Dead Rising: Watchtower trailer!

The Dead Rising trailer has dropped, and you can catch glimpses of Bonzo the Clown, whose costume and make-up I designed as concept artist. Bonzo is the newest addition to the Dead Rising universe’s growing roster of dangerous clown characters, and he was a treat to work on. The film itself looks like a fun gruesome romp– Rob Riggle as Frank West is a perfect bit of casting, even if he’s not the main character.

I’m not at liberty to post the drawings until the film comes out, but scoop the trailer below.

4Cats Motion Storybooks

During my year-long stint at 4Cats, I was responsible for researching and writing course material and storybooks for 4Cats classes. I began with biographical and critical research into the artist, which I would gradually compile into a roughly 10,000-word curriculum detailing the artist's life, career, major works, humourous trivia and anecdotes. With the curriculum finalized and approved, I distilled the curriculum further into roughly 500-word storybooks to give children the broadest introduction to the artist.

With the books written, I passed the material to the head illustrator to create the images accompanying my words. I didn't have any input into the visual aspect of the creation, but our combined efforts resulted in published editions similar to the ones shown below. These can be found in 4Cats locations internationally.

When each book was done, I combined the visual assets with supplied voice recordings to create 5-minute Motion Storybooks, using minimalist After Effects animation and editing to bring the illustrator's visuals to life. The videos are only available to 4Cats customers, but I also created a number of trailers which 4Cats released online. Here are a few below!

Jean-Michel Basquiat – TRAILER from 4Cats Arts Studio on Vimeo.

Keith Haring – TRAILER from 4Cats Arts Studio on Vimeo.

Salvador Dali – TRAILER from 4Cats Arts Studio on Vimeo.

Will Write For Food: Hello Vancity

devin-townsendTwo of my passions are music and writing, and I've chased the opportunity to combine them. Since 2010 I've been writing music-related articles on-and-off for Bandmark, and recently I've begun contributing to Vancouver news and event blog Hello Vancity. This month I've been to The Commodore twice for some killer shows, and have written about them here: