I'm not dead...Promise!

I know updates have been sparse BUT the good news is, I've been working on LOADS of projects. Both for work, ReRave and others. I can't get around to posting samples of every single one but I'll throw a few up here until I can get an official post ready.

Album art for a new single on Golden Needle Records. I had actually won a contest and now I do some of their artwork for their new releases.

 

All of these are for ReRave (I actually have a few more but for some reason can' find my masters and it's frustrating me!) Yes, that is my friend's pug on the "Extra Medium" cover :)

I also had the task creating new pricing signs for work. When I first signed onto the project, I didn't realize that I would just be placing elements onto a Photoshop file and our owners would be designing it. This made the process extremely frustrating and almost made me quit. I do realize that the client has opinions and ideas too but you asked me to design it, not throw it together for you. They were completely not understandnig of the design process and I'm actually really thankful that my classes taught me what they did because it all came in hand throughout the entire process. Either way, the project got finished and printed. I still am not a huge fan of the design and colors but it's what they wanted so I went ahead and did it for them.

 

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So that's about it for now. I'll try and keep updating this as best as I can but with summer, work and all of the above, it's hard to keep up.

More Exciting Stuff!

More of my work has just been released into the ReRave song store! It really is a rush when you finally get to see the final product in action.

And The Projects Continue...

My pledge to post everyday has completely flopped however, I'm still keeping busy! Here is a bit of what I've been messing around with as of late.

 Songpack icons for ReRave

 

A preview of my final project for Digital File Prep

 Little guys made out of just folded paper and tape..I lacked glue Ha.

 Continuing work on the Pump it Up Pro+ Project. This including video editing as well as audio editing in addition to creating the step sequences for each level and song. (This video is a little muddled as it was taken at the location it's currently being tested at for player reactions and opinions)

ReRave is out NOW!

After a tiny delay from Apple's approval process (And a tiny delay in me posting this), ReRave is finally available in the iTunes App Store! The game is $1.99 and it comes with 3 songs to start with. From there, you are able to purchase and download free and premium songpacks of about 5 songs each.

ReRave is also featured as one of the App Store's "New and Noteworthy" games and has consistently been in the Top 10 of the music game charts in the store as well! (It topped Rock Band Reloaded HD, Quite a feat!). If you guys haven't checked it out, I would definitely recommend it and I'm not just saying that because I did some work with it.

Look Ma! I'm Famous!

Not quite, but I am in a video game for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch! Here are some screenshots from the almost finished ReRave version coming out March 10th.

First Post...Whoop!

To start off this digital portfolio of sorts, I thought I would share a little bit of what I've been working on for the past few weeks.

I have been creating album art for various songs in an upcoming reaction-based music game called ReRave. It's a music game where markers come up and you tap, slide or hold them in time with the music. Fairly basic and easy to understand. The team in charge of the game is Step Evolution LLC and their team has two fantastic rhythm game pioneers, Chris Foy and Kyle Ward. I had worked with both of them making stepcharts for another game by the name of Positive Gaming iDANCE which is a DDR-like game but geared towards group fitness and exercise. I had just made some song covers for fun and posted them online and Kyle had caught a glimpse of them and asked if I would be interested in helping them out with more so of course I had to say yes. It was a chance to work on a really awesome product while doing what I love - designing.

These are just a few of the album covers I designed for the game -

Freestyle Disco by S.I Futures. I chose to go with a more simple, retro 80's feel for this one. The song is very funk and dance-y. I have the song title the imprinted feel by adding in an inner shadow and sharpening it up a bit. I recreated the artist "SIF" logo in the middle of the disco ball with the pen tool as well. I gave the "S.I. Futures" text the 3D effect by selecting the original text, holding alt, and pressing the down arrow multiple times. I then merged all of the new layers and gave them the "in your face" perspective. 

In The Hall Of The Mountain King by KaW. KaW is one of Kyle's aliases when he performs his own music. This was a remix of the classical song by the same name that everyone knows. Not much manipulation to the stock image of the mountain landscape. This one was more typography tweaks and layer styles. The cover pretty much says it all. 

Fleadh Uncut by Ian Parker. This song is more of an Irish flute sounding song so I wanted to kind of capture a nice hillside in Ireland. I added a filter to the original image to give it a nice painted look and then added the clovers on top of the background. How could I have not put in the clovers in the background? It's Irish!

Paradise by Smiley. Smiley is also another alias that Kyle uses when making his music. He reserves it more for his happy, upbeat music. To get the base image the way it is, I cut the photo in half and brightened up the lower half of the image since it was darker and adjusted the overall contrast. For the "Paradise" text, I doubled up 2 layers of text to give it the double-stroked look.

Spot On Phunk by Basement Freaks. For this one, I chose to go with a funky disco look with a little bit of crazy mixed in. I added a blur filter to the base image and then a stylized paint filter to give it the oil painting on canvas look. I then applied layer styles to the text and positioned them.

For those interested, ReRave will be released on March 10, 2011 on all Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch AND iPad!). I would definitely check it out if you have the chance. It's shaping up to be quite a game!