Kubrick, step by step

I was asked to do a picture of Stanley Kubrick by my friend Paul for his next online film review. Doing portraits of my favorite film directors is a passion of mine, and I have already drawn Kubrick's face before. After drawing it out, I brought it into the computer for a little digital coloring. Here's the phases, from raw drawing, to coloring the "flats" to the final colored portrait:

What I enjoyed the most about this one was trying to make it my own drawing, and not a copy of an existing photo.

RDR swag from GameStop

What a haul! When RDR released, I was able to get all the remaining promo materials from a GameStop in town. 6 promo posters, two stands, a fake box, and a big poster at the bottom. The poster with the cover art (rightmost of the top three in the first pic) is now covered with the signatures of my teammates. The stand on the floor in the second pic has our original April 27th release date. I'm not sure what I'll do with them all, but I'll definitely frame the team poster when I get the chance.

Red Dead Redemption Launch Video

Here it is. The final new video for RDR2 before it's released on Tuesday--and it's the best one yet. I know I say that each time a new video comes out, but it's because the marketing team does such a great job of raising the bear each time. If you're an NBA fan, you've been seeing our commercials all this week.


To pre-order, visit the Red Dead Redemption website and pick the place that has the best deal for you (Amazon is a good choice).

R.O. Blechman Letter

Earlier this year I received a dedicated copy of R.O. Blechman's Dear James: Letters to a Young Illustrator via an uncle of mine that is his neighbor in New York. I wrote him a thank you letter after reading it and found in my mail today an unexpected and enjoyable response from him. R.O. Blechman's book is an inspirational read, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys drawing, especially those who would like to get into an illustration career.

To see R.O. Blechman's website, click here.

Ta Daa!

Now on DeviantArt

I want to plug in to a community of artists to see more work that's out there and to get feedback on my pieces, so I'm now on DeviantArt.com:


http://joshmlange.deviantart.com/


Right now I plan for that page to have my crossposted work without the Red Dead promotional posts, so if you're on DeviantArt, let me know and I'll 'watch' your page. I'll continue posting in this blog as normal.
_____
Red Dead Redemption has less than a week to release. Have you preordered your copy already? If you go through Amazon or WalMart, you'll get a discount card (Amazon's is $20). Definitely the best deals out there.

New Red Dead Redemption Video: "Revolution"

Your character John Marston spends many days in the harsh and politically-turbulent area of Mexico. This latest promo video shows some of what you will encounter South of the border:

Red Dead Redemption in the LA Times

The LA Times came to our San Diego studio to see what we've been up to:

Red Dead Redemption Brings the Western to Video Games
Cowboys and six-shooters may have become forgotten on the big screen, but Rockstar Games hopes to bring the western to a new frontier: the video game. Red Dead Redemption is set in the Old West in 1908.

In other Red Dead news, the News for Gamers website has a thread where you can read all the other online articles and blog posts related to Red Dead Redemption.

Red Dead Redemption: New Multiplayer Video

It's finally here: the sneak peek video of Red Dead's multiplayer competitive modes. Prepare to dodge gatling guns, cannons, snipers, and horseback riders to get the most gold:

Latest RDR2 Hype/News

It's tough to balance how much reposted Red Dead Redemption news I should put on this blog, so here's a few of the more important bits that have come out in the last week or so:

-Fox has announced it will air a thirty minute Red Dead Redemption special on Saturday May 15th at midnight. It will be animated, so I have no idea what that will look like but I'm excited to find out.

-For the Nascar fans out there, Red Dead Redemption is advertised on racer Joey Logano's GameStop #20 car, which will be seen during the O'Reilly 300 Nationwide Race. Click the link to see a great photo of it in action.

-In upcoming movie news, Red Dead Redemption will be screening advertisements before three of the spring's biggest movies, Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, and Nightmare on Elm Street. I know the kind of people that will see those movies, and they will definitely be gamers, so I can't wait to see my game in a movie theater (for a limited time). So cool!

-The next multiplayer promo video will be released tomorrow. The last one, about Multiplayer Free Mode, was released the other week.

-Red Dead fever is spreading...

-Lastly, there was a great write-up of a fan's experience playing RDR2 at an official Rockstar hands-on demo event (Scroll down to Day 2 Part 2), which was played in a special spot in Brooklyn filled with authentic set pieces, as well as a piano player and servers dressed in period attire. I wish I had seen it myself.

It's great to see news about the game spreading. Keep sharing links about it and don't forget to pre-order the game for the Xbox 360 or PS3 if you haven't already!

Pieces for Paul

I first met my friend Paul Booth back in Vancouver when I was going to film school. He attended the Vancouver Film School for the live-action film making program and I was attending the same school, but was taking the 3D Animation course. We've been good friends since then, and he currently writes an Online Movie Review for his paper in Hawaii. This week's article is on The Dark Knight, so I made a photo manipulation piece of his regular picture in the article. I used Photoshop to paint over his features to tie it into the Joker/Heath Ledger theme:

(note the green/purple necklace)

He's also produced a movie called Empty Streets that features American blues musician Charlie Musselwhite on its soundtrack. I did the illustration of him for the liner notes:

Charlie Musselwhite, 2010, 9" x 10"

 It was hand drawn, then touched up a bit in Photoshop.

The Tao of Calvin

This piece is for my friend Tone, who has a sketchbook full of Calvin and Hobbes drawings that people have done for him. I had all the books of Calvin and Hobbes growing up and it remains my #1 comic by far. I've been on the relaxing kick this week, so I wanted to show Calvin unwinding in the woods that are always seen in the comic. To me, it's a much more believable scene than him praying to a cross or choosing sides in the Chevy vs. Ford debate.

It started out as a drawing (2B pencil), then I scanned it and painted/refined it in Photoshop. Took about 3 hours, minus the time it took me to make a veggie burger sandwich.

Self-Portrait

I've never worked with Adobe Illustrator before, so I decided to spend some time with it to make a self-portrait. I used the pencil tool the most, and it took me a couple days to find out how to expand the art board to get the full image to save correctly (there are so many things I take for granted when using Photoshop that I had to relearn with Illustrator). The Japanese symbol stands for "balance"--according to the internet, anyway. Now that my part of the animation on Red Dead Redemption is complete, I'm now on a month-long vacation, so it felt like the right character to use.

New RDR2 Video: "Multiplayer Free Roam"

"Free Roam" is one of many ways to play Red Dead Redemption with other people. As the video below explains, during Free Roam, you pick an avatar and explore the Red Dead world in a group of up to 16 people. You are all then free to start a posse and team up with others, start fights, go hunting, or do anything else you would normally do in the game. You and the other players in your group all stay in Free Roam while your group leader sets up a traditional/structured multiplayer match, rather than the traditional chore of making everyone wait in a lobby menu until the match is ready to start. This concept of always being in the game's world was applied to my last game Midnight Club: Los Angeles as well, but RDR2 pushes the concept much further.
But enough of my yapping. This video shows it better than I can tell:



Click here for full "Multiplayer Free Mode" write-ups on the Rockstar website.

And keep an eye out for the new Red Dead Redemption Dueling Facebook Game on Monday.

Newest, shiniest RDR2 video now online at GameTrailers.com

Titled "Life in the West Part 2," it does a great job of summing up the gameplay in Red Dead Redemption's ambient world. Check it out in HD below:



The video is a definite hit. As of right now it already past 68,000 viewers, 750 comments, and a 9.8 rating from over 1,400 votes. We are now the #1 Game Trailers Game Rank. Click here to keep us at #1

Ready to pre-order? (how could you not be?!) Visit the Red Dead Redemption site and decide which pre-order bonus you want.

RDR2 at PAX East

The Red Dead Redemption hands-on demo was available to play at The Penny Arcade Expo in Boston this week. You had to wait a bit to see for yourself, though:



Plenty of people blogged about their experiences playing the game at PAX East. Check them out after the break:

RDR2 Cover Art Revealed

Drumroll please...the official cover art for Red Dead Redemption:

New RDR2 Video: "Gentleman and Vagabonds"

The Marketing team is on a roll. This week's video contains snippets about some of the characters you'll encounter on story missions and side quests. Take a look:

Greener Guy as Popeye

Greener Guy was a character I came up with while attending a very liberal arts college. He resembled many of the students who went there. After coming up with my first parody piece using this character, I later used it to reinvent the Popeye characters. I watched Popeye after school a lot when I was younger, and for a reason I've now forgotten I sketched some concepts of the Popeye characters in this vein.

I came up with a super-villain that tried to sell sneaky credit cards with high APRs on the college campus, and went very "Mr. Burns" with the design:

Finally, I had the idea to use the Popeye-version Greener Guy in a cartoon about the WTO riots in Seattle (aka the 'Battle in Seattle') that I witnessed in 1999. It ran in the Evergreen school newspaper.:

New RDR2 Video: "Life in the West"

There's a new Red Dead Redemption video up, and it might be the best one yet. Titled "Life in the West," it showcases the big picture of what your character John Marston faces in his day-to-day life as he tracks down the members of his former gang. The big port town of Blackwater gets some screen time, as well as mini-games such as herding, breaking horses, gambling, drinking, and shooting down the vultures that circle around a fresh kill.



More RDR2 info

Super 8 Theater Spotting - Chicago

I took a Super 8 filmmaking class in Chicago years back, and one of the urges I had while that little camera was in my possession was to take a picture of all the major theaters I could get to in one day. My buddy Joe, another camera and movie enthusiast, agreed to join me and we spent the day driving from theater to theater and taking snapshots and videos (we didn't have time to catch any films, however). Here's some of what I saw through that little camera:

Here are the short videos I shot:


Time-lapse shot of the Pickwick movie theater in a northern suburb of Chicago:



Plane flying across the sky:


Sears Tower on an overcast day:


The shadows of three flags against a wall:


The American flag floating inside the downtown Bank One lobby: