Jack the Scavanger

This is a Jackalope character I made as part of an ongoing series of cryptid character designs.  I was on a bit of a Rango high when I was working on this, but that's probably obvious.

Spektrum City Mood Paintings

I can't believe I forgot to post these!  The end of my time at MICA was so hectic that the existence of this blog somehow evaporated from my consciousness.  I'll have to get back on it soon.

These are two scenes showing my Spektrum City characters in action.  I was striving for a sense of mood, place, and movement, with both of these pieces.

The Battle of the Ages

I forgot to post this, a fast and fun little piece I did for my brother to use as his iPhone background.

Armadillos

I love critters.  And I'm constantly sketching them.  Unfortunately, most of those sketches haven't made it on this blog because I always forget to scan them or get distracted with other projects.  So I'm going to make an active effort to share some of these critters on the blog.  

Its funny how you sometimes think you understand how the anatomy of a certain animal works, only after doing some research realize that your mental picture was a huge oversimplification of the amazing designs found in nature.  When looking up reference images for these sketches, I was fascinated how the armor plates of an armadillo interlock perfectly, allowing for a large range of motion and protection.  Also, they're surprisingly cute.  

Freya

For my life drawing class, we were instructed to use our in-class drawings to create a new a piece inspired by another artist.  I chose Arthur Rackham, and decided to re-depict Freya, the Norse goddess of Love, Fertility, and War.  Rackham's Freya is lovely, but a bit dainty and boring for my tastes.  I wanted to give her a more epic treatment, but still borrow from Rackham's trademark sensitive lines.  Freya supposedly owns half of the Valkyries, and therefore gets half of the fallen warriors.  So here are Freya and some Valkyries being pretty.  Between spilling ink everywhere and almost ruining the original drawing and then accidentally saving over the hi-res file and having to re-do the entire digital coloring... it almost seemed like this piece wasn't going to make it to completion.  Maybe Freya was determined to see it through, and I'm fairly happy with it.

SENIOR THESIS PART 1- Rocky the Unruly Canine Companion/ Possible Harbinger of Apocalypse

I love canines, maybe more than a rational person should.  Once I knew that the city's mythology was going to be inspired by Norse mythology (which I haven't gotten into here, because frankly this game is hypothetical and nobody wants to actually read it in depth) I knew that I HAD to make the terrifying wolf of destruction who brings about Ragnarok, Fenris, a main character.  (Hence, "Rocky."  Budum-ching.)  My very early concept for this character was much more wolf-like.  I thought of him as a stoic animal companion.  Maybe a stray, who would mysteriously appear and join you on your quest, similar to Red XII in FF7.

(At this early stage I was still trying to chose between a flat or rendered style.  I'm glad that I experimented during the summer)

Quickly, I realized that the tone of the game was quickly becoming less serious and I decided that Rocky needed to be more dog like and goofy, to contrast his very serious and high-strung owner, Maroon.  I quickly injected him with some Scooby-Doo essence, and was careful to not make him TOO cartoonish.  He still needed to tear monsters apart.

I also did some gestural studies of wolves in motion, mostly for fun.

Rocky only gets one final form because his fate has pre-determined...He is Fenris, bound up in the form of the dog, and will "break free" towards the end of the game to help the party defeat the final boss.

SENIOR THESIS PART 1- Trevor the Magic Junkie.

Oh, Trevor.  This was my favorite character of the bunch to design.  I'd been imagining a green Iggy Pop, when I first thought of the character, long, spindly, and able to bend his torso in bizarre ways.  A musical theme also seemed appropriate.  Like all of the characters in the party, I wanted him to be lovable and flawed, but still someone who could actually fight.  Designing a troll presented infinite opportunities to squash and stretch his anatomy around, and I had maybe too much fun designing various misshapen noses and ears.

I got a bit carried away with thinking about possible Troll anatomy, even going so far as to try and figure out how his toes would move and splay.  I also drew his broken and mashed up nose to figure out how the forms would actually work in light.  Not necessary to the project but at least I had fun!

As for the moral paths that Trevor can take, both hinge on his tragic addiction to dark magic.  In the world, the Trolls who live on the outskirts of the city have developed a love of Black Matter, a toxic by product of the city's industrialized magic.  While leathal to humans, it amplifies the Troll's natural magic in mysterious and sometimes dangerous ways.  A player can chose to get Treavor some rehab and cleanse him of the dark magic and become a sniper.  Or if they'd like they can take him down the dark road of addiction, where his magic will become extremely powerful, but at a price...