Given I basically only had a name to work from, and that it was one of the last things I’d ever do for the company, I decided to go a bit over-the-top with the art. And by over-the-top, I mean I blindly charged beret-first into the gaseous cloud of the arty farty.

Essentially, this piece is an exploration of the phenomenon of anthropomorphism. Here, the professor considers a butterfly that has lighted upon his book. The title of the book, A Sound of Thunder, is a short story by Ray Bradbury (or, I guess in this case, Ray Bradbirdy) in which a time traveler accidentally changes the course of history by stepping on a prehistoric butterfly . The implication: even the most minor change to universe’s history could have resulted in another species gaining the evolutionary upper-hand instead of humans. Think about it.

“A Sound of Thunder” also refers to the noise your head made when I blew your mind just then.

So many layers.

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

All the images in this post (except the header), © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

Doing things a bit differently this Drewsday. Since I totally dropped the ball last week, and since this week’s Drewsday is a full day late, I’ve decided to post SEVEN products for you – seven magical magazines no self-respecting convenience store owner can hope to succeed without.

The catch is, none of these actually feature any illustrations by me – just Photoshop work. They do, however, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve missed my calling as a magazine pitchman.

Enjoy! And remember: next time I post I’ll be in merry old England, infuriating the locals by using phrases like “merry old England”! Huzzah!

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

All the images in this post (except the header), © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

Before landing a job as a 2-D artist at Her Interactive, I was a copywriter with Logos Bible Software. It was a miserable experience and I don’t want to talk about it why did you even bring it up? Needless to say, writing marketing copy for evangelism handbooks written by Kirk Cameron wasn’t really super artistically fulfilling. More like soul-destroying.

On one occasion, though, I was invited to contribute something to the company blog with an accompanying illustration. Jumping at the chance, I immediately started working on a little carnival barker shouting out the hottest deals on bible software. He even had the company logo tucked into his hat belt. ADORBS!

Little could I have imagined how often that drawing would be ripped from its original context and used on other unrelated websites. Nor could I have foreseen it would become the second hit if you Google Image search “carnival barker.”

Baffling, truly baffling.

But not half as baffling as this:

SOMEBODY TATTOOED IT ON THEIR TORSO.

GOOD. LORD.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m honored and all. But if I knew people were going to go this nuts about the illustration, I would have spent more than 30 minutes on it. Or at least I would have erased the pencil markings completely.

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

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!

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

All the images in this post (except the header), © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

Did I mention I love my job?

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

All the images in this post (except the header), © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

If you’ve played through Warnings at Waverly Academy and never saw this can of paint in the celler environment, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Here’s the closest shot of it you get in the game:

Guess I got a little carried away when my 3-D partner requested a simple paint label that will just be in the background.

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

All the images in this post (except the header), © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

What you see above is the fruits of my icy labor. Well, a smaller version of the fruits, at least. OKAY, smaller, and with a couple of additional buildings that were removed from the final version of the game (namely, the lighthouse in the northwest and the water tower up top there).

To get a better sense of how much larger the map is in game, here are some full resolution screenshots:

I swear, I had Jimmy Buffet songs stuck in my head for months after this project was completed.

Remember, you can always follow me on Twitter!

ALSO: I just opened an Etsy Shop! Check it out and maybe buy something nice for that special someone/thing.

All the images in this post (except the header), © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

As you probably already know, I’ve been employed at Her Interactive for the past couple of years, working as a 2-D artist on the Nancy Drew series of PC adventure games. In previous posts (found here, here, here and here), I’ve shared some of the game art I created for the first title I worked on, The Haunting of Castle Malloy. However, I haven’t posted any art from the games that have been released since Malloy, and if you can believe it there have been FOUR.

So, I’m starting a new segment here on the blog dedicated to showcasing what I’ve been doing for eight hours a day for two years. Every Tuesday, I’ll post a new piece of art from one of my old games.  Should be a hoot!

And I should mention right off the bat that, if any readers have found this site looking for game info, THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD! Proceed at your own peril!

Today’s art is from the 20^th Nancy Drew PC game called Ransom of the Seven Ships. But you had to be pretty smart to discover it – the image appeared on a special Easter egg that only the most resourceful and cheating players could find:

Captain Whiskers of the Spanish Armada, here to pilfer your booty and your heart! He actually the first of several behatted cats I’ve put into the games. I just can’t get enough of cats in novelty headwear. My own cat refuses to wear the bonnet I knitted him, and I suppose this is how I cope with my bottomless disappointment.

Okay! See you next week!

All the images in this post (except the header), © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

And then there are times I have to create realistic documents that include no real information whatsoever, documents that are basically set dressing. They still require all the elements you’d expects on an important document, but most of the time you won’t ever be able to clearly read the document’s text. Heck, you probably can’t even see the images on them while you play the game.

Anyway, since these kind of assets tend to be sorta boring to create, I try to entertain myself while I put them together by writing extremely absurd things in the places you’d normally find something useful. And since this is my blog, and these gems of wit (ahem) would otherwise go unread, I decided to post them here. Enjoy as best you can.

Oh, and this’ll be the last post I’ll do about my work on Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy, so if you want to check out any more of my work on the game, BUY IT.

All the images in this post, © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.

I went into designing the images with one goal: make them look as much as possible like they came out of Highlights. And I think I hit it dead on, toot toot toot. In retrospect, however, the Spot the Differences in Highlights looked terrible. I probably should’ve picked a better goal.

Anyway, here’re four of the better-looking images. Guess the 12 differences in each images correctly and I’ll send you cat litter (used).

All the images in this post, © Copyright Her Interactive, Inc.