2011 in Review

I don't find myself doing art memes that often, which in some ways is probably a bad thing, as a number of them seem like really useful exercises. One that I do manage to complete each year is the thumbnail review, which I'm a fan of it that it tends to point out bad habits or overused colours real quick like. This one includes solely free-time work and excludes nearly all 3D pieces, as they're almost entirely created for work, and as such, not mine to post.



Yuko did a rockin' one, oh my.

2011 was a lot of fun on the art front. We, the second part of that being Ms. Carroll and I, attended TCAF, checked out some comic shops and art museums in England, had the good fortune of hanging out with the super talented comic artists of Vancouver, and between the two of us finished a number of comics and played/debated about way too many videogames.

Coming up - Quetzalcoatl be damned - attending another round of the shockingly awesome Toronto Comic Arts Festival and the smaller, newer and likely rainier Vancouver Comics Arts Festival. Also probably more videogame fanart and trying to wrap up some earlier projects, of the both two and three D variety.

One last thing on the game art front, the Dominance War results are in for character designs, and they're stunning. The only real bummer comment I might make about them is that the style that seems to win is always fairly... well, there seems to be a set look for what the judges are after - very detailed, very aggressive - and not many seem to break that mold. I just wish there was a little more charm in some of the character designs, but that's overly fussy, and the pieces created are, in a word, goddamn gorgeous.

The List

Holy cats, this game.

Like a number of (lovely) people I know, I have an ongoing list of games that I'm really looking forward to in the coming year, year and a bit. Assassin's Creed, Bioshock Infinite, The Last Guardian, and Journey are all on there, and if I could pin down just one reason why, it would likely be due to the atmosphere and environmental storytelling each of these games has cultivated in the brief clips and screenshots I've seen.

Also, each has a strong singleplayer element included - something that games have been sort of veering away from for some time now. Understandably so in a lot of cases, but sort of a shame for hermits like m'self who shy away from voice chat and pick up groups and all the trappings that come along with multiplayer games.

Alright, time for waffles.

The Saddest of Skunks

I ran across this skunk tonight on the way home, and felt super sorry for the little guy. He's doomed to look like a beautiful daisy until the end of days/the cup falls off. On the plus side, he didn't seem to be having trouble eating or doing... whatever it is that skunks do.

Monster eels from a D&D game that's being DM'd by Emily.

Also, Jon Klassen AKA the nicest of guys has a new book out, I Want My Hat Back. Jon's a gentleman and a scholar and everyone should own a copy of his book.

Heart of Ice (9-ish Pages)

Though I've been working on this off and on over the last six months or so, a point was reached where I had to post this guy, learn from any mistakes and move on to the next project. Thanks kindly to Blambot for the font.



I went down some bizarre internet rabbit holes while looking into the wendigo/windigo mythology, but wendigo psychosis, and in particular this report is an upsetting avenue to look into, while at the same time being completely fascinating.

Also, Kenora Ontario is mentioned in a few articles as being the wendigo capital of the world. All's fair in love and cryptozoology, Kenora.

Ossuary and Float are two other comics that have been bumping around sketchbooks for awhile now, so those will likely show up in a few months. Hopefully not in another six though, oh my goodness.

Also, if you're not familiar with Brandon Graham you're missing out! Here's an interview with him that was hanging around Twitter this afternoon, and it's amazing.

Viking Study

This is pretty ancient by blog standards, but I've been sorting through files recently and I realized I'd never posted it. It was my second go at a character in ZBrush (fall 2010), because - just between you and me - the first looked like some kind of ghoulish nightmare spawn.

The fur looks a little gummy nowadays, but it was good for learning.

Bath and Environs

Spent some time in England last week, and it was fantastic. The jet lag, however, was less so. The city of Bath has some incredible countryside surrounding it.

Orange!

In keeping with the single palette theme of the week, this morning was 'orangeish' morning, and in particular, the orange from Journey. If you haven't yet been introduced to it, Journey's a stylish game coming out, oh... I want to say this year, from That Game Company. Flower, one of their previous games, was a really interesting/beautiful bit of gameplay, but I haven't had the time to check out their earlier work just yet.

Where Did You Come From, Brushes?

The compositions fell down the stairs a little, but I found two mystery brushes in the brush palette that turned out to be nine kinds of fun.

Speed paint purple mountains and Elena F. done up all in blue.

Also, less than a month until the Toronto Comic Arts Festival!

The Return of 3D

3D is some tricky shenanigans, and anyone that says differently is a lying scoundrel.

With that said, Tony Cliff, who does awesome comics and equally as awesome postmortems on said comics, has been lovely enough to let me model one of his panels in Maya. I'll be spending the next few weekends trying to do his linework justice, mixed here and there with working on Heart of Ice. So far the greyblocking looks a little something like this:



Next, to finish the modeling, UVing, sculpting, texturing and then lighting, and it should end up looking like an entirely different beast. The brick texture was an early Zbrush test, but I'm going to sculpt something a little closer to the original subject matter. The sticks and shapes in the background I'm saving for next Saturday.

Emily, on the other hand, has been working on something so secretive I've been banned from looking at it for longer than a second. Preposterous.

Two Smart Ladies and Videogames

Last week (as I'm perpetually late to the party) Emily introduced me to Hchom, the online home of Marian Churchland. If you haven't been before, she's a fantastic artist with a really lovely, earthy palette, and recently she's written/illustrated a series (seven to date) of posts on the subject of her ideal game.

A few games and game mechanics come to mind when initially looking through her work, but if you look at the project on the whole, it becomes something unique/fascinating in its own right, and her approached to crafting items and armour design is something I'm totally on board with.

If you have an interest in game design, I can't recommend the posts enough. I would play her game in a second, and love every goddamn second of it.

Also, if you've ever felt guilty after playing a game for a long stretch of time (or, in the case of Warcraft players, looked at your /played statistics), you should totally check out Reality is Broken, by Jane McGonigal. A really interesting take on the future of games and where they might be headed.

Heart of Ice

When it comes to comics, I haven't actually done many of them in the past. Or... any, really. In addition to composition, colour, anatomy and all the other essentials of illustration, dialogue, pacing and character consistency get tossed into the mix, and it makes for an intimidating prospect. Anyone that can tackle all that, I tip my proverbial hat to you.

That said, I thought I may as well post up the first page of Heart of Ice, a thirteen page comic I'd like to try finishing this year. It's about monsters and arctic scientists from Montreal. Naturally!

Environment Sculpts

Two environment sculpts for some textures I'm experimenting with outside of work. Nothing fancy, but hopefully they'll come together in a scene at a later date.







3D aside, my Photoshopfriend and girlfriend, Emily Carroll, was nominated for a Joe Shuster award last week. If there's anything more exciting than being nominated for a Shuster, it's watching someone be nominated for a Shuster, which is a delight. Congrats to all the shortlisted and nominated!