Drawing Club 04/27

Master Studies 04/25

A few quick studies based in the paintings
of one of my favorite Plein Air painters...
Eric Merrell.

Drawing Club 04/20

Bettie Page theme tonight.

It took several sets before I was able
to loosen up and have fun with it.

Study from J C Leyendecker 04/19

I usually take at least one painting or drawing class each
semester but right now I cant find any teachers I'm really
excited about so I'm going to switch to self study mode...
making up assignments and projects for myself.

I've always loved the way Leyendecker leaves spaces between
his strokes to create texture and pattern so I've decided to do
some studies based on his work.

Xbox360 avatars

I did these a while back. Only one of
them shipped on the Xbox 360 hard
drives... the others are available
through xbox live marketplace.

Rumble Roses XX - review

This xbox360 game focuses on all womens mixed martial arts wrestling/fighting. Most games take themselves too seriously... this game doesn't make that mistake. It has a playful B-movie attitude towards its subject matter and very simple controls. Its the perfect game for anyone who has always wanted to like fighting games but has always found their controls frustrating. The controls only take 5 minutes to learn because they are context sensitive. The core game play is fun and doesn't require a large investment of time. Yes Oblivion is a better game but it requires at least a two hour investment of time in order to have as much action, adventure, and fun as you get in ten minutes alone with the beautiful women of Rumble Roses XX.

The production values are very high the models and animations for the most part live up to next gen expectations. The only areas where it falls apart are in the reversals... there just aren't enough animations to account for all the possible positions these can be triggered in so you will sometimes see pops. Also hands and faces are lacking in animation for many sections of the game which sometimes makes the beautiful models feel like mannequins. The AI is top notch and is able to keep up even with large numbers of moves and strange situations that come up. The only aspects of the game that feels incomplete or poorly defined are the unlockables. The game starts with half the characters locked and gives the player no clues on how to unlock them. I get the feeling that the developers did this to keep players from becoming obsessed with getting the unlockables and rushing through the game. The result is that you are forced to just play the game at your own pace and you will be pleasantly surprised when you unlock something special or get a shot at a title. Who in their right mind would want to rush through this game anyways... so please take it slow and stop to smell the roses.

Storyboard Studies 04/12

Sketches from a Japanese film called GoJoe... I had a lot of fun
with these. I really like the peasant that looks like Mick Jagger.

loosening up

I've been struggling lately. I think I've
lost my focus so I'm going back to the
basics and starting to try and loosen up
again. Here are some random sketches
and studies... two of them are studies
from a webcomic called "the great Catsby"
which has really inspired me lately.


For some reason I really enjoy sketching from
DVD's. I used to prefer working from life but lately
I find I'm more inspired by movies because I get
more diversity in color schemes, mood, settings. It's
strange because I can't stand working from photos
(too flat and static) but because you can see the
characters turning and rotating in a movie (get a
feel for the 3D form) I enjoy the process more.