I'm back

Back to Haifa, Israel, the city I lived in for 24 of the 31 years I've been on this planet. Living with mom again is now picnic, with the constant requests, questions and planning on my behalf. I didn't fly here straight from California, though, first flying to Toronto to visit family, then Germany for 8 days to volunteer at GDC Europe, which gave me access to Gamescom, and I had an amazing time meeting other hopefuls and pros, generating interest around my portfolio, sitting through interesting sessions, collecting swag and playing the newest games. I want to find an industry job more than ever, and contribute my share to creating these amazing pieces of entertainment software, as well as having the financial ability to play them, even if they say I'll have less time to do so, but I'm sure I'll manage to squeeze some in, it's not like I have a girlfriend to distract me :P I installed the trail of Photoshop CS6 on the PC I now have access to, and started playing around, trying to find my way back to producing art, and the constant drive to improve my portfolio. Here are some of the first paintings I worked on.

CC: Surface Color Studies

Getting back to working on Captain Comic. Now that I've actually seen the complete (sort of) walkthrough of the game, I learned that it ended with the Skrejgib stealing the Captain's space cruiser and the treasures onboard, living him stuck on a planet without space faring technology. They do have the time machine the Captain built, and he uses it to travel 1000 years into the future, hoping the technology has advanced far enough to let him leave. No one else who tried going through returned, which makes us suspects something's up. Accordingly, I have changed the name of the project to "Stranded on Chronia" and have to consider this back story in future work, which isn't a huge stretch really. On to the art: Picked my favorite bits and pieces from the value thumbnails, and tried some color studies out. Color picking always seems to work better than trying to come up with my own palette, just like using any other kind of reference in that regard, but less awkward. ;)

Captain Comic: Planet Nrober value studies

The first step of tackling the surface of Nrober is creating value studies in thumbnail size. I have been focusing on leading the eye through the jungle to a tower in the distance, the way the player would travel through the jungle as the captain. I challenged myself to do more of these then I do, and I think I've came up with some interesting ideas as a result. I'll let it rest for now though, work on something else, and see it with fresh eyes for the next steps. A month and a half before I leave the US, probably with a short visit to my aunt in Thornhill, Ontario (Toronto suburb) before I fly out to GDC Europe in Cologne. Signed up to be a CA on the very first day the form was up, and with my experience as volutneer at GDC Online, I think there's a good chance I'll get in, but I won't know for sure until July 6th, I believe.