Nick Daniel's Concept Art Blog

Slides 2

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:00:51 GMT

Last week I posted some illustrations I made for my brother's GDC slide show. That was only half of the things I came up with, here's the rest.

Early Implementation

Lots of Options

Good Practices

Immediate Feedback

Genre Conventions

Just an Explosion

Nico vs. The Chicken

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:46:51 GMT

This is Nico from my buddy Lars's webcomic North World. She beats up monsters for a living.

That's a giant chicken by the way, Nico is normal human sized.

Slides 1

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:46:40 GMT

Recently I made some illustrations for a presentation my brother plans on giving at GDC (Game Developers Conference). They're meant to illustrate some aspects of interface design.

Intuitiveness vs. Abstraction

Lack of Control

Control Confusion

Even More Control Confusion

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:07:18 GMT

The dungeon of Kuraga is said to be 100 floors deep. It is said that the monsters of each sub-basement are more horrifying than the last.

This however should probably be taken with a grain of salt since no mortal has ever passed sub-basement 2.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:20:37 GMT

Derdaberg army engineers never had much appreciation for camouflage.

Fortunately for them Ettagrad engineers never quite mastered directed aviation.

Nina Roberts Portrait

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:00:38 GMT

I don't really have any more to say about her, I just wanted to try drawing the face of a black woman.

Nina Roberts

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:00:08 GMT

The name is probably an alias, but a mercenary going by Nina Roberts has been popping up in conflicts across Africa and South Asia.

She's been reported KIA half a dozen times, but it doesn't seem to have taken.

Brute De Sode

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:51:08 GMT

Dr. De Sode had a short but memorable career robbing banks throughout Empire City and making everyone feel generally uncomfortable.

One look at his henchmen will give you a pretty good idea why.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:25:51 GMT

A bit of refinement on some earlier pics of mine.

I had to relearn how to draw clouds a couple times while making this.

Temple of the Green Lion

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:51:25 GMT

Skeptics of eastern religions should take note of Nepal's Temple of the Green Lion. Which in spite of having no custodial staff, no locks, and being located right in the center of a slum retains an untoched heaps of treasures both ancient and modern.

Why it's a certifiable miracle.

As you might guess I've been playing a lot of Uncharted 2 lately.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:22:48 GMT

Speculators had assumed that this hotel would drive tourism in the area.

Unfortunately funding ran out before any roads could be put in place.

Spider Tree

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:43:56 GMT

Our excavation of Atlantis continues, it seems like hardly a week goes by without us discovering something both amazing and perplexing.

This weekend with the coming of the equinox the trees took to replanting themselves.

Wirebot

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:43:48 GMT

Recently analysts began looking into a defect in the X7-77SVN that would cause this unit to fly into an uncontrollable rampage during routine maintenance.

Said analysts succeeded in replicating the bug. As a result there are now several openings in the analysis department.

Edward Mutiny

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:16:05 GMT

The mutiny clan has a short but distinguished history of crime and vice.

As a liar, a thief, and a one time murderer Edward here is the closest the clan has ever come to respectability.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:57:10 GMT

Shifter's an XBLA game I'm working on, in it you shift dimensions.

So now it's possible to have a fire level and an ice level, in the same level!

Mutant Hare

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:58:52 GMT

The fellas over in the Orion division recently cooked up this little worm, it mutates it's host and turns it into a blood thirsty killing machine.

So far it only works on a particular breed of hare, but they seem confident that they'll have it working on rats and badgers by the end of the next fiscal quarter.

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:44:04 GMT

Caraway beach is a fun in the sun for the whole family.

Conveniently located in the center of the Atlantic Ocean.

Samantha Redhook

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:12:01 GMT

In the future equal opportunity legislation will ensure that women will not be excluded from space marine combat operations.

However skimpy body armor will be required.

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:06:11 GMT

Before they left the aliens were kind enough to drop off a gift.

A gift which just so happened to vaporize most of Detroit.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:09:57 GMT

The 'birds' of planet Hokarth seem to be particularly susceptible to mutations of their equivalent of the hox gene.

That is unless you have a better explanation for a natural process that could create this thing.

Barbarian Giant

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:28:21 GMT

Haniclav's force' conquest of the Southlands was stymied by the constant appearance of savage giants.

To this day scholars cannot determine where these mindless beasts found weapons and clothing.

Mandivore

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:54:01 GMT

Suffice it to say that on Skaron that evolution is a little more...

grotesque.

Sparky Ukiyo

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:51:28 GMT

Sparky is a dog and a god. Currently I'm making a story about him at 70-seas.com, and I made a much larger version of this picture as a promotion of sorts.

Before you ask, yes Okami was a significant inspiration.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:43:35 GMT

Out here in the Barrens there's a citadel on every peak in case of invasion from the Northlanders. Attrition on these posts is notoriously high...

on account of all the suicides.

Antediluvian Ruins

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:28:24 GMT

I know what you're thinking, but let me assure you we have absolutely no evidence that these pillars are actually super advanced alien technology...

...that isn't classified