3D Animation, Redesigned Website, and Atroxity: Chapter 2

Things have been steadily chugging along, so I thought I'd give an update.

3D ANIMATION

I rendered out that robotic arm rig I animated. I tried putting sound in it but it sounded weird so I kept it silent. Maybe there's a better sound designer out there, but it's not me.

I also ran into some great guys at a little software retailer called 3DV in Portland OR and have developed a great relationship with them. If you're interested in software, head over to www.3DV.com and mention my name to get a great deal.

WEBSITE REDESIGN

I redesigned my website. Just rearranged things, simplified the design and cut down all the clutter. Check it out at www.leealailimarose.com.

ATROXITY: CHAPTER 2

We finished Chapter 1: Digging for Fire, so now were going to take a few weeks off to prepare for the next chapter, Climbing the Walls.

Were also starting to decide what were doing for ad campaigns, publication ideas, and all that so lots of behind the scenes work. Lots of cool work coming in the next chapter so stay tuned.

Take a look at this cool poster I made! And go re-read Chapter 1, or check it out if you haven't already.

Another idea we've been bouncing around is what to do with all this content. Right now its completely free online, with no ads or anything to generate revenue from views. We may start to do that, or we could pitch to a publisher and get a deal! A few good houses nearby is Dark Horse and Oni Press among many others, so that's an idea. If it does go into the hands of a publisher, you probably won't see it online, but probably in stores!

Just a thought. If you have any feedback, comments, or just want to say you enjoy the work, let me know so we know where we stand.

Atroxity, Animation, and Going Around the Sun

How was everyones Thanksgiving!?

If you answered "Food Orgy" we probably went to the same family dinner. Incredible food, great fun, and wonderful times seeing the family again, especially my brother, sister, nephews, and parents.

Now that the family is gone, I decided to get back on the blog and keep updating it, hopefully better than I have been.


ATROXITY

Every Monday now a new page of Atroxity, the web comic I've been working on, comes out so go check it out already!

www.atroxity.com

If you don't know, Atroxity is a gritty noir-style graphic novel about a mans journey through a strange city. I can't give away too much but it's good, especially well written by Bill Salisbury, who I work closely with to bring the city to life.

Things have been going quite swimmingly with Atroxity if I do say so myself. We fell behind on our buffer during the holiday, so were playing catch-up but everything's looking great! Traffic is still low but slowly climbing every day, so maybe we can actually make a living doing this one day! Once Chapter 1 is finished were going to make a big advertising campaign to push more readers our direction, hopefully kick up a real following.


ANIMATION

I've been actively improving my animation and rigging skills by rigging and animating a simple but fun robotic arm. I have an idea of what to use him for but I'll save that explanation for later. Right now I have a great test animation for you, which has been rendered out and awaiting my sound design so keep an eye out for that.

So far it's UV layout is ready for texturing so that will be my next step, which brings me to my next work.








SODA CANS


This is my refresher on texturing, which is a simple soda can so I'm not really pushing it. What I am pushing is rigging this can to deform and "crush" so I can use it later for something, maybe another fun short with the arm rig? Oh the possibilities.

The texture I have now is too low res. so I'll need to change that, but it's still a ton of fun.


I also made it around the sun again a few days ago, so I've got that going for me...

I hope I didn't forget anything.

Atroxity

I've told you I've been working on a little side project called Atroxity with a few talented collaborators.

Now all that hard work is about to come to light next week with the website going live again to showcase my new work and present me as a member of the team!

Check out the announcement and a few awesome images!:
http://www.atroxity.com/2013/11/04/we-return-in-a-week-with-a-slightly-different-we/

Simple Arm Rig

Just working out a few kinks, but currently testing my rigging skills by making this quick rig for the robot arm from "The Line".

This is the final model it will be applied to.

Still thinking of what colors I should texture this bad boy. Any suggestions?

Lee

Back to Animation

Say hello to Captain Atom.

It's been a while since I've animated, but I haven't lost the touch.

Big thanks to Ashwin Inamdar for the rig.

Meanwhile, I've been building up on the Atroxity page bank. Hopefully by the end of this month we can re-launch and get the comic live.

The weather is horrible in Portland, by the way.

Digital Painting and Twitter Pressure

So I've done it, I'm now on Twitter against my better judgement.

Let me explain! After going to Bungie Studios and running into the whole crew, I've heard over and over how Twitter is the way to stay in touch with people, which I usually suck at. More and more I'm realizing that people are using Twitter whether I like it or not, and I'm being left behind!

So I've dusted my Twitter handle off and am now broadcasting to the world the cool things I'm doing. I promise to not post worthless "my life" posts and keep it as interesting as possible. Mostly things will be about cool art, video games, events, animation, and other creative things.

Here's a snippet of art since you're here...

Atroxity: The Online Graphic Novel

-Atroxity-

I've hopped on to a new project this week as the colorist for an online graphic novel, Atroxity! It's a very exciting, dark, and visceral graphic novel with a new page released every week. After reading the script, I'm extremely excited to get to work and take this project to the next level.

Check it out at www.atroxity.com and keep an eye out for my name!

Jonathan Blow on the State of Game Design

-Jonathan Blow on the State of Game Design-

In the same week Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid, had a talk about the current state of video game design and the "Bad TV" that is Free-to-Play(F2P) games. If you do design these games, please close your eyes, because Jonathan strong opinions cast down all games designed around this business model.

Jonathan begins with a horrible episode of the Six Million Dollar Man fighting against a robotic Big Foot, a sore sight for modern eyes with terrible timing, effects, and camera angles. Using this example as "Bad TV", Jonathan tears down games like "Farmville" and "Candy Crush Saga", claiming their poor and immoral design is destroying the game industry.

For the most part, Jonathan is actually spot on. His points on how these models effectively "trick" players into playing a game for "free" while luring them into micro-transactions by keeping vital parts of the game behind a pay-wall. This business model can be seen everywhere, forcing players to pay for "buildings" in a city, "special gems" to improve their gameplay, and even "energy" to simply play the game.

Unfortunately, this business model is extremely successful in monetizing a game, making it a preferable choice for developers big and small. This trend destroys wholesome design and replaces it with games designed around gimmicks and endless treadmills to make a player think they're getting more game out of a F2P, swindling them out of hundreds, than from a $2.99 up-front traditional game.

Basically, Jonathan Blow was calling F2P games trash, which is not a bad assessment. As always there are a few exceptions to the rules and I'm not one to cast down a genre just because I don't agree with it. But I definitely felt bad for the F2P developers in the audience for having their idol call their work garbage.

Check out a write-up by a good friend of mine HERE to find out more about the talk.

Adam Fosters Impossible Puzzles at Bungie

-Adam Fosters Impossible Puzzles at Bungie-

Valve's designer Adam Foster talking about Alternate Reality Games at Bungie Studios. What more could you ask for?

If you don't know, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are a combination of mystery and cryptography creating an almost impossible puzzle that extends from a fictional game into the real world. Adam specifically designed the great "Radio" ARG seen in the hit game Portal, where strategically placed radios in the levels made strange noises when picked up and moved around.

These were no ordinary noises, but coded bits of information through Morse code and Slow-Scan Television (SSTV, encodes low resolution images in audio form). Within these decoded messages were even more puzzles, which causes the player to do research to figure these bits of information out. It even goes as far as connecting to a random modem to extract rough images of Portal 2, making this entire game end in a Portal 2 announcement!

Big thanks to Adam, the IGDASeattle group, and Bungie for blowing our minds.

Go HERE to read more about what Adam did, it will blow your mind.

"I Am The Internet!"

Presenting "The Internet"

A wonderful piece of production illustration if I do say so myself! And so much fun to make!

Hard to believe that this is only the beginning. Next comes character modeling sheets to make this into a fully functional 3D piece. We got a long way to go...

The Internet - In progress

Here's some magic for you! It's the progress on the previous "Internet" piece Im working on.

Be gentle, there's still a lot to go. But critique is always welcome.

Lee

The Internet!

Remember this doodle?

I've decided to make something fun and get some great 3D practice. Basically I'm going to turn this into a 3D piece, with models and everything. I might even animate it if I'm feeling crazy enough!

So I'm deciding between three concept views to make a polished illustration as reference while translating to 3D. Which do you think is better?

(P.S. Should Abraham Lincoln be wearing lumberjack gear?)

Robot Arm

Just working on my robot arm some more today.

Environment Sketches

Have a little bit of time to work on a few things.

Here's a few environment sketches for a for-fun project.

Recent Events and Work

It's been quite a busy past few weeks.

-First of all, I got MARRIED! So that was amazing.

-I also have been busy with some under-wraps work, so thats exciting.

-I've also been working my part-time job, which is time consuming.

But enough excuses, here's some cool stuff I've been working on for Fragout Studios on their upcoming project, Redneck Brigade.

I can't show you much but they have a kickstarter if you want to go see more! Redneck Brigade Kickstarter

Stuff I Draw at Work pt. 2: Heart of the Interwebs

"I am the Internet. Armies will shatter. Worlds will burn."

None can withstand the might of Lumberjack Lincoln and his horde of Nyan cats. His Breadfish will blot out the sun!

Boticus Art Overload Pt. 3

Some more robot gladiator action!

These are the character design sheets I made for the project, the first being the highlights of the batch of silhouettes. The second is a modeling sheet of one of the robots without armor.

Stuff I Draw at Work

I've started doing a few doodles to pass the time at work. Thought you guys might enjoy it.

Boticus Art Overload Pt. 2

As promised, here are more art pieces for your lovely faces.

 

So you can basically see my process, from rough model to lighting to painting and color passes. It's really a ton of fun and I hope to perfect this process.

As for the fate of "Boticus", the team wants to go in a different direction, so a lot of my  work will be rendered useless, but that means more art for you!

L.

I feel an idea brewing...

I feel an idea coming on.

Well its been brewing for a while, its only now that I'm putting it together. Here's a preview of a rough sketch model.

Lee

New Demo Reel!

Hey Guys,

New Demo Reel! Watch it on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/62047836) or below!

Lee

Storyboard for a Bumper

Hey guys,

I was asked to do a quick storyboard for an animated bumper and submit it to compete for a project for Cosmic Forces. I thought I'd share with you, though its only a sketch.

The idea is a robot with a screen in its body finds a remote that turns the screen on, where the trailer or featured video will play. Just a little bumper, but it was fun to think up and make.

Enjoy!

Boticus Art Overload!!!

Alright! I got permission to put up some art from a project I'm working on!

I don't want to give away anything crucial, but you can see this is a game about robot gladiators.

Also, there's a lot of art so I'm going to try to break it up so you can see some of the process involved. I use a lot of 3D rough models to make my stuff and its pretty cool to see the roughs.

But first, some initial art and sketch models.

Enjoy

Robotic Arm Animation

Here's some initial sketch models and storyboards of that little robot arm animation I wanted to make.

The idea is about a simple assembly line robot who didn't want to do the same menial task anymore.

Mech Arm Progress

Hey Guys

My parents are in town, so not a lot of work this post but I wanted to put some progress on the mechanical arm for an upcoming personal project. Still a lot of mesh refining to go, but the main idea is there for you.

I put the sketch model it's based off of next to it so you can see how it evolved.

 I also had a few people ask me how I used 3D to make my previous "Black Hole" painting so I'm throwing in the rough render that I used to determine the lighting of the scene.

Until we meet again,

Lee

Something Awesome This Way Comes

So I've been bouncing this idea of a game around in my head for a while, so I made a game document and started doing a little bit of art for it. Who knows? Maybe I can put together a presentation and make a Kickstarter.

The piece is about half-way there, but I thought I'd just throw it at you anyways.

Sketch Models

Here's a few sketch models of robotic arms I quickly made in Maya.

The idea is for a little bumper animation I've been thinking up using. The idea is basically my "ili" logo being constructed by robot arms, like a car assembly line. These are just a few ideas for the design of the arm and I'll pick one and model it nicely. Which do you think is better?

Aside from that, I've made my first chunk of money tutoring in Maya. A student from a local college needed some extra help, and I have to say her professor is not doing a good job teaching an intro class to Maya. If only I could teach that class, everyone would rock at Maya by the end of the semester. But I cant say anything without an MFA or something that qualifies me, so tutoring will have to be the extent of my teachings.

I've been in an identity crisis for the past few months. I don't know if I want to focus on 3D Animation, Video Game Design, or Concept Art, because I've been modeling, learning programming and Unity3D, and practicing digital painting and I feel like I'm not improving fast enough in any of them.

On top of that, I can't put down my Stephen Hawking book. I've missed science so much while I was in Art School and all this information about our universe is blowing my mind every page.

Still unemployed though, that needs to change really soon. I've revised my resume and hitting the streets looking for work.

Until next time,

Lee

Screwing Around in Unity

Hey Guys

So after that whole Global Game Jam business, I've decided I want to learn Unity.

This is no easy task...

Since I'm already well versed in Maya, the interface and modeling side of Unity is pretty easy. Its the programming side that scares me.

Luckily, through the lessons of Javascript at Codecademy (www.codecademy.com),

A bunch of youtube tutorials (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV3sSM0gjQ8),

And a fountain of knowledge (http://walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_training___free__.html),

I have made my first interactive "game", which is not all that exciting of a game, but its a start. Still having trouble putting it somewhere where people can play it, but try clicking this link and downloading the files, you need both. Open the html. file and download the Unity Web Player when it opens in your browser.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6cpc92a0qu8190q/2LfZKoyc_K

Sorry about how complicated this it, I'm still getting used to it. If I get any good at this, you may see some pretty awesome games that have been bouncing around my head for the past few years.

Aside from that, nothing much to report on the job front. Still struggling to even find something to pay the bills. A few prospects loom in the distance though so all is not lost.

Global Game Jam 2013 in Portland!

Hello Everyone

Sorry I've been neglecting my blog, but I PROMISE I will try to keep it up to date with everything I'm doing.

Sadly, I dont have time right now to give you the low down of my past few months, but I do have something awesome for you!

My First Game!!!!

So the Portland Indie Game Squad (PIGSquad) hosted the Portland location of the Global Game Jam and I was lucky enough to get in on it and make a game with some awesome people. But enough about me, lets talk about the game.

So, being a 48 hour game, its a little rough around the edges, but what you have to do is make designated pairs of kids at a high-school dance by matching their heart rates up. To do this, you must put your mouse on a kid, which will stop them, and click the desired rate of heartbeat. It gets tricky because the faster their heart rate, the faster their movement, and the room slowly fills with more kids. These kids can also pair on their own, which is bad if it takes one of the kids needed to make a pair, where you fail the pair and lose one out of your five lives. You can also interrupt an unwanted pair by quickly changing one of their heartbeats, keeping them from failing your desired pair.

You may need a plugin, but try it out at this link:
http://johanneshoff.com/promnight/

So the awesome people are as follows:

Pat Kemp: Lead Game Designer; Art Direction

Johannes Hoff: Lead Programmer

Lee Alailima-Rose: Art Lead

Anne Paris: Art

Jonathan Minnamon: Art

Jason Paris: Sound and Original Music

So what do you think?

Go to the Global Game Jam description here: http://globalgamejam.org/2013/mfeo-meant-each-other

Talk to you soon...