REBIRTH

I've been doing a little more freelance concept work lately and somehow it made me realize that I have never posted any of my concept art work on the blog before and I haven't put any of it on my website either. Up until now my website just featured my personal work and a few other illustration gigs that I've done in the past. So to help rectify this situation I've added a selection of some of the concept art that I created a while back for a Captain America game to my website. The development code name for for this project was Rebirth, and the game went through a number of name changes throughout development before settling on Captain America: Super Soldier. 

This project was a lot of fun for me. I read Avengers, Invaders and some Captain America comics as a kid, so working with this IP felt somewhat nostalgic, and in a way fulfilled some sort of childhood dream to work with these characters. When I was younger, and still reading these comics, I always thought that about how great it would be to become a comic book artist and to draw these comics. Well my feelings about becoming a comic artist have changed, so getting to design these characters for a game project kind of crosses that old dream off the list. As a bonus the game was set in World War 2, and I'm also interested in WW2 history, so the project was a perfect fit.

This project was also special because the team was small (as was the budget) for this type of game, so we were a tight group, did our best with what we had and you had the sense that people cared about the project. Working along side old friends and art colleagues Barret Chapman, Tony Iammarino and Nigel Quarless made it even better.

The work I created for this project is a couple years old, and a lot of it doesn't seem to make the artistic cut anymore, so I posted only the stuff that I still like for one reason or another. To see the material on my website go here.

Captain America: Super Soldier was released back in the summer of 2011. All images copyright Marvel Entertainment/Sega/Next Level Games. 

In the future, when I make the time, I'll post some work from other projects. Enjoy!

DAS SCIENCE FICTION JAHR

Months ago Munich based Nele Schutz Design Group licensed one of my pieces to be used as the cover image for the latest edition of Heyne-Verlag's long running Science Fiction Almanac series. This large, almost 1000 page volume was released today and is full of short stories, reviews, and essays (including one from acclaimed Canadian author Margret Atwood).

The cover features a cropped version of  EK_16 "The Tower", a piece I created in 2010 as part of my Entartete Kunst series.

Big thanks to Gino Faglioni at Nele Schutz Design and Anja Schleicher at Random House Germany.

Das Science Fiction Jahr 2012 is published by Heyne-Verlag/Random House GmbH.

DYSTOPIC MODEL UPDATE

A few months ago I posted some renders of the 3D model of my Dystopic piece that were to be used to create the physical model for a model kit based on this piece. Well thanks to some great work by Michael at Industria Mechanika and Desmoda at Ownage, the creation of the model is nearly finished, and here are a few photos of the assembled resin model. The arms, hands, lower legs are all separate pieces, as are all the hoses, orbs, cables and a lot of the tertiary details (the straps that run down the sides of the arms and legs have not been attached in these pictures). The helmet is removable as well. As these are "in progress" shots, the positioning of some elements is a little off in the photos. 

The subtle textures that Gene Campbell added to the costume elements in the 3D model all came through in the final product, and this really adds to the physical presence of the model. Michael at Industria Mechanika is still figuring out a few details that will make the model even better, and we are currently working on the package design. 

Big thanks to Michael, Gene and Desmoda for their great work!

The model should be ready for release in early November from Industria Mechanika.

TRAITOR

Here is one I finished a while back, but due to a mixture of business and laziness, I'm just getting around to posting now. I picked away at this one while I was bouncing back and forth between Victoria and Vancouver before I finally settled here on the island. It features one of our cosmonaut characters that has apparently switched his allegiance, trading in his orbs for geometric structures. This treachery is further symbolized by the hexagram on his helmet that has been scratched away to form a square and the hexagonal geometry in the background that has been faceted to form cubes.  

While I guess there were a couple things that could have led me to feel the need to create a piece using this subject matter, I won't labor over them here. Largely the concept just came out of the idea and the visual of swapping out the orbs for cubes.

Higher res. and additional details at my Flickr.
Enjoy.

VERSUS

 

I recently did an interview for Versus Magazine. Versus is a quarterly, UK based magazine for and about designers and musicians. Here is a link to a digital copy of the summer issue: http://issuu.com/vsmagazine/docs/vmsummer2012

Thanks to Konrad and the guys at Versus for the opportunity!

MELTING POT

Melting Pot is a group show currently on display at the ARTISHOX Gallery in Hasselt, Belgium. Ben has packed his gallery with work from 9 ARTISHOX artists including myself. The show will be running this summer so if you are in the area go take a look!

Big thanks to Ben Wouters for putting the show together!

HEXAGRAM prt. 3

I finally got around to finishing the last two images in the Hexagram sub series. The last Hexagram images were created back in 2009 as some of the first EK pieces. I created the Blue and Red versions first, to represent the idea of artistic inspiration. At that time I had toyed with the idea of creating more pieces using the same format and continuing with the elemental associations, but then decided to just leave it at those two pieces. But a few months later I ended up creating the Green, Yellow, and Grey versions to fill out a line of top sheet graphics for Endeavor Snowboards. Ever since then I've been flip flopping in my mind to finish one more, for a total of six pieces, to complete the "Hexagram series". Well I've finally decided to go ahead a do it.....so here it is.

The first piece, "Hexagram Grey - Spirit" was originally created as the graphic for the fifth board in the Endeavor Snowboard line, and was never intended to be part of the EK line. But it has been changed a bit (I don't know why I never painted the face in colour), and granted status as a proper "EK piece".

The second, "Hexagram White - Salt" is the newly created sixth image. My early experiments in using a more washed out and lighter colour scheme to represent the "white" left the piece feeling really inconsistent with the other five pieces so it ended up darker with a stronger use of purple/violet than originally envisioned. That being said I'm happy with the end result and I think elements like the tanks and that fat hose let it stand out.

Here is the final line up of all six pieces.

Thats it! Enjoy

EMPTY KINGDOM INTERVIEW

Here is a link to a feature and an interview I did for Empty Kingdom. Empty Kingdom is a great art/media/design site that is full of great and interesting content. They posted a few of my pieces awhile back and this time they featured a few more and asked me a few questions. Check it out on the Empty Kingdom site here.

Thanks to Benny Thompson and Empty Kingdom for putting this together.

IMAGINE FX / PLAN B

This specially created "EK" piece is on the cover of the latest edition of Imagine FX magazine. Inside this issue I also have a 20 step tutorial describing the creation of the piece along with a few other tips and tricks.

The title, "Plan B", is a reference to the choice of direction taken for this piece. Imagine FX was quite specific in what they were looking for: a close up of a female cosmonaut's face surrounded by her helmet. I prepared two different cover idea sketches and the art director and the editor over at Imagine FX decided to move forward with my least favorite of the two. This happens from time to time and you just have to be professional about it and tackle the job with the same excitement as you would have if the sketch or idea that you preferred was approved. That being said it was a fun piece to work on and I liked how the end product turned out. If I find the time maybe I'll revisit that other idea in the future.

I was a little rushed while working on this one due to a bunch of other things going on. I was busy at work, commuting between Vancouver and Victoria, house hunting and dealing with a death in the family. So after the cover was finished and things slowed down a little, I spent some time reworking the dimensions, extending the height of the piece and I added the graphic elements.

Imagine FX #83 is out now in Europe, and should be released in other regions over the coming months. The issue features some great work by Dave Repoza, James Gurney, Joon Ahn and others.

Thanks to Claire Howlett and Ian Dean for all their direction, input, and feedback, and for being a pleasure to work with!

SNEAK PEEK

Months ago I posted about model company Industria Mechanika creating a model kit based on my Dystopic piece. Well after a couple hiccups in production (me and Gene, the modeler, moving to Victoria and a redesign of the base), here are a couple sneak peeks of the final master sculpt of the figure. This highly detailed kit will be 1/6th scale, and be composed of resin and metal parts.

Gene Campbell did a great job modelling the kit, enhancing it with his own touches and adding a subtle texture pass to the figure. Gene has modeled my work in the past, as we worked together at Next Level Games, and we currently work together at Microsoft in Victoria.

As mentioned above the original base of this model (seen in the original Dystopic piece), had to be discarded, as it pushed production costs and shipping costs (due to size and weight), to excessive levels. The new base not only keeps the cost of the kit within reason, but the use of an orb reinforces the design of the series. It also has the benefit of mirroring the base design of the next kit, "The Star", so the two kits will complement each other on the shelf!

Industria Mechanika is in the process of putting the kit together for production and figuring out packaging etc.. The final product should be ready for release in late summer/early fall of 2012.

Thanks again to Gene for his awesome job, and to FichtenFoo and Industria Mechanika for setting the whole thing up!

SKAFANDR - GLAZ

Last year Russian Dub-Metal band Skafandr licensed one of my pieces for the cover of their new album "Glaz". The album has finally seen the light of day, being released last week. The piece used, "Destrudo", was modified slightly with the hexagram on the helmet being replaced with Skafandr's cosmonaut logo.

Skafandr sent me a copy of the album a while back and it is pretty solid. I like some heavier instrumental music like Godspeed you Black Emperor, Pelican and Red Sparrows. This has a more of a Dub influence, a bit more of a groove to it. There are some great tracks and it is worth a listen.

Thanks to Kirill and the rest of the band for the opportunity!  

VORY V ZAKONE

This is a series of pieces created for Endeavor's new High 5 snowboard for the 2012/2013 season. Max Jenke at Endeavor set the direction for this one, asking me to look into Russian prison tattoos. I started with a few great online resources, found a couple books and watched Alix Lambert's "Mark of Cain", and Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises". As I dug through the material I became fascinated by the rich language of the tattoos and became interested in a shadowy group known as the Vory V Zakone. Vory V Zakone, Russian for "Thieves in Law", is a title bestowed upon respected and high ranking criminals that follow a strict set of rules known as the "Thieves Code". The Vory V Zakone came into being in the early Soviet period as a ruling group within the swelling prison population of the gulags, and went on to become a highly influential part of the world of Russian organized crime.

The central aspect of these pieces are the tattoos. Inmates in Russian prisons use a detailed set of tattoos to indicate their position or rank within the prison hierarchy and the criminal underworld. These detailed pieces of art, often created using primitive, hobbled together equipment, are steeped in symbolism and meaning. For example a rose indicates that the wearer went to prison as an adolescent, while a tattoo of Mary with the baby Jesus represents that the individual was born a criminal. 

Each board graphic is centered around a specific tattoo. The 157 is "BARDAK", Russian for "whorehouse" and used in prison parlance to mean "this is what is killing us", and features a collage of vices: drugs, alcohol, women, violence etc. On the 155 the focus is an orthodox crucifix tattooed on the chest which means "Prince of Thieves" and that the individual is a high ranking Vor. 

These tattoos are displayed on figures that are also adorned with secondary tattoos and have their identities hidden. Behind and below the figures are collages of weapons, Russian icons, maps and symbols that relate to the essence of the meaning of that particular tattoo and speak to the criminal/prison theme of the series.

Originally I had intended to keep these pieces grey scale or with subtle blue wash in an attempt to capture the look and feel of the wonderful period photographs of Russian prison inmates and their tattoos that I had been using for reference. But due to marketing and product differentiation reasons Endeavor requested that the boards be coloured. I've always been a fan on Russian aviation camouflage so I used the colours from those patterns as a starting point and massaged them further. 

For the base graphic we used the letters of "Endeavor" encased in the frames of Russian prison ring tattoos across the fingers. The same base graphic is used across all the boards in the series, just coloured to match each individual top sheet. 

Below are few pages from the 2012/2013 Endeavor catalogue featuring the production versions of the boards, tech specs. etc..

These boards are currently being promoted along with the new Endeavor line (including some more great work from Rory Doyle) on the trade show circuit and should be available late summer/early fall 2012.

Thanks to Max, Rob and Jason at Endeavor for their input and support. Catalogue images courtesy of Endeavor Snowboard Design.

STRIPOLIS

Here is a pic of the piece I had published in the latest edition of Serbian comic anthology Stripolis. This independent publication is the brainchild of Serbian comic author and illustrator Branko Djukic and a small group of collaborators. Their goal is to revive the production of, and the interest in, the ailing Serbian comics industry. This is the third volume of Stripolis to be published.

When Branko asked if I would be interested in contributing a piece to be included in the book, I was eager to participate. I've had a first hand experience of the poor state of the Serbian comic industry. Last May several of my pieces were stolen, altered, and used on the cover of the leading Serbian comics publication Politkin Zabavnik.

Not only is the book full of nice work, but the intentions of the creators and collaborators are commendable. Copies of Stripolis #3 can be ordered through the Stripolis website.

Thanks again to Branko Djukic for inviting me to contribute to Stripolis #3. 

NEXT LEVEL GAMES

Well, after 9 great years the time has finally come to move on from Next Level Games. My time there was amazing. I had a blast while working on 7 shipped game projects (plus one that is about to wrap up), 7 demo projects, and countless game design pitches. Over the years I also had the opportunity to heavily contribute to the company branding and identity. I learned a lot, and grew not only as an artist, but as a person as well. While the work and the growth were great, the best thing about Next Level has always been the people. They were the ones that made coming to work everyday so enjoyable and rewarding. I've worked with some of these people since the beginning of the company, and others before that at the original Blackbox Games studio. Several of my good friends from animation school work there, along with my good friend Nigel, who I've been sharing my artistic path with since we were 10 years old. So they will all be missed, and walking out of that studio for the last time on Friday is going to be tough.  But it is time for a change.

I'm going to be moving back to Victoria and taking a position as a concept artist at the new Microsoft studio there. I have a couple personal reasons for moving back to Vic. as well, but this is an exciting opportunity. There will be some familiar faces as several ex-Next Level people are working there, along with a few I know from the Blackbox days.

As there will be a lot going on in the next few months, moving and getting settled, things here will be slow, but hopefully I'll find time to work on, and post some new stuff.

As for Next Level I wish them the best of luck. Not that they need it, I'm confident anything they do in the future is going to be great. Cheers guys, and thanks for all the good times!