Inside Noel's head

2012.. the next great adventure

2012-01-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

After a short 3 month stint at Eyes Wide Games, I decided it was in my best interest to return to working from home. That being said, I have a lot of great projects to look forward to. One of which is an ongoing part time client project that I started this week.

So, I hope to have more time to get back to developing my own games. 2011 was a busy year for Bob, which prevented him from finishing up the Zombie game. I'm told that he's now back on track and it will be available for both IOS and Android very soon. He's also planning to knock out the updated Break the Bank which was a previous game of his that we retooled with new art and features. I will be continuing to work on the hillbilly game when time allows. If the art wraps up way ahead of Bob's schedule, I may use a developer's application to try put the game together myself.

Sorry for the lack of a drawing with this post. I'd love to show you what I'm working on for my new client, but I can't.

Hill-Billy Love

2011-10-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 1999, I had just moved to Atlanta and was working freelance out of a small local animation studio run by some friends of mine. Between paying projects, I would animate violent short scenes of a hillbilly intended to be edited between longer clips on my demo reel. I eventually put all of the clips together in one flash game like file where the user could zap, blow up, and shoot the hillbilly, but it was thought to have been lost forever... a few months ago, I found the flash file and laughed all over again. I then had an idea to use the character in an upcoming game. With a little redesign, my hillbilly character will rise again to take on any punishment you can dish out. The game is a few spaces back in the production cue, but hopefully it will be a nice spring treat for my friends.

Break the Bank Part 2

2011-09-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

Today I spent the day animating the title screen character for the next game. The game was previously released by Masked Man Entertainment,LLC with programmer art, but we're making a lot of changes. I've already completed enough artwork for the programmer to get started once the zombie game is complete...

The zombie game looks amazing! I'll be testing it after the weekend with plans to submit it to iTunes on Friday. Don't worry, once it goes live I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Aside from that... I also did some work for a local studio on a commercial for Cartoon Network Latin America which was lots of fun. Yes, I'm keeping busy...

Break the Bank

2011-09-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

I'm now about half way through Game 2 which is actually a complete remake of Masked Man Entertainment's Break The Bank. It had previously been released with stand-in programmer art, but we liked it enough to add a few features and completely redo the artwork. The sketch above is a character design inspired by Warrant's D.R.F.S.R. album cover. He will most likely appear on the title screen.

This will all be on hold while I complete a last minute project for a local studio which I'll tell you about when it's aired. As much as I enjoy working on my own games, client work is what allows me to do that.

Story art complete

2011-09-09T12:52:00.001-07:00

I have finally wrapped up the story screens thanks to the help of Bryan Wilson. Bryan gave me some great layouts to work from which took a nice chunk of time off my schedule.

Aside from that, I've been working on my new animation demo reel and getting some samples together for a big upcoming project.

As for the earlier comment about not accepting the job in San Diego earlier this year... It was partially due to my lack of confidence in the longevity of the position and I was also holding out for a local company. Unfortunately, that didn't work out in my favor but it's opened some new doors which I'm even more excited for. Big things are on the horizon for Clown Pirate Productions, LLC.

Slave to the Grind

2011-08-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

During a conversation once, my buddy Rachel from Skid Row says "I've always wanted to be in a cartoon.". That got me thinking... I gave myself a challenge of animating a short commercial for one of their upcoming shows. First, it's not easy to get his time to do the VO, but I needed to create the characters in a way that I can quickly animate them in Flash without making it look too rushed. Above is the character of Rachel I'm using. It's built in similar way as to how we did Prankster Planet over at Primal Screen. Now, I just have to finish it up because the show is in 3 weeks...

Aside from that,I'm able to review the character animation on my ipod touch. It's looking great! I've also got a few other big things in the works (yes still), that I'm waiting to hear back about. Hey, this stuff doesn't happen over night!

in the groove

2011-07-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

Client project... Finished!

Player character animation... Finished!

Zombie color samples... Finished!

Both the programmer and the sound guy are getting started on our iPhone game. I just need to wrap up the zombie animations and whatever final touch the story screens will need and my end should be finished. I'm having a great time with this game, but I'm also excited to get started on the update to Break Glass: Zombies, and dive into one of the other game ideas I have.

I've also started both a Facebook page and Twitter account for my company. Please follow along for other updates.

Viva La Mono!

2011-07-19T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hello there blog world!

I recently received an email from an fellow freelance animator that's hired me to help out on a project. It's great to have a chance to work with him and do something a little different. The few moments of down time I've had, I've put towards the game character animation. The IOS game is at a bit of a stand still while the programmer handles some other things, but I'm trying to wrap it up so that I can move on to the next of several game ideas I have brewing. I'm considering doing all the preproduction work and hiring friends to help get the art done. Yes Bryan, I'm looking at you...

On a side note, the drawing above is a quick little invite I put together for my girlfriend's birthday party. She loves it when I draw her.

Game on!

2011-07-06T15:48:00.001-07:00

Pending any revisions, I've wrapped up the animation I was doing at Primal Screen. I was brought in to animate Tom & Jerry for a Cartoon Network Latin America commercial which is always a lot of fun. I should be back there some time next week to start on the next project. Until then, it's time to get back on my game! Tomorrow will be spent on player character animation and a few revisions I want to make to the screens. There will also be a long over due update for my Break Glass: Zombies app.

I'm also in the middle of a few important meetings which is why I turned down the gig in San Diego. It's all coming together...

ZOMBIES!!!

2011-06-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

I have FINALLY finished the Zombie designs for the game. If you didn't know it was going to be about zombies, go back to START and lose a turn.

P.S. The old lady Zombie is non-other than my grandma. Careful, she's a feisty one!

Lots to do...

2011-06-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks have had me back over at Primal Screen working on a commercial with some classic characters. It's great to not only spend some time back in the office, but to work with some old favorite characters.

The iPad board game has been making some great progress, but I'm just not happy with the way the game pieces turned out. I'll be putting together some test revisions and see if we can still get this thing out by the end of summer.

The art in the previous posts (and above) are for what I'm calling "Game 2" (so that I don't spoil the title yet), has slowed down, but is still moving forward. Basically I've been taking my Cintiq to Primal during the week which only leaves me the weekends to do my stuff at home. I've brought in my friend and amazing artist Bryan Wilson to help get the story screens completed. He sent me the first set of roughs and I'm very excited. That leaves me with a few minor changes to some screens and then the finished in-game character art.

Also on the "To Do" list is an update to Break Glass:Zombies, and a reskin for Break the Bank. I like to keep myself busy which is much more fun that sitting in front of the TV.

Something different

2011-05-30T05:22:00.001-07:00

The most recent of the 4 weddings I've attended this year were my dear friends Glenn and Carole. Carole has always been one of my biggest fans so rather than pick some random household object from a gift registry, I decided to do something different. I waited until after the wedding so that I would have some photo reference of what they had worn, and I drew up this little cartoon drawing of them. Michelle had a really nice print made and framed it. I think it turned out really well. I sketched the drawing on my Cintiq using Sketchbook Pro then cleaned it up and colored it using Flash.

Prankster Planet

2011-05-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

A little break in the game talk to mention the project I was working on over at Primal Screen during Feb and March.

Prankster Planet consists of 12, 2 minute shorts for the return of The Electric Company on PBS. The end of each episode tells the kids to visit the site on-line to continue the adventure by playing a game and helping the kids in the cartoon.

My contribution was knocking out animatics for 6 of the 12 episodes as well as helping out with some animation and tweening (all of which were done in flash). Working at Primal Screen is always a great time as they are easily one of the most talented and fun group of people to be a part of.

To view the mini site visit http://www.primalscreen.com/projects/electriccompany/

To play the game visit http://pbskids.org/electriccompany/pranksterplanet/

LOADING...

2011-05-18T06:52:00.000-07:00

Good morning and welcome to my art blog. Today's drawing comes from a rough I'm finalizing today for the game's loading screen. The final will actually animate and have an old poster like look to it.

I'm not really working on the assets in any specific order, I'm just diving in on whatever inspires me at the moment. I also have the buttons and UI created, but I'm going to hold off on posting those until I have the color pallet finalized.

In other news... Game 1 is coming along nicely. Last week I was able to see the pieces move on the board which is exciting. We have some tweaking to do with the tinting as some items are currently showing up too dark. A few adjustments and we should be back on track to launch it by mid June.

More coming very soon so Stay Tooned!

Plate spinning...

2011-05-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

I've finished the characters for the Character Select screen, however I plan to adjust the colors to work with a specific pallet. My plan was to post the swf file so that you could click through the "choose" animation, but it looks as though this blog setup doesn't allow that file type. You get the idea...

I'm feeling a lot like one of those plate spinners on the Johnny Carson show. I'm currently wrapping up an animation test for a company, starting a pitch on a new project and working on this game as well as completing a few revisions on the previous game.

Until next time...

LOVE, LUCK, and LOLLIPOPS!

and... ACTION!

2011-04-13T18:18:00.001-07:00

Despite feeling under the weather, I sketched up this "cover art" action pose for the upcoming game. Also, having just talked to my programmer, it sounds like we'll be using them in another game idea he has as well... I'm enjoying this time to be creative and get some of my own ideas out. If I could only making a living doing this...

And then there were 3...

2011-04-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

After a long weekend with Mom in town, I'm finally back on the game sketches. This lucky guy is the second player character that you'll enjoy in my upcoming iphone/ipad game. I started to base him on another friend of mine, but roughly the hair was all that I kept. The clothes are going to mimic the main character in the tv show Chuck. Now that I've got the player characters on a good path, I'll move forward with some action poses and coloring before moving on to the enemy drawings.

On another note, Masked Man Entertainment is currently programming my previous project and we're working out a few things that were over looked on the first pass. I'm very excited to meet with him this weekend with hopes of seeing even a rough version of the game.

Keepin' it goin'

2011-04-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

Another player character. This one will be earned after having completed about 50 levels. He's the heavy hitter with the most powerful weapons, but he's also the slowest. I've loosely modeled this character after my friend Andre. Yeah, I like to work my friends into my projects when possible. It helps me get a better feel for a character when I know them.

Player Character 1

2011-04-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

BEHOLD! The first set of sketches from my latest iPhone/iPad game. I find that the first character is always the hardest as it sets the tone for the whole look and feel of the game. This particular character will be the first of 3 player characters and she was inspired by my girlfriend Michelle.

Moving Forward...

2011-04-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

As you can see, I almost forgot about this blog.

So far this year, I've spent a couple of months working at Primal Screen on some flash animation shorts for PBS. That's all I can say about the project, but I had a great time over there working with a fun, talented crew. I hope to make it back over there soon... I also knocked out some cute character roll overs for a new Cartoon Network show page ( CLICK HERE ). I then wrapped up the final art (pending changes) to my latest personal ipad only game, and did a quick update for my friends at Skidrow.com

While waiting on the next project to come along, I'm going to dive right into my latest iphone/ipad game. My plan is to post the concept art as I go, so hopefully you'll see more regular updates on here.

Oh, the Alien game has been put on hold, but will probably be brought back to life after this next game is wrapped. My plan is to get at least 4 games in this year.

Until then...

Drive it like you stole it!

Warming up

2010-11-13T07:16:00.000-08:00

The weekend is here and that means more "work"... well, I have two animation tests to do for possible full time/ contract work. At least it's fun. I started off the day loosening up with this drawing. It's a little tribute to "The Walking Dead" which if you haven't seen yet, be sure to catch up. AMC really knocked it out of the park on this show.

I hope all of you had a great Halloween and have some fun things to look forward to with the holidays quickly approaching.

Until next time...

Halloween passes

2010-11-11T12:25:00.000-08:00

Well, so much for keeping up with a regular blog drawing. My intentions were good. Please forgive me.

As you may know, my friends and I throw one of Atlanta's largest Halloween parties. This is a quick drawing I did for our laminate back stage badges. The theme of the party was "hell in a handbasket" so it was fitting to use the Prince of Darkness himself.

The previously mentioned alien game has not been scrapped, just shelved until we wrap up some client work and have time to revise the game play.

Movin' right along

2010-06-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy working on my app and other projects that I haven't made any time to just sit down and sketch for the blog. I've decided to tease you with one of the enemy characters from my upcoming game app. In an homage to the old Buck Rogers serials, I've equipped this alien with a helmet very much like the one Buck wears.

I'm squeezing in as much work on the game as I can between other projects, so hopefully this sees the light of day sooner than later.

Cinco de Mayo: Mustaches and Margaritas

2010-05-05T14:33:00.001-07:00

Please forgive me as it's been quite a while since my last blog update. The good thing is that my slackerness has been due to staying busy...

The first iphone app has been released! Sales are going well for being strictly entertainment vale. Checkout Break Glass: Zombies in the iTunes store.
BGZ has already had one update to the app, and another is in production.
The previously mentioned Alien game is making great progress. We're closing in on an alpha build.
Several other apps are in various stages of conception.
I've begun the reface of SkidRow.com. It's currently in "construction" mode while I wait for new band photos.
I wrapped up another client site which is currently top secret.
Vacation plans have been made to bask in the glorious Caribbean sun.
AND.... I bought an iPad. Yes, it's awesome. I just got my stylus today and hope to post some sketches from it in the near future.

Sorry that I don't have a sketch to include with this entry. I promise I'll post one soon.

New and official

2010-04-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

BEHOLD! The official logo of my new art production company. I jumped through all the hoops and I now own an LLC. Aside from the silly name, it should help me look more professional.

The Clown Pirates started out as an animated show idea I had been working on in 1999. I pitched the show to Cartoon Network's Linda Simensky in 2000, but it wasn't what they were looking for at the time... I put the project aside, but continued to use the Clown Pirates flag as my personal logo on business cards and web sites. It was only natural to continue working under that flag.

Game Reel is here!

2010-03-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

Life as a self employed artist can be busy. With the right promo material out there, it can also be very successful. The clip above is a demo reel showcasing the past 9 years I spent as a member of Cartoon Network's in-house games team. It was a great opportunity to work on some very fun properties with an amazingly talented group. Still yet to come... a clip of all the TV shows, commercials and made for video traditional animation that I've had the opportunity t work on.

Stay Tooned.

Take me to your leader

2010-03-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

My character designs are all nailed down and being made into model sheets. I had to revisit the sizes of the characters in relation to the game play. These didn't make the cut. ... Maybe they'll find their way into something else in the future.

I've been balancing my days with this project, client work and getting my demo reel together. I'm crossing my fingers that the reel will be on my site by the end of March. In the mean time, I am taking on client work. Serious enquiries only.

Full steam ahead!

2010-03-12T05:56:00.000-08:00

In-between client projects, I'm doing a lot of concept drawings of aliens for our next iphone game. I obviously can't say too much or post a bunch of my drawings yet, but here's a taste of the direction it's headed.

My programmer has said that he should have the first app finished for our meeting tomorrow and hopefully submitted to iTunes by end of day Sunday. We hope that it will be live to the public by the end of March.

Tea Time

2010-03-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend got us tickets to see Alice in Wonderland on Saturday. I can't wait!.. today I was waiting on a clients comments and threw this together. I don't normally use self color lines in a sketch, but it was kind of fun. I need to do more of that.

Who you callin' Scruffy Lookin'?

2010-02-26T08:02:00.000-08:00

Is it cheating to repost my drawing from the group art blog?

Our latest art blog topic was Star Wars. I actually started to work on a "Slave Leia" drawing, and decided to change directions. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to finishing the drawing of her. Until then... I'm wrappin' up the Jetboy project and the iphone app to make way for new projects next week.

By the power of Grayskull...

2010-02-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

I admit, I'm a movie junkie. Especially when it comes to bringing back the pop culture of my youth. A recent article suggests that Joel Silver will produce a live action remake of He-Man in 2011. I'd like to think they'll be asking Dolph Lundgren and Courteney Cox to reprise their rolls from the 80s version., but I won't hold my breath.

Anyway... my creative juices were still active rather late last night and I felt inspired to sketch up this Skeletor for the blog. See, I'm not ignoring you.

If I only had a braaaaain.

2010-02-18T06:36:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I attended the Plaza Theater's anniversary screening of The Wizard of Oz. Having seen this movie countless times allowed my imagination to wonder. I couldn't help but to imagine the Scarecrow licking his chops while he stared at Dorthy and sang "If I only had a brain". Maybe I should direct a reboot...

Love it when a plan comes together.

2010-01-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

As a child of the 80's, I proudly attended the 6th grade wearing as much camouflage as possible while carrying an A-team lunchbox. I realize that rewatching the show is campy beyond belief, but at the time it was the greatest thing ever on television.

A few years ago, the on-line rumors started about a movie remake of The A-Team. Having been such a fan of the TV show, it was going to be difficult for Hollywood not to disappoint me. I can happily say, that the much anticipated first trailer was awesome. Just the right amount of cheese with an overdose of unimaginable action. Thankfully this didn't go the same rout as the G.I.Joe movie.

Watch the trailer here

Dirty, Rotten, Filthy, Stinkin Rich

2010-01-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

Now that vacation time is over, I'm focusing on my iphone app. It's really more of a tool than a game, but I think it will lend it's self well to follow up apps which I already have in mind. The few people that I've shared the major details with are really excited and believe it has great potential. The next month will be focused on getting this project together and see if it will make me D.R.F.S.R...

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K...

2009-12-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

2009 has been an amazing year, but with 2010 about to kick off... lots of exciting changes are in the works. Most notably, moving on after having spent the past 9.5 years with Cartoon Network. My severance period will thankfully allow me to work on some independent projects and preferred freelance jobs. My second priority is to keep up to date with some fun sketches and project updates on this blog. Feel free to follow along here as well as my new twitter account ( @Nsaabye).

Happy New Year!
Noel