The Puppeteer

Weekend Scribbles

I spent the weekend with some old friends, made some new ones, and spent more money than I should have. I found time to put some visual notes down as I went, and the scan is below. The average size for these sketches is one square centimeter- I've really fallen in love with doing concept work at this size. As time becomes available I'll be transferring some of these to concept turnarounds as I prepare for IlluXcon in November. I'll be updating as I complete those pieces- I hope you stay tuned to see the finished work!
-Dan

Gears of War 3

Part of Microsoft's/Epic's promotion for Gears of War 3 was an art contest on Deviantart.com. Below is my submission, and a gif of the process (click the big white box to play). Enjoy!

Wippiy Bippity

I didn't have my sketchbook today, so post-it notes became my sketchpad.

Work in progress.

Self.

The past few days made me really appreciate electricity.
To get myself back into the rhythm of working with the tablet, self portrait with flashlight.

Bristle

While bristle is a word that holds a warm place in my vocabulary's heart, it's also the label for the shortcut on my Intuos4 for the brush tool.
I finally made a tool perfect for concepting that allows me to take my thoughts off of mark making and abstraction, and focus on intentionally telling a story through a silhouette. I'm excited. below are a few experiments.

Break

I work mornings at a deli to give myself some walking around money as I get myself up to speed to be a professional artist for the entertainment industry. Typically I draw on the DS, but recently that's gotten stale. For the next week or so, I'll be drawing on butcher paper. Below are today's results.

6 Gallon Gasoline Stomach

Warmup in Alchemy. To work with me!

July Colors Sketches

I havent been posting as much as I'd like, so to make up for it, I'm sharing some of the better sketches done on the DS.

Tragelaphus

Quickie before bed.

Level Up!

Above: Magical giant crystal that bleeds mana, or something.

It may not look like much, but this is an indicator of rapid and massive growth. I'm finally starting to be able to get what's in my head out on to the screen, and i'm pretty excited to see where the final weeks of summer and the fall will lead me.

Whitechip's Revenge

Part of a series of art for friends, this is for my good friend Jonathan Vair. Based off a character from one of his 3d paintings, Whitechip seems to always be in hostile environments that we don't get to know much about.

Colors!

As promised, here's a sketch I did on my hacked NDS today.

Loyalty

I'm sick of putting together cds for bands that think they're special because their lyrics are anti-religion. I'm sick of hearing people say 'you're welcome to think whatever you want' and then telling me what I should think or how I should act. I'm sick of the negativity in this scene. I'm sick of seeing kids get a rise from hitting kids who dont want to be hit. I'm ashamed that I was a part of it. I don't know whether I'm old, or if this is me realizing I just don't want to hurt any more people than I already have.

I had a lot of fun with Loyalty. I won't miss seeing the shirts on kids I don't know and probably dont like at shows.

Here's the last design, sporting a not-so-complex stab (pun intended) at the tumblr/hipster crowd. Fixed blades > Fixed bikes.

Process

As the campaign for a career continues, I find there is a lot I'm not doing efficiently as an artist. Because I (regrettably) spent the first 2 years of college as a graphic designer, the last two as a fledgling illustrator, and the middle two years as a web designer, my portfolio is broad and diverse but it isn't strong or professional (to my standards), and it doesn't represent me or the direction I want to go anymore.
This summer/fall is dedicated to building a portfolio strong enough to net me one of the 3 positions I'm eyeing currently. The first step towards that goal is to establish a reliable and effective process that gets me a solid sketch from which I can work.
I've been using a sketchbook in combination with a hacked Nintendo DS running Colors as a digital sketchbook. Shown below is the NDS with an in-process sketch.
Below that is a picture of my workspace- I have a solid view of the Appalachians from my seat (so i dont have to look at the screen while I read and re-read 'Generating Full Resolution Composite'), and I've been applying techniques I used to color t-shirt designs years ago to the early stages of my digital pieces. It's been fun and exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time. I'll hopefully post some Colors work this weekend, and ideally a finished piece towards the end of next week.

Irrational Games/BioShock Infinite

With college behind me and my debt before me, real life is a little more real than I expected.
I've been wanting to do concept art since middle school, but I only sawthat dream as a viable option for paying off school last year. 
My dream job would be to join the team at Irrational. Not only do they take the integrity of their IP very seriously, the team puts a lot of effort into researching the time period in which their game takes place. The knowledge of then-contemporary political movements/conflicts, actual conflicts, architecture and art history along with emerging philosophies ground their games in a very believable universe. This foundation allows the team to do something outrageous (and probably impossible, like put a city at the bottom of the atlantic, or a city half a mile in the air). I am attracted to this integrity and dedication, and I want to add to it.


Shameless 'hire me' plug over. 
Below are two currently fictional pieces of concept art for the power-ups (referred to as Vigors) in BioShock Infinite. 


The first Vigor:

Tell-Tale Heart allows the user to see through walls/floors/ceilings to see NPC's heartbeats. This major tactical advantage is balance by the inability to see what faction is which, so in areas where you don't want to make enemies, it isn't the most prudent decision to pull this bad boy out.

The title is obviously pulled from the E. A. Poe short story, but given his contemporary nature to the time period of Infinite, I believe it is appropriate.

Below is the bottle design, an advertisement, and an image to show what Booker would see.

The Second Vigor is a joke. 

Irrational's forums have been quite busy with the discussion of the main NPC Elizabeth's cup size, some arguing that it isn't appropriate for the time, some saying it is necessary for the player to want to protect her. Much of the thread discussed possible reasons for Irrational to make this design change, and so I decided to offer a solution another user and I came up with: breast enhancing vigors. Enjoy!

Between moving back to New Jersey and finishing up college, I've had little time to practice my craft. Art boot camp starts tomorrow, and I can't tell you how excited I am to be painting again. I promise I'll update more for the forseeable future.

Blogspot.

I think this will become the home of my sketchblog- Tumblr has been for the last year or so, but there's about 500,000 too many high school girls posting about how much they want to have sex for me to feel like the site is a viable professional platform, and more importantly all the cool artists have a blogspot.

This will likely pick up in May, but for now, please visit my portfolio site if you're curious about me and what I do by clicking here. Thanks for reading!