I Am ADDam

A concept piece for Infinity Blade 2

2012-01-26T11:49:00.001-08:00

Old Adage From My Family

2012-01-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

And subsequently here is a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I conjured this weekend. Feel free to use it but I am mostly writing it down for my own records. I was a lot more happy with these results than past experiments.

1C Brown Sugar
1C White Sugar
1/2C Butter (sorry can't be margarine)
1/2C Shortening
2 Large Eggs
1t Vanilla
1t Salt
1t Soda
2 1/2C Flower (or until it starts to separate from side)
Chocolate Chips to taste

Oven at 350 until browning (around 14 minutes in Utah)

Kal-El

2012-01-07T19:22:00.000-08:00

Infinity Blade 2

2011-12-31T17:03:00.001-08:00

Long gap in posts.... Mostly been busy for the last couple months shipping Infinity Blade 2. I have a lot to post just need to figure out what is kosher legally speaking.

CONDORMAN!!!!

2011-10-01T19:29:00.001-07:00

Before Phantom of the Opera, but after Music Man, Michael Crawford was Disney's Condorman. When I was a kid, I scoured the rental store every week to see if they had condor man. This was back when all VHS's came in those gigantice plastic cases. This was when you actually had to rent VHS players and they not only were huge but they came in two parts.
I have always wondered why Disney swept this movie under the rug. Every other film in their vault has eventually come to see the light of day again. However, as I combed over the internet, I came to find out that Condorman really sucks. I guess it is like when I wished for the day that Black Cauldron would come out. When it finally did, I purchased it without a second thought. That first viewing of Black Cauldron singlehandedly dashed my childhood memories. I wondered, if Black Cauldron is this bad what does that mean about my other memories??? Well years have gone by and after second viewings of all my favorite cartoons as a kid, I decided that kids like stupid things.

Condorman...RIP

Welcome back from comic con

2011-07-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

One of these days I will make a piece that has something other than clouds or grass as the background.

I guess I was a defeatist

2011-07-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

I did get into the Megaman Tribute. It is hard to say if the blurb on Kotaku helped out of not. But this piece made it in:

MEGA MAN TRIBUTE LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER
-the book is premiering at the San Diego Comic-con at the UDON booth (#5037), July 20-24
-for fans not attending the show, you can preorder the book at UDONstore.com

MEGA MAN TRIBUTE SOFTCOVER
- The standard softcover edition is also available for preorder on amazon.com

Belated Father's Day

2011-06-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

Okay So I Was Wrong

2011-06-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

I guess tonight is the last night of the sale, but oh well.

Vega (Balrog) used to be an awesome character. I can't help but think that he is based off of Geki from SF1 but they decided to go with a cooler design and not make almost everyone from Asia. He seems like they shoe horned him into a representative from Europe. I think he benefited from it, because fighting a narcissistic bull fighter is way better than a generic ninja. All in all, they ended up with one of the more standout designs that made what Street Fighter is known for today. As a fighter goes, Vega stood for something in Street Fighter II. I remember actually being able to jack up anybody with him. Then Alpha 3 came around and he sucked and he remains so till this day as a bottom tier fighter. Here's to the glory days of SF2 (for Vega, at least).

*edit* So after a little investigation at the urging of Xenozip, I have discovered that Vega is A tier for competitive fighting in Alpha 3. As for CVS2, I will just assume he is good too.

One More Day

2011-05-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

24hrs left on the sale... Here is a concept I did back for the Deathless Kings update.

Step Right Up! Step Right Up!

2011-05-19T12:10:00.001-07:00

Another free update including our one of a kind multiplayer is out. And for a limited time only the entire game of Infinity Blade is on sale for 50% off.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T17:53:00.001-07:00

My Mother's Day present for my wife. Kind of symbolic of parenthood.

The image is basically Fido + Up + Monsters Inc

Jumping the Gun

2011-04-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows Peggle, Plants vs. Zombies,and Bejeweled. Before Popcap takes over the world with their latest game, I wanted to get my idea out there. I have had Humphrey in my head for about half a year now. I just wanted to make note of that. I am certain Unpleasant Horse will be amazing. Plants vs. Zombies has been sucking my brains out for a long time now.

Megaman Fail 3/3

2011-03-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

Megaman Fail 2/3

2011-03-23T12:56:00.001-07:00

Why would a calculating robot put up with a nuisance year after year. This is my true ending of Megaman 1

So as an explaination Udon had a contest to make Megaman fan art. Winning submissions would be included in a book published by Udon. I made three pieces. All of them failed. I made a non bloody version of this one as well.

Megaman Fail 1/3

2011-03-12T23:01:00.000-08:00

Dude I feel like a chump.

Infinity Blade Update

2011-03-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

Infinity Blade's first major update came out today, free of charge to those who have the game. Infinity Blade is also on sales for 50% off till Sunday. Here are three of the characters that I designed for it. Our talented outsourcing folks in China modeled them.

Kiddo

2011-02-21T10:43:00.001-08:00

How much would you charge for an original charcoal drawing? I am thinking about starting up a shop for these kinds of drawings but I am totally out of the loop on reasonable prices.

Portrait

2011-02-12T21:30:00.000-08:00

Not entirely happy with...oh well. I haven't drawn live for a while now.

Messing around

2010-12-27T22:44:00.000-08:00

Trying out various new techniques and approaches.

Infinity Blade

2010-12-09T22:05:00.001-08:00

Infinity Blade just came out today and is the first game that I have developed with my team at ChAIR. They are a terrific group of talented artists, and I couldn't be any happier about what they pulled off in three months. Check the game out on iTunes.

Cap'n Croc

2010-11-24T20:52:00.000-08:00

And a happy Thanksgivin' to you.

No Really, I Have Been Busy

2010-09-12T21:46:00.001-07:00

I have been crazy busy with our latest project that we are doing for the iPod Touch and iPhone. You can see the video for it here.

I think I will be gone for a little while. In the meantime, enjoy this piece that Justin did and I painted up.

Mixin' Things Up

2010-07-01T19:27:00.001-07:00

So, I am producing a bunch of art but I can't show any of it. Here are three sketches that I drew at Siggraph last year. The lady is a conglomerate of multiple women that I saw while in New Orleans.

These will probably never get colored. However, I thought I could take a page from Sam Nielson and see if you guys have any drawings that I could paint instead of mine. Send me a link and I will pick one and paint it up.

Fallen Off the Wagon

2010-06-06T21:59:00.001-07:00

There was a magical time where I was posting something new every week, for good or bad. Even now I am rummaging through older stuff to update every month or so.

Sorry I will lazily attempt at changing my ways.

Wrastler

2010-04-28T23:26:00.001-07:00

The Irony

2010-04-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

So now that I have my Xbox. There is no more need to sell the drawings. So, on May 15th my $70 figure drawing shop is closing. Thanks for the help. Later!

P.S. I will try to update more often. The Xbox is not what is distracting me as much as the Xbox + New Job + New Baby + Netflix + Hulu + trying to excercise more than once every month.

I Got My Xbox!!!

2010-03-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

Many Thanks! :) Let the numbing of my soul begin!

Drawing

2010-02-13T09:55:00.001-08:00

Tougher pose, but I set it up, so I can't complain.

Changes

2010-02-04T08:57:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, and double apologies for the lameness of this post (Kincade anyone?). I have been in crunch for a long time. We just had a new addition to our family as well. She is healthy, beautiful and her name is Sarah. On top of that, tomorrow is my last day at Avalanche. I have the honor of being asked to be the Art Director at Chair Entertainment They made the Phenomenal game Shadow Complex. I am looking forward to the bright future there. Hoping that I can meet their high precedence, while raising the bar. Meeting with the folks at Chair and Epic has been a sheer delight. They have all the reasons in the world to be high brow and arrogant but they exude nothing but down to earth, humble, classy, professionalism.
I have been very blessed and fortunate to work with the folks at Avalanche. I think their blogs don't do them enough service. They are some of the most phenomenal guys you can meet. It is one thing for them to be excellent artists but another thing entirely when their character surpasses that ten fold.
Hopefully I will be posting a little more often than what has happened in the past couple months. I hope everything finds you all well.

Sketch and Drawing

2009-12-24T13:34:00.000-08:00

It is not very often that I post sketches and I would love to say that this one took ten minutes but it didn't. I think it took around 45 or something really uninspiring like that. However, I am very happy with the likeness.

Merry Christmas!

Joe Olson's Class

2009-12-01T22:38:00.000-08:00

Made this piece for two purposes:
1. To eventually paint in real life as an art trade with Joe Olson
2. To use as a painting demo for Joe Olson's class.

Everyone Loves Sagat

2009-11-18T11:53:00.001-08:00

another generic head painting of a character that rocks

Kind of a Funk Lately

2009-11-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

Life is spinning, so I am cannibalizing my storehouse of drawings. Hopefully I will have some recents to throw out soon.

Capoeira Nostalgia

2009-10-31T09:46:00.000-07:00

Good friend of mine Scott Stoddard had his last day at Avalanche yesterday and here are some of the characters that I drew for his game Capoeira Fighter 3.

Identity Crisis

2009-10-21T22:03:00.001-07:00

I have been bouncing around in new approaches.

Practice What You Preach

2009-10-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

It is not very often that I post gestures (more like never). So here is a lot of ones that I have been doing recently. Since I started up teaching again, a lot of what I used to practice is rising up to the top of my memory and mind. It has actually been really good for me to use the principles.

Son of Erik

2009-10-10T08:53:00.001-07:00

Dino Love

2009-10-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

In the early nineties there were Genesis kids and SNES kids. I was happily a Genesis kid, but I had a lot of SNES envy. Now with the advent of the Virtual Console I have been playing some of those old games that I never got to play. You might have deduced that I have been playing Super Mario World, and man oh man I am loving it. I really love that little frickin' dinosaur! I always die a little inside whenever I see him run off of a cliff.

Two Backs

2009-09-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

Belated Birthdays!!!!

2009-09-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Mr. Joe Olson made his transition in the the Thirty-Somethings a couple months ago and made this for him as a belated card.

Two For the Show

2009-08-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

One of the best designs and fighters any series has had.

It's Depressing Being a Second Tier Street Fighter

2009-08-15T10:32:00.001-07:00

Going to walk through the process I did to make T. Hawk.

1.
Get a solid drawing.

2.
Polygon lasso and flood fill drawing and keep separate colors as separate layers.

3.
In a Softlight layer I painting in facial banding. Warmer nose and yellower forehead.

4.
In a Screen layer light the scene with key directional light. I made a sunlight. i did this by airbrushing in an orange/brown into the screen layer.

5.
Turn off sunlight layer and make another screen layer for ambient lighting. In this case, since the sky is blue I lit him with blue lighting.

6.
In a Multiply layer I paint in ambient occlusion. With all of these layers I can HSV slide them until the color combo feels right.

7.
While I going through steps 3-6 I have all other lighting turned off. This is so I can light the subject in a distilled environment without getting confused. When I am done I can turn them all on together and see if I am getting good results.

8.
Now I take my photoshop file into Painter and work on edges and subsurface scattering.

Love and Death

2009-08-09T14:06:00.001-07:00

Complete with patented Push Up Toga Technology

Space Cowboy

2009-07-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Ares

2009-07-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

Least favorite of the series, but the future ones will be better.

Rama

2009-07-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

I am Trying to get a good separation between light and dark in this first one. There is a lot better Readability of light when I make a clear distinction between the two.
Here I am softening my form shadows and leaving my cast pretty hard.
in this one I am running a few photoshop filters so that the highlights are more saturated and the shadows desaturated. This is just a study more or less for a art challenge we had at work. So, I don't think I am going to take it much further than this.

A Few Dollars More

2009-07-14T12:32:00.001-07:00

The Avalanche Blog had a dragon challenge so I did this design and study. then I decided that it was lame and need more of a narrative flare so I did this instead.
Just a study I did for Death Vegas' main bad guy
Just a crappy drawing, Dave Malan's is way coolerist.

Happy Birthday!

2009-07-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

One of my girls turns five today and she wanted a drawing of a chicken and a lady in one. As I applied more color it turned out to be a lot like my daughter as a chicken/human/mutant hybrid. Happy birthday sweetie!

Itsa Mario Brothers

2009-06-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

Akuma

2009-06-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

In Compliance with My Weekly Post Goal

2009-06-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

Dave Malan requested this although I am not very partial to it.

Poseidon

2009-06-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

Dude!

And So It Begins

2009-05-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

I am going to start my figure drawing class this next Thursday June 4th 6-9pm at 148 w. 600 s Provo. Email Justin for enrollment.

Little Hood Process

2009-05-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a little on my process.

Start out with a sketch. I rarely draw in context. Meaning I will draw the individual designs separately on paper and then compose them after scan. It is not uncommon for me to draw faces and hands separately. Most of my drawings are about two inches in diameter for any given component.

I generally use the polygonal lasso tool to capture and flood fill my shapes in Photoshop. If I am not too concerned with the size of a file, I try to keep all of the different components such as hair, clothing, skin, etc.... on different layers.

If there is a background I repeat steps 1 & 2 for that. A lot of times I will use soft light layer to harmonize the colors. I have also found color balance to be good for keeping my warms and cools separate.

On a new Screen layer I will start putting in my lighting. For this first one I put in a warm sun light. I like to keep these layers separate from each other so I can change lighting as needed with the HSV sliders.

This image is just some more bounce light and ambient lighting from the sky.

Once I am comfortable with the general direction that the lighting and composition is going, I take it into Painter. Painter allows a better application of color and blending. I will use the eyedropper a lot for blending edges. I also use Ryan Wood's brushes and a couple that Sam pointed out to me.

After that I will kind of take it back and forth from Photoshop to Painter. I like to utilize and leverage the two against each other. I prefer Photoshops brush making abilities, and full screen tweaking. I use a lot of soft light layers and color correction for my work. I try to use auto levels quite a bit, just to see what the math says my colors and values should be. Then I will bring it back into painter for my edge and blend work. Painters brushes are superior in every way for the application of color for my sensibilities. The final step in a piece like this is to take it around the office and get everyone's opinions. Kevin Keele and Joe Olson generally comment on composition. Sam and Scott Stoddard will invariably talk about lighting and value. Ryan always talks about color response and textural quality. An Tom always points out my freaking tangents. It is a good crew to bounce off of.

Hope this helps.

Sending out a feeler

2009-05-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Justin Taylor, a fantastic artist and good friend has asked me to teach a figure drawing class at his academy. If I did it, would anyone (in the Salt Lake/ Provo area) be interested in coming. Send Justin an email for more info? And yes I realize the hands on the guy suck.

Suspect #3: Washed up Actress

2009-05-02T22:05:00.001-07:00

I have actually had this done for a long time, except for the hands. Then today I decided to finish them up. Maybe all thirteen by October might be more difficult than I estimated.

A Couple More

2009-04-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Response: These are done in Charcoal. I never use Conte because it is nigh permanent.

trying something a little different

2009-04-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Since life has been pretty busy with work, home and the likes, I have taken to doing more sketchy stuff. It is a nice break and I feel like I get something a lot more spontanious and natural than I normally would have.

My girls art directed this one and I drew it. They wanted a Pete's Dragon piece but with Pete as a fairy princess. The last one is of a bad prince chasing a princess. I added the axe, much to their dismay and was forced to append it in another illustration where a good prince is chasing after the bad one. I still hold to my guns that this is the better of the two.

Joe Olson Knock Off

2009-04-05T20:52:00.001-07:00

It would be a bold faced lie to say that I haven't been heavily influenced by sharing an office and carpool with the guy (and if you haven't noticed my past couple entries Sam Nielson too for that matter).

I Suck

2009-03-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Didn't make it in :(

A Viking and His Pet

2009-03-15T16:15:00.001-07:00

The Easter Bunny Is Coming for You

2009-03-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

One month away.

This is not what I submitted

2009-03-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

The Darkstalkers Tribute's deadline was last night and I contemplated submitting this one as well, but I decided not to. Instead I submitted another one that I guess I can't post because the rules say not to.

Slim Pickins

2009-02-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

I am actually working on a lot of stuff right now but nothing is really done and in a showable state. I am hoping to have the next murder suspect done this week.

LeprePrincess

2009-02-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Unabashed Advertisement

2009-02-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine does high quality prints on canvas for his business. We did one for my Snow White piece and it turned out great! I have a link down on my right side now. If you want to print off a digital piece of yours onto canvas go to his site and mention my blog and you can get 35% off of your first order. And no I don't get kick backs for this, I am just putting the good word out.

On another note here are two slightly more recent pieces that I like.

Avalanche Ketsup again

2009-02-02T08:41:00.001-08:00

Posters for the Kids

2009-01-25T08:09:00.001-08:00

Apollo

2009-01-17T20:49:00.001-08:00

Kinda new theme

Run In

2009-01-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

I was at the University of Utah's Saturday drawing session and another artist walked up to me and asked me if I was Adam Ford. It is pretty surreal when someone knows who I am. Especially when he recognized me from the piece I was doing. The one I was working on was pretty crappy. The one I am posting is not the one he saw. I actually really like the one I am posting. I am sure in a moment of desperation I will post all of my most recent crap.... Anywho, his name was Geoff Shupe and seemed like a bang up kinda guy. He asked me to post more drawings so here you go Geoff.

The Brilliant Dave Malan has a drawing of this model from the other side.

Hephaestus

2009-01-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

Spreading the Christmas Cheer

2008-12-26T16:45:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a good Christmas/Hannukkah/Kwanzaa and if I left some other holiday out, then you'll just be out of luck!

To extend the spirit of giving a little longer, I am going to give away this drawing. All you have to do is leave a good holiday memory here and on January 1st I will randomly select one of the commentors, and mail it to them free of charge. Merry Christmas and have a happy and safe New Years!

Yeah, About That....

2008-12-23T07:51:00.001-08:00

I have received several questions about when my figure drawing book is coming out and the answer is really...I don't know. There hasn't been any progress on it.
I have thought a lot about the best way to approach it. So far the biggest hurdle is photographing all of the drawings in some way that is high res and accurate. Secondly, I am really trying to minimize side projects. I tend to bury myself in them. I just finished up the most recent game with Spiritonin and I think it is going to be my last for a long long time. If I were to make a guess about when the book will come out I would hope for next November. These kind of things take a lot of discipline of which I have none.

Or Maybe It Was the Chef...

2008-12-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

Avalanche Dump

2008-12-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

I for unknown reasons haven't always posted my Avalanche blog posts here. But here is a catch up to all my posts. A large portion of them are sepia and I really have no explanation for that. Here they are are in all their glory and lameness.

Yoga Flame

2008-12-09T08:56:00.000-08:00

More figures

2008-11-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

Recent Commission

2008-11-22T15:01:00.000-08:00

I applied a lot of what I learned at a recent tutorial that Ryan Wood did at work to this piece.

Family Cookbook Illustration

2008-11-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

In celebration of...

2008-11-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

The most terrific illustrator Mikael Bourgouin had a birthday a couple months ago and his very talented girlfriend Lucie Mazel asked me to do a painting of Batman for him. I tried to think of all the ways that I could do a new take on the caped crusader and this was the final conclusion.

Figures

2008-11-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Golden Axe Complete

2008-10-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

Suspect#1 The Maid

2008-10-22T08:17:00.001-07:00

My Udon book came!!!

2008-10-13T08:28:00.001-07:00

I entered the Street Fighter Fanart book a while back and actually was priviledged to get in. This is the piece that got in. It didn't really turn out very well, but it doesn't look horrible in the book. Jusst incredibly flat compared to everyone else's awesome dynamic art. I did a sketch of how I wanted Zangief's head to look (the painting above). The actual finished piece has a much lamer head in my opinion. So this painting is an attempt to redeem myself and my suckiness.

Murder Mystery #1: The Victim

2008-10-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

I love Clue, and when I say that I mean, I love the movie with Tim Curry. My wife and I have it pretty much memorized from front to back.

I also like turn of the century themes. I enjoy going to Murder Mysteries with my wife and I have always wanted to do a series of paintings based on a Murder Mystery.

I was originally going to do all 13 suspects this month but life is getting really busy for me. I will try to get at least one suspect by the end of the month but it might just be a monthly thing and finish it all next Halloween.

Gràinne and Sidheag (It's October!!)

2008-10-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Gràinne and Sidheag, sister witches birthed by nine wolves under the blood moon of An Dàmhair. Gràinne famed for the slaying of the creature Baerach and Sidheag famed for her death at the hands of the twin kings.

Characters: Last Two

2008-09-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been out of town. Thanks for the comments everyone it really means a lot to me.

A word about my process: I used photo reference to get the pose right. Either me, my wife or the very talented artist and now turned model Nathan Lindsay posed for all of the characters in this series. I looked up the guns and other details about the characters on the web (and yes I know the syringes are wrong but I am too lazy to fixedy them). I sketch them all out on paper first. The sketches are usually just line work. Then I scan them in, paint and light them in Painter or Photoshop. All lighting is made up and thus not terribly accurate but who cares. Enjoys!!! I will probably post the reference sooner than later so you can get a kick out of it (the reference for the Burger King/Tube socks guy is me).

I want to be more open about my process, but it changes so often, I want to make sure I release it in ways that make sense. If you have any questions, or if this doesn't make sense I will try and help out. Thanks for your patience.

Characters 5-6 of 8

2008-09-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Characters 3-4 of 8

2008-09-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Alan Tew Is a Super Guy

2008-09-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Alan Tew is one of the best artist/designers around and a really humble and nice gent to boot. I have always wanted to paint one of his drawings and here is one.

Characters 1-2 of 8

2008-09-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

I like to comb hair

2008-09-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

I think if my kids ever saw me as a supervillain, I would look something like this.

(note: I don't looke like this, both of my hands are really the same size)

Golden Axe: 2 of 3

2008-08-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

Master of the Universe

2008-08-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

No Rest for the Wicked

2008-08-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty buried in work lately. So, here are some old backgrounds I did for Capoeira Fighter 3.

Public Service Announcement

2008-07-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

As vain as I am, I do an occasional google search for my name to see what comes up. I found, in my most recent adventure, a site that posted hi-res images of all of my blog work. I felt a little assaulted to be honest. After a scathing email, they took my stuff off, but I also found Sam Nielson's work and Ryan Wood art there too. If you have issues with other people making money off of your work without compensation to you, check mdolla.com and you just might be there.

As for Superman, my nephew likes Superman so here you go

New Series: Golden Axe 1/3

2008-07-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

Loved this game growing up. Click on the link for some awesome art Golden Axe.

Red Princess Dragon

2008-07-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

My daughter wanted one of these for her birthday. Looking at the internet for said topic didn't really yield anything age appropriate for a four year old so I painted this for her.

Avalanche Art Challenge

2008-07-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

This is Joe Olson's drawing.