Lost LucasArts

I worked on a lot of projects during my time at LucasArts that were announced to the public, but later cancelled or changed before being released.   This has generated some interest from some hardcore LucasArts fans in some of these discarded materials.  Going through my old files, I recently dug up some old animation I did on some of these games.  I put together some of them into a reel, and have included some descriptions of these materials.

1. Herc's Adventures
These are "clean" versions of some of the animation I did for this game.  Sometimes you can't always appreciate the animation as well with all the backgrounds, scrolling and activity going on during gameplay.  Also--especially with sprite-oriented games, sometimes things can be lost in the translation during processing.  These clean versions give you a better look at the original feel of the animation.

By the way, if the flame in the Hades animation looks familiar, it may be because I pretty much used the same animation as when I animated the flames in Ben's motorcycle exhaust in Full Throttle.  That in turn may look familiar because I pretty much copied it frame by frame from the flames from the dragon in Disney's Sleeping Beauty!

2. Full Throttle
Here's a clean version of the run cycle used in a cutscene in Full Throttle where Ben tries to escape from a big ball of flame on an airplane (if I'm remembering correctly)

3. Ghoul Patrol
Raw animation from Ghoul Patrol.

4. Loom
This was animated for a cutscene in the 256 color version of Loom.  I don't remember for sure if this version of the animation appeared in the final version of the released game.

5. The Dig (Brian Moriarity Version)
Here is some animation from the Brian Moriarity version of The Dig.  The first shot is a walk cycle of the creature that is reincarnated for this early version of the skeleton puzzle.  The second shot is a death-by-electrocution animation cutscene of a sea creature.  Somewhere, there exists an animation I did of two of these creatures ripping one of the characters in two.  The third shot is the reincarnation shot of the creature in the skeleton puzzle.

6. The Dig (Noah Falstein Version)
Here are some walk-cycle animations I did of some creatures for the Noah Falstein version of The Dig. The premise in this version of the game was that the world was inhabited by a dying race of six-limbed creatures.  Because of this, much of the technology could only be operated by the surviving natives, or by the cooperation of two human characters (it was to be a multi-player game.)  The most feared creature in the game was the Terrabat, a creature with a pair of claws and two pairs of wings.  A couple of Terrabat animations are shown here.

I have another reel here of animation from various LucasArts games (as they appear in the released product).  There are also some animations from the Moriarity version of The Dig and a test animation from the unreleased Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix.

Happy Holidays from Anson Jew!

Hello, friends!  Have a happy and joyous holiday season!  And a great 2014!

-Anson

Bwahahaha!!

You've Got a Friend ('Til the End) In Me

Last year I drew storyboards for the latest sequel to a popular film franchise. The original film was about a boy named Andy and his relationship to his favorite toy, who is a normal toy, until certain occasions when he decides to come to life.  Of course, I'm talking about..

Here's a little featurette about the making of Curse of Chucky, the straight-to-video 6th sequel in the Child's Play franchise.  Jump to 13:00 so see my storyboards in action on the set. This is one of several featurettes on the DVD/Blu Ray set. There is also a storyboard to film comparison feature on the Blu Ray that features a few of my boards. Warning: many extremely gory spoilers!

Here are a few more boards I did for the film.  Click for for a larger view.

I, Robot!

I love robots.  Here's a little digital painting I made from one of my robot designs.

Man of Steel

I hadn't drawn any superhero stuff in a long time, so for the hell of it, I thought I'd give it a shot. As I was sketching this, I decided to read Action Comics #1 for the very first time (yes, I know...). I was surprised to discover that Superman's first appearance in comics was as much (if not more) about his life as Clark Kent as it was about being Superman. And that his first exploits as the Man of Steel weren't about giant robots or even bank robbers--instead, Superman gets a pardon for a woman put on death row for a murder she didn't commit, takes out a man who was beating his wife, and defies his editor's orders to stir up some dirt in a South American country, and instead goes to Washington DC to take on a crooked lobbyist. An eye-opener!

Why Don't You Come Up and See Me Sometime!

If you're going to Comic-Con International 2013, make sure to stop by my Artists' Alley Table DD24 and say hello. I'll be selling all the regular stuff--plus, I have a few copies of my new Focal Press book, Professional Storyboarding: Rules of Thumb.