DeathMath

This weekend was my 9th Startup Weekend and it never fails to re-energize! I was invited to mentor teams in helping them get the most out of the weekend, which can only be learned from experience. (It is indeed where Giant Thinkwell was birthed!)

Shortly after coming in on Saturday, I sat down to hear a pitch and was instantly visualizing its potential. Getting kids to learn through compelling gameplay. They called their app "DeathMath", where you go head to head with another player, represented as figures of history, and you kick each others asses through quickly solving math equations. The idea was intended to reach the kids that would rather engage in fun video games and not through boring academic content. 

The story and aesthetic wrapper that was told around the initial prototype was one of battle and violence. It was clear that this was an idea that would make some people uneasy, which I happen to favor myself. They had a super talented team too that understood mobile, gaming, fun and education (what more could you ask for?!) A great designer from Ubermind, working on mobile experiences for large brands, as well as a developer from the Microsoft X-Box team, another developer from Teachstreet and of course the man with the idea and business guy, also from Teachstreet. The only thing I felt they were lacking was some flavorful avatars to represent the historical figures and especially in their brutalized state. I saw an opportunity to help them out and make some noise.

Check out the weekend demo at www.DeathMath.com - we'll definitely polish it up and get it native to the iPad with more avatars, more violence, and more academic development. 

Oh, did I mention it was posted to Reddit, and within a couple of hours made the front page with almost 2,000 upvotes and 200 comments? Tons of great feedback and tons of great hating! (told you there'd be uneasiness...)

Here are some screenshots: (Design is Joe Shoop / Avatars by me)

Here was our awesome team:

And lastly, this is an extra little something to say thanks to Mike Arrington for not only coming out to support and judge Startup Weekend EDU, which meant a lot to the Seattle community, but also a thank-you from team DeathMath for showing enthusiasm and support during the demo. Thanks Mike!

 

 

Daily 11: Jan 2-8

I can't begin to tell you how productive 2011 has been! 5/3 of my days were spent working on Giant Thinkwell's new game, or doodling. Great start with lots of content for my blog to come this year..

You can see my daily submissions or view everyone's daily submissions here at The Daily 11.

 

Jan 8th

 

 

Jan 7th

 

Jan 6th

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Jan 4th

Jan 3rd


Jan 2nd

 

K9 Rescue & Rehabilitation

My mom is awesome. Last September she turned her passion for dogs and her house into a full blown dog rescue. I've been there with as many as 33 dogs all housed at once! It's insane and takes a special set of parents to take on such energy, but they are doing amazing things for these "Green Mile" dogs that have days, or sometimes only hours left before getting euthenized.

Since September, she has rescued, rehabilitated and housed 116 dogs!

For Christmas, I spent some time to brand her and make her some business cards and a new website. I'm terrible at coding, so I used Weeb.ly to help, which is just plain rad.

Please check out the new site, www.K9rr.org, and share via Facebook and Twitter. Sharing can save a life! :)

Thanks!

Kevin Leneway and I have been busting our asses on our new startup 'Giant Thinkwell' since March. It has been such an incredible journey up to this point and it's only gaining momentum. We've been blessed with the energy and support of our spouses, families, friends and the tech/investor communities in Seattle, LA and San Francisco. We truly appreciate each meeting, insight, introduction, investment, and support that each of them has given. Without it, Giant Thinkwell would not be doing close to what we're doing today. We have huge things on the horizon and are cranking away until our ideas are fully realized!

Thanks again for all of the love and support! Happy Thanksgiving.

Agata Collabo

This was a quick little character collab w/ Giant Thinkwell illustrator Agata Jelen.

Life has been quite busy with Funko stuff that I've done very few illustration projects in the last couple months. I started building my audio studio and have been spending countless hours mashing around, learning how to make noise. I'll post up specifics and my attempts at said noise here soon!

Also there are 3 art shows in February that I will be contributing to and will surely post up the pieces when done.

Rayola - ColorInk Book

 

(Click to enlarge)

Here's a quick little render I did for this DIY periodical called "ColorInk Book". There are some awesome artists with awesome submissions for you to color up! I highly suggest picking one up.

They have a character called 'Rayloa' that frequently an artist's take applied to him. This is my take, with lots of gradient lovin' of course!

Here is the wireframe of the gradients in Illustrator:

(Click to enlarge)

The initial sketch:

Be on the lookout for the next issue if you'd like to color up some of my doodles 'n characters!