The Creative Blog of Tony Maligno

Goblin concept

2012-02-01T22:36:00.000-08:00

This is a concept for a goblin character for a rpg that will be on xbox live hopefully sometime this year. I'll be modelling it this weekend in maya. The silhouettes were an exploration for various monster types and I'll be working on the small one first and working my way up the list.

Concept for dueling game character

2012-01-29T00:21:00.000-08:00

This weekend I'll be doing a fleshed out dueling game concept. Basic challenge is to develop a fully fleshed out character for a dueling game where you can customize your fighter with a main weapon, armour,clothing and body customization for your character. I need to also develop concept art for a sample level. It will need to be in 3D so my poly count matters alot and so do things like animation and sounds because it will all be done as a flash 3d game played in a browser ( so there will be size limitation to files and possible low bandwidth computers playing them).

I went the route of a anime inspired western version fantasy action theme. I also decided that since we want the game to appeal to men mainly (60%) but women as well (40%) that the perfect candidate for a concept setting that would be equally appealing to both genders would be sexy women fighters, that way the males get to play as a sexy warrior and the women would be able to play as a strong female hero which is always fun.

This is the final version I have for the character design. It shows samples of how the character could be customized in color, clothing style, armor and weapon type. Below are variations of the weapon style that a player could learn as they level up. Each weapon type will have short range, medium and long range variations. The longer double sided weapons allow for multiple attacks and increase defense ability. The great swords do more damage since their blades are larger and heavier.

Chang Sung - Warlord with Power armor

2012-01-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

Yet another of the characters in my head. This warlord develops high tech power armor in medieval china and totally takes over with his supreme military might. This drawing shows a progression from his traditional garb and armor to his power armor. The power armor is powered by the souls of his slain enemies which he harvests in the containers that stick out of the power pack. His shoulder pads act as a shield and can detach and hover around him blocking incoming melee attacks.

Sword concept art

2012-01-24T12:47:00.000-08:00

I'm completely obsessed with swords and I often sketch them. These I sarted to paint in photoshop to flesh them out more. The top line is generated from the original idea of the bottom right sword. I like the idea of a brand of sword that would have been made back in medieval times. Something where a makers style would be know at first glance and there would be a series in the same family sharing similar qualities like the handle and spiked guard. The bottom row is also full of swords that have a second handle for leverage so they can block swords more easily and break them if caught in the complex hand guard.

Talanar WIP

2012-01-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

This is another work in progress of Talanar a dragon born paladin. Only about 30% done with the coloring.

Kung Fu guys concepts

2012-01-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

These are both fairly quick concepts that I did for some characters in a larger world I'm working on that is old school kung fu styled. It ties into the narrative of the Chang Sung Character I have. These guys are both Mercernary Generals that are working for the bad guy of the story. The first Guy Chien Po Lai is a sword master and Fei Tung is a master of the snake fist. Each of these were based on quick sketches and then roughly colored in photoshop. Quick concepts to get the ideas out and to be fleshed out later.

Page from Stray Dogs Comic

2012-01-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

This is a progress page from my comic Stray dogs. It's set in medievil Japan and focuses on the political intrigue surrounding the royal court and the political struggles of samurai and has lots of ninjas as main characters. More of this work can be seen in my website under the projects tab www.tonymaligno.com/projects

Battle suit

2012-01-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

I occasionally get in a fixation to work on tech armors and develop their logic for how they work. This one has a built in power core on the back that feeds energy to the enlarged left arms energy shield. It has a war blade that is made of mono filament blades that are capable of cutting through most composite ceramic armors. They are capable of brief space exposure as they are used to board space ships for melee assaults.

Two wizards trapped in one magical twisted body hooray!

2012-01-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

A dark magic spell combines the two wizards into a monster

This was an idea I had one evening while sketching. A great war wages on and the good side is loosing. The good Wizard Allstaff realizes that the dark wizard Kalazar is too powerful and will win the war and enslave the entire kingdom. Allstaff decides to use a forbidden dark magic spell and traps them both in one twistd body that they must share. By day Allstaff has control and walks upright with full memory of what he did and has use of his magic. By night Kalazar has control of the body but his memory has been erased and he is instead only able to act on instinct. Allstaff tries to hide himself before he goes to sleep at night so that when Kalazar awakens and has control of the body is confused and lost. Allstaff is trying to search for a way to forever trapp Kalazar in the body while he wishes to escape. I haven't figured out how it will end....probably dramatically tragic.

Rough Pencils for exoskeletons

2012-01-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

These are some quick sketchbook renders of some different approaches to exoskeletons some of which are worn others you climb into. I like the one with the lady in the cockpit and might try to flesh it out further in the near future.

Traditional Drawing/ Life drawing

2012-01-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

These are some samples of my traditional charcoal and pencil drawings. I haven't done nearly as much of this as I would like in the last few years but I did get a chance to do a few sessions while I was at Google. I brought in a live model so my team could keep their life drawing skills fresh.

Cyberpunk Hacking Puzzle Game

2012-01-22T16:52:00.000-08:00

This is the concept evolution for interface design for a puzzle game. My brother in-law Bryan came up with the idea and has a working prototype that I'm going to skin and potentially do the entire art for. I have another monochromatic green and black retro metal gear looking version that I'm going to do next. After that I need to take a stab at the actual puzzle game elements. 90's retro sci-fifor the win!

Below is the monochrome green look.Still a work in progress. Spacing of items needs to be refined and there is a new simpler direction I'll be going with it.

Death River Adventures!

2012-01-16T23:26:00.000-08:00

This is a prototype screen and an intro storyboard for a game I'm working on with another friend. It's intended for the iphone and we hope to release it this spring. Its got a dark humor slant to it. Rescue drowning animals from a flood and collect gems for bonuses.

Aloneasaurus Iphone game

2012-01-16T23:22:00.000-08:00

I worked with my good friend Joel Davis on Aloneasaurus for the recent Ludum Dare game jam online. This project was a collaboration between Joel and myself. I did all of the art and he did all of the programming and we collaborated on some game design mechanics. We did the entire thing in less than 72 hours. I spent maybe 11 hours on the art. Its currently for free in the app store and we want to release the full game hopefully by the end of Jan.

Iphone game avatar design

2012-01-16T23:19:00.000-08:00

This is a character design for an iphone game that I was working on recently that just got canceled. The top image shows the original 3d design by another artist before I was brought onto the project. The sketches beside it are some of my original concepts for more cute relatable versions. After weeks of back and forth with the creative director the bottom 3d robot was decided upon based on variations my sketches. I modeled it and did the base texture and then a week later the entire project was canceled. Oh well, another one bites the dust.

Old man and a bird sketch

2012-01-16T23:04:00.000-08:00

I've recently acquired a vupoint magic wand portable scanner and its allowed me to scan in years of sketches from my sketch books that I like. This one in particular always stood out to me as a fun caricature of an old man. I like the exaggerated nature of his body. I'll be posting more sketches this month to add to the site.

Combat Robot Concept

2012-01-16T23:00:00.000-08:00

This is an idea that I had in my sketch book that I started to paint in photoshop over the holiday break. A work in Progress. I'll post the final piece as soon as I wrap it up. I'd like to possibly model it as well when I'm done with the concept piece.

The Iron God

2011-08-07T05:17:00.000-07:00

This is a mixed media painting that I did for a cancer benefit for a friend in my hometown of Gainesville Florida. It was a rather large piece and was framed in a nice simple modren black frame with red highlights, It was 36 x 26 just in the size of the actual painting and was larger still due to the size of the frame. It was pen and ink with water color and then tweaked in Photoshop for post production. The heavy influence of Jack Kirby can be seen in the concept. Samurai techo-warrior who wears the last suit of advanced iron armor and faces the advanced plastic armor and weapons which are no match for the strength of iron. Nice and cheezy.

The white dragon

2011-08-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

This is an idea that I had when I was a teenager. I drew it when I was about 17 years old. I went through a period where I was fascinated with dragons and with multi-dimensional travel. The story for the drawing goes as thus:

This dragon is know as Kal-La the neutral overseer. The white dragon that existed in its own dimension safe from all harm. It had with it, three unique companions that were all life forms from other dimensions that it had traveled to. The power of the white dragon is the ability to traverse the many dimensions as easily as we walk with our own two feet. Each of the three unique companions the dragon has acquired, can go back to their respective realities and inform the dragon of what is happening in that dimension. The dragon can then choose to transfer to the dimensions that it want to interact with and have influence.

A boy genius and his robot

2011-07-23T17:16:00.000-07:00

This was a sketch that I did while on the way home from work on a bus. I went home and colored it quickly for fun. I'd like to prototype it out further and build a story around it. Would be cool to do a 3d model of it soon.

Hybred story concepts

2011-07-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

Hybred is a story set in a very distant Earth after a massive apocalypse. The survivors have all fled to the only remaining remnants of technology and civilization, the citadels; large mobile cities that constantly move around serching for raditaion free zones to inhabit. There is an entire economy around scavaging and a very stratified social caste around this. The highest form of social status is the Hyfather. A noble of pure genetic heritage that can wear the nano-tech suits and have absolute power in their city.

This is a typical scavenger set up, with a mobile cart and tools.

The main citadel city that the story takes place in.

Dig Dug is a coal shuffler that works in the underbelly of the city, shoveling coal into the vast furnace that powers the gears of the citadel.

A typical soldier of a citadel city. Soldiers can be found working for the noble and mostly stay in high-town, the are where the higher cast lives.

Atypical bazaar in low-town where most of the commoners live.

Finneas J Owl

2011-07-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

Finneas was a character that appears in my second childrens book. He is the keeper of the hidden Mech Corp. Headqurters. He is a genetically engineered owl with hyper wizdom through the learning machines of Mech Corp. He is keeping the facilities functional until the inheritor can return to claim them. The inheritor winds up being Tom the main character of the book. Finneas is surrounded by a variety of robots in the facility and has programmed many of them.

Brave Tail and Teo

2011-07-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

These two characters are ideas for a video game set in a world similar to my childrens book world. I'm totally fascinated by anthropomorphic animal characters. They are some of the most fun things to create. These two look like they could be two buddys on a mission and ready to kick some butt. I was really pushing to saturate their colors and be really cartoony. Mission accomplished.

2011-07-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

These are bothpages from a prototype book I made while in Undergrad. It is an illustrated book of haiku poems with characters from my samurai comic that I'm working on. At some point I'd like to publish it for real, possibly for the next ape convention here in San Francisco in September. I'll post some earlier versions of the art at some point soon.

Samurai on the battlefield

2011-07-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

This is a samurai character that I worked up about 5 years ago so I could dust off the old drawing muscles again. Since I've gotten into art management, art direction etc, my drawing skills started to take the back seat. Its a sad process but with some diligence you can keep on top of it. This drawing in particular I like but still feel unsatisfied with even after all of this time. Total time on this one: 5 hours aprox.