MerMuse Sketchbook

[Mrdes]

Great stuff. I'm really liking it. Cool graffiti drawing too.

[mermuse]

Quick study from Vaughn Bode'...


I've been a little short on inspiration lately so I'm going back
to my roots... looking at the art that I grew up loving and that
made me want to create art in the first place. Bode was one
of my favorite artist when I was starting out... his comics were
always very loose and experimental not overworked or too safe
like comics today.

I’ve also started looking at graffiti again because there is an
obsession in that art form with always trying new things, never
writing your letters the same way, and that keeps it very fresh.

[Art_Addict]

First time i see your thread. Love it all. It's been a treat going trough every page. i like the model paintings very much.
Where did you study and do you work professionaly ?

Cheers
Tom

[mermuse]

Art_Addict -

I take night classes at LA Academy of Figurative Art and I work as an animation director in the gaming industry. The only time I get to draw or paint at work is in pre production....

[mermuse]

paintings from class last night...



low key and high key.

[mermuse]

Some studies from the "Pink Planet" art book as well as some more graffiti painted over them...

[mermuse]

This started as a sketch from the wildsiderz comic but somehow turned into
some wierd peter pan thing...

[vigostar]

why doesnt anyone give this person some stars.. why ohhh, why... i really enjoy your book... keep it going.

[mermuse]

I'm about to start reworking an old indy comic I did a few
years back so I'm trying to get used to doing cartoony
characters again...


These are some quick studies frome Bode and Dalek.

[vigostar]

dude.. is that really your character?? If it is.. WOW.. i remember that shit from the old school Graff Days... what a blast from the past.. I saw that character in so many mags.. the one with the bill/ beak... wow man thats fucking awesome... I'm kinda like Coro and a few others here that incorporate Graff into their work... Ive been trying to get a Graff battle here on CA going but, no one ever takes me up on it.. if your ever interested in it let me know... Keep on rocking!

[mermuse]

vigostar -
Not mine... just a study. I guess the description is a little confusing
now that I read it again.

The bill/beak character is from Vaughn Bode's Cheech Wizard series.
yeah its very old school. I'm not really much of a graffiti artist. My
interest in brushstrokes lead me to looking at Sumi-e and strangely
enough that has lead me to looking at Graffiti.



These are some random panels from the old comic of mine that I'm
going to rework... Bode is one of the guys that inspired me to do
comics in the first place so I've started looking at his work again to
help get back on track. I started doing a lot of life drawing and painting
to get my skills up but along the way I forgot that my goal was never
to draw of painting realistically.

[vigostar]

Oh, shit thats really funny C0-IN-KI-DINK... Theres an old school character that was just like that.. im sure if you searched around on the net long enough you'll see what im talking about.. anyways.. if your interested in Graff.. other then Coro from this site.. you should check out... MacCrew.
http://www.mac-graffiti.net/
they have some incredible artwork.. keep on posting!

[mermuse]

from class last night...

[mermuse]

from drawing club last night...

[AndreasM]

Hey! I recognice your life paintings from the life painting thread. I remember enjoying those, and I still do. There are alot of solid stuff here. Looking foward to the next post.

[mermuse]

from drawing club this weekend...

[glikster]

incredible! This last one especially is gorgeous!

[Odds]

the last one is amazing.
it would be even better if you defined the character a little more, and separated him from the background better. i want to see some more line drawings and sketches, even though your paintings do looks fabulous. hehe, keep it up-

[A.Cerasoli]

Where's Cheech Wizard? I like your studies of Vaughn Bode's work. Mermuse, Have you seen the Lizard of Oz book by Mark Bode' yet? If not you should check it out. The Dalek studies are cool too, it's always nice to see some graffiti writer on these forums.

[Pesmerga]

Great stuff as always mermuse. That last one's pretty cool indeed.

[mermuse]

and now for something completely different....



This is a visual comp for a board game I'm working on. I've been play testing the game for the last week with my girlfriend but we were using chess pieces to play with and that ended up being too confusing (because the pieces in this game don't move or capture like chess). So I quickly took some random art from the internet to piece together a comp. Once we have tested this I'll go ahead and make the final art for it. I haven't decided if I want the board to look like a map or like carved stone in the final design... I guess I need to do a few more comps.

THE GAME

inspiration- this game is inspired by my two favorite board games. Street Soccer (a modern Dutch game) and Chaturanga (an early version of chess). The game is designed to be a combat game but seeks to avoid the imbalances that lead to predictable endgames. To avoid those problems I have made it possible for the players to respawn captured pieces.

how to win- The first player to get 3 points wins. You get points by holding the center objective or by capturing an opponents king.

how to play- Each turn the active player rolls 2D6. They use the numbers on each dice to move and attack with a different piece. If doubles are rolled then instead of moving two pieces you can choose to move the same piece twice. The active piece must use the entire number rolled on the die to move or move and attack.

moving and attacking- piece may only move and attack along horizontals and verticals (diagonals are not allowed). All pieces move the same... expending one dice point to move each square. The different pieces have different defense values represented by the number of dots on the piece. These represent the amount of dice points needed to capture the piece. The pawns have one dot, the bishops two dots, the knight three dots, the rook four dots, and the king has six dots (The names of the pieces are not important only the numbers... the names don't make sense because I haven't renamed the pieces to match the Aztec/Inca theme yet). So to capture a rook on a roll of a five you would have to move one square and then capture with the remaining four points. To capture a king you already have to be adjacent to him and roll a six. To capture you do not move into the same square as the piece... you capture from adjacent squares. This allows a piece to attack nearby pieces without having to move out of the objective area.

example - on the first turn the green player rolls a 4 and a 6. He moves his king one square to the side and three forward to take a center square (die 4). The King's pawn then moves forward five and captures the red king's pawn with the remaining one point (die 6).

respawn- If you have pieces which have been captured you may give up your highest dice roll to respawn them in your corner. The corner respawn square is marked with an arrow symbol. If there is already a piece in that square you cannot respawn. An enemy can move to your respawn square to keep you from bringing in reinforcements.

Objective- The primary objective is to take and hold the center (the area marked with the large sun symbol). To do this you must end a turn with you having at least one piece in the center four squares and your enemy must not have any pieces in those squares. If at the beginning of the next turn your opponent has not moved into one of the center squares or removed all your pieces in the center you score a point.

Bonus- Each time a point is scored the opponent of the scoring player gets a reroll token. Each token can be used once to reroll one die. This rule was added to give the loosing player a little momentum to make a comeback. The closer the score the more exciting and memorable the experience so this bonus is designed to keep the game balanced and fast paced.

Players - So far I have only played with two players but The game would also work with four players... each controlling a corner spawn point.

[clogik]

whoa. awesome. ill keep an eye on this one.

[mermuse]

from class last night....




the pose and lighting were boring so I tried to play around with the color
and texture to create some visual interest.

[glikster]

I think it worked.

[mermuse]

from drawing club last night...

[mermuse]

Here's the physical prototype for my board game. So far I'm still missing a lot of
pieces but this was just a test to see how well the painted board surface would
hold up and what the best approach would be to painting the game pieces.



I've got to say its really refreshing to work on an personal art project that is
actually functional and useful. I'm getting really tired of paintings and drawings...
the process is fun but you end up with something in the end that just takes up
space. I've been play testing this game allot lately and its really addictive.

I'm planning on turning the 2D prototype into a flash game and having some
tutorials included to illustrate the game rules.

[vigostar]

your too creative for your own good... your drawings are amazing and your ideas are more amazing... do us and yourself a favor and dont stop drawing!!!

[mermuse]

a study from Sam Flores and studies from street stickers...

[curing laziness]

damn... sweet digitals man. no crits from me. just post more and you'll keep my addiction satisfied. =p

[sephone]

You have some nice work going on. I love how your playing with different styles and showng some graff too.