Jak and Daxter at E3 in LA - May 2001

Look what I found!

It was 21 years ago on January 5 2001 that I signed the contract for a new video game to be developed for the upcoming PlayStation 2 platform. It was ground breaking technology at the time and this game I was to develop characters for was to be among the very first produced for PS2.

The contract called for a year's work creating designs and character concepts from scratch for this game tentatively referred to as "Project Y". It was a also a ground breaking contract I negotiated that was far from the normal work-for-hire model that is common even to this day.

This was a monumental effort. I was so busy during that year the only time I could get to it was in the middle of the night. So I'd work from about midnight to around 4 AM and fax the images to the studio so they could have them for the next day.

I wound up creating 603 pages of character designs. In spite of at times very questionable art direction they came out very nice. The project was eventually titled "Jak and Daxter". In 2002 the character of "Daxter" won the coveted Best Character of the Year Award at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose California.

So in 2001 I took a trip with a friend using the LA subway system to the E3 Convention in Los Angeles which is the industry's Comic Con. What I saw was a complete surprise. I took pictures on my cell phone but they've been lost for years. But I'm going through my archives and found ...

This is the front page of the trade publication for E3 in May 2001.

 

 

This is a close up of the photo featuring the entrance to E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The giant banner at the top is the "Jak and Daxter" video game to be released later that year. I designed the characters and many others in the game.

 

Merry Christmas !!

To all you great people who've followed my blog these many years. Wishing you a Happy Christmas and all the very best in days ahead!

New Crash Bandicoot drawings

 Had time to create some sketches of Crash this evening. Gotta keep my chops up as they say...

 

 

 

Crash Bandicoot - Something new on the way

Hello Friends! Thought I'd share some recent developments with the Crash Bandicoot franchise. Got this from an excellent source. Been aware of the general progress for a while now. I'm told a deal is struck with Activision and another heavyweight and there's a new Crash project in the works. I have nothing to do with what's going on but I'm aware of the person behind it and he's a talented veteran of many projects in entertainment.

When I get a green light on disclosing more info I will. Or you may hear about it in a press release beforehand. Either way you'll like what's up. 

Happy Haloween !!

Howdy friends! Had some time to sketch my school's mascot character ArtShark for Halloween but didn't get a chance to do the color. So here it is as a blue pencil drawing with final line. I used a black ball point pen for the line. That way it remains permanent.

Hope your Halloween was fun!

Crash Bandicoot 4 debuts #2 in Switzerland - Still beats Star Wars!

Super Mario held on to the top spot. Star Wars at #3. 

Rave reviews across the spectrum! PlayStation released this 30 second video today...

Crash Bandcioot 4 debuts #1 in France and Italy - Beats Star Wars

More good news to celebrate !!

"Crash Bandicoot 4" debuts number 1 in Italy - Beat "Star Wars"!

"Crash Bandicoot 4" debuts number 1 in France - Beat "Star Wars"!

Number 1 in Australia, New Zealand and the UK!

 

The most popular video game character in the world !!

 

Crash Bandicoot 4 #1 in UK, New Zealand, Australia - Beats Star Wars

Celebrating !! 

"Crash Bandicoot 4" is number 1 in the UK! Beat "Star Wars"!

"Crash Bandicoot 4" is number 1 in New Zealand! Beat "Star Wars"! 

"Crash Bandicoot 4" is number 1 in Australia! Beat "Star Wars"!  

Crash Bandicoot is the most popular video game character in the world !!

 

Crash Bandicoot 4 is #1 in UK - Beats out Star Wars

A week ago on Friday October 2 2020 the latest Crash Bandicoot game was released in the UK.

According to this video game sales tracker, "Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time" knocked the leading game "Super Mario 3D All Stars" to the number 3 spot and beat "Star Wars: Squadrons" which also debuted that day to take over number 1.

 

A big congratulations to all involved in this masterpiece production!

 

Crash Bandicoot is the most popular video game character in the world.

 

Link to article here.

 

Character Design Mini Lessons

It's been extremely busy for me the past few months. I know I say that a lot and in general that's the way life is when you work with large numbers of people. The quarantines and lockdowns made it very difficult as I had to migrate away from face to face in person onsite classes to a fully online system. I've managed to handle it okay but the demands on my time have actually increased as a result. So I do the best I can as far as managing it all. 

Although I enjoy what I do my personal creative time has been compromised even more as I attend to helping artists develop their work. I have a chance here and there to get into my own art but it's rare. Things will change someday but for now I have to deal with what's in front of me at any given moment. 

One area where I'm able to do a little drawing is in archiving the large volume of class demonstrations I've created over the past few years. Most of these demos are in blue pencil which smears easily and is not water resistant. So I'm going over these drawings with black line to make the images permanent. I then format the composition into a little mini lesson so others can gain something of it through my social media presence. 

Here's a sample of what I'm doing. I hope you find these helpful.