One small section of jungle platform.

Here is an example of a section of platform painted in grey scale for Shank 2. We had to tackle the levels in sections because Photoshop might not enjoy a 57000x2000pixel canvas. Parallaxing layers starting with dark leaf silhouettes out in front of the platform layer were later added along with background trees and distant hills  to create the illusion of depth and movement as Shank moved around the screen.

Shank 2 - Walkthrough of the Docks Level and Jungle Level

(99% of the BGs in these levels are painted by me.)
Spoiler Warning! These video contains game play footage.

Concept Art From the video game Shank 2

Here is the art for the campaign docks level and below it the multiplayer farm level. I just threw a gradient map on these. The BGs in the game are rendered in full colour. Click on these to see more detail.
Shank 2 is a 2D side-scrolling brawler coming out on Feb 7th on XBOX Live, PSP3 and PC.
Find out more Shank 2

    

Book Illustration. Concept Art to Line Art the Process

 Main character concepts.

 Village huts.

 Main character sculpts in Sculpey. I've been told to try Super Sculpey as it's suppose to be way better, hence the name...

I start an illustration with rough composition thumbnails(not posted) to establish the major shapes. These sketches become more and more focused till I feel confident enough to start the final illustration. In this case I worked traditionally with loads of tracing paper. I started by using red Prismacolor pencil. (You can see remanence of this in the scans) Then I traced over top with a mechanical pencil. The little "X" marks help me line up the different scans in Photoshop.

I may not like my first line work with one of the characters. So instead of erasing I simply remove that piece of tracing paper and replace it with a fresh one. Hence all the separate pieces.

 Here are most of the characters scanned in and cleaned up.

Then I add in the BG, and some extra foreground elements.

BG to a second illustration.

More Animism BGs

If you want to see even more of these backgrounds click here.

Video of The Albertans in concert.

Had fun filming these guys live at a couple of their shows. Definitely check out their other songs. thealbertans.com

Portrait of Michel Gondry the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Found some time this weekend to do a little Photoshop painting. Reminds me that I need to re-watch Eternal Sunshine.

Catching Frogs on a Sunday Afternoon(click the image to go to my Vimeo account for best quality)

My brother, my nephew and a couple of my friends went out frog catching to see what specimens we could identify. I brought my Canon 7D along to practice shooting and to test out a couple of lenses I picked up for ten dollars at Value Village. (Konica Hexanon AR 50mm F1.7 and Zenit Helios 58mm F2 mounted with a modified body cap.) After this test, I feel pretty happy with not having spent a couple thousand dollars on new lenses. See for yourself.

A Portrait of the Strange and Wonderful Author Neil Gaiman

Sick at home today, so I figured I'd muck-around in Photoshop.
Been Reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere...feeling inspired.
It looks a lot better big so click.
Oh and if Neil happens to be reading this, I would be more than okay with doing art for you... haha!

Said The Whale Visit Bowen Island!

Said The Whale Visit Bowen Island! from Adrien Deggan on Vimeo.

Kai Wiese (grade 8) approached the lead singer of the band, Ben Worcester, as he walked out of work. Kai asked him for a moment of his time and presented him with a poster covered with IPS student signatures and Royal Seed photos. He invited the band, on behalf of his classmates, to come to Bowen to help them raise money for their Ghanian pen pals (through our grassroots non profit Bowen Shares)

Who would have imagined they would accept - especially after their recent Juno award.

But Said the Whale said YES.

Here is the short film segment I put together!

New Job!

Just started working for Klei Entertainment doing backgrounds! Super stoked about it!

Mote Guilliard!!! The advent of flight.... Play it full screen so you can read all the text!

(A camera, friends and nothing better to do was all. Oh... and a giant paper plane!)
Devin, Sam and I made this in the course of two days just for laughs.

Kitchen Stop-Motion Set

Most of the props are either made from wood, Bristol board or Sculpty.

This is one of my earlier sets the walls are simply Bristol board.

All the walls are removable to allow for easy camera access.

New Characters

The Crop Father



House Mouse

Rush Hour...

Neighboring Wizard!

Erudite Dog
Trying out a new technique/style. Lots of lasso tool.
These are better large...so click!

Stop Motion Animation Set for the short film called The Prisoner

 
The Prisoner (Trailer) from Adrien Deggan on Vimeo.


All the walls are removable to allow easy access for the camera. I built them out of thin plywood, shaped foam, stones from the beach and lots of plaster and paint. For the detail in the foam I used a hot iron to carve it out. That was a lot of fun however I would suggest doing this outdoors. The fumes are really unpleasant.

The door I made out of rough cedar and the hings out of hammered out nails. The rust is authentic. I simply added some acid to accelerate the process.

Detail of the prisoner's bed made from a piece of burlap and dried grasses. You can see on the edge the iron grating I used for the ground. This enabled me to place earth magnets (really strong magnets) underneath the set to anchor the puppet's feet in place.

Detail of the graffiti on the cell wall.

Three Giant Paper Airplanes and a Sapphire.

(The preparations rage on for the Behind Sapphire music video.)

The Recipe... (Thanks to my brother Tristan for the pictures)
#1 Cardboard from the recycling depot and from Opus.

#2 Paper the edges to hide the corrugation.

#3 Three coats of wall paint. (Surreptitiously stolen from dad's stash.)

#4 A living room full of giant stuff drying.

#5 Let your little brother test out your creations. Of course as Tristan was running around the yard with a giant paper plane the neighbors came out to ask when we were testing it from the roof.

More to come...

Here are the two videos produced using these props. Check them out: