The Midnight Express

I did this illustration for The Godfather: Five Families a year ago. We had a light work load between expansions so I was assigned a promotional image to do. I believe this is available as a wallpaper on Kabam.com somewhere.

I've been sorting through old work quite a bit lately. I'll have a couple posts up next month with my work on the Atlantic City and Chinatown expansions.

Private Eyes

They're watching you.

I don't often do character work at Kabam. I'm primarily an environment artist. Every so often the opportunity to paint humans comes up though and this piece was just such an occasion. This is the G-Man, a troop type in The Godfather: Five Families that can only be trained in Atlantic City.

Paris

I did a study abroad program for a month in Paris in 2007. It was a little spooky to find that I remembered the city so well that it was like I'd only been away a few months when I returned in December 2012. The only difference was that I was there in the summer last time.

It was a huge culture shock to go from India to Paris and the climate was drastically different too, of course. It was freezing and raining and there were Christmas decorations everywhere. I took 3 years of French language classes in high school and that was enough to get by on. Everyone was very kind to me and a few told me I spoke good French, although I get the feeling they were just trying to be encouraging. I'm glad I got all of the tourist sites out of the way last time I was in Paris so this time around I could just wander the streets, eat food, enjoy the holiday season and revisit my favorite places. I went up to Sacre Couer twice for that incredible view of the city and made sure to hit up the Musee D'Orsay on my last day there.

There should have been more drawings done in Paris but if I'd stood still too long I would have frozen and it's hard to draw with gloves on anyway.

Darjeeling & Varanasi

Our second stop of our Indian odyssey was Darjeeling, which turned out to be my favorite city of the entire trip. I can't begin to describe the beauty of the Himalayas and the kindness of the people there. We drank tea around the clock. Almost every shop and restaurant boasted an astonishing view of the mountains and valleys below since the city is built on a mountainside. I loved the smell of the mountain air, tea bushes and clouds.

After Darjeeling, we went up to Gangtok for a few days. Then we went to Varanasi for 5 days... we actually got stuck there after two failed attempts at getting a train. Varanasi's largest festival happened while we were there and it was nearly impossible to get out of town without hiring a car. We wound up shelling out extra cash for a flight to New Delhi and had to cross Udaipur off our itinerary. From there, we went to Agra and Jaipur and then returned to Delhi for our flight to Paris.

Look. Drawings.

Kolkata

That was a long break but I've been buried in work, busy with vacation planning and holidays, and was out of the country for a month. I visited India for 3 weeks and spent 5 days in Paris on my way back for no other reason than a mere 4 hour layover there seemed kind of absurd. Our first stop in India was Kolkata (Calcutta) where we spent 3 days. I'm surprised I got so much drawing done there but my sketching dwindled more and more with each new location.

Kolkata looks like it's being reclaimed by a jungle. Trees and plants sprout from every crack they can get a hold in often breaking up walls and roofs. The air is moist and spicy just like every book I ever read set in India described. I'd heard about the insanity of the traffic there but it was something I really had to experience to understand. Motion and color permeate your entire field of vision. The best chai I'd ever had in my life up to that point was had in a silk shop in New Market.

Here are Kolkata drawings.