Hey guys!  I've been waiting months to show even a sampling of the work we've been doing on The Banner Saga, and I'm very happy folks are finally able to see some of it in action!  The multiplayer component of The Banner Saga is up on Steam for PC and Mac, completely FREE TO PLAY:  [link]

If you have any love for beautiful art, 2D animation, strategy games, or 2D animated strategy games with beautiful art, you should download it!  It costs you nothing to look at!

I've attempted to apply to submit films a couple times now but it doesn't seem to be working so well for me.  I've got a few videos here and there I'd like to share, but the regular submission process doesn't seem to be workin' so well for me. Anyone got some tips?  

I wanted to share with y'all one fun project I've been working on recently, called The Banner Saga.  The developers at Stoic have crafted a really awesome and unique art style for their game, which had made it an absolute treat to work on.  If you haven't seen the game, check out their website here: [link] ... and also, check out Stoic's panel at Fantastic Arcade here in Austin:  [link] ... There's a number of clips of the in-game animation we've been making, as well as the 2D traditionally animated cutscenes that will appear in the game.

It's always a treat to work on a project where we get to go all out and animate frame-by-frame realistically proportioned characters like this.  Often times when we are working with more "mature" projects, the developers end up going with motion comics to cut development time down.  But we were delighted to hear Stoic wanted to go for full-on traditional animation, and while it's been difficult to pull off, it's very, very worth it for these results.  Again, check it out if you haven't already!

Hey everyone!  If you didn't already know, I worked on Starhawk for PS3, which was just released today!  I was involved in working on the motion comic cutscenes for the game's singleplayer campaign.  I was somewhere in between a project manager, animation director, and a post production director for it.  And a few other things mixed in as well.    If anyone has any interest in the motion comic process, comment here and maybe I'll do a post describing the process a bit.

It was a lot of hard work (and fun) to work on.  Lightbox is one of the best studios I've worked with in terms of their management and overall organization.  They've got a great team over there, and it was a pleasure to work with them.  Hopefully we will again soon!

If you have any love for chaotic multiplayer shooters mixed with strategy games, this is a great title to pick up.  I feel like there aren't enough shooters these days that let this kind of absolutely ridiculous stuff happen all of the time, so it kind of fills a void for me, haha..

If you pick it up, I hope you like it!  And if you see me online, please be gentle.

Cheers!
-Sammy D.

For those of you wondering where in the hell I've gone and why I don't put up any art, rest assured, I've been up to my eyeballs in the art-making.  Around the middle of last year, I had the great pleasure to work with Vigil Games and Joe Madureira on Darksiders 2, then immediately hopped over to working on Lightbox Interactive's awesome Starhawk game, and I'm now hopping over to yet another giant currently-unannounced game.  It's been super exciting to work on so many great products back-to-back, and I can't wait for when I finally get to show what I've been a part of!

Until then, however, I am going to take this short opportunity between crunches to clean up my gallery, and scrape together whatever non-NDA'd bits I can to update the place.  I can't promise much yet, but soon!

Hey guys, we finished working on a promotional piece here at the studio that I worked extensively on, so I wanted to share it with y'all!

Here's the youtube link.  I recommend watching in HD.  
[link]

As far as my contribution to the piece, I did the storyboards and layouts, collaborated on character designs, a couple scenes of animation, backgrounds, special effects, and post production.  So... a little (or lot) of everything, which is why I feel compelled to share.  

I hate to whore myself out like this, but I figure everyone else is doin' it, so I might as well jump off that bridge!

It looks like the WoW Print Ad contest chooses its winner through votes - which means it's a popularity contest!  Therefore, I need to rally up my companions and ask for a little voting love.  

The site is:  [link]

... And my entry is under the name "Poojipoo" - as you might have suspected.  

Thanks a bunch, fellas!

I went through and cleaned out a lot of my old junk today, some of which are fairly popular fanart submissions I had kept around just 'cuz so many people had favorited 'em, haha...  But it had to be done; I can't keep old work around holding my overall gallery down!  Sorry if one of your favorites of mine got the axe, but it had to go.  

Heya, folks!  I just wanted to share with y'all a short bit of animation displaying how the job gets done over at my place o' employment!  Check it out HERE:  [link]

Heya, folks!  A buncha coworkers did some crazy pictures of me this week; and the lovely and talented Megan Kluck went the extra mile and did a particularly fun animation of me doin' my usual stride down the office hallway:  [link]

Thanks, Meg!

Check it out here:  [link]

I wanted to let y'all know, I whipped together a short anime spoof for Brad Graeber for the opening to his latest Captain Capitalism cartoon.  It was pretty fun to throw together, so I hope y'all enjoy it!

Note that there is an HD option!  

Heya, fellas!  Sorry for the long wait before updating.  I'll have even more stuff up very soon.  2009 has just been a pretty horrible year so far!  I don't like to delve in to my personal life too much on these blogs, but I can say with utmost certainty that it has been rather unfun.  

Anyways, I should be back on track with updating now that everything's settling (for the time being).  I'm starting out by putting up some of the more stylized/cartoony work that I've done, which y'all don't get to see a whole lot of.  I'm hoping y'all will dig seeing the second side of me that I haven't shared much on DA.  

Anyways, I'll hit y'all up with some more of my junk soon!  Ciao!

Stephen Silver, a well known artist and character designer ( [link] ) stopped by the studio last Friday to give us a nice workshop on design.  While everything he had to say was very helpful, there's one thing in particular that, while I have known it for a long time, it's something that really needs to be heard, particularly by many of the artists here at Deviantart that I've seen:

....EXPERIMENT!
EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT!!

You're not going to learn anything from doing the same thing over and over again.  Don't draw the same way repeatedly.  Don't stick to your comfort zones.  Do things you know you're NOT good at, 'cuz it's the only way you'll get better.  Try different media, try different drawing techniques, try different STYLES!  The worst thing I see ALL OVER the place is people that essentially draw in the exact same manner they're comfortable with, over and over again.  The more you force yourself outside your comfort zone, the less UNcomfortable you feel trying something new.

Remember that, if you are only capable of drawing in a handful of manners and styles, you will be practically worthless to most employers in this field.  You need to be able to do what the employer asks of you confidently.  The only way you get that is by experimenting.  A great place to get experimentation done is in figure drawing sessions.  If you're not going to figure drawing, start right away.  It's incredibly helpful, heh.

... Well, that's it!  I could probably share a lot more than just this, but I find this to be an important topic.  Artists are very susceptible to this problem, and there's just not enough people telling them that it is, indeed, a problem.  

Sup, fellas! I've got a political game and a cartoon for y'all, just in time for the US presidential election!! Even if you don't happen to live in the US, I think we can all agree that watching any political figure blow stuff up is fun!

[link]

...and...

[link]

We just wanted to kick around somethin' fun since yah only get to do this once every 4 years, so I hope you guys like 'em! And spread 'em 'round, eh! Eh!!  

Hey guys!  Come tomorrow, May 21st, you can visit [link] or hop on XBOX live to download Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One!

If yah didn't know, I did done worked on the game!  And I'm working on episode 2 as I type!

So, if you have any love for Penny Arcade, or webcomics, or for me, or for fruit and fruit-related activities, you should click that there URL or turn on your trusty 360 and check it out!!

[link] just got put up!  I'm hoping to put up more of my "random" crap than you guys end up seeing here at deviantart.  I've got a lineup of sketches that'll probably make their way up soon, in fact.  

Go to it!  GO!!

Hey guys, I got a question for ya'll!

I've usually been able to work this out on my own, but this time I just can't figure out how to fix it!  Essentially, I'm getting some major color discrepancies between Photoshop and the final output (in this case, from PSD to JPG is getting wonky), as well as major differences between my monitor, my cintiq, and then every other monitor out there, heh.

It's pretty frustrating 'cuz everything looks so nice on my cintiq, then I pull it up to my other monitor and it looks terrible, then I look at it on another monitor and yet again it looks completely different...  and THEN when I save it out as a JPG, it yet again changes in color!  So it's been really difficult to get my last few pictures to look the way I want them.  

I've been looking stuff up online about changing my color management in Photoshop and messing with color on my monitor but none of what I've done has fixed the problem.  Anyone got any suggestions?  

EDIT:  I can't really explain it 'cuz I didn't do anything differently this time around, but when I went in to change the color profile in Photoshop, it actually had an EFFECT this time!  I promise you I've done the same process a dozen times and each time the colors didn't budge, but this time the colors finally shifted to what I was looking for (which was showing how it's gonna look printed (or on the web), instead of being super-saturated and extra.... green.  heh.).

I got me a Cintiq 12wx right when it came out and I figured I should let ya'll know I'm quite happy with it!

It's a great, semi-budget price Cintiq, and a nice choice for artists with a little extra to spend (but not a LOT extra   ).  I've had the luxury of working on the bigger Cintiqs, and in terms of digital painting there's just no point in getting anything larger than this.  For things like animation, though, the larger models do have a noticeable advantage.

As always, it should be noted that it's not gonna make a brand new artist out of yah.  If you're skilled with the intuos or graphire, this won't be a huge leap in terms of final results; it just makes the results come... smoother.    If you have trouble getting used to the wacom tablet, though, or if you're still kickin' that little 4x5 around and you're lookin' for a big upgrade, then this should be high on your list for consideration!

My only complaint about it is...  I had forgotten what it's like to have your damned hand get in the way while you're drawing!  How did people do this back in the paper/pencil age....?!

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, if you don't know, is a game based loosely on the popular comic strip, Penny Arcade.  Check out the game's website at:  [link]... or head on over to gametrailers.com where you'll find a whole slew of videos!

I'm happy to share with ya'll that I'm lucky enough to be working on PAA, most heavily on the 2D animated cutscenes, as well as some model sheets, some menu work, and a handful of unmentionables.    PAA continues to be a fun, exciting, and freaking hilarious project, as well as a huge learning experience.  Check it out when it's released; and spread the word!!

[link]

Would you kindly go there, register, and click 5 stars for my video, regardless of how you feel about the other films and how bad mine is!!?  

...I said "Would you kindly...", so that means you totally have to do it!  ..... People who have played Bioshock should totally know what I'm talking about!

WEEEEE....