Daniel Cheng concept artist

Shapes

2011-08-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

Having fun painting some personal work.

Salvaged one piece

2011-05-06T00:33:00.000-07:00

Went to a life drawing session, feeling rusty, but I did like one drawing I did on my iPad.

Tsunami Sketch

2011-05-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

Co-workers are doing weekly sketches. Topic was Worst Nightmare. Here's mine.

COD: Black Ops reveal trailer and screenshots

2010-05-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Here's is a link to the extended Call of Duty: Black Ops trailer due out November 9th 2010.

Call of Duty Black Ops screenshots

2010-05-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

Call of Duty Black Ops Trailer

2010-04-30T23:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-debut-call-of/64933
Hope you all enjoy it.

Noobtoob

2010-01-03T21:29:00.000-08:00

Quick painting I did of Noobtoob, my favorite video game podcast on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/tobin00

New Portfolio

2009-09-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

Boom Blox wins BAFTA

2009-03-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

Boom Blox just won this year's British Academy Video Games Awards for Casual Game of the Year! This award is the video game portion of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards. It was an honor just to be nominated, but we won, woo-hoo. haha. This is all really great news. On the left is our producer Amir Rahimi accepting the award. Here's a link to the BAFTA website. http://www.bafta.org/awards/video-games/nominations,664,BA.html

Cover comps

2009-03-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some cover comps I made for the first Boom Blox. Personally, I liked the one on the left, but we ultimately went with the middle one.

Boom Blox Bash Party!

2009-02-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

EA announced the game I've been working on, the follow-up to Boom Blox called, Boom Blox Bash Party. Check out this preview of Nintendo Power's article on our game. I got to paint the image on the left of the Space Beaver throwing the Chemical Block. You can also check this image out on Nintendo Power's website: http://www.nintendopower.com/images/NP239_boomblox.jpg

Mercenaries 2 artwork

2008-12-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

Winner is you!

2008-12-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

Boom Blox won the Spike TV Video Game Award for BEST WII GAME of 2008!!!!! Really really proud and excited about this. Here's the link: http://www.spike.com/event/vga/page/vote/category/29533

Aftermath

2008-08-20T01:54:00.001-07:00

Aftermath is the subject for this week's sketchnight.

Restroom signs

2008-08-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

Funny idea Toby and I came up with at work.

Is Boom Blox too cute?

2008-06-28T01:32:00.000-07:00

A question which has been on my mind of late. A game about blocks on the Wii with none other than blocky characters makes sense. But is Boom Blox too cute? The following picture is an analysis.

Spirit Painting

2008-06-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

I'm so angry with myself. I just spent a couple of hours painting this thing up. Saved it out low res for the web.....only to find I saved over the wrong file. My high res version is completely lost forever. Dang. I would have loved to print this sucker out too.

Boom Blox in Japanese

2008-06-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

Here's the temporary Japanese site for Boom Blox. They have a really cool Japanese trailer up. http://boomblox.jp/

Visionary

2008-05-29T00:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight I thought I'd explore making some pretentious art. It's actually quite fun. You can pretty much read anything you want into this piece. The id finding the super ego. The substitution of self through the delusion of reality. Lost love and distant memories. A study of golden section constructs. Blah, blah, blah... I was basically painting with an open mind and arranging abstract shapes, but I guess you could a read more into it than what the author intended. I guess it'd be pretentious to assume that anyone would even see this piece in the first place.

Boom Blox Flash game

2008-05-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

Those wacky Europeans have made a flash game version of Boom Blox. It's great fun and highly addictive. If you like this flash game, the Wii version is like 100 times more fun. Here's the link. http://boomblox.electronic-arts.de/
I've also been hearing a lot of complaints online about how the throwing motion of Boom Blox has left many people with sore arms. For those, like me, who are hopelessly addicted, I'd suggest you try throwing the ball in an underhand throw motion. This is less strenuous in my opinion.

BOOM BLOX is in stores!! Buy it today!

2008-05-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

Whoo-hoo! Boom Blox is finally out in stores today. Go buy it and play tonight. I've worked so hard on this game for the past year and it's great to see that work finally pay off. The critics love this game! But more importantly, if you get this game I bet you'll love it too. This game appeals to adults and children, male and female, casual gamer and hardcore gamer. Parents should play Boom Blox with their kids. Fraternities should play it like a drinking game. Kids should play it with other kids (sorry kids, it's not a drinking game for you yet). Haha! This is truly a game for everyone. But don't take my word for it. Read the reviews from Metacritic. Buy Boom Blox baby! http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/boomblox

NEW BOOM BLOX SITE IS UP!!!!!

2008-05-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

The NEW Boom Blox website is up and running!! It looks really awesome! Check it out, here's the link. http://www.ea.com/boomblox/

Yahoo Games loves Boom Blox

2008-05-02T01:45:00.000-07:00

Yahoo games has several articles and videos about Boom Blox. They love it!
http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/boom-blox/boom-blox-launch-central/1206945
Here's a direct link to a video which explains Boom Blox . http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/boom-blox/boom-blox-original-featurettes/1209469
Here's an article from them about 5 reasons why you should get Boom Blox.
http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/boom-blox/top-5-reasons-to-play-boom-blox/1206946

Boom Blox Level Editor

2008-05-01T01:43:00.000-07:00

My good friend Joe Fielder explains Boom Blox's level editor in this IGN article. http://wii.ign.com/articles/870/870720p1.html
As you can see, the level editor also known as Create mode, is simple to use, but lends itself to an infinite array of possibilities. You can make games. You can make comedic gag sequences. You can make a virtual art project like building the Capitol Building using Blox. I would recommend this game to all of the aspiring game designers of the world, even to you "hardcore" gamers. There are many aspects of game design which can be learned from using the Boom Blox Create mode from physics puzzles to simple AI usage to pathing to pacing. Like I've said before, this is an actual game. I believe that in a day and age where games are trying to recreate reality without much consideration for the fun factor of something like Pac Man, it's a breath of fresh air to see a game like Boom Blox out there that isn't afraid of being a game. That means having goals, a set of rules, and lots of fun! Imagine that.....FUN!
The guys at IGN also got to play around with the Boom Blox level editor. They've written an article on their impressions and also showed some cool videos of them making their levels. Here's the link http://wii.ign.com/articles/871/871124p1.html
As you can see, the editor is really simple to use, and creating levels in a world with physics is practically a puzzle in itself. You really have to think about gravity, balance, and the amount of weight involved in building puzzles. It's a true test in critical thinking and depending on how complicated you want to make your puzzles, you may want to plan them out ahead of time. I can't wait! May 6th (the release date) is almost here!

Superman

2008-04-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

Drew this picture of Superman for fun. Kinda dull, but I just felt like drawing Superman.

Jungle Cruise

2008-04-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

A bunch of guys at work and I pick a weekly topic to sketch and this week was my choice. The theme is "The Jungle Cruise". I quickly drew a couple sketches in my sketchbook and added some tone to it.

Boom Blox is Game of Summit According to Gonintendo.com

2008-04-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

Wow, I just finished reading this article about Boom Blox impressions from the Nintendo Media Summit. Gonintendo.com really loves our game and calls it the "Game of Summit". Basically saying that Boom Blox stole the show. Here's the article. http://gonintendo.com/?p=40262

More Life Drawings and Sketches

2008-04-16T21:11:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I'm talking a lot about Boom Blox, a game which includes a child demographic and yet I'm posting life drawings which may or may not include nudes. If nudes offend you please refrain from looking too deeply into my blog. These are academic studies and are not meant to be lewd in any way. That said, here are some more life drawings from Otis College and some sketches I did at the beach. I noticed that you basically get one pose at the beach, but hope that the different angles of that pose make up for it. By the way, Boom Blox was just listed as one of the 10 must-have games coming out this year on a Nintendo platform. Here's the article. http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/ten-upcoming-nintendo-games-you-shouldn-t-miss/1204664
Absolutely remarkable, but when Ken Harsha (Art Director), Huy Dinh (Concept and Production Artist), Chris Miller (Concept Artist), and I (Senior Concept Artist) set out to make the art for Boom Blox, we knew that it was going to become something special. The characters, the worlds, the gameplay, the mechanics were all given so much love by the team members of Boom Blox. I'm sure if you ask any one of the people who worked on this project if they'd want to work together again, they'd say,"yes". I'm sure soon, the public and the critics will say,"Yes, we want more Boom Blox!" This is truly a unique game and unique experience in making it. We had such a good time and it shows in the final product.

Boom Blox News

2008-04-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

Boom Blox will soon be out. I am really excited. It's scheduled for a May 6th U.S. and May 9th European release! I'm reading that Boom Blox also made a huge impression at the 2008 Nintendo Media Summit. One of the most interesting ideas brought up was the interactions parents could have playing this game with their kids. Parents can make puzzles for their children using the level-editor and vice versa. Actually, many aspects of this game do encourage person to person interactivity such as the many multi-player levels and the ability to send your puzzles to friends via the Wii Connect 24. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=25685
Again, I can not reiterate just how proud I am of this game. It is a game for gamers and casual players alike which is a rare feat. The editor is amazing fun. The characters are hilarious. I mean just look at this screen shot. It's freakin' nuts! Block monkeys with bandito mustaches and cowboy hats flying through the air as the block world around them explodes in chaos. Can you believe this game was made in America? Yes! Here's a video interview with our producer, Amir Rahimi, talking about the game. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/32795.html

Vacation Sketching

2008-03-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some sketches that I've beeing doing during my vacation. Mainly cafe sketches and life drawing. There's also a page where I was analyzing a telephone pole and an apartment building. Often times, I'm asked why a video game company would need a concept artist when the game takes place in a modern day setting. I mean, couldn't you just have the 3-D artists look up reference photos and model a building as is? A concept artist is more than a copy-ist. Otherwise we'd be called copy artists :) Concept artists can be a useful tool for an art director to communicate a unified vision to the 10 in-house and 30 out-source 3-D artists. As a concept artist, I also bring an attention to detail to the table. For example, if told by an art director, build a telephone pole. At first glance, "telephone pole" is a word that we all have a point of reference to, which in our imaginations look like a 1st grade cartoon from the flash card labeled "telephone pole". This is sufficient for us to go through life with a passive picture in our head to recognize a telephone pole, but not necessarily to create a telephone pole. To create a telephone pole, you must answer several key questions such as," How tall is the average telephone pole? How many telephone wires do we want attached to our telephone pole? How is the structure planted into the ground? Are there ancillary attachment pieces such as street signs, street lights, and garage sale posters? Is the telephone pole located in a rural countryside or in a metropolitan city (such will determine style and period)? Do these telephone poles act as cover objects in our world (in which case, the base should match cover dimensions for the game)? All of the questions above lead to answers which will give a prop character. We've all seen boring looking props without a whole lot of thought put into them, but sufficient to communicate what the object is supposed to represent in a virtual environment. But as "Next-Gen" games (which by now should be labeled "Current-Gen"), we need to pay closer attention to such details. And in order to save art directors from sitting in further meetings than he should, concept artists can provide 3-d artists with enough information to build from without worrying if the tone of the object created is correct.

Female Officer

2008-03-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

Another Sketch night theme this week. Did this diddy real quickly. Theme was female officer. Thought I'd not do a sexy pin-up.

Army of Two is a great game

2008-03-24T00:38:00.000-07:00

I normally publish my sketches on this blog, but I just finished playing Army of Two with a friend of mine and had a blast. I applaud the hard working talented developers over at EA Canada. They've delivered a game experience which is on par with Gears of War. This game is fun, addictive, and beautifully crafted. If you enjoy playing co-op games, get Army of Two and tell your gamer friends to get it as well. To my surprise, there are a lot of average reviews out there for this awesome game. I feel that many of these reviewers are prejudice against EA. In my book, Army of Two should be getting a solid 85-87 Metacritic score (which BTW, is what the reader reviews have been ranking for this game). I have a theory that reviewers judge EA games harshly, and in the case of Army of Two, they give some pretty weak arguments. Some have said that this game should not depict the fantasy of being a mercenary. That it's too close to home. But I would argue that many of the popular games out there, with high meta-critic scores, do this, such as Grand Theft Auto, which puts you in the fantasy world of being a criminal, or Mercenaries which also put you in the role of a mercenary in a real world country. The fact is, video games are here for entertainment not education. If a game is fun, then it has done its job. Other arguments I've heard is that the single player campaign is too short. Yet this game has a longer single player campaign than Gears of War which garnered a 94 Metacritic. I think my biggest qualm about the haters out there is that they don't realize just how difficult it is to make great games. There are substantial risks, and when a company decides to put a lot of production value into a game such as Army of Two, they expect high sales and high metacritic scores. When people just bag on a game because they feel like that's a way of sticking it to the man, it actually results in "the man" not taking such risks anymore. The chief complaint of a lot of haters out there (that there just aren't a lot of good games these days), are the architects of their own undoing. What I would like from those of you gamers who are reading this (all 6 of you), to play Army of Two for yourselves in co-op mode with a friend and then judge if you had a good time.

Scooby Doo

2008-03-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

Bunch of guys at work and I have decided to do a themed sketch thing on a weekly basis. I'm way behind, sorry guys. I'm on vacation dammit! But since I came up with the subject, it wouldn't be good to let everyone down. Here's my interpretation of Scooby Doo.

BOOM BLOX !!!!!!

2008-02-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

I'm so proud of this Boom Blox game! Our team did a great job at defining the look of the game under the art direction of Ken Harsha. We had such a great time making this game! Here's a pretty good preview of our game on Kotaku. http://kotaku.com/353191/spielbergs-boom-blox-revealed

And here's the trailer to this awesome game! http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/20999/Wii/Boom-Blox

IGN Hands-on preview of Boom Blox.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/850/850811p1.html

Taking it easy

2008-01-02T19:32:00.001-08:00

I always go into vacation thinking that I'm going to get so much done. It's finally time to work on my own stuff. And then I realize that I rest in my natural state. Time moves slower, I decompress, and I chill. Didn't really get much done. Here's a sketch.

Life Drawing sketches

2007-12-17T01:23:00.000-08:00

Most of these are quickies. Some are 10 min.

2007-12-11T00:03:00.001-08:00

an old sketch.

Nintendo DS painting of Joe Gat

2007-11-17T18:09:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy that I haven't posted in a while. This was a painting I did last week.

DS Portraits

2007-10-31T01:11:00.000-07:00

These DS portraits were painted from life. We had the fortune of having Basura, from season 2 of "Stan Lee's Who Wants To Be A Superhero?" as our life model. The top 2 are portraits of her, I believe her name is Aja. The bottom portrait is of my friend Ruby who's a hand therapist.

Painting at the mechanic's

2007-10-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

So the best thing about painting on the DS is the ability to paint when you're sitting around bored in a mechanic's waiting room.

More DS work

2007-10-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

Did another painting on the DS painting program. I was just trying to do an academic study. Also, be sure to check out my website which I've recently updated. www.danielcheng.com

DS at Life Drawing

2007-09-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

I brought my DS to life drawing. I also have a black and white piece of a Japanese woman. I like how I treated her hands.

2007-09-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

I love the thick and thin lines. The small size of the DS screen really force me to thumbnail and block out shapes. As a person who noodles on details too much, this is a good exercise.

More DS painting

2007-09-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

Happy days. Collecting smiles, the guys who made the Nintendo DS painting program made a recent update which has made my life a lot easier. They've managed to attach teh pressure sensitivity to the brush size and/or brush opacity. This is an equivalent to the brush in Photoshop 6. My goodness, they are geniuses. What this means is I can get thick and thin lines with my brushes which means I can ink with this thing now. A you can see in th feathers of this bird, I'm able to get crisp sharp edges with little effort. I'm also showing a progression here of the piece. I love it! Thank you Jens Andersson.

DS painting

2007-09-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

Getting back into basics is hard. This DS paint program has no layers or undo's. Painting on it is like Martial Arts training with one arm tied behind your back. But it's good training. After numerous bad ones, I finally did one that I liked.

Life Drawing is Back!

2007-09-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

We got Life Drawing again at EA. It's been great, but boy did I feel rusty. Here are some of my pieces. The poses average 10 minutes.

Medal of Honor Airborne in stores!!

2007-09-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Medal of Honor Airborne Hits the store shelves today, available for the PC and Xbox 360. As one of the concept artists on the team, I'm proud of the work that pre-production did to see this game through. never have I seen so much of the concept work make its mark into a video game. If you like FPS titles, I urge you to pick this up.

Sketches July 22, 2007

2007-07-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

I've been testing out a new fountain pen called a Namiki. Still trying to break it in. The fibers in the brown paper can get caught in the nib, so I'm trying to be careful. Perhaps I'll only use it on white paper from now on. Here are some sketches done with a variety of different pens. I was looking at some old Travis Charest stuff as a study. Man that guy is good.

Sketches July 1, 2007

2007-07-02T01:47:00.000-07:00

More sketches!

Life Drawings June 29, 2007

2007-06-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

Sketches. In addition to my current sketchbook, I recently picked up a scrapbook/sketchbook for the tanned paper. It seems to be sprayed with a gloss finish. Pretty cool stuff.

Hulk Smash!

2007-06-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

Pulled out an old painting I did of the Hulk and mucked with it some more. Still a work in progress at this point.

Plein Air painting

2007-06-26T17:34:00.000-07:00

Old Plein Air painting from college. I was painting this knee-high in the water next to crashing waves. That was fun.

Sketches June 24, 2007

2007-06-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

A day at the beach on Sunday.

Sketches June 22, 2007

2007-06-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

Various sketches from Century city, books, and my Uma Thurman Kill Bill action figure. Also went out with friends to sketch in westwood village.

Sketches June 20, 2007

2007-06-20T01:04:00.000-07:00

Sketches from my "Colors of Africa" book (left to right) A Mursi couple, Vodu man, Zulu sangomas, and a Samburu girl. Some other sketches as well.

Sketches June 19, 2007

2007-06-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

Drew these from photographs namely John Krasinski from "The Office" on the cover of Mean Magazine. Some victorian photographs as well.

Sketches May 27, 2007

2007-05-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

Really liking my new sketchbook I bought from Barnes and Noble. It's got smooth thick paperstock with perforated edges and it only costed $10. Goes really well with my ink technique. Starting to do more Master copies. Mainly looking at Charles Dana Gibson. Trying to incorporate his etching style. Also, I've been looking at photo reference and going to Starbucks to do some cafe sketching. I always feel weird staring at strangers to draw them.

Life Sketches May 17, 2007

2007-05-17T01:31:00.000-07:00

Bought a new sketchbook the other day. Been drawing from my Pose File and The Figure in Motion book. Fun stuff.

Life Drawing May 14, 2007

2007-05-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

Due to the lack of available life drawing, I've been trying to draw from photographs. I found a good site www.characterdesigns.com that has plenty of reference for life drawing. However, the challenges of the photo include a limited exposure and angle of view. I over-compensated fighting against the slavery of photography by over sketching. I find that these drawings are more messy than drawings done from life.

Life Drawing May 13,2007

2007-05-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

A mixed bag of old drawings and some stuff done this weekend for the alumni drawing session.

A head

2007-05-05T01:38:00.000-07:00

Painted this head without any reference. Probably should have looked at some. Haha. I mainly focused on creating form from planar values. Played around with a pretty nice brush with the opacity jitter on pen pressure in photoshop. The brush felt a lot like the digital watercolor brush I like from Painter.

Life Drawing 5-04-2007

2007-05-04T00:17:00.000-07:00

Sadly, tonight was the last night for this semester's life drawing at Otis College. I really gonna miss it. I'm hoping to do some cafe sketching or find some alternative. I don't wanna get rusty again. The model tonight was a Harlequin/ Cabaret dancer. The costume was a challenge to draw. It fought her natural gesture. The last pose of te night was a greatly forshortened view. It looked like the model's legs were growing out of her shoulders. I tried playing with the values a bit to push the legs back. Hope I pulled it off. Lastly, I'm posting a portrait I drew with ballpoint pen from a photo of an old chinese lady.

Life Drawing April 26, 2007

2007-04-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

Got there a bit late tonight. The model was great! She was a dancer-type, could stand on her tip toes and such.

Life Drawing April 22, 2007

2007-04-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

Alumni Drawing this weekend. A number of things went wrong with the session. Model showed up late. Her pose didn't exactly wow me, so I changed it several times, moving a limb here and there, changing her face because it was covered by a huge wig. So the pose, background, and costume here are retro-fitted. The only thing I got from it was lighting and angle of view.

Life Drawing April 12, 2007

2007-04-13T00:29:00.000-07:00

I've got a big batch this week. Our model's name was Larva. Her face looked like a Silent Film actress and her body looked like Aeon Flux with proportional boobs. She was dressed up in this caped costume with a futuristic twist ala Rocky Horror Picture Show. Can't say I dug the costume as capes tend to cover and ruin her silohuette. Would have preferred to draw her as a swimmer, a flapper, or nude for that matter. Pretty happy overall with the results. Lastly, a set of life drawings from te Alumni Drawing session at CSUF. Go Titans!

Life Drawing April 5, 2007

2007-04-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

We had this extremely buff model today. It's really difficult to keep the big picture in mind and not focus on the details of his anatomy. Plus, if you draw him with too many curves he loses structure. Lastly, I didn't want to draw him looking like I copied from a muscle magazine. The skinny model was actually more fun to draw. But if you asked me a year ago, I would've preferred drawing the buff dude cuz he would "rock as a super hero". Maybe I'm maturing......nah, muscles are cool.

Life Drawing March 29, 2007

2007-03-29T23:22:00.000-07:00

Last week was Spring Break so Otis didn't have a life drawing session and boy did I feel rusty already. Plus I arrived late at no fault but my own. That and the fact that our models tonight were interacting which is quite the challenge for me. But it's really awesome to just dive into that. Drawing storytelling poses are da bomb yo.

Life Drawing March 15, 2007

2007-03-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

We had a really pretty model today. She wore a see-through belly dancer outfit. It was rather challenging to communicate that through a quicksketch.

Life Drawing class!

2007-03-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

Working full-time, the biggest thing that I miss from college was life drawing. It challenges an artist on a day to day basis to visually interpret what you see. So recently, I've been blessed with the fortune to take life drawing classes again. It's really reinvigorated my love for art and my ability to draw. I highly encourage industry artists to continue taking these classes if you can. It's inspiring and a great stress-reliever. Here's a few of the drawings I've taken from my sketchbook.

Quick sketches

2007-02-25T02:14:00.000-08:00

Some quick sketches.

On the road

2006-12-25T01:58:00.000-08:00

During the Christmas break I hope to spend a bit more time on my painting. I want to take this oppurtunity to flesh out a narrative, not just a life study. Had lots of fun painting this one. Trying to nail down an effective process based upon research and discovery. Also, I found that it helped to listen to the animation podcast while I painted. http://www.animationpodcast.com

Angel

2006-12-10T13:52:00.000-08:00

"What's in her hands? Why do her wings glow? What are the tattoos mean?" Those are excellent questions. And I can see by you asking them that you are indeed an astute and profound individual. Thank you for your time.

Drawing session

2006-11-19T14:06:00.000-08:00

I attend life drawing sessions from Don Lagerberg an instructor at Cal State University Fullerton. He is one of those instructors that you remain friends with for a lifetime. About 5 of the artists who attend bring their laptops to paint with (something unheard of 9 years ago when I first met Don). The set-up was intended to be Ceres and the pigs, but I didnt have time to paint the pig, so now she's Selene, goddess of the moon.

Faerie Painting

2006-11-18T00:25:00.000-08:00

Took a session at Bob Kato's Drawing Club along with the concept guys at work. Theme that night was Faeries. I thought that I would paint one of those sketches. Not sure if the sketch is better or the painting.....or if any of them are that good to begin with. Haha.

The Light Beacon

2006-11-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

Sketching for fun. Want him to look big, but didn't want a busy composition. I could add birds I guess.

The Viking

2006-11-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

He's a viking and he does viking stuff and attends viking night classes.

Qix: The most addictive game ever

2006-11-09T00:40:00.000-08:00

I know that this is my art blog, but I just had to share Qix with the world. This is perhaps the most addictive game ever. As my buddy Chris puts it,"Qix is about as tense as Resident Evil 4". And he's right. As elegant as Chuck Jone's "Dot and the Line", this game brings with it the adrenaline of a hunter trying to cage a bengal tiger. You play as this tiny diamond that draws lines to box in this unpredictable creature called Qix which moves with the grace of an eel. All the while these "Spark" creatures are patroling the surface area of the boxes you've made. Avoiding the Sparks and preventing the Qix from killing you mid-box-drawing, you have the additional choice of either moving quickly for survival or slowly for additional points.
From an artistic standpoint, it is the subdivision of space personified. As you would break down a composition for analysis, so are you breaking down this arena against Qix. The end result is a screen of right angled squares resembling an etch a sketch board. Like chess, you must outsmart your foe, one who is larger and faster than you.
Strategies to do this include drawing very thin finger-like boxes to subdivide the arena until the Qix falls into one of infinite compositions you can draw. If solely interested in gaining 75% of the surface area( the minimum amount to pass the level), one could divide the arena into quarters using a cross shape. I prefer to draw a series of small boxes in hopes that the Qix will accidentally fall in thus allowing me to gain my high score of 99% of the area ( the maximum one can achieve). I've also seen compositions such as the spiral and the pitchfork used effectively against the Qix. You can actually play Qix on the following site http://drunkmenworkhere.org/201.php?action=play
However, to truly enjoy the game, one must play this with a joystick.

Secret Agent Frank N Stone: A cautionary tale of woe

2006-09-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

Long ago, I had this idea for a Frankenstein comicbook. It took me way too long to get my abilities up to snuff to realize it. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if I could do it justice these days either. When I was getting my master degree I thought I'd finally get the chance to make it a reality. Ironically, the same summer, there came a ridiculous number of Frankenstein themed comicbooks ( Mark Wheatley's Frankenstein Mobster and Steve Skroce's Doc Frankenstein amongst the popular ones.) So suddenly this somewhat original idea of a Secret Agent Frankenstein's Monster became old hat as if I was hanging off the coat-tails of these other Frankenstein comics. (As opposed to the coat-tails of Mary Shelley, James Whales, Boris Karloff, and Ian Fleming). Just a cautionary tale of woe of dreams unrealized. Here is the cover to the Sketchbook ashcan I made and the proposed cover to the first issue of the comic. I'll be the first to admit that the finished pages of the first issue weren't all that great to begin with, so hopefully, this will be all anyone ever sees of this project.

Weekend Drawing Group

2006-09-25T02:01:00.000-07:00

I mainly draw backgrounds and environmental studies at work so I attend this weekend drawing group. It's about the only chance I get to draw the figure. Here are a couple of the studies. They took a couple hours give or take.

La Senorita

2006-08-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

Fun drawing. Thanks to reference from www.characterdesigns.com.

The Twins

2006-08-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

Playing off of stereotypes. It'd be cool to see identical twin Chinese guys. As for the costumes and the ponytails, this is a western. I might have just set my people back 100 years with this sketch.

The Englishman

2006-08-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

playing with shapes. Thinking about sharp-shooters of the old west: Guys that could shoot the fleas off a dog with their pitsol.

Bartender

2006-08-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

The bartender in the storage cellar.

Victorian street scene.

2006-08-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a Dover Book called, "Camera Work" to paint this scene. Perhaps some big city slickers can populate the wild west too.

Native American

2006-08-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

Warrior.

Daniel Cheng's first post

2006-05-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

Painted these quick. Lots of fun.