Techtonic Games Inc was in a few local articles which can be found here: the First Noozhawk article
and the Second Noozhawk article
They both have a few errors, like the part where it incorrectly states that we're competing with Zynga. But it's the first press we have received, and it's got a picture of us.
The Techtonic website is under construction. Link will be available soon.
There will be news on the game in September. (Yay!)
Regretfully I still am unable to post work of what I've been doing. However, before my job started at Techtonic, I did some work with the nice guys at Nakai Entertainment on Ninja Hamster Rescue, a mobile game which has a free demo. Check it out and fight some evil samurai cats.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Employed
The previous entries concerning the art test (matte painting, sprites, UI design) went well. I am now employed at Techtonic Games in Santa Barbara.
I'm ten minutes from the beach and I go a couple times a week. The job pays well and provides benefits. I don't say that I'm happy often in my life, mostly I've coasted on neutral/apathetic, but now I truly couldn't ask for more. I have a large room and live in a nice quiet neighborhood. We live right next to a creek. The office is even super close to my apartment.
Everything is settled in and we're all having fun. It's awesome working with powerful machines and the right equipment to develop games in a professional setting.
Relentless Dungeon is still on the To Do List, but Scott and I are just too busy at the moment. It also needs some help from a programmer (nudge nudge programmer buddies).
I'm ten minutes from the beach and I go a couple times a week. The job pays well and provides benefits. I don't say that I'm happy often in my life, mostly I've coasted on neutral/apathetic, but now I truly couldn't ask for more. I have a large room and live in a nice quiet neighborhood. We live right next to a creek. The office is even super close to my apartment.
Everything is settled in and we're all having fun. It's awesome working with powerful machines and the right equipment to develop games in a professional setting.
Relentless Dungeon is still on the To Do List, but Scott and I are just too busy at the moment. It also needs some help from a programmer (nudge nudge programmer buddies).
Friday, May 6, 2011
"Happy" Matte Painting
 |
| Double rainbow. Giant mushrooms. Fairies. Palm trees. A clear beach. Floating islands. Sci-Fi skyline. Yeah, I don't need to draw chainsaws and zombies all the time. ...Boo-ya. |
One of the largest resolution paintings I've done, and was made for an art test to a video game studio. They knew I can do gritty horror art well and they wanted to see me try something happy. This was the result. My initial thought was to try a field of grass with bunnies and big flowers. Instead I went with a more fantasy style environment with a tad of surrealism. I took some time with my eyes closed listening to prog rock and imagining a sunny-fantasy-happy world.
Influences: Led Zeppelin (can you guess which song?), South Park s12e3, Heavy Metal, Venture Bros e42, Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz.
Photoshop brushes used:
http://charfade.deviantart.com/gallery/146727,
http://goodiebagstock.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2k8q3c,
Obsidiandawn.com
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Blackrazor
This is Blackrazor, a magic evil intelligent sword from Dungeons & Dragons that eats souls. Blackrazor is likely insipired by Stormbringer from the Elric books by Michael Moorcock. Blue Öyster Cult made a song about it, "Black Blade."
I think I went a little crazy with the jagged edges and lightning. Blackrazor just took control of my mind and forced me to do it.
Lightning brushes from www.obsidiandawn.com.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
TGI Art Test
These are small pieces I did for an art test while applying to a video game studio back in March along with the UI design.
I had to draw a magic potion. What's more established than the health potion? I debated on whether or not to include the label because it blocks the view of most of the liquid in the bottle, so I made an additional potion without a label, and made it a bit more evil looking.
Things I learned on this project: Select > Color range. I was trying to save the file as a .png to have a transparent background, but the problem was that I had a layer with a black background set to 'screen' under the blending mode. So black would disappear if I had a solid background, but would come back if I had no background. I learned the color range technique and played with the fuzziness so it didn't have the awful leftover dark gray bits when I applied a layer mask to the selection. Much faster than erasing it all by hand, and more accurate than the magic wand tool.
Next was to draw a tree. I wasn't interested in drawing a happy lollipop tree because I imagine that's what everyone else will turn in. So I drew a twisted dead tree that reminds me of Sleepy Hollow and Fern Gully.
I felt I might be cheating the test by not drawing a tree with leaves, so I drew another tree with green leaves this time. I'm a fan of Karate Kid, and this is recognizable being inspired by the Bonsai tree from that movie.
The treasure chest.
I'm not very satisfied with the golden glow from the gold coins inside. Perhaps I should've opened the lid more or made it more sparkle-y than glow-y.
Simple. Established. Not much more to say here, let's move on.
Last up for the sprite art test is a battered warrior's shield. I wanted to show some kind of perspective instead of just a flat simple shield facing forward directly at the viewer, because I just knew that's what most of the other people applying for this job were going to do.
Things I learned on this project: Select > Color range. I was trying to save the file as a .png to have a transparent background, but the problem was that I had a layer with a black background set to 'screen' under the blending mode. So black would disappear if I had a solid background, but would come back if I had no background. I learned the color range technique and played with the fuzziness so it didn't have the awful leftover dark gray bits when I applied a layer mask to the selection. Much faster than erasing it all by hand, and more accurate than the magic wand tool.
Next was to draw a tree. I wasn't interested in drawing a happy lollipop tree because I imagine that's what everyone else will turn in. So I drew a twisted dead tree that reminds me of Sleepy Hollow and Fern Gully.
I felt I might be cheating the test by not drawing a tree with leaves, so I drew another tree with green leaves this time. I'm a fan of Karate Kid, and this is recognizable being inspired by the Bonsai tree from that movie.
The treasure chest.
I'm not very satisfied with the golden glow from the gold coins inside. Perhaps I should've opened the lid more or made it more sparkle-y than glow-y.
Simple. Established. Not much more to say here, let's move on.
Last up for the sprite art test is a battered warrior's shield. I wanted to show some kind of perspective instead of just a flat simple shield facing forward directly at the viewer, because I just knew that's what most of the other people applying for this job were going to do.
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