Demoreel 2015 | Game Design & Environment Art

Here is my end of the year demoreel, showcasing my game design and environment art projets. It's a basic summary of the stuff I've worked on over the past couple of years that's worth showing! I'm excited where my game design and environment creation journey has taken me, and where I'll go next! Looking forward to finishing Mekanica next semester. Enjoy and uh, hire me?

Game Downloads!

Sol: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gjjm5lpz2jmr0tj/Sol.zip?dl=0

Dev Up!: http://bit.ly/DevUpGame

Amo: http://www.indiedb.com/downloads/mirror/77607/102/9245a689bcb6e8b1111c14517ed91276

Garage Mech | Compositing Project

Be sure to watch in HD! Here is my final project for my Compositing class. I decided to do another project with my mech, but was determined to make it better than the last. I really thought through the shot a bit more this time. I learned a lot and I think that the end composite turned out, although I can definitely see things that could be improved. The biggest of which would be to texture the mech and give it proper materials. A few other suggestions at final critique would to be make it look more dusty like the room, a harder shadow underneath, and a slight reflection on the concrete with some sheen. Lessons learned for the next one! I thoroughly enjoyed the process of adding CG elements to a live action plate however, might do more of this stuff in the future! I tried to incorporate a shot that included layers of CG and rotoscoping to help add depth to the scene. I added a breakdown to showcase how the layers are set up, and explain the process a little. Hope you enjoy it!

3D Tracking | Agrimech Render Pass

Be sure to watch in HD!

Well I popped a render out in V-Ray, and it came out okay. The mech isn't UVed so I could only use some basic shaders on it. Once I get it UVed I'll be able to use more detailed textures fit for each piece. It's a game asset, so it doesn't have quite the level of detail I would like to put into a film scene. Not too torn up about though. I'll get better at this. Might do a final detail pass but I have to start another assignment. We shall see! I am starting to love me some compositing though.

Had a little fun and made this old timey film 'print'. 

AgrimechTrack | Animation Pass

Be sure to watch in HD!

Just a work-in-progress shot of my Agrimech shot for my Compositing class. I have the robot walking through the scene in a real scale world, so hopefully the rendering and lighting works out just fine. I'll put some simple shaders on it since the model isn't UVed yet so it won't have all the texture detail it needs, but I'm happy that the general shot is coming together solidly. CG just has so much potential! So cool to see my mech walking through a real life field ha! Hope the vintage fire hydrant helps sell the era.

Agrimech Turntable v1

Be sure to watch in HD! Here is a progress reel of my Agrimech model. Agrimechs are essentially autonomous walking tractors that were invented around World War I and then progressed in technology from there. The world is an alternate history dieselpunk take on Post-WWI technology called . I'm really excited about the current game project, Mekanica, and the progress we're making, the mech makes it 10x cooler for sure. Still got some wrinkles to work out with the model and the reel, but I'm happy with progress so far! Also trying to wrap my head around inventing something when I'm not quite an engineer, but the challenge has been really fun to work out. Even now, I realize this thing has a lot of mechanical issues, mostly with the legs. However, I'll continue to polish the design and look forward to putting what I've learned into the next mech!

3D Tracking | Bench Scene Agrimech first pass

Learning about 3D tracking in my Compositing class. We are finally starting to put CG objects into live action footage! This is just a quick proof of concept to solve the track and be able to place my mech model into the live action world. There's still a lot of lighting/comping/rotoing to be done but the general jist is there. This is gonna open all kinds of new possibilities!

GameJam | Concept Sketches

Here's some very quick, very rough concepts I did for a GameJam I'm working on. Just some quick ideas I roughed out for our little pirate kid and monster..probably won't be used but it was fun to do!

Self Doodle

I know this is on lined paper, but I kinda like how this self portrait turned out. Hat, hoody, and headphones complete me haha. Probably should pay more attention in class, but why would I do that when I can draw myself?

Friday Faceoff #2 | Colossus

Here's something I painted up on Friday, just did a quick faceoff with one of my friends. I decided to roll with a colossus theme, matched the mood I was in. I completely destroyed the anatomy on his right arm, but still, I think it turned out okay. I will practice more anatomy soon. I was also working on composition with just his body, trying to get a sort of figure 8 going on. Good times.

Hand Practice

I decided that I need to start focusing on specific thing and drawing those if I want to improve, so today I spent around 2 hours just drawing hands. Hands are a weakness for myself, I don't particularly like drawing them but I want to overcome that fear so I spent some time trying to figure out forms and and folds and how fingers are positioned etc. It's clear I'm going to need to study the anatomy in much more detail, but I'm happy that I'm starting to overcome my artistic fears and tackling them head on instead.

Acrylic Painting | Bladehead

I tried my hand at acrylic painting again..I think I spent about 1.5-2 hours on this, sketch, mixing paint, etc in total. I think it was starting to turn into a good base for a more detailed pass. Traditional painting is much more difficult than digital, colors don't mix the way you'd expect. Acrylic just basically paints right over the previous color/value you had. I only had black and white paint, so I was just throwing down some value. It was fun and fairly relaxing!

Friday Faceoff #1 | Black Ops Tiger Mech

So my friend and I are starting a new weekly challenge called "Friday Faceoff." We both pick a sentence to describe some kind of design challenge to each other. She picked "Black Ops soldier with a half mech tiger." So I've never drawn a tiger before, but this is what came out of her fun prompt! Was pretty fun to do, though instead of making the tiger mechanical I added a mechanical turret to it's back. I cheated a little. But it was really fun trying to make her prompt into something tangible! Hope you enjoy, and I look forward to next week's crazy prompt.

Daily Sketch | 7.31.15 Face Practice

I haven't drawn in awhile but after watching some videos on YouTube I've decided I need to start drawing every day. I decided to do roughly 5min face drawings for practice. I can tell I've gotten hella rusty and I also just have leaps and bounds for improvement to accomplish. But it all starts with doing it daily. I wanna learn how to draw better faces with more form and evolve my style while improving line quality and expressiveness..long road ahead! Here's some sign posts along the way!

Cowboy Doodle

Been a little bit of a cowboy trip lately, but here's a dude I sketched up. Really like how his close leg turned out, still working on line dynamics but I like where this style is headed.

Daily Sketch | 7.13.15

Some stuff I sketched up yesterday. Gonna get back into drawing/painting, it's been awhile since I posted anything, been working on a larger project and I'll probably have an asset dump from that soon but in the meantime here's some pencil drawings!

Daily Sketch | 6.12.15

Tried a simpler style...or something, dunno, but I sketched up this soldier lookin' dude. Will be drawing more in the near future.

Game | Sol

Be sure to watch in HD! Check out and download the game for Windows here! Well here it is. After all those months of work, dedication, frustration, and revelation, Sol is finally seeing the light of day. What started off last year as a pitch to my fellow classmates turned out to be the hardest the thing I've ever tried to do: create a videogame with a group of peers.  |THE PLAN Typically, junior year at SVAD means a collaborative project the entire junior class works on collectively to try and emulate what working at a studio would be like. I had a burning passion to attempt a videogame. Somehow, I managed to convince my fellow sophomore classmates to join me in such an endeavor. I also managed to convince the faculty to let us tread new ground, the interactive realm.  In previous years, the junior classes had been producing short films. A game was uncharted territory for both us as well as the professors, which really meant we had no one to run to for answers. Everything we did would have to be learned on the fly, in the moment. I came up with this idea of a crashed space explorer searching for a way off a mysterious planet. That was the basic premise for our game. The rest is history. |THE PRODUCTION Alien Planet. Sentinel. Facesquid. These were the terms that dominated our design process. An early mistake, we focused too heavily on a massive story too early. We wasted a lot of time arguing minute details of a grand story that never became actualized. That was probably one of the toughest lessons I learned in the hardest way. We actually had a working prototype with a Spero-looking character running and jumping working very early on but we got bogged down in the narrative which slowed the whole process down.  All the while, everyone was learning completely new software: Unreal Engine 4, Perforce, Substance Designer & Painter, Zbrush, and of course learning new methods and techniques in the software we were already learning: Maya, Photoshop, Mudbox, Illustrator etc. For example, game animations tend to be faster than film animations and can look weird or broken out of context, which was one hurdle our animators had to overcome. Needless to say, everyone learned a lot about the programs they were working with.  Production didn't really pick up until second semester. After what had seemed like an eternity, we finally began to make some breakthroughs in the art department and level design. Mechanics like the conduit switches started to shape up and the player movement model saw dramatic increase in funability. Spero started flipping, rolling, falling, diving and it made the game so much better, so much faster. By this time, my classmates and I had started to get the workflow and the software wrangled, and production felt like we were making tangible process. It's crazy how much polish happens in the last 10% of production. A lot of the game came together in crunch time before we had to present it at End Of Year Show. Things like the planet in the sky, clouds, mountains in the distance, etc. Felt great to get that amount of work done with a couple of my dedicated classmates. |THE PAYOFF There are so, so, so many things I would have done differently or would like to fix, but for a first attempt at a game, I'm not all that torn up about it. I learned so much from a design standpoint, as well as working with people and my own artistic strengths/weaknesses. I'm going to keep designing and making game worlds, because that's what I love to do. We had people playtest the game at our final End Of Year Show, and it was amazing to see people playing something I had worked on. Watching a couple of parents physically pulling their kids away from a game I designed brought a genuine sense of satisfaction. After all, that's what it's all about. Creating an experience that's engaging and enjoyable for someone else. Sol might not be perfect, complete, or what I set out to accomplish, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. I hope you enjoy the trailer and get a chance to try out our game!

Project Mekanica | Farm Concepts

Here are some environment concepts I painted up for a summer game project I'm working on with two classmates. The world is set sometime between World War I and and the 1930's, in an alternate history where technology developed differently and early mechs and computers were developed at the start of the 20th century.This is the farm where our main characters, Cade and Sasha grow up. Some things could have been better, but practice is practice!

Traditional | Mechanical Objects Marker Sketches

Wanted to draw some stuff, so I decided on the usual mechanical stuff. Only this time, I used markers to try and get some interesting line quality. I drew a WWII German tank thing, a German machinegun nest, and part of a Russian industrial tractor. I'm trying to build up my visual library of mechanical objects and how they work.

Traditional | Mech Scout Acrylic Painting

Here's something you don't see everyday--me using traditional mediums. My friend invited me over to paint with her, so this is really the first time I've tried to use traditional paint (acrylic) to make some artwork. I of course had to do a mech, and I gotta say, traditional is freakin' hard. But it's also so much fun. I had a lot of fun trying to mix my own colors instead of color picking, and had to deal with the fact there's not such thing as ctrl-z. Every mark is permanent (until you cover it up with another!). But that was super fun. Only thing I regret is that the soldier's skin turned out too yellow. I have a lot to learn, but I'm looking forward to doing more.

Sol | Motion Story

Be sure to watch in HD!

A classmate and I worked on this project for our Motion Design class final. We had to create a narrative story using After Effects, which was a pretty open ended assignment. We decided to reuse ideas and characters from our game project, and create a psuedo-story for them. Spero, our hero, crash lands on a strange planet and discovers an ancient artifact, guarded by an even older secret. Hope you enjoy, I learned a ton about After Effects making this, and I think some of the shots turned out pretty well. Wish we could have done a little more animation and had more shots. My favorite shot is the helmet reflection shot. 

Gesture | 4.28.15

Some gesture drawings I've done over the past couple of days. I haven't done gesture in like a year or so, so it's refreshing to get back into it. It's time to step up my drawing game, and I figure practicing these is a great way to get to the next level. Plus they fun to do! Excuse the tasteful nudity.

Game Asset | Yellow Moss

I made this..thing tonight. Tried to make some sort of mossy ground cover bush thingy. Turned out okay, but I know it could be a lot better. Game assets are fun though!

Digital Painting | Nuke The Farm

Here's a digital painting I've been working on for awhile now. I think I spent around 10 hours or so in total on it. I'm pretty happy with how I took my sketch to more finished product. Fairly happy with how the mech turned out. The landscape leaves a little to be desired but I think the story is clear. I love dieselpunk stuff so this was really fun to paint!

Process gif.

Motion Design | Trapcode Mir Lowpoly Mountains Test

Be sure to watch in glorious HD!

Just a little test I made with an After Effects plugin called Trapcode Mir. Had seen a short film with a similar vibe so I wanted to try and recreate it. I thought the colors turned out pretty cool. I was also trying to get a wireframe, computer-generation look going, but it's a little lacking because I couldn't figure out how to hide the occluding faces. I might use this as a gateway to do something a little more elaborate.

Kinetic Text | Would You Kindly?

Some stills from the movement.

Another motion design project! I had to create a kinetic text project that emphasized the use of text and motion to help complement the audio through design. I chose a section of the iconic "Would You Kindly" speech from the end of the game, Bioshock. I love Bioshock and thought the dark undertones of the speech would fit nicely with moving text. For a first try, I'm fairly happy with how it turned out! Would you kindly watch this video?

Daily Sketch | 4.7.15

Sometimes in Earth Science I just doodle instead of taking notes and this is the stuff I draw. A crusty old man and my professor. For Science!