Behind the scenes

I have been out of the spotlight for a while working behind the scenes on my new game company, Sunken Castles. We've been working for about 2 months on an app, and it's currently in the approval process. We're hoping it will be approved in the next 3 days. The ultimate goal of this company is to make awesome games for the iPhone and iPad. It looks like things are shaping up nicely, but what it means is that I have very little time for personal work, and what I'm making for the company has to be kept under wraps until it's released. I'm happy with what I'm doing now though. I like working with other people, I'm working on art full time, and at this point it seems like I'll be able to make a much better living for myself than I ever did on my own. Things are really crazy for me right now, but sometime down the line I'll be able to make personal artwork again. In the mean time, I'll be at ICON6 next month, and I'll just have to share what I've made with Sunken Castles in giant and infrequent posts.

Supreme let-down

I think I've mentioned that I'm co-founding a game company with some friends. This has lead me to do extra homework on what's happening in gaming. I came across this WiiWare title "Zombie Panic in Wonderland" published by Akaoni Studio out of Spain. After watching about 3/4 of the promo video, I had seen enough, I had to get it. It costs $10, and pretty much couldn't be more ideal for me. It has zombies is varieties I never would have imagined, ninja zombies, sumo zombies, one that looked like Abe Lincoln that throws corpses at you, plus other cool monsters and gods, and you pretty much destroy the entire level. All this wrapped in a clean and bright, but still spooky style, and a completely ridiculous story. The illustration is also excellent, even though I'm not an especially big anime fan. After playing this game for a while, it was high in the running for my favorite game ever, and I was really excited about it, until I got to the final boss. I couldn't find a screenshot of him anywhere, but I was really offended. He's basically a vain and ego-centric demon prince, who is an obvious gay parody. As much as I want to believe that no game developer would consciously make something so offensive, I just can't see it any other way. Along with his dead colored skin and small bat wings he has effeminate lashes, glossy lips, and pretty hair, he holds his pinky out, and he blows flaming kisses at you in between his ballet moves across the stage. All his mannerisms are that of a "flaming gay" stereotype. I'm just plain offended, and let down. I thought it was 2010?

Exhibitions this weekend

I have a full 10 paintings in this show!

From intheparlor.com:

CIGAR BOX BEAUTY
Opening reception Saturday April 24 2010, 7pm-11pm
Available through May 22 2010

Miss Scarlet in the Parlor
1282 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

ARTISTS
Naja Conrad-Hansen
Jeremy Forson
Eliza Frye
Soey Milk
Yana Moskaluk
Mateu Velasco

Free admission and seraphic refreshments

They have style, they have face. Drawing influences from fashion and propaganda, the art of Cigar Box Beauty explores the concepts of style and appeal with aplomb. The exhibit features an international group of young guns, including Jeremy Forson (US,) Eliza Frye (US,) Naja Conrad-Hansen (Denmark,) Soey Milk (US,) Yana Moskaluk (Russia,) and Mateu Velasco (Brazil.) Suave, complex, and admittedly fetishistic, the pieces in Cigar Box Beauty engage in a conversation exploring the exploitation and exaltation of beauty.

FACEBOOK IT





My painting "Lyon" will be in the exhibition at Ronin Gallery. It's at the location that used to be Thinkspace Gallery.

from theroningallery.com:

The Ronin Gallery is very proud to present “NEX GEN twenty ten”: the grand opening group show at our new location!

We have put a lot of energy into renovating the space and are very excited to present it to the public for the first time as The Ronin Gallery. Please come out to be a part of this very special show! This move represents a big upgrade and a change of direction for The Ronin Gallery. We are enjoying great momentum and have some amazing projects in the works for the future.

We will have custom made home brew flowing provided by Selenes’s Ego and Don Chow’s fusion taco truck out front.

New Space, New Blood, New Work

Featuring works by:

Chor Boogie
Codak
Ryan De La Hoz
Downtimer
Ego
Asia Eng
Blinky
Daniel Fleres
David Florez
Jeremy Forson
Thom Glick
Jason Graham
Andy Haynes
Charlie Immer
Martin Kanshige
Larkin
Daniel Lim
Matthew Linares
Dave Macdawell
Vicki Nerino
Peekaboo
Allison Reimold
Jose Rodriguez III
Justin Rose
Jason Sho Green
Sarah Soh
Luci Myna Sonou
Mary Spring
Josh Taylor
Jasmine Worth
Weirdo
Zoso

At our new Silverlake location:

4210 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90029

BLUES website

jeremyforson.com/blues

I made another Flash website for my portfolio. Originally this was for a project I was working on at Goodby, but it never got built out. As you may know, I'm in sore need of employment, so beefing up my portfolio to show my diverse range of skills is high on my list of things to do. I actually loved making this. I badly want to make another site with papervision, but that will have to wait for a while as I'm slated to start work on some ipad projects.

Young Lions 2.0

http://jeremyforson.com/young_lions/

I have some down time so I've been working on my more marketable skills. I am in need of employment, and I've been applying for jobs doing Flash, but I didn't have anything to show what I can do. Basically, I worked for a year and 4 months as a Flash developer, but when I was laid off I didn't have anything I could keep or claim as my own. I have another site I designed for Blues that was never built out, so that will be my next project. Fact is that even though the past year and a half of painting has been fun, after doing my taxes the numbers were clear: I need to put that part of my life on the back burner. What's nice, though, is that I'm not too sad about it. I miss working with people, and getting out of the house, a steady paycheck, and being challenged.

I'm happy with the way this site turned out, and the improvement over the original is pretty drastic, if I say so myself. I think the time I've been spending studying design sites has helped.

If you're a glutton for punishment you can see the original site here:

http://jeremyforson.com/young_lions/younglions.html

Beware!

Art on hiatus

I will not be having any new artwork to post for a while. I'm not too happy about it, but I'm not able to draw and paint every day. I'm going to be designing and coding a website www.daisyisondmdinc.com as my next project. It's a job I'm doing as a favor without a specified time-line, so if somebody wanted to hire me for a project, they should feel free to contact me. I'm also going to be in San Diego most of next week, and I have to do my taxes for the year, which hopefully won't be too painful. So, unless I have some sudden news, this blog will be inactive for a couple weeks or so.

Montana skate show

For this piece I wanted to re-visit an older illustration I did for Unified School District. I always liked the concept, and I thought I could do a better job. I wanted to give the piece more depth and less rigidity.

Difficult to scan a skate deck, as you might imagine, but I actually like the way the sides fade off.