Is Wil Wheaton the Messiah?

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The Original. (Not by me.)

NOW AVAILABLE TO BUY AS A PRINT!

OFFICIALLY APPROVED by Geek & Sundry and The Creators of the Show, The Tabletop Last Supper is now available to buy via Redbubble.com. Available in Poster, Mounted Print, Canvas Print and Framed Print versions, all with size options.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER NOW - from $21.84!

I've very recently gotten into original online TV content. I love how open it can be, unrestrained by Networks or ratings. One of the first that I got hooked on was Geek&Sundry's TableTop, starring Wil Wheaton.

This is an excellent, show where the premise is simple: Wil invites three friends to join him in playing a selection of interesting board games... and that's it! The results are funny, entertaining and a great way of getting an insight into how some of the best board games out there are played.

During a quiet Christmas break, I thought I'd create an illustration about the show. Now.. I'm not suggesting that Wil Wheaton is the Messiah (that's for history to decide), but his trademark opening pose together with the striking table just seemed too much to pass over.

Pictured in the illustration are just a few of the many guests that have been on the show (the table would have had to have been really long to fit them all in). Seating from left to right are:

Colin Ferguson, Riki Lindhome, Kate Micucci, Steve Jackson, Alison Haislip, Anne Wheaton, Wil Wheaton, Grant Imahara, Felicia Day (with Dr. Hannah), Bonnie Burton, Phil LaMarr, Beth Riesgraf and Bill Prady.

Hope you like it.

UPDATE:

A print of my picture (which I spoke to Geek&Sundry about them doing) featured in the Tabletop Day live stream event behind the celebrity players with Wil Wheaton. I followed as much as I could and I've put copies of twitter pictures and screen grabs at the bottom of this page - check them out (all images are copyright of their respective owners.) 

ADDITIONAL UPDATE:

I'm delighted that the artwork is now installed behind the Loser's Couch for series 2 of Tabletop! The producer of the show contacted me at the beginning of the year to say that it was the plan, and that there would be a season 2 - I had to keep quiet all this time!! But with episode 2 just posted, its really cool to see it on the screen. Here's a screen capture from episode 1:

Check out my blog post at the digital agency I work for, Beyond - www.bynd.com, for an additional exclusive image - click here to see it!

Pictures from Tabletop Day Live Stream Event:

(all images are copyright of their respective owners.)

Animation: RSPCA Choices

This is an animation project I worked on via Beyond for RSPCA over the past few months. It was storyboarded, drawn, animated and edited by myself, created in Adobe Flash and then output to video, with the editing in Apple iMovie.

Click here to view (if you can't see the embedded version above)

Here's examples of the storyboard and illustration source files:

Illustration: Goodbye Mike

Time to say goodbye to Mike Tempest, a great digital designer here at Beyond. I've worked with Mike at Beyond, and also doing some illustrations for his great new clothing brand, MYOF clothing.

For his goodbye, I recoloured the Viking illustration I drew for him, standing triumphant over a bested Beyond.

May the Gods one day speed you to Hades Mike, to sit at Odin's table.

Illustration: George and Roger

For a beyond blog post, Roger Warner asked me to create a series of comic book illustrations of himself talking to George Lucas. You can see the full article here

Illustration: Goodbye Kieran

Illustration to say goodbye to the Beyond resident Codemeister and Deejay, Kieran.

80s Movies - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Now we're talking!  Of all the movies of the 80s, this was the one I fixated on the most - yes, even more than Star Wars! Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I think at first, my brother saw Raiders and explained it to me. I remember not wanting to see it, as it sounded like a horror film! But not long after, I did and never looked back.

For this third illustration in my series of 80s Movie Posters, there was no question in my mind which one I would do next.

But the first two in the series were done with an icon / 8-bit style, which suited the family nature of Back to the Future and Ghostbusters very well. But on trying it with Raiders, it just didn't seem to suit.  I've put the Indy I created for it below - so you can see what I mean.

So, I decided to break from the format, and move back into my ultra-silhouette style for this one - and I'm glad I did. I was pleased with how it came out - the Indy was drawn by me straight onto the computer - by the way, I don't think I've said before, but I draw into Illustrator directly with a mouse - I don;t use a graphics tablet. Never got on with them.

So hope you like it - My inner twelve year old was going mental all through it. Either that, or it was food poisioning.

"Bad dates."

80s Movies - Ghostbusters

For my second illustration in my 80s Movies series, I went back to my childhood and a movie that sparked more excitement than any other of the time - Ghostbusters.

This was by far one of the coolest movies of the mid 80s, that drove kids wild. I remember going to see it and being blown away by the whole package - the special effects, the story, the acting, the humour - it was all just COOL.

So in this poster I took some extra effort to get the details right. Starting with the Gozer building, (in reality 55 Central Park West in New York) I found as many source images I could and did my best to get it right - its not 100% accurate by any means, but I think Ive got a good interpretation of the architecture.  For the movie, the special effects artists added on another half again to the top of the real building - the real one finishes where the 'church-like' feature about halfway up.

Finding reference for the Gozer pinnacle at the top was a problem - I couldn't find anything other than long distance matte paintings, but then luckily, I found a site detailing an old auction where the actual model was for sale.

The rest was drawing the Ghostbusters themselves, and the Ecto-1, which was great fun, and finally Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

I really enjoyed thins one, despite the detailing - hope you like it too.

Beer & Board Games Awards 2012

Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan over at Blame Society Productions must have got tired of me sending over illustrations and this time asked me to do one for them.

They invited their fans to vote on their favourite moments from the 2012 season of Beer & Board Games.  After the votes were counted, they produced a video showing the winners and they asked me to create the title cards for the categories, which I was happy to do.

They wanted something along the lines of the Oscar, so I did the above, turning it into Dylan from the show, with a beer, a game piece hat, and a shaving foam beard (you have to see a certain episode to understand this moment.)

Here it is in use: