There's a new Monsters of Ascension article up featuring a Q and A with me.
We talk about a new beasty in the upcoming game!
Check it out:
God of War Blog:[link]

Also see new artwork on my fanpage!: [link]

As always look for quick updates and idiotic musings by yours truly here: @cannibalcandy

We have a teaser trailer for the single player adventure in the up coming God of War game I've been toiling on!
Most of our studio is in crunch which means twelve to sixteen hour days (or more) every day of the week to get this
awesome game out to you!  Please consider buying our game for your PS3s for all the blood, sweat, tears, and love that's going into this!  You will not be disappointed!  
I have many yummy monsters in this game, too! So please check it out!
Also! TITS!

[link]

Don't forget to follow me:
[link]
@cannibalcandy

Here's a feature interview I've done for one of the big bosses for the upcoming God of War!
All new arts!

[link]

[link]

Hello you dirty little monkeys!  
I have missed you!  
Here, sit on my lap.
Nice, huh?
What, that?
Don't worry about that.

I just wanted to inform ya that I've dropped a ton of my 'recent' God of War art on my fan page!
Please take a moment and go check em out!
I guarantee you'll surely enjoy.  

[link]

The game is scheduled for a March release, which, if you are at all aware of game development,
means that we are going into super hustle crunch mode!!
12 hour days every day!  Phew, I'm beat.  Hence my lazy posting.

I'm looking forward to getting this one out and done.
I am feeling the deep hunger for something fresh in my portfolio.
I started at Sony on God of War III as a Junior Concept artist five years ago
and now I'm a Lead Concept Artist with aspirations for Art Direction.
Wow!

It's definitely time for some sci-fi or something else to add to my portfolio!

Anyway, gotta get ready for another twelve hour day.
BYeeeee! *sob*

Check out my cover for Game Informer's August issue!
[link]

Also the God of War Sony Santa Monica blog has posted an interview of your's truly with my all newly revealed concept art
for the new multiplayer boss Polyphemus!  Enjoy!
[link]

For more art and information on what's going on with me check out my FB:
[link]

I also come in twitter flavor:
[link]

I hope everyone had an excellent Fourth, and you blew up your own patch of our proud and somehow holy land.
I just drank too much and stumbled across it.  Never play with fireworks when you are plowed out of your minds, kids.
Love,
-z

I've gotten many requests to update new art.  I fully plan to get on to doing that and hopefully we will have something up here in the next month.  But for those of you that are of the impatient and slippery variety, come on down to my new FB fan page!

There you will find some new never before seen art, and some of my many Magic Cards up, finally, in high resolution.
While you are there be sure to like and follow to stay abreast of my current events.  I will be posting about my novel's progression there as well, so stop on by, say hi and join the community that is the unwholesome and entirely sexy realm we call Cannibalcandy: The Art of Izzy!

[link]

Looking forward to hearing from you and seeing all you lovely delicious people!
Love,
Uncle Ariokh

=======EDIT=======
In the name of e-cohesion, I recently resurrected my Twitter account! For those of you super eager to check in on me, my doins, and various relations in the gaming/ art world in 150 characters or less, follow here!:

[link]

Check out the game I've been working on for the last couple of years.  I'm currently acting as a Lead Concept Artist.  It's a shit ton of work, but it's fascinating getting a larger picture of the game development process.  Really cool shit!  Anyway, watch the teaser trailer!

[link]

How are you guys!?  I miss the DA crowd.  

Big love, and a mild reach around.
Uncle Iz

[link]

A student I met last year when I did a super short lecture at Siggraph sent some questions for a school assignment.
I thought there were some good ones in there so I figured I'd share them and my responses with you guys!
=============================================

1. When did you first develop an interest in art? 

I started getting into drawing in Highschool, as I went to an 'alternative' school for weirdos, and they expected us to have a portfolio coming in.  I basically traced a bunch of shit out of a victoria's secret catalogue, and some manga images on lined paper. Hahaha, that's how it really got started, after that, I started meeting people that actually knew something of drawing, and started to learn ravenously.

2. Your pieces are generally digital paintings; did you start in a more traditional art background and move into the digital realm? 

I started with a pencil and paper (they were and are the cheapest art form).  Eventually in college I learned to apply more advanced and expensive materials. Ha!  Finally I went fully digital (for work anyway) because of the speed, alterability, and ease of clean up. So the short answer is: Yes!

3. Has fantasy art always been your passion?

No, as I mentioned in the first response, I didn't get into art until a little later.  Before that I wanted to be a musician... and before that... (this is a secret!)  I wanted to be a marine biologist.  Which apparently EVERYONE my age wanted to be as a kid.  Who knew?

4. What jobs/internships prepared you for Sony and the freelance work you do nowadays? Do you miss any of them?

The interesting thing about art is that the final result of what you need to turn in never really changes.  You change.  You constantly build on what you learn, and are in a constant need to learn more.  Art is absolutely the VERY best field for a person with a made hunger to learn.  You can never know it all!  I do lots of the same freelance I did early on, I'm just faster, and as a result make a bit more money.  I don't miss any old jobs, as I'm always looking forward to the next new thing.  That alone keeps me damn busy.

5. What drives you to do freelancing and lectures/teaching, in addition to your primary career?

Initially I went to teaching and lecturing to challenge myself.  I'm generally a fairly shy person, and knowing that I try to force myself into some uncomfortable situations.  You being there for the biggest one to date.  Speaking in front of hundreds of people terrified the shit out of me!  Once I got comfortable teaching in front of people (I'm still not there yet for siggraph sized groups), it started becoming interesting to see what I could convey, and how simply I could share it.  Actually seeding people with notions and ideas.  That for the moment now has become a little boring though, and I'm looking for something new in it to challenge myself.

6. What is your favorite kind of work to do? What's your favorite part about your job?

I love what I do.  It's definitely my favorite kind of work.  I paint monsters and boobies all day!  Awesome!  Lately I have been working as a full Senior level guy here, and I'm getting some new responsibilities which has made things interesting as well.  Also... Boobies.

7. What's a typical day/week like as a concept artist?

Well, I don't know about the rest of the guys, but I get in to work around ten.  Paint all day.  Leave between six and seven.  Go home, hang out a little.  Paint some more on freelance OR teach... sometimes both.  Go to bed around two or three, unless I want to play some video games... then it's a little later.  Rinse.  Repeat.  The interesting thing about doing for work, something that you genuinely love to do in your free time, is that you can actually get burnt out on it.  You can put TOO much in, and exhaust yourself out of excitement.  I've found the key is to try to hold back just a little. " Put in eighty percent", a friend once told me.  "No more, no less.  Key to happiness!"

8. What's the most challenging part of your work?

Iterations.  Definitely.  When you see a design we've done for a game or something.  It's usually the end result of dozens, or even hundreds of sketches.  Constantly generating new ideas, and a variety of the same basic idea can be VERY mentally exhausting.  But it's also the core of the purpose of concept artists.

9. Your pieces display a vast knowledge of anatomy, movement, etc. Is that where you get ideas for your creatures, by piecing the various kinds of creatures together? Where does that inspiration come from?

I do pull from nature ALL the time.  For more specifics on my creature design check out this article I wrote: [link]

10. What is the best method, in your opinion, to develop those skills? What sources do you recommend? In other words, how did you get so good?

The absolute best method to develop visual understanding of things is to sketch them.  If you can, take them apart.  The ability to depict anything in detail with levels of reality is entirely dependent on a great deal of mileage studying it.  We think of study and sketching as a chore to be gotten through to get to the final art.  The fact is; sketching IS the art.  Visual study is how those skills are developed, and the only way the finals will have any breath of life blown into them.  
This sounds tedious, but there is no magic recipe to improving a skill.  Personally, I find this liberating.  Because, then we are all responsible for our own levels of skill, and how quickly we improve.  The only thing one need to, is keep doing and practicing that skill.  They are guaranteed to get better.  Mileage, see!?  

11. The ever famous - What do you wish someone had told you when you started? Any suggestions for a noob?

You will never stop being a student.  Don't look at this as a bad thing, it means your life will be filled with exciting challenges, and you'll constantly be levelling up to the next new thing.  Plateaus in skill improvement are normal.  Learn to love the plateau, and keep on practicing, notice how they get shorter when you do.  Find time to do other things.  Find a subject, or medium, or show, or anything that you like and you find interesting.  Make time to follow that interest until you are done with it.  When you've gotten bored of that interest, find  a new one, and start a new flow.  This is not flighty, this is amassing vast stores of knowledge to be pulled from.  You will be AMAZED at how all that seemingly irrelevant stuff will start to pepper your work, imbuing it with greater depth, interest, and realism.
=============================================
Questions by Amanda Walker

Sketch Theatre number II.

[link]

My first Sketch Theatre!

[link]

I do freelance as well as my full time job, and I am always setting up the next job.  it's a safe bet, that if i'm breathing, I'm painting or hustling to get paid for more painting.  That's what I do for a living.  It's how I put food on the table, and porn in the bathroom.

That said, I thought it bore mentioning especially here on DA though, that I work for HIRE.  If your sweet RPG project, or video game pitch has no budget at all for art, it will save both of our time if you don't try to tap me for artwork.  I Do realize I'm passing up an amazing opportunity for me to make my portfolio way more awesome, and that I won't be getting that free publicity.  It's a risk I'll have to take.

I'm not opposed to people making things out of their garage, in fact, I wholesale endorse it and want you to succeed with it.  I sincerely hope your team is a massive success.  

I can't work for free though.

You wouldn't ask a gardener to stop by your place to do your lawn for free because it would be really awesome for him.  You wouldn't ask a chef to cater your wedding for free because you have the sickest idea for how the wedding will go, right?
You wouldn't send requests to a lawyer to hook you up with free intellectual property law consultations.

Just because I do art, doesn't mean my time is any less valuable than all of those guys.  I spent just as much time in school.  Quite a damn bit of money I'm still trying to pay off, and years of suffering through trying to get better and better.

When you pay an artist for their work, their prices denote not just the cost of their time, the materials, or the effort for your project.  What you are paying for is the cost of experience.  A lifetime spent perfecting a craft, and honing an ability.  You pay for all the mistakes we won't make for you, because we've made them for ourselves already.  You pay for the mind that has been training to deal with specific problems, and generate kick ass ideas, and original concepts.

These things are not born to us, they are learned.  You are paying for the time you don't have to spend learning the craft.  Just like you pay for pizza when you don't want to make it yourself.  

Art is just like anything else when it comes to business.  You get what you pay for.   

I'm just not willing to deliver poor quality goods.

-End rant-----------

Addendum:
This is for you young or budding artists out there just starting to get into pro work.  Be wary of requests made, especially through this site.  

Firstly, to horribly misquote Stephen King when asked about when you are a professional writer, "When you get a check in the mail paying for your writing and you pay the light bill with it, you are a professional."
I totally agree with that dude.  When you are even moderately confident enough in your skill and you start getting approached with just these kinds of offers, think about this rant.  I know you will do a few anyway. Hell, I did.  I've been fucked exactly three times by would be mega-projects that were 'good for my portfolio'.  We all have to stick our fingers in the flames to learn.  That's fine.  But learn, please!  Don't underbid yourself, don't sacrifice your wage for your work.

The formula is simple, and I have had to tell my students many times how this works, so pay attention.

How much do you want to make an hour?  If need be, divide down from an annual salary you'd like. In freelance, work is peppered throughout the year, so compensate for projected downtime. Once you've worked out your hourly, estimate how long the art will take to make and bam.  =h
How long will your part in the project take? =t
How many changes will they likely want, and make sure your contract has clauses for client changes(if you are smart set a limit to number of changes, and be sure to charge.  Watch how much less picky they get when their wallet is on the line. Hahahaha!). =v
Are you being taxed?  If you aren't.  Say you are.  =x
Cost of materials? =m


And here it is: h+t+v+x+m= I'm Rich BITCH!  

It will be more than you assumed you were worth, I'm certain.
Now comes the time for dark self assessment.  Is your art really worth that sum?  Where are you in your career, and how far are you from where this number is at?
Start shaving it back down until you think that it's VERY good money for your level of work.  Then make your bid.

If you are lucky your client will jump on it.  Don't feel like you should have asked for more.  Be proud that you got a lot more than you thought you were worth.  This is awesome also because you've established precedence for yourself and now have a starting rate to build up from as you improve.

If your client haggles. Don't be afraid to haggle.  Generally when a person counterbids, they drop down a chunk and expect you to meet them somewhere in the middle of your original bid and their first counter bid.  If their offer is simply unacceptable after that, do not be afraid to walk, but definitely consider it and your skills honestly.

If your client laughs.  Disconnect.  If they come back, ask them what they think would be a fair rate for you.  If they don't, ah well, no love lost.  There will be more clients, and you can use that as fuel to work your ass off and get better, so next time they clamor for your skills.

I hope this helps clear the silly fog of 'don't share how much you make' shame.

Molest in peace,
Uncle Z

I have no nationalistic furor.  No particular pro-American leanings at all.  In fact, I wouldn't mind skipping country for adventure and beer permanently!  But the constant implications to our collective stupidity does feel a bit like sandpaper in the skivvies.  

I'm so tired of having to make apologies for my country of origin, as if I am some how personally responsible for the direction of it's educational system, or military interests.  As someone with reasonable intelligence here in the States, why is it beholden to me to make sure I'm not lumped in with the rest of America when I visit other countries?  If education is so awesome out there, and everyone is so ethically and morally pure and superior how can abject prejudice rule like that?  Is this not the emotional equivalent of following a black man around in your convenience store?  Perhaps even worse, considering the American reputation abroad?
But no one sees that.

If you are an American abroad, you have to prove that you are not contributing to the awful image we have.  You aren't stupid, or ethically ignorant, or paying for the deliberate slaughter of babies, but if so, "then why haven't YOU done anything?"  No matter what you do you are perpetually under attack.  Guilty until proven innocent.

But what about the other way around?  It should work in the opposite too.  If you are in one of these superior countries that has all their shit together what did the individual carrying on about the fallacy of the country I come from personally do to ensure the betterment of their own?   

If everyone who had a horrible opinion of where I'm from and all the people that come from here were as great as they maintain, they'd ALL have Nobel Peace Prizes.  No?  Maybe some laurels for their contribution to their society of awesome?  

I doubt they've contributed anything meaningful.  Which is not a judgment.  Just a fact.  They live their life, with their family and friends and their influence is a tiny speck, a dust mote on the country's over all state of being.  Exactly like me!  And most of EVERYONE else in the world.  Majestically average.  

Why would an enlightened citizen from an enlightened country think it reasonable to hold a single individual of a population in the billions responsible for everyone else's actions?   How could they logic that kind of persecution into being?  To me it sounds like the same sort of thing that America has been guilty of on numerous occasions.  Ignorant claims of superiority and unqualified statements of wrong doing and idiocy.

I am totally sympathetic to the world's view of what's gone on here and what our national identity might be.  I really am.  I'm just tired of trying to differentiate myself from it.  I am not my nation, not my home town, not my birthplace.  If you relate that strongly to any of those things of yours, you have a serious problem anyway.

Why can't it just be assumed that if I am out and about in other countries, it's likely that I'm one of the good guys?  Not out to rape your babies, and burn your homes to the ground with delicious napalm.  The first step to peace and mutual prosperity is either letting go of your weird assumptions about those you don't know, or at least keeping it to your bloody self.  That's business, bitches.  

I dunno what do you guys think?

-Uncle Touchy


PS. FUCK the U.S. for making me have to even deal with this shit.  Get your act together you great swollen shit cunt of a country.  (It's okay when I do it.  It's OUR word)

New Trailer:
[link]

Show your support for all things awesome, and of course a few things ME by getting your hands on this bitch in a month and playing the hell out of it!!  

Off to work, suckas.
Peace

You can check it out on the Wizards website under the Planeswalkers comics:

[link]

It was my first real foray into comic book work.  I have a whole new found respect for comic book artists, particularly the guys that paint everything from scratch!  SO hard.

Lots going on with the impending release of GOWIII, look forward to huge art dumps in the not terribly distant future!

Also.  Fuckity fuck shitty cock douche canoe cocksicle....

I haven't been filthy on here in ages, I had to remedy that.

Big loves from your uncle Touchy.

===============
EDIT:  I should be clear, I ONLY painted it, I didn't write the comic.  They didn't even give me a true script.  Try to ignore the words, as they are even WEIRDER than the page layout they gave me.

Here's a painting I did for the cover of GamePRO.  The issue has a cover article all about the game I've been working on for nearly three years now.  *sigh*  SO very long.

Anyway, check it out!

[link]

I was writing.  Working on another sentence fragment in my long-labored attempt at a novel when I ran out.  I didn't know it, couldn't even conceive that it was the case, but I had just officially smoked my last fucking clove cigarette.  I ran out a week or two ago, and while doing some errands, stopped at a seven-eleven today to stock up on my favorite trope of the would-be writer.  Second only to my glass of scotch, cigarettes are must haves for the who's who of alternative fiction.

I tried a second seven eleven after the first turned up nothing. And the guy behind the counter told me about the ban.  

I raced home, completely pissed off, and went online to see what the hell was happening.  Turns out the shit-weasels in congress got pressured by the FDA into posting a ban on sweet or fruity flavored cigarettes, as they are a 'gateway cigarette', into smoking.  How sad is that?  

I never passed the gateway.  I abhor cigarette smell.  The only thing aside from my pipe and hookah that I prefer to puff on is bloody cloves.  They took it away, reasoning that sweet stuff is 'obviously' catered to children.

I am disgusted.  How can anyone at all justify that as a logical conclusion?

Are fruity alcoholic beverages marketed to kids?  Will they ever drop the daquiri, or the margarita?  All to prevent kids from doing what they legally can do when they are older?  Does this mean that to enjoy anything legally as an adult it must be bitter, unpleasant, foul, or gross in it's experience?  These dickheads are clearly trying to option us out of our varied freedoms to enjoy legal substances for personal use and pleasure.  

Beware, friend-consumer.  This reasoning has great potential for altering things we take for granted.  I mean, the logic is there already right.  Sit back and buckle up, fuckers, we now have precedence.  If we can reason that sweet cigarettes are marketed to kids, sweet alcohol of course must be, and brightly colored or flavored condoms.  Oh no!  What about colorful cars, and clothing?  Obviously designed to dig into the fragile pink juicy brains of the children to corrupt them into future awfulness.  And keep them from buying and getting into things that the surgeon general wouldn't RECOMMEND, and now has the power to remove.  So much for your CHOICE, suckers.  You watch; my precious shisha is next.

They say these things are gateways to future tobacco use.  As if when children become an adult it's somehow WRONG to use tobacco, as an a child IS an adult in the future, and said use is of course not okay.  The language is remarkable.  They are turning cigarette smoking as a hobby/ experience into a fucking crime.  Here's the ridiculous part.  I hate cigarettes.. just plain camels, or marlboro's... they smell awful, and are pretty much absolute unpleasantness, save for when yer really lit at the pub.  I hate them, but I don't think we should be teaching kids that when they are adults they should still believe these things are wrong.  When they become adults they'll still do it if they want to, cept now they have shitty choices to pick from.  Sweet.

This is absolutely a form of programming, and that's insulting in it's own right.  But I don't really give a shit about the kids, as it were.  I have none, desire none, and hate yours.  

S'true!  

But that's not the point.  I'm a fucking adult.  Just shy of thirty now, and have enjoyed recreational tobacco use for a number of years.  I never touched anything that was 'bad' for me until i got into my twenties.  No alcohol, no cigarettes, no drugs of any kind.  I didn't need to have shit yanked off the shelves to make these decisions.  I was a smart kid.  Simple.  And if you aren't or weren't a smart kid, hopefully you are capable of learning from your mistakes.  If not, sweet Darwinism comes into play, and that's that.  Why fuck me over?

So here I am.  Never again able to attain something that I rather enjoyed on all too rare occasions.  All so YOUR fucking IDIOT ass kids won't be tempted.  All so YOU mother-fucking moronic 'parents' can have the rest of the world parent your kids, cuz your too busy doing pilates, and taking uppers, and e-shopping your vaginae ragged.  Thanks; you fucking breeders, and especially to you, you shit-stain, cock-sock, cheese-tit, fuck wits at the FDA.  

Your pussy ideals are really making this country great!  I can't bloody wait for the cursing police, they spicy food moderators, and naughty thought monitors...  

mmmmmn.  Land of liberty, of thee I mock.

As soon as I can fully build up a freelance repertoire, I'm out of this sinking cockhole.  So save yer, 'if you hate it, leave' dog shit, ya rotting-afraid of your own shadow-fuck.

Eat me America.  I'm taking up smoking now, JUST to piss you off and blow smoke in your baby's faces so they get addicted early.

Play it!  So so fun.  I am diggin it's silly ways.  And it's unholy gore and fetishist chunkitude.  

Come on by and join me in a game!

For those of you that want to play with me, note me for my PSN username.  But if yer clever,  you can probably figure it out.

He'll be able to give them REAL jesusjuice.

What a crazy day, I really thought he was gonna go full cyborg in my lifetime.
I definitely remember his music playing a big part in my formative years.

Weird shit, mortality!