Trying to find a rhyme

Hello,

Once again things have gotten busy and I find myself realizing time has flown by, I ask myself what now? Do I play catch up and write up or just go with the flow, well I chose go with the flow. I recently found myself making a huge overhaul to my site OneBlueBird and where do I begin to talk about that, well its fully coded by me not the best code but it works. The current plan is to finish the site by adding some more exciting elements like a series of animated transitions for moving from section to section. I have also been exploring Augmented realty for the site, those details will have to wait as I don't want to ruin the surprise. Other than those elements the site is pretty close to complete.
Work wise I have been busy with the release of all 5 episodes of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. Besides that we have also announced at work our partnership with Universal Studios and we are doing Back To The Future and Jurassic Park so that has made things very busy and exciting at work.
Being in San Francisco has put a lot of things in perspective both personally and professionally. Design and interactive design is so much apart of my life and my love at the moment. I get moments of pure excitement when I have an idea for an exciting app or interactive motion design. (Speaking of animation and motion design I have been story boarding a lot lately for site designs and some cool ui ideas at work.)
Besides the excitement I get from design, I have felt a part of my career and my true love of illustration kicking back into full affect with a project I did for The Devil's Playhouse poster series. The posters are fun from the illustration to the full design layout of the typography. The beauty of illustration for me is the prefect harmony between design and illustration, when all the right elements come together from concept and subject matter.
My next post will be the complete collection of The Devil's Playhouse posters I had the pleasure of creating. Till then enjoy the post and the art I created for my website.

Here is to a rhyme to live by.

-Enjoy

March part two

Hello,

Here is some more work that I did for Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. This was the marketing site for this series. I got to do a really cool theater approach for this site. Overall I am happy with how the whole campaign has come across and the fan's enjoying it a lot. Also I got to illustrate and design the poster for Episode 1: The Penal Zone and let me just say this was one of my favorite parts. I will be posting more work as the Game comes out on the 15th and its ok to share.

Here is the live site to check out: http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax/thedevilsplayhouse

Enjoy

March the busy month!

Hello,

So this month has been one busy busy month. I had friends in town had lots of fun going here and there seeing what San Francisco has to offer. Also at the same time launching two of the biggest campaigns Telltale Games has done. We launched all new Merch for Tales of Monkey Island! I got the pleasure to be the Art director and creator for most all the merch. Along with that set of items we launched the big Pre-Order event for Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. I got to Create the look and feel for all the Marketing and Web content plus I got to design the screens for the PS3 version of the game, how cool is that! To top it off I got to Direct and storyboard out the Trailer for the Series Premiere to the world. It is being talked about as one of the Best Telltale has produced, which makes me feel really great. The trailer got play on G4TV, Gamespot, IGN, and basically you name it it made it on somewhere on the web. Oh if you are a PS3 owner go to the PSN and download the HD version.

Anyway here is some great work I produced for this great game. Logo work, Trailer, Key Art, and some Branding.

Enjoy!

Logos and A Game Icon for the First Episode:



Key Art created to help get the vibe and excitement going about the new Series:


Invite for a GDC Party/ Event to Announce Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse:

The Trailer for Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse

I am Back!!

Dear Readers,

I know I know... I am a broken record, but seriously I have a good reason for my lack of posts and disappearance for the past few months. You might ask, "so whats up and where have you been or what have you been up to" and the answer is a lot and now I am ready to share a list of them with you all.

First off the big one was that I got MARRIED :-) in October and little to say that was my life for September through the middle of October. After the Honeymoon I got several amazing job offers and had to do a lot flying from MN to San Francisco for a few weeks. I accepted a great Art Director position for a talented and great Gaming Studio called Telltale Games. I am sure some of you have heard of them, as they are responsible for such great episodic games as Sam & Max and of course their big hit at the moment is the newly redone Lucas Art's Classic Tales of Monkey Island! With that being said I am excited to add my mind and talents to the mix at Telltale.

Well if you have been following my blog over the past years you all might be saying WOW what happened to my Senior position at Ham and the answer is I decided to leave Ham. They were running into several issues that I will not go into too much detail about but they had to lay off several people/friends, as well as cut everyone's salaries and so on. I loved the work I did there a lot but I had a really hard time with that and seeing what was happening to the people I cared about and seeing the economic downward spiral happening there, SOOOOO I took a fulltime contract position with a gaming company called Electrotank as there Senior UI Designer/ 2d Artist. I got to work on some really cool work and will share it down the road once I can, the only thing I can say about it is "ubi" hehe

Now that I am married, moved/settling into California life while starting a seriously cool career path I think it's time to get back to the web and get my word out again.

I hope people will read this once I get back into the swing of things and please post comments or ask me anything you would like and if I can answer them I will.

As an end note I am going to be posting all of our cool wedding stuff I made for the big day.

Take it easy and here is to the future and happiness for both my personal life and career!

Thanks for reading and enjoying my works.

-Stephen

Bands and Family Crests

Hi there,

Recently I finished up some really fun projects for a band and a client's personal family crest. I thought they turned out nice, so I hope ya enjoy!!

These pieces were done for We the Living a small up and coming band. We are still waiting to hear if they will be using them in the future if not I got some cool work out of it.

The band gave me the art direction for the below image from a chemical truck they saw on tour that had a cool chemical symbol with hands and asked if I could take that and come up with something for them. I turned the symbol into a "w" shape for "We" in We the Living. Also made the hands clean and graphic. Even though this idea wasn't mine I think it turned out ok for what they wanted.

Below is an image for some possible clothing for their tours.

This last image was done for a commissioned project. He wanted a family crest because of the work I have done with Family crest in the past. It also turned out fun and something different then my other crests.

Thanks for checking in and I hope to have some more projects up soon!!

Sketches and trip stuff!

Hello,

I have been running around catching up on some major work since my trip to Boston. The trip to Boston was mainly fun because of the ride there with Amanda, we had a ball rocking out while on our 26+ hour straight drive to the hotel we stayed at in Boston.

It was a tiring/challenging trip seeing family plus trying to enjoy ourselves and eat and drink some good New England food. My niece was cute but really over the top with her bossy "no" action the whole time we were there, it was hard to get her to socialize with me, Amanda or anyone and even giving me her uncle a hug was like a battle. But I love her and we had our few precious moments!!

There were several highlights to the trip which I will post below for you all to see. Once we got back it was time to work late nights and catch up on several large projects (mainly games) that had to get wrapped up and kicked off. Since I posted last there have been two games that have launched and a couple of other projects that I started and I'm currently finishing up. I will save those projects for another post later. So please check back I am trying to keep to my promise of updating as much as possible. haha so we will see!! Below are several sketches in my favorite style I am developing lately for both my redesign to my current site and also some fun family style imagery.

Hope you all enjoy and please keep me on my toes and ask for more work it will help motivate me to keep this beast alive.

-Stephen

Enjoying the best Guinness I have ever had ummm..... that was a great Irish bar in Boston.

Hanging out with the dead people in Salem Mass. that be witch country.

This had to be the best moment I had with my niece Bella. We did some doodling together.

This was one of the highlights of the trip for me and Amanda, Hanging out with my BEST MAN Amiel!! Watch out folks he has got some insane skills and is going to be releasing his beautiful art on the world.

This is a sketch for the up and coming redesign to onebluebird.com

Some doodles of the fun hanging elements in the site that will be animated.

My hope is to turn this into my music/sound on and off controller for my site redesign.

Just a fun sketch of what I think my mom looked like young and holding me for the first time haha. Not sure what the crown is about but I have been putting that in all my pieces lately.

Winter time is almost over and I thought I would post this playful image of Amanda and her process in building the greatest snowman ever!! (totally thinking about turning this into a poster or postcard)

Illustration application

Hello all,

Tomorrow I am off for a week to the East coast to visit Boston, Rhode Island and some other places in between. Before I leave here is some really fun products and illustrations I got to make for HAM's Holiday 2009 gift.

Sign and numbered posters:

Deck of playing cards (HAM's take on its own designer, Creative director and Art Director world influenced deck of cards):

Some illustrating and sketching

Hello,

Well before I head off next week I wanted to try and get in some posts. Today's focus is back on my true passion which is illustration and sketching. For the past five years I have been trying to find my voice as an illustrator and I have to say I am feeling good about where I'm going. Art is like life with its ups and downs like a roller coaster. Feelings of success to feelings of questioning the quality of art you produce. I think I finally figured it out in my mind, I have to see the lines I need to cross and the barriers that I have to jump over. How does one get over these barriers haha well if I had the one right answer I would write a book, I think... The way I have dealt with my barriers is to realize what they are and find ways to climb over them and use them to overcome the next big barrier. I believe that every experience is a stepping stone to the next big challenge. The beauty in life and art is to learn from them and get better. Hope this little insight helps and remember to take a moment to see how a barrier will help you become something stronger for the next task ahead.

Well here is some exploration and pieces that I have done, enjoy.

Sketches for BRIO Magazine (full page spread about teens and eco-friendly choices):
Doodles for fun:

Sketch for a work project:

Illustration for a Technology Magazine about the life and evolution of a hacker:

Test Illustration sample for a Direct TV print and web campaign:

One of a series of Illustrations about San Francisco:

Illustration of the southern cook Paula Deen:

Series of Dog illustrations for a dog book that was recently published:

Part4: What have I been up to?

Hi,

How are you all? I hope amazing. I'm currently working on a game for "Spam" the food lol. Its different but cool, lots of weird animations. This post will be the last post about "What I have been up to?" and I'm going to post the interactive things I designed and had fun with this past year. Something to keep a look out for is going to be future posts about illustration, random sketches and design work. In the meantime here are some samples of a few of my favorite interactive concepts.

Oh before I forget I am going out of town next week to Boston for the whole week and will return on Tuesday the 27th. I am going to try and post some photos from the trip and my sweet little niece.

Thanks for listening and enjoy:

Interactive piece designed for the political season. With this piece you could pick a candidate then mix and match pieces from speeches they have given then send that mixed message to friends or post it.

This next project was to design an interactive valentines song/message maker that could be both a love song or a hate you for dumping me type of song. The general concept was the more positive messaging you select the more over the top the set design and characters would get with lovey stuff and the same goes for someone selecting hateful messaging.

Part3: What have I been up to?

Evening,

Well I thought I would post some illustration work tonight versus more interactive stuff (interactive will be a later post). My true love is and has always been illustration, some news to announce which is really cool, my work has been featured in both AI-AP Illustration 27 and the 2008 HOW promotional Annual this past year. The interactive poster I made this year, that got me into the HOW Awards Annual, had doors that swing open to reveal artwork under neath the other images also laser die-cut designs as well. It was a huge hit here in Minneapolis and all over the states. Along with this post I redid the branding for HAM with some really fun illustrations in my new breath of style and feeling. Hope you all get a kick out of them.

HAM Holiday Poster 2008:

Also a picture taken from a Poster show. My poster got to hang with fellow artist like James Jean and Tara Mc Pherson. The Show was hosted by College of Design in Arizona.
HAM Branding- Business cards and general illustrations for branding (the tank illustration along with the poster earned a place in AI-AP 27: