After an exhaustive search for a Rebuild 3 artist, sifting through 150 applicants and agonizing over the decision for months, I chose the art and style of Adam Meyer (of Steamroller Studios and Crystal Clear Art). When he’s not working with me on Rebuild 3, Adam’s got a zombie game of his own on the go – the beautiful Deadwood with a super unique art style involving wooden people.
As for the style of Rebuild 3 (tentatively called “Gangs of Deadsville”), we’re going to go for something cleaner and more cartoony than Rebuild 2… but not nearly as cheesy as my stickmen from Rebuild 1. Here’s a rough mockup of what we have in mind:
Adam’s mockup for the new look to Rebuild 3.
The new characters have so much… character! They’ll have mix & match features like earlier games, and a bunch of new clothing options. Hipsters, geeks, cops and cowboys – I can’t wait to make my last stand with these adorable bastards. I’ll leave you with some of Adam’s survivor sketches:
Animations for our floppy-eared, tuque-sporting little dog were drawn frame-by-frame by Sara Gross of Two Bit Art. She made all the new art for Word Up Dog using Photoshop, then I converted it to vectors using Adobe Illustrator’s trace function. She used clean lines and simple shapes that lend themselves really well to this technique.
Check out the evolution from sketch to completion of our nameless hero, the little dog who finds himself suddenly stuck underground with only two skills: diggin’, and spellin’.
We two Sara(h)s, aka “Da Honeys”, had a ton of fun on all the new art. Much 80’s rap was heard and fun was had by all.
Me and ma homie Sara Gross of Two Bit Art be whippin up a bangin mobile game called Word Up Dog. It’s a spelling game… hilarious amirite?
I was eager to work with Sara on something; not just because we both have the same awesome name, but because she draws these amazingly derpy-cute characters like Oregon Whale and Stitchy. Her more serious art is super beautiful too of course – check out her webcomic Menagerie. But it was her bizarro Orca Jam 3 tshirt design that sold me.
“This is the story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down. I was chillin in my crib just digging for some grub, when outta nowhere the ground swallowed me up!”
The main character (the Dog) is no Fresh Prince – he’s probably the opposite, more like a clueless suburban wannabe. But this is a cheesy, family-friendly game. The kind of tidied-up hiphop culture you could tune into on NBC and watch with your kids.
Thomas Shahan talks about the origin and process of his art for Incredipede in this video. Rather skillfully produced, and I think he did the music as well. Such a talented guy, Thomas.
Hello to you sirs and madames. I would like to introduce you to a talented young man by the name of Thomas Shahan.
I found Thomas through a lucky turn of chance while I was perusing Wikipedia.
Phidippus mystaceus by Thomas Shahan
I was looking up jumping spiders while we were in the Philippines because we had a lot of beautiful spiders running around. His astounding Phidippus Mystaceus picture caught my eye and I absent-mindedly decided to find out who had taken it. That brought me to ThomasShahan.com.
Sterculia Nobilis by Berthe Hoola van Nooten
I always wanted Incredipede to look like a Victorian illustration. While I was working on the game in Costa Rica I spent hours poring over old illustrated texts of botanists who had traveled to far off corners of the world.
My favorite is Berthe Hoola van Nooten who traveled through Java and Surinam in the late 1800’s. Her work was lavish and colourful and her write-ups included rich details about how locals used the plants. She instilled the illustrations with a sense of the wider world. I can’t imagine how exciting it must have been to read her book in 1880.
I was so taken with her work that originally Incredipede was in the form of a book. Each level had text on one side and a level on the other.
So it was in this context that I discovered Th0mas’ illustrations.
Pond Gathering by Thomas Shahan
Thomas’ woodblock cuts harken back to an earlier era than I was focused on. But his absolute reveling in the squishy fecundity of nature amazed me! His work has such a sense of place. It’s so disturbingly fascinating.
Peregrinus by Thomas Shahan
I sent him an email asking if he was free and possibly interested in working on a video game. It turns out he was just finishing art school and was interested. I sent him a screenshot of the game and he sent me a mock-up of the screenshot as it might appear with his art. I was blown away by the result.
It turns out he’s also a pretty big video game nerd. When we started corrosponding he sent me a link to an old Genesis shooter called Bio-Hazard Battle which has a nice organic feel. I’ve also seen him go toe to toe with Alex Neuse in an Atari nostalgia-off. Which makes no real sense since Thomas is way too young to have played any Atari games.
The Proposed Egg by Thomas Shahan
A few weeks ago Thomas came out to San Francisco where Sarah and I are staying and we spent a solid week on the game together (although we did find time to go spider hunting in Golden Gate Park).
So far he’s been doing an amazing job. I put together a secret game-play video and showed it around GDC and people went a little nuts for it.
I’ll begin showing off his work in future posts. I don’t want to show you everything at once for fear of blowing your mind out through the top of your skull.
