Logos:
Logos done as requests or for my own personal projects.
In Order of Left to Right, Top to Bottom:
-Personal Logos
-Requests and Commissions
-UT2k4 Clan Logos
Contra 4: Rocked N' Loaded is a CD designed to do one thing, and one thing only: Melt Faces.
This CD takes the entire Contra 4 Soundtrack, composed by Jake Kaufman (who also contributes a track to the CD) and re-imagines them all into a metal assault on the ears. So because of the music intensity, and the fact it's Contra, I went about as over the top as one can go. Months upon months of work into this one. Photoshop, hand painted illustration, and even lighting my own paper on fire and scanning it. It's intense.
Character line art done by: Snappleman
Anime girl line art done by: Audun Sorlie
Fragile Utopia is the only non-videogame band I've currently worked with. They do music you might actually hear on the radio, and it's very good (alternative) stuff, so you should check them out. The shirt is also for sale as well as the CD. but for now, contact me for it.
Bill Rahko worked with with me every step of the way to come up with the concept and design behind this one. We wanted it to feel vibrant and "Alive", since that is the title of this CD. When it was nearing competition, they asked for a shirt design and myspace revamp too, so I did those as well.
The Smash Brothers are a band who play videogame music and even some movie stuff too! The music is top quality.
The CD itself was conceptualized by their mad genius bass player: George (Norg) E. Nowik, who worked with me to create a GBA looking cart, staring the group as crazy cartoon characters.. with Bacon everywhere.
Theo contacted me to do the second CD for his ongoing series of music. The theme is this ship he has, and it's adventures. Because of this, I didn't design the ship, only brought it and the world to life. The music is progressive rock/metal, and "Acceleration" fits it very well. The goal here was to capture vibrancy and energy that would also mirror the music itself.. All created from scratch with Sai Paint tool.
Banners:
Web, Print, and other purpose Banners
Dwelling of Duels is a Videogame contest where members from the arrangement community get to make any arrangement they want, based upon a theme. Say the theme is Mario month? Any type of song from any Mario game can be done. Metal, Jazz, Rock, Funk, Piano solos? Rap battles? yes, it's all there, and more. Obviously, this is incredibly awesome, but guess what else? it's all FREE. over 10 gigs of music to get. And more every single month.
I do all the Month theme Banner Art for DoD as of 2008, when I contacted them and tried my hand at making them a special banner for "Boss vs Hero" month. They loved it, I signed on to do more.. and the rest, as they say.. is history.
DoD banners are often lots of fun, because it's generally fully up to me to decide how I want to interpret the theme. Any style, and images, anything, really. So I tend to play with different styles all the time. I also made a logo for them, which is now selling on shirts. (sold out as of this posting)
Not only that, but this venture has put me in full contact and friendship with some of my favorite musicians of all time. So it's wins all around!
FotHB is an online roleplaying guild through AOL text play which I have personally run for about 12 years. Crazy to think, but I've long used it as a venue for graphic design practice. Making all sorts of banners and logos for it, and the contest we hold.
Battle of the Sexes is the big event. It happens in the summer and the big twist is that characters can lose matches which flip their sex and put them playing on the other team. Basically making traitors, and then it becomes a tug of war to recover and make more traitors. Plus, each "traitor" gets a new personality and in effect, character as a whole, given to them to play. So it's really wild and more or less imagination playground. Because of this, the whole "mixed sexes" thing is often the theme. That and, Insanity.. since these events are always basically looney tunes style cartoons mixed with bizarre characters being made every day.
Following that, we have a swath of various guild graphics for division and header purposes.
If someone actually has interest in joining up with the guild from reading this, you can fill out an app, or contact me at: FoxxDragon311@aol.com
Some of my earliest Photoshop works ever. Why am I putting these here? For kicks, really.
Well. Except Otep. I did that in 2010.
Early Photoshop Work
If you are interested in hiring me for anything, or would like to reach me for other reasons, contact: nate@lightningarts.com
CD Artwork, Logos, Banners, Personal projects
I made this single cover image for Dan on his small EP Online-only release. It's even free, if you want! Or you can kick him a few bucks to show your support.
Viking Guitar is a CD of Brutal and Intense metal awesomness! You can listen to the whole thing FREE on bandcamp. or buy it for $8 You should buy it though, it's worth every penny.
Tony Dickinson is a crazy musician that plans every instrument you could name.
You should buy it though, it's also worth every penny. And it uses up the full CD. 80 minutes.
Harmony of a Hunter is an album created to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Metroid- one of the greatest franchises of all time. This series is absolutely rich with music and artwork, so creating album art was less about "what do I do?" and more about "what DON'T I do?" It was critically important for me to create my own "25 years of Metroid" picture which I used for the insert, and also a Poster you can buy. But I wasn't going to skimp on the rest. Here i'd like to thank EVERYONE who helped me create it. Suggestions, tweaks, even drawing ontop of it. Thank you.
I am incredibly honored and so thrilled to have been a part of this album. As I said, I consider Metroid to be one of my favorite franchises of all time.. And the 2 Disc album that you can download for free, is an incredible music accomplishment.
I highly encourage everyone to grab it. And thanks so much, Darren, for hiring me on as the artist! Happy Birthday, Samus!
Vampire Variations is a 25 Years of Castlevania celebratory album! Unlike Harmony (below) it only focuses on the first game for the NES. But you should pick up because it's about 80 minutes of music! And it's FREE! People Like VikingGuitar, Stemage, Super Guitar Brothers, Bonkers, and more.
This album was a little different of a project for me because I actually hired other people to help me! Long time friend Ali Floyd, My Brother, and another internet friend: Vivi. These guys did a really good job!
Cover/Back/CD- Me
Medusa, Bridge (level 3), and help on Gates- Kurt Horsfall
Hall- Ali Floyd
Level 3 Bridge Layout- Vivianne Ducharme
We have Posters you can buy. And yes, ALL of them are able to be purchased! I( put a whole lot of extra love to make them work as 11x17 posters. They are each awesome in their own right :)
If you like Cave Story, Hero Core, One Must fall AND Terminator 2.. VikingGuitar crafted you a love letter in the form of vicious metal.
Actually it's not all vicious, and is much more fun-loving than this artwork would have you believe.. But it is all metal, regardless. It is also all fantastic.Do yourself a favor and click the link to listen to it on bandcamp!
I worked with Erik (VikingGuitar) to just basically slam in as many game refs as possible, while twisting it to be as evil looking as possible.
Does it succeed? Well, people who see it generally tell me I "have Issues", so I suppose thats mission accomplished!
CD Artwork:
Various different CD packages done for musicians. Each style changes depending on the content and artist requests
It turns out that Adam Henry- brother of the legendary Stemage, ALSO is awesome at music and a man of many talents. He put together his first ever tribute album, and it is all about doom. Unlike most remixes you will find involving Doom, Adam keeps the mood as perfect for the game as you can. This is "Doom Metal" at it's finest, and never once tries to be anthing else.
On the Art front, I brought my brother, Kurt Horsfall, onto the project. He worked with me on Vampire Variations. I credit him more than myself for this album, though. I helped, for sure, but he was responsibile for the background, resdesigning the CD art to work on shirts and stickers, and overall just ran with it more than I did (I was very busy at the time). I can't link you to his site, because he has none, but hit him up at ifenixb@gmail.com if you want to give him kudos!
