Study for a city

Aeroplanes

This is an older work made on a gesso panel with egg-tempera and gold leaf as a small study for planes in a golden sky above my cities and towers.

NEW Little Big Planet Gameplay. HD

This is a trailer for the fanastic and immensely creative Little Big Planet game on the PS3 console.

Enjoy!

LocoRoco Cocorecho

This is an interesting take on a video game concept applied to an art design template of sorts.

Teaching Art History

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.

Castle Crashers

Tank with a floating mine

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

Everyday Shooter (PSN)

Another great example of Video Games as an art form.

The art lover's guide to (exquisite) downloadable games.

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-art-lovers-guide-to-downloadable-games/a-2009021014957761062

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.

Terrace with onlookers

Study for a Terrace

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.

Tower and bridge

Grand Theft Auto IV against the World.

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.

Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer 1

Grand Theft Auto IV - PC Video Editor: Glutterballs

This one is so funny!
Love the song - and the scratchy balls too...

Grand Theft Auto IV

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.

The Japanese (again).

Prince of Persia

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.

Dead Space

This is an image from a great looking game called "Dead Space".
Amazing design on the armor and its assorted weapons.

Head of a Warrior

Ultron-13

Fish at Sea

The Japanese

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.

Madworld

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2MYPmbgrI0

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...