HAUNT THE HOUSE : TERRORTOWN

A game developed by SFB Games has just been released into the big-wide gaming world and I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to work on it. In this side-scrolling puzzle game, you take control of a ghost and haunt your way through Terrortown, scaring away all the "unwanted" guests.
It is the new and improved successor to the charming web-based flash game that SFB Games developed in 2010.

You can still play the original game here: Haunt the House

We actually began initial work for this in the summer of 2011, when Adam Vian (of SFB) mentioned the possibility of doing a 2nd Haunt the House game. I did a couple of early test sketches to give Adam an idea of how I would approach the background art and the actual work for it began the following year.

The process for Haunt the House was a little different from the previous time me and Adam worked together on Detective Grimoire. After I had created a few backgrounds, it became very apparent that having a flat stand alone background became very restricting for the game's development, not leaving enough room to experiment and re-arrange.

The final alternative was that I would design the levels: considering things like tone, colour, details and overall shape. Adam would then take these and vectorise them in his unique style and then fill them with objects for the final game. What resulted was a clean and playful looking background which suited the style more and ultimately defined the look of the final game.

With that in mind, I had a lot more freedom to think less about the structure and more about the atmosphere. To make-sure that every level was unique and rewarding visually, it was important that each level had have it's own unique colour scheme and mood. Everything was initially designed at thumbnail size to ensure that every area was recognised and stood out instantly.

Haunt the House : TerrorTown is available for Playstation Mobile Now

Grab it on your PS Vita or any supporting devices!

http://www.hauntthehouse.com/

http://www.SFBgames.com

DARREN, TIMARA, ZOE, AUSTIN

Character Sheets for an older comic idea developed by Charlie Ray Hamill and myself.

Spent years developing the story/universe and style in our spare time, but finding the time to work on it became difficult. Hopefully we will pick it up again one day.

BACKGROUND STORY

For anyone who has been following me on twitter, you probably heard that the adventure point and click game I've been working on, Detective Grimoire, has launched a Kickstarter. 

We've just reached 1000 wonderful backers and in celebration I thought I would post a mini making-of focusing on the first background painting I produced for the game.
For anyone interested, we've also released a demo for the game - Play it here

PRIMARY ROUGH DESIGN

In the beginning, Adam Vian had already roughed out the environments before I even started working on them. He knew what he wanted in there (aided by casual google imagery research) and a vague idea of a layout.

 DEVELOPMENT

Mainly concentrating on composition early on and in this case: making sure that entrance to Boggy's Bog looked inviting, but still capturing a foreboding atmosphere. I wanted to make sure that each background looked dynamic and interesting as possible.

FINAL IMAGE

You can find a lot more of this earlier work in the 'Art of Detective Grimoire' booklets: one of the many rewards you can find on the Kickstarter. 

LONDON MCM EXPO

Long time no post! Been super busy recently, had a brilliant time promoting Detective Grimoire with Adam Vian at the MCM Expo this year. We managed to nab a table too, sharing our work alongside an amazing array of talented artists. Thankfully people liked what we did enough to even buy some stuff! It's always really exciting to actually have our work printed, since most of the time it's viewed on a screen. 

It was a good opportunity to get an idea on what people's first impressions we're in terms of the game's art style and it turns out it was very positive. People really enjoyed the Art of Detective Grimoire. We had so much concept art for the game lying around in folders collecting dust, that we thought it would be perfect to compile a chunk of it into a little book. 

We had a couple of mascot plushies adorning out table too: made lovingly by Leanne Austin, we generously priced them at £8000 each. Shame we didn't end up selling any, I guess we'll just have to keep them all to ourselves. 

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Thank you for everyone who came and spoke to us and a massive thanks to Emmie Bednall who saved our bacon the whole weekend by lending a much needed hand. Hopefully all this stuff should be for sale online at some point very soon incase anyone couldn't make it to the Expo. (we'll be reducing the plushies to £7999.99)

THE DEEP

First personal illustration in ages.

LOW POLY TOWN

I recently was lucky enough to have some previous designs transformed into these wonderful low poly models.
Modeled by the amazingly talented, Will Hurst, a 3D artist with a good eye for detail, Gandalf-like knowledge of Maya and has recently been snapped up by the major video game developer:
Rocksteady Studios.

I'm more than impressed by the final result and how close he got them to the original illustrations.

The original turnarounds, that we're completed in 2010, we're actually originally proposed as a low poly model project. It was extremely satisfying to finally see them being built and completed, it's given me a great insight into Maya and modeling.

I've just started to learn Maya and have been modeling my own pieces here and there, hopefully I'll be able to share some progress in the very near future.

PIXELMAS

A Little Christmas gift me and the talented Chris Cox worked on for Preloaded.

Hope everyone has a festively good Christmas.

WONDERMIND

For any of those who follow me on Twitter, you would by now, already know that I recently began interning at Preloaded. In the past few months I have been working on Wondermind doing all the art and animation.

Wondermind is a set of games for children that uses Lewis Carroll's story of Alice in Wonderland to help us understand the curious ways our brains work. It was made to coincide with the Alice in Wonderland exhibition at the Tate Liverpool this month, the game will also be playable at the exhibition.

I had a tonne of fun working on this project. Being able to work on a game that concentrated on a journey of discovery was a real delight, you can imagine that I was equally excited by the prospect of working on an Alice in Wonderland project too.

If you want to find out more about the art of Wondermind and see some of my earlier development work on the project, you can take a peek at the Artwork Blogpost.

Play the Game

THE SWINDLE

(more Swindle work can be seen on my website)

Recently I got the amazing opportunity to do some concept art for Size Five Games's upcoming game 'The Swindle' and had a tonne of fun doing it.

I got the word that it would be a steampunk orientated game and got a little too excited - probably putting a tonne of programming nightmares onto the plate. Thankfully Dan Marshall was always enthusiastic about the ambitious ideas I presented him and was a pleasure to work with.

You can find out more about the game here: The Swindle

I'm very keen to see and play the final game, the early screenshots look brilliant.

A MYSTERY

There's also a website: www.detectivegrimoire.com. Very psyched.

ON THE RUN

With the hope that one day I can make a side-scrolling western platformer - shoot 'em up - collect 'em up - everything else 'em up - plot driven game.

Based pretty much off of an earlier bit of work.

TAKING A SCROLL

My blog is hungering for a update.

Currently doing a small series of side scrolling parallax backgrounds.

Here's 2 so far. Who knows.. maybe I can use them in a game one day.

A quick bit of concept art before I run head-first into an unplanned disaster.

BRAIN DIARRHEA

Just getting some images

out of my head.

This is a shape challenge I did recently to to get my character designing going again! Been doing backgrounds for such a long time that I was hoping I hadn't lost my ability to draw people.

ROYAL

I drew this about 4 years ago, it's a little different to sort of stuff I do now,

but I thought posting it would be appropriate to mark the occasion.

What a great day, never seen anything like it. It was like some sort of weird patriotic Christmas in London, nearly every road was decorated and lined with British flags. My one regret is that I didn't indulge in a crustless, triangle cucumber sandwich served on a paper plate...

Updated ye olde website with a few new things,

you'll be able to view my Gonzo animations here

FROM BEYOND

The game that I was working on over the Global Game Jam weekend has finally come to light. You'll be able to play it HERE

GONZO

A lot of developments coming to light! One of which is trio of short animations that I did for MTV's Gonzo with Alexa Chung, which will be aired on the 18th March on MTV music at 7pm (slightly short notice.) I'll be uploading them to the website at some point if anyone wants to take a nosey.

GRIM

STORY ABOUT A SHIP