Another showing of amazing participation from the art staff for this theme, I’m still blown away… a 9 part theme, with first posts from Gene and Bimbo Soup! And Pyxlwyz got a Forza 3 Painting post up since I was last online for the GI Joe theme, he’s our Special Effects artist extraordinaire.  There is only one artist is left to post, and 2010 is his year!

It’s been a while since I’ve been online here, and I wish that I could say that I’ve been spending every waking moment on my theme project for S. M. Cartoons, but with the holidays and Modern Warfare 2 (a lot of Modern Warfare 2,) things kind of got in the ways of my progress. I still got enough done to share with you guys, so here it goes.

I wanted to pick a bit of a different theme, my favorites would have been He-man or Thundercats, but since both of those already had some people working on them, I thought I would go with something different.

I went with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (Which I don’t even think started out on Saturdays since I remember watching them after school, but oh well.) I wanted to do something a little different so I went with more of a realistic take on the turtle design, I hope you guys like it.
I started with a group of thumbnails one night while Rice and Eggs and I were here working. I had him pick the one he liked the most and I polished it up into a drawing.

From there, I just started working in black & white and layering in some light and shadow, and here is where I ended up.

Saturday Morning Cartoons is done, and I just wanted to say that this was an awesome effort from the art department. Such a great end to 2009!

But looking ahead, our next theme is:

MONSTERS!

Look forward to some posts on MONSTERS sometime in February.
 
 
I also wanted to address some of the previous comments from Art Bot Central:
giacomo: Every month that goes by giacomo, is a month closer to us announcing some news about what we’re working on… I can at least say that much (which isn’t much… I know, sorry.)

Grand Poobah: One of the big reasons we have these blogs is to talk to you guys and show our appreciation for your continued support. It’s great seeing so many familiar names on here as well as hearing what you guys have to say about stuff (which I’m sure will be a lot more when we have more stuff to talk about : )
As for the theme, we will at least be doing an Age of Mythology inspired theme sometime next year, there is a lot of support from that theme with the artists. And I’m sure one of these days, Ancient Empires will bubble up to the top of the list of themes.
spango: AoE is a Microsoft Games Intellectual Property, therefore we have no control over whether they continue to grow the franchise or not.

Sean: You guys have spoken about wanting to see more blogs, and since the G.I Joe post on ABC(Art Bot Central), we’ve had a couple additional blogs pop up as well as some posts from some new people to the Robot Blog.
As for the ROBOT swag, we don’t have any of that stuff available at this time.

Graver: We love the idea of having a big active web community at Robot, and we’re looking forward to the challenge of keeping up when we have more fans, cause we’ll have MORE FANS! Who wouldn’t want that? : )

Aedryan, JohnnyPhoenix, Dswal: We appreciate you stopping by. We thank you, and everyone else, for stopping by and giving support and comments to the artists that post on the site.

mYTH_2k4: Thanks for your comments on the Baroness image, it was a lot of fun to create. The idea of this blog was something we thought of in the beginning of the company’s arrival, but the participation, content, and excitement from the artists has blown me away. All of the artists who have posted, has done the work in their free time, and has made sacrifices of some sort to do so. We couldn’t be happier that you the fans continue to come back to see what’s been going on.
As for the fan sites, they look really well done. It seems as though you know firsthand about making the time to post about things that you’re passionate about.

Misterdot: Everyone at the studio really appreciate you guys participating in our blog posts, and thanks for the well wishes on what we’re working on.

Darkbelg: An oil platform from 2 point perspective for a theme… I ran it by the artists and it looks like you’re on your own to finish up that homework of yours : ) Sorry, but I hope you got a good grade on it.

Dave Campbell: Thanks for the comments about Skeletor, I think Gene did a great job on that one… and it was his first post!
As for suggestions for the blog, fire away. We would love to hear your thoughts.

Sean: Thanks for all the comments about various pieces in the Saturday Morning Cartoon theme. We have a variety of different topics and go with the ones that will get the most participation and excitement from the art staff, and everyone here has a soft spot in their heart for Saturday morning cartoons!
There have been more posts on other blogs from a variety of people since the G.I. Joe theme, and more are planned over the next couple of months. Right now, almost half of the company has already participated on the Robot blogs!

Mr. Gee: Thanks for your comments, and the next theme is Monsters!

james1984: Thanks for your comments james. We really appreciate your consistent attendance on the site.

Kartoffel, Donovan H., neilboso, Yoshi: Thanks for stopping by, and checking out the latest theme.

james1984, Kartoffel, misterdot: As for the message and banner on the front page, with the robot popping out of the present, that was the artwork that we did for our Company Holiday card. And any announcement is more than a couple days out. : )

james1984, Sean: I hope once there is an announcement, you are all very happy as well.

Thanks again for stopping by everyone. I hope you all enjoy the holidays, and we’ll talk more in 2010!

-kube-

I’m blown away by the participation from the artists for the G.I. Joe theme this last month. The artists really, really stepped up for that one. We got multiple artists participating for the first time on the blog, and Paul did 2 posts! That’s crazy! I had every intention to just post a past illustration I did a couple months back when the movie was coming out in the summer. Now it seems weak, but I still will. 

But I was so inspired by all of the participation that I had to step up to the plate. Additionally, I guess I am also inspired by girls in tight leather outfits, since I did another Baroness image… but whatever drives you to get something done : ) I started out with a quick big brushed silhouette in Photoshop to get the form. I then used that as a base to draw a sketch. You can see the sketch here.

After that, I cleaned up the shapes and blocked out all of the colors and then started layering in the paint. It’s a pretty long process for me since I don’t get to paint to often, but I really wanted to post something new. It was over the last week or two, I worked on painting during lunch hours and after work. Here is the final.

This was a great theme, and a great range of stuff to see from the variety of artists. I work with such a great group of talented and inspiring guys, and I’m really glad that they stepped up and we were able to share this stuff with you guys that come by the site.

But now G.I. Joe is done, it’s time to look ahead. We have talked about our next theme project and it’s the last theme for 2009!

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

We will start posting the beginning of December, and wrap it up before the holidays.

I also wanted to address some of the comments from the theme:

Misterdot: We cannot give any specifics about a game getting announced, but when we are ready to talk about it, you will find out about it on Robotentertainment.com, I promise.

Starwind: Well said : )

Spango: I may have missed all of your comments. We do not own the properties of Age of Empires or Age of Mythology, it would be odd for us to host a competition for that since it’s a Microsoft property. I can add it to our list of internal themes to choose from.

Giacomo: Thanks for the comments, and I will add “The Gladiator” to our list of theme to choose from, thanks for the idea.

Grand Poobah: As for creating games more focused on the hardcore PC market. I don’t know what to tell you except that we’re creating stuff that we’re really, really excited about.

As for the comments of us possibly being owned by Microsoft, we are all free people and Robot Entertainment is not owned by Microsoft or anyone else for that matter.

Giacomo: Chris is sworn to silence about anything that we’re working on, and will not tell you even though you said that you like his artwork : ) In all seriousness, I feel bad guys, I see a lot of familiar names on here, and that just goes to show how excited you guys are about hearing about what Robot Entertainment is up to, and that really inspires us, and keeps us going. Hang in there, there will be information coming.

Grand Poobah: That’s some awesome music, it’s near and dear to a lot of our hearts here at Robot. Not to mention, it still holds up amazingly… even after 11 years.

Dswal: Thanks for the well wishes. About a newsletter, that is something that we will definitely do when there is more information being had on a regular basis. Until then, the blogs and RSS feed are the way to get the up to the minute info at Robot Entertainment.

Rigormortus: I get your excitement about the Age franchise, I really do. I’m a huge fan of the game myself. AoE was my addiction, I played daily all the way through Rise of Rome, it was only to be replaced by Age 2 and actually working at Ensemble Studios. But Microsoft owns the Age of Empires series, and decides everything about that franchise, including any announcement about its future.

Grand Poobah: ‘the artists are its lifeblood’. I dig that. Thanks for the nice comments. We will add Ancient Empires to the list of themes.

Sean: We’ve added Transformers and Civil War to the list of themes.

James1984: ha ha, you don’t even dance around the requests to see something about the next project any longer : ) I can honestly tell you guys that we don’t mean to frustrate you guys with the lack of that information about our projects.  It’s great seeing you guys frequent the site, and talking about your passion in games and specifically in our case on Art Bot Central, the artwork.

Misterdot: It’s still months away before we’ll have more information on our projects.

It was great catching up with you guys again, I’ll talk to you again in a couple of weeks.
-kube-

Congrats to all of my co-workers for a great job on our 1st Art-Bot Central theme 'Clash of the Titans'. There was really some amazing stuff that everyone put together, and such a wide variety of techniques and software being used. Brad’s post was the conclusion to the theme, and I wanted to thank everyone for stopping by and checking it out. I also wanted to take this time to respond to the most consistent question that was left in the comments section.

Unfortunately, we can’t talk about or hint at what our next game is, and I’m really sorry about that. We look forward to when the announcement does happen so we can talk more about our day to day work, and not just what we’re doing in our free time.

While wrapping up the 'Clash of the Titans' theme, we also put together a list of suggestions for our new theme. The decision amongst the artists must have been inspired by THE blockbuster movie of the summer, which is soon to be nominated for 100’s of Oscars, I’m sure of it… G.I. Joe. : ) Our date to start posting stuff for that theme is in about a month, so we’ll be back on Friday the 25th of September (if not before with some other artist introduction posts). So now you guys know what to look forward to and ‘knowing is half the battle’. (I couldn’t help it).

-kube-

Soon after the first post on Art-Bot Central, the art department thought it would be a good idea to have some themes to help focus some content so we could post on a more regular basis. Bart Tiongson (who did the previous post on A.B.C.), came up with the idea for our 'Clash of the Titans' theme. Coming up with these challenges is nothing new for Bart since he helps out as a forum moderator at CGHub where they have a regular Drawing Jam thread with a wide variety of different subject matters.

So with the theme picked out, now we just had to figure out how to present it. I will start off with my submission, and we will have others pop up over the next 2 weeks.

At the end of the 2 weeks, we will also let people know what our next theme will be… and btw since we’re on here, if you have any ideas, please feel free leave a comment with the suggestion to let us know (we will merge the ideas that are suggested on the forum with thoughts that the artists have). We will randomly pick a theme, and then let everyone know what the subject matter is on A.B.C on August 24th. We will look to start posting content for that theme at the end of September or beginning of October. So leave some suggestions and help us out.

Enough of the stuff happening over the next couple weeks, here is what’s been going on with 'Clash of the Titans' (at least how it pertains to me).

As soon as the topic came up, I knew I wanted to have a little bit of a different take on it style wise. A lot of what I have done in my artwork is a bit more realistic, but I really enjoy, in addition to being heavily inspired by more stylized and cartoony work. I knew whatever I was going to do was going to be in 3d, since it’s been a while since I’ve pushed some polys around. I also knew that I wanted to keep the project goal attainable, so I figured modeling a bust would be a good idea. The last thing I had to figure out was what I was going to do to actually fit within the theme of 'Clash of the Titans' : ) Seems really backwards, but to make a long story short, I chose Perseus.

Here is a progress shot at a couple of different stages of the model through completion. (Click on the thumbnail to see all ten steps :)

I worked on it entirely in 3dsmax. I would usually work an hour here and there over the course of a couple of weeks. I had a couple days where I work 2-4 hours at once which was a big help to getting it to its final state. Which is this…

There is more to come from another artist on Monday, August 10th. So stay tuned.

Until next time,

-kube-

Welcome to the Art – Bot Central blog. With the first post, I wanted to introduce myself as well as the other artists at Robot Entertainment. As time goes on, content on this page will showcase artwork from someone on the art staff, which will include images from different subject matters, or genres, as well as created in different kinds of software. There will be little in the form of organization or an overall theme (we are artists, what do you expect); instead, the blog will act as a hub to showcase the various works and ramblings from the artists here at Robot. The artist group at Robot is made up of myself and 13 other amazing artists. We have all had the chance to work together at a previous company (at least one company, some artists go back up to 14 years together), which has only added to the effectiveness and consistency of the group.

(Click the image for a larger version)

From left to right.

Bryan Hehmann - Environment Artist, Nathan Stefan - Concept Artist, Gene Kohler (bottom) - Character Artist, Dion Hopkins - Visual Effects Artist, David Kubalak- Art Director, Charles Tinney (bottom) - Animator, Rob Walden - Hard Surface Modeler, Juan Martinez Technical Artist and Animator, Brad Crow (bottom) - Art Director, Paul Slusser - Environment Artist, Duane Santos - Hard Surface Modeler, Won Choi (bottom) - Concept Artist, Chris Moffitt - Character Artist, and Bart Tiongson - Concept Artist.

So a little about myself; my name is David Kubalak and ever since I can remember, I have always enjoyed creating art. I went on to school for Graphic Design at the Pittsburgh Technical Institute and soon realized that Graphic Design wasn’t really for me. I was lucky enough to find a job right out of school with-in the game industry and in over 14 years, I have never looked back. I originally did 2d artwork and animations, which eventually evolved into 3d modeling and texturing, which then got replaced by spreadsheets and schedules. But I can’t complain because I get to work with 13 incredibly talented and incredibly inspiring artists. I still enjoy doing art when I can find the time, and will post (somewhat infrequently) on the CGHub forums, as well as my personal blog at http://www.davidkubalak.blogspot.com/.

I always enjoyed when artists introduce themselves, and they show their work areas. I think it says so much more about the artist and their personality. Here are a couple pictures from my office at home.

My available time to work on artwork doesn’t come as often as I would like, but when it does, I try to make the most of it. I have strived to make my home office as creative and inspiring as possible since it’s where I get to do all of my work these days. I’ve collected some original artwork from artists that I have admired over the years and I have had an addiction to collecting ‘art of’ books for what seems like forever now. I still remember getting the first Spectrum book some 15 years ago. It was the first time I saw so much inspiring work from different artists in one place. Now looking at how much artwork is out on various forums and gallery sites, it’s incredible how much the visibility of individual artists has evolved in a short period of time. I’ve crammed as many pictures and books as I could in such a small space, as well as some statues and some souvenirs from my hometown back in Pittsburgh. No artists’ workspace would be complete without some Wacom technology these days. I recently got a cintiq for home, and love it. I think my daughter loves using it just as much as I do, she thinks it’s one of the best inventions ever, and I can’t disagree with her. It makes everything so much easier. Now if I can only get my artwork to look as good as hers. :)

In the future of this blog, I plan on putting my workspace to some good use. The artists and I will try and post a wide variety of things as time goes on. We may have some more introductions, pick themes, speed paints/ modeling, or even some group projects. So stay tuned to this blog to see some art as well as commentary on a variety of subjects from the group.

Until next time,

-kube-