Holidazed!

My first ever commercial game has been released! Holidazed is a one button platformer in the style of Canabalt or Robot Unicorn Attack, and features online leaderboards and openfient achievements! Check it out! Download link at the bottom of this post!

Download Holidazed now!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/holidazed/id406351735?mt=8

What I've been up to!

So, I've made hints to the fact that I am doing some freelance work at the moment, which is true, but its probably not the most accurate summation of whats going on. To give just the details, I am doing the art and co-designing for an Iphone game. It's interesting work, because though I have done games in the past, I've never worked on a professional one. I can't give away too man details, and I'm not sure I can post any of the artwork yet, but we'll see if I can later.

But the real big deal is what comes afterwards. The person I'm working for is setting up a Mobile Gaming firm in the near future, and this project is really just to test my worth, so with any luck, I'll have a full time gig after this! Just in the nick of time too, with loans coming and everything.

The Grand National Championships poster!

Well, it took me way too long to finish this, what with me looking for work most of my time (a situation that has *hopefully* been remedied!), but here it is! The Grand National Championships poster! I'm posting it here before anywhere else so that the guy's at the show will get a chance to proof it and give me any feedback they might be interested in. I'm really quite happy with it for the most part, especially the text, since if there is one thing I will admit to being horrible at, it's typography. The only thing left to do at this point (assuming they don't have any suggestions or revisions) is to reformat this into a usable banner for there blog. That shouldn't be too hard if I'm not mistaken, just some editing and moving.

So Corin likes his cheese, Jerrad is apparently the handsome one of the group, and Alistair is staring down my take on A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.

New Vanir Trailer?!

And here you all actually believed me when I said I wasn't working on this anymore!

Last Set of Sketchbook pages!

So thats it for now, but I won't be going as long as I did this time between updates. Next one will be video game related...

Even more Sketch book Pages!

It's not that I haven't been doing art, it's just I haven't had access to a scanner until now!

OH MAN IT HAS BEEN WAY TOO LONG SINCE AN UPDATE.

SO MANY SKETCHBOOK PAGES!!!!

More to come!

Sample images!

Heres a demonstration of several different elements from that project I posted a screenshot of earlier. We've got a Jellyfish animation, various terrain, birds, and a turnaround of an airship.

I dont really know if I'll ever finish this thing, but it is helping me flesh out my pixel work!

BOXAH'!

This is a FAAAAAAAB-ulous boxer. Check out that farmers tan! His name is Sequins Mahogany.

Grand National Championships, THE VIDEO GAME.

No, not really. Just the sprites. These sprites are for possible buttons to be used by the show. They are each a pixel character portrait of the three hosts, Alastair St. Hill, Jerrad Mcleod, and Corin Aitchison. I'll label them as such:

Corin

Jerrad

Alastair

Each one also represents a genre of old-school gaming, Corin is Shooter/Arcade, Jerrad is Action/Platformer, and Alastair is Fantasy/Adventure. I had a lot of fun doing these, and I hope the guys at GNC like them. This is only for the buttons though, the Banner/Poster/BIGDEAL, is the main project, so this was more of a warm-up to that. Also, if by you haven't started listening to Grand National Championships then you totally should.

Shhhh! Secrets!

Well what could this pretty screenshot be of...

...a new game perhaps? Maybe it has airships, and floating islands...and...jellyfish...? Hmm. So interesting!

A change of pace...

So, although I doubt anyone really follows this blog very much, I thought I might post something a little different for once, sort of a thing to catch people up on my work.

For one, I'll be doing some work for Grand National Championships, the radio show that I mentioned in my earlier post, it's pro-bono work but it should be fun and give me at least some exposure. I'm really looking forward to actually doing some professional work, especially with my pixel work!

Designing and coding my recent release "SUPA BLAST 'O' NAUT", was a lot of fun, and it taught me something about the way that I work and what I need to avoid doing. I need to avoid doing work like "Vanir".

I've been working on Vanir since 2007, and as a result, it has more content than any other project that I've worked on. The problem though is that I've grown considerably as an artist in that period of time, and I just can't stand looking at it anymore. A lot of the art work is very...mediocre, and to be completely honest, I haven't actually worked on it in nearly 4 months. At first I thought it was just my final semester of college getting in the way, but even now, with considerably more time on my hands, I find it very hard to force myself to continue working on it.

So I think I'll start working mostly on smaller, more manageable projects like SUPA BLAST O NAUT, things I can get excited about, sink my teeth into, and finish in a small amount of time. SUPA BLAST O NAUT took me less than a week, and not all of them will be that short of a turnaround, but none of them will be any longer than a month or so either. I have alot of ideas that if I distill down to their most basic components, I think I can manage in that period of time.

So for now, I'm pushing Vanir to the side. Thats not to say that I might not just finish it someday and release it, or not do a project that big ever again, but for now, I'm not going to continue working on something that is both that ambitious, or that dated.

Vidya gaemz! And Grand National Championships!

Firstly, both a shout out and an apology to those of you that found me through my interview on Grand National Championships. Great show, great music, and I know I said that I would have this thing out on Monday BEFORE the show ended, but that just didn't happen unfortunately. HOWEVER, I have completed the game, and I present it here, for your viewing pleasure!

Screenshots:

DOWNLOAD LINK:

http://www.yoyogames.com/games/130053-supa-blast-o-naut

I can assure you no viral harm will come to your computer, no matter how much it may warn you about the dangers of .exe files. The website I have it hosted on scans for that sort of thing before it allows it to go live, so no worries eh? Also, apologies to MAC users, this won't work for you guys. Sorry :(

If your wondering what the game is like, it's sort of a cross between and old school arcade shooter (Galaga, 1942, etc.) and a matching type puzzle game. You must guide your ship using the W,A,S,D keys through a densely packed asteroid belt, while also using the mouse to place mines on the different colored rocks. When the mines go off, the explosions continue outward from the source until they reach the edge of their range, or they are stopped by a different colored asteroid. You can circumvent this by using one mine to set off another that is placed on a differently colored asteroid!

Theres also a powerup system that lets you increase the abilities of your ship at the end of each level, and just for you folks that visit my blog, heres a cheat code! If you press "J" at the start screen, you'll start the game at level 17, with all your powerups maxed out! Good Luck!

The Pixel Princess

A sample image that I am sending to prospective children's book publishers, I figured that noone has really done a pixel art children's book before, so why not see if that would work?

Altpick?!

In a further effort to get my work noticed, I have created an Altpick account! It's not a cheap site to be a part of, so please, please make it worth my while!

http://altpick.com/jamesonwilkins

Carbonmade?!

Thats right! In case you just don't like browsing through my work on Blogger, I now have a Carbonmade.com account! Don't expect it to get as updated as much as this, they have an image limit after all, but it is a bit more conducive to viewing artwork.

http://jwilkinspixels.carbonmade.com/

All of thesis!

God of War

God of Technology

God of Politics

God of Fuel

God of Beauty

God of Media and Culture

So, in no particular order, here is all six of the pieces that I chose to do for my Senior Thesis. I graduated about 4 days ago, and am now an honorary alumni of Ringling College of Art and Design! This also means that I am, of course, now employable, so if you see anything you like, please feel free to contact me at any time with work! Freelance, editorial, childrens books, anything!

Ale Label!

Here's another beer label I did. I just wanted to do something that would allow me to do pixels again, since I haven't had the time to do any in some time. I had a lot of fun, but I'll probably revise and re-upload after my professor gives me a critique.

God of Fuel

Another thesis artwork, this is the God of Fuel, I thought it was rather witty to tie a T-Rex skeleton to a hamster wheel to power a city personally. It was a simple enough concept, but those vertebrae were a pain to do in illustrator.

Goddess of Beauty

It has been all together too long since I updated this thing, but thesis has prevented me doing anything more than, well, thesis. I'm going to upload a few things in quick succession though!

This is the finished Goddess of Beauty. Easily the toughest, most time consuming piece I've ever done in Adobe Illustrator. But I am genuinely happy with the end result, so it ended well!

Wine Label!

My newest assignment for Advanced Computer Illustration. We created wine labels, so I began my assignment by perusing a local grocery store and finding a wine with an interesting name. Gnarly Head definitely stood out, and I do like the final image even if it is a bit different that what I normally do. I don't often do portraits in my work, but I think I like it in the end.

God of Technology

This is the first thesis piece I am posting on my blog, and the only thesis piece I am doing in pixels. My thesis is to illustrate "gods" or concepts I believe have too much influence on the modern person. This one is of technology.

Punkin'

Real quick exercise, wanted to see how fast I could take an idea to finish. Did this in about two and a half hours, from thumbnail to finished vector piece. Sure, it's simple, but the idea is that its a logo or spot illustration of sorts.

Embrace

I had no clue what to do for a background for this piece. I used to have some pixel art hearts floating around in the background, but I got some criticism for them and decided the piece was better off without them. I like the character's and the concept was fun to illustrate as well, we just had to illustrate the word "embrace".

Goddess of Beauty (Color Studies, Rough sketch)

These are 2 color studies for my 2nd thesis piece. I know I haven't gotten around to uploading my first thesis piece, but that's because it's a painting and it's pretty big. In any case, my thesis is to make a modern pantheon of god's, the first one was war, this one is beauty, or perhaps more accurately, the pursuit of beauty. The sketch itself isn't quite finished, I have to draw all the relfections of the mirrors at the top, as well as draw all the discarded body parts that are piled around her.

But she (the female figure) is finished! And not to get cocky, but I'm pretty happy with her. I didn't get to shoot reference of someone posed that way (for...well, obvious reasons) but I was able to take about a dozen different stock photo's and use them to get her. The chair/surgeon is also mostly done, though I may reposition some of the arms.

So that's one finished thesis painting that I still haven't posted, and one that I have an almost finished sketch. Only 4 more finished pieces to go.

BOMBAMAN.

The last assignment we were given in Advanced Computer Illustration was to redesign the cover art of a video game of our choosing. Pretty much everyone decided to do current generation games, but I decided to take things back a decade or so. The result is Bomberman, and overall I'm pretty happy with it. It's not the best composition I've ever done, but I did learn some new tricks in Illustrator!

Self Portrait 2!

Yes, I just did a self portrait, but, this ones in vectors! They're like the polar opposite of pixels right? And...well, okay there are some pixels in this one too.

Actually, the reason why I did another self portrait is not (as some may argue) due to my narcissism. Rather, I had to do a self portrait for a poster, and then my professor assigned us a self portrait after we got back from Christmas break. Redundant? Yes, but it was a nice, simple assignment to start the year off if nothing else.