The wheels worked out better than I had hoped! Due to the construction method of the asset however, I still haven't seen everything moving together so the next step will be to assemble in Unity so I can have an easily* updatable file in motion that I can use for reference.
I suspect the amount of z sorting will be a holy hell to work through, but it SHOULD all work...
Thrumming with life!
... never synchronized /o\
Activated and ready to kill
Firing but without any particle effects...
Disabled!
I've picked up a contract working at JB Gaming - creating concepts and assets for their new title "Grave Danger" (Facebook Page)
It's taken a month to get spooled up to the title's art style and into animating in Spine but I'll be trying to post up more art as my time allows. Otherwise, check out the game's Twitter Account for frequent quality updates!
Below is one of the first animated units I created along with 2 other skulls (not shown). I'd consider these game ready, but 80% done. hopefully, I'll have time to polish them up as I learn more.
I am also creating a train level asset that will use various static sprites and spine animations working together to create external platforming environments. Internal environments will be created in Ferr2.
Second draft proposal for the train level colors and high level details.
Current working document. The top assets are a combination of sprites (folders with image generator names) and Spine animations (Linked smart objects)
The original design featured cog wheels that were supposed to be turned using a chain drive, but after a bit of deliberation, I wasn't sure that the effect could easily be animated in Spine so I am working on switching things over to a push rod system which will probably look way better in the end anyway. The gear was animated with 10 offset layers to achieve the illusion of slight 3D depth. Hopefully, it will all mesh together well!
Also, my friend Max surprised me with this 3D printed metal keychain of my signature block! He makes way more creative and wonderful stuff that you can find over on his facebook page.
One of the last designs for the second round of Bots Battleground work. Billed as a falling apart psychopath I incorporated lots of haphazard elements including substantial battle damage and "Jokeresque" face paint.
As the last step of finalization, I went in and activated the long dormant gradient map layers to create each of the 4 team's colored variations. I then created Layer comps in conjunction with the image generator to automatically export out all 4 versions every time any changes were made to the files. Adobe's automation stuff is really kicking ass, and other than a few issues did everything I hoped it would.
One of my biggest hangups that I knew would be a problem was not having all the files loaded into a master document. I had heavily considered it, but for the scope of the contract I wasn't convinced that the efficiencies would pay off... I also didn't know how the client's computer would react to 100+ smart objects and 700+ layers...
This was a great full spectrum project. It helped me work out more efficient pipelines and introduced me to a great guy and team to work with. Can't wait to get my set!
For more information about the game, check out the successfully funded KickStarter page!
More work from the second phase of Bots Battleground Designs.
The Copycat was designed to function as a scanner so wanted to keep it looking very observant with the laser and large optics.
The Cash was billed as a mecha piggy bank so decided to weaponize it as a boar with missiles for tusks and 3 cannon nostrils with a vault door on the side for added security.
For more information about the game, check out the successfully funded KickStarter page!
I've had this work sitting around for awhile and finally getting some of it posted!
Wanted to keep the Circuit light and agile looking and took some cues from WIFI routers to flesh out the look of a hacking capable design.
Originally billed as a ghostly like translucent robot things changed and now only its spinning neck blades are incorporeal. The world needs more bladed ponchos in my opinion.
For more information about the game, check out the successfully funded KickStarter page!
A few weeks ago I got my hands on an iPad Pro + Pencil and finally had time to work through my first piece on it.
I immediately gravitated towards Procreate, and after a few sketches and rendering tests to get into the swing of things I dove into this guy. As a digital artist who hasn't kept a traditional sketchbook in quite some time I have a feeling that this hardware and software will be a liberation for me!
Wanted to explore the ramifications of a lava powered milling wheel as explored on the last set of thumbs I worked on. Took longer than it should have as I navigated my compositional blind spots but had some great help from some great friends.
Dipping back into daily sketches using prompts from Concept Art Sessions. I got out of the habit when a big job rolled my way and only am now starting to get back into the discipline.
Thumbs - "Charred" + "Stony"
Last but not least here is the promotional illustration I did for the box art.The goal was to have 4 bots fighting within a set ratio and with a border that faded to black.
A big shout out goes to my friends who helped me with the layout, posing and readability of this piece. Your feedback helped me immensely!
And that is it for now! Be sure to check out the Kickstarter if any of this interests you and hopefully there will be more to come!
The "Menace" is another of the FX laden bots that will probably need to be revisited. Embarrassingly I hadn't had many chances to paint electricity and so after arriving at something passable we decided to move on and circle around once the project clears. I wanted to post it regardless because I like the design and didn't want things to seem like everything was on cruise control on my end.
The "Swarm" was the last bot done for the initial run and took by far the longest at around 9 hours due to its requirements and back and forth. For simplicity and budget sake I turned the component bots into glorified rectangular prisms with little legs and triangle eyes and tried to blend them together into the bot's blob like form. It mostly worked out well and I really love the idea of them heating up to melt down scraps in order to recycle them into the swarm.
Check out Bots Battleground and Boogie Dice over on Kickstarter!
The "Boom" was fairly straight forward as a suicide bot. I only needed 4 thumbs and 3 of them incorporated the Sea Mine shape as its core from the start. I wish I had had the time to do a quick block model of the sphere and detection horns to keep them properly distributed and in perspective but I think it came together well as is.
The "Leech" was a bit on the complicated side but came together as something you wouldn't want to hug you so... Mission accomplished!
Check out Bots Battleground and Boogie Dice over on Kickstarter!
This is the "Underdog" and the "Ricochet" - and they both were challenging for different reasons.
The Underdog is probably my favorite of them all and had to represent a bot that got more powerful when at a disadvantage and I am hoping most of that is expressed in its pose.
The Ricochet on the other hand posed lots of FX problems on my end due to the timelines for each bot. This is one of the few bots that I may come back to to polish up.
Check out Bots Battleground and Boogie Dice over on Kickstarter!
