Dungeon Defenders Prisoner

Originally, the Prisoner was going to be this hulking badass with crazy buff arms and a torn up shirt full of muscley muscles, but a few of us thought it would be more fun if this insanely powerful character was a little old lady, so we pushed really hard for this concept and ultimately made it through!

A taste of Dungeon Defenders 2

It won't be too much longer where I'll be able to start posting all the work I've been doing for the past year, so I'm pretty excited! Here's a sample of the DD2 barrage of artwork that's on the way, the Huntress' character select portrait.

Dungeon Defenders 2 page

Dungeon Defenders 2 announced!

Well I can finally show the game I've been working on for the past year and a half!  We invested a ton of time and energy into the project and I can say that we've been putting our all into developing the art style.  We really busted our ass and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some emotional attachment to this game due the immense amount of contribution we all had with the story and art.  I feel blessed to work in a place where I get to have a sizable contribution to the visual decisions and not just be a wrist, churning out one drawing after another, because I think that above all else, that has had the most impact in my enthusiasm working here. Creating the art style and the visual design of the game was very much a group effort, and I'm proud to work with the people in this art team!

You guys can expect a gradual, but massive outpouring of concept art over the next few weeks/months!

Link to the article and stuff:  
IGN Article Link

Other Trendy DunDef art directors and artists:  
Ben Greene
Michael "Rusty" Drake 
Jordan Kerbow
Enrique Rivera
Mia Goodwin

CGMA Assignment!

So I recently just finished moving, and I finally got my computer and Cintiq up and running. Sorta. It's somewhat temporary because I still have to move them out of the room again as I get my carpet steam cleaned, but the moving experience + my job has unfortunately gotten in the way of my homeworking for my CGMA class, which I'm not thrilled about.  At the office, we're in crunch mode with material I can't talk about, but it's been a pretty hectic time there.

CGMA Class!

So like I mentioned before, I've been taking James Paick's Environment Design for Entertainment 1 class.  It's been going pretty well and I've definitely been learning a lot and practicing things I would definitely not have practiced otherwise.  I thought I'd go ahead post up my first two homework assignments for you guys to see:

    It's been a struggle doing these outside of my normal job, but it's been insanely worth it.  The first two weeks have pretty much been focusing exclusively on composition, value distribution, and lighting.  I think I spectacularly failed in some of these areas and I think I succeeded in others.  I notice that I'm falling into comfort zones in terms of how I organize my values, but for now I'm going to try to just internalize the lessons and deal with repeating myself after I'm more comfortable with the material.

Training!

Been practicing a bit lately.  Nothing ultra sexy but I put together a 13 week lesson plan for myself, concentrating on studying a different topic each week.  In each week's folder I gathered the best tutorials, guides, demos and training videos I had to consolidate all the information in one place.  I'm more concerned with improving my drawing right now, way less concerned about painting.  It's been going pretty great  These are some of my Head and Hands studies!

Most of these faces look unfortunately dead and lifeless. I made the beginner mistake of sacrificing energy for the sake of attempting accuracy.

I drew over Glen Keane's Rapunzel sketches to try to get a good idea of how he was distorting the face to really get that powerful expression.  In some cases I altered what he drew depending on what I was feeling when I channeled the emotion of the expression, as opposed to just blindly tracing,

More dead faces. 

I think I learned my lesson a bit with the hands.  Still have a really long way to go but at least they don't look so mechanical and lifeless.

  I was planning on posting my progress every week, but my time to continue doing this will be limited because I just signed up for James Paick's Environment Design class!  The CGMA classes have a pretty good rep, and I've heard nothing but fantastic things about James Paick's class in particular, so I'm super excited to get started.  Ryan Lang highly recommended it in his demo, which pretty much was the final push for me to get on that. 

And finally, here's a random doodle that has inspired a whole new project!

This movie needs to be made!

Ever since I saw the concept trailer, I've been super excited for the Goon.  Adding the exciting idea of such a great comic being brought to life to the thought of David Fincher directing an animated movie, and I just can't help thinking" how can this movie NOT be made?"

I very strongly believe that if this movie gets the amount of funding it needs, it'll send a clear message to Hollywood studios that there IS a place for adult-focused animated feature films.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/624061548/the-goon-movie-lets-kickstart-this-