Junk ET Headquarters

If you've been following my Dribbble account you've probably already seen me post some artwork for a game called Junk ET that I've been contributing to since January 2015. It's a roguelike about a waste removal agent who cleans up junk on various planets. The dungeons are completely randomized, so no two playthroughs are ever exactly alike. I've neglected to post about it here until now, but I'll try to change that! If all goes as planned, the final version will be released this summer. I'm working with an awesome team of people and couldn't be happier to be a part of this game.

Last week I worked with one of our programmers on one of the game's main menus. You click on different parts to access other sub-menus, like character statistics or game settings.

Different areas have some slight animation as well -- some done through code, others handled by yours truly. We want the room to feel like a lively mission control type of place where employees monitor agents like the player's character.

Here's a close up of some animation I did for the employees at the front desk.

Fire With Fire: Main Menu Illustration

This is late, but.

We have a new background for the game's main menu! I worked hard on this over the course of a few days but I think it outdoes the old illustration. The current build has improved vastly over the last few weeks. I can't wait for people to start playing against each other and seeing all the improvements we made.

A new teaser video is on the horizon, and a playable beta for PC will follow shortly after. June's going to be an exciting month.

The Only Certainty Hits Theaters Tomorrow!

Alright, I'll stop with the movie references. But if you're in Norwich this Saturday be sure to stop by the booth and play the game for yourself! I won't be there in person but Harry and Jon will be running the show so I wish them all the best. Running a convention booth is hard.

I made a few posters for them to give away to people who stop by.

The game's really coming along, a lot of rapid changes recently and I believe Harry and Jon have been crunching code since early yesterday to really polish the Beta up for the expo. Can't wait to hear how everything turns out! :D We've been working hard on this for a few months now, and we're proud to finally show it to the world.

Ava Title Illustration

This was somewhat of a monster to work on. Lots of back-and-forth between Photoshop and Illustrator and  laptop memory issues and second guessing aesthetic choices. Same old same old...

I have to say that the Paper Mario franchise and Kirby's Epic Yarn were huge influences (as always) because of their papercrafty/handmade look. When I first joined the team and started doing artwork concepts we didn't really plan on having stitchwork enemies and bosses, but it just sort of came about and we rolled with it where appropriate. That gave me the idea of having a somewhat pasted/handcrafted look for the title screen. There's space for the logo when necessary but this also works as a standalone banner since I believe the clients wanted a printable promo version.

The early drafts weren't much different. Had to decide whether Ava should be dead in the center or share the stage with her significant other, but this layout looked better.

Checking to see how it looks with the title.

Making color decisions at this stage and assigning shadow positions.

Flat version; originally this one below was the supposed final look, but I figured that textures and shadows added a little something in this case. The final final version is less coloring book and more shoebox diorama in my opinion.

This game's been plenty of fun to work on. Hoping for more opportunities to lend an artist's hand in creating the look for fantasy platforming games like this one.

Ava: Gunlock Illustration

A little something for Ava. Normally you defeat enemies by stomping them, but the main menu gives you the option of unlocking a weapon to use during the game. We needed a splash image for the menu so I worked on this over a couple of days.

Think Fire Mario... it allows you to safely pick off enemies from a distance.

It does make certain stages/situations easier, but it kind of takes the fun away from the run and jump style of play. In some ways it's almost too easy to stand back and shoot stuff rather than try to leap around enemies.

Fire With Fire: Promotional Poster for PAX 2013

Well, if you haven't heard by now, we'll be showcasing Fire With Fire at Penny Arcade Expo this weekend! Theory mentioned it on his site a while ago. Should be a lot of fun seeing all the other games other people have as well.

We'll be handing out posters for attendees so we needed some good old fashioned promo art to show off what the game is about; you know, get people interested in finding out more.

Started with some sketches. Went through a lot of different ideas of how to give a feel of the overall game with a single image. I tried everything to think of worthwhile poster layouts, from a simple grid of all of the Creeps, to looking up compositions from the Lion King (don't ask.). Eventually I settled on the idea of two opposing 'worlds' showing the Creeps and the Towers, separated by a logo of sorts in the center.

I liked the version with the Creeps up top better; they're the stars of the show after all. The first one one is a little too Heaven/Hell...

Theory wanted a slight shift in the logo fonts/colors so those were changed a bit.

The first versions looked plain, so I added more Creeps/Towers in the background and rearranged some things in the composition.

Once that was done, the lines were redone in Illustrator for a more precise feel.

As for the logotype, I didn't actually have the font that Theory wanted to use so I had to recreate the letters with shapes in Illustrator. Fortunately, two of the three words were identical so it could have been worse! I made a black and white version for more general use.

And the version for the poster. Slanted for emphasis, of course.

From there it was a matter of repainting the colors in Photoshop within the new linework to complete the poster. It wasn't as bad since I had basically already made most of the color decisions in the earlier versions. We're hoping to have posters as well as other souvenirs to hand out for people passing by our booth, so I think everyone will have something to take with them by the end of the weekend. Oh, and of course you're free to, you know, play the actual game while you're there.

See you in Boston!

Family Matters

Actually got the idea from those group shots you see in fighting games or RPGs, where the whole cast is shown as a unit. You usually see them in games with a ton of characters... but hey! 1990s family sitcoms had a ton of characters, so why not?

A lot of Street Fighter and Kingdom Hearts were used as reference for the composition, among other games:

All works copyright of their respective owners, of course. Namely Capcom  and Square Enix.

Always loved group illustrations like this though, you get a feeling of the importance of the characters as a unit. Sadly it seems like we don't get a lot of games that emphasize huge all-star character casts anymore; it's more common to see at most a duo, or solitary protagonists fighting by themselves shown on the game's cover. I would love to see more titles with boxart using this sort of layout though.

I think I've done all I can in Photoshop with this, so it's time to do all of the fancy linework in Illustrator.

Sonic Colors

That tagline at the top of the page says Illustrator | Mobile Platform Artist. So... where are all of the illustrations!? I've been doing a lot of in-game stuff and characters floating around on solid colored backgrounds lately, but I've been trying to get into the habit of finishing more thought out and fully fledged scenes. Sometimes you just gotta let loose and draw some Sonic!

As always, the first step is Photoshop. (Paper actually, but it only really starts to come together in Photoshop.)

This first drawing was mostly to determine all of the implied lines of action and general flow of the picture. I was trying to get the sensation of everything swirling around Sonic in the middle.

What's a tribute to Sonic Colors without, well... colors? I wanted a predominantly dark setting that would stand against the colors of the Wisps and colored highlights on Sonic's form. This part took some messing around but I eventually found where I was going.

That about does it for Photoshop. Now that everything is in place, Illustrator makes everything a bit more sleek.

Ah, lines. It's what the program was made for. Perspective issues and placement of the characters are ironed out in this stage. Also adding a little variation to line widths where possible. Some close up shots as well here:

And finally, with lines finalized and a guide for the colors, everything comes together.

I guess it's technically still a solid colored background, but hey! At least the characters aren't just standing there independent of each other. I think we can count that as an illustration.

Helping clients and other people is always well and good, but it's important for artists to do what they enjoy now and then, and remind themselves of why they like making art in the first place. In any case, the process of going from Photoshop to Illustrator has become pretty streamlined at this point, so there should be a much higher volume of works like this down the road.

Oh, and if you haven't played Sonic Colors, I'd advise you to do so this instant.

Infected Scientist

Another weekly challenge from ConceptArt.org. Last week's theme was to create a scientist that had been infected by an alien virus, racing against the clock to develop a cure.

There were a lot of ugly drawings in my sketchbook to explore ideas, but these were the most reasonable ones I wanted to work with.

Given enough time I would have wanted to continue each one, but due to the deadline I narrowed them down to the bottom 2, which I thought were strongest.

What's a good scientist character without dramatic under lighting? Added a little more to the uniform of the female character to give a more doctor-y feel (necktie, goggles) though I didn't want to fall back on using a white lab coat. Also added a few more conspicuous details in terms of her infection spreading.

Only one entry is allowed for these, so I went with the two headed doctor for the final version. Either way though it was the first time I'd extensively explored different character types for a prompt before settling on one. It's actually a good way to generate ideas for the final, since there's often some overlap between different designs.

Wrestling Illustrations

A few more of these, with some defensive maneuvers thrown in this time. The style is pretty much the same as the others, though I tried to get a bit more detailed with lighting where possible. These clients have been great to work with, always helpful and willing to explain where changes were needed. Hoping their project of making a card game with these takes off. :D

The Sidekick

This week's iteration of ConceptArt.org's Character of the Week challenge. We basically had to take a comic hero and create a new sidekick for them. I went through a few sketches before settling on an aide for Captain America--the Flash, Static, and Raven were primary ideas but decided to go with this one.

Here are some earlier sketches that I started off with (had to change the headdress because someone mentioned it looked more like a duck than an eagle haha). Also an alternate version of the final that I ended up not using, the clouds seemed a little out of place with the look of everything else.

Part of the challenge was also to present the final image as a comic book cover which was fun, was going for a classic old timey look in some aspects. At the very least it forced me to try my hand at a comic cover layout, which is a skill I believe I'll be needing very soon.

Fire With Fire: Welcome Page

A requested illustration for Fire With Fire. For the time being, it will be used for things like the login screen, a background for the development blog, and imagery for the demo video. We left some space on the right for things like menus and text to be overlayed.

We wanted a scene that would look exciting but also give people a clear idea of, well... what the game actually is. I really like the Creeps so I definitely wanted to include the various types we've come up with, as well as showing some of the basic weapons used to fend them off from the lone tree. Progress is coming along, so hopefully we'll be seeing a demo of the current gameplay in the near future. Any questions about the project (or anything really), post here or shoot me an e-mail and I'll reply as soon as possible!

Even more wrestling.

Most recent set from the ongoing series of cards for a client I've been working with. They want to start printing soon so the next few will probably be the last.