KP Plushies

FINALLY, after a long wait of finding time between work and Snare feeling extremely bored and lonely, KP plushies have been made!!!

This was a project idea I've had in mind ever since I finished Snare, and surprisingly, both KPs weren't too difficult to make. I wanted to make the Rob and Gareth mods because I wanted to experiment with different fabrics and sewing patterns (i.e. [R]KP's hair and [G]KP's hat). Here's a detailed turnaround for them:

I made the KPs small, relative to Snare's size, so they're both about 8 inches tall (not including [R]'s additional height because of the spiky hair :'D). They're made from black and white ultra cuddle, black and dark gray fleece, white t-shirt material (for the knives going through their heads), and black, thick craft foam (for the buckles on the tourniquets/straps). [R]'s hair is made from some black, furry hem that you're supposed to put on the ends of coat sleeves or something. [G]'s hat is made from black fleece with the thick foam sheet to support the visor part. The idea of giving [G] and [R] their Lazer Cannon and Flamethrower (named "Fire Hive"), respectively, was Gareth, himself's, idea!

So Snare is ecstatic that not just one, but two KPs are keeping him company. [G] and [R] get along very well, too...

Everyone's been after [G]'s hat lately, too...

Aside from learning how to sew a cap and working with furry hem material to make hair, this was also the first sewing project in which I was able to replicate a second plushie without it looking too derpy. :D

iOS Project Art

I've been working on an iOS project lately with a small start up company called Left Coast Games. The game has the appearance of a 2D fighter but plays out like an RPG. Here's the art for one of the stages, (also added to my 2D Portfolio):

The background was designed for a 3D effect (similar to Xenogears) in which the camera slightly toggles around perpendicular planes with textures while the characters on screen are flat, 2D sprites. I broke up the background elements to have a parallax effect when the camera shifts around.

I've also been in charge of all the UI, character art, and animations for this project, too. Here's a sneak peek of one of quite a few sprite animations I had to do: (click for better res)

More posts about the project may come soon! :)

EDM Arena Character Reveal

The first of two challenger reveals:

Crooked Kitty (derives from Camo & Krooked)
     - There needed to be more variety in the character roster and I've been wanting to add more drum n bass artists (because I love drum n bass). Camo & Krooked is one of my favorite groups, but their "logo" was challenging to turn into a character. I used the "O"'s in both names for "eyes" and the "M" in Camo reminded me of cat ears, so then the idea went from there.
     - Listening to their fast-paced music, I was reminded of flying a starship or piloting a mech in some video game, so I wanted the design to reflect that kind of maneuverability. I didn't want to use a ship design (because that may be used for another character) so I went with a mech. When brainstorming agile mechs from video games I've played, I remembered the smooth, almost sliding agility of the four-legged mechs in Armored Core, and that's why this character has four legs.

More characters to come soon!

New EDM Arena Character(S)!!!

A new challenger approaches...

UPDATE: Oh snap and another one...

Process Log 19: Wicked Loot Art Test

About two months ago, I received two art tests from a small game company called Wicked Loot. After waiting and getting permission to post the successful second art test, here it is: the entire development breakdown of designing the parody character "Sonic the Rockstar".

References

Sonic the Rockstar was once an amazing musician, top dog and known to all, but as time passed he started losing his vibe and now he relies on drugs to keep his "high".
As the ref sheet above implies, I searched all the different Sonics I could think of, looking for pose, the style of shoes, and art direction. From the get go, I envisioned the parody of this character to be human - making Sonic the Rockstar a hedgehog would just be the same as Sonic the Hedgehog... - but I included hedgehog refs anyway...

I knew Sonic had to have a mohawk - it fit with the original Sonic's hair, spiky things - therefore the rest of his design would probably be punk based. I also looked up inspiration for a unique and iconic guitar (Zakk Wylde's ring guitars came in mind). Pose was important, too - looking up dynamic, action poses of famous guitarists was fun. :D

Sketch Phase

First step I took in designing the character was costuming and colour. I messed with several ideas, even a classic rock one for the heck of it. I kept the colours true to Sonic the Hedgehog because the important aspect of this art test was to have the original influence shine through the design - people had to look at him and know he was a parody of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Next step was poses. Technically, all I had to submit was one character, but the backstory Wicked Loot provided for this guy was strong, so I felt it would be better to submit two poses: Sonic's high and when he's not on drugs. :D

These were the poses I ended up choosing. This was the cleaned lineart page and then...

Final

... this was the final!

I had so much fun designing this character. The backstory and designing a parody character in general were very amusing. :D

Email Change!!

Hey any and everyone who's been to this blog, I'm switching my contact email from the ringling.edu one to this new one: t3hshrimp@gmail.com. I've had this email for a while, but I felt it'd be better to get used to this one as opposed to my old school one.

Woo Zbrush!