Xavier Garcia

Beowulf

2013-04-29T10:16:00.006-07:00

Beowulf, one of the few male characters in the Skullgirls universe. Done to raise awareness for the voting campaign!

Wondercon 2013, sketches

2013-04-09T11:45:00.004-07:00

While helping out at the Inki-Jinx booth :)

Regarding the "high cost" of making Skullgirls

2013-03-02T20:45:00.002-08:00

This was originally posted in NeoGAF. There was a thread to discuss this GiantBomb article that outlines the cost of developing a character for Skullgirls. You can begin to read the reactions to this post in pg.10:

Here is some reference from my own experiences. Typically I don’t like to share these kinds of details with people who just DEMAND information they haven't earned, but discussion has shifted here a bit and its good to see.

I was one of the contractors, well, still am! I did some of the cleanup animation. By the time I got an assignment, the animation rough had been approved by Kinuko and at this point it could make the final game or it could not (that’s all in the testing, balancing and memory management) Smartasses in this thread have questioned the need for engineers in a game that’s already “done” and that’s a big mistake. The original game had to have animations cut because we had run out of memory, so on a technical standpoint, how the fuck are we gonna add more characters? Well shit, good thing there’s engineers on the team to figure that shit out, huh? That’s only one of the challenges too.

But anyways, to the point. You may get a short animation (6 frames aprox), medium (12, 15'ish) or large (20 plus) there’s also varying degrees of importance (normal move vs animation that only triggers when two duplicate characters hit each other with the same move) and there’s also character design details to add to the difficulty (Valentine is more simple than Painwheel, for example). One extra wrinkle is the level of sketchiness in the animation rough. Some animators will make the drawings so tight that there’s no room for improvisation while others will basically blank out the face and all of a sudden you find yourself animating faces from scratch!)

For an outsourcer, since you don’t have access to the team at your immediate need, its important to be diligent with the reference materials. Very few artists draw like Alex or Kinuko and its our job to make our art look exactly like theirs. If you look at my art you'll find that my style is not really close, so I cant just start on the task right away, I need to study the reference provided carefully and make sure I “get” the character before I start.

So once you start, the first deliverable is to digitally ink all the frames. I’m a classically trained 2D animator and have a fulltime art gig, so eventhough I’m fast I can only start working on this when I get home. This is another of the unfortunate realities that come with an ambitious project like this, that a lot of outside help already has other projects going on, so they cant give you 8 hours a day. I came home at 7 after drawing all day and spent another 5 hours doing Skullgirls work. Typically after two days I would send a medium sized animation over for approval from Richard, who is the awesome cleanup genius at Lab Zero. Approval usually takes about a day because Richard is getting deliverables from the outsources, who if you have seen the credits are way more than 20 … So basically Richard is art directing 20+ people AND doing cleanup work himself, meaning he basically doesn't get to go home (so its great to have to listen to assholes here tell me that he needs to justify his $600 a week) I had the pleasure of meeting him a few months back and hes going gray already, haha.

So yeah, approval. While I wait for that to show up I get started on the next frame. Very rarely does the linework get approved on the first try. Usually something is inconsistent, a weapon looks weird or the shapes are a little flat. Depending on the damage you may have to do 20% percent of work or maybe even up to 50. Its important to get this stuff approved because otherwise you cant move on to shading and coloring, which are the next steps.

Once you’re approved and do the shading and color pass (which take about 60% of the time it takes to ink) you send those off for approval as well, make some last minute touch ups due to feedback and THEN the animation is done on your end. Before it ends in the game proper, chances are Richard has fixed some things himself … So Id say on average I could get about 60'ish frames of animation a week, and seeing how the character with the FEWEST amount of animations has about 1500 then you start to get an idea of how just one step of the process works.

THEN we look at Squigly. What a lot of you aren't realizing is that she has MULTIPLE STANCES. What does that mean? TWICE THE ANIMATIONS.

Can you start to see how the hours pile up and have NOTHING to do with proper managing? A fighting game is unlike any other game. A character in a fighting game is the equivalent of a character + level design + the game design of any other game.

But hey yeah, lazy devs, right?

Old Nadia sketch, revisited

2013-02-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

Been practicing a bit more with the Frenden brush presets and was also trying out Monks brush set, it's really good!

2013 update

2013-02-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

The old Raging Spaniard icon art had been around for a loong time, here is a much needed update :)

Miiverse Part 3

2013-02-24T13:16:00.001-08:00

Heey, a Sunday post! Here's a small batch of Miiverse drawings I've been sitting on. The games in question are NBA 2K13, Assassins Creed III, random Zelda fanart I stuck in Nintendoland and some non-descript zombie art for ZombiU.

Quick digital test

2013-02-05T15:52:00.002-08:00

Just a quick test of the Frenden brush presets, these are awesome!

Fight Cancer! Support Skullgirls!

2013-01-31T13:19:00.002-08:00

Lets kill breast cancer and get Skullgirls into EVO! Go here to donate!

Padma character study

2013-01-25T10:13:00.001-08:00

This would work well for a fighting game pose! Im pretty happy with her design, shows lots of movement but also a calm demeanor.

Has it really been a month? The big housekeeping post and what lies in 2013

2013-01-21T13:39:00.003-08:00

Let me be the last person on the internet to wish you a happy 2013! Last we saw each other it was just over a month ago ... and a lot has changed!

Back in early December I was supposed to return to Brothersport for a full time job. However, at the very last second (and I mean that literally) there was a change of heart and I was on the job hunt again. Fortunately for me, I had 3 interviews lined up and as of the 7th of January I've been a Lead Artist at Kiwi!

Shipwrecked, one of our games

So yeah, for me, that is a big deal. So far the experience has been incredibly positive and I have been very focused on making the most of it. Dealing with multiple interviews, Christmas Break and then trying your best at a new job are all big undertakings and are a reason of why this blog had been neglected ... but I also engaged in one more activity.

Professional soccer?

Well, um, yes. The San Jose Earthquakes (an MLS team) had an open tryout this last weekend and I signed up for it early last month, so any free time I had for the last 30 days was spent running, stretching, shooting and playing soccer. Unfortunately, today I got the news that I wasn't chosen for the next round of tryouts, but the experience was really good and I will write about it soon.

As far as personal art goes. Things have been slow, but I have a plan in place to get a table at the next APE con, and by then I plan to have a couple of books available. One will be a collection of sketches, and the other one will hopefully have something to do with Lucha Town. I have also come up with a good name for a company that isn't Raging Spaniard related. I love the name as a nickname, but its not something I want for an actual production company. I'll share more news on that front when I have something more concrete.

Learning on a Budget: Jake Parker

2012-12-10T15:36:00.001-08:00

Mr. Parker is kind of a legend in our field. By all accounts hes incredibly nice, very talented and extremely hardworking. Any time you can find that combination in the artistic field you can consider yourself lucky.

For a while now I've been thinking that my mechanical work needs a lot of help. I think I'm OK with organics, and I have stepped up with my painting and backgrounds, but vehicles and hard surfaces I still dont feel confident in ... and the best way I know how to learn is to look at what the best in the field are doing, and copy it.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is an amazing documentary about the best sushi chef in the world. Its a very inspirational story and in it, Jiro explains than in order to become an exceptional chef you must eat exceptional food. I believe that same idea translates to art. If you aspire to be the best, then learn from them.

My method is not to copy in the traditional sense of the word. I like to draw from the inside out and try to replicate the method of how the artist drew the design, figure out the basic shapes and expand from there. The result will probably not be identical, but that's not the point. The objective is to get me to think like he does and to expand my visual library, so that when I design robots on my own time I can incorporate what I remember from the freehand copy.

So anyways, these are the two concepts from Jake that I started with:

And here are my freehand copies

Then I tried my hand at some mech designs of my own and see what if I learned anything

I think its pretty clear that its nowhere close to his level, but there are some things I'm starting to retain. His shapes are better, consort in more interesting ways and his sense of balance, perspective and negative space are much more refined ... but I think that by the end of the week my improvement will be noticeable ... Well see where it leads!

One way to deal with self deprecation: Vanity!

2012-12-05T15:08:00.004-08:00

Had a rough day today, so what better way to make yourself feel better than drawing yourself 10 times better looking than you actually do?

More Miiverse!

2012-11-26T15:56:00.001-08:00

Told you this stuff was addicting! Two more. ZombiU and Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed. Both of these are games I want to check out when I have a chance, heard great things regarding both games.

Miiverse

2012-11-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, Shelly and I went on a Wii U hunt that ended .. well, pretty quickly, haha. We weren't planning on buying one right away or anything, it was just a "well buy it when we run into it" kind of thing. Nintendo has made a conceited effort on having a better supply this time around and, lets be honest, it doesn't have quite the same buzz the Wii did at launch, but that's Okay!

Once you get past the gamepad, which is awesome, the coolest thing about Wii U is Miiverse. What the hell is that, you ask? Simple. Miiverse is a games forum built into the consoles infrastructure You can access it at anytime without quitting the game you're currently playing and the way you post is, you pick the game you're posting about and make either a text post or ... draw a picture.

I have been picking each game that has a community forum and doing a super quick little fanart piece, and the response from the communities has been really positive! I'm also pretty happy with some of them, hell the Assassins Creed one has a layout I really like and could use on a serious piece.

In any case, heres what I've been up to the last 2 days, haha.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2:

Ninja Gaiden 3

Sons of Anarchy (via the Netflix community)

In some games, you'll be asked if you want to make a post when you do something cool. In Mario U, for instance, you will see messages pop up in the world map with peoples comments and drawings which I think is a fantastic feature.

Assassins Creed 3

Fifa 13

Tekken Tag Tournament 2

Happy Thanksgiving!

I swear Im not making a Tiny Wings ripoff

2012-11-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

Background WIP for a Ginger Steve concept piece! I'm a big fan of Cucumber Quest by Gigi and want to try a painting style that evokes her painting style a little bit

Links of interest for November 2012

2012-11-16T15:10:00.001-08:00

I was pretty lucky to be able to do work for Sanshee this past month. It was a really cool project that I hope you all will like (and I think you will) but it has taken all of my time to get it done and, since it's under NDA I cant even tell you what it is!

So, long story short. No new art to show BUT I can share some cool things I've found lately.

-My wife runs her own merch store, it's called Inki-Jinx and she's trying to get to 1000 likes on Facebook, so she's just setup a giveaway. Please go to her Facebook page to check it out, it's good stuff!

-Any artist will agree that copyrights are a pain in the ass. We just found out that you can fill out the copyright forms online! This is a huge plus, as it means you don't have to make a big package and send it via snail mail. Now you can put all your pertinent stuff into a pdf file and send it over. Cheap, too!

-Along with Fiona Staples (read SAGA!), Sean Murphy is my favorite comic book artist going now. Punk Rock Jesus is shaping up to be his masterpiece and he recently made a blog post encouraging all artists to start writing. I found it inspirational and share worthy.

-Are you familiar with Constanza Adonis? Well, now you are, she's amazing

New art scheduled for Monday! Have a good weekend!

Marco & Padma

2012-10-29T11:09:00.002-07:00

This started out as a warmup sketch, but I actually really like the whole concept, so I'm gonna go ahead and do it up :)

Padma, final colors

2012-10-17T09:11:00.003-07:00

So I actually recorded the entire process of painting her up, it was about an hour and a half of good stuff until the file got corrupted and wont stop crashing my video editing software ... so that's a bummer.

Lucha Town wise, there's about 3 more characters to round up the main cast. Padma is not very prominent at the beginning, but her relationship with Nadia is very important and will get a lot of pages (and they will not talk about "boys", thank God)

Behold the Maneater Nerd!

2012-10-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

Going from a Lucha Town update to a Ginger Steve update! This is one of the enemies I want to have in the game, this is a nerd that's been invaded by a parasite that needs to feed so it'll be one of those mobs that follows you and you have to keep him from getting a hold of you.

On a separate note, Shelly and I went to APE (Alternative Press Expo) in San Francisco this weekend and it was amazing! I've been to all the major conventions and so far this has had my favorite showcase of talent and accessibility. You had a lot of artists who work in big studios trying to get their own thing going, people from Pixar, Double Fine (Tim Schafer showed up!), Disney (Playdom), Cartoon Network and just outstanding fulltime freelancers. It was really inspiring to be involved with such great talent, so if you can attend next year, I would highly recommend it.

I also got to meet one of my all time art heroes, Sergio Aragones! We chatted for a little bit and hes, so, so great. If you're not familiar with him, please go check him out, he's legendary.

Lucca

2012-10-12T13:34:00.001-07:00

Chrono Trigger is factually known as the best game ever, so I like to pay it tribute every now and again :)

Padma, final design rough

2012-10-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hey look, a Lucha Town update! Been a while eh?

This is the final design for the previously unnamed shaolin character. Finally settled on a design and a name. made her slightly younger looking than the sketches so she fits with the cast a bit more. She's the oldest of the main cast and provides both a challenge for the other characters and a mentorship role. Her attitude is relaxed and confident, giving the impression that she's not very devoted to training ... but I have a couple of ideas to play with that will mess around the archetypes a bit.

White Men Can't .. something or other

2012-10-08T09:41:00.002-07:00

Back from a mini-vacation. I had some good company at home and decided to take it easy.

This is the battle background for Dunk Dreams. One of the big things I wanted to strees with the art direction in the game was that urban does not mean it needs to lok like crap. The Favelas in Brazil are a great example of this.

The image looks a little big and I cheated on some perspective stuff, but thats to make up for iPad/iPhone image ratio stuff, most of this image is actually cropped in the game, so a lot of it is to stay safe within resolution boundaries.

I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying

2012-09-21T09:31:00.001-07:00

Quoting some Michael Jordan truths!

Another character concept piece for Dunk Dreams, our basketball game. This pose was a particular challenge because its veeeery basketball specific and its hard to make it look both dynamic and proper at the same time. You have to jump straight up, any sign of flailing will make a bad shot and your elbow should be tucked in, so I couldn't really do any of my usual crazy arms going everywhere thing I do.

So that's where adding movement and flow through clothing can play a big part, also I tried to be subtle and make sure there's some rotation on his legs and make the shadows be kind of dynamic.

He Got Game

2012-09-14T13:17:00.004-07:00

Loved that movie, Denzel couldn't play to save his life, but whatever.

Heres another character concept, trying to get some motion going and I'm getting more and more into this painting style. Gotta say this is the most fun I've had in a professional project in a long time.

Ball so hard ...

2012-09-12T22:05:00.001-07:00

So yeah, kind of obvious but the last two weeks have been insanely busy. Turns out making all the art for a game is hard work! This is some character concept art for the game we're making :)