My History With Shadow Puppets Part 2

From 1996 to 1998, after seeing a Kandinsky exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), I became completely obsessed with doing fine art.

At the time, I was supervising special effects for Warner Bros Feature Animation which was a pretty demanding job - but still, I managed to create 75 fine art pieces in that two-year period which were displayed in several gallery shows.

The pieces were mostly abstract in nature and were done in a wide spectrum of mediums: acrylic paintings, wood sculptures, collage and ink and mixed-media. They ranged from large to small and complex to simple. All the pieces are very silhouette oriented and several of them use black to strongly define the shapes.

Doing fine art was a way to relax and express myself without commercial constraint, but more than that, it allowed me to build and elaborate my own visual language and iconography which would later show up in all my further work: special effects, book illustrations, comics, etc. A lot of the ideas I came up with during this phase of my art are being transposed and developed in our game, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.

I rarely have time to do fine art these days but every once in a while, I'll create a piece for a gallery show and as usual, the silhouette aspect is always present. You can view a sample of some of my fine art work at this link.

My History With Shadow Puppets Part 1

Although my art has many facets, I've always enjoyed the art of silhouette. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I see the world in 2D, having lost an eye at the age of twelve. My world has been 2D for many years.

But then again, in 1974 at the age of nine, three years before I lost my right eye, I designed this logo for my mother's store. The store has been sold and resold several times, but the logo still stands.

Looking at it today, it bears a strange resemblance to some of the design work in ITSP.

Interview @ The Reticule

Here's our latest and probably last interview for a while. Click here to read.

Interview @ Platform Nation

Click here to read.

Wallpaper and Trailer HD Masters

Our exclusive deal with Gametrailers.com has reached its term so we are free to make the trailer available to anyone who wants it. We've created a series of 6 HD masters with different type of compression as well as a lossless version.

We've also had several request for wallpaper images. That's why we are releasing 31 hi-res images (1920 x 1080) to the public.

You get get the goodies at this link.

Interview @ Core Gamers

Click to read interview

Here's our little alien.

Here's the design of the little alien scientist we finally settled upon. You can see him in action (briefly) in the trailer at 0:44 - 0:45.

We've built this little guy in 3D and are using Maya for the animation. However, our goal is to make the final animation look completely hand drawn. Our test footage so far is very promising.

Update

We've got a lot brewing right now. We had a big breakthrough in our technology this week which opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. My brain is buzzing with design ideas and I look forward to create visuals that will help implement this new technology.

Next week, I'll be visiting my family in Quebec while Fuelcell is relocating to a spiffy new facility. I can't wait to see the new studio when I get back.

If you are a member of the press who has contacted us and we haven't responded, you might want to send us a reminder in a couple of weeks. Joe has been answering a huge amount of emails but some of them are bound to slip under the radar.

In earlier posts, I've shown some of my failed attempts at designing our main alien character. Here are two more designs that didn't make the cut.

A Big Thank You

The reaction to the trailer was very positive. The release did exactly what we were hoping it would do: get the attention of publishers.

We'd like to thank everyone in the media who posted about our trailer and helped spread the word. You can read some of the coverage we received through the links below:

Kotaku, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Destructoid, el33tonline, Notcot, Giant Bomb, Awesome Radical Gaming, Killer Wolverine's News Blog, Solomother, onelargeprawn, Gamer Limit, Spons, Gamer Sushi, Geekstrike, Info Addict, Elotrolado, TIGSource, En Direct de mon Ecran, 1Up, Aroba 8 Ball, Indie Games, Mike DiLuigi, N4G, Fidgit, Offworld, Alexoid, CJP, MediaWhoreNetwork, VG247, Gaygamer, 4 Color rebellion, We Game, AATG, Vox Ex Machina, Neoteo, Joystiq, XBox Mag, Game Almighty, The Awesomer, Boing Boing, The Android Workshop, Team Liquid, 360 Only, Nations of Videogames, Ecrans, Button Masher, The Bayle, Epic Battle Axe, PC Dome, Current Gaming, Frederator, Info Addict, Headphonaught's Nanolog, VideoJuego, Aeromental, Gamegea, CG Hub, Niubie, Sarcastic Gamer, UnderPC, Universe Bot, The Weird Pixel, 4 Player Podcast, Video Games Blogger, Game Blog, Beef Jack, Crush! Frag! Destroy!, Oddlight, Valhalla, Reign in Blog, Gamers Throne, La Pause du Gamer, Unreality Magazine, What They Play and Cartoon Brew.

This past week, we've been asked a lot of questions concerning platforms, release date, software, wall paper, etc. We'll be tackling all these issues in future posts so make sure you stay tuned.

New HD Trailer on GameTrailers.com

Watch the new trailer for Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet on Gametrailers.com:
HD Version - Standard Version.

Here's a little history of our project so far:

In 2007, Joe Olson and I discussed the idea of collaborating on a video game project. We imagined a side-scroller that would combine old school arcade style game play with feature film quality design and animation. Thus was born Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.


Soon after, Joe, a team of industry veterans, and I formed a partnership to begin development. A few months later, on August 27, 2007, we released our first trailer on-line. Yes, it's been a while, but by no means have we been standing still. Since starting the project, we developed the story arc and interstitials; we created environments, creatures, and mind-bending effects animation; we’ve blocked out levels, came up with new, exciting and challenging game designs; we resolved technical issues and made several technological breakthroughs.

We are excited to share some of the progress in this new trailer, which consists entirely of in-game footage. It conveys the scope, style, and breadth of the experience we aim to bring to the player.

The trailer also features the track “Blood Hunger Doctrine” from the album Death Cult Armageddon by Dimmu Borgir, used here with gracious permission by the band and its record label, Nuclear Blast.

We are hoping that the release of this trailer will bring forth potential financial partners who share our passion for Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet and who can help us bring this title to the marketplace.

We strongly believe that Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is going to be a hit, and the few who have glimpsed the progress unanimously agree. Twenty minutes of footage from the game were shown recently to attendees at the Industry Giants symposium in Austin, Texas, and the audience responded with great enthusiasm. You can read some of their comments here.

The 8-Bit Legacy

When Joe originally approached me to partner up for a video game venture, my first response was to state my ignorance in the field. I told him that despite having been commissioned by both Disney and Sony to create designs for two video game projects that never saw the light of the day, my knowledge of the field was extremely limited. In fact, beside a short stint playing the original DOOM, my game playing days go back to the 8-bit era for which I have very fond memories.

I suggested to Joe that we could take the stylistic approach of an old-school 8-bit side-scroller, but instead of crude graphics, we could make it look like a feature quality classically animated film. Joe loved the idea and a few days later, we were at work building on the concept.

The two stylized art pieces (Space Invaders and Pacman) posted here are not from our game. They are two ink/pencil drawings I did for an 8-Bit tribute art show that took place in Los Angeles a few years ago. I thought they were relevant to the subject of this post and would be a fun addition to the blog.

Nailing the Concept

One of the challenges of developing Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is transferring Michel's unique style to the interactive environment. Our goal is to give the player an experience of being the central figure in an animated film drawn by Michel Gagne. While we generally use Michel's concepts to set the visual bar and to provide mood and composition, in this case the end result is extremely close to the initial vision.

Below I've posted 2 images. One is an in-game screenshot I captured recently, the other one is from Michel's original concepts. Enjoy!