Daniel Ernst's blog: It Came From Beyond

Cargo Commander Teaser !

2011-12-08T03:50:00.000-08:00

A sneak peak at our upcoming downloadable unity arcade game Cargo Commander! Not a lot of illustration time but lots of 3D animation fun!

Music by Misha Velthuis, Jelle Himmelreich, Max Sombroek and Joeri de Graaf.
Audio by Max Sombroek, Erik Dost and Joeri de Graaf.
Font by Teo Tuominen

The Tablecloth Ghost

2011-11-03T11:58:00.001-07:00

Beware of the tablecloth ghost, for he does not like to be spilled on!

Introducing the Cargo Commander!

2011-09-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

Dear visitor! please visit our site for more information about our games at:

www.seriousbrew.com

to keep posted on the progress of the game!

My Serious Brew logo animation!

2011-09-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the first version without audio of the logo animation I made for the game company I founded with my worthy colleague Maarten Brouwer! I hope I can post some of my art from the game we are working on, which hopefully will be any time soon. We are just going into beta testing EXCITING TIMES!

Ow and here is our website: http://www.seriousbrew.com

Miss Muffins

2011-08-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

Although the love of a man goes through his stomache, the lovely Miss Muffins is waiting for special pirate to love her, for more then her delicious muffins.

Peg Leg Lee

2011-07-07T06:37:00.000-07:00

Are you in dire need of some delicious noodles? Fear not Peg Leg Lee will swiftly deliver it to wherever your ship lies! Ofcourse good service comes with a price, he will take your woman and loot as a tip.

Jacques Crouton aka Breadbeard the Pirate

2011-05-20T08:18:00.001-07:00

When the situation gets hairy, Jacques Crouton, Armed with a beard of mythical proportions filled with scrumptious Croutons, will attack any bland soup with great vigour and taste.

Long John Silverwear

2011-04-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Armed with his silver knife he fights culinary injustice throughout the seven seas. His cooking skills are whispered in restaurants in ports from the caribbean to the British Isle. His silver leg is made by the finest silver, dedicated to his great love for mermaids.

Temple Sketch

2011-02-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

Captain Cutlery

2011-02-21T00:55:00.000-08:00

Makeout Peak

2011-01-18T06:18:00.000-08:00

Color Sketches

2010-10-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

Some color practice. Just started watching True Blood, and boy do I want to visit New Orleans some time. Love the mood and setting of the show. The other sketches were random doodles that came too mind.

The truth about TV fortune tellers

2010-09-09T06:53:00.000-07:00

This series of illustrations tells the truth about the TV fortune tellers. You may think they are total hacks, but maybe they're the real deal?

The Swamp
In a swamp not so far away lays the house of the fortuneteller you may know from the television. The swamp is the place where people get lost, cars dissapear and souls get stolen. Campers are scattered across the swamp and lost things never to be found again. The house is put together with junk from the swamp.

Tv Broadcast Room
The broadcast room spreads the message of the tv oracles worldwide.

The Study Room
Learning how to predict peoples fortune is not a trick, it's a lifelong study of the mystique. A family car used as study platform is one of the many remnents of the unfortunate swamp victims used as decoration in the study room.

The Work Room
This where the stuff of nightmares are made! Frog Legs, life chickens, money of the greedy, alligator eyes or the lost souls of the fallen are just some of the ingredients used for concuctions with effects no normal human wants to comprehend. The work room is built in an old camper toppled on it's side.

Farewell Lost

2010-05-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

Ah Lost what a wonderful time we had. Heres a drawing of hurley with a hurley bird chick and a stack of libby towels. Nerd points for anyone who understands what the hell I'm talking about.

The Witches

2010-05-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

Ah The Witches how I loved that book when I was small, correction I still love it :). I bought a bunch of Roald Dahl books to relive some of the more scarier and amazing moments of my childhood. A part of the fun of the books came from the charming pen illustrations done by Quentin Blake.

I don't know if it was because of my birthday, but in a nostalgic fit of creativity I started drawing witches Quentin Blake Style! And the second pencil sketch was me trying to capture the scary insane comical feel of the witches drawn by Quentin. For the fans of the book I even drew some squared off feet. And yes I know they wore normal shoes in the book, but I liked the idea too much :)

Interior Sketches

2010-04-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

I'm practicing my interior sketches. Trying go from pen doodle to black and white sketch and set a mood in one fluent go. Feeling more confident with every sketch I do, hopefully resulting in a quicker more efficient workflow. I even reaaranged my desks so that I can quickly switch from my drawing table to digital drawing.

Cheap motel with a hint of hopper

2010-02-16T14:01:00.000-08:00

A test in creating depth by using color temperature and color. The inside of the room kinda reminded me of a hopper painting, maybe it's a book on my desk... Maybe I will redo the floor of the room to make it feel less like grass, but I kinda like the chaos it creates :)

Box Office

2010-01-30T07:18:00.000-08:00

Ever felt boxed in in your office?

De Breuklijn : Matte Painting and an IMDB Listing!

2010-01-22T04:15:00.001-08:00

During my graduation I participated in the graduation project of some fearless animation students. I could do some dali based sky matte paintings, which was very fun to do :). The short is doing pretty great, it has been shown from India to germany (http://shortfilmcentral.com/film/1103/ ). And the most awesome part is that I have my own imdb page and due to my showing off my imdb page to just about everyon I'm up in popularity with about 750%.

Random >>Speed>> Doodle

2010-01-22T01:34:00.001-08:00

Somehow when I draw a random portrait people always seem to know the person. So for all of you out there who know what the name of the person in the portrait is, please let me know :)

Snowy Room Final

2009-12-29T02:58:00.001-08:00

I finished the snowy room sketch in order to enter the Gnomon competition. Hope to show off some completely new illustrations soon. Too bad the monitor shows different color everywhere :/ If the room is yellow instead of blue... then uhmz well then you can't see the illustration in it's full glory.

Happy 60th birthday dad!

2009-12-18T08:51:00.001-08:00

Cutout Characters

2009-12-02T11:07:00.000-08:00

A little experiment with creating easy readable characters. Although the black outline feels a bit cheap it was a good excercise in thinking about lines :) Hmmz come to think of it, it kinda looks like a sticker page :)

Spiderman Spiderman!

2009-11-27T04:46:00.001-08:00

Kitchen Sketch

2009-11-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

Tree Dynamics

2009-11-02T13:38:00.000-08:00

I recently bought the amazing "elemental magic: The Art of Special Effects Animation" book by Joseph Gilland. As he talked about the dynamics of fluids I thought it sounded quite similar to the dynamics of a tree and I got a sudden urge to apply the theory on some tree sketches. And it payed off ( and I'm only on a quarter of the book), can't wait to experiment further. So thanx mister Gilland!

The Balloon Man

2009-10-19T00:34:00.001-07:00

QuickSketch of a ..... room

2009-10-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

It was a while since I did a speedpainting. Most of my free time goes to my little pet project game. Had a nice 45 minutes of drawing this during rendering times of 3dsMAX :) and a good 15 minutes doing the snowy road thing.

Overlord 2

2009-09-11T03:52:00.000-07:00

I sure hope people picked up a copy of Overlord 2 if so they will recognise these decadent grotesque characters I concept. These were my first big story characters I concepted for Overlord 2 and boy were they fun. Somehow I really like to make hideously looking characters, you can put more details in it and mister gravity gets a chance to do his work on all the flesh. The posing of this screenshot is done by Michiel Wouterse. This screenshot was also featured in an article in the newspaper here in good old Holland and with that I got my 15 minutes of fame :).

Médecins Sans Frontières Game

2009-09-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

This was a graduation project done about a year and half ago. The game never was released officially. So I think it's okay to post some artwork related to the game. We made it with a team of 5 people. The art below is art I worked on individually. My task was to art direct the game.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

2009-07-21T03:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post, but after overlord 2 was released I really needed some R&R. Here are some head sketches I did in the train :) I got some more head sketches laying around and i will post them soon.

Daniel Ernst

Snowy Room Sketch

2009-06-15T13:58:00.001-07:00

Color Studies Part III

2009-05-27T12:57:00.001-07:00

Color Studies II

2009-05-22T14:52:00.001-07:00

Finally got some time to do some personal stuff. Spend a day working on my little pet project switching it with these two paintings. The dinosaur drawing was inspired by the book;' If Dinosaurs Came to Town' by Don Mansell. I grew up reading this book and I bought a copy online :) Happy times!

Sweater Lady

2009-05-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

VVVVVVEEENNNOOOM sketch!

2009-05-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

After drawing a lot of speedie spiderman doodles I started drawing venom doodles ( in my ongoing quest to draw a good spiderman or spidey like character ). This one I liked a lot as it reminded me of an old McFarlane venom issue, who's drawings I still think are my favorite spidey drawings.

The Stickfigure Huntsman

2009-04-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

A small doodle made on a sketchblock while waiting. I liked the character so I thought I would do some coloring on it :) Then I put it away and my friend Edwin (http://rhemdoodles.blogspot.com) put down some lines over my sketch and voila the guy came to life!

-Daniel Ernst-

Old Factory Sketch

2009-03-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

A quick color sketch I did. Nothing special, just me slapping some colors on the canvas :) I will try and not talk too long, because it should be a blog with drawings instead of me blabbering on and on about drawings!
-Daniël Ernst-

Crunchtime and me 8-)

2009-03-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

Pfew. Crunchtime stays tough, stress, deadlines and in the end the big payoff that the people will hopefully enjoy :) And next to my work there is me, the artsy fartsy autonomous I want to make my own stuff guy.

I got two projects that I'm working on next to my fulltime job, an illustration book ( which is coming along nicely) and my graduation project. Which I do for fun because I graduated a year ago :). Also I like to animate as well next to my illustrating and gamedesigning and making a game combines all of these disciplines.

* sidenote: I had a very nice story written with wise words, right in this place where I'm typing this, about my study years that I wanted to share, but blogspot deleted them because they did not liked it when I put in a heart sign with letters in blogspot. Be warned people no smoochie letter symbols!*

People usually don't like a webgame to be anything more then a fun passtime that you can easily click away if somebody walks past your desk at work. So if you want to have a magnum opus deep psychological drama game that teaches you important lessons about life, love and death, most people would go for a fun game in which you can blowup blocks or kill stickfigures...... I know I do.....

here are some character designs I did for the game. I went for the more reserved watergod design of the third from above. But I sure loved the other one as well, but it would be al ot harder to animate.

So enough with the reading letters, bring on the drawings!

Daniël Ernst

DINOSAUR SPACEMARINES YEAH!

2009-03-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

After a time of hard work and moving to a new place I found some time to post a new sketch and more is coming when I hook up my scanner again :) BUt now back to business.

A friend of mine is a fanatic dinosaur enthousiast. After collcting just about all the jurassic action figures that are released he started collecting DinoRiders, a show which most of you must have seen!!!! There is not a lot that could go wrong with people riding on weapon laden dinosaurs. Expecially when it is eighties to the bone. So I decided to do some Dinosaur spacemarine sketches in a nice comiccy eighties toy style thingie with nice simple color scheme, neon pink an black. So heres the first badass dinosaur spacemarine to show that not only peanutbutter and jelly mix well!

The Obsidian scary Bird Frustration Painting

2009-01-26T13:16:00.001-08:00

Every now and a then I want to do a scary monster drawing with a super dooper pretentious latin name, in this case the creature is called nex superne. Which ofcourse means Death From Above, which you educated people would know! But for other people like me there is a thing like an online translator so that everybody can abuse ancient languages to make cool names for bands, monsters and pet chihuaha.

Making scary drawings works very therepeudic for me, it prevents me from having scary dreams and will cut my use of foul language right in the middle. Also it balances out cute drawings I do.

At work I've been drawing lots of obsidian "things" and I was wondering in the process that it would be pretty cool to make a spikey monster thingy out of it. Remembering the birds the grandma of my girlfriend keeps as pets I decided it would look freakish to have a big bird monster on stitly legs with little beady eyes with lots of spiky shapes in it. Not that I think parakeets are scary stilty monsters, because I think they are my adorable little feathery friends that could do absolutely no harm. But maybe they just want us to believe that!!!!!!!!!

Hmmz makes one wonder how an obsidian bird can even get off the ground....

Color Studies

2009-01-09T12:53:00.001-08:00

Dames

2009-01-05T12:10:00.001-08:00

For a thunderdome contest at work I started work on a lineup of ladies of pleasure. The subject was;"A master and his pet". Good practice since I did not have a lot of lady drawings. It's fun people recognise people they know in these characters.... which make you wonder what they do in the weekends.....

The professor part III

2009-01-04T13:13:00.001-08:00

I was trying out a happier style for the professor character to make the story a little bit more accessible. Also as the story unfolds, changes to the design of the character are made contineously. Also to have a good contrast I tried out a grim style.

I like the characters that visualizes the story, kinda like the Frankenstein monster who visually depicts the essence of what the story is about (this kind of design was executed wonderfully in pushing daisies). This is the part of creating stories and visual design I flirted with during my student times. So this will be the proving grounds for my theories and paper developed during this period.

Making some preliminary sketches gives a lot of reference to work from. The writing of the story is going steady, the base of the story is written and I started on sketching out scenes. The scene sketches I will post here soon.

Happy Newyear Everybody!

2009-01-01T17:07:00.001-08:00

The studio pic!

2008-11-29T04:12:00.000-08:00

Recently we had a press tour at Triumph Studios, where the press could see the progress we are making. And it was time for a new team picture. Although everybody came dressed up in there best cloth we went outside in the freezing cold for a warm friendly picture that thawed even the biggest frows caused by the cutting wind. I'm the one who's jumping in the middle with the brown jacket..... the one you can hardly miss because I'm doing my HEre's Daniel photo routine....

The Junkboat Sailors

2008-11-15T05:05:00.000-08:00

These were illustrations and animations for a childrens animation project. Which unfortunately I did not have the time to finish as it was during my graduation project. But it was nice experimenting with some shapes. I did this a year ago.

Pixel Bot

2008-11-14T17:14:00.001-08:00

After chainsawing many locusts and screaming out many not so peacefull chants playing Gears of War 2, I got an urge to draw something with plating. So I decided to do some small thumbnails and work out one quickly.

This design emerged from a smalll space marine thumb and although I do many space marine thumbnails I never end up with one. Somewhere in the middle I started turning him in a female robot ( talk about sexchange...) with a little glowy heart and transparant plastic parts. Come to think of it, it kinda looks like EVE from Wall E :)

The glowy pixel like led lights were done after I put in the pixel text above the robot as the text gave me the idea to also apply pixeling on the lights. This put the cherry on my pie and I could leave it alone in peace even if it could do with some more polishing..... so back to chainsawing locusts again! BRING IT !!!!!!!!!

The Professor part II

2008-11-04T11:31:00.001-08:00

My first finished character for my illustration book project, enough to start off the story. The design is undoubtly subject to change during the course of writing the story, but is a great way to come up with new ideas. I hope to start on his trusted kitty companion soon!

The Professor

2008-10-27T14:08:00.001-07:00

A character study for an illustration book project. The illustration book will be finished somewhere next march.

Big Ol' Pirate!

2008-10-23T00:43:00.001-07:00

This was a sketch to try and be more shape orientated. Looking through old sketches I found out the shapes were being neglected in the shading stage, so I tried to focus on getting a clear shape done first.

That and I wanted to draw a pirate!

Color Speedpaint Part II

2008-10-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

Trying out some bigger environments. Next step will be to implement a character into an even bigger environmental piece.

I like the mood set in the red blossom piece, I probably going to go further down that road.

Color Speedpaints

2008-10-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

These were my first shots at making colorful environments. A good training to fiddle around with light and coloring. If I'm confident with the abundance of colors I will try to implement it into a bigger environmental piece. I'm especially fond of the yellow building color sketch. Making these work strangely relaxing should try to do more during crunchtime :).

The Madhatter Sketch

2008-10-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

This character was done in my brand spankin' new sketchbook, bought after losing my old one ( which included a cartoon Terry Gilliam made in my sketchbook and a bunch of portfolio stuff I still had to scan in...... *sigh*, but well good excuse to start a new portfolio from scratch!).

The day before getting myself a new sketchbook I got the Henson's no strings attached book and found out about the movie dreamchild which had some nice hensonlike dark alice in wonderland designs. So I decided to start out with a mad hatter pencil rejndering!

A li' l introduction

2008-10-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

My name is Daniel Ernst. I'm a gamedesigner from trade graduated with a bachelor with honors degree in gamedesign and development with a minor in Fine Arts. Currently I'm working as a artist/designer at Triumph Studios (http://www.triumphstudios.com/), the gamestudio responsible for the Overlord series.

My job duties consist of coordinating the special FX, designing frontend and creating concept art.

Next to my job over at Triumph studios I also work hard on proceeding work on my former graduation project. It will be the first videogame using the 3d glasses technology in a functional way. For details head over to my portfolio site: http://www.danielernst.nl/ .

This blogspot will focus on experimenting, getting feedback and improving.

I will try to maintain this blogspot as much as my sleeping late schedule admits !

well this as far as the introduction goes;

That's all folks!