スケッチクロール

Maja and me came back from another trip to Japan earlier this week. And we were lucky to be in Tokyo for the 25th World Wide SketchCrawl last Saturday.
So we met up with the incredibly nice and talented members of the Tokyo team and spent the day sketching (and eating). We had a great time!
Here are some of my sketches from that day:







Some photos:










Also check out the Tokyo thread at the SketchCrawl forum for more sketches and photos.

Goodbye Funcom

So that was it.
I just came home from Funcom for the last time. This week I've been going through four years worth of stuff which has been piling up around my desk and on my PC including hundreds of sketches I've done during concept meetings and other meetings. (What do you expect to happen when you put a group of concept artists into one meeting room? :))
First out is a selection of sketches and caricatures I've done of my colleagues.



Then a selection of imaginary characters.
(Oh, before you ask... No, they have nothing to do with the game at all. ;))



I usually got the task to draw cards for team members who were leaving the company, got kids or whatever. Here are a few caricatures of some great artists who moved on.



And finally. A clip of me chilling out in the animation department during the early days of The Secret World some time in 2006. :)

Dark Days

My last week in Funcom didn't turn out as expected.
Yesterday morning the company announced that they had to cut 20% of the staff and our main office here in Oslo was hit the hardest.
It was incredibly sad to see so many of my extremely talented friends and colleagues one by one getting the news that they had to leave. And the messages kept ticking in on Facebook throughout the evening.
I wish them all the best for the future!
I wish Funcom good luck too...

The official press release can be found here.

Leaving Funcom

Everything comes to an end.
It's four years (and two days to be excact) since I started working as a concept artist in Funcom. Monday I handed in my resignation and in two weeks today I'll have my last day here.
The first concept I did in Funcom was an alien-mushroom-thing for the Anarchy Online expansion pack Lost Eden where I ended up designing the entire mothership interior. I also did a few little things for Conan inbetween.
Then finally production started on The Secret World during the summer of 2006. It's been fun to follow the project from the beginning, see the team expand from just a few people and to work with such a bunch of great people.
I have a note on my wall which I believe I wrote during our very first official TSW meeting. On top it says KICKAZZ in big red letters, a keyword which still is being frequently used to describe the game. I wish my team and the project all the best. And I certainly hope it will be really KICKAZZ.
So what's next for me?
I'll return to movies and animation - which is closer to my heart I guess. The place is Storm Studios where I will be a part of the art department together with some extremely talented friends of mine.
Storm Studios did Norway's first CG-feature Free Jimmy which was released in 2006. They did special effects for some of the recent most successful Norwegian movies like Max Manus and Død Snø (Dead Snow). They also produced and did the effects for Peter & The Wolf which was awarded with an Oscar for the best animated short last year.
I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure it's going to be great fun!

Super

Here's another book cover from me.
This is for Norwegian author Endre Lund Eriksen's latest which is called Super and it has just been published by Aschehoug in Norway.
(And, yes, the Kill Bill reference is intended. ;))
Hope you like.

The Secret World Teaser #2 Storyboards

(And post number 100 on this blog! Yey!)
I did the storyboards for the second TSW teaser and again I grabbed some screenshots from it and compared it to my storyboards. And they match up pretty well (apart from the train scene which wasn't executed the way I intended, but that's not a part of this selection anyway).
I've mixed boards from several parts of the process. Some are coloured (we ended up colouring the entire storyboard for this teaser), some are rougher and some, like the last two, are from the very first super rough draft. In fact, that she fires the gun was later removed, but made its way back into the final cut. Enjoy.

The Secret World Concept Art #1

Since Funcom just published a few of my concepts for our game, The Secret World, I might as well throw them in here too.
There's not much I can say about them except for that they're relatively old.
If you haven't already, do drop by the game's website for more info on the game, more concept art, new screenshots and a forum - which always is a lot of fun to read.

The Secret World Teaser #2

The second teaser for Funcom's The Secret World is out.
I did the storyboard on this one as well based on a short synopsis from director Ragnar Tørnqvist.
Designs were done in Funcom as well as the sound. Digic did the modelling and the animation.
Enjoy.



Edit: Watch it in higher resolution here at GameTrailers.com.

Mumbai 2009

I jumped on a plane to Mumbai (or Bombay if you like) and spent one week with my friend Shank and his family in July this year.
Here are a few photos from the trip.
There are even more in my Flickr gallery. Feel free to check them out.

Daily Sketch #33

It's been a while...

Two Philip Pullman Covers

Philip Pullman's books about The New Cut Gang, Thunderbolt's Waxwork and The Gas-Fitters' Ball, have just been published in Norwegian.
Two great books for kids which I really enjoyed reading myself.
I did the cover illustrations. Here they are:





And this is how they look in the shop:

Gesture Drawings #2

A small collection of quick gesture drawings done between January and April 2009.

Sketching During Breaks #1

At life drawing I always sketch the other people during the breaks.
Here's a selection of my doodles so far this year.
Hope you like them.
(And yes, I'll post some gesture drawings as soon as I get them scanned.:))

The Secret World Teaser #1 Storyboards

As mentioned below I storyboarded the first teaser for Funcom's game The Secret World which was released just before easter.
Here are my boards for the last part put together with grabs from the final teaser.
The guys at Digic Pictures, who brought our animatic and designs to life, did a great job.

The Secret World Teaser #1

It here.
The first teaser for Funcom's The Secret World, the game I've worked on as a concept artist for the last three years.
I storyboarded this teaser. I also designed the location and did some early concepts of the monster.
Enjoy!



Better quality here.

Daily Sketch # 32

Daily Sketch #31

Daily Sketch #28

Daily Sketch #27

Daily Sketch #25

Daily Sketch #24