Movies, games and awards!

Lots of good news coming from knights end!

We are wrapping up the most recent Nintendo DS game that I was art lead on and I am getting prepped for the next project. As is standard for the type of titles Black Lantern develops, both are games aimed at the youth market. The one that is shipping soon is my all time fav that I have worked on thus far, Chuck E Cheese! Its a goofy property, and when I first heard I was gonna be the lead on the project I was a little disappointed (I had never been to Chuck E Cheese in my life, so only knew them from the commercials). However, thanks to good team communication, a solid gameplay design and a lot of artistic freedom from the publisher, UFO Interactive , I am extremely happy with the playability and overall look of this game.

Art was ahead of the curve for almost the entire dev cycle so I actually got to add in some swank ambient animations, a lot of flashing lights, character animations and random energy one could expect to find at your local Mouse run pizza parlor. In a nod to my own preferences as a classic gamer, all of the mini games are decked out to look like classic arcade cabinets with lots of references to classics such as Galaga, Super Sprint and Joust. I had a blast doing the visual research because it meant I could spend hours looking at and playing old arcade games. Thankfully, the arcade is just up the street from the office so I could go log some research time whenever I needed it. Due out on store shelves in late June, I look forward to see the reviews on this title. Its all entirely possible that it will beat out my old favorite game I worked on, Garfield's Fun Fest. Of course, that one was mainly my fav because I got to do some character design and get it approved by Jim Davis himself! Plus, he signed my copy of the game when it was all said and done. Hard to beat that!

Other big news! Last March the Ozarks were all a-buzz with a feature film that was shooting in our backyard, down in Forsythe, Mo. The flick was Winter's Bone, based off of a novel of the same name. The story follows a 16 year old girl, Ree, who has just found out that her Meth-cooking father has put their family farm up for bail and then disappeared. Either she finds him, or her siblings and half comatose mother are all going to be homeless deep in the Ozarks woods. The book was a great piece of country noir, incredibly well written by Daniel Woodrell. It wasn't an uplifting tale, but one a Missouri boy could definitely relate to and understand. The first couple of drafts of the film script that came across my desk via friends involved in early casting/location scouting were very rough indeed, but you could tell there was promise in the pages. The main failing of the early revisions were that those who had written the script hadn't had a lot of experience with the Ozark folks and their way of speech, so they went back to the way it was handled in the Beverly Hillbillies. However, by the time that filming started the cast and crew had spent a lot of time with some of the natives and when it came to roll sound they had it nailed! It was a pretty amazing process to see how the project developed and became more and more accurate to the way of life, regional vernacular and dialogue one could expect from Deliverance country.

The film had great talent both in front of the camera and behind. Past Sundance best director winner, Debra Granik, was helming the project, with Michael McDonough as DP, and Affonso Gonçalves taking care of the editing. In front of the camera were Jennifer Lawrence (and indie film favorite and actress from the Bill Engvall show), the incredible character actor John Hawkes (I guarantee you have seen him in something), and a Springfield local and good friend of mine, the beautiful and talented Lauren Sweetser. Lauren is the best actress in town (except for my wife, of course) and I am willing to bet she will be a household name within the next few years.

As for myself, I was only able to get away from the Nintendo projects I was working on long enough to be on set for a week. It was a great experience. The teamwork, respect for their fellow artists and talent that I saw on that set was staggering and set a very high standard I will set future productions too. As you can tell I am very happy that I got to be a part of the production.

Plus, Winter's Bone won the Grand Jury Prize at this years Sundance! Yup, the top prize at 2010 Sundance went to the one with the smallest budget that shot in the Missouri hallows. Not only that, but as I said by the time the cast started shooting, the script was pure literary honey, so naturally the film also won the best screenplay award. It was HUGE! Stupid amounts of excitement coming from the Ozark hills!

Look for Winter's Bone at theaters everywhere this summer and congrats to all those involved!

freeze frame

45 minute speed painting in photoshop, taken from a frame of the film RedCliff.

Scribbles and mouse ears

I've got some character design sheets for a character of mine called PF Bunny for you all today. PF is a pink furry bunny from the land of snugs and hugs that is used for King Velveteen's wetwork ops against the black hearted Grumps. Overall idea is carebears with guns.




Also, a random character in the style of the Dora brand.



Here in a couple weeks I have a new game coming to shelves that i get to announce that I am stupid excited about because instead of pixel work, I was a 3d artist for the first time in my gaming career. My degree was in 3d, but I've risen through the ranks of video game development as a 2d artist so havent gotten to add much to my 3d portfolio. As soon as the title is officially announced I will post some renders.

And, because I havent put them on here yet, a few samples of editing. The posts below are old submissions to the SATO48 hour film competition. Basically, you get the theme and a prop friday night, and you have to write, shoot and edit a 5 minute film to be turned in 48 hours later. The results are always silly, but its a great time.

2007

2008

2009


And then finally a film I served on as editor and DP that will be a great indie zombie film when it finally wraps post production, the Dead Shall Rise, a film by the great director Matt Darst who also led up the Sato projects.

New Nickelodeon DS Games on shelf!

The last batch of games I was lead artist on just hit store shelves this past week. Dora the Explorer Puppy, Backyardigans and Ni Hao Kai Lan all consumed a good 8 months of my life last year and I am proud to see them in stores. These make six titles I have worked together with the Nickelodeon team to develop and it never fails to be a good experience...plus, its Nickelodeon so how could you go wrong?

http://www.amazon.com/Dora-Explorer-Puppy-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WG0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1257366105&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Backyardigans-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WGK/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_b

http://www.amazon.com/Ni-Hao-Kai-Lan-Celebration-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WGA/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_c

Random copies...

As I stated with my first post, the logic behind starting this blog was to see if its casual atmosphere would prompt me to post more work...which would mean I would have to work more to have something to post. The second reason to start it would be to centralize all of my favorite blogs so I didn't have to constantly update work or home computers so I could have access to them all whenever.

Well, the one blog I hit one blog more than any other. He has a passion for cartooning and the artistry behind it, he is a cartoon historian of sorts and the references and images he posts are beyond amazing. With the quick and easy styles a lot of cartoons have drifted toward, it is increasingly difficult to find a place to pick up tips and tricks from the original innovators of the craft rather than watered down fortune cookie sized standards that are easier to pass on.

Generally using classic references, there would be breakdowns and examples of how to make interesting and functional characters, not to mention little exercises to help ones general cartooning skill. I only found the cartoon class two weeks ago and the Preston Blair studies that I took from his site have already noticeably helped out my drawing skill.

So anyway, below are some of the Preston Blair drawings I did, plus a few other studies of various artist works. I can give names of the original artists of any of the work for those interested.

Sweet holy halloween season!

Every October I try to watch at least one horror flick a day, with weekends generally averaging out to 3-5 movies. I try to alternate movies I have never seen before with ones that are old favorites. Tonight I watched 30 Days of Night with Rachel, my wife. I had seen it before, but remembered the visuals being spectacular so wanted to refresh my memory. Indeed, the vampire aesthetic was very near to Templesmith's original artwork, and therefore amazingly creepy in all sorts of subtle ways. The bone structure of the vamps faces all resembling sharks was a great change from the slick and sexy vampires one is used to seeing. The story...meh.

Watched Gingersnaps this weekend. Werewolf movies seem so hard to get right for some unfathomable reason, but this one was pretty decent. Of course I say that with the caveat of liking bad horror movies, so sometimes discerning the ones that I like because I am I and ones that are actually good can be a difficult line to keep in focus. However, I would say this one straddled the line between mainstream good and Claunch good. Dog Soldiers and (of course) American Werewolf in London would be the guiding line of good werewolf flicks.

Caught Trick R Treat last weekend. Awesome, awesome flick. I know that it was shelved for three years because Warner Bros didn't want it to compete with any of their Saw movies, but this gem was better than any of those torture porns. It had a pretty strong resemblance to the old tales from the crypt and Vault of Horror flicks, just a modern creep edge to it. Great actors, 4 interwoven story-lines, just an overall great Halloween flick. Was it scary? Had its moments, but is definitely more of a seasonal movie.

Also picked up Fido, one of my all time favorite zombie flicks and thats saying something. Zombie flicks are my favorite genre. One year I tried to watch every zombie movie I saw on the box store shelf or Netflix. I think I made it just past 100 before I realized that of those 100 only 10 or so were actually watch-able and I was just eating up my life by watching some pretty craptacular films. Again, I like bad movies so maybe 10 is being a little optimistic. Its about the characters, not the carnage. I don't understand why its so hard to get. My list of favorite zombie flicks (no order) for those bored enough to be reading this blog in the first place. (Hi mom!)

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Zombieland
3. Fido
4. Dawn of the Dead (original)
5. Dawn of the Dead (new)
6. Undead
7. Night of the Creeps
8. Return of the Living Dead
9. Hide and Creep
10. Night of the Living Dead (original and Savini)
11. 28 Days later
12. Dead Alive
13. Dead Shall Rise

Thats a good starter list if you are wanting to break into the Zombie genre. They tend to skew a little to the Zomedy (zombie comedy) so bare that in mind.

After spending several hours getting into makeup the past three years in a row (Hellboy, the Goon and Marvels Beast) I am gonna take it easy this year and just paint my face so I can spend more time handing out candy and having fun.

After all that rambling, here is some art! An idea I came up with, a bunch of folk at a costume party dying and becoming ghosts. I sketched out the general halloween pub crawl types, the Playboy bunny, Emo vampire, Chubby guy in the silly full body outfit (you've seen him, he is the one that is either a cow, horse, bunny or teddy bear), The slasher, the frat boy greek type, and the drunk guy wearing nothing but beer stains and a slightly vulgar tshirt. Of the ones I put together I like the ones below well enough to splash some color on.



Also finished up a Shaolin Frog and Grasshopper I had been working on for awhile. Got the final and a step by step below.




I've been drawing at least 30 min a day, so I shall upload more soon.

False Promises

I owe my reader an apology for not getting anything on here in the past few months. I promise a big 'I'm sorry, still love me' post full of oodles of drawings and such tomorrow. For tonight I just want to post the most recent Nintendo DS game I worked on that just hits store shelves. Wizards of Waverly Place. It is a really awesome game and working with the folks at Disney Interactive was a great experience. They are dedicated to getting a gorgeous game and dont mind spending a lot of time on polish to get it right. The Nickelodeon games for the DS that I worked on should be out later this month, so look forward to excited links for Backyardigans, Ni Hao, Kai Lan and Dora the Explorer and her new puppy.