Happy Holidays, from Video Game Gal Amber and Friends!

Digital inks and color from a rough I did in my sketchbook.

I will try and be more diligent in posting art in the future.

In the meantime, have a wonderful new year!

DEFIANCE CONCEPT ART (PART 2)

The concept art of DEFIANCE continues...  I have to give props to the environment guys at Human Head and Trion Worlds for making these levels look spectacular in all their destroyed glory.  It's always a challenge to cram as much in and still manage to make it work for an MMO.

Here are two more maps we worked on.  What started out as a Corporate Park, became something like a shipping/warehouse kinda area and Scrapworks, a scrap yard that was taken over by an alien mercenary faction and then a mechanical sentience.  Followed up by a smaller multiplayer map Observatory.

Overview with building drawovers.

Building under construction and destroyed parking ramp.

More building drawovers with a fun jump ramp you can do on your ATV.

Solving the barrier wall designers placed.  Always challenging when given an area with random structure and then having to figure out what something realistically could be.

Start areas for the multiplayer sides.

Getting more painting on!

Adding to the lore of the area with a series of conveyer tracks you could follow throughout the level.

More painting!

Small multiplayer map showing the rough from Trion then the drawover overview.

mmmm.... destruction

Figuring out what rooms could be.

DEFIANCE MMO CONCEPT ART (PART 1)

With the release of Trion World's MMO Shooter Defiance coming out today, I can finally reveal some of the concept work I have been producing while contracting at Human Head Studios for the past 9 months.  It's set in the future 15 years after a cataclysmic event terraformed the Earth.  Well,
check out the trailer for yourself, play the game, and check out the SyFy Channel's show starting April 15th, 2013!

So here's the concept for the escape pod you see in the trailer.

This was nice to have stuff we worked on appear right off the bat when you start the game.

I think after you land you find General Grant's Command where I got to design a couple models for the cinematic.

Holographic displays

 Here's some of the first areas we worked on.  It's called 101 Keys.  Lots of industrial look taken over by mutant Raiders.  The Raider look was already established, so we had to dress up the areas and make sure it was consistent.

You can see Raiders aren't nice guys.

Here are some more cinematic locations where you encounter key characters who dole out missions and fill you in on the the world, making it a much richer experience.

Top Notch is in a really cool structure that you access via a winding bridge.  I didn't design the outside, but concepted the inside.

Progress page.  Top: What I start out with.  Middle:  Drawover  Bottom: If time allows or requested, I'll do color.

Headland's Transit

Cooper's Iron Demon Ranch

Well, that's all for the time being.  I'll try and get more posted soon!

EA Art Test

Recently did an art test for Electronic Arts where I had to pick two genres and then create a costume for each that could crossover between a male, female, and male brute body type (so no skirts or bare chests).  I picked Superhero and Fantasy.  Each one needed color realistic and cartoony design, then throw in an anime version and a turnaround for any of the designs.  This is what I came up with in the two day time allotted.

Star Trek/ Legion of Superheroes #6 Cover

Whoo!  I got to do a cover for the book.  Better late than never.  Went with a retro style with the linework and composition and colors.  Drawn and colored in Photoshop.

Star Trek/ Legion of Superheroes #3 pencil highlights

Nice role call type of page as the two teams face off.

The Amalgam Universe Imperial Elite.  Star Trek characters and races take over the Fatal Five.

girl on girl on girl action.  'Nuff said.

The original script had a smaller version of Validus as himself, but it felt weird to me to have that, so I suggested the gorilla like Mugatu to fill in his place.  Liked the teamwork in this one.

Showy double page spread for the Trek guys.

...and one for the Legion crew.

My roughs for the Imperial Elite.  Note Mugatu's color here.  I was surprised and pleased with the purple Mugatu in the comic.

Wacky Fun With X-Men Gals

Messing around with some X-Men designs for some of the ladies.  Was trying out a new "animated" style.

Something new, something crappy...

Yeah, this color thing is going to take a while to nail down. Lucky for me, fellow artist Eric Spray gave me a pdf of an Andrew Loomis book, Creative Illustration, and we'll see if I can manage to get some sort of theory into my brain. So, presented in all it's gaudy glory, my Rock Band avatar, Amber... again.

I'll have to see how these look on a different screen, since I'm working on the tablet PC the screen dims and i think I'm adjusting for that by having brighter, more saturated colors. Trying to work without line for me is tough too. I think I need to start doing some exercises from some good photo ref.

Sketchnight 03.31.09

Okay, I'm going to start to dedicate more time on these nights to doing more digital color work. It's really the only way I'm ever going to get better at it. I'm using my Toshiba M700 tablet PC. So in all it's hideous glory are two pieces I was messing around with tonight.

One piece was done in Artrage using the pencil tool. Kinda neat, since it looks like color pencil. The other piece of just the head was done in Photoshop. Grayscale multiply layer with linework over a color layer.

The character I'm using is my Rock Band character Amber. They have a real nice character creation system. Although she looks way cuter in the game at this point...