TaskForce3D

In 2006 I went back to contracting while keeping an eye open for specific job opportunities. My long term focus was on being creative, developing "new IP", not just doing artwork but I knew the need for quality art outsourcing was on the rise so I formed TaskForce3D. I set it up and marketed it as an experienced next-gen art outsourcing shop, where I could bring in other artists to take on larger amounts of contract work as a team. I completed contract artwork for several production companies in US and UK doing next gen-art, xbox live arcade art to expo booth design concepts. I brought in other artists from time to time to help out, usually because the timelines were very compressed. Most of the time it was just me working 24/7 finding work then doing it. I had a business office inside and converted the garage into a 3 station art studio with no phones and no internet. When I was in the office I was doing email, phone calls, bidding and finding work. When I was out in the studio I was focused on art only; no email, no web, no phones, no distractions.

My favorite project that summer was with EA on Medal of Honor Airbourne. I worked with my friend Justin who was an art director there. He directed me on five rendered images they wanted for marketing and promotional materials. This image was one printed on two page full bleed spreads in magazines (The color and levels are a bit off in this version of the image though).

At the time I was meeting with multiple companies, working all the time and seeing my family go off to movies and the park on the weekends without me. I didn't like that part too much. I realized I was often pretty much a slave to last minute rushed projects and that China was going to be hard to compete with, price wise not quality wise, because their per man day price point was so low. My prediction became: building an art outsourcing company is probably not the best avenue for me to be pursuing right now. Around this time I received an email and or phone call from Radical Entertainment in Vancouver BC, Canada. They were interested in talking to me about joining their team for a "brand new IP project"...

LFP

In 2005 LFP lost two of its founding members, one of them the art director. LFP had offered me a job in 2003, after they saw my work on the Travis Pastrana Pro-MX project. LFP would go on to eventually take over that project and ship it as MTX Mototrax. They made me their first offer around the same time Infinity Ward did but I choose IW for multiple reasons. Now, several years later, LFP was going through a number of changes and needed an art director to "help create new game IPs, rebuild their art team and help them successfully make the transition into next-gen game development".  I was offered this AD job and after much deliberation I accepted. It was difficult to leave IW because I loved the games we made, I respected the company and culture and have friends there. The LFP opportunity to create and direct new IP and the challenge to succeed seemed too fun and potentially rewarding to pass up. It offered me an opportunity to prove I could successfully lead and art direct a professional dev team. It was my chance so I jumped on it.

They hired me as "art manager" until I delivered results and earned the art director title. My primary objectives were to conceptualize and create new project IPs, put together presentations, pitch to publishers and build a next gen capible art team. My secondary objective was to oversee the final weeks of art completion on the first nearly completed world series of poker project and ensure five sku's shipped on time. I had zero involvement or responsibility in the art style or the lack of quality of artwork on the first title. It was mostly done before I arrived. World series of Poker shipped all five sku's and we went onto rebuilding LFP. Unfortunately several artists did not make the cut and we had to let them go. The art team that remained after the cut was Axel Ortiz, Joanne Lee, Matt Silverstein, Allan Hayburn, Tracy Iwata and Milton Mariscal. I then went on a wide search for appropriate top talent. Over a period of a couple months I tested and hired five awesome artists and animators: David Donze, Adam Lawthers, Matt Genovese, Damien Brown and Rob Blanchard.

I went on to create multiple pitch presentations with the new high potential art team. We also made art demos/videos for five game concepts that we quickly created and shopped to publishers: a Snowboarding/snowskating game, an Off Road racing game (dirt and watercraft), a toon style Cops and Robbers game, a FPS game and a Bike racing game. Publishers liked the snowboarding concept but no publisher wanted to compete with SSX3 at the time.

Crave was interested in the Bike racing game. After they were rejected project approval by SONY "PEG" (product evaluation group) they flew me up north to SONY San Mateo to pitch the game. I received SONY's project approval on the spot after my presentation. SONY was excited about the project concept and gave us the green light. On the drive back to the airport, Mark Burke, one of the owners of Crave told me, "I'm excited about this game, you did a great job today. I think this is going to be our first fully priced game". (Crave usually markets lower budgeted, lower priced titles). I went back to the office and got busy with our concept artist, Axel, on further directing and defining the vision of the games levels and environments.  The unique racing concept, the trick system, animation style and main gameplay hooks were already well defined in my presentation. Below are a few pieces used to convey ideas along the way while developing the game concept.

  

Meanwhile Activision had not been happy with the art quality in the first WSOP (as I would have guessed). They were not going to renew a contract for a new next-gen 360 Poker game until the studio could show that it could produce good next gen level art. Well, I already had that under control. We had all been working to get the newly formed team up to speed to show what we could do. We presented Activision with an example set of next-gen art; mainly a Max Pescatori character fully animated with facial animation and a bit of environment art. It was the first batch of next-gen game art ever completed by most of the team members. The five artists I hired were all first time game developers and were real good at the work they did. Activision was pleased and gave LFP a contract for WSOP, Tournament of Champions for the new XBox 360. Around this time I earned the art director title.

Here are some early wip's we created while the team was working on first assets to get project approval:

See what IGN reviewers had to say about the shipped game here:

WSOP 360 IGN Review  

"...With its second release, World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions, the company has completely reversed its standing from last time around and has released what may very well be the best poker game on the market".

Due to a specific uncontrollable circumstance, I decided to part ways with LFP a little over a year after I'd helped the studio rebuild and secure two projects. It's too bad because I really enjoyed working with my art team and the programming team there. I think we, the art team did great work together. As a director I really enjoyed seeing the work the team was developing, especially from Axel, David, Adam, Joanne, Matt and Rob because they were realizing my vision and direction with fine precision, yet still including their own style in their work which is very rewarding. I won't post any dirt here but If you want to know why, what or who the problem was causing me to leave, ask any of the art team members or a number of the programming team members, or maybe we can talk in person one day. But it doesn't really matter now. In all honesty I had hoped working there would be a long term deal but pretty early on, because the way the studio was "managed", I felt in my gut that it was probably a stepping stone along an unknown path.

SoCal

...

couple sketches

Nov. 2003: Paul Messerly, one of the animators at IW always had a pen and pad close by and did some outstanding sketches at work. In 03 I hadn't spent any time at all drawing because I made the move to Cali and was working on COD. In my spare time I was always writing music, jamming and looking for a band in LA. Paul inspired me to do some drawing. So I remember breaking out the old pens and markers and making a conscious effort to get back into drawing. I did these two sketches over Thanksgiving break in Calabasis.

CG Penguins

2002 - Penguins CG Feature Film. I was contracted to work on this cartoon style CG film as an artist doing concept art, 3D scene layout & animatics. It was my first experience working with a real film director at a Production company. The project and the small team was a lot of fun.  We were going for a cell shaded look so the concept image below kinda works but nowadays I really dislike this look, it' so flat with no line weight variation or atmospheric depth but still a fun concept I think.
They found a crashed C-130 on the berg and prepared to overpower their pesky rivals for the choice ice...

TPFMX

... first playable demo with first pass animations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bShs_IZl1vc

Supercross Circuit

1999 - Making Sony's Supercross Circuit for Playstation was great fun. In the beginning we ported the RallyCross2 code over and Phil or Jim did some quick tweaks to make it turn more like a bike. It was nice having a solid fast racing engine right at the beginning of the project. For awhile I was designing a new track ribbon a day. It was fun shaping a track then immediately testing it on the Playstation, then re-sculpting the elevation, jumps and turns until I couldn't put it down and just kept doing lap after lap. Once I was addicted to the track layout I knew it was time to art it up.

Here is a video of my track designs, art and animation in SuperCross Circuit:

Here are a few screengrabs from Alias PowerAnimator of 3 of my 5 final shipped tracks. (wireframe and flat textured w no lighting, the bright red areas were transparent on PS1). I think the game shipped in November of 1999.                      

HighPoint

Mesa Canyon

Steel City

RallyCross2

My main track in RC2:
RallyCross2 - Hillside Colorado Rally

CoolBoarders3 - My 1st published game

1997 - After two years of designing games and creating computer game art I finally got my break. Scott Atkins and Mark Lyons had just broken away from Sony and moved to Colorado to start up their own game company, Idol Minds (funded by Sony). At the time I was working for Consolidated Media Systems in Denver as the Lightwave3D demo artist and doing some video editing. I also did sales and I stayed in touch with my growing contact list. I was talking to my friend Ken Knobel of Alias/Wavefront, who I had met at NAB, and he ask me if I was coming to the Power Animator demo in Boulder. Of course I was. While at the demo he ask me if I was still interested in making video games. Of course I was. So he told me of a new company looking to set up shop in Boulder and gave me Scott's contact info.  I called Scott one Friday afternoon, we chatted and hit it off on the phone. I told him my interests and experience and he said I sounded like a good fit but wanted to see my work. I drove out to Boulder soon after for an interview and he hired me. The rest is history.

I started sketching track level design ideas in my notebook right away (or on sticky notes). A few of them I colored are below (circa 1997). If you played the game you may recognize them. I loved working on this game!

Here's a Video link of my artwork and level designs on the game: My work in CoolBoarders 3

We went on to do several sequels but CB3 remained the best imo.

Laterally Flexible Snowboard Binding

Coming from a skate background the first thing I wanted once I started snowboarding was more flexibility on the snowboard. I disliked how the soles of my feet needed to stay stuck parallel to the plane of the snowboard when I was in the air, it felt very restrictive on style. I started designing a solution in 1993. After three years of designing, fabricating and testing prototypes on snow, as well as learning CAD, I submitted a provisional patent in 1996 and a full patent application in 1997. On Jan. 5th, 1999 I received a US Patent #5,855,390 on my concept with claims on around 12 specific designs. Here are two overview pages from the patent:

While learning AutoCAD in school I started drawing with CAD and painting the imagery in Paint shop Pro. Freehand drawing in CAD was called "free didging" and was frowned upon by the design types but my background was in art and I wanted to use the computer to draw as well as design. Here, in autocad, I illustrated how I could ollie higher and do more stylish "shifty's" on my bindings. I also hand rendered over my 3d autocad model with a mouse in paint shop pro. Myself and friends started Skylab designs, the binding was our first product.

Below, In 1996 I drew a sequence of images in AutoCAD for DOS (before Windows), colored them in Paint shop pro and animated in Gif animator. For some reason you have to click the gif to see it animate on the mac.

Testing prototype on Burthod:

The prototype model being ridden above:

For info on Pivit Bindings visit: http://www.facebook.com/PivitBindings

Here's my Patent Bunker (under my bed) where I completed patent drawings and new designs:

Here are some early rough design sketches from my notebook.

This is the first sketch and 1st CAD drawing of my 6th design, the 1st one that I prototyped and tested. It worked but I broke a cable after several dozen jumps and decided the design was too complicated. The next day I moved on to to re-designs.

My next prototype was based on a dual torsion spring around a tight fitting lateral pivit axle. It worked great.

Next I designed several potential locking mechanisms in case it was useful to lock the pivoting action in deep powder. The goal was to be able to reach down while riding and lock or unlock the binding. The push button engage shaft design worked best. 

 

In 1997 I started working on a snowboarding video game for Sony and gave it my full attention. The game became CoolBoarders3.

Even though Shorties, Quicksilver, Tony Magnussen of Evol, and other companies had shown interest in the binding product after signing my NDA and seeing my prototypes. Some of these companies wanted me to manufacture it and put their name on it. Heh, I was just a kid with an idea and proven designs and a new baby boy. At the time I was not prepared to setup a manufacturing facility with product liability issues and all that comes with a new product venture of this sort. I was making a Sony Snowboarding game and raising a new family. I was most interested in licensing my designs. I soon became too busy making video games to further manufacture or market my bindings.  I just custom made them for myself and a few friends and left it at that. 

In a chance meeting that same year I also sat at a table behind closed doors with Tom Sims, Noah Salasnek and Aaaron Vincent. They were all interested in seeing my prototype based on my brief description but Sims would not sign our NDA, Tom Sims asked his lawyer but the lawyer said no he couldn't. I called Joe Herring, my patent attorney/mentor at the time and he told me: Not to show them - we hadn't applied yet - that they could take the design - that there would be plenty of time and opportunities to present it once we had patents applied for and secured on my designs. 

I had to walk out of the meeting with my functioning prototypes still in my backpack. That was hard to do but I listened to my mentor. Thinking back maybe I should have just showed them as it may have gotten more traction and gotten to market. After all Aaron Vincent and Noah Salesnek were two of the most skate styled, skate influenced riders at the time. Instead the bindings have only been used underground on only a few elite peoples boards. Marketing them went onto my back burner as I jumped into the fun, simpler, safer and easier route of making video games. 

Lately I've been getting a lot of interest in the binding!! and questions from people wanting to ride them! So I am currently back to designing the next model and meeting with potential investors. If I can find the right team to work with we can get them out to a larger market! Stay tuned..! 

Contact me if you are interested in working with me on this next evolution of snowboard connectors. Email - PivitBindings@gmail.com

Aggression Snowboards

In 1992, at 22 years old I moved from my hometown in Virginia to chase a snowboarding dream in Colorado. I saved money for four months, resigned from my shop foreman job, packed everything I needed in my Toyota pickup and hit the road west in early October. It was a solo mission because all my friends seemed to lack the desire or the balls to go. (My truck blew up in the middle of nowhere Kansas an hour before dusk and I had to ride a rollback for the remaining 400 miles into CO. but that's another story). Upon arrival in Boulder, I was looking at a Snowboarding magazine and saw an Aggression Snowboards ad. I quickly noticed the address was off Arapahoe Rd in Boulder, CO. and I believe a phone number was listed. I got in touch with Tom Fritschen, the facility manager and ask if they were hiring or needed any help. After our first conversation I got myself an interview. Five days after arriving in Colorado I had a job manufacturing snowboards.

We made two primary models that year, the Tarquin Robbins freeride models and the Assault backcountry models. There were also GS racing and custom boards as well.

As production continued we ran into an edge delam problem at the tip and tail of the boards. The edges were popping away from the core of the board on the tip and tail curve.  This was a serious product defect and Matt Nipper, the company founder wasn't happy about it, neither were we. Matt was rushing to design a new machine that would hopefully fix the problem. I came up with a simple manufacturing technique that I believed would solve it. I went into Matt's office and presented it to him. He didn't think it would help the situation and felt we needed to build a new and better machine (which we probably did also). Matt told me to go ahead and try it on two boards. That day I made two boards with my new process/technique and sent them on through the rest of manufacturing production line. That evening the finish board inspector called Matt over and they stress tested the two boards. Both my boards held up, the edges did not pull away where others did. The team gathered in the testing room and everyone was stoked the boards were no longer failing. This problem would now be gone forever. Tony King, chief fabricator who ran board layup and press room said "give that guy a free board!" Matt smiled and agreed, at the end of the week he let me pick a model, took it out of the final production stack and gave it to me. I was stoked, it was my first real snowboard.

Left photo below: Marcello finishing a TR60 on the wet sander. Right photo: Me at the base station putting base assemblies through my slip roll technique. To solve the delamination problem I didn't rely on the huge force of the press and the epoxy resin to keep the metal edges curved up into the tip and tail. The problem was the edges wanted to straighten back out after board flexing and the very ends lost some curve and popped out away from the core, taking the p-tex base with it. What I did was pre tension the base assembly edges by slip rolling them to a much tighter radius than the final board curve would have. I made the curve get progressively tighter towards the edge ends. This gave the edges a tendency to want to curl tighter rather than straighten back out. During pressing they would be relaxed into the board curve shape and their tension pushed into the boards core, where they had no chance of flattening and popping out.

The P-Tex routing area and two of the original presses.

Left: Clinton Augustene going mad in the base room. Center: Board finish and right: "board layup".

Working here was awesome. I was on the often cold snowy roads at 6:00am riding an old Peugeot 10 speed to work. We worked four ten hour days, 6:30 to 5:00 and usually went snowboarding together on Fridays. My first ride with the team was at Copper Mountain in two feet of epic Colorado powder. I couldn't yet turn well but first thing off the lift I B-lined to a kicker (a snow launch ramp), did a big japan air to crash land downhill tumble roll right through a rope fence. About 12 of my team stood there watching, laughing and clapping. Tony or Mike instantly nicknamed me "Cannonball Chris". Heh, whatever, I was one happy newb and picked up snowboarding pretty quickly.