Work continues on my Castlevania 1 retro redux. The Hall is coming along nicely. Trying to focus on values, colors, and getting the tile system in place. Much of the work isn’t shown in the simple graphic above, but I’m challenging myself to create a system that would theme of the environment to allow for a great deal more geometry. Continue Reading
Art Study
Test room for Foundational Assets
Foundational assets in Mecromage are the blueprint building blocks that indicate visual asset placement as well as game-mechanic specific objects. They are designed to easily swap in and out to create Environment Themes. They are instanced throughout the game in a way that allows them to be easily maintained. Continue Reading
Though I am mired in my current work, I find that it can be a good thing to take small breaks from the grind to reignite my passion for artistic work by tackling smaller more focused projects. I enjoy doing overlay and eSports work for many reasons, but one of the them is that it utilizes a generally very simple concepts that can be deeply explored through creative problem solving and intelligent design. This allows me to push aside a lot of the extra considerations that can weigh down exploration of design while I’m working on such a complicated project as my Indie game Mecromage.
An image to promote the crew of @BaseTradeTV
December of last year I had an encounter with a Starcraft 2 community stream on Twtich.tv that I really enjoyed. Their obvious passion and dedication purely to the community of gamers was inspiring. I felt this could be a nice avenue that would allow me to stretch a little and focus on quick creative execution of some small projects. I contacted BaseTradeTV and offered some graphics support for the channel, they accepted.
The Overlay Continue Reading
Neoblon’s culture and peoples should be well thought out, but the realm will always be rich with mystery. Using the most simple of medium reminds me of how important it is to leave the canvas’ door open, welcoming the viewer to enter by their own accord, and participate in imaging of the fantastic.
Its incredibly freeing and relaxing to sit with paper and pencil after a long day of digital grinding. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys any creative endeavor. There is just something about thee ‘ol analog that allows you to so simply focus on the art. I have gone months without putting pencil to pad and those times have hurt my development, surely. Pencil is forgiving, but not so loose as a digital canvas. The real world is full of imperfection, and the imperfection is what often leads to the most interesting path of ideas, what so tempts the imagination..
Speed Painting: Keyes Beholding–SotN Grim Reaper
As a fun exercise I decided to find a screen shot of one of the greatest 2d side scrolling games ever made, Castlevania SotN. Eventually I’d like to create an entire HD remix of the screen shot as a fun wallpaper background. For now, I’m going to try and go through piece by piece as a study.
