Kwame Babb - ProjectAkimba

Metroidvania

2010-09-29T22:11:00.003-04:00

This was completed for an art challenge with the folks at work. The challenge was a fan art crossover and I chose two of my favorite video game series, Metroid and Castlevania. I was even more compelled to complete this one after playing and loathing Metroid: Other M, but that's certainly another story.

Kwame Babb - ProjectAkimba

2010-08-16T10:32:00.002-04:00

A couple of Fridays ago I found myself drained enough to take a break from "work" work and did a quick painting. I only worked about an hour or so on it...again, being drained, I decided to leave it as is. So not only do I see some cool ideas forming here, I also see how tired I was.

San Diego Comic-Con 2010

2010-08-10T19:22:00.005-04:00

It's been a couple of weeks since the con ended, but I'm still in a bit of shock after experiencing not only my first con, but one as great as SDCC was. Not only did I get to meet some of my favorite people, but the wonder that is the show floor really is where I spent most of my time. It was pure sensation overload at all times and I loved every second of it. Random celebrity sightings, extravagant cosplayers, exclusive video game demos, and LOADS of toys for sale.. Yeah, it pretty much was pure nerd bliss.

A few top moments were meeting Cassandra Peterson (Elvira!), Olivia De Berardinis (one of my favorite pin-up painters), getting to play some early versions of yet-to-be-released games (Tera Online, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Little Big Planet 2), and listening to talks given by great game designers and artists for upcoming games.

I avoided most, if not all movie/tv oriented panels to go to any videogame chats I could. I sat in to listen to David Jaffe and the Twisted Metal team, which because of some tech difficulties, ended up being part design meeting!! Sweet! ArenaNet's panel talked about their upcoming MMO, Guild Wars 2. This chat mainly touched on some of the transitions for the world of Kryta from GW1 to GW2, some of their new design and gameplay goals, as well as new artistic endeavors.

I HIGHLY recommend everyone to go at least once, it's worth every penny! Anyway, check out the pics and cya next post!

SDCC picture gallery!

New post, oooold artwork!

2010-07-05T10:08:00.002-04:00

I've been looking for this work for quite a while.. Turns out it was lost in the depths of my backup hard drive along with some other stuff that I'd worked on years ago. Anyway, this was a mini-contest I did with some 3d folks on www.3dtotal.com. It was a challenge to create a character basemesh along with 3 armor sets; each that could be interpreted as upgrades to the previous.

I went with an Persian/Egyptian theme to my character and armor and based on looking at my reference images, found inspiration and information from Final Fantasy XI's intricate armor designs, Prince of Persia's theme and cultural influence, some concept art from Age of Conan, and WoW's character creation because of their low polycount. We also had a geometry limit of 4500 tri's which I was just under. I used diffuse, spec, and alpha maps (where necessary) for this, all textures 512x512. Modeled in sweet, sweet 3ds Max (8 I believe), and textured using Adobe Photoshop.

Here are the final shots, along with the concept art, texture thumbnails, and wireframes with tri-count.

Frost Thane

2010-05-03T21:24:00.007-04:00

I did some logo work for some friends of mine in Ft. Collins that have a kickass metal band going. They're gaining some momentum and their Myspace page is up and running (and beautiful I might add)

Check out the logo, the site, and most importantly the music!

Frost Thane!!

October update

2009-10-06T23:11:00.003-04:00

It's been a busy couple of months at work and it's really halted my creative drive when I leave the office. Don't get me wrong here, in a way, this is good since my body is forcing my brain to chill when I get home and not try to pump out some art. But I've got some small projects that are looming that I will have to ramp up for again soon.

Lately I've been doing a bit of everything at work. Modeling, uv unwraps, texture creation, concept work, design work, even doing some sprite art research. While it's been loads of fun to get to flex all of those different muscles, it's got me a bit drained at the moment. Then again, I guess that's what happens near the end of a project cycle.

My next endeavors will be completing the small projects on the horizon, and tackling the biggest (and most fun) creative project for the month! Planning Linda's Bday/Halloween party!! The flyers/invitations are all done and now I'm just amassing decorations as well as taking notes on any game/decoration/tasty concoction ideas I get as the days roll on... Can't wait for the weekend of Halloween, it's gonna be a blast... Hopefully I get everything done!

Another painting, complete!

2009-07-26T00:09:00.003-04:00

This was another birthday gift for a good friend of mine!

Spirit Dance

2009-05-29T01:24:00.005-04:00

Here's the finished painting!! It's been done for a bit, but I couldn't post as it was a bit of a surprise gift for Kit. She's got her print now so here it is! I'm happy to have a complete piece done, now just gotta keep it going!

New inspiration from my friends in Denver!!

2009-04-22T17:31:00.007-04:00

During my trip to Denver I got to see what my best friend was getting in to out there (HOLA KIT!!). Tribaltique!! I only got to see two performances but they were beautiful, mystical, and downright entertaining performances that I can't wait to see another of. Tribaltique is a dance movement that was created by her ridiculously talented teacher and roommate, Julia DiVerdi, and another extremely talented dancer and really cool (and catty ;)woman named Molly McClellan. Together they teach classes and perform around the Denver/Ft. Collins area of Colorado. Did I mention they were fun as hell to hang out with too?? Can't wait to get back to Denver!

Those talented ladies plus the drive to hang some of my own art on my walls has me working on a new painting.. I've only got this week left to finish it, so I'll update the progress as it happens.

Back from vacation in Denver

2009-04-17T01:17:00.003-04:00

Yo yo... I went to Denver again to visit one of my oldest and best friends for the second time. Had an absolute blast out there. There's a certain aura about Denver and the surrounding cities that really has a fantastic vibe that I just may not be used to feeling, but it's stuck with me and isn't going away anytime soon. More on this later, I've gotta go to sleep and attempt to wake up motivated tomorrow.

New artwork - Verushka the Valentine's Day Assassin

2009-03-03T07:47:00.002-05:00

Just posting another piece I did for Challenge #2 of the Schell Games Art blog.

Pirate paintin

2009-01-25T22:04:00.003-05:00

We have a new art blog at work and the 1st challenge was for us to make ourselves pirates.. Here's my entry. I like rum.

Sketch one for '09

2009-01-02T00:05:00.001-05:00

Just a quick job I did to prove to myself that I can still paint.

2008-12-08T00:57:00.002-05:00

It's been quite a November month for the fam and I.. We took our trip to Disney to fulfill Scheherazade's Make A Wish wish and MAN was it fun. We stayed at the prestigious Give Kids The World Village in Kissimmee which is only available for kids whose wish was to go to Disney. Needless to say, an EXTREMELY special place. They do a fantastic job of making it truly magical for kids, and their families to stay and play there. Not to mention... THEY HAVE AN ICE CREAM PALACE!!! FREE ICE CREAM, AT YOUR COMMAND!!!

As far as parks go, we visited Magic Kingdom (for the classicness and Scheherazade fun times), Hollywood studios (Hell yeah Midway Mania, 140 minute queue's bitches.. GO SCHELL GAMES!), Epcot (because it's clearly the best Disney park...well for Linda and I that is), and went to Sea World before we had to go (that was a bit of a snoozer, but the dolphins were cool)

Brilliance, pure brilliance.. Here's a slideshow of some of the action. And a million thanks for making Scheherazade's wish come true! She had a blast!

Skaa-Di

2008-11-12T20:40:00.003-05:00

I've started working again on a project that I started a couple of months ago that has been sitting in it's folder waiting to be finished. I created a character named Skaa-Di who is an ice sorceress of sorts. Sounds like something that's been done frequently and done well, so I decided to put a spin on her. She's become corrupted by her own power and the ice has began to consume her to the point where she's practically living ice. Her skin has turned an icy blue and ice began to form within her as she used her power. Eventually, these magically infused icicles started to rip out from within, jutting out of her head and arms. Sure it's painful, but it really gave her form a very unique shape and it only proved to enhance her story and character.

I worked through many stages of her development in the digital painting as you can see from the picture. The steps read chronologically from left to right in both the 2d painting (top) and the 3d model work (bottom). The low-poly model needs some tweaking still and the sculp I've been working on in Mudbox. It's about 90% complete also so progress will be up soon.. I can't wait to start painting her texture.

Some new Metroid goodness

2008-10-22T22:13:00.006-04:00

I discovered a video months ago of a new Metroid game called Metroid: Confrontation. It's now getting close to complete and has a playable tech demo and looks pretty awesome. Their team is working to complete the level design of many of the areas in the game, but alot of the rest of the game is complete. Either way, mad props to Doctor M64 and his team!! This thing features some great spritework and fantastic musical remixes, while stille embodying the greatness of the Metroid games.

Check out a trailer vid above, and DoctorM64's blog here. Follow the links on his site to download the demo. ENJOY! I will be!

Stargate Worlds

2008-10-07T22:49:00.000-04:00

Not only are the Stargate series (both SG1 and Atlantis) some of my favorite television, but the game is set to go into closed beta this month!! I'm excited for this game for multiple reasons, the easy one being that I'm a MASSIVE fan of the show, lore, and characters. But the second is that Cheyenne Mountain (who's developing the game) is really working hard to incorporate the things from the show that REALLY make the characters, experiences, encounters, and tribulations really interesting, and still focused on making a robust, exciting, and beautiful gaming experience. To think instead of walking up and shooting... PARDON ME clotheslining (that's really Teal'c's best move ;) an enemy, I can just pull a Daniel Jackson and subdue the enemy with an endless barrage of stream-of-conciousness babble, while somehow scoring the lady in the meantime....(The writers and many a fan had obvious nerd love for DJ. I am, and will forever stay a fan of Dr. Frasier...what a woman!)

This game could really bring the Stargate experience to a place where people could actually create their own experiences within a game world that's close to Stargate, what's not to like about that, right? Click on the artwork to check out the website.

Watcher

2008-09-30T21:52:00.003-04:00

Apparently I'm in the midst of a sci-fi mood. I started this as a small logo for a forum avatar and that's what I used it for. But I decided to work a bit more on it tonight since it was in such hi resolution and was just sitting on my hard drive.

So the 1st image is pretty much what the logo consisted of (minus some text), and the bottom is what I added to it tonight.. Just wanted to breath some life into the character and ended up calling him 'Watcher' for lack of a better name.

I just really liked the way that his eye really felt like it was lookin at ya, no matter where you looked.Initially this was SUPPOSED to be a self-portrait, but it quickly spun into a cool sci-fi character... Maybe that's just my artistic subconscious expressing where it wishes I was...Whew, how's that for abstract for ya.

The Death of Ann Hibbins

2008-09-30T02:43:00.000-04:00

This is a quick painting I did after doing some reading about the times before and during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Being from Boston (Lynn, Ma, which is literally about 6 minutes from Salem), I read about and visited many of the places where these events took place as a child and been able to experience how history forged the culture of the city today. I have an unshakable love for that place that stuck with me way past my departure from New England.

ANYWAY, this story was just one that hit me hard enough for me to paint something to get the emotion out. It's another photoshop piece as lately I don't have the paper (or patience) to start a chalk pastel piece. Black and white just seemed appropriate...

I won't discuss the entire event, but Mrs. Hibbins was one of five people killed for being labeled as a Witch BEFORE what came to be known as the Salem Witch Trials.

Salem is now a place of much importance celebration for witches these days, coming from around the world to go to the place of these atrocities to remember those who have passed. Not to mention a beautiful, diverse, scenic city. Funny how things come around, huh? Man I miss that place.

Ahh....it's fall and Halloween's almost here. Thank the gods!

Oh how I love Wipeout!

2008-09-29T22:34:00.001-04:00

Wipeout HD has finally come out for PS3 and it's as brilliant as I'd hoped. I've been playing the Wipeout! series since the first one came out in 1995 and they still stand as one of my favorite games of all time. The synergy between the beautiful sci-fi environments , pulse-pounding drum n' bass beats, and SUPER fast speed get me goin everytime I turn it on. Not to mention this version has online play and custom soundtracks, so now I can flex my racing muscles online against the elite while listening to my own music. BRILLIANT!

A couple of months ago I entered into a l0w-poly art contest at 3dtotal.com and was inspired by the vehicles in Wipeout HD . For some reason, I started to think about how cool the Star Wars speeders were and chose to mix things up a bit.

Low-polygon modeling is always a challenge, but I was happy with the results and I really had fun putting all sorts of scratches, dings, and burn marks on this guy. I was limited to 450 tris and using 512 x 512 textures (diffuse, specular, and alpha only)

The top 2 pics are shots of WipeoutHD, bottom two are presentation pieces of my speeder. Ok, I'm off to play more Wipeout!

Welcome!

2008-09-28T22:11:00.001-04:00

Just getting my blog site up so I can post some artwork. Stay tuned!