It’s a leper Khan.

You’re welcome.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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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.

The perceptive among you will have noticed that last week there was no Sketcharoo. For this I am sorry. I realize there’s no assuaging the flood of betrayal and hurt that you feel. Part of me thought that, as penance, the best course of action would be to just shut down my site, throw my computer out the window, and cut off my drawing hand. Instead, I cut off that part of me that thought that and now feel less guilty.

Besides, I painted two versions of this week’s Sketchroo to make up for it!

FURTHER BONUS: I made an iPhone wallpaper of both versions, so take your pick:

VERSION 1

VERSION 2

I would be amiss not to mention how gratuitously I pilfered from John Martz’s illustration style for the second version of the bird. Homeboy’s got a great aesthetic and I couldn’t help but try it out myself.

Oh, and for the record, that’s a European Robin.

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

I can’t help but think I’m somehow responsible.

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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.

The image above, the illustration I did for the Midwest, was the only one I completed. It depicts a White-tail Deer (Illinois’s state animal), and a couple of Monarch Butterflies (Illinois state insect),  with the Cahokia Mounds behind them (an Illinois state historic site). It’s nice, but honestly it’s one of the weaker illustration I came up with. Maybe one day I’ll finish the rest of them and let you see’em.

Until then, Lost is back on SO I GOTTA GO K BYE.

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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.

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

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.