While working on this print I've always had in mind my comic book hero, "The Jap". I wanted to make something more with that image and go a bit beyond what one can do in comics. I've still got some way to go though. A long way to be sure...
This was one of the first of my series of drypoint prints. It was made in Folegandros island a few years ago - I think that it was made on Christmas of 2005-2006 or something like that. I used this print a bit later for two paintings based on Georgios Viziinos' literary works for an exhibition in Athens.
Some of the first screenshots that in my opinion proudly show the new art direction for the next project from Gearbox, the coders of "Brothers in Arms", a WWII shooter for the PS3, Xbox360 and pc platforms. When this game of first announced its graphics showed that it would most likely be your average run-of-the-mill first person shooter and most people didn't really care much about it given the fact that there are many admittedly fabulous games competing for the gamers' attention already: Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Killzone 2 and many others do come to mind. This radical and most welcome change in its visual style however is just what the doctor ordered and many favourable comments in various forums reflect that.
The art style chosen for Borderlands looks very similar with the one that was chosen for two games in the past.
One is Crackdown by Realtime Worlds:
The other is the newest Prince of Persia by Ubisoft:
As seems to be my usual mantra I hope that the game plays as well as it looks - and hopefully there's going to be some gameplay videos to satisfy that wish.
I had some trouble with a couple of large-scale works and decided to invite a friend over to my studio in order to get a response whoch might be helpful.
And I was right: our talk and some of Leonidas' thoughts on one of the works helped me to overcome the block. I started painting my first explosion on works other than comics and it worked beautifully. Why is it that every time I try to paint I get this crippling mental block which prevents me from allowing direct influences from media deemed more popular (and supposedly more vulgar...) like sci-fi movies or comicbooks or most importantly videogames? Things that I'd be doing without a second thought on my comics such as this:
I have serious trouble when I try to use them while painting a work. And it's ridiculous because with painting you have no constraints of scale, medium, materials or otherwise.
No constraints except from those which are self-imposed and have not been yet clearly identified in order to be addressed - and hopefully eradicated...
This fight reminded me of the Giants in "Shadow of the Colossus", an amazing game for the PS2 way back in 2005 developed by Team ICO.
A video review by gametrailers for SotC is this one which is showcasing some of the aforementioned amazing colossi:
This is an extensive gameplay video from a highly anticipated new game exlusive for the PS3 called "Infamous". It really looks like Grand Theft Auto IV with super cheat codes enabled to the maximum - and it was about time someone tried doing things with a little bit of fantasy and not so realworldish. Hope the game is truly as good as it looks and - seemingly - plays. It's out on May 26th 2009.
This is the intro for a new game by Radical called "Prototype".
Looks quite promising - but I'm somewhat skeptical about how it would play out, if it will have a good way to prolong the "wow!" factor of playing such a powerful character and also how the city will feel like (especially after Grand Theft Auto VI...)
We'll see. It's out on June 6th so the wait will finally be over - I've been watching this since it was first announced. Really hope that it'll be worth it. It's such a shame that there are no good games out that do more than just shoot anything that moves - the sky should have been the limit. Even in the instance of blind rage and homicidal violence as seems to be the premise of this game.
This is a trailer of the awesome "The Dishwasher Dead Samurai" game by James Silva. It's a game that features very responsive controls plus a very distinct aesthetic which is very appealing and coherent throughout the game. These characteristics make Dishwasher a joy to play and to behold. The game designer used the xna creators club platform to create and launch his magnificent game on Xbox Live Arcade through XBL Marketplace. It's an amazing game and what makes it even more remarkable is that it's the work of just one man with no huge megabillion budget corporations to back him and done on his spare time. It's games like these as well as others like Flower, Linger in shadows, Braid, flOw, PixelJunk Eden and Monsters etc. that provide inspiration for something different that is still to come apart from the constant stream of FPSs coming from the more or less very conservative big studios. And don't get me wrong: I very much like FPS games. It's just that one can't live on cheeseburgers indefinitely...
This is another work made on a small gesso panel as a study for an interior scene in a room atop a tower.
I've asked a good friend from Japan to help me with designing - or a least in helping to form an decent actual proposal for a new videogame. He accepted and has begun posting his first thoughts on the subject in his own blog with some quotes and images from my work thus far.
http://tinyurl.com/akfw6y
I am very grateful for Yuichi Terraon's help also very interested to see what kind of images will come out of this collaboration.
Did this drawing after Masamune Shirow's tanks from his manga "Dominion". The concept for the mine came from a buried actual mine as well as from the buoys scattered in the sea around Folegandros island
Just saw this article on gamesradar.com concerning my main obsession these past few months: the relationship between certain videogames and their unique artistic approach.
This drawing was done as a study taken from Ubisoft's new Prince of Persia. The whole world's design and rendering is astonishing its vistas a truly inspiring achievement.
It's strange how an art form (which many videogames are in my opinion) in its first steps can be so much more interesting than visual arts lavishly exhibited in galleries and institutions everywhere nowadays... And it's also quite peculiar that while videogames, like comics before them, had no inhibitions about taking everything they needed from other art forms, pop culture of the day, movies, literature etc. visual arts are doing exactly the opposite.
Visual and plastic arts in general have an incestuous relationship with their form: they just tend to reproduce their own past or present "achievements", always either looking solely at the History of Art as a source of inspiration or restrict themselves in simple commentary of today's newspaper headlines. But simply adhering to history as if it was the Word of God rarely teaches us how to truly cope with the present moment. On the other hand, if a work limits itself to just a simplistic comment of whatever is in vogue at any given time, it loses all meaning as soon as the trends change and the headline fade.
It is its exacting attention to every detail that makes this virtual city, this Liberty City, so absolutely real. Whether it's the sound of a radio station from a passing car, the hilarious one-liners being shouted ("You stupid malaka!", "Do I have to kill to get woman???" etc.) from random bystanders, the way you drive over the Brooklyn bridge while listening to Jazz Nation Radio and the setting sun is making everything look like an Edward Hopper painting... One could go on and on like that forever. If videogames ever got close to becoming works of art this is one such instance where one at least succeeded. And there are many more.
A truly majestic and inspired take on the Prince of Persia series by Ubisoft.
The fans demanded from the developers a new approach on the Prince closer to the concept sketches posted here and there on the internet - and the devs did just that. Well done indeed.
This is a photo from one of my own works. It's title is "The Japanese" (obviously...). It's drypoint etching worked over with egg-tempera and gold leaf on paper.
Don't really know if I posted this correctly but what the hell... Saw this teaser a few weeks ago and was stunned. It's like watching a Frank Miller's "Sin City" comicbook - on steroids. And not just watching. But in a couple of months many of us will also be playing it as well. What can video art do to top this? And - more importantly - how the hell can any sorry piece of Visual "high brow" art come even close to being even a bit interesting these days...? One has only to walk into a gallery now and die of boredom...
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