Kickstarting an Art Show and an Amazing Journey

So recently a phenomenon has taken the web, a concept which allows people to literally help dreams come true, a movement rallying the masses to conjure up a lost hope for success. What is this miracle I speak of? It is known as Kickstarter, a website that allows fans to fund projects to once promised games, art shows, a person's success and more.

PixelDrip Gallery has started their own Kickstarter in hopes to fund our next big art show: "Six Seasons and a Movie" Art Show and met their goal in well under a week! Even though we met our goal, donations are still welcome seeing as you can still get prizes for various amounts funded. Not to mention you continue to help us make the show even better!

Recently I've been utterly obsessed and in love with thatgamecompany's game Journey. An artistically gorgeous and audibly amazing experience every person, gamer or not, should play. My one dream is to create a game similar to their games or, most desirably, work for thatgamecompany. In lieu of their inspiration on me, I created a quick fanart, and let it be known, this won't be it's last! By the way, Journey's soundtrack, by the musical genuis Austin Wintory, is now out on both iTunes and the Playstation Network. 18 incredible songs for $4.99!!!

Well I couldn't find paint, canvas, brushes, not even my sketchbook... So I stole my fiance's Samsung Galaxy tablet for a moment and created this Journey(Facebook Page) inspired piece while listening to the game's emotional music. Thank you thatgamecompany(Facebook Page) for the amazing game!

And I'd like to mention, I was drawing off of memory as I listened to the soundtrack, so some details will be off. By the way, the symbol was of my first Journey companion the first time I finished the game =] I remembered it was the shape of a heart.

I was given the opportunity to showcase my art on ArtLA. ArtLA is a highly effective advertising website, as well as a key platform service connecting artists around the globe with galleries, dealers, art advisors, collectors, curators and museum directors. You have to be excepted by it's owners to show on their website, and I made the cut! I'm still updating my page, so drop by in a day or less, but here's it is:

http://www.artla.com/sashapalacio

In my next blog I'll be revealing another Kickstarted project for the game we started for the Global Game Jam. I spoke about Rhea a couple of blog entries ago, created by my team Infinity 8. I'll also have some updates on current art venturs such as the "Six Seasons and a Movie" Art Show, Blizzard's Diablo III Art Contest, and more! Thank you yet again for reading and so long until next post!

Progress of Design

I recently found an old folder of all my Concept Design Academy art and figured it would be cool to share. It shows the thought process I took to design each character and creature. Thanks again Kevin Chen and Jerad S.Marantz!

Creature Design, going out my comfort zone =)


Werewolves: Werewolves have been designed and redesigned for ages, and most follow a standard design. I wanted to keep the iconic look but with a twist. This project was definitely out of my comfort zone when it came to drawing, but since I absolutely love horror/thriller films, this was close to my heart.

Silhouette Thumbnails

Reference Collage

Favorite silhouette shapes

Refined and rendered design

Touched-up favorites

Aliens:  Who can say they were never influenced by H.R. Giger's Alien designs? Who I tell ya?! Well, when asked to design scary and creepy alien designs I definitely wanted to give a unique approach but keep to the familiar designs that have already established fear in the populous! I wanted to also keep design to real creatures, especially underwater monsters!

Alien Silhouette Thumbnails 

Favorite alien silhouette 1 refined

Favorite alien silhouette 2 refined

Favorite alien silhouette 3 refined

My personal favorite rendered out and touched-up

Fantasy Beings: I enjoy fantasy creatures, for example Pan's Labyrinth, Legend, and Willow, but I also wanted to give a creepy feel to them.

Fantasy Beings Silhouette Thumbnails

My favorite 3 thumbs

Rendering

My favorites rendered and refined

Character Design, comfortable, but still pushing it =P

Clockwork Thieves and Stowaway: I knew right away I wanted to go with a Steam-Punk theme, preferably cartoony, but as I went through the design process I pushed my style to a simplistic form.

Style Study

Facial Study

Initial Design

Refined Cartoony 1

Refined Cartoony 2

Re-refined Cartoony, and character cut

Design Touch-up

Tonal Range

Never finished this one to it's fullest, but I'm still happy with the results.

Labyrinthian Goblins: When asked to design goblins for the world of Labyrinth I jumped with joy, it was definitely something new, but since the world has already been developed, all I had to do was keep to the style. We played mainly with shape design, and started to refine from there.

Mass Goblin Quick Design

Pick favorite 3 and start to solidify shape

Design touch-up and size change

Quick color drop and further render

I've been working on a lot of contract art, so much of the work I'm doing is confidential, but believe me, if I could post it, I would! Thanks for reading =D

Sensitivity Training at Babe Lab and Global Game Jam

So last week marked my first try at the Global Game Jam. I also had the opportunity to attend the first Babe Lab workshop at Gnomon, the Sensitivity Training.

The Sensitivity Training workshop with Babe Lab took place at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects last Thursday and was really exciting. Great tips for drawing women and pin-up with a great live and famous model: Stacy Walker.

I've posted a few of my pieces online on my Facebook Page, but here are some:

And then that weekend, I attended the Global Game Jam, a universal game creating competition that takes place all over the world for a 48 hour span of time. The location I attended at was the Mt. Sierra location, also known as the college I graduated from. We had a team kinda started before the competition, but in the end we gain a few hidden jems and created our team: Infinity 8. The theme of the jam was a picture of a snake eating itself. We had to create something inspired by what we thought that meant.

48 hours later, and a total of 4 hours of sleep, we created a game, a working glitchy game =) I give you Rhea, which I came up with the general concept and character design. Rhea is a puzzle platformer inspired by the Greek concpet of Inifinity (Ouroboros). The main character Rhea, lives in an eternal cycle of vibrant life, decay, and reyouth. The objective is to stay young. Throughout the project our team collaborated and generated a better concept and design. A team effort well done =)

To try out the game, go to our page in the Global Game Jam: http://globalgamejam.org/2012/rhea

In the end I got an award for "Best Digital Illustration" and our team got "Best Concept".

Some Sketches and Photos

I've been attending Drink and Draw more often again, allowing me to get some more original sketches made. Since my laptop has been on the fritz lately, digital art has come to a halt. A lot of my personal projects are being considerably hindered by this, but I'm finding a way around it.

So here are some of the sketches, for more visit my facebook page The Art of Sasha Palacio

I had the opportunity to visit the amazing Getty Villa in Malibu, CA, and took as many wonderful photos I could with my amazing Nikon D300 camera. For more, and hi-res, photos please visit my Flickr Album: Getty Villa - A Day in Antiquity

Tonight I'll be going to a workshop at the Gnomon School of Visual Effect called Babe Lab: Sensitivity Training. A pin-up workshop on the do's and don't in drawing women. So expect more art updates soon!

The last Quarter of 2011

I've been away awhile, busy with my own nonsense =P But when things get to finally slow down, I try to update everyone on my life so far. Since 2011 has long passed, I've decided to make a sort of montage of the last quarter of jam-packed events =) For more pictures from any of them, just hit the link in the title header.

So, I've never mentioned this before but I'm a huge Diablo fan. I grew up with all Blizzard games back in 1990s but the one that influenced and caught me the most is the Diablo series. I'm anxious and ecstatic about the new release of Diablo III. And I sure picked the right BlizzCon to attend. I'm not only fortunate to have great friends, but a great friend who also works at Blizzard. For my fiance and I's engagement gift (Thanx Again Z!), he got us tickets to Blizzcon 2011. I knew I was going to see some amazing costumes, so I brought my Nikon D300 camera. So I have an update on some awesome cosplayers, amazing statues, and live art by the amazing Blizzard art team. I even got to play some Diablo III, yummmmm.

Blizzcon 2011 <------Click here for more pics!

Diablo III Airbrushed Tattoo

For the last few week some art shows and a convention went by and even though I couldn't attend due to work I was able to still show art, thanks to some great friends again! You can see a complete cover and more pictures of the shows at PixelDrip Gallery. Here are some shots of my work at the events:


SC3 Arcade Party

R-cade Halloween Game Night

Long Beach Comic-Con

Yes, that is two Ezios fighting over my Sasha Creed =)

Diego live drawing, with my newest Morrigan piece up front

I currently work at Gamestop as well, mainly because my addiction to games cost money =P but a job nonetheless. But one of the cool things I get to do there is attend midnight launches of the games I love. The most recent one I actually participated in was the Batman Arkham City launch. Being so close to Halloween I decided to get my costume early, and attend as Cat Woman, since she kinda does make a debut in this sequel. Here are some pics of the event:

"Batman Arkham City" Midnight Launch <-----Click here fro more pics!

Aside from all the fun and work I've been having, I've managed to gather some art jobs. I'm currently working on The White Queen, Emma Frost, for a friend and former professor, for his office, and still working on the Yoga T-shirt Line. I work part-time at Gamestop and have been getting back into the art scene. I have a few new app and game art jobs arising, more info to come soon, as I'm allowed to talk about it later.

But I also had the opportunity to work on a Wii/3DS title and a Downloadable 3DS title in the last few months of 2011, that are now ok to gloat about =P

"Centipede: Infestation" Wii/3DS
Centipede: Infestation is a post-apocalyptic action experience that features run-n-gun shooting style gameplay with tower defense-style objects, paying homage to the original Centipede while bringing the brand into the 21st century.

I, and a awesome team of artists, including my fiance, work on the various animated cinematic scenes in the game. Our time was cut short so a lot of cut, but for what remained, it looks amazing!

"Mighty Switch Force!" 3DS Download
WayForward’s first download title for 3DS has players controlling Officer Patricia Wagon, cybernetic cop send forth by the Galactic Penal Squad to put the Hooligan Sisters back behind bars. By activating her Siren Helmet, Patricia can shift the machine matrix of Planet Land, altering the world around her.

I had the opportunity to work on a cutscene at the end of the game, Incident 16.

I don't believe I've mentioned it before, but I also had the pleasure of working on two Apps for the apple store. Playable on any iDevice:


"My Baby Einstein"
Engage your baby and inspire his curiosity with beautiful images and music created to delight baby and put a smile on his face. Interact with your child with the best that Baby Einstein has to offer: 

I work on most of the user interface and art placement in the actual app. Though most of the art was just reused from the Baby Einstein universe, I still made a few new animations and icons. The original deasign was derived from the CEO of Sunken Media LLC, and my awesome friend, Armando Soto III.


"BlackOut!"
BLACKOUT is a match game with a mission. Time is running out and only you can save the city from blackout! In this illuminating new puzzle game, you must connect chains of subterranean crystals to clear a path of liquid energy that lights the city.

I had very little to do in this one, but some concept art and design help, but overall I was with them from beginning to end. =) Great team!