09 : crabby

so, it's been a month or so since i posted - and i thought i should try to post everything i've been working on. i'll start with my found object animation . . .

01.16.09

day 16:

ok, so, like i said, art everyday . . . almost. here's a self portrait. i started off wanting to do a sin city treatment, but in the end, i wanted a bit more mid time and color. cheers!

01.13.09

day 13:

well, today joel came over and we worked on the game for a couple hours - i'm sooo psyched - it's going to be great!

01.12.09

day 12:

today's the day i created the site and posted all the previous drawings and comments. tomorrow, i'm going to work a bit more on the bird.

01.11.09

day 11:

more game development - and some much needed relaxation.

01.10.09

day 10

i worked quite a bit on character and asset ideas for a new game i am developing. nothing really to show (at least not on a public site), but it's really shaping up.

01.09.09

day 9:

i don't know, i just felt like dancing - or, i guess, drawing the act of dancing. i know, i know, the front hand is a little crude. hey, it's a online sketchbook, chill out.

01.08.09

day 8: 

busy day working on more forms for school and the government - and trying to get some classes waived so i can get into the meat (maya and after effects) asap. needles to say, it left me feeling a bit spacey again, so did a quick shop of the lunar landing.

01.07.09

day 7:

added light and shadows. tightened it up a bit. still need to work on the tree, the bug, and i'm not happy with his front foot.

01.06.09

day 6:

blocked in the background color and added a little more detail to the bird.

01.05.09

day 5:

worked a bit on the lines and began the coloring for our hero.

01.04.09

day 4:

a little history on me . . . i was the art director and graphic designer on the xeko game for their first 3 sets (aka first couple of years). i art directed some really great people (like michel gagné, travis and jordan kotzebue, adam bolt, edward pun, bj nartker, and a whole bunch of others), and together, we made an awesome collectible card game that very subtly taught kids about ecosystems and endangered species. 

anyways, i was always too busy directing the artists (and cleaning up their files) to ever do an illustration myself . . . but i always wanted to, so here it goes . . .

i chose the green woodpecker as my subject and spent some time studying and sketching.

01.03.09

day 3:

i spent most of the day filling out forms for school and applying for grants, scholarships, and loans. by the time i looked up from the paperwork i was just spent - but here we were on day 3 and i had not done an arty thing all day (i would of loved to call the prep for art school "arty", but trust me, it was not), so, i made a spore animal.

01.02.09

day 2: 

this is lucy. she's our boxer. she is (and i know i'm going to get some heat for this) the best dog in the entire world. of course i had to draw her with a ball - as she is rarely without one. drawn in photoshop with the tablet.

lucy, like the girl, goes by a few other names . . . the goose, monkey girl, miss pants, magoose, smoochy pooch . . . yes, we know, it's a bit much.

01.01.09

day 1:

i thought i would start off the blog with a self portrait. it's me and my wife heidi (to eliminate future confusion, or just for future reference, i tend to call her "my girl", "cute girl", or "the girl").

it's a quick sketch in photoshop (cs3) on a wacom intuos tablet from a photo.

catching up

my new year's resolution this year was to do something arty every day. so far, it's been going well - of course we are only on day 12 of 365, but they say if you can stick with something for 2 weeks, then you form a habit. i'm hoping that since i actually enrolled in art school (academy of art university), this shouldn't be a problem.

so, here we go . . .