Role: Art Director
Game Description: Neo Cab is an emotional survival game about staying human in a world disrupted by automation. You play as Lina, the last human driver on the neon-drenched streets of Los Ojos. When your friend and only lifeline, Savy, mysteriously vanishes, you're on your own in an unfamiliar city. Choose your passengers— and your words— wisely. If you can balance your cash, star rating and emotional health, you might just keep your job long enough to find her.
Neo Cab is currently available via Apple Arcade, Steam and Nintendo Switch
Link to the game site
Devblog post about our character design
I worked on Neo Cab for about 2.5 years. I was the Art Director for the project and got to really push myself throughout the project. The above image started life as a visual target but captured so much of the mood of the game that we kept it as our Key Art.
In this case study I have collected some of the highlights from production in an attempt to show the development as a linear story. However so much work went into this game that this ended up being a large post.
The core art team was usually around 3 people with additional support as we needed it. We were a small passionate team and I credit their work in my images where applicable. The team included: Laura Sly ( UI/UX, Graphic Design, Character Rigging), Lisa Fleck ( 3D Modeling) and Dan Fox ( 3D Animation). As well as additional support from: Krista Sanders ( Branding, Design), Brianne Neumann ( Interior Background Design), Scott Duquette ( Exterior Environment Design), Miguel Vasquez (Additional 3D Support), and Armon Nobari ( Graphic Design.)
I made this alternate visual target to show how dramatically the mood could shift with a different lighting setup. The biggest thing I wanted to work on during the project was lighting design. It was not my strong suit before this project, so I really pushed myself on this game and learned a ton.
Those smooth jams were supplied by Obfusc ( Joseph Burke) who created an amazing soundtrack for our game. He started dropping us tracks after seeing our mood pieces and it really powered all our work throughout the project.
This was the first image I did for the project. I worked up this mood piece to capture the vibe of the story that Patrick Ewing ( our Creative Director) and I had been discussing. The city was meant to be a futuristic haven but it turned into a very lonely place. I wanted to show Lina at the beginning of her shift, alone, and ready to take on the city. The neon color palette showed up very early and would carry us through the project.
Another mood study. I was initially thinking the style of the game would be more simplified, but through development the style got more complex to match the depth of the writing.
This is a unity environment test (with some additional overpainting) that Lisa Fleck and I put together. We were trying to capture the look of the early mood pieces using tools we could replicate in engine.
This was a screenshot release to announce the game. At this point we were about a year and half into development. We still had a lot more characters and environments to build but the core visual design was locked in. Most of the game takes place in the confines of Lina’s car, which allowed for a lot of efficiency in terms of art production but also added a lot of challenges in how to make the game feel interesting over a long period of time.
I studied a lot of films during development to get a better sense of typical camera angles are used for driving scenes. Our game is essentially a visual novel but I wanted to push what the player expected from that kind of game. I didn’t want to hold on a static environment and swap out character expression. I wanted to cut to different cameras around the car, just like these film scenes, to add more variety and movement to each ride.
Jim Jarmusch’s “ A Night on Earth” was a huge inspiration to me. The film is a series of vignettes featuring 4 different taxi rides and the conversation between driver and rider(s). The stories are a great mix of quirky, sad and thoughtful.
I also took my own photography throughout the project. I would snap reference in the back of ride-shares, or down the lonely streets of Downtown LA. I also staged a number of shoots to better design the inside of Lina’s car. Game Designer Tiff Chow was an early inspiration for Lina and helped pose for a number of different shoots. Stephanie Perea stood in as our passenger.
From the above research, I designed a limited number of camera shots that we could use to direct any ride. This would help each ride feel dynamic and different (in as efficient a way as possible.) Due to our limited team size I could only afford to build one 2D rig per character. So I designed shots that could leverage the same passenger rig while still offering a different impact.
I then used these thumbnails to storyboard out some of our early rides to test out my shot designs.
The interior car set was 3D and the characters are 2D sprite rigs built in Spine. Using this above set and character rigs we could switch over to a few different shots ( individual character closeups, a view looking in from the windshield, and even a shot of just the passing city). This allowed us to manually direct the camera during a ride, provide emphasis to story moments, and make each ride feel unique.
The most dramatic camera angle shift is this setup when you are in Lina’s POV. You begin and end every ride in this shot. Lina is able to pick up her phone and there you can navigate the game menus in a seamless transition.
Making the 2D and 3D assets synch up visually was a huge challenge. The hardest part was that we used 3D hands for Lina so we had to synch colors and shaders across the same character without it feeling disconnected. We did this because in order to sell the idea of her actually driving we needed to rotate the steering wheel dynamically and this proved to be too challenging in 2D.
This angle is not that different from our main Dash Camera set up. But shifting to it mid ride offered the player a more contemplative moment. These little shifts really made the rides come alive, especially when cued up by the strength of our game’s writing.
Character closeup shots gave the player a good view of the passenger and allowed for moments of focus. This is also an example of the vector graphic holographic HUDs that some characters wear. I wanted the technology to feel a little clunky like it was the early days of wearable holographic tech. So I drew from 80s analog technology for most of my designs. This is Allie who works for Capra as human “Google Maps” car.
Lighting plays a huge role in our game’s style. It was a long process figuring out how we could replicate the style of the concepts in our game engine using 2D assets. The first step was figuring out all the lightning moves I would need to manage the style. This was a step by step lighting breakdown I did in photoshop. This helped us see how many steps and lighting passes we might need to achieve the look.
This is an animated test done in Photoshop as a proof of concept for our lighting system. We wanted our characters to have graphic and dramatic lighting. In order to accomplish this I designed two different lighting directions, using layers set to Linear Dodge (Additive). I then animated their opacity up and down, while simultaneously animating a vector mask across their face that was in the shape of a car window.
Here is more detail about the various layers I used for my lighting prototype. This breakdown was then used by our engineer Joel Davis to create a custom shader where I could control and animate each layer to create our lighting effects. The bloom layer ended up being left out as we opted for a global bloom across the whole game.
This was a successful test run of our new system in Unity. This video runs through how I was able to animate our light masks to simulate passing street lights and other ambient light movements. These light masks were then synched with 3D lights that passed across the car geometry to create the illusion of passing city lights entering the car windows. Coupled with the city streaming behind the car, the final effect creates the rhythmic quality of a car driving through a city at night.
In this 1 minute video you can see the lighting system at work in the car scene. The 2D lighting was synched up with 3D lights that moved along the 3D geometry of the car.
The light masks were painted in gray scale and our shader allowed for additive blending of the different tones on a darkened diffuse texture. This greatly contributes to the characters sense of volume. Three lighting directions were painted (right, left, and from behind) for each character. Then the assets were packed into a single image by assigning each mask one of the RGB color channels. I always liked painting the lighting in grayscale as it allowed for a lot more focus on just the tone.
The diffuse assets created our base atlas and we developed a tool to copy the layout of the atlas to pack our light masks and our emissive maps in the exact same locations. I know there is a lot of wasted space in some of the atlases. If I could do it over I would have broken up the body assets into more units to allow for more efficient packing. But this operation was complex enough that when it came time to optimize we couldn’t afford (the time) to remake each atlas across the 20 characters. Hashtag game dev problems ;P
I drew inspiration from the fashion trend Athleisure for our character concepts. Fitness wear has a very futuristic but functional quality to it. By adding light emissive details it I was hoping to find a fresh take on the cyber punk aesthetic that didn’t include unbelievable cybernetics, but felt more plausible and relatable.
Radix are a group of pro-bike anti-car anarchists who act against the Capra Corporation. They are a grass roots organization, that Savy falls in with, who oppose self driving cars. There ended up being only one Radix passenger, Azul, but their presence is felt throughout.
I drew inspiration from the Latinx youth I saw protesting in the streets of LA around 2016. Rather then design them to look militaristic and typical, I wanted them to be colorful and vibrant.
I wanted each of their looks to be unique and customized the way Latinx youth trick out their fixie bikes (here in LA.) The emissive details here are also functional, allowing them to be easily spotted on the dark streets of Los Ojos. To me it also served as a bigger statement. By being illuminated it was saying “ I am here, I will be seen”. I carried the emissive “glow in the dark” details over to almost every character design in the game.
When designing a visual style I find it helpful to start out with the same subjects and play with different aesthetic ranges. We toyed with a simplified graphic approach for our characters but ultimately made them look more distinct and specific. Having a more detailed style made each character feel more unique, individualistic, and relatable.
These duotone explorations were a real turning point for the style of the project. I was trying to capture the moody drama I was reading in our early sample stories.
I then expanded the duotone style into full color. It was really important that the character’s expressions could be read cleanly so players could know how the conversation was going. This style allowed for a lot of clean readability in the faces. The lighting design was still dramatic and the neon palette gave the style a futuristic quality.
For our main character we wanted a blend of approachability and toughness. Her best quality is her empathy but her job also puts her in some difficult situations. The only people that request human drivers in Los Ojos either want a human connection or don’t want to be tracked by the Capra Corporation. Overtime she has had to guard herself against awkward situations, but also make her passengers feel comfortable as she carries them to their destination.
This 3/4 shot is Lina’s final design as it appears in game. We only ever see Lina from a few angles, however I did this semi head turnaround to help me figure out how her hair was shaped.
All of our characters are built in Spine out of several different layered meshes that we can move and animate. Using meshes allowed us to give our 2D assets an illusion of depth. Lina is designed to have enough head movements to make it plausible that she is driving during the conversation.
Lina is Mexican-American but her family has lived in the states for generations. I designed her to be a bit ambiguous regarding her racial identity. This was drawn from my own life. Most of my life people have asked me “Where are you from?” which is then usually followed by an incorrect guess about by lineage. This ambiguity has opened up a lot of interesting conversations, which made me realize I could draw from this experience to make Lina seem more approachable.
Lina gets to exit the car at select points in the game. There are only a few locations but it was an interesting challenge trying to reuse our character rigs in different settings. This usually meant designing a new lighting setup and body for them to fit the location.
In contrast to Lina, I wanted Savy’s look to be bold and capture her loud and fickle nature.
This is an example of the animation system Laura Sly , Patrick and I built for our characters in Neo Cab. Each character has a set of idles and reactions. This system we built allows us to blend different emotes on top of these movements. These emotes and reactions are driven by the scripts of each ride so the character's expression can give you insight into how your conversation is going.
Background Design by Brianne Neumann
Warning this is bit of a spoiler: Eventually Lina finds where Savy is hiding out. For this location we had to build a Holographic laptop for her to be messing with. The laptop HUD is a fully animated sequence that responds to character choices.
One of our earliest characters created by Paula Rogers. Fiona is on her way to a date and is dressed up to match her favorite social media filter. She worries about showing up to the date as her true self. Lina can sway her to go ahead as is or to let her hair ( and guard) down.
A member of Radix who had their arm amputated after an accident with a Capra Car. Their arm was inspired by Claudia Mitchell the first woman to have a bionic arm. There are electrodes connected the nerves in Claudia’s chest that control arm movements. The wires send signals down to the prosthetic limb allowing her a more natural control over her robotic arm.
I chose to base Azul’s arm on something more realistic and unfinished as it seemed more befitting of their DIY spirit. Maybe they didn’t get a good payout from their accident so they had to use different parts from older model prosthetics. This also gives Azul some serious Furiosa vibes. You can see some early arm takes that felt more anime influenced, but ended up looking to futuristic and typically cyberpunk. Maybe these arms exist in Los Ojos, but Azul couldn’t afford one.
An affluent anti-establishment member of the Los Ojos Elite. Her family is concerned for her safety so she is only allowed outside if she wears her “Kinder-mech” branded safety suit. Through your encounters with Gideon you can assist her to be freed of the suit, or convince her that her parents have their best interests at heart.
A collection of additional character designs. From Left to Right: Oona the Quantum Witch, Liam a photographer visiting Los Ojos, and Carlos the black market medic.
The Los Ojos Police were designed to be a faceless threat in the world of our game. We wanted to explore how technology would affect a police force in a well funded town like Los Ojos. Like a lot of things in our world we wanted to depict a future that felt within reach. Back in 2018 we looked at the increasing militarization of the police in America and tried to cast forward 20 or 30 years. This preceded the protests of summer ‘20 as well as the mask wearing cops in HBO’s Watchmen. Like a lot of our designs the future caught up to our vision much faster than we ever imagined.
I wanted their visor to serve two purposes. First to serve as an internal and external HUD. I imagined that the inside of their visor displayed all sorts of pertinent information on the person they were questioning. In addition they could display commands and information to citizens.
Second as a way to hide their identity, this way they could be protected from retribution.
They were looking a bit too much like a space soldier. So we redesigned their visors to better resemble riot helmets and shields. This way they maintained their connection to modern police.
3D Model by Lisa Fleck
In game they have holographic badges and their visors display information to Lina about her traffic stop. They intimidate and hassle Lina during her journey through Los Ojos as they search for Savy.
Most residents of Los Ojos choose to be driven around in the self driving Capra Cars. These cars drive around in a flock throughout the city and needed to be compact so they could allow for nonstop movement. It isn’t a subtle metaphor but I thought they should look like a flock of sheep.
The sweeping shape of the back lights was inspired by goats horns, a nod to the inspiration for the company name, Capricorn. The windows are always blacked out allowing for total privacy, this also helped differentiate them from Lina’s car. A self driving car has no real reason for windows.
3D Model By Lisa Fleck
The car is a little cradle that safely carries passengers from place to place. It’s design is economical and inoffensive, but intended to be ominous to the player.
We wanted Lina’s car to have more personality. However we also wanted it to look like a car a person with ride share job could afford.
We chose a nice mid-size car shape, something similar to a Prius but with LED panels to replace the grid and rear panel. I gave the back end of the car a little up-swoosh to push its sense of aerodynamics and to further distinguish it from Capra Cars.
3D Model by Miguel Vasquez. Shader and materials by Lisa Fleck
We wanted a nice blend of sporty personality and sensibility. Lina wasn’t going to be speeding down the raceway, she would need a car that would make passengers feel comfortable. By not going super wild and futuristic with the design it also emphasizes how she herself, as a human driver, was a bit behind the times.
Lina uses a holographic phone. As I mentioned before, I imagined this would be the early days of this sort of tech. So I drew inspiration from 80s and 90s tech devices which had an analog look compared than today’s smartphones. I felt like the technology would step back first before jumping ahead to streamlined designs.
Phone Concepts by Vincent Perea. (Right) 3D model by Lisa Fleck.
To further emphasize this being the early days of handheld technology I wanted all the in world graphics to be vector based. You can see this in the HUD displays some characters some characters wear as well as Savy’s computer.
HUD Design by Laura Sly. 3D Models by Lisa Fleck.
The Phone as it appears in the game. After each ride Lina picks up the phone and activates the Holo UI which transitions seamlessly to our menus.
Menu Design by Laura Sly
All the pieces together. A ton of work went into the look of the game and I am really proud of what our team accomplished. There is so much more artwork I could share, but really you should go play the game :)
One final Lina for the road. Made to mark the anniversary of the game’s launch.
Role: Lead Artist
App Description: Swampy the Alligator lives in the sewers under the city. He’s a little different from the other alligators – he’s curious, friendly, and loves taking a nice long shower after a hard day at work. But there’s trouble with the pipes and Swampy needs your help getting water to his shower!
Each level is a challenging physics-based puzzle with amazing life-like mechanics. Cut through dirt to guide fresh water, dirty water, toxic water, steam, and ooze through increasingly challenging scenarios! Every drop counts!
Early Style Concepts.
We developed a number of concepts for the game before it became a story about helping an alligator shower.
Early Development.
Once we had the idea of an alligator who needed water for a shower, I worked on concepts for what his world could look like. Sewers, alligators and dirt are really unappealing things. The challenge was to represent this world in a playful way, I started by designing the dirt like it was cookie dough or layers of cake. (right)
Mechanic Concepts (Dirty Water - left , Algae-right )
Once we had a general visual direction, I focused on what the various mechanics could look like. When designing for mobile platforms I restrict myself to the screen dimensions of common phones. This forces me to think about the readability of each design.
Swampy's Design Evolution
The design of Swampy was truly a team effort, about 4 artists contributed designs. One of our Art Directors, Joe Vance, kicked the process off with his exploration. Mike Kunkel ultimately produced the design we all rallied behind. It was my task to finalize his design and synch it with the gameplay look and feel. I created his color scheme and refined the design to give him more of a soft appealing cuteness to match his naive personality.
Swampy's Rubber Ducky.
A common mobile game troupe is the collection of "stars" that denote your degrees of success for each level. We wanted our world to feel more cohesive so we decided to theme are "stars" as shower items, settling on just rubber ducks. This gave us an opportunity to create a pet/companion for Swampy in the larger narrative as well. I designed the duck and as the player progresses through the game they get to see him dressed up in various outfits. The duck designed was also riffed on for the "Cranky" duck ( who likes dirty water) and the "Steam" duck ( who is filled with steam).
Swampy's story was told through illustrations that preceded each level. Their format was long and the game camera would pan over them. They had to be designed to have areas of focus that would read in the portrait orientation of a phone.
Swampy leads the alligator gang on many "human-like" adventures.
The process for creating a story moment would begin with a team brainstorm. Then the talented layout and storyboard artist Shane Zalvin would illustrate the scene.
Once the composition was finished I would digitally ink all the line work. I would separate the background and foreground onto different layers.
Final Color
Once the inks were in place we would add color and texture to the image. With a busy image like this I would give the background a slight blur to make sure the characters stood out better.
I developed this process and painted most of the original story moments. I then taught the process to artists as they joined the team so they could carry on this work.
Gameplay Assets
I designed the visual style of the game and most of the first round assets.
My work on the game also included designing the final logo and various promo images for the game. Like the one above.
Role: Concept Artist, Illustrator
Game Description: Enter a macabre and comical silent world filled with mischief, time travel and delicious pie.
Having been cursed by an evil mysterious and sentient pie, P.B. Winterbottom has the ability to manipulate time and replicate himself into multiple clones. Help him in an attempt to gather pies across time and space!
The player may record an action and a clone will repeat that action, serving as a platform, pie-fetcher, or other puzzle-solving device.
Savory Salutations
Poster Art for the first level pack. Accepted into the 2010 "Into the Pixel" Art show
Each Pack of levels featured a new poster highlighting the new mechanics or location introduced(depending on which made a stronger image.
The above image was for a bonus level where the goal was to grab as many pies as possible.
The above poster was for a series of levels that took place in the sewers of Winterbottom's city.
The inspiration behind their designs were vintage cabaret posters, Russian Avant-garde film posters, Saul Bass.
Winterbottoms Redesign
The game began as a college project spearheaded by the co founders of the studio "The Odd Gentlemen". My first job on the game was to redesign the main character so he had a more polished look for a premium game.
Supporting Characters
I designed a number of other characters for the game. They didn't make it into the final levels, but they were used in the illustrated story moments between levels.
The story of P.B. Winterbottom was told between levels with these illustrations. A clever poem was superimposed of these drawings that described winterbottoms exploits. When all was said and done I produced over 60 of these drawings.
I also designed the main logo, as well as the logo for the company.
The mischievous pie thief will stop at nothing in the pursuit of pie.
P.B. messes with the the wrong pie, who curses him to be unstuck in time.
City Concept
City 2D/3D concepts
Working with the 3D team I developed the process we would use to create the backgrounds in the game. We would model out various buildings, then instead of texturing them we would bring them into photoshop and paint texture and lighting. This allowed us to get the German Expressionist look we were going for.
Clocktower Design
Clocktower Painting
Role: Art Director
Game Description: Frozen Adventures is a mobile game available for Android and iOS devices. Set in the kingdom of Arendelle, players help Anna, Elsa and Olaf renovate/decorate their castle while also lending assistance to the various residence of Arrendelle. To progress in the game’s narrative players must earn snowflakes won through playing various match-3 levels.
I joined the game’s production mid development and my task was to overhaul many aspects of the game’s visuals and production pipelines to prepare it for worldwide launch.
On this page are a few Art Direction highlights from the project.
When I joined the production the team had settled on the design of the game pieces on the left, made by the talented Meg Zavala. However in game the pieces weren’t “juicy” or vibrant enough. They also seemed too flat and 2 dimensional compared to the 3D character and world.
I redesigned the look of the main pieces (right), simplifying their look and structure to be more readable. I also redesigned the rainbow snowflake and Meg was able to to take this direction to create a more polished set of “special” pieces ( The ice bomb, butterfly and line clear on the left).
This exemplifies a lot of what i did on the project, guiding the art team to reach a new level of polish.
Above are notes given to the Tech Art team on how to improve the look of their character shader. The characters are all 3D but the shader was making them look a little flat. Above is a paint-over I made to give the team a target to hit. Showing the qualities we needed in a sphere painting was important because the team was using Matcap shaders. So I knew that ultimately we needed a stronger base texture for our capture sphere with more contrast to make the character pop more off screen.
Above is a before and after showing the shader improvements. Credit goes to Tech Artist Kristin Weeks and 3D artist Debbie Kim for the final results.
Here was a mockup of the game with the old game pieces and character shader.
Above you can see the two changes makes the game feel much more 3D and vibrant. The pieces feel more tactile and appealing.
Above is how the final game looked with a number of mechanics on the game board.
The next big area of focus was improving the starting location of the game. The story begins at the Arrendelle castle entrance. The original setting (above) was focussing too tightly on the front door which is enclosed in the castle walls. This meant that the opening of the game was set in a cramped location that wasn’t too inviting for players. It also didn’t do justice to the beautiful rooms the team was designing.
I worked with the team to reset the opening location to the bridge leading into Arrendelle castle. This change gave the opening a more grand and exciting feeling. This composition narratively allows Anna and Elsa to welcome the player into the larger world of Arrendelle. It also allowed the decoration elements ( banners, candles etc…) to have more space to feel like impactful player choices.
The team did an amazing job rallying to improve this location for our World Wide launch.
Above is a look at the castle bridge location in its final state, covered in magical ice with lots of decorations.
The next series of images shows off some of the beautiful locations our team made for the game. I art directed these locations and revised our production pipeline so they could be produced more efficiently by our amazing team.
Designed by Gia Park. Modeled by Debbie Kim
Designed by Emil Salim. Modeled by Miguel Vasquez
Designed by Emil Salim, Meg Zavala and Gia Park . Modeled by Debbie Kim
This location appears in quests and it is the iconic home of the Trolls from the first film. I got to provide the concept for this location myself as the artists were busy with other locations.
A big area of focus on the game was designing new puzzle mechanics. Each new mechanic had to be designed to be readable and tactile to match the boards 3D aesthetic. A good mechanic should telegraph its goal to the player without explanation. These AD notes were for the development of the candles mechanic. When a player matches next to a candle it illuminates an area of the board. I worked closely with Meg Zavala to refine the design of the candles to more closely match the croquis design seen throughout Frozen’s world. I used 3D to mock up the candle’s perspective and to give her a stronger guide for how to handle the perspective of such a complex shape.
The final mechanic was beautifully painted by Meg Zavala. The candles have a neutral cold resting state, but when activated they give off a warm light that unlocks parts of the board hidden by the darkness grid spaces. I love how believably it sits on the board with the other pieces. Meg did a wonderful job not just on this design but also on figuring out all the intricate parts that made up the tile-able darkness pieces.
Above you can see the candles in action. Captured in editor.
Another mechanic I want to highlight is “Splitters”. The idea here was that there would be a small fire on the board, when the player matched next to it the fire would split in two and be re-propagated onto the board. It would do this twice before it could be cleared from the board.
In the above concept I established the readability of each stage ( 1. Opening State Largest fire, wild movement 2. Middle State smaller fire more controlled 3. Final State A low simmer).
We leaned on not just color changes but different movement and shape languages to communicate the change to players, to simulate the idea that with each step the fire was dying down. The shapes at the top where meant to indicate what types of base particles could make up each stage since the mechanic was very FX heavy.
Taking that base concept, Meg did a wonderful design pass on the final mechanic that would then be handed over to our animators Rita Yeung and Dave Markowitz to animate in engine.
In this Dev video you can see the “splitters” mechanic in action. Rita and Dave did a great job with the animation of the idling fire and the jumping motion.
Here is another in editor view of “splitters” in action as well as a look at a number of other game mechanics. This was a very FX heavy mechanic and I am really proud of how are team was able to make the fire look so organic while retaining the important readability qualities needed in a strong puzzle mechanic.
The whole game came together beautifully and I think honors the rich visual identity of Frozen while also looking like a competitive casual mobile game.
Role: Art Director
App Description: MATCH & COLLECT gumballs on an island-hopping puzzle adventure and help Crash the dodo bird fly his way home! Dodo birds can’t fly…until now! Gumballs are raining from the sky and have piled up everywhere. Tap groups of matching colors to feed them to Crash. With enough gumballs, Crash can blow a bubble big enough to carry him to the next island, and closer to home!
I was asked to join the project after their first pre-production phase. A solid prototype of the color matching mechanic existed but the studio wanted a stronger theme. The game had a circus theme (left) but the studio felt it needed a character at its core. So I came and brought my previous experience designing characters and stories to the project.
I set about developing concepts that turned the game items into something that a character might collect ( Like pearls for an octopus sea captain in the middle, or gems for a mole miner on the right).
Although we tried out a number of ideas, coworkers kept commenting that our game looked like a bunch of gumballs in a jar. For our game to work correctly the shapes of each colored item had to be identical, however we chose to distinguish each by adding a flavor icon.
Once we settled on gumballs we tried to imagine who would need them. One of the artists on our team, Aaron Berchild, drew up a funny sketch of a dodo bird blowing a gum-ball so big it lifted him off the ground. Dodo's couldn't fly, so we imagined a wrold where one of them got really inventive, and the player could help them out by collecting more gumballs.
We combined our favorite elements from the previous round into this set of designs.
However our last round wasn't appealing enough. Also the character looked like an adult, and we wanted the dodo to feel like a child so that the player felt a stronger motivation to help them. We rounded out many elements of his design ( like his beak) and gave him more childlike proportions ( big head and feet etc...)
Each level of the game would pull from a different layout. These level "jars" all had unique organic shapes that would grab the gumballs in different ways. We knew we wanted an island setting and initially set out to design a Dr. Suess style world of rolling cliffs.
However that approach made the world feel a little off, so we then went for a more natural approach ( left). That also didn't feel quite right either. We were trying to create an organic space in a composition that was specifically laid out by a designer.
So we changed our approach and represented each "jar" as a structure made of loose stones implying that it was also specifically designed, but in the narrative world of the game. This worked well, and the more neutral color of the stones brought more focus to what was important, our colorful gumballs
In the game various events trigger a celebratory visit from the dodo.
My team and I worked in collaboration with Gold Tooth Creative on an intro movie to introduce players to the world. We created the story beats in house and reached out to them to create the intro. What they delivered was beyond what we originally imagined. I provided art direction to the team throughout development.
The Story: In our game Crash is a dodo bird living on a hidden island where gumballs rain from the sky.
One day crash discovers by accident that he can blow a huge gum balloon that lifts him off the ground. He is then able to do what he has always dreamed...fly!
However a huge gust of wind carries him far away to another island. In the game it is the players mission to help him collect more gumballs so he can get home.
This game also continued my tradition of designing the logos for our original IP.
Role: Lead Artist
App Description: Hop, stack, and match veggies through 65 head-scratching levels!
Play as Ben the Rabbit on living puzzles, where veggies grow back as you match them. Challenge yourself to create recipes, match stacks and get all the veggies! Jump, spring and dive your way through puzzles. Avoid Max the guard dog in fast-paced chase levels!
Early Prototype
The original prototype's use of primitive shapes inspired the cube style art direction of the game.
Early look and feel exploration for the cube aesthetic of the world.
Cube texture and style explorations.
Ben the Rabbit
Max the guard dog
Gameplay Screen Concept
We went through many rounds of concepts for what the game board could look like. This concept felt like it had the right blend of readability of the veggies as well as showing off the style of the world.
Final gameplay Screenshot
Ben's Treehouse Concept.
Concept for Ben's forest hideout.
Alt Cover for Invader Zim #1
Legend of Zelda fan art: Link in the Graveyard
Legend of Zelda fan art: Link sneaking by a Darknut
Poster for the band Donkey Island Penitentiary
Character illustration for the band Donkey Island Penitentiary
Character illustration for the band Donkey Island Penitentiary
Shy Guy
Thirsty Woods
Imaginary Friends
Kill Screen T-Shirt Design
Valentines Day
Subtle
Entrance.
In 2018 I tried my hand once again at Inktober. However I was also right in the middie of production on Neo Cab so I was only able to do a few over the course of the month.
For my subjects I chose to illustrate some vintage circus/sideshow photographs. I really just wanted to focus on execution using some of the new techniques I have been using on Neo Cab. It was fun illustrating these images, inventing details where the photograph was blurry or indistinct, as well as adding a bit more mystery than the originals.
In 2014 I participated in Inktober an online initiative led by the amazing artist Jake Parker. Read more about it here!
I wanted to have a focus for my ink drawing efforts, so I decided to pull the trigger on a project I had wanted to tackle for a long time. I decided to illustrate the very first "The Legend of Zelda" game as though it were a storybook. I spent many weekends playing and replaying the game as a kid, and it has long been my favorite game of all time. This project is a little love letter to the game and the whole Zelda series.
My plan is to plot out the story in the same order in which you would finish the game. I am redesigng all the characters based only on their original 8-Bit sprites and what I thought they looked like in my head when I was a kid. I didn't make it all the way to the end, but I am continuing the story in this years 2015 Inktober challenge.
All the drawings are made using a sable brush and Ink, in a 9in x 9in "Super Deluxe" Aquabee Sketchbook.
Haley
Eirenne
Portrait of Bill Murray.
Aric
Jansen
Laurel
Miguel
Jay
Below are music videos I directed my band Donkey Island Penitentiary. The team collaborated on ideas, but I was responsible for storyboarding, directing and editing the finished products.
Video Credits:
Directed and Edited by Vincent Perea |Director of Photography Rory Alcantar | Color graded by Rory Alcantar | Additional Camera work by Alejandro Speranza
© 2021 Donkey Island Penitentiary
The Experiments
Written by Donkey Island Penitentiary| Produced by Alejandro Speranza and Odd Zounds | Bass on Experiments by Carlos Costa |Lyrics by Dave Perea
Video Credits:
Directed, Edited and Shot by Vincent Perea| Additional Camera work by Alejandro Speranza
Filmed on an iPhone 11 using Moment Lenses.
Stock footage sourced from Pexels.com and the artists Engin Akyurt, Prakash Chavda, Ruud Borst and Will Fithian
© 2021 Donkey Island Penitentiary
Prisoners of Earth:
Written by Donkey Island Penitentiary | Produced by Alejandro Speranza and Odd Zounds| Bass on P.O.E. by Carlos Costa | Lyrics by Dave Perea