Things have moved.

If you are still checking out this blog, you should stop, and check out my new blog...

Here

This blog probably won't be updated anymore, but I plan on keeping it around for archival purposes.

-Pat

Battle for the what now?!?

This past Tuesday my company released the game I've been working on for the past 6 month of life, "World Series of Poker : Battle for the Bracelets" on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PS2. It was a good feeling, although it probably would have been better had it not shared the same release date as THE BIGGEST VIDEO GAME LAUNCH OF THE LAST TWO YEARS! Man if I didn't enjoy Halo 3 so much I might actually be pissed off.



I am actually pretty proud of my work on this latest game, the design for the menus and the in game HUD was almost 100% my own, as opposed to last year's game which had a style that was forced on me. There haven't been any big reviews of the game yet, so I dont know how well it is doing out in the big, bad world of console consumers. Hopefully people like it.

I've put 16 new screenshots of the game up in the Game Design section, feel free to check them out and see what it is I do all day at work.

-Pat

Fun with Calendars

I've been playing around with these calendar designs, although I'm not entirely sure why. They probably won't be used for anything, really just an exercise in design and functionality. Maybe I'll find a use for them at some point. Since the blog isn't really good at displaying wide images, click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

-Pat

Me and the Man with the Hat

I've had these two illustrations floating around on the hard drive for awhile now, the first is the myspace/facebook all things social network avatar. The other is just a random late-night dude with a hat. Enjoy.

-Pat

Elven Queen

Believe it or not I actually have quite a bit of new art to post, so I am going to try and spread it all out over the next couple of days. Tonight's Illustration is one that I created for the portfolio that I was showing around Comic Con. Since I got a decent response from the last "step by step" piece that I posted, I decided to do it again. I'll see what I actually remember from each stage.

Step 1

Initial sketch. It's pretty quick and loose, but I like it enough that I decide to flesh it out.

Step 2

I mirrored the image to correct any obvious problems with the character (mostly in the face) and realize that I like it better that way, so it stays. I start throwing in basic color ideas and work in some background details. Somewhere along the lines I decide that the puffy shoulders of her dress are starting to look like heads of lettuce so they become sharper and flow backwards instead.

Step 3

I've added more detail to the dress and evidently decided the shoulders are now going to be more like armor. I am avoiding her hand because I have no idea what I want to do with it, aside from it being all "magical". Trying to keep the colors in the greens, silvers and blues as much as possible. I added a seam down the middle of her dress to add some more interest and give it dimensionality.

Step 4

More general cleanup. Somewhere in working on her face I made her older, and a little more stern. This is probably where she went from "Elf Princess" to "Elf Queen". I decided her hand is going to be fully engulfed in light, glowing with some sort of "power". I got rid of the weird bracelet/cuff thing she was wearing, replacing it with a shirt sleeve that worked better with the new hand design.

Step 5

It would seem that this is where I forgot to save more steps, so it's now finished. I decided to have pink leaves in the branches above her head to soften the image a bit and add in some more color. I finally address the rat's nest hair. I gave her a gold ring, perhaps to explain the "magic hand" and cleaned up the radiant light from the aforementioned "magic hand". Subtle background elements are introduced and the overall color gradient from top to bottom is smoothed out. The color is adjusted. Everything is made "pretty".

Well that's it for tonight, I hope it was educational, or atleast not boring. More tomorrow or the next night, depending on how late into the evening I work.

The good doctor and his husky friend.

Two quick entries tonight before I get back to work. I am desperately trying to get together the best possible Illustration portfolio that I can before I hit up Comic Con at the end of this month, so I have been spending alot of my free time in front of Photoshop working.

The first illustration is for a Jam over at The Drawing Board, entirely about either doctors, or anyone with the word 'doctor' in their name. There are some really amazing illustrations up there right now, although you'd have to be a member to see some of them. My submittion is Dr. Strange, a somewhat B list hero in the Marvel universe. I like the way it came out, Im really starting to dig the black and white style I've been playing around with.



The second illustration is just a random character design I decided to flesh out, no pun intended. Every so often I try and branch out and not draw the generic white guy superhero, and I realized that aside from random sketches and doodles, I don't think I've ever created a full illustration with a black guy in it. Until now....



On a non-self centered note I want to say congratulations to my sister, Catherine, who landed what could be concidered her dream job. Well, if not dream job, then atleast rediculously interesting and convienent all things considered... job. She is the new Box Office Manager and Donor Relations Associate for the Lansing Symphony, which is not only a mouthful, but also really impressive sounding. This is, of course, after she promised herself she was going to take a year off after college with no responsibilities, only to land an internship and then a managerial position in the next two months. Crazy overachiever, making me look bad over here.

Hopefully everyone had a good Independence Day wherever you happen to be living now. I spent mine in sunny Santa Barbara, and there are even pictures



if you are so inclined.

That's all for me, tune in next week for.....well who really knows what.

-Pat

Business Cards and Birthday Wishes

Hey folks,

I know things have been quiet around here, and I apologize for that. The last two months have been pretty hectic at work, culminating in a sleep deprived, crunch week from hell the last 7 days or so. Hopefully things should lighten up a little now, and I'll have more time to work on things for the site. I have been struggling for awhile now to get a new comic together, with a story and an art style that I can maintain with my limited free time. I think this site is at its best, and at its most popular, when there is a comic to get excited about and discuss. I know I've promised this before, and that I frequently start and stop ideas and projects, but there is a chance my ambition will win out.

As for tonight's update, I have a few items for you. The first two are a couple of images that I am going to be using for my new business cards. Coming at the end of July I am heading down to Comic Con International in San Diego with Tim, and I plan on showing my illustration portfolio to a number of people there. This is what I've come up with.




As for other things that fall into the "odds and ends" catagory, I have recently gotten in the habit of making myspace birthday illustrations for people. There have only been two so far, but I really liked how they both turned out, so I am going to share them with the rest of you. The first was for Tim, who's love of 24 and love of birthdays came together for his 24th Birthday in April. For those of you who didn't get to see it on his Myspace profile...



The second illustration was done for my friend Joann who still hasn't stopped bugging me about Grindhouse, so I worked up a Russ Meyers type film poster for her...



That's about all I have in me for tonight. Im planning on going hiking tomorrow, so if I have some cool new photos up on Flickr in the next couple of days, I'll let you all know.

-Pat

Changes part deux

Alright, time for a rundown on some of the new and improved aspects of Patguarino.com. I'll bet you're excited.

The Look

As you...might..have noticed, I've changed the look of the site slightly. The general idea is still there, I simply tweaked it a bit. The last design was up for over a year, which is an incredibly long time for me because usually I start hating a design the second it goes live, and end up changing it a few months later. So 12 months plus is a personal record over here.

The Gallery System

The new gallery setup is a javascript system called Lightbox. Sadly I did not create it, so I can not take credit for it. However, I am very please with the way it works with the site. I can now group images together, and I no longer have to create an individual web page for each gallery image. There is the added bonus of being able to click on the left or right side of the current image to go to the next image in that group. Plus it just looks damn cool.

The Front Page

News items are now linked to the area of the site they refer to, so if the front page says I've added 4 new images in the design gallery, simply click that text and it will take you to....the design gallery. Amazing I know.

You may have noticed that I belong to quite a few internet social sites, I can't help it, they are additicting. The list on the front page will take you to the majority of the sites, and feel free to join up and add me as friend on any of them.

Projects

I am still working on finishing up the 112 project, the other day I posted number 100, only 12 more to go. The problem has become that these illustrations are getting to the point where they take longer than a day to finish, kind of going against the original idea of the project in the first place. I am trying to get back to the point where I can start and finish one of these in just one day.

In an effort to become quicker I started a new project, the 20 Minute project. Each one of the illustrations posted in this section will be completed in 20 minutes or less. That may seem like a lot of time, but trust me it isn't. Having to complete the entire thing in 20 minutes pushes me to get the most important aspects of an image first, and doesn't allow me any time to over-work or over-think anything. I'm hoping this will end up being a pretty cool experiment.

I have a couple of other ideas I am kicking around at the moment, you'll just have to wait and see if I actually have the time to implement them. I hope so, because they look really cool in my head.

The Bulletin Board

First of all the Bulletin Board is now located at http://www.patguarino.com/phpBB3/
for those of you who have it bookmarked, or only go to that specific location instead of the home page. The new bulletin board has a number of interesting new features that I have been playing around with, and I am still in the middle of changing the overall look of it. If people have trouble with the new system, please let me know, I want to be as helpful as possible. If, when everyone takes a look at the new setup, there is a general concensus that the old version was better, I can always switch it back, but I'm hopeful that this new version will be to everyone's liking.

Well my lunch hour is over, I hope you enjoy the new site, I'll talk to you all later.

Pat

Changes

Woah! Things are different. I will do a full post tomorrow detailing all the new fun stuff but for the moment I need some sleep. Please let me know via email if anything doesn't work, if your browser get confused, whatever. I will talk to you all soon.

Pat

Hellboy Oh my!

I finally finished up this Hellboy Illustration I've been working on for awhile now. It is for a "Jam" over at the Drawing Board forums. For once I actually remembered to save a couple of different versions along the way, so for the possibly two of you who would be interested, here is a step by step of how it went down. From initial sketch to when I finally decided to give up and post it.

Other than that, things around here are pretty status quo. I'm sure I'll have more to say soon, and hopefully look for some big changes to the site in the next week or two.

Pat.

Thursday Evening Wrapup

Hello friends,

I dont know how many of you have noticed, but down on the right side of this page is a little animating dongle thing from Flickr. It is where I have been uploading my photos lately, as it is a lot easier and entertaining than posting photos in the bulletin board. I mention this because I have just now finished uploading several shots I took this weekend. You see, it happens that I have noticed several photos posted by friends of mine of winter, of snow, of animals in snow, of people in snow, really that whole winter wonderland thing that I completely missed out on this year. As such I have decided to do the only truly just thing and post pictures of my 70 degree day outing at several beaches in Southern California. Take that Midwest!



Aside from that I have some art that has been sitting on my desktop for awhile that I finally decided to upload. The first started off as a portrait of Shirley MacLaine circa 1960. After watching two excellent films of hers, "The Apartment" and "The Trouble With Harry" I decided to try a portrait. I don't think I really nailed the likeness, and it sort of became something else, but I still like the way the illustration turned out so I decided to post it anyway.



The second work I have is a self portrait that started as a sketch and evolved into, well, whatever the hell this is.



You've probably seen this if you are on Myspace or Facebook, meaning odds are this is new to no one, but still its a decent sized, not blurry version of it.

I guess that's it for now. Everyone have a nice Valentines *cough* not really a holiday *cough* Day. For those of you, like me, who have no one to spend it with, I have a modest suggestion. Halloween 2. Come on, it'll be amazing!

Goodnight all,

Pat

Morgan Bracy

A quick post tonight just to update with some new art. I get bombarded constantly on Myspace with friend requests from bands all over the country. As a general rule, they suck. However, one of the exceptions that prove the rule is Morgan Bracy. She's got some great stuff, a real bluesy guitar sound and some interesting songs. Plus she's cute too. I worked this up the other night when I couldn't sleep and I am actually very happy with the way it came out.



If you want to check out her myspace page you can find it here.

That is all for the moment. Enjoy your January's people, mine is currently being served at 65 degrees and sunny. Go Southern California.

Pat

Why this is a sketchblog.

When I originally started this blog it was to have a place for me to post rough sketches and unfinished work. This is why I named it Pat's Sketchblog. However I have a problem posting unfinished work. Its hard to look at, because I am constanly revising and changing things in my head. Still, I am going to try and post some random sketches every now and then. If nothing else, it finally gave me reason to unpack my scanner for the first time in 9 months. Enjoy.





Pat

On giving and receiving.

A few Christmas related items for your reading pleasure today.

First, my good friend Joann spent two or three days coming up with the ultimate Christmas Gift list for that hipster in your life. There are a ton of great suggestions on the list for artists, and kids, and fashonistas, and pets, and old people, and Popes. Check it out, especially if you are still on the fence about what to buy me. I am hoping for an Ice Cream Ball.

Linkage : http://joamox.com/blog/

Second, it is time for the Penny Arcade Child's Play charity again. The original goal of the charity was to show that gamers care about more than kill counts and gold farming. They have a list of almost 40 different childrens' hospitals in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia and each hospital has its own Amazon.com wishlist. There's no minimum or maximum purchase, you can buy just a single coloring book or 27 Playstation 3's. It's up to you, how much do you care about sick children? Last year's drive raised $605,000 for various hospitals, and this year the total is already at $495,000. Go help make this year the best yet. Ive made it a point to purchase atleast one thing every year and since this year they've added Children's Hospital of Michigan, it may end up being several things. Take a look and see what you can do.

Linkage : http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

Third. Me. It's all about me. For those of you who are interested I'll be coming home for Christmas on December 23rd, and sticking around until January 7th. That's right True Believer, two whole weeks with yours truly. Can you take the excitement? I thought not. Anyone looking to party should look me up, and then drive over to my house, and then drive me to said party, and then drive me home again. I will not have a car.

Pat

Christmas comes early...

One of the overlooked perks of working at a video game company is that most companies will give you a free copy of the games you've worked on when they are released. When you make a version for four different platforms....you guessed it, four free games.



Unfortunately I only have the ability to play the Playstation 2 version of the game. I guess this is my excuse to go out and purchase a PC, an Xbox 360, and a PSP. For alot of the guys at work this was their first release, so it's kind of a big deal. A couple of people were going around having the whole team sign their boxes. It's kind of silly, but if one of us ends up becoming the next Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto or Peter Molyneux that box could be worth upwards of $5 on ebay someday.

Here's hoping.

Good News and Girls in Space

So first, the good news. When I started at Left Field Productions it was on a "probationary period" which came with a "probationary pay scale". Three months after I started I was supposed to have a "review" on my progress and then if I stayed on, my pay was going to be bumped up. Three months came and went, and now, three months after that I finally had my review. And my pay bump. It would be improper to say exactly how much of a raise I got, but lets just say I had to change my Myspace account info from "Income: $30,000 to $45,000" to "Income $45,000 to $60,000". I am far from rolling in it, I am just slightly more comfortable, which is nice, I enjoy the comfort from time to time. Oh, and they think I am doing a good job and they like my work and blah. blah. blah. This raise is coming at an opportune time because come Christmas I want to try and take two weeks off and fly to Atlanta to see old school buddies and then to Detroit to be with friends and family in the cold, snowy wasteland that is Michigan. Im sure as hell not buying a Christmas palm tree.

As for the girl in space.



Pat