DayZ Avatars

Here's a cheerful bunch of DayZ avatars to brighten up your experience of the most enjoyably depressing game you've ever played.

Note: Most forums etc. should accept these, but in some cases you will still need to resize them.

DayZ: Animation to celebrate 1 million players

I have spent some spare evenings creating this short animation, which I finally posted on the same day that 'DayZ' reached 1 million unique players worldwide.
DayZ is a harsh zombie survival mod, built on a hardcore military simulator game called Arma 2 - which itself is the 2009 version of Bohemia Interactive's ongoing military simulation series I have been playing for over 10 years...would you believe it?

Yes, you would.

I found myself creating two different atmospheric styles simultaneously - the serious, but tongue-in-cheek night scene, and the childrens' book-style daytime scenes. I found them rather difficult to edit together, and keeping them at opposite ends of the video was the only way to do it!

The colourful daytime style is what I was intending to pursue if ever I produced more of these. The style is inspired by the old BBC series, 'Spider!' (In the Bath)...

The watercolour paintings were fun, and were mostly produced in about 5 minutes each. Splashy and quick.

GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN

...back of the van, get in the back of the van, get in the van. Back. Of. The. Van. 

(In the words of the Swede Mason remix...)

This spare-time project involves mud, multiplayer and minefields. 

More coming up later.

Kelly's Heroes Minimal Movie Poster

Drinking wine, eating cheese and catching some rays?
Not yet, anyway.
Well, I felt inspired by some of the minimalist movie poster art floating around the web and decided to have a go at a Kelly's Heroes art design. I like the idea of incorporating a few in-jokes from the film that you won't understand if you haven't seen it.

The thing is about Kelly's Heroes is that its internet presence is very small, and yet I've never been to a military event which isn't drenched in references to this one piece of media; ranging from the simple 'Kilroy' sketch and subtly placing a few 'gold' bullions on the back of a Sherman, to fully-fledged Donald Sutherland lookalikes and loudspeakers blaring with 'All for the Love of Sunshine.' Safe to say there is not enough crossover of internet culture with the world of military enthusiasts and tank collectors. Yet.


Okay, so you probably have no idea what's going on. To justify this poster design, the film features a hippy tank which fires paint rounds, is fitted with a loudspeaker, and hunts gold. And the slogan is one of the more popular ones to spray onto the side of your real-life Sherman tank. There.

Have a little faith, baby!

Background and Scenery Design

Here's some of the background and scenery designs I've been working on this year...

'20th Century Participation' - 1910


'20th Century Participation' - 1942

The Fall of the Wall - 1989
(The year I was born, actually...)

A screenshot from the first render of the 1989 Berlin Scene

Here are some of the wall sections, with graffin' painted digitally on top of an acrylic-painted texture of a concrete wall...

La-De-Da... Cos' it's a Lada? Get it? Yeah.

It's a cheesy, hippy-sort-of line, but apparently it was a popular one.

A lovely picture of some sort of peaceful bird (dove maybe?)
emerging from the barrel of a Soviet tank.
Bloody Commies.

The original textures, created in acrylic paint...

The original planned image was first produced as a sketch...

An incredible scene...

The Mongolians have swarmed the border!
(hmm, sounds a bit like a military code...)





A really, REALLY flowery and camp forest scene.
I would definately die of hayfever in there.

Concept art...

Here are some pieces of concept art from a production I am currently working on, entitled 'Attack of the Cones.' Note the flying cones and diving civilians.



Here's a very strange picture which served to visually explain my personality to my fellow students. I think perhaps it is still quite accurate.