Thursday, December 31, 2009

Darksiders Fan Art: WIP 01


With only about a week till its release i've been inspired to do some fan art based on the forthcoming Darksiders game. With Joe Mad at the helm and already some good reviews coming out, I'm waiting with baited breath for this one!

This is just an early concept layout rough, that'll give a rough idea of where i'm going with this. Alas, i've also managed to give myself multiple projects at one time (I can thank the short attention span for that one! :) )

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

First Holiday Project


Vowed to be productive during the holidays as i have a lot of other work coming up in the new year that will prevent me from getting much personal stuff done. Besides if i don't draw something over the break then I'm concerned how much of my holidays will be consumed by videogames.
The girlfriend has just become addicted to the Nintendo Wii, and i;m concerned how many hours i'm notching up on Dragon Age for the xbox.
Anyway, here's the first rough preliinary sketch for my little island native surfer dude.

Dead Space 2 on the horizon!!!

Picked up the first issue of Game Informer Australia the other day. It featured a cover story on Dead Space 2. Its a great article (in fact its a pretty impressive magazine) and it shed some light onto the thought process of the creative folk at Visceral Games. The article served to further heighten my respect for this studio.
It was so refreshing to hear a studio speak about narrative structure and plot pacing. It mad a nice change from the typical "and we have developed this cool new weapon". It is reassuring to hear that a studio puts that much emphasis on character and plot. After all, video games are often touted as being an interactive and cinematic experience, and therefore you would think that plot and narrative pacing should be crucial elements. Kudos to Visceral for recognising this.
The first Dead Space was amazing. It gave a stiff kick up the pants to the waning survival horror genre. It introduced a game that was genuiinely scary, unrelenting, had good controls and had a story that made me want to play till the end. To hear the direction they are going with the sequel just makes me hungry for the next game even more.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Brush experimentation


Just been mucking around with creating some brushes and playing around with the settings...

Redfrog Murcielago









Debuted the new Redfrog murcielago livery online last nite and had some pretty good racing. Put down my best A-class time on the Mugello circuit with a 1.56.

Finding now that i can't even bring myself to race the non damage modes, which is a pity because A-class is the only category with an expert mode. Would be cool to see maybe B-class and r3 done in expert as well. C'mon Turn 10, it's xmas! Grant me my wish :)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Goblin WIP01




This is a sketch i did awhile back. Decided to revisit it and start to apply some color.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Forza 3 weekend session



It was A class expert again on the weekend, with full damge on and ABS and traction control turned off. Raced with Some great people (TurboWheels, Diesel, Javier, Nigeke) and also experienced some not so great (not metioning any names).
I even won a race on Laguna Seca by watching the second place car take out the first coming through the corkscrew on the final lap: I just scooted through the carnage an picked up a lucky win.

I have noticed a phenomenon emerging in multiplayer. Whilst there are some great racers who are a joy to race with, there is also a small segment of the community that are a little bit unpleasant to race against. It seems that playing too much single player has left them with the belief that they can only come first, and they will try to achieve that at any cost (usually smashing someone else off the track). I've never understood it myself: a crash can take you both out and instead of a respectable second you are instead sitting down the bottom of the leaderboard as you try to get your car back on the track...not to mention that you ruin someone else's game,..and remember folks it is just that...a game...so have fun and don't be so serious.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Dead Space Fan art: WIP 03


Wasn't really happy with the lighting so did a bit of a revision.

Dead Space Fan art: WIP 02


sigh...I'm missing the xmas party due to circumstances beyond my control :(

Forza 3 last nite







Had some great racing last nite in A class expert, and B class, on Forza. The competition was close and the driving was clean. Made for a greating racing session with some good driving and competitive racing. Propos to all those involved - was a heap of fun folks!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Dead Space Fan Art: WIP 01




Read a post the other day about EA confirming the sequel to Dead Space. Was extremely excitied. Dead Space was on of the best games I played this year and Visceral Games (then EA Redwood) created one of the best survival horror games of all time.


It was funny: I almost didn't even buy it as i thought it would just be another Resident Evil meets Doom hybrid, but wow was I mistaken.


A strong, tense narrative, awesome setting, fantastic design, great pacing and impressive controls: this game defied all of my preconceived skepticism. What was even better is that it made me go back and play on the hardest difficuty - something very few games have ever done. While I wait with baited breath for the sequel I have just started playing through the original again. I played it in the dark the other nite and it was still scary! It inspired me to start on this little fan piece homage. Only just started and have only put in about 20 or so minutes do far.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Work in Progress: Part 5


Spent another 20 minutes or so on my lil steampunk dude last nite.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Forza 3 - New DLC




Was excited to download the latest DLC car pack for Forza the other day. Two additions in particular were ones that I was excited about: The R35 GTR Skyline and the 2010 model Audi A4.
Have already converted a really useful class C racer out of the A4 and done a custom livery for it.

Work in Progress: Part 4


A little bit more progress. Still a ways to go

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Forza 3 Photo Finish!








Racing last nite with fellow Forza 3 friends Scotty Canuck, WoundedWOWfan and a few other cameos from outside of our usual racing fraternity. Had some awesome racing. One race in particular that stood out was a race on the New York Circuit. Both Scotty and myself took S5's with custom liveries. The race was neck and neck fro the duration with Scotty and myself jostling for the lead. In the end it came down to a photo finish (we could only tell the winner from the timing results) but Scotty's V10 powerplant got him across the line a hundreth of a second before me. Sensational racing fun!!!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Company I work for advertising vacant Illustration postion


Hi all,

The company I work for is currently advertising a vacant position for an illustrator to work on some of our girl's brands. They are looking for someone with some technical skill, an understanding of current trends, a bit of fashion sense, and a flexibility of drawing style.

Anybody interested in the position check out the ad listings:


Work in progress: part 2


starting to add a bit of color...

Monday, December 7, 2009

Forza on the weekend




Raced a bit of R3 class and A class expert in multiplayer on the weekend and I am really now subscribing to the philosophy that if you can avoid the carnage and mayhem then you don't need the fastest car to place well in the race.


I raced and R34 Mine's skyline in R3 and even tho it was totally outclassed in speed by all the ferrari's in the races, i still managed to stay fairly competitive due to avoiding all the crashes that they got involved with. Of course i still occasionally got rammed off the track but for the most part i remained competitive.


This philosphy is even more appropriate when racing A class expert (which for my mind is the best multiplayer racing on the servers) as if you can avoid the carnage then any speed disadvantage you had is quickly removed by simulation damage starting to take its toll on the other cars. This lesson is most appropriate when navigating the Amalfi Coast course. Sometimes its better to hang back out of the turn one shennanigans and then navigate your way through the carnage.