Backlog

I've still got a few pages from the end of last year that I wanted to share:

Orange Train Go

Or if you would prefer...


Month One of 2011 is going well, as far as resolutions go. Updating this blog weekly is a reasonable and admirable goal, I think. And I have to say it's going a lot better than my resolution to start washing my breakfast bowl right after I'm done eating every morning so that my oatmeal doesn't dry on hard like paper mache.

Above: The woman on the top left page is my friend/coworker, Sabrina, animator extraordinaire. She's decided to join me in my resolution to do a blog post every week. She's putting her work up on her aptly titled Sabrina's Weekly Update.

Doppelgangers

Above: Done at San Francisco Centre Shopping Mall on my lunch hour.

A few weeks ago I saw a massive increase in hits on my blog, most of which came through Google searches on my name. Curious, I did a little research and apparently there is a character in Mark Wahlberg's new movie, "The Fighter" who has my exact name. While I'm stoked to be getting more traffic, I am not the person this character is based on. She is played by Amy Adams, who doesn't look like me either. This is me:


So if you're here by mistake... glad to have you here. Stay as long as you'd like. Take a look through my sketchbook. However, I'm not the person you were looking for. But welcome!

Resolution Revolution

In an effort to become more diligent about updating this blog, I've made a resolution to update it at least once a week for 2011. I've noticed that while my posts here have been less frequent, they've also become very bloated. I'd much rather keep it brief and to the point.

The drawing below was done in November in Noe Valley during the hottest day of a heat wave. I was sitting on the cool stone steps of someone's front doorway across the street. Those of you who have lived in the Bay Area are aware that the hottest days of the year mostly happen in autumn, not summer. I threw some tones over the drawing in Photoshop this evening, using a photo I took of the scene with my phone for reference.

RIP GreenSpot

Before Kabam acquired Wonderhill in October, I had been working primarily on a garden game called GreenSpot for 3 months. It was announced last month that production on that game would cease and that on December 1st it would be taken offline.

In the brief time I worked on GreenSpot, however, I learned a lot. When I came to WonderHill I didn't know how to use Flash, but I willingly threw myself into a sink-or-swim situation and my coworkers were more than happy to lend me their knowledge and patience to see me through it. While my education in Flash is far from over, I'm confident in saying I'm now fluent in the program. Here is some of the work I did this July-October 2010.

Above: This is a New England background I painted for GreenSpot to commemorate the beginning of autumn.


Above: I can't believe one of my favorite things I did for this game was a pile of bricks. They were a challenge to capture in Flash without making them look like a pile of red rubble.
Below: GreenSpot was dominated by cuteness, so when Halloween came around the art team was thankful to finally indulge in a little darkness.



Below: I also used to do occasional work on Furry Farm, a game where you could raise pets and farm animals.

I'm looking forward to eventually being able to post work from the game I'm currently working on, Dragons of Atlantis. If you're on Facebook, you can play it here.

On a related note, Kabam is hiring. If you're an artist-type or an engineer-type or a marketing-type, you may be interested...



And on one last note (really), my blog has been featured on Online Computer Science Degree as one of 2010's Top Hand Drawn Blogs, a resource for those looking to get into computer art/animation. Thanks for visiting and passing the word along.

OnlineComputerScienceDegree.com

Resuming Some Semblance of Normalcy

Whew, APE is finally a done deal. I’ve been pouring all my free time from the past month into putting my work together for that. It was great to meet so many art-appreciators and artists, many of whom I’ve known online for years but had never met in person until last weekend. Thanks to everyone who visited me at the convention!

I also came away from it with some new ideas based on what people liked most about my work and suggestions they gave me. I may do a “Neighborhoods” book mini-series in the future… small books based on different neighborhoods in San Francisco (i.e. books for the Mission, Castro, Western Addition, etc.). I received a lot of requests at APE for prints of specific neighborhoods and I was thrilled to find such local pride. I’m going to set up an online store soon to sell prints and books.

Here are some drawings from this summer that I never got around to posting:


Above: You may recall I posted the linework to this paint sketch a few months ago in this post.

Below: I did this sketch at a SketchCrawl. It was a gloomy day at the Presidio but you could see the rest of the city soaked in sunlight in the distance. I never "finished" this sketch because I liked the composition a lot and didn't want to overload it with detail. You could see the city in the far distance from where I was sitting on an overpass.



More news: the game company I've been working for, WonderHill, just got acquired by Kabam. I've still got my same job, though, at the same office in San Francisco with our same team. I'd like to post some work I've done for WonderHill pretty soon. I mostly worked on GreenSpot, for which I designed and built various items in Flash and painted some of the backgrounds.

Alternative Press Expo

I've been hard at work laying out and printing books for this year's Alternative Press Expo, which is going down THIS WEEKEND in San Francisco. I'll be sharing table #660 with my good friend, Traci Hui. Come say hi, talk art, look at my original sketchbooks in person or maybe buy a thing. In addition to the two sketchbooks I'll be selling, I'll also be bringing some mini comics and art prints.

The Book of Neighborhoods is a collection of my environment drawings.

The Book of Citizens is a collection of my people drawings.

If you can't make it out to APE, I'll be selling books online shortly if you'd like to order one. Here's a newer page that will be in "Neighborhoods":