Andy Park Art

TOMB RAIDER!

2011-10-04T22:21:00.000-07:00

I'm honored to have been asked to participate in the 15-year celebration of Tomb Raider. As some of you may know the Tomb Raider franchise has special significance for me. Way back in 1999, I was asked to be the penciler on the new Top Cow Productions comic book series Tomb Raider. It was a no-brainer because of the success of the video game franchise and Lara Croft was a pop culture icon already at that point. So a comic book series based on her made perfect sense. I drew that comic book for over 2 years from issues 1-20. It was one of the most amazing times in my career. I was able to travel throughout the United States and the countries of Europe to attend conventions, participate in signings at various comic book stores, and live the adventurous life that a comic book artist gets to live. => It was amazing.

It was great to illustrate Lara after so many years albeit in a bit of a different way than I used to (digital paint vs. pencil and paper). She's based on the upcoming 2012 video game from Crystal Dynamics so she's a bit different than the Tomb Raider of past. This new game is a sort of reboot or retelling of the character. So she's not uber confident just yet. I wanted to show that in the piece. She's has confidence deep within but it's still just brewing right beneath the surface.

Crystal Dynamics is showcasing illustrations by 8 artists throughout the month of October to celebrate the 15th anniversary. I'm honored to launch their online exhibition. Please check it out (and throughout the month) at:

http://hiptic.com/tombraider15#/

GOD OF WAR 3!

2010-07-07T23:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know I'm really late in posting these, but hey, better late than never, right? So God of War III has been out for a couple months now and these are concept paintings and illustrations that I've done for the game spanning from 2007-2010. I had the best time working on this game. I'm so proud to have worked with the amazing team over at Sony Santa Monica Studios!

MORE ENVIRONMENTS & NUCLEUS GALLERY SHOW!

2010-03-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Hey all- here's yet some more environments I got to play around with. Just having fun, no real story or idea behind them. Again, just having fun. Oh, and God of War 3 is finally upon us! Go out and buy yourself a copy tomorrow! Yipee! For those of you interested in seeing some more behind the scenes stuff/interviews (all GOW related), check out these 2 links:

Making of the Chimera

GameTrailers TV GOW3 episode

OH, and we're doing another Nucleus Gallery Show to celebrate the release of the game. Please drop by and say hi if you can. We'll be there March 27th 6-10pm!
Nucleus Gallery Show

CGCHANNEL INTERVIEW!

2010-02-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm a bad blogger. It's been awhile since I've posted and I apologize for that. Life just finds a way to keep me away. But I definitely have some posts coming in the next few months. Especially b/c GOD OF WAR III is FINALLY coming out in just about a month! Finally!!! It's been a long but rewarding journey. And to kick things off I'd like to share with ya'll a video interview I did with the great folks over at CGChannel.com a couple months ago. I was honored to be a part of their great website and community online. The guys over there are top notch and so dang nice! Check out their newly revamped website. It's pretty awesome!

Check out the video interview here:

CGCHANNEL INTERVIEW

GOD OF WAR 3!

2009-02-25T00:56:00.000-08:00

So Sony just did a whole big press announce thing where they showed off the extended full trailer as well as actual gameplay to the press (of which only the trailer was released to the public- wait till you see the gameplay- crazy!). Coinciding with the big press announcement, God of War III is also currently featured in two magazines- Game Informer and PSM3 (a French magazine). I was fortunate enough to be able to have my art featured on both covers. So here's the artwork I did for the covers with and without the logo and type. The articles inside also showed some of my concept art so here it is for you to check out. But if you get a chance check out the actual magazines, cool? Oh, and I included some of the concept mood boards I did for the trailer too.

I can't wait for everyone to be able to see and play the actual game. The guys over here at Sony Santa Monica are truly some of the most talented guys out there in the business. I think people will be blown away once they see the final game. But until then you can only see some of the concept art. Showing concept art is like a big tease to what the final product will be. For example, wait till you see the Chimera actually moving around and going crazy on Kratos. It's awesome! Until then enjoy the tease! =>

YET MORE!

2009-02-16T22:53:00.000-08:00

Here are 2 new environment concepts I came up with. I'm definitely having too much fun.

In some God of War III news, Sony recently released the extended full trailer to the highly anticipated game. And it's in HD! Check it out! Here's a link (after verifying age):

GOD OF WAR III TRAILER

God of War III will also be featured in the next issue of Game Informer magazine. I was able to illustrate the cover and some of my concept designs will also appear in the inside article. I'll be sure to post them up here once it hits the stands. So check it out any day now!

AND MORE!

2009-02-08T16:12:00.000-08:00

I'm having too much fun I think. But here are some more environments I came up with. I had to do a floating city piece eventually. And then I wanted to play with more organic forms in the second one. More to come...

MORE ENVIRONMENT CONCEPTS!

2009-01-29T23:21:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple more environments I came up with. I'm totally having fun with these. Environments don't come as naturally to me as characters and creatures do (and when I say "naturally" I mean "fooling my clients into thinking that I know what I'm doing"), but I do have just as much fun coming up with them. I just need to put in the mileage. It's tough to find the time though. More to come...

ENVIRONMENT CONCEPTS!

2009-01-17T23:50:00.000-08:00

So I've been quite inspired lately to do something other than just creatures and characters (which is what I mainly do during my day job) and work on some environment concepts. AND when I do get to do environment concepts in my day job it always has to have that Greek feel to it. So these are just some personal environment concept paintings I came up with while playing around in a sci-fi world. I had a ton of fun with these and I do have to thank Jung, James, Cecil, and Stephan for the boat-load of inspiration during the past couple of months. More to come...

THUNDERCATS...HO!

2008-12-01T23:48:00.000-08:00

Well, one Thundercat that is. I'm a '80s kid so I was a huge fan of all the cartoons during that time. I always liked Panthro- he was smart and he had bad-ass nunchucks. This is my homage to that cool cartoon. This was definitely a fun one to paint up! Wonder if there'll ever be a movie based on this franchise...

MORE CREATURE SKETCHES!

2008-11-18T00:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's been a crazy couple of months for me. I did these a couple months back but never posted them here. I love doing these kinds of creature sketches. I have fun playing with brushes, textures, shapes, and values. I just start painting without knowing exactly what I'll be coming up with and let the brushstrokes help me find the forms. I have so much fun doing these also because in my day job I'm always designing with a specific goal in mind, a certain direction. But with these I can design as I go. It's fun to come up with the design, function, and story of the creature as I go. Is it more majestic or evil, predatorial or passive, slow or fast, etc. It's designing on the fly. Of course if it were to be used for some actual story I'd go into a lot more detail and research into the design and nuances of the actual character. All of this is the fun in concept designing. More to come!

GOD OF WAR: CHAINS OF OLYMPUS!

2008-08-17T16:01:00.001-07:00

Ok, I haven't been regular with my blog postings. I have a ton of new artwork done over the past 2 years but of course 99% of it is held up in NDAs. I wish I had more free time to do personal paintings but with a new baby, a full time job, and some freelance work I find any free time I do have being spent with my baby girl (as it should be). She's a cutie. Anyways, since I haven't been regular a huge dump is due. => Here's a bunch of stuff I did for the God of War: Chains of Olympus PSP video game: 2 marketing illustrations, a couple of thumbnail roughs done for marketing illustrations, and some quick concept designs done for the PSP game. It was great to be able to be a small part of this cool game.

I have some more stuff I wanna post here soon so keep an eye out! Thanks for looking!

Death Dealer!

2008-04-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

This is another illustration done for ImagineFX magazine. The recent issue was like a dedication issue to fantasy illustrator great, Frank Frazetta in honor of his 80th birthday. So they invited a bunch of artists to contribute a piece in homage to him. I've always loved his paintings of the Death Dealer so I decided to take a stab at my own version. I had a ton of fun with this!

ImagineFX!

2008-03-26T00:51:00.000-07:00

I was asked by the good folks over at ImagineFX to do a workshop tutorial for their magazine a couple months back. I wasn't sure what I was going to paint up and ended up doing a tutorial for this Martian-like character. It wasn't a tutorial necessarily on concept design or anything, just a simple tutorial showing the readers one way I approach doing a painting of a character. I painted it not knowing what I was going to paint. I just started painting some shapes and forms and eventually came up with this character. If you get a chance check out the full tutorial in ImagaineFX magazine issue #27.

Jacked Rabbit!

2008-02-21T21:56:00.000-08:00

Here's another quick creature sketch I did for fun. No big concept idea or anything. This is like the other creature sketches I did in my earlier blog posts- just playing with the brush and letting the design emerge as I push and pull the paint around. Fun stuff. The end result is this jacked up looking rabbit- thus the title, Jacked Rabbit!

Hulk!

2007-10-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to do my version of the Hulk. I've never drawn him since I started drawing comics professionally over 10 years ago so I had to take a stab at this mountain of a character. I wanted to convey just his mass and weight. I also wanted to portray him more Kirby-esque, not all body builder and intelligent-like how he's portrayed these days. Tons of fun! Oh, and yes he's naked b/c pants can't stretch that much!

Iron Man!

2007-10-13T12:01:00.001-07:00

I was a huge Iron Man fan back in the 90s (while I was in high school). I started drawing comic books professionally back in 1995 and after 10+ yrs of doing that I realized that the last time I drew Iron Man was before I became a professional. So I had to do this painting. I'm actually a big fan of when Tony Stark wore the red and silver version of the armor. So I did my take of that version. Gotta give props to Adi Granov for inspiration. I had tons of fun with this! I can't wait to see the movie!

NUCLEUS GALLERY- REVENGE OF THE NINJA!

2007-08-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to take part in the latest gallery show at Nucleus Gallery. It was the "Revenge of the Ninja" show. Over 50 artists showcased their work. I had a lot of fun. This is the piece I did. I wanted to do something different than the action you would expect in a ninja piece. It's titles "Aftermath." I hope you like...

Steeds of Fate!

2007-07-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of fun working on the Steeds of Fate level in God of War 2. The idea is that there are these 4 massive horses made out of granite and rock out in the ocean. They are the size of mountains. You, as the player, will reach the horses by running across the chain that begins at a structure that is connected to an island. You will climb onto the horses and go through a whole level fighting enemies and such. Eventually, you will break open the blinders that are covering the eyes of the horses. Once that's done the horses will come alive and begin to move forward which in turn pulls the island forward to connect it to the structure. I don't know if any of that made sense, it's tough to explain. But it's a pretty cool moment in the game.

The black and white rough painting was the initial painting I did to get a feel for the whole thing. But I ended up doing a more static side shot of the horses mainly because it shows the most amount of information on what they actually look like. I had a lot of fun with these.

QUICKIE ROBOT ACTION!

2007-07-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

Us concept guys at work used to spend a 1/2 hour painting up a particular subject matter. Here's a quickie done one day when we attempted robots. It was just fun being able to experiment and to exercise our brains doing these quickies.

GALLERY SHOW INTERVIEWS

2007-07-05T23:52:00.000-07:00

Hey all- this is kinda embarrasing to post b/c it's always weird to see and hear yourself on screen. But I'd thought since I've been posting about the gallery show and all I should follow it up with some interviews that were done during that event. The first link is from Coin-op.tv and the other is from Figures.com. So enjoy us making fools of ourselves!

COIN-OP.TV Interview

FIGURES.COM INTERVIEW

AND CHECK OUT THE OTHER INTERVIEWS WITH MY FELLOW GOW2 ARTISTS

GALLERY SHOW ARTWORK!!!

2007-05-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hey all! I just wanted to thank everyone that was able to come out to the gallery show the other weekend, and those that wanted to but couldn't (it's the thought that counts)! It was awesome! We all had a blast hanging out, meeting people, and just having fun. I hope to do another one in the future. You guys can check out pictures from the event at the Nucleus Gallery's website. Here's the link:

Nucleus Gallery event pics

I wanted to post the pieces I did for the gallery for those of you who couldn't make it. I had fun with these. There was no specific direction I was going when painting these. I just started painting and let the paintings discover themselves. It was an interesting way to work- very opposite to the way I approach my concepts at work, which is attacking things very intentionally, usually with a certain amount of research first.

If any of you are interested in purchasing prints of any of these paintings you can get it from the Gallery Nucleus guys. Here's a link to their prints section:

GALLERY NUCLEUS/PRINTS SECTION

Thanks guys and gals again! I hope you like...

GOD OF WAR 2 ARTISTS' GALLERY SHOW!

2007-04-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

Hey all! Nucleus Gallery is holding an exhibition of art featuring artwork by the concept art team that worked on the God of War 2 video game. Along with myself, there are 7 artists (Erik, Cecil, Charlie, Dwayne, Scott, and Ryan) that are going to be showcasing art that is both personal as well as work from the game. If you're in the area (Alhambra, CA) on May 12th (or that weekend, but we'll only be there Saturday night to hang out with you all), please drop by and say hi. It's going to be a fun event at a very cool store/gallery. Thanks to Ben and everyone at Nucleus for hosting this event! We can't wait!

AND ANOTHER!

2007-03-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

These are just fun to do. Scribbling around till you find something. Chaos to order. Fun exercises!

ANOTHER CREATURE SKETCH!

2007-03-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Here's another creature sketch I did. Just playing around and having some fun.

GOD OF WAR 2- IN STORES NOW!!!

2007-03-17T01:24:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another photo (Sorry- I'll post more drawings eventually, I promise). The one on the left is the game demo disc that came out weeks before the release of the final product. My art was used for the demo disc cover. It's always fun to see your work in print and especially on a cover (do you call that a "cover" or just "box art"?). The final game cover art on the right is not my artwork. It was done by the talented guys at Petrol Advertising.

If you get the chance, get the game. It's really fun! It really showcases the talent of every person that put their blood and sweat into the making of this game for the past 2 years or so. Plus, it comes with 2 discs- the second one has a very professionally made, very thorough documentary on the making of God of War 2. You'll get to see me make a fool of myself here and there in different scenes (I hate talking in front of a camera). But it's cool nonetheless. Check it out!

GOD OF WAR 2 ARTBOOK

2007-03-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

God of War 2 is coming next week! This is the God of War II Limited Edition Strategy Guide. It's a slip case that contains a very nice strategy guide and a 112 page artbook. It contains a majority of the concept designs our concept design team did throughout the past 2 years. It also has many screenshots of 3D characters, levels, and environments to go along with the concepts. Congrats to my fellow concept artist buddies (Charlie, Cecil, Dwayne, Erik, Scott, and Ryan). And congrats to the rest of the amazing team over at Sony Santa Monica. We all had a blast working on a video game of this caliber. It's definitely been one of the most enjoyable experiences in my career. Thanks also to the great guys at Brady Games for pumping out an amazing product in such a short amount of time.

ASPEN COMICS COVER

2007-03-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

This is a cover I did for Aspen Comics. It's for a new title they're releasing- Fathom: Kiani #3. It's been awhile since I did some work in comics. It's fun doing covers here and there on the side. I get asked from time to time to do interior sequential work, but being that a comic is 22 pages long, I would only be able to do that if I was working on it full-time. Being a comic book artist is probably one of the most labor intensive (in respect to hours and deadline crunches) jobs out there. I still love comics, I just don't miss the crazy hours. I guess that's why a majority of my old colleagues are no longer in the business. Most of them moved on to other industries- mainly animation, some went to video games, movies, advertising. I have the utmost respect for you few that are still in the game.

GOD OF WAR 2!!!

2007-03-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

It's almost here! I've been working at Sony Santa Monica Studios since mid-2005. It's been the best experience. I was one of 6 (7 at one point) concept artists coming up with the look of the game- characters, creatures, environments, props, storyboards, color keys, whatever else they needed. It was great to be able to contribute to some marketing images as well. This is one I did that ended up being used for the cover to the game demo that recently came out as a teaser to the actual final game, which is set to hit stores on March 13, 2007.

FIRST POST-CREATURE SKETCH!

2007-02-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

My first post! I've finally joined the world of blogging. I'm a bit behind. But with the new update of my site, I knew I wanted this blog to serve as a good supplement to the more portfolio style website. This is where I can easily update new images, tell you of any new news, go off and ramble, and of course, interact with you all.

Here's a quickie creature sketch I did of a gentle giant. It's a strong and imposing creature (when it has to be), but it's shy and hides away up in trees...upside down.

Oh, and my website is at: WWW.ANDYPARKART.COM -check it out near the end of March 2007. Thanks!