They’re always after his lucky charms. He’s always pillaging their villages. Written on March 17, 2010, by Zack.

A drawing in honor of St. Patrick’s Day:

It’s a leper Khan.

You’re welcome.

No Comments | Posted in: Bird, Holiday. | Share: Technorati, Digg, de.licio.us, Yahoo, Google, Magnolia.

Putting the F-U-N in FUNRNACE! Written on March 10, 2010, by Zack.

A few of my loyal readers have shown interest in a behind-the-scenes look at how the environments are created, from sketch to the finished product. While I’ve handled this a bit in previous posts, let me take you through the process step-by-step, focusing on a single object in the cellar environment from Warnings at Waverly Academy: the furnace.

The cellar furnace played a dual role in the game – it not only had to add to the spooky atmosphere we were trying to create, it also was the scene of one of the game’s puzzles. This meant I had to design a furnace with a lot of character that also had specific features (ten valves) that could be seen on a single game screen (so the player could solve it without navigating away). Sorta tricky.

After studying a LOT of reference photos of old, rusty furnaces, this is what I came up with:

If you squint really hard you can make out a skull shape to it. Squint harder.

I sent this to my 3-D partner (in this case the talented Josh Crandall), who created a model of the object (in yellow, below) and unwrapped its separate elements:

Next, I took the unwrapped file into Photoshop and created a 2-D texture for my 3-D partner to put on top of his model. In this case, since the furnace was supposedly constructed out of the same metal, the resulting texture ended up looking like a big rectangle of rust with some shaded bits here and there:

Doesn’t look like much, right? But put it in the game environment, add some environmental effects, and viola: big, spooky, puzzling furnace:

Ta-da!

And now I’ve got just a touch of bad news. I’m running out of interesting things to show you from games that have already been released, and I can’t show you art from games that have yet to be released. So, until the next game is out, the Drewsday posts will be a bit more sporadic. However, once the new game is released I’ll have just a TON of fun stuff to show you guys, so watch for that around… er… July? I think?

Anyway, Cheers!

1 Comment | Posted in: Drewsday, Job. | Share: Technorati, Digg, de.licio.us, Yahoo, Google, Magnolia.

Birds of the Pacific Northwest Written on March 1, 2010, by Zack.

Practicing the new drawing style by rendering some of my favorite local birds. The Bald Eagle from last week was originally supposed to be included in this collection, but I decided I didn’t want him harassing all the cool birds.

12 Comments | Posted in: Bird, Monday Sketcharoo. | Share: Technorati, Digg, de.licio.us, Yahoo, Google, Magnolia.

And Canadian Geese aren’t too friendly, either Written on February 24, 2010, by Zack.

Bald Eagles drive Hummers and take up two parking spots. They don’t wash when they get out of the bathroom stall, they just pat your shoulder and leave. A Bald Eagle was promoted ahead of you, but all it ever does is check facebook and make personal phone calls. It was a Bald Eagle that aimed for your braces during dodge ball, and hit. You’ve been getting a lot of spam lately, that’s because a Bald Eagle uses your address whenever he registers at dirty eagle sites. Bird Flu? More like a-Bald-Eagle-hocked-a-loogie-into-your-coffee-when-you-weren’t-looking flu.

Bald Eagles nickname themselves “Duke.” Bald Eagles supported Leno. Bald Eagles tip 10%. Bald Eagles listen to Nickelback really loudly and once got “How You Remind Me” stuck in your head for three weeks (Nickelback themselves: all Bald Eagles). Bald Eagles are the reason Spike TV is a real channel.

Bald Eagles are jerks.

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Remember, you can always find me on Twitter and Etsy!

12 Comments | Posted in: Bird, Monday Sketcharoo. | Share: Technorati, Digg, de.licio.us, Yahoo, Google, Magnolia.

Dahnah-nahnah-nahnah-nahnah BATCAVES! Written on February 17, 2010, by Zack.

Seamless.

In the tropical adventure Ransom of the Seven Ships, Nancy free climbs a mountain perforated with bat-filled caves while being bombarded with coconuts flung by monkeys at the summit. Intense, I know. The mountain is only ever seen as a 2-D background upon which our heroine clambers, but the caves and obstacles Nancy encounters needed to be worked out on paper beforehand.

Next, I had to imagine that 3-D mountain environment was spread out on flat surface, and work using a mix of textures and painting in order to carve out the nooks and crannies Nancy would have to traverse to get to the top.

The actual size of the mountain, in game, is 3072 pixels wide by 1540 pixels high (42 by 21 inches printed out, or about 6 times the size it appears above). It took a long time. A really long time.

Here’s how the players see it in game.