Way Too Buff

Blacklight 2 Announced

2011-01-25T16:59:00.000-08:00

Hey, been a while since I've posted anything. Hopefully for this next project I'll get to post more of my art as I make it. But anyway, here's a screenshot from the game I'm working on, Blacklight 2. I did the helmets for the guys on the left and right, the jacket for the guy on the left, as well as the armor for the two on the right. But yeah, hopefully they'll let me post some of the new guns and characters we've been working on soon.

*seems the image is having trouble... click on it for the full thing

Revolver for Blacklight: Tango Down

2010-07-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

Most of my job during the project was creating the 3rd person (lower poly) models for the game. Those guns were all based of other's models/designs. However, I was given two guns that I could be completely responsible for. The first of which is this revolver.

This is the first person model. It's just under 2500 tris. Texture is 2048x2048.

Blacklight: Tango Down Cubecraft Template

2010-07-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! My game was finally released on XBLA yesterday (PC and PSN soon to follow). Which means I can finally post some of the stuff I've been working on for the past year. I don't have any nice renders just yet but until then, here are some sweet cubecraft figures they had me make for marketing. Here's a link of how they look fully assembled.

Project's blog

2010-04-11T13:57:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, been super busy with work and school so nothing new (at least anything I can legally show you). But the project I've been working on at school just got a blog. It's not fully rendered yet but it still has some pretty sweet stuff on there. You should check it out.

http://umbrallaproject.blogspot.com/

First Hero Environment Asset

2010-03-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

Concept by Neal Hanson. Component based walkways done for our short Umbralla. Didn't turn out too bad if I do say so myself.

Random Sketches Galor

2009-11-23T18:34:00.001-08:00

Went through my sketchbook the other day and scanned this and that. Just quick doodles, mostly drawn during class.

Rough Business Card

2009-11-22T17:20:00.001-08:00

It is almost completed. My business card. I want to thin up the lines on the Gumdrops but other than that I'm pretty happy with it. Wanted to go with a simple design since I'm not too great at the whole Graphic Design thing. The little gumdrops still make me chuckle every time I look at them.

Quick Crow Lady

2009-11-17T20:01:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, been a REALLY long time since I've posted anything. Been crazy busy what with school, internship, and the random sicknesses that seem to be plaguing Washington this winter. Anyway, nothing I've done for school has been good enough to post but here's a super quick concept I did for class. Original thumbnail by Jeffery Barros. The idea was that we'd spend two weeks developing an idea and then the idea would be taken from us and given to another classmate. So I lost punk rock orcs and gained murder crow trench coat. Wasn't too married to the new idea but I thought the idea turned out decent anyway.

Working Man

2009-07-20T18:33:00.001-07:00

Hey guys, I just started an internship at Zombie Studios in Seattle. So I'm probably not gonna be posting very often, if ever, for the next couple months. I know you're all very disappointed but I'm sure you'll get over it =P

Anyway, see you guys around.

New and Improved

2009-06-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

So I wasn't quite happy with the finished product last time so I spent a little bit more time with it. Got a little more texture in the and made the composition a little more interesting. Not sure if the head in the foreground reads but I still think it's a lot better. Anyway, you kids stay cool.

Lighting and Anatomy Study

2009-06-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

Here is a relatively quick study I did using an old reference photo of myself. I organized the layers so that there ended up being a nice step by step process thingy. Anyway, it turned out decent so I figured I'd throw it up here.

Zombies Nooooo!!!

2009-06-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to check out a tutorial I found the other day for painting in photoshop for a while now. I don't think it turned out quite as interesting as I would have liked but it was definitely faster than my usual way of doing things. I really need to work on my contrast. All my values are usually to close together. Anyway, I think I'm ready to move on to something else. I'll probably fiddle with the technique a bit more in the future. I could see it being useful when time is a big issue.

Mech Starting Texture

2009-05-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are paying attention, I posted my concept and original model for this guy back in January. Now that it's summer I finally have had time to unwrap and texture him. Also the poly count is dramatically lower. Right now he's sitting at about 4500 polygons where as he was originally three times that many. He's nowhere near complete but I figured I'd throw him up here anyway. We'll see how he looks in the next couple weeks.

WIPs

2009-05-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well life has been crazy lately, and in between finals, moving into a new place, and being sick I haven't had much time to do stuff. But there have been a few moments in between where I've been able to take a break and do a little art on the side. I've recently started sketching in photoshop which is nice. It didn't take me nearly as long to adjust to drawing with a tablet as I thought it would. Anyway, I haven't had time to finish anything but here are a couple WIPs for you guys to check out, there are a bunch of sketches I've been working on also but nothNot sure if I'm liking the middle one, but the other two are turning out relatively decent. The top one has been fun, I very rarely do environment stuff so it has been a welcomed change of pace.

Stuffy Noses and Sore Throats

2009-03-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been pretty sick lately. Anyway, these are a few things I've been working on for a buddy of mine who is trying to get a start up company going called Algitt Studios. You should check 'em out.

Random Hooligans Paintings

2009-03-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

So I have moved on from being a texture monkey and have now started doing paintings for various things such as menus and titles. I've never been too great at getting good poses down but this week it seems I am exceptionally rusty. I spit out a handful of sketches for the menus and painted a few of them. Probably won't paint most though because they aren't very good and I don't want to "polish a turd" as they say.

Along with all this, one of my teachers got a hold of the poster I did for the game. I'm still really new to the whole painting thing and he's a genius. So long story short after what I'm sure was 30 seconds of work for him, the painting game back to me with awesome lighting and better colors. So now I get the pleasure of cleaning it up. He did everything on the same layer so it was SUPER tricky to keep everything clean and ultimately I doubt the painting will be half as clean as it once was but the improvements he made more than make up for it. Anyway, still a lot of work to do but enough talk. Here is the entire life cycle of the poster thus far. (the top being most recent, bottom being the first thing I did)

Crazy Monkey Child

2009-02-25T17:27:00.000-08:00

Really quick exercise during class this morning. It ended up being pretty fun. I don't do enough expression sheets. Anyway, enjoy.

Hooligans Update

2009-02-03T16:13:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, so we've been chipping away at our game for a while now and it's actually starting to resemble a real game. Anyway, nothing too pretty but it's still really cool to see your stuff in a game. Like, REALLY cool. The art assets are a mix of mine and Jami Lukins work. But yeah, if you want to see more screen caps as well as video of our game thus far, my awesome producer Brittany has her blog that she updates regularly.

We were having a problem with the lighting which
was too dark and very blue.

You can see the difference with these two shots.

Anyway, I'll see you kids later.

It is Done

2009-01-29T17:01:00.000-08:00

*deep exhale*
It is finally done. I just sent the application. It is now out of my hands and into Blizzard's. I feel pretty good about what I ended up with. Now even if I don't get the internship I can at least feel good about giving it my best. Here are a couple pages of my portfolio with drawings I haven't posted here yet. Nothing special, just didn't want to have a post with no pictures because really, who cares what I have to say?

Tank Armor Painted

2009-01-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

Alright, well here is the painted version of the tank armor I drew up for my Blizzard portfolio. Now I just need to finish typing up my resume and cover letter. Fingers crossed, everything is due in just three days. I'll be very relieved when it's all over with. And even if I don't get the internship at least I got a bit of practice painting. I'm still learning a ton from each painting I do. I'm excited for my next one just because it will be that much easier. Anyway, see you guys later.

Blizzard Internship

2009-01-18T17:40:00.000-08:00

So I've been ridiculously stressed out over the past month trying to get a halfway decent portfolio together for Blizzard. It's been my dream since I was like 12 to work for Blizzard. At least half of what I know as an artist has come from watching those guys draw and having the chance to actually work with them is an opportunity I cannot pass up, no matter how much of a long shot it is for me to actually beat out all the other people who are going to be applying for the internship.

School's been keeping me so busy that I haven't been able to really do much of the old stuff I used to love and despite all the stress it's been really fun being able to go back to that. The real problem right now is that all my stuff is mostly line and very little painting. I was hoping to get a couple different paintings done by the end of the month but I'm still learning so much from each painting I do that I'm still only halfway done with the first done. It's turning out pretty nicely but it would have been nice to have a couple more by now. I'll post it when I'm done.

Anyway, here are a couple of the drawings I did that are probably going to make it into the Blizzard portfolio.

Dwarvish Mech

2009-01-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

Last year in character design we got an assignment for "Lord of the Mechs." Long story short, I had to design Gimli's mech. I think it turned out pretty cool despite not being textured. Apparently the school did too because they changed the colors and put it in all of their advertising. Kind of a mixed blessing seeing as all these people are gonna see this half completed thing being shown as if it were complete. Anyway, concepts first and then model.

Life Drawing

2009-01-11T16:28:00.001-08:00

I don't get to the life drawing sessions as often as I like because of school but here are a few I did a little while ago. The posses drawn ranged from about five to ten minutes.

Couple Environment Shots

2008-12-18T16:15:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I'm out of town so I can't get better shots than this but these were a couple of renders I did of my environment for the game. The environment is by no means complete. Still have a lot of work to do for next semester. I was pretty happy with how the house came out though. Anyway, I had the renders on my flash drive and figured I'd throw them up here.

Power Struggle

2008-12-07T13:59:00.001-08:00

This next set was a collaboration between Kevin Hart, Jeffery Barros, and myself. We had to come up with a quick game idea and concept it all out. We knew we weren't going to actually make the game so we went with something that would be fun to design characters for and just stick with a simple game as far as gameplay goes. Our hypothetical game was a generic Real-time Strategy where three civilizations grew around a specific, single source of energy... and then they fight. I wish we had had more time to flush out the idea, the concept was a lot of fun to design around.

Before we started we did a lot of studies on Team Fortress 2. A game (if you somehow don't already know) made by ValveHere I took the silhouettes from Team Fortress 2 and sketched in the forms

With this I took a few notes on the style we were going to try and aim for with our game

So with that done we started working on our own individual designs. Kevin was in charge of the guy from the gasoline nation guy, Jeffery did solar power, and I did nuclear power. Anyway long story short, they gave their designs to me, I redrew them and then Kevin painted them all. There's always room for improvement but given our deadline, I think we did a decent job.

Kevin's Gas based design

Jeffery's Solar Power

And my Nuclear dude

So yeah, there you go.

Mike Mignola is the Man

2008-12-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

Since it took me so long to get this blog up and running I have a lot of backed up pieces that I'll be randomly posting from time to time. This first set is from my character design class last year.

This was kind of an interesting assignment. We had to do a Gundam Lord of the Rings in the style of a specific artist. I chose Mike Mignola for his awesomeness

When this last picture got posted at school they removed the drawing of Gimli sitting on the pot. I considered it a landmark day, the first time I was censored.

But yeah, just a quick and fun assignment. It's always interesting to REALLY study somebody else's style. Especially one as interesting as Mike Mignola.

Hooligans Model

2008-12-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, got some renders of the in-game model I've been working on. Not quite happy with the texture yet, a lot of it is too subtle to show up from the distance it's going to in game. Anyway, I used 3DSMax and the character ended up being about 900 polygons. For more stuff on our awesome game you should check out Brittany's blog. http://littlegamedev.blogspot.com/ Hooray for having an awesome producer.

The standard 3 views

A few poses taken from the animations I have. Also the red version of the texture.

And there you go. The character's progress thus far. There are a couple problems here and there with the model but overall I think they turned out pretty decent. It was a lot of fun. I'm excited to start working on the texture for Jami's model. Anyway, see you guys later.

An Epic Introduction

2008-12-01T17:12:00.000-08:00

Alright well I suppose I should start with an introduction.

Hi, my name is Josh Stanger. I am currently attending Digipen institute of technology. I am a junior. When I grow up I want to be a character artist. Concept art would be awesome, game design is cool, and modeling is a blast. So anything in that area is great. Still got a lot of work to do but yeah, guess that's me.

Well lets see, I guess I'll start with my major project I'm working on right now. It's a game called "Hooligans." We've got three programmers (Ian Good, Casey Mathews, and Brittany Aubert) and two artists (Jami Lukins and me) working on the game. All of them are awesome people. Seriously.

But anyway, enough boring stuff.

These are some quick rough sketches I did last summer when I was first was thinking up how the game would look. I hadn't done many kids so I was still figuring stuff out.

I actually ended up going with one of the earlier sketches I did. Always nice when that happens.

I did these kinda just for fun.

The sketch for the box art/poster for the game

The mostly done painted version.

So yeah, there you go. Next time I'll throw some 3d renders up here. Thanks guys