Heart Of The Giant Executive Office 1

An executive office in an orbiting space station. For the "Heart Of The Giant" book project, trying to balance the right level of corporate opulence and brutalist architecture, scifi and modern elements, faceless corporation vs mad genius.

Ship Jumper Starship Hallway 3

Another hallway concept test, just for fun.

New Lesson: Knowing Your Historical Design Styles

Art History wasn't exactly my favorite class in University, I was horrible at memorizing dates. But it turns out that what I learned there was super important in my later life as a concept artist. Not only so that when the Art Director uses a term like "Baroque" I have some clue what they're talking about, but because I could take what I learned from art history and use it to define art styles for fictional universes, whether scifi or fantasy. This lesson will go over a couple of major artistic styles from our own history, showing how they define a specific look through their shape language, and then how you can use the knowledge of that look to invent your own for your own species, world or universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1GmoXAl5NY 

Testudo Game Pitch

Over the last several years I've been working on an idea for a vertical scrolling Shoot 'em up (shmup) in the same vein as the games Truxton, Raiden, Ikaruga, R-Type or Gradius (although the last two were horizontal). Inspired by the classic form, this game would take advantage of the interactivity and game mechanics afforded by modern technology such as tablets and VR. Hoping to one day get it made, in the meantime, going to work on a gameplay teaser after my megastructures book goes to print. Here's some views of the spaceship, some posters and design images. 

Megastructures Update #7 May 2021

Welcome to the 7th official Megastructure Book Project Update, a visual encyclopedia of scifi megastructures!

May is the month of decision. We've contacted a number of publishers and have had some chats, but it's time to make the final decision on whether we'll go the traditional publishing route, or kickstart like we did with our last book and self publish. Will make the decision in a few weeks once I have the last info I need, so in June we'll make the announcement. And then we'll be moving forward again!

In the meantime, wanted to highlight some of the other artists who have contributed work to the book.

First off we have Jeremy Cook, we met back at Blur Studio in 1999, where he quickly worked his way up to a supervisor level, and then continued forward with a fantastic career at companies such as ILM, 343 and others. He was a huge help on my "The Story of Inc" book contributing tons of great artwork, and he has contributed 3 awesome paintings to this book. Check out his other artwork here: https://www.artstation.com/jeremycook

Next is Andy Proctor, who I met through a friend of a friend. He's a supervisor at ILM, does fantastic personal artwork projects, is a really great guy, and I miss our time drinking beers in SF at the Marin Brewing Company. Check out his work here: https://www.artstation.com/andyp

Col Price needs very little introduction, he's done a ton of artwork for games, tv and film, and is super prolific when it comes to his personal artwork. It was my great honor that he accepted to do some work for the book. Check him out here: https://www.artstation.com/coldesign

Ken Fairclough's work first came to my attention when he started posting his concept art for Mass Effect and Anthem. His skills at composition and lighting are just top notch, check out his great work here: https://www.artstation.com/kenfairclough

And finally Jullius Granada, who's skyhook painting on artstation grabbed my attention, so I licensed the image for the book and had him do another painting for another structure as well. Talented dude, check out his work here: https://www.artstation.com/jgranada

That's it for this update. Next update I'll reveal the final plans for the book and the path forward. Thanks for following along!

New Lesson: A Study In Greens, Variety in Your Colors

This lesson is about adding variety to your color schemes. Instead of just that single generic green, make your green a little bluer. A little more yellow. A little more brown. Variety to Hue, Saturation and Value, even in a piece that's predominantly a single color, will give it depth and visual interest. This lesson breaks down this concept and gives a number of tips and examples to help add more color variety to your own work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_PbstlsRck