The Art and Mind of Casey Dockendorf

Junk-Fu Released Today!

2012-02-20T12:17:00.001-08:00

Woohoo! The most recent title I worked on Junk-Fu released today on Xbox Live, so if you have a Kinect at home go download this bad boy! IT'S FREE!!!

Jungle Elf

2012-02-17T16:13:00.000-08:00

Did this as part of a "homework" assignment for a series of classes we have been participating in at work. It was a simple assignment, take a few assigned images and use them to create an image that the images inspired. I might post the images later.

2012-02-15T11:41:00.000-08:00

Wow! Portrait study 2 days in a row? Thats a pretty good streak. I might have to keep this up. I feel like the likeness is closer than my previous attempts, however my digital painting skills still need work.

Debra Messing...

2012-02-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

Haven't done one of these in a while...Likeness is still a struggle for me but these are really good exercises.

Junk-Fu

2012-01-13T10:02:00.000-08:00

Xbox Resource just announced one of Wahoo Studios latest games Junk-Fu! http://www.xboxresource.com/viewing.php?t=6341 It releases on the 30th of this month so if you have a Kinect I highly recommend you try it out, it's a lot of fun!

Resolutions...

2012-01-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

2011 was an exciting year for me, I moved to Utah for a new job, bought my first place, bought a new car, my wife and I have another baby on the way and I shipped my first console game: Family Game Night 4: The Gameshow Edition

My New Year's resolution last year was to be the best me I could be, in all things, and even though that's a pretty vague resolution the underlying goal is to just try to always do my best. Sure I could set a goal to try and lose some weight or learn how to play an instrument or something but why focus on just one thing or focus on something small or something that would be hard to maintain because of all of life's complications and interruptions. Last year I set out to do the best I could in all things and I can honestly say that I tried and I feel good about last year's resolution.

This year's resolution is going to be a little different but along the same lines, this year my New Year's resolution is to 'better market myself as an artist'. I am going to update my Blogs visuals and try to post more art and participate in more competitions workshops and classes throughout the year. I want more people to see my art, I want more feedback and I want to grow more as an artist by pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I want to try new things, learn new things and really try to get my name out there (wherever there might be). I have always considered myself to be a good artist but I want to be more than that, I want to be a "Great" artist and I am going to dedicate this year to improving my craft and really finding my creative niche in life.

Cheers to 2012!!!

Contest Complete!

2012-01-08T22:32:00.000-08:00

So I successfully managed to complete my contest entry for that Mutant League challenge over at Polycount.com. This is my first completed challenge on the Polycount forums, wish me luck! Here are my final screen shots:

2012-01-04T01:49:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to show some progress on my contest entry for that Mutant league contest over at Polycount.com. I finished the base so now I am going to add color and make my submission and beauty shots for the final entry. Next time I post will be the finished product, hopefully.

More progress...

2011-12-15T00:29:00.000-08:00

So I mentioned before in a previous post that I would be posting my Mutant League Challenge progress here on my blog. I got to a really good stopping point on the mesh tonight, so as promised here it is. I am about 18 tri's over on the count which is supposed to be 2500, but they are being pretty lenient in the rules so no worries. Here ya go:

A league of their own...

2011-12-05T13:21:00.000-08:00

First week of December and I am already posting stuff WooHoo!

Polycount.com is currently hosting a 3d modeling challenge with a topic that is pretty near and dear to my heart: MUTANT LEAGUE!!! I loved these games as a kid and even though they weren't the most popular games they were definitely some of the most memorable. The closest thing we have now is that game Blood Bowl but I haven't played it. Might have to now! I want to post all of my progress here like I did with my LBP2 SackBoy (cuz it's fun and it makes it look like I blog way more than I do haha!), so here is my first post, I will be using this to make ortho's and color tests and stuff. I have been getting some good solid feedback on the forums so you might see some changes overtime:

Family Game Night 4 TV Commercial...

2011-11-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

Hasbro has just released a new television commercial for the most recent game I worked on Family Game Night 4: The Game Show Edition, and I am impressed, it's pretty sweet! PLUS stuff I actually worked on is in the commercial. Check it out here: http://www.hasbro.com/games/en_US/play/details.cfm?guid=416d9083-5056-900b-104d-f1640cf9375a

Another Mini Comp...

2011-11-21T00:55:00.000-08:00

So I have been slacking a bit lately, I have been working on another mini-competition over at GameArtisans.org but unlike my last entry I have failed to post my progress here on my blog. So instead of giving you a big long thread of all the stuff I did for this contest I will just present you with the final submission sheet. Viola!!!

Sleep Tight...

2011-10-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

So a few months ago I did some preliminary concept art for a film (that is supposed to go into production soon I heard) about giant gnarly-looking bed-bugs. The person who sent the project my way was actually a teacher of mine from college who is currently working on the film. I've done work for him before and his work has a tendency to fall into the horror category quite often: Lil Dead Girl Music Video (I did character concepts and designed the little dead girl). Here are some progress shots of the Bed-bug creatures from the film. (All of the below images are copyright Beezlebug Bit so you are not free to use them in any way)

Initial concepts:

Orthographic Shots:

Modifications (Final Design):

Action Shots (These were a lot of fun!):

My professional work...

2011-09-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

Check out this video from Petroglyph Games featuring their brand new PC MOBA Rise of Immortals, I was the UI artist on the project so I created art for all of the menu's, icon's and even some of the combat decals (Like Kyrie's targeting arrow). I am excited to finally have a shipped project under my belt, and I am even more excited because next month another game I worked on is supposed to ship for ALL 3 CONSOLES! WooHoo!

Pirates rule!

2011-07-30T22:23:00.000-07:00

So I felt like illustrating a Pirate, so I did. Not much to say about this one, really just wanted to do something fun and simple. Thanks for looking!

Google+

2011-07-15T21:38:00.001-07:00

So I got an invite a few days ago and now I am in the Beta for Google+, I find myself being drawn to it more than I ever did with my Facebook account, but I think it's because I already use Google for so much of my day to day activity it just feels more convenient. The mobile app for it is pretty terrible right now but I can imagine that getting better as time goes on and people start requesting new features and things. The only thing I don't really like about it though is that it seems very much in it's infant stages, sort of like they aren't sure what to do with it yet; is it Social networking? Business networking? Just Facebook with a Google skin? Time will tell. I hope it evolves into more and not just "the new Facebook." I want something new and different. Not old and busted.

GLEEk Out...

2011-07-08T02:04:00.000-07:00

So here it is, my submission of shame. For those of you who don't know who this is it's Lea Michele who plays Rachel Berry on Glee.

I am a fan of the show but I always get a lot of flack for it when I tell people. Apparently telling your guy friends you like this show is like saying you hate sports and don't understand why action movies are so popular! I can't help it though, I was raised by a family of performers, artists and entertainers, so this show is right up my alley of things I was exposed to growing up (Showtunes, Musicals, Pop Music, etc.). I chose miss Rachel Berry for the same reason I picked Bill Hader and House, she just looked fun to draw, and a bit of a challenge to boot. One major thing I learned from this piece though: High res images make much better reference pieces. A buddy of mine told me that once when he was doing this same type of thing. I believed him at the time but I don't think I really understood what he meant until I did this myself. I think the lighting and coloring came out way better in this one than my previous pieces but man, nailing that likeness is HARD!!!

Akimi Village...

2011-06-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

The company I work for Wahoo Studios/Ninjabee just released their latest game for Playstation Network, Akimi Village:

I highly recommend it if you have a PSN account. It's a fun game and the guys that worked on it did an awesome job.

Elf shot the food....

2011-05-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

10 points if you get the reference! This is the 3rd of the set I have done and it took me half the time as the others. I really think some pieces just come together exactly as you imagine them, not to mention the fact I actually took the time to sketch this one out a bit on paper which sped up my process since I didn't have to work out the pose in Photoshop. Hope you like it, I plan to do one more for this set but I'll probably post some practice pics before I get to it.

11.4 million strong...

2011-05-20T00:18:00.000-07:00

As an avid gamer and fan of the inter-webs I read A LOT of online game news. I frequent industry news sites like Gamasutra, GameInformer, and Aggrogamer on a daily (if not hourly) basis, as well as media sites like Game Trailers, IGN, Gamespot and Kotaku for all of my industry knowledge needs. One of the things I have noticed on a handful of these sites is there has been quite a bit of buzz about the decline of subscriptions for World of Warcraft. The odd thing about all this buzz is the strange negative tone all of these articles seem to have about the sales decrease. As if a subscriber decline is going to bring about the end of WoW as we know it, and possibly bring Blizzard to it's knees.

Now before I get into this rant I would just like to point out that I haven't really played much of World of Warcraft since it's release back in 2004 (I played City of Heroes until the Villains expansion came out), so this is pretty much just an outsiders opinion on the whole matter.

As of last October 2010 it was released that Blizzard had about 12 million subscribers worldwide. That is a pretty big number for an online game. I think Everquest 2, a very polished and very popular game, only had a little over 1 million. Aion was hugely anticipated at it's release ascended to 3.5 million. Lord of the Rings On-line I believe topped at a million but is currently sitting at 300,00. So bottomline is no MMORPG has come close to Blizzards giant subscriber base.

Apparently since January it's been stated that WoW has declined to 11.4 million subscribers and is predicted to see even more decline throughout the year. People are broadcasting this news on their sites like it were the end of days. WoW players who were turned off by the most recent expansion Cataclysm swear the game is going down hill. And new games like Rift and Guild Wars 2 are being advertised as if they are next in line to prove their hand at becoming the next "WoW Killer!" I don't get it. People have been claiming that every MMO that releases with even the mildest of hype is next in line to be number 1, but the reality (and the irony) is the only game that currently boasts that high of a player-base is Farmville at 11 million users, and those two games aren't even in the same ballpark.

So after reading these articles and seeing all these numbers and hearing all the hype surrounding all the new generation of MMO's being released I have to ask these questions: Why do people want to see World of Warcraft fail? Why do people set out to "beat" WoW? Why don't people try to make something new, or different or even *GASP* BETTER than WoW. World of Warcraft was in development for 6 years before it was released and since then has been reigning supreme for almost 7 years, with each expansion bringing more and more players. Most MMO's today have development cycle that is half that and just basically shoot for a game that is just like WoW when it was released. While other games swear they are going to topple the giant lose players and fizzle out within a year or two. Sure there are people who still play Everquest 2, but the last I read that number was about 50,000 people worldwide. That is a far cry away from 11.4 MILLION subscribers.

I hear a lot of debate over whether or not that number is an accurate subscriber base or not, but I think at this point in the life-cycle it is completely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, Blizzard changed the world of online gaming when it released World of Warcraft, and the reality is nobody chasing that gravy train is ever going to influence the PC gaming world with their MMO the way WoW did back in the day. The whole world knows what WoW is now, and whether you love it or hate it, think it's the best game ever or think it's pure mindless drivel, you know someone who plays it, met their spouse while playing it, plays it all day everyday, or doesn't play it but hopes to play it again someday so they refuse to close their account. It's impact on the video game industry will be forever remembered, and I am pretty sure no one is going to make another MMORPG that has that effect, with the exception of maybe Blizzard themselves who are hard at work on their next big title code-named "Titan." Not sure what it's supposed to be but if it's anything like their other games, there will be plenty of hype and no doubt a ton of money to follow.

Now if they would just set a release date for Diablo 3...

House...

2011-05-18T01:03:00.000-07:00

So I watched House tonight and figured I should do another one of these drawings while I'm watching the show. The likeness on these are pretty lame but in all honesty I am just ramping up. I will start focusing more and more on actual likeness once I get a more solid grasp on form and lighting. I enjoy the challenge, and I will definitely enjoy watching my progress. I am already inspired (and a little ashamed) for who I plan on drawing next.

Don't be a Hader...

2011-05-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

So as I mentioned in last weeks blog I am going to make an effort to work on more basic and fundamental aspects in my art in order to improve my weaker skills. One such weak point is my ability to draw from life. Aside from a few life drawing classes in college I have never really been much of a "fine artist." I spent a lot of time drawing cartoons and comic book characters as a kid and never really branched out from there until college, so stuff like this is definitely a challenge for me but I have every intention of getting better at it. So without further adieu I give you Bill Hader one of the funnier cast members on the latest season of SNL (in my opinion), and a pretty well-known actor who's appeared in comedies like Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, and Adventureland. He's probably one of my favorite on-screen comedians right now, so naturally while I was watching SNL on Hulu last night he was a good topic for my practice piece. When I started the piece I was going for more of a caricature (little rusty in that department!) but I ended up toning it down and bringing it closer to a more realistic take. I think starting so broad like that and attempting to bring it back to normalcy hurt the likeness in the final pass. Note to self: In the future find better quality pictures of celebrities on the internet! I might try to do one of these once a week from now on and maybe coax myself into doing one a day at some point (Ambitious, I know!).

As always thanks for checking my stuff out and feel free to comment or leave any feedback on the work I post here. I know this piece suffers from some pretty glaring likeness issues but I would love to hear any advice anyone might have on pulling together a more realistic (or at least closer) likeness.

Rock!

Samurai Gundown...

2011-05-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

Sooooo, I actually hate this picture. I did this for a monthly art topic with my co-workers: http://ninjabeeart.blogspot.com/. The topic (as you can see by clicking the link) was the movie SuckerPunch, and although I didn't see the movie, I saw the trailer and that was enough to make me say "Holy crap! Was that a Samurai with a Chain Gun?" I knew at that very moment I had to give this guy a piece of art. But I regretfully admit that I have shamed you Samurai with a Chain Gun. Although I managed to finish the piece and post it, this may be one of the single worst examples of everything that is wrong with my art. Now I will admit I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on this guy and put this piece together from beginning to end in one night (roughly 5-6 hours), but he still reeks of failure. Badly exaggerated proportions, poor lighting and an inconsistent level of detail are just a scratch on the surface of everything I see wrong with this pic. Now I didn't just write this blog so I could piss and moan about how terrible my art is, I am taking this piece as an example and I am going to start working on a series of pieces I hereby dub "Back 2 Basics." It has been a long time since I have actually worked on my art elements. I merely just make art on an irregular basis and work on more strictly guided pieces throughout my workday. From now on I am going to make the effort to do 1 or 2 pieces a week that just revolve around basic art techniques. In the mean time I have a whole list of projects I would like to attempt so stay tuned since I plan on posting more work in the coming weeks.

Thanks for lookin'!

Catching up...

2011-05-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

So I missed posting in the month of April completely and my goal is to at least post 2 posts a month to keep this thing from going dark. Some people may have seen these 2 pics already but I figured I would post them here and just call them done for now.

This was originally supposed to be a set of 4 but it could be another month or two until I even start those guys so I'll just post these 2 for now and revisit this quadrilogy later. The objective was to create illustrations based on 4 classic RPG archetypes with each class having their own little twist on the "class." All of this was inspired by playing the Gauntlet 2 arcade at my old job. I bet you can guess who the other 2 classes will be!

Settling in!

2011-05-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

If any of you are still reading this I thought it would be a good time to update people on how Utah is going. My wife and I are finally settled in and getting used to the newness of the whole situation. It's still only been a little over a month now, but Utah has become far less of a beast then it was when we started. Having a conversation with people about where cities are in relation to one another and actually being able to follow directions given to me by the guy at Home Depot is a small but welcomed victory. The weather right now is beautiful and it's quite a change living somewhere where there is actually weather. In my opinion Vegas had only 2 seasons Hot and Cold. Sure it snowed 1 day a year and rained for a week but out here there is so much more to the skies. I may be singing a different tune come December but for now all the various kinds of weather is welcome.

We are making a few new friends, which has been a little difficult because there are so many big families out here. However, we are fortunate enough to have a little bit of family out here as well to make things feel a little less foreign. Making friends in Vegas was easy because everyone is looking for a good time or a place to hang. But out here people have so much family they don't even need friends. It's funny to me because in Vegas my wife and I got married and we had about a handful of friends who were married as well. We come out here and everyone is married and everyone has kids. Saying that Utah is family centered, or family oriented is probably an understatement, it's more like family-abundant!

The new job has been going great, I am really enjoying the projects I have been working on and I look forward to all the cool stuff lined up. I can't say who we are working with specifically and can't announce what I have been working on quite yet but once it is all public I will gladly post it up on here for all to see. I am really fortunate to be working with a very talented group of individuals and look forward to making more cool stuff with these guys! I was having a conversation with a co-worker at the gym about how respectful, intelligent and humble our employers were and how we were lucky to have such an incredible management team at the helm of this studio. I have had the joyous experience (please note sarcasm) of working for some pretty hot-headed and arrogant management in the past so coming to work for Wahoo Studios is a refreshing change.

All in all things are going good out here and I can see us making Utah work for a long time. I look forward to what this experience has to offer and the new life ahead.

-Casey

Utah Bound...

2011-03-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

So...a few years ago when I was still working in slot gaming, I was trying really hard to get my foot into the Video Game industry. I was contacting Art Directors and anyone else I could trying to get feedback on my portfolio, or see if they had any potential openings for an industry n00b. During my search I connected with an Art Director at a company in Orem, Utah. We talked a bit and he mentioned that he liked my portfolio but they didn't have any positions open at the time. He was nice enough to give me some positive feedback and mentioned that if they had any openings he would keep me in mind. It was a very positive experience and made me feel real good about my efforts since I was doing well enough to get someone out in that big industry to notice me.

I ended up getting hired at my last job Red Dust Studios (formerly HSC labs) and worked there for quite awhile. I was promoted twice and it seemed like I was on top of the world until (without any warning) they sadly shut their doors. It was my first industry job but it was also my first layoff in the industry. I was bummed but I stayed optimistic and I was fortunate enough to be unemployed for just a few short weeks before landing a job at ex-Westwood founded Petroglyph Games as a UI artist. I was stoked. I had been trying to get a job at Petroglyph since I graduated from college so it was a double positive: I was no longer unemployed and I finally reached my goal of working for Petroglyph Games. Turns out the fun was just getting started.

A couple of weeks ago I was offered a job from the aforementioned Art Director in Utah and it turns out I will be moving there very soon! I am really excited for this opportunity since the company does exactly what I have been working towards doing in my career. Plus it's a chance for me to get out of my hometown and live somewhere that actually has weather haha! It snows in Utah. I love the snow. I have never lived in it, but I am excited to. Some people I have talked to hate the snow but I think it's amazing. Gray skies, cold air, the out doors. I couldn't be more excited.

So wish me luck, but to all my friends don't worry, I will definitely keep in contact still, and the wifey and I will definitely be back to visit every so often. We still have family out in Vegas and they will definitely want to see the baby from time to time.

So in conclusion:
à tout le monde, à tous mes amis, je vous aime, je dois partir

Stay tuned to see what happens next in the new adventure that is now my life.

Finished!!!

2011-03-02T23:19:00.000-08:00

So I finished my submission for the Gameartisans.org Little big planet 2 contest and I am stoked! I have entered these contests before but I never finish them for one reason or another, but this time I was determined to finish, and I did (despite the lack of sleep) and I am pretty happy with the end result:

If you have an account on Gameartisans.org head over there and vote now. The contest is still going until Sunday I believe! Thanks for looking.

Rise Of Immortals...

2011-02-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, Petroglyph Games the company I work for just released the first wave of promotional info and videos for Rise Of Immortals, a brand new Multi-player Online Battle Arena game (aka MOBA) that takes place in their previously designed Guardians of Graxia universe. I am the User Interface artist on the project and I did a large majority of art for the website and promotional graphics on Petroglyph's main page . The game is still being worked on of course but there will be new art, and info, and videos over the next few weeks and probably up until the games release so check it out and tell all your friends!

You can watch the video here: Rise of Immortals - First Look Trailer

Progress....

2011-02-18T02:33:00.000-08:00

So I mentioned before about the Little Big Planet Sackboy contest going on over at Gameartisans.org that I am participating in, and I thought that since this is predominately what I have been working on I should add some progress to this here blog. So here are some screens of what this guy is looking like in 3d:

New Post...WooHoo!

2011-01-31T00:41:00.000-08:00

So I just posted my concept for the Little Big Planet 2 - Sack Boys challenge that is going on over at Gameartisans.org and I thought it would be cool if I posted some of my work here as well:

This is a Sack Boy version of Geralt from the game The Witcher made by Atari and CDProjeckt. After surfing the web for about 15 minutes I realized that almost anyone that could be made into a Sack Boy had pretty much been done, but then I remembered this guy from a bunch of trailers and screen shots my brother Corey sent me a while back (I have never played the game but he's a pretty Bad@$$ lookin' dude and the game looks really pretty haha!). I am terrible at reaching the deadlines for these contests since there is pretty small incentive to win and I ain't gettin' paid for it haha! You really just get bragging rights if you win and it's a great way to show off your work and get exposure as an artist.

Well I am pretty happy that I managed to post something up within a reasonable time frame since my last blog so let's see if I can keep this up, my goal is at least 2 art-related posts a month at the very least! Stay tuned for a 3d version of this guy sometime before the end of the month.

How about a quote for the day?

2011-01-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

"Life's not about waiting for the storms to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain." ~ Vivian Greene

I've noticed some people spend WAY too much time waiting for that opportune moment to take action. If there is something that you want to do or something that you want to pursue why wait until the "perfect" moment. Take action now! It might not be there tomorrow and then you'll wish you would have done it sooner.

First post of the new year...

2011-01-10T23:38:00.000-08:00

So in honor of typical New year's tradition I am trying something new. I am going to attempt a blog and hopefully keep it going all year long. I intend on posting up Art, photos of family and events, and my own usual ramblings (most likely relating to food or video games). Blogger makes setting up sites like these pretty easy so I am already ahead of the game. It should be fun. Lets start with some art from last year just so i have something up here (prove that I am serious!).