You Must Be This Tall to Ride

With this painting, I wanted to capture a feeling I had the summer I worked at a theater on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. As a popular tourist destination, the island was chalk full of fun things to do, shops to visit, and the a beach was never more than 2 blocks away. Unfortunately, the employees had little time off to enjoy it. I tried to capture the warm romantic spirit of sunset on the boardwalk and mix it with sadness and the longing to participate in revelries beyond one's grasp.  

Old Western Hotel

When I was a kid, I used to climb around on the rooftops of our house. It wasn't enough to explore the inside, I wanted to see how all the other spaces felt, too. Maybe that's why I play 3D platformers now.

I wanted the design of this building to spark that same need to explore. As I worked out the thumbnails, I was thinking: how would I get to the roof? What configuration of interior rooms and hallways would let me get to a particular door, window, or balcony? 

I was also thinking about the building's history. The little building was originally a flat-roofed single-story shack until its owner lost it to the hotel to settle his gambling debts. At first, the hotel just used it for storage. Some time later, when the hotel needed to expand, they added another floor, expanded the balcony, and converted those spaces into rooms.

Final building specs: 9,729 polygons, 3 texture sets at 1024x1024.

City Skyline

1960's Living Room

I had a lot of fun playing with the light and color in this illustration, especially when it came to playing the line work off the fill colors.

I wanted the props and decor to very clearly denote the time period, in all its quirkiness, while also giving some insight into the lives and story of the room's regular inhabitants.