Robert Heinlein's Mobile Infantry

Like King Kong and LOTR was for Peter Jackson, and the Titanic was for James Cameron, the Starship Troopers novel is my passion. I first read the book when I was 11, and I've been designing it's spaceships, worlds, aliens, and powered armor suits ever since. While enjoyable in its own right, the movie of the same name has almost nothing to do with the book, and I hope to someday correct this error. A game document and levels I created were my de facto senior thesis, and I've written no less than separate 5 game documents on the subject: a main game and four sequels. To distance myself from the continuously awful movie franchise, I've wrapped my stories around the label of "Robert Heinlein's Mobile Infantry". Someday, if I keep at it, I'll be able to create these games or at least bring the actual story from the novel to the big screen...

ASP Revisited

Something about this design was gnawing at me, so I got up early to make some quick changes. The wing area, engines and tail section just didn't quite match up on the front view, so I did some quick photoshop retouches and voila! It matches up better, and now fits my overall idea. Maybe time for a 3D model?

Colonial ASP

Another quick hit aircraft concept, this time from a story I wrote called The Children of Caprica. Yes, you guessed it, it's set in the current Battlestar Galactica tv series. I wasn't that interested in the show when it first came out, but an insistent friend gave me the season one DVDs. I quickly scooped up season 2 and 2.5, just in time for the next season. I wrote my story just as season 3 started, but my interest in the show started to wane as the season went on. The plotlines they had weren't nearly as interesting. In the end, I really liked how BSG finished, and it proved a nice fit for my story. Hm, that reminds me, I'm not sure if I registered this one with the WGA yet.......

In any case, this ship is a stealthy transport, designed for Colonial Special Operations units. The trick for me is to come up with something practical, something that makes sense aerodynamically, militarily, and still looks like it could fit in a hangar bay alongside the other Colonial ships, Vipers, Raptors, etc. I have a tendency to overthink stuff sometimes, but I guess I'm more in the James Cameron school of thought, which is to say, make it cool, but make it look like it could really exist (now I'm not saying I'm in the same league as Cameron, just saying I'm more into his way of thinking ).

LAkOTA

I loved looking at aircraft books as a kid, and spent a lot of time drawing and designing my own. This is a quick line art concept for a helicopter design from my Reapers game concept. A stealthy transport for the futuristic soldiers I concepted in an earlier painting. I had thought of it as a sister ship to the Comanche helicopter. I'm hoping to put together some concept paintings and 3D models soon.

Six Degrees of Yamagata

While working on my matte painting and looking for photos online, I found a place called Yamagata Castle. As I looked for more info, I inevitably came to more works from the artist of the same name, the guy I used to work for so long ago. In the process, I found this painting, called Paris Tour. If you have a serigraph of this, I printed it many years ago.

Invitiation from the Past...

Ages and ages ago, I stepped into my first art studio job. I worked in a fine art serigraphy studio, and one of our chief clients was Hiro Yamagata. His work was immensely popular at the time. He was very close to Arnold Schwarzenneger, and the two threw a party commemorating Yamagata-san's newest artwork. This was the invitation we made for the event, a collectable hand printed serigraph, signed by both men. I wonder how many of these prints still exist?

The Reaper

I painted a version of this a few years ago, but I never got around to finishing it. It's a concept from a story\ game design document I wrote in 2003, based on the ideas I was reading about the Army's Future Warrior 2025 project. A short time later, one of my best friends became a field tester for this system, so I began modifying my design based on the few unclassified things he could tell me about it.