This City

This is semi 'Sim city' inspired, and mostly Robh Ruppel inspired , in regards to his awesome graphic paintings. 

Yesterday when I was driving back from teaching at LCAD, I caught a glimpse of downtown LA. This is my 'memory impression' of what it looked like. I remember being really amazed how the cloud cover + haze made it impossible to make out lights/details on the larger buildings. I guess this image represents "how it felt" more so then what was actually there

I've started working with photo reference and keep practicing:

Stick To It! OUT NOW!!!!

Out Now for iOS (iPhone/iPad universal) !!!!!

DOWNLOAD NOW!!

Official Site: Stick To It!

Facebook Page!

Also Check out some of the background work I did for it. Each of these was broken into 3 planes for parallax purposes. These images are also slightly modified to look decent without the level assets /foreground/character elements you see in game. 

Take care!! Check out the game!! Tell your friends!!!

Stick To It

Hey everyone, here is one of the projects I've been working on at my new place. Comes out Feb 8th, Its going to be aewsome!!! Free for the first 72 hours!!!!!!!!

Be sure to pick it up when it comes out!!! In the mean time,  "like" it on Facebook!!

Check out this preview from Gamezebo !

-Colin

Aerial Bots WIP

Not to be confused with transformers of the same name.... even though it transforms. Though it has no 'discuise' its a clunky flying machine that can unfold some heavy duty legs with rollers and simple claws. Inspired by everything from Star Trek to Ghost in the Shell.

These are the 3D roughs. I spent a little more time on this one blocking everything in at least to match a visual function. I imagine the inside of the 'knee' joints can slide up and down on the inside of the legs. I like the look of the cages you see around deep sea submersibles and I felt it would be fitting. Not to mention the little forearms (also similar to a few Ghost in the Shell robots)

Also Happy Holidays to everyone!!! Happy new year!!

Dual Combat

Put your brain past the ridiculousness of this; the idea is that one rifle can carry both short and long .223 rounds. The clips both feed into a single barrel and the user can switch between the two on the fly. One is for long range assault, the other for close range spray. 

Here are some of the roughs i was working on to get to this point. There are a few more that I may post later. I am also working on a sniper type gun. 

Ready for Take Off!

This is a work in progress. I spent more time fiddling around with Maya's rendering settings and got some global illumination in there. I dropped a background and some quickie photoshop filters in a few areas to get the heat shimmer. All of this was a learning experience I can put into the final piece. 

Morning Shift

Completed

In Progress

Roving Around

Based on this rough:

To the Air!

 3D Rough:

Continuing my process of "sketching it out" in 3D and then painting over the model. This time I went with a aircraft. I've seen this style of angular/negative space hull design in a few Scott Robertson Art Center designs, and I thought it cool. So now now here we are.  All of the rendering is done in Photoshop, on top of a slightly modified background image. 

Back To Space!

So one of my all time favorite things to draw, design, and pretend to have, are space ships. I've learned a lot over the years and more recently, I've been applying various techniques and process into my personal work. The process used for these was pretty straight forward : "Sketch" in 3D program, then draw over the outcome. For each of these I had an idea in my head of what I wanted before I started , so i didn't doodle around forever with the infinite possibilities of 3D. 

 The first image concept was really just jamming ugly poly cubes and cylinders together to get the overall agressive shape I was going for. Very 'anime' influenced.

This one was more of a grounded approach, maybe some kind of earth defense ship. I spent a little more time working out the forms, also it had rocket pods at one point. 

Here is a bit of work on the lines. Mirrored, and now lacking its rocket pods.

So far my experience has been fairly fluid. Fortunately I know most of the basics of Maya, so I can maneuver around and create pretty quickly (3D animation minor finally put to use) . I highly recommend picking up any 3D; sketchup to maya, to help block things in. I'd say for these it helped me get the perspective and forms down quickly, so i could move right into details etc. Frankly, its building with Lego bricks, except you're making each brick as you go. 

Products of Teaching

After a trial and error period (always save your work kids) I got back into swing of things in Maya and roughed this room out. I set this up to talk to the students of a class I am co - teaching at LCAD about drawing over game geometry. Granted, this geo isn't from a game, I did think about how the player would approach the scene, and what action could be taking place. It could use a little more focus as to what all the bio hazard suit dudes are looking at. I'll come up with something cool a bit later.

Here are some stills of the scene done in Maya. These are just screen grabs. I think at this point its clear that the concept design industry is leaning towards this 2D/3D hybrid, or even all 3D. I highly recommend learning a 3D package (anything from google sketchup to maya) and by learn I mean be able to throw down geometry without thinking about it, similar to you don't always think about how your holding your pencil, or how to move your hand to make the shape of something your sketching, you just create. Lighting is also a good tool to add to your toolbox.


Below is a quick rough done in class.... so quick in fact its really just a box , and I didn't dig to much into the shape. At this point I think I decided to make the above rough.

 Notice it is literally a box.

I'd say that a large part of my time has been talking about gameplay related elements such as props. In this case, I took the overall design language from a painting Ralph Mcquarrie of a hanger bay on Tantooine. I pulled the face value elements such as angles and material break up patterns. In this case, it was for a "crouch cover" height piece. Since cover shooters are all the rage right now, and there is a Star Wars themed one coming out, why not go back through the trilogy and design cover props based on existing designs! Though I had envisioned this just being a solid object, the question of "what would this be in the universe" came up. I quickly noted how the sides could possibly slide out and open, revealing a tool chest sort of thing. Maybe it just has spare parts, or a secret item? Either way, having components like this in basic props extends their life in the game, and means they can be repeated more often with greater difference between instances. 

I'll update this post a bit later with more information on what and where I'm teaching.

Red Dragon

Trying something new,  a mid-week dragon project.

Also check out all these unrelated sketches I forgot about until now:

Farewell Insomniac Games!

Hey Everyone,

Sort of big news ,I no longer work at Insomniac Games!  Though I thoroughly enjoyed working with the team on the projects there, a new exciting opportunity came up and I decided it was a good time to move on it. Here is a segment from my goodbye email that may help explain the difficulty in making this decision:

***

Almost four years ago I moved out to LA after receiving my BFA in Illustration /Minor in 3D Animation. I knew I wanted to do concept design for games instead of what I had gone to school for, though at the beginning I wasn't sure how. I slept on a friends couch for a few months, while getting my act together, during which time I took my first workshop with Darren and Carlo. From there I took classes at the Concept Design Academy to build up my portfolio, around which time I said to myself “Where do I want to work”.

I had been a fan of Insomniac Games for many years. I remember the first time I played the demo for Spyro the dragon (I was an OPM and Underground subscriber), and at the time was amazed at the amount, size , and details of the levels. After playing , and owning, all of the original Spyro games, I moved onto Ratchet & Clank. As with Spyro I remember

playing the demo of Metropolis, and thinking “This is freaking awesome” . Subsequently I got the first game, then one year for Christmas the second two, which I remember spending the rest of holiday break playing through . Then of course came the PS3 and Resistance. I played through the SP many times, even on super human difficulty, more than once. A friend of mine and I also played through all the difficulty modes In co-op. . .   It was awesome.

It was clear Insomniac was a good goal to reach, and after months of hard work I made it. Having been a fan of the franchises it was a great honor and privilege to work on them with the same creative team.  Though I loved working on A Crack in Time, my favorite completed project so far has been Resistance 3, and am very proud of what we did as a team for it. Insomniac has definitely made me who I am in the industry. I have really enjoyed working with everyone!

***

A friend of mine pointed out when I told him I was going to leave that “it was our goal to work there”. It was, and I have, and it was awesome. Now I have new goals and opportunities, and the chance to grow in different ways. I am still a fan of the company, and will continue to be there day for new releases!

I have joined the talented team at Magic Pixel Games working on an awesome project! MPG is a great little company everyone should check out . Also, they're Hiring! 

No new art at the moment really, however here is a poster I made this week for my summer space themed “SPACETACULAR” party. I throw good parties too. (at my friend Jame's house, he also host)

Take Care everyone!

-Colin

PS: Check out Magic Pixel's Facebook page too! 

For McQuarrie

Jawa Mining Camp, done today in Photoshop. All painting, no photo mashing. I always thought this would be a cool scenario, and probably happened many times across Tattooine. McQuarrie inspired...


Last weekend we lost one of the great artists that helped shape the star wars universe. Ralph McQuarries work was an inspiration to countless artists, fans, and general population. He , as well as other great artists, worked for years developing the iconic imagery that lives on in all our imaginations. He will live forever through his work, and the legacy of all the entertainment projects he worked on (especially star wars, but he worked on so many movies and shows its ridiculous how far his artistic reach was).

Unfortunatly this past week we lost the great French comic book/surrealist Moebius as well..

RIP Ralph McQuarrie (1929-2012)
RIP Jean Giraud-Moebius (1938-2012)

Let us all draw in tribute to them, and all the inspiration they have given us!

Carlo Arellano has done a piece in support of both Ralph and Moebius!
Darren Quach has a sweet Star Wars themed tribute!

-Colin

Happy Holidays 2011!

"The Holidays are about flightless birds drinking alcohol in the snow, with presents"

Merry Christmas

-Colin

Resistance 3 Terraformer

This is the first concept that began to flesh out what the Terraformer looked like above the cloud line. 

Here is one of the first images with the 'final look' of the Terraformer. However this is not the accurate scale of the final version, it became much much bigger.

Front and side Orthos, there is no scale indicator here, I'll just say it's "Stupid Big". 

Mid-section details, with and without extending pylon. 

Detail of one of the structures at the base of an extending pylon with red stalkers for scale. 

Terraformer "Gills" detail.

Originally there was some gameplay on the exterior, this was a first pass at where you would have been dropped off, and had to fight your way inside.  

The first hall of the interior, you can see the lighting changed a bit from this first pass.

Lighting and ice pass of one of the rooms with a big generator in the center.

Diagram of one of the 'vertical generators' feeding energy into the core.

Evolution of the moving pistons. The left most is the final design. 

 Spinning 'carousel' gear that the player can use as cover...as it rotates. 

Vertical shaft details, originally for the final falling sequence, some details where used in the various elevator shafts'.

A diagram of the central beam structure in the heart of the beast, the scale here is also 'stupid big'.

 This was a drawing of the original design of the final room sequence, similar gameplay, but completely different arraignment. 

Drawing of details of the new final room.

 The end of the game , destroy this machine feeding energy into the core and it goes crazy and stuff blows up. 

Though i worked on many parts of Resistance 3, I spent the longest on development of the terraformer. Not only was it one of the first things i worked on, but it was also one of the last things I worked on. It was almost a project within a project, being so different (completely alien) from the rest of the designs in the game. Though there was some Chimera architecture here and there, it was always nestled in the ruins of humanity, this was its own monster. The designed changed quit a bit here and there, and I think we're happy with what we got in the end. I think when you play through the level, you really feel like you're climbing into the cold heart of a giant mechanical beast. As a sci-fi lover, designing a "miles high" alien death machine was a art-nerd dream come true. 

Though Ratchet and Clank: A crack in time was really fun to work on, Resistance 3 has been my favorite project so far. I think the team at Insomniac did a really great job with the gameplay and art of the campaign. It's also my favorite Resistance! Bias!

If you haven't you should totally check it out! If you have no idea what it is check the Insomniac Site!

-Colin