Tyler Andersen

Repeating Texture Pattern Tiles

2009-09-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

In my first year at ACAD we had to render out dozens of tiny squares of different textures with a pencil. I found it to be one of the most useful exercises of the entire year. So now, four years later I wanted to do something similar with Photoshop. Some were quick and others took a while, some went quite well and others failed utterly. As an added challenge I wanted the squares to line up so the pattern could be tiled and repeat seamlessly, as I have noticed something similar in various video games. I developed my own technique to do this in Photoshop.

These are ten of the most successful attempts.

2009-09-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

Some of the rough drawings.

Goons

2009-04-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

This started out with the image on the left, I was drawing some guy I saw at the gym who must have been 500 lbs it was just ridiculous. Then when I got home I started putting armor on him.

I wanted it to be interesting of course, but still look like the worst armor ever. I wanted it to look uncomfortable because the entire thing is crafted from splintered wood and blocks of cast iron. Also, it's completely impractical, as the arms and legs are protected but the torso and head remain completely exposed.

2009-04-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Rough sketches.

Molina and Maurice

2009-03-28T14:22:00.003-07:00

Finally done! My intentions for this project were to do two character and weapon designs and document all the stages of the development process. I decided to re-imagine the Molina and Maurice characters from my old animation project so I had some concrete personalities to build upon. I did some cropping of the more detailed areas because I think they're quite good on their own.

Molina is rude, ill-tempered, and believes violence is the fastest way to get results. She was once the matriarch of a large syndicate of bandits and assassins that she joined as a child. But a fatal miscalculation during a particularly ambitious heist caused many of her fellow syndicate members to be killed or taken prisoner. The remaining members exiled her from the group. With the law and countless bounty hunters after her, Maurice is the only one she can trust.

Maurice is generally friendly and helpful, although clumsy and awkward most of the time. He wants nothing more than to be liked by the people he respects. He is the son of a Barbarian warlord king. Although he is massive compared to a normal human, he is relatively small compared to the rest of his kind. His race is genetically designed for combat, however he does not care for fighting, which is why he left home to join Molina after she was removed from the Syndicate (although that decision ultimately lead to more fighting).

When the story begins Molina and Maurice become aquatinted after being drafted by a small group of bounty hunters who's job is to hunt the Syndicate Matriarch. At this point in the story nobody is aware that Molina is in fact the matriarch, but she takes advantage of the situation to take on other jobs to earn money and re-establish her reputation. She quickly becomes friends with Maurice after their first mission as their talents and personalities work together in perfect synergy.

There's a brief synopsis of the characters and the story, I haven't developed it much further than that and I'm not sure I will. I'm moving on to something new for now...

2009-03-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

I decided to revisit and develop the idea of machine-swords and apply it to this Molina and Maurice project. I'm really fond of this idea, and I needed to let it evolve.

I decided to rationalize it by saying the characters in this world are making technological discoveries faster than they can find any practical application for them beyond creating a tool of death. Rather than using a steam engine as a form of transportation, a miniaturized version is used to power two hydraulic swords that thrust outward, clamp shut, and tear open, leaving the wielders enemies completely obliterated. Or perhaps a V6 engine fitted on a large scimitar propelling a razor sharp circular saw blade, complete with suspension, standard transmission and of course fuzzy dice for aesthetics.

2009-03-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

Pencil drawings for final rendering.

2009-03-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Final character design turnaround images for Molina and Maurice.

2009-03-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

Development process for the Molina character redesign. Body types, costume concepts, hairstyles and color studies.

2009-03-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

Development process for the Maurice character redesign. Body types, costume concepts, hairstyles and color studies.

2009-03-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

I was sketching some old photos of Lou Ferrigno and Jay Cutler and I thought I'd throw them up here. I even neatly arranged them on a snazzy textured background!

Even my little brother drew a picture of the almighty Lou "The Hulk" Ferrigno.

Bioware - Environment Design

2009-03-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

These are the final images for the environment design portion of the school project working with Bioware.

Continuing with the underwater-samurai-fishy-humanoid theme I wanted to do a Great Wall of China type thing for the first image. There are two parallel walls built on an underwater volcanic ridge, channeling searing hot water upwards to the surface. This prevents anything from swimming over it without being incinerated.

Edit: I completely reworked the composition for this image from what I had in the roughs. I wanted to make the wall appear taller, and the overall composition more dramatic.

The other image is the interior view of an old ruined temple. The architecture in this world uses old bones from sea creatures and chunks of stone and coral, and I wanted to use this image as a way to show that in greater detail.

2009-03-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Rough sketches from the early development stages of the environment design portion of the Bioware school project.

Bioware - Character Design

2009-03-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

In my fourth year at ACAD some of us had the unique opportunity to work with some concept artists from Bioware, some of which are recent ACAD graduates. These are the final images for the character design portion of the project.

I wanted to do an underwater theme because I hadn't attempted anything like that before and I wanted to challenge myself (aka frustrate the hell out of myself). I wanted the characters to have a sort of samurai armor type look to them with all their accessories made of coral and crustacean parts covering their soft fishy bodies. Overall I'm relatively happy with the way they turned out, considering this is the first time I took a render-the-hell-out-of-it approach to finishing the images. And during the critique with Bioware i received nothing but positive feedback.

2009-03-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

Rough sketches from the early development stages of the character design project working with Bioware.

Molina Animation

2009-03-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

I took an animation class in fourth year. I didn't know much about animation going into the course, but it was totally awesome. We were exposed to so many fascinating motion concepts and computer programs like Toon Boom Digital Pro. And learning how to break down how people and things move is extremely beneficial to me as an artist and has changed the way I go about my drawing.

This was one of our earliest projects. We had to design a character and then animate them in a run or walk cycle. It was the first time I have ever attempted traditional animation and I was literally working on it right up until the second we had to turn it in for a critique and grading, so forgive me if it looks amateurish.

Edit: The actual video is too massive to upload, and I'm too impatient to wait. But the image above has all the drawings for each frame and one frame from the final video

Mechanical Swords

2009-03-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

The objective of this project was to create ten characters, but I decided to do some weapons. I was experimenting with different moving mechanical parts, diesel and V6 engines, and even wood burning stoves and steam engines. I'm not very happy with the final images, even though I really like the concept of a mechanical sword. Although it's totally impractical it would definitely be visually awesome in a video game or something with all the moving parts animated.

Children's Book Stuff

2009-03-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

This was a school project for a hypothetical children's book. I chose to do a sort of rock and roll version of the pied piper. A couple of hardcore rockers take on the role of the piper and they have to convert all the scene kids and emo losers with the power of rock.

We started with character concepts, then did a two page spread illustration and finally a book cover jacket.

The Skillful Huntsman and the Three Giants

2009-03-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

Random School Projects

2009-03-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

2009-03-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah... so... took a little more than a week, huh. I totally forgot I had a blog! I'm going to do a massive update with school projects and some personal projects, then hopefully I'll remain motivated enough to continually make updates.

2008-04-18T14:18:00.001-07:00

I will be posting my work here until I can get a real website going, I apologize if updates are slow to start as I still have a lot of other projects going on right now.

I will be posting my ACAD Graduating portfolio images within a week once everything is complete.