It was my first time making Cheermotes, and this is the result! Rifkin of BaseTrade, Starcraft commentator fame desired a very retro pixel style. Each Cheermote concept was his requested content. I tried to maintain the pixel vibe, but realized pure pixel art might not read well for the intended application, so I used a hybrid of pixel animations (produced in photoshop) and motion graphics (using Animate CC, formerly Flash). I feel the results turned out well.
starcraft
BaseTradeTV Reflection
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
Grubby vs Flash MLG Dallas Cheerful
[HD 1280×720] [HD + 1920×1050]
I found out that 
Grubby will be squaring off vs 
Flash in the first casted match of 
MLG Dallas – Summer Championship happening tomorrow! The Warcraft 3 legend and Starcraft 2 titan squaring off inspired me to sketch up a little cheerful for them. I’m cheering for Grubby, of course but I wish the best of luck to both players. Somewhat selfishly I hope that it will be one of the most devastating spectacles of Terran mechanized battle bombardment thundering against the devote zen psi-shielding of the focused Protoss as they lighten the field with their searing storms.
Grubby – How’s the Weather?
How’s the Weather Wallpaper – Full size link
Revisiting the Probe
I first created this image back in 2008 after watching a GomTV match featuring Nick ‘Tasteless’ Plott as the commentator of the eSports battle. It was Averatec-Intel Classic Season 1, Never vs Shuttle Game 2 at the two minute mark when a probe became an unexpected warrior. Quite impressed with the probe’s performance Tasteless exclaimed, “That probe probably has Tattoos and piercings he’s so badass”.
Elite Grubby Guard
CHEER FOR GRUBBY AT MLG!
(Click to download 16:10 desktop wallpaper)
The Elite Grubby Guard took a lot of perseverance, but after loosing the master file two times, and recovering from compressed demo images, I was able to finally complete a working version. This is an overlay image for the ‘out of game’ segments I created for twitch.tv streamer Grubby.
Four Oh Four Screen
It is customary for websites to have error pages that are somewhat fun. Its frustrating when things break on the internet, so if we are hit with something that makes us smile, it is a bit easier to let go the frustration in running into a glitch.
Grekan vs Gorilla
This is a little fan art piece I created in honor of the Idra vs Jinro Starcraft 2 GSL battle. I enjoy the player’s personas, and so sparked this image in my mind. Feel free to check out the speedpainting, and sketches below!
SC Concept Sketching
I have been working on some sketches over the last week. They are inspired by watching some Starcraft 2 games on GOMtv. The concepts are for possible T-Shirt ideas, or otherwise just fun imagery related to the game play and culture.
RaihnForge 