If you have been to this site in the past you may have noticed a slight change to the layout. I have never liked the home page, It always looked too empty. I decided to move the gallery page contents to the front page. This should save visitors to the site a couple clicks when they are trying to access my content.

Hopefully this will streamline the review process of my work.

In other news I have begun tinkering with the newly released Unity3D 3.0 game engine. My father and I are planning on teaming up for a small father/son project using Unity. I’m looking forward to the collaboration. My old man has been a computer engineer for longer than I have been alive so the programming side of the project is in the bag.

The move to my new place in San Diego is finally done! I have my workspace all setup and an active internet connection!

The next step is to fire up UDK, MAX and Photoshop and get back to work! My current projects have been on the back burner for far too long.

I am currently semi homeless… or in a mid-move purgatory if you will. As I patiently wait for my new condo to be ready, I am living in a state of disconnection. I currently only have access to an out-of-date laptop and my iPhone, so creating digital art is on the back burner for at least another 10 days.

On the bright side this mini hiatus has given me a chance to refuel, and I am really looking forward to getting back on the ball and crunching polygons in the near future!

Things have been very busy for me as of late. The 2010 Game Developers Fair was a success, and I was offered an Art Test by a major studio for an Environment Artist position. If possible I will post the results of the test on this website in the future.

I have also been working on another portfolio piece. With the completion of the ‘Space Station Living Quarters’, I have set my sights on a medieval piece. I am creating a tavern scene based on concept art by Jarkko Naas, the same artist that created the concept art for my previous project.

Tomorrow is the 2010 Southern California Game Developers job fair. In preperation for this event I have updated the layout of the gallery section. The individual projects are now separated into individual sections.

In art related news, I have been burning the midnight oil on a new environment that I plan to show off at the job fair. I will be posting renders of the scene later today.

I just received a very helpful review on my portfolio from a person in a position to hire artists for a major game studio. I now feel that I have a road map to success in the near future.

I will be taking the comments and critiques I received and updating my portfolio a lot over the next few weeks. It feels really great to have a defined direction to take. Knowing what needs to be taken out, what there is not enough of, and what is already working is more helpful than I can express.

I am excited to report that there are a lot of things coming together for me right now!

Project: Death Race continues to come together. The newest version of UDK has included Scaleform, which has opened up a lot of UI and menu options for the project. The team is busy brainstorming new features to add to the project.

I have been talking with GoPlay Games about coming on board as an artist / designer for some upcoming FaceBook games and potentially a few Unity3D projects. The crew at GoPlay are really excited about the opportunities that are coming up. I pitched an idea to bring the VictoryPoint board game, Forlorn : Hope, to iPad & iPhone. For the pitch I created a few 3D assets. One of which, an Alien Xeno Warrior, can be currently seen in my gallery.

And finally in non-game design news I have started a blog called NerdNightmare.com It is a place for me to post about various topics that interest me.

-Johnny

Things have been very busy for me lately,  and that’s a good thing!

Work continues on Project: Death Race. New features in UDK are allowing us to push the project in new exciting directions. I’m looking forward to posting new content soon.

In bigger news, I have been picked to work for HazardousSoftware on their upcoming RTS title – Achron. I should be getting my first assignment later this week, I can’t wait! I was told that I will be allowed to post renders of my work here on my site, so look for updates on that soon as well.

And finally, I am collaborating on an iPad game project with my long long time friend Jheswin Montoya. It’s not ready to be announced, as we are still working on the design doc and ironing out the full scope of the game. But I am really amped about it and can’t wait to show off some screenshots.

-Johnny

The hurricane known as GDC Aftermath is over. I have been busy following leads, contacting studios, and working on Art Tests. I have also been busy working on Project: Death Race over at Digital-Mercs.com as well as some fine art related pieces.

I’m looking forward to the new work I will be posting to the site in the next few days.

I spent the better part of today adjusting the design of this website.

On Tuesday I was fortunate enough to attend a “GDC Prep Talk” hosted by Jim Rivers of Obsidian Entertainment. Although I am no longer a GDC noob, I am not a GDC veteran either. I discovered from the meeting that there are a number of things I am doing wrong. Luckily I still have time to make changes before the big conference.

One of the biggest changes concerned my website. Hence the updates. I plan to have a lot of new art posted to the gallery section in the next few days so please check the site for updates!