SVS Christmas Card - 2010

Last year I did the SVS Christmas card. I think it really captures the spirit of the season.

 

Conan

We did a pitch for a Conan iPhone game to line up with the new movie. The instructions were kind of vague but I was told we could take it in any direction we wanted so I went for the Frank Frazetta style Conan, just a big, grotesque brick of a guy, done up all stylized, kind of like Shank.

The immediate feedback was "This doesn't look like Jason Momoa". Wut-oh! A head swap was in order!

And while I was at it I figured I'd throw in one more:

Terrible Governor, pretty good Barbarian though.

I also did a couple of gameplay mockups to show what combat might look like. The lovely background is the work of Kelli Davis.

 

MLB Body Types

This was some quickie art I threw together for an MLB project we were bidding on. These were going to be the three main player body types.

We have Tim Lincecum as The Little Guy, Derek Jeter as Medium Man and Albert Pujols as A Larger Fellow.

 

Speed Painting 

Back when Chris Glenn was the art director at SuperVillain he'd periodically declare speed paints to keep people "frosty" as he liked to call it. These would range anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour, but sometimes I'd get carried away and take a little longer. :)

The topic for this first one was: A cross between two animals as a sea creature. My animals were an eagle and a tick. Then we took the shape created by the sea creature and "morphed" it over the next three paintings.

The Underwater Eagle Tick

Wrestler Transport

El Stegosaurus

The Horse Tosser

The topic for this one was "Flight":

The topic for this one was "Haunted":

Draw an Itchy Cube...

Gross.

 

Ye Olde Graphite Markings 

A bunch of old drawings from the pre-Photoshop days!

 

The Story of the Order Up!(!) Box Art... Story 

When this game originally shipped on the Wii it was with some of the ugliest drawings I've ever done, right there on the front of the box. Oopsie! Luckily for people who dislike looking at hideous art this game was practically impossible to find in stores. So a few years later SVS was able to team up with some brand new publishers for a hopefully much wider release of the game. The upside for me was a chance to redeem myself with a new and improved box cover. 

Here we have the original cover. Not too pretty.

Here are the revised characters. Much less awful.

This is a lineup of the chefs with a bunch of their assistants.

This is the "Conan" cover. It wound up on the back of the instruction manual for the original Wii release.

For the new release we were thinking about going with a brand new cover, but this one wound up being too busy. The delicious steak in the foreground was painted by Kelli Davis. I did the rest.

Here's the cover I did that the UK publisher approved. I was much happier with this one.

The North American publisher wanted a few more changes and this is what I wound up with. Not any better or worse than the previous one in my opinion. Still works, just a little different.

Here's a close-up of the background detail. This guy reminds me of Fred Mertz.Beneath that jacket his pants are probably pulled up to his armpits.

 

Fine Automobiles

This here's the small collection of car drawings I've done for other people. Coincidentally, these are also the cars  that I own.

A 2000 Jeep Cherokee. Currently my wife and I are driving His and Hers Cherokees, both the same color even. Pretty nerdy...

'75 AMC Pacer! Drawn for Anna and Harell Lamkin for answering all my questions during my 4.5L engine install. See the real thing at Mopacer.com. Mine's a white '78 but it got wrecked while it was parked on the street by some idiot who couldn't manage to drive in a straight line. I can't wait to get it back on the road!

The mighty 4x4 Eagle! My very first car, a 1982 4-door sedan, got it when I was 15 1/2. I did this shirt design for the nice people at AMCEagleNest.com's annual car show. Best of all, I got a free shirt out of the deal. It is a fine looking torso cover.

Ok, I don't actually own one of these but the Mustang club and my chiropractor were doing a fundraiser so I did this art for the flyer. It's my chiropractor in a Mustang, you see.

 

Some Comic Strips

One day at work we all decided to make a comic strip. I decided to name mine after a misunderstood lyric from a song Chris Glenn always used to play in our office. Can't remember the song now. Pretty good story, huh? Anyway, the strip was about some monster being a real grump.

The second one I did as a teaser to let people know Order Up! was coming to the PlayStation 3, and was compatible with the Move controller. Looking at it now the drawings of the Chef seem pretty wonky. Oh well, or as Chef would say "Brnnt!".

 

THDJ Character Concepts

Here's a handful of character concepts I did when we ported Toys for Bob's THDJ from Wii over to PlayStation 2. I'll be honest: This game was a bit of a turkey. And I believe we used about zero of these concept drawings. In fact, Toys for Bob actually hated these if I recall. Way to embarrass yourself, Van Dalsem. Now get back to work. These toilets aren't going to clean themselves!