Family Game Night - Retail Edition

Happy New Year!!!

As we haven't posted in ages I thought it would worth talking about a game I worked on last year for XBLA that has now been released by EA on disc as a retail edition. I was the lead artist on the project overseeing a multi disciplined team converting the Wii and PS2 sku's for the next generation console. Whilst there was a lot of re-working we also created some new environments and games specifically for the Xbox 360 version.

IGN has given it 8/10 and says "Hasbro Family Game Night is a great value and will be a welcome addition to your family activities"

I have updated my website with some of the environments and lighting me and my team produced so please check them out.

Lee.

"It's just great fun"

I thought it would be well worth a post to mention that a game I worked on earlier this year "Monopoly" has hit the shelves and is getting some great reviews. Best amongst them is an outstanding 91% score and Gold Award in Official Nintendo Magazine for the version on Wii. I was the lead world artist on the project overseeing both the environments and the lighting and have to say am Incredibly proud of the work and level of quality achieved the team. Talented people of EA I salute you. I have also updated my website with plenty of images from the game including all the environments and lighting that I personally produced.

Lee.

Mules Gold teaser poster

Finally it’s here! After all the work done during the weekends and evenings it feels great to finally submit our first finished image. After working within the confines that games often place on you it’s been good to work on an image with no restrictions. It’s been a real joint effort; character work by me, lighting and texturing by Lee with us both pitching in on modeling the environment. Please check the sidebar for links to our respective websites.
Neil & Lee.

Wire Frame and AO Pass

Almost there now. After starting six months ago we’re finally on the home stretch. All the modeling is completed so we felt it worth posting this up before all the lighting and texturing is finished. Our intention for this image was always to try and minimize the amount of Photoshop trickery needed at the end. As a result we modeled everything that is visible in the scene; this would then help when we came to using the environment in an animated scene. Both of the characters were remodeled from earlier versions to give them more detail in the clothing.
Lee & Neil.

The Day Jobs!!

It’s time we posted something about our day jobs. ZUBO is a project that I have been working on as lead animator for the last year was recently announced and is due to out later in the year. Lee also worked on the game as lighting lead although has since moved onto another project. It’s a Nintendo DS only title aimed at young kids involving small characters called Zubos who you befriend in the various levels, there is also a musical beat matching element as well. It’s been a good project to be on as an animator as there have been lots of Tex Avery style short animated scenes that have needed to be created. The art style is very engaging; let’s hope it’s a hit.

Neil.

Reference, reference, reference!!

Its been an unforgiveably long time since our last post but that's not because we've been lazy. We've both been grafting very hard on elements for our short film project; Mule's Gold. To paraphrase animation legend John Lasseter - Reference is king!! In preparing the saloon environment we did a load of research to get a rich authentic feel. I screen grabbed loads of westerns and we studied them carefully.
A special mention must go to The Quick and the Dead. The set dressing and detail in this film were outstanding. Sam Raimi and co. we salute you.
Neil.

Mules Gold - The Last Straw Saloon

As I have not updated the Blog in a while here is a render of the Saloon that features in our short film Mules Gold. This image represents the bare bones of the building, but should go some way to illustrate the look and feel I am trying to achieve with the texturing surfacing and lighting. I am currently working on our huge list of props that we intend to use as set dressing so check back soon for more updates.
Lee.

My personal website is finally finished

After well over a year of gathering, sorting, designing and producing my personal website is finally up and running. It took a great deal of hard work and a whole lot of late nights and weekends to create but I am really pleased with how it turned out. Now at last I can get on with producing some brand new work to put on there.

I also have to say thanks to the countless people who I bugged for both their opinions and who patiently tested the numerous iterations on their home computers while I quizzed them over the phone....You know who you are!
Lee.

http://www.chameleoninc.co.uk/

The Rattler

This is a still image from an animated sequence I produced of The Rattler using his whip. The sequence was created not only to continue to explore how the character should move but also to test the stability of the rigging on the character and whip. As reference I used a section from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Neil.

Mules Gold - Ambient Occlusion

This is a test piece to see how my characters will sit together with a basic environment I created. Lee then rendered it as an AO pass which saved on getting bogged down in texturing but also tested the integrity of my meshes and also was a great barometer for the level of detail I need to put in. Our next aim is to work on a fully textured and lit rendered piece from inside a saloon.
Neil.

The Last Straw

This is a teaser poster I put together for the other short film we are currently working on The Last Straw. This was pretty much one of the first pieces of artwork I created for the project and really encapsulates the look and feel we are trying to achieve. Keep an eye out for updates in the coming weeks, including concept art and character designs.
Lee.

Mules Gold

We figured it would be great to start simple so Neil took a section of dialogue and did a great job animating his recently modelled and rigged hero character to it. We worked together on setting up the composition, then I produced a series of lighting tests that helped set the style for our film. I then created a grading pass over the movie using After Effects to give it the look of an old, slightly warn cine film.
Lee & Neil

Greetings from Lee and Neil

Hi there, this is the first in what will hopefully be a long running series of posts from the newly formed Wishing Well Studio's. Rather having a simple text introduction I decided to do something a little more elaborate using the recently released Simpson's character generator.
Lee.