Artists Among Us 2015

This past Thursday was SciGames' 2015 Artist Among Us gallery show, where employees around the world created pieces inspired by retro arcade games. The idea was to honor our Williams/Bally roots, paying homage to the classic pinball and arcade games that many of us grew up on. Pictured above are the awesome buttons made by Dave Pryor, my art director, for contributing artists.

There was a wide array of arcade-themed pieces submitted, including but not limited to Pac-Man, Rampage, Joust, and Space Invaders. A few old school pinball licenses also made an appearance, including Doctor Who and Addams Family. Lastly several non-Williams/Bally licenses could be spotted here and there, namely Q*bert (guilty) and Mario Bros (guilty again).

A snippet of my Doctor Who piece, besides the talented Raz Ortiz's adorable illustration. As luck would have it, they were hung side by side.

Pre-hanging! A fun, rainy Saturday was spent organizing and hanging the pieces. 

Three pizzas and several hours later, the walls were complete.

The icing on the cake: chocolate quarters could be found strewn about the show.

The end result of my Peach WIP from a few weeks back! A dear friend and software engineer suggested the dizzy, knocked out turnips, and was super pleased with his imaginative contribution. Couldn't have done it without him. 

All in all, the show was a blast. I'm incredibly lucky to call these creative, talented folks my coworkers and friends. It's going to be so nice to have our walls donned with such awesome, nerdy artwork for the months to come.

Sons of the Dragon

Sons of the Dragon was the first game I worked on at WMS late last year. Based on Chinese lore of a dragon with nine sons, we created two distinct games housed under the encompassing title. It was a lot of fun to delve into Chinese symbolism and mythology, utilizing various motifs and story assets in the game whenever we could. I definitely have a renewed sense of awe regarding ancient Chinese art!

Outside of designing the overarching logo, I contributed to Game of Dragons - a game inspired by the son Pixiu, a dragon who represents wealth and loyalty. It was quite daunting at times, as a lot of the assets were made from elements such as jade, gold, or even scales... Not the easiest of subjects to paint! But I had an amazing team that helped me learn and grow along the way. From painting techniques, to Photoshop shortcuts, to just popping over to see how I was holding up, they were always super supportive and eager to help. I couldn't have asked for a more fun project to hit the ground running on!