I Nomad. This my work.

Poster for a work event... Find the typo

2011-10-28T16:37:00.001-07:00

Jaime Lannister aka Kingslayer

2011-10-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

Reading the book Game of Thrones (haven't watched the series)

If you really think about it...

2011-08-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Kwan, oh Kwan, wtf art thou, Kwan

2011-08-24T11:26:00.000-07:00

Been awhile

2011-08-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

But who looks at this thing anyway?

Pope's bike

2011-06-13T18:07:00.001-07:00

Fishing

2011-06-09T13:31:00.001-07:00

Different

2011-06-08T23:33:00.001-07:00

Map room

2011-05-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

See? No red hair.

New tablet at work

2011-05-16T18:25:00.001-07:00

Did a quickie to christen it. Sort of like with a kitchen counter. Ahem.

Kittens... always needing help

2011-05-04T03:28:00.001-07:00

Need more oil for the lamp

2011-04-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

Why redheads?

2011-02-27T21:56:00.000-08:00

Well...

Hammertime!

2011-02-15T23:35:00.000-08:00

Stuff from Work part 2

2011-02-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

These are renders of a few of the tracks on the game I worked on, Joyride. My coworker Andrew Murphy did some amazingly cool tricks with Maya to get it to render what looked like a style of photography called Tilt Shift, where the focal length and camera lens values are muddled in such a way that everything looks miniature. The art and lighting style we used on the Joyride world and the craftsmanship of our modelers lend to this 'photography' style really nicely so it actually looks like we made a set of toys rather than a game.

Stuff I do at work

2011-02-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

A sample of stuff I did from the game Joyride and other related explorations that will never see the light of day. In no particular order, there's paintings that took anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours for the vast majority, a few that took a couple days and one or two that look longer than that. Then there's a couple things that have a 3D element in them thanks to the modelers, incorporated into a painting e.g. the blue car in the Grand Canyon-ish setting, or the female character standing on the snowy hill.

I'll put up on my next post some neat renders from the game that were rendered by my coworker Andrew in a pretty darn neat way.

Olaf

2011-01-16T23:15:00.001-08:00

A rough doodle from back in the summer

2010-11-08T12:52:00.001-08:00

For a friend. Might dip into it and finish it at some point.

On stage again

2010-11-06T11:51:00.001-07:00

Many firsts. My first personal painting since April. My first painting on my new iMac (which is rockin' all sweetness). First 'slow fast' painting, where instead of powering through stuff like I would on a concept doodle, I just sort of take my time and texture through the piece, but somehow get there almost as fast. I also feel like it's the first painting where, partly because of my Art Director-ing at work over the last year and something, while concepting at the same time, I found myself directing this painting while painting it: deliberately killing detail, adding texture, muting colour, recognizing what a choice I made did to the piece. I was more conscious of that this time around. It's also the first painting I actually felt I succeeded at, which is...interesting.

Based on 3 performers at a Flamenco bar I went to couple nights ago, did my best to capture their features as I remember them: the 78 yr old singer's loud raw emotion which really contrasted his stature, and apparently he has just one lung (Jose), the dancer's strong little hop which she did once during the evening and the little sweat she'd get on her face (Maria), and the guitarist's constant slapping his guitar with his right hand and how he'd stick his ear against the instrument while he played (Peter). There was another performer but, bit of the odd one out, so I left him out.

I pulled this face at work

2010-04-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

It was a bad idea. Well. It was one of those weeks. What the hell.

Shoulda put this up earlier

2010-04-06T21:08:00.001-07:00

Hunting party

2010-02-28T02:05:00.000-08:00

wip

2010-02-26T08:50:00.001-08:00

The lions were as surprised as we were

2010-02-24T23:34:00.000-08:00

Geisha Girl

2009-11-17T00:33:00.001-08:00

So this started with a drawing for a sculpt I want to make. The design's not finished, just in the doodle state, and I haven't started the sculpt. Then someone asked me to do an abstract ish painting with some asian feel.

So I've come to the comfortable conclusion that I'm as useful an abstract artist as tits are on a bull. But the painting kinda worked, for what it is

An experiment

2009-09-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

I actually did this one off head without looking at, well, myself. So technically this is what I THINK I look like, not accurately what I look like.

"I don't travel coach!"

2009-09-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

Bit of a lighting pass.

2009-09-02T02:37:00.001-07:00

It's night time. In a wood where foxes speak with women, women with trees, and trees confound men, a transaction is being made. It's night time, but she is day. And he, is already dead.

Pixie WIP

2009-08-31T03:50:00.000-07:00

Rude Awakening

2009-07-25T20:38:00.000-07:00

Monkey King conclusion

2009-07-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

Client vanished. So. Finished it anyway just for hoots.

8 horses

2009-07-08T00:04:00.001-07:00

Sigh. I once said, after fussing over a horse in a painting, that I officially hate horses. Then a customer requested a painting with 8 horses, one with a firey mane, and with flaming hoof hairs, kinda thing. With mountains in the bg. Sunset. If it wasn't a chinese painting, I'd say it's a you know what painting.

Ah well. Fun composition. This is a very quick rough. The horses actually behaved this time.

Joy Ride

2009-06-06T00:02:00.001-07:00

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-joy-ride/50578

Hey guys. This is the game I've been working on for the past several months. My role on it is art direction, though my title is Visual Designer. Reasons for this were several and my own, but basically that there's a lot of different assumptions of what an AD does and is, and I wanted some clear definitions. So we made a role - Visual Designer - which is like a Production Designer in movies. I set the style of the product, everything from the look of the lighting and environment designs to the look of vehicle metal and the smoke a car exudes, at the beginning of and throughout the project. I do this through concept paintings for almost all the stuff you see, 2D animatics for prototyping some of the effects, and even 3D animation if need be, and I make documents too where needed to make some sort of art guide for the team. I work with a genius art techy guy who works with the artists daily plus engineers to get the final rendered look to match the concept art.

With the support I have, it continues to be a great role and a great experience, and a lot of work.

The screenshots you see are a little outdated, I'll update this when more are put up.

Ambushed

2009-06-01T02:22:00.000-07:00

Think im done now.

Nice summer day.

2009-05-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

WIP

2009-05-26T03:42:00.001-07:00

Back to pastels

2009-05-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

My first pastel in a year. Rusty. I found a little trail off one of the main paths I like to cycle on. It's in the trees about a couple stories up above a small park. I was perched on a rock with my toes in the water. I included a greyscaled version because i thought the value study looks even better if the image is grey.

Bribe

2009-05-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

Quick painting to get out of saturated colours and the same old shit diff flies.

Finished this one

2009-04-13T21:27:00.001-07:00

Rough more

2009-04-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

roughed in a better story. I'll figure out what to do with it some other time.

Rough

2009-04-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

Fight.

2009-03-30T00:29:00.000-07:00

Another customer request thing
Added a detail shot.

mm

2009-03-29T03:12:00.001-07:00

Off Duty

2009-03-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

Redheads and steampunk and bikinis and smiles... These are a few of my faaaavorite things..

Gesture

2009-03-22T02:07:00.001-07:00

Probably favourite way to start a painting of a character. Slower than just blocking in broad color and light shapes but it's fun as all hell.

The background's a fractal I made way back when. I'll mess with the image for a few minutes and it gives me ideas. In this case it looked kinda like pale skin and swimming pool water on the sides. So I pick a full opaque brush and gesture loosely until I get a pose I want. I go over with black in a couple funky places and on the head. Then kick back and come back to the painting later when I know what the hell it's about. Which I dont know what it is yet, but I have a strange feeling she's gonna be a redhead.

Sigh.. Kryptonite.

I hate horses

2009-03-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

I now officially f*ing hate horses. The stupid bugger was the hardest thing to paint in this otherwise simple piece, and it still doesn't look quite bloody right.

The topic was the Monkey King, the Pig King, Sandy the people-eating dude from the ocean, the monk and his white horse, as they had banded on their pilgrimage, slaying demons and such enroute. This is a Chinese story. There's a temple in the bg that I still need to put in real quick.

The square dimensions were my constraint - I hate them almost as much as I hate the horse.

Eh. Could be worse.

The Dutch

2009-03-11T00:21:00.001-07:00

A rough for a client. About a couple hours. There's some major forced perspective (dragon sizes) but there were needed elements to fit. But look at that tilt! Even the Dutch would go "Dasht a shteep vunn."

Flamenco 2

2009-03-01T03:01:00.001-08:00

Quick night painting. Went to watch a couple of flamenco dancers last night. One of them was bigger, but she moved even more powerfully than the other. Pretty amazing. She had a very strong brow, at least a double chin, very 'handsome' face. So i tried to get close to that with this.

And I f*ked up on the lighting. But I don't wanna move the shadows on her body and the one on the wall - like em where they are, even though that's technically silly. Ahh well.

Wip.

2009-02-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

Some british show on tv. Sketch while watching.

Been a while

2009-02-01T16:21:00.001-08:00

It's both good and bad when work keeps you busy and painting and solving visual problems creatively. The time and mojo to whip up something at home drops like Kenyan Ice Skating Equipment Company stocks.

The girl I did to shake up my palette a little - gotten too comfortable with a certain palette recently. Started with a rotated image of an airliner cockpit. If you tilt your head to the left you'll see it. While I'm rambling, my two bits about "Sexy." Sexy's sexier if you just slide it in as a by the way, rather than hit someone's head with it hard repeatedly. Essentially the difference between the girl next door and the hooker next block. Lots of hookers in art. Which is fine, I suppose. Nothing wrong with a good ol' hook. Just my $.02 ;)

The one at the bottom was one of those asian type requests.

Wishing everyone luck with the economy.

Old work stuff

2008-11-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I decided I should put up some of the stuff I've done at my old job EA. NFS Undercover just came out (reviews: ouch) and here're some early concept sketches I did, the few that I remembered to copy out anyway. There were storyboards at nearly the same quality (but black and white) but I completely forgot to rescue those.

Same project, different job. The last model I did before I left the company was the top and pants for this cop.

She got cut, she was from Pro Street, and I had to make her body better. Remodeled the clothing and body.

And this is Ian Poulter from Tiger Woods PGS Tour 2007. My first professional character model. There's a lot of golf clubs too but I'm not gonna put those up.

School Girl

2008-11-17T00:05:00.000-08:00

This just might be the first D-cup I've ever painted.

Another WIP

2008-11-15T03:33:00.001-08:00

This took pretty long to do. It's essentially the climax of 3 entirely different sketches and 4 or 5 different heads. Hehe. REALLY didn't know what I wanted.

And I still don't. It most definitely is not (yet) the cat's ass.

Done

2008-11-01T23:50:00.001-07:00

For all my personal work I paint off-head without any ref as a way to jog memories of stuff I've seen many times before and figure out how it works structurally and visually. Unless it's something I really am not familiar with. Like rare Albanian Marmosets and antiquated Bavarian Temporomental Combustulators. I like this because the painting becomes more problem solving than just doodling, though you get some things slightly wrong and other things take a little longer to figure out. The drapery, for example, which I've seen many times before but haven't drawn in any serious capacity in ages, really kicked my ass on this one. Like, really. We'll just say it's made of rare Albanian Marmoset fur cold pressed in antiquated Bavarian Temporomental Combustulators, which obviously explains its burlapy satin feel.

WIP

2008-10-04T23:43:00.001-07:00

Yea. Wip. Don't know what I want with it yet. The detailed pattern happens to be the city of Yemen. With a few things I did to it. :P

Steamgirl

2008-08-24T20:33:00.001-07:00

Sometimes work kicks your ass a little when you're trying to find an elusive narrow lane between one art feel and another, and the commercial painting doesn't challenge you in a terribly exciting way... and you need to take a rainy afternoon and do something really fun...

Ink doodles

2008-07-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Some scans from stuff I've doodled on the bus or at the beach. Ink.

Quicklist of Work

2008-07-23T02:35:00.000-07:00

http://gallery.me.com/pgikandi#gallery

Been trying to figure out how to easily update a website which allows users to easily see all the stuff I have, and looks like one way I might go is using MobileMe. Since I have a mac now, I decided to give it a shot. Let me know what you think. Similar to Picasa I guess, but soon I'll give making a website using iWeb a shot, to get similar results as this gallery, with hopefully not much work at all.

Another doodle

2008-07-22T09:47:00.001-07:00

Ink Doodle

2008-07-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

I've gotta get off my arse and scan some of these doodles; I do them on the bus or at the beach or between cycling and they're just sitting around in my sketchbooks.

Iterations

2008-07-14T01:51:00.000-07:00

Whats interesting with these is since they're going to get oil painted, I tend to not have to finish them evenly across the board. Im lazy. I know. But I'm also busy so. bah.

The fox and the lyre

2008-07-06T00:13:00.000-07:00

Wabadizu

2008-07-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

It was just a word, and it made me laugh. And a few min later came this.

Another request

2008-07-01T00:56:00.001-07:00

The colours I'm not sure of - I'm now on a mac but I paint on a peripheral dell 24 inch monitor, which has great colour, but this is the first painting on my new mac laptop. And, i painted it, for whatever confounded reason, on CMYK. I gotta check it out on my work pc and see what it looks like. Prolly like shit. Anyway. it's another customer-requested type thing. And I know, it's the composition from hell.

Tharr be dragons

2008-06-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

Little different

2008-05-18T02:28:00.001-07:00

Traveling monk

2008-04-30T00:46:00.000-07:00

Mm

2008-04-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Haven't had the time (i have a life nowadays) to do something of my own that's not serious.

Another asian one

2008-04-16T03:26:00.001-07:00

One of the more specific requests. General Kwan leading his army, red faced, chinese dragon in the sky with five claws per limb.

Star 2 tweak

2008-04-15T21:14:00.001-07:00

Something was nagging me about her, and i finally put my finger on it. Think she embodies my vision of a night star a little more now. Yay!

Star # 2

2008-04-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to painting out the second "star" - a night star. The first would be a day star. The plan is to print em on canvas, paint over them with gloss medium, then hang em up together like so. I started this one by using Ultra Fractal to make a few good fractals (like the 3 at the bottom) which formed the base for my background. Then I brought them into Photoshop and did a little creative blending, then I started painting over them. Which is kinda cool because with the fractals, a good chunk of this image therefore was made using math, not art. It's a cross disciplinary piece. :P or whatever.

'Nother one

2008-03-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

What's cool about these is they have have nothing to do with gaming, concept art, whatever. :) And I think they're good exercises in versatility while keeping my own feel to the piece. Sometimes it works ok. I kinda like this one. This is one of those paintings that started as something entirely different, and at the rough stage was changed because of a client change of mind that wasn't clarified properly till I sent a rough out for feedback. The abandoned rough I'll use for a more hindu-esque painting. Requirement was a woman in a Japanese traditional-style painting, of these dimensions, and with some kind of yellow sun somewhere in there. Client hasn't seen it yet. I'm still wondering if I should have painted her smaller so the whole body was in the frame, but I kept thinking I had nothing I wanted to say with her feet and her head and bust would look really insignificant at that scale.

The Final set

2008-03-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sans simian

Another asian piece

2008-03-18T22:58:00.001-07:00

Some of these I'm just all "Man. Paint bamboo... not exciting at all." And I've gotta find a way to make it interesting and fun for myself. Sometimes to the detriment of the client. :) Wonder if they'll like the monkey. Prolly not. Amen for layers.

Another asian piece

2008-02-24T03:58:00.000-08:00

For a client. This one was a specific request that there be two dragons with a fireball in the middle, one dragon with purple and the other with blue or green. These are commission based and are about to be displayed at a galleria of some sort, see if they get any buyers. Fingers crossed.

I really could not be arsed to paint scales.

A Star

2008-02-12T03:08:00.001-08:00

One of two pieces that I'll put on my wall this one above and to the left, the second one below and to the right, each character looking at each other... with a just hint of rivalry between them. tch.. Celestial girls.

Geisha rework and another of these

2008-02-05T00:40:00.001-08:00

Bunch of random shit

2008-01-29T18:14:00.000-08:00

Meditations

2008-01-23T18:00:00.001-08:00

Here follow my meditations. I call them this because there really isn’t a point to any of them at all, not like concept work or whatever. .. or whatever whatever. But they’re the closest thing to sitting quietly and meditating to me. I’m never in a rush when I do these, and I just start with a feeling/character/thought/moment in life/spark/something of the sort in my mind, or wherever it really is, and I take my time in trying to stick that thing onto the paper using a pen, and it just so happens the easiest form for it to reside in, is a face of some sort. The result is usually, hopefully, a drawing with something I can’t quite put my finger on, but with something else nonetheless.

Except the cats. These are paparazzi cat sketches

And this is something else entirely

well..... yea.

2007-11-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

Bathroom Humor

2007-11-22T13:26:00.000-08:00

Trance at work

2007-11-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

Child Empress

2007-11-20T01:58:00.002-08:00

Nay

2007-11-19T00:30:00.001-08:00

Lava Bot

2007-11-16T12:16:00.001-08:00

Dum dee dum

2007-11-15T17:43:00.001-08:00

The one that got me in trouble

2007-11-13T17:48:00.001-08:00

Vancouver cops have been in 6 vehicle accidents this year, sometimes while answering emergency calls.... Which is ironic, which my brain finds, well, funny. Someone on my team didn't get the Spaceballs reference here :P

Vampire hunter Geisha

2007-10-31T15:39:00.001-07:00

Monkey King

2007-10-30T00:31:00.000-07:00

Another one burned from an image, then a little painting on it

Dragon WIP

2007-10-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

Trying out something new. I start with a photo I took, in this case a close up of a leaf, and then except for a few dark brushstrokes in the beginning, the whole painting's made by burning and dodging. Fun speedpainting start, but I need to paint over it and crisp it up

Another dragon

2007-10-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

This one’s very loosely based on a Chinese dragon. Really all it has is the mane, tentacle-like hair and snake-like body, and ‘strangeness’ that eastern dragons have.

Chinese dragon

2007-10-10T19:16:00.001-07:00

Little while back I thought it would be neat to see a Chinese dragon in the flesh so to speak. So I did one. He's very long but he's curled up like a kitty

Page 8

2007-10-09T01:23:00.001-07:00

A piece of a children's book to illustrate however you want to. What i got was "She bought palm trees so Crictor would really feel at home. As dogs do when they are happy, he wagged his tail." All I know is Crictor is a snake.

Risky doodle

2007-09-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

There used to be a Vietnamese restaurant here called Pho Bich Nga, which sounds like pho bitch nigga. Don't get mad at me, it wasn't my restaurant.

More of those friday cartoons I send out to the team when I bring cookies to work

2007-09-26T17:31:00.001-07:00

Just before my team moved from the Burnaby studio (EAC) to the downtown one (EAX) and there were mixed feelings about it. About the move, I mean.

Just announcing I brought cookies

Faerie

2007-09-18T11:36:00.001-07:00

Halfway thru putting food on the page on Sat nite, I started to see a girl’s turned head, bust, arms and hair (it helps if you’re high. But I wasn’t). Then I contrived the rest. Then she was dry by last nite, so I doodled her this morning.
I stumbled upon a fairly potent paper glue by trying to darken soy sauce (most of the dark yellow ochre stuff) with instant coffee powder (to make the cooler darker hair). It’s sticky enough to hold the heavier spices you see around her hair (see detail below).

And she smells lovely.

D-tail

"Kill and Ride!"

2007-09-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

Trying to understand a few new things, including being more careful with color, since work concept is leaning more that way. Otherwise it's a scene from the book I'm reading, heavily inspired by Anthony's work.

Aileron Dan Ailell

2007-09-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

A character from a book I'm reading. The Fionavar Tapestry. After a life of wrongful exile he took his throne when his father died, at the brink of grave war. He's always simply clad, no ornaments, in brown - a warrior king. Seldom ever smiles, and finds it difficult to say thank you, or to speak with women. But he is good at everything, and very, very, good with a sword. There's an unnatural winter over the land and wolves have been gathering in the Priestess's province; he's leading a company wolf hunting on horseback.

It's an awesome book - y'all should check it out.

Doodles

2007-09-11T15:47:00.001-07:00

I got a tiny little sample of home-made pigment from soil that this guy at EA is making in a long project he started. Strange texture to draw over.

I was sitting on a small empty beach behind my place during a sunset yesterday and this redhead came down, and undressed to her bikini, and took a swim.

Entertainers

2007-08-26T06:03:00.000-07:00

"Loosely" inspired by a gay club I just came from a few hours ago