Drawing Daedalus

Civilization: Revolution SpaceShip

2012-01-25T18:49:00.001-08:00

Designing the Spaceship for Sid Meier for Civilization Revolution was a ton of fun. I was supposed to be working on Civ5 at the time, but Sid needed a cool spaceship and the Cinematics house needed a model in 4 weeks. Somehow I was tapped to design and model the ship. The challenge was to make it modular so that the player could build a variety of configurations, and it had to look believable in each one. Here's my Concept art, High Poly Model, and screenshots of the In-game Model. The High Poly version is about 200,000 polys and only uses only 3ds max materials. The In-game model was started by another artist out-of-house, so I had to do a lot of rework and adjustments to make it work right in-game. Getting the transparencies and object-draw-order to work in Civ-Rev's engine was especially difficult. I also helped on the Environment, effects, and camera animation. Thanks to everybody who helped with this asset.

Ship of the Line

2011-11-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here's one unit on Civ 5 I wasn't sure who was going to model. I drew the concept as if we were going to outsource it, but I ended up modelling it myself. I found having a detailed concept really sped up the modelling process.

Settlers

2011-11-18T08:17:00.001-08:00

Here's a brainstorming sketch of the Settlers from Civilization 5.

Brainstorming

2011-11-18T08:13:00.000-08:00

This is how I brainstormed the Paratrooper unit For Civ5. We chose the white/snow cammo pattern because if he was green he blended into the world too much. I had a fun time getting this guy into the game, I'm thrilled we even got the parajump animation to work. Thanks for Jon and Dorian for great feedback. Working for Jon Shafer was awesome, he had a very clear vision for the look of the game.

Civ5 Roman Legion

2011-11-18T08:09:00.000-08:00

Concept art for the Roman Legion, Civilization 5. A Fun drawing to do.

Civ5 Caravel

2011-11-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite drawings from my work on Civilization 5, the Caravel. Special thanks to Jack Snyder who made the model for the game.

Practice

2011-06-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Practicing some d-painting with a small cintiq monitor that I'm borrowing from work. From an old photo of a friend of mine, Her nickname is Schwinn.

Took about an hour and a half, photoshop 7.

The WACOM Cintiq 12UX is a nice device for home, light and small I Can kick my feet up on my desk and work with the tablet on my lap. I'm thinking I might have to invest in my own someday. Hope all is well in your world, whoever is reading this.

New Illustration

2011-06-13T06:31:00.001-07:00

Here's a illustration I made for my sister. I wanted to make a drawing picturing a little blonde girl on the beach looking out over the horizon and imagining adventure.

As I drew more I realized there was a metaphor here, when facing the future (or seeing over the horizon) you could charge boldly ahead seeking fun and adventure but at the risk of instability(the ship), or you could fortify your current position and wait to see see what you can from a high ground (the tower). This dichotomy reflects in my own life pertaining to how to spend my money. Should I spend it on fun things now and live to the fullest in the moment? Should I save it in a bank, so that I have cash in case of emergency or loss of job? Or Should I invest it in real estate or the market, with the hope of having a larger sum of money with which to pay for retirement 40 years from now? I think this is a question facing everybody in a capitalist society. I've heard friends and family talk about achieving balance in one's life. Maybe a 3-way-split is the best and most balanced way to spend profit.

March 1st

2011-02-28T18:33:00.001-08:00

Some Sketches from the Dev of C i v f i v e

Cross country in a new Car

2010-09-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

Civ5 is done, flew to San diego to visit family and go on a quest for the Best So-cal Cheeseburger. I tested many burgers, and have to say the in-and-out double double animal style is my fav. Even better than 5-guys. But I'm not a big fan of in-n-out's fries. Best fries might have to be in baltimore, those belong to the brewer's art Garlic Rosemary fries. Best burger in baltimore is The Hamilton tavern burger, artisan meat with bacon and a Fried egg. Though i had a really awesome burger in West-Chester, PA at Kidare's, the E.U. Burger, very tastey, has swiss and cheddar cheese and some fancy beef from England, looked like it had cubes of ham mixed in it.
Back to so cal, I bought a brand-spankin-new 2010 VW Jetta TDI Cup edition. Completely love this car, its fast when I want it and efficient when I want it. great suspension and handling. 47 mpg's highway doing 75 mpg in 6th gear. Overall average is 40mpgs, i'm thrilled with it. The Sat-radio is cool, but i really love the SD card reader, I can stick my favorite tunes on a tiny disk and plug it into the dash. This car took the 5 day trip across the country like a champ, and did it sipping only 6 tanks of gas for the 3000 mile ride! I have to thank Mary for this sweet pic of me and my ride at Red Rock! Also thanks to Maren, Art, Carrie and Matt for letting me crash on their couches!

Subs in San Diego

2009-03-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Just got back from an awesome trip to the West Coast. My last day in town visited Cabrillo national monument with my Mom, snapped this photo of a US Navy Submarine going out.

Ain't saying its Origional, Just fun to draw . . .

2009-02-26T20:34:00.000-08:00

Drew this while watching "Rock N Rolla" . . .fun film.

Year End Update

2008-12-18T23:28:00.000-08:00

Things this year went by fairly fast and fairly awesome. Here's a life-digital-painting did last week on the Cintiq at Charcoal Club in baltimore. Also posted is an drawing for beach towels given out at my sister's wedding in Venice beach. 2008 was a very social year and i've had some great times and made some great friends, but haven't made a whole lot of art I can post up here. Hopefully in 2009 i'll make up for it.

Returning to Life drawing

2008-09-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

It was a fun and busy summer, and now its time to get back to business. I hit up Hampden's Clipper Mill's Charcoal Club last wednesday for a great Lifedrawing session. Met up with old drawing buddies Mathias, David, and Diego. Monday night went to the rediculously awesome Dr. Sketchy's session at Dionysus. David in attendance aswell, met lots of cool folk there. Tuesday night began MICA alumni drawing nights in the Fox building. Hope you like the sketchbook scans.

Civilization Revolution TV Commercial

2008-07-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

Civ Rev is OUT! So are the Tv ads, take a look:

I'm glad they featured the spaceships I had the privilege of designing.

Portraits

2008-04-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

I tried my hand at digital portrait painting. The image top is my friend Josie from a digital photo I took of her earlier in the day. The bottom image is from a photo by Rachel Papo of Israeli soldier. Here's a link.
http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/papo/works.htm?index=45
Each took about an hour to render.

Sketch-o-the-day

2008-04-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

Monday Night I had the opportunity to borrow an old laptop and a Wacom tablet from work and draw from life 2 posed models. The pose lasted for 100 minutes (20 minute pose 5 times) Adobe Photoshop7, Wacom Intuous 3 9x12inch tablet.

My Spaceship in Game Informer

2008-04-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

I just saw that some of my work was shown in Game Informer a month or so back as part of the feature on Firaxis's upcoming title, Civilization Revolution. Props to everybody who's helped with the SpaceShip, Rob Cloutier, , 2k China, all the Firaxis coders and of course Sid Meier who directed and approved the final design.

Sketch-o-the-Day

2008-03-24T21:49:00.001-07:00

Playing with a new brush i made in Photoshop. Thanks Piero for the Tips!
here's a link to his lovely website http://www.pieroartist.com/

Sketch-o-the-day

2008-03-21T18:13:00.001-07:00

Longer days mean more time to go outside and feel the warm sun on my face.

Sid Meier's Railroads Samples

2008-03-09T20:04:00.001-07:00

Some Personal Work

2008-03-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

A design for SnowPark technologies. I whitewashed it to give props to Moby over at Valve for those tight Tf2 concept pieces i saw online.

This design was for a bunch of t-shirts I screenprinted with the help of the Lovely Ashley Blumenthal. The end shirt was white ink on a dark rose shirt. Came out pretty hot. Thanks Ashley!

566 - just some tough guy.

Doddling armor with guns. A lot of my family has served in the Military and i find myself thinking about force protection often in my sketchbook.

Doodles I did at my favorite coffee shop, the Red Canoe, in December.

Civ 4 BTS work.

2008-03-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Firaxis released the Civlization 4: Beyond the sword in the summer of 2007 and i had the pleasure of making the mechs that appeared on the box. The in-game art was designed and created by Mike Bates for the Next War scenario, and i got to up-rez the asset from 500, to 200,000 polys for the cover.

Video here

Also On the Project I worked with Designer Jon Shafer to create the Final Frontier Scenario. I'm most proud of the Work i did on the Unit Designs.

doodles

Paintings

3d:

In Game

Some Civ 4 stuff

2008-03-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Pulled From Cold Storage:

My Anti tank Units in Game

Concept Art

Poses By Greg Cunningham, Model and texture by me.

Up, Up, and Away

2008-01-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

Testing the air.