News and Events

So back in the fall 2007 I won a little contest, and I was lucky enough to have my art featured on the box of what would become a revolutionary game. This was a great moment in my life and I recieved far more accoldaes than I deserved for said design. Now, 5 years later I do a quick Google search (who hasn’t Googled themselves before) and I find that the logo has been getting used all over the place. Here are a few of the more interesting examples…

As an artist It’s extremely important to have a good handle on perspective. Once you understand the rules, it becomes a part of everything you draw. It’s one of the backbones to any polished illustration. That is unless you’re talking about isometric art! In which case you better forget everything you learned about perspective….. because it doesn’t exist with this style. That was what I had the hardest time getting over. I kept drawing “correctly” and had to unlearn a huge part of my artist’s arsneal. But in the end it was well worth the effort because because I discovered a fun new way of creating video game art assets. What you’ll see here is a few of my isometric paintings I’ve done for various video games. I tried hard to take isometric video game illustration to a new level. I’d seen Zynga’s horrible FarmVille, and I wanted to do something more polished and even painted looking. Along the way I came up with some pretty cool techniques for using light sources, custom brushes and textures. I even developed a way of creating modular buildings that gave the level designer a lot of mileage out of my artwork. Check them out and let me know if you need to hire an isometric video game artist!

Whether you’re on the Ron Paul bandwagon or not, you can’t deny the man’s unwavering vision and honesty. He refuses to change his beliefs to be more “electable.” I really admire him and so I wanted to do a painting of him. My inspiration was to do something similar to the HOPE painting made famous by Obama. But I didn’t want to rip it off. I wanted something fresh and new that would capture the spirit of what Paul stands for. So I started looking at propaganda posters and anything involving revolution. I ultimately decided on a giant “V” that would stand for revolution. A nice unintentional side effect was that the interior part of the “V” where the painting is also looks like a heart. Which worked perfect to symbolize love (also hidden in the word revolution) I threw some aged textures in there to reinforce the fact that Paul’s message goes way back to the constitution and I was done!

I’m also including my original painting before I worked it into my revolution design. The painting itself is where I spent 95% of my time so it’s worth checking out unobstructed. Overall I’m pretty happy with the level of detail in it and the overall look. Check them out!

Wow! I’m really having a great time getting back in touch with my painter side. So much time designing over the years I’ve forgotten my first true love! This is a piece I did for my game Deadwood. I had the idea for a hobbit like house that was built inside the hollow of a tree. I loved the idea of using a broken branch for a chimney! This was also my first piece that I finished on my new Cintiq 21UX. I’m really loving this thing. So check it out and let me know what you think. I know I have a long way to go with this type of art but I’m excited for the road ahead of me.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of starting my own t-shirt line. I’m tentatively calling it “Back Burner Shirts” because right now that’s exactly where they are. I’ve designed lots of shirt lineups over the years and figure why not do one of my own. However, there’s lots of people that start t-shirt companies, and I would say about 99.9% of them fail. So I’m in no rush. Right now it’s all about exploring some fun new ideas I have. I’m more interested in pushing myself to come up with clever new designs than worrying about selling them at this point.

So my first idea is called Pixel Evolution. It’s about how far the art has come in modern video games, yet at their heart they are still just pixels. Check it out!

New painting! I wanted to do something kind of grungey and dirty. I thought a tough boxer girl might might be something a little different than what i usually do. This was the first time that I used textures on a painting. I have to say I like the effect. It takes some of that digital edge off. Pretty happy with how it came out.

So my first crack at our title screen looked kind of like this. Which I liked but after we got knee deep in the game, a more light-hearted style began to take shape. So in an effort to stay consistent with our new funny drawings used everywhere else I developed this new title screen for the game which I actually like much better. Enjoy!Super Shock Football comes out in a couple more weeks!!!

A while back I hinted about a big logo I was working on for a new video game. It was HUSH HUSH at the time so I couldn’t say much. But the media floodgates have finally opened and I can now tell you the game is called Section 8 and is coming to XBOX 360, PS3, and PC. I did MANY versions of this logo, some more fleshed out than others, till the clients decided on the one you see below. (I wish I could take credit for the awesome art here but I only did the logo itself.) Still, I think it looks great on the box art and whats cool is the eagle emblem is used quite a bit in the game as “badges” on the shoulders of the armor. You can see what I mean by watching the trailer after the jump or click here to see the awesome HD version.

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been hard at work on my first iPhone game. It’s been a lot of work but it’s also been a blast. I learned so much as a designer working on this project. There were many things to consider past the usual “make it look good” approach we often fall into as designers. ie: functionality, scale, intuitiveness, smart use of space, versatility, 3D texture mapping, marketability, the list goes on and on. Anyway, I wanted to let you all know to check it out by going to our new website. SuperShockFootball.com

We got all kinds of good stuff there including a trailer, game details, screenshots, wallpapers, forums, and links to our twitter, youtube and facebook pages. More than enough keep yourself busy while you wait for the summer release. After the jump you’ll find some of the iPhone wallpapers we have on our site….

Hey everyone. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. I’ve been pretty busy adapting to my new role as a father and trying to juggle a design business while developing an iphone game. So what we have here is a bunch of illustrations I did for our game. We changed the name from ILectric Football” to “Super Shock Football” This was for creative reasons as well as legal reasons Anyway, after the end of every play one of these bad boys pops up. The goal was to make them vintage and funny. I hope you like them. For those interested in more info on Super Shock Football, check out the Facebook page and become a fan! You can also find much higher resolution version of these drawings there. Stay tuned as the first trailer will be coming out in the next few days.