Rock Band 2 Art by John Dee
Filed under: Sketchbook / Tags: john-dee, rock-band-art / 20 comments
HMX artist John Dee created iconic artwork for Rock Band and painted a one-of-a-kind guitar case for the Child's Play charity auction. We spoke with him about his art for Rock Band 2 and how he kept the Rock Band look without repeating the same images.
Figure 1: The evolved Rock Band 2 Two-Headed Tiger
John says, "I look at Rock Band as the classic original, and then we moved to the second one. They were going to bridge and connect together somehow. " Rather than lose all the iconic images from Rock Band - like the tiger and the octopus – John decided to have them evolve instead. Inspiration for this evolution came from skateboard companies: "Whenever skateboard companies back in the day would release a deck, say, the Tony Hawk board, it would be this really cool skull with a German cross behind it with a leopard print behind it. The next board that would come out would be the same skull, but maybe slightly mutated or twisted. You still recognized it. If you had a favorite skateboarder and you loved his deck, each iteration of his deck would evolve."
Figure 2: The Rock Band 2 elephant
In this vein, John evolved his animal creations into new forms for Rock Band 2. "The elephant [in Rock Band] had a regular tusk. In the new one, the tusk evolved into two different pieces and the trunk is different snakes [seen above]. There's definitely a push for expanding on and making it more dynamic, and also bringing in new, powerful animal creatures."
Figure 3: Skull octopus with spine tentacles
This also allowed for some unlikely combinations of images, such as an octopus with a car engine for a head. John explains, "A lot of it is what I call 'frankensteining,' where I'll go through and find a bunch of photos and hack those photos to create an amalgam. I would frankenstein these photo pieces together to get something I would want, and then I would use that as my inspiration to do my own drawing." This "frankensteining" resulted in some of Rock Band's creepier images, including the skull octopus above that has spines as tentacles, and the aforementioned octopus with a car engine head.
The animals weren't the only images to evolve from Rock Band to Rock Band 2. John says, "I felt like some of my early skulls [for Rock Band] were a little bit softer and a little bit rounder compared to the newer stuff which is holding up a more mature look to it." You can see the difference in the two skulls below.
Figure 4: Rock Band skull on the left; Rock Band 2 skull on the right
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Comments
Awsemo...
dude u r like the COOLEST ARTIST EVVERRR!!
Friday, July 31, 2009
MissileRockBand...
I love the skull octopus!!
Monday, June 29, 2009
sablanor...
those skullz r freakin awesome
Monday, May 25, 2009
HeavyHorse...
No problem :D
Monday, April 6, 2009
HMXJohnDee...
WOW!...Thanks for all the kind words everyone. This is awesome! :)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Thebassplayer...
Nice arts
Monday, March 30, 2009
Rover620Gsi...
I am a tattooist and those pictures are cool, i could have loads of fun.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sciochezze...
i would tattoo the octupus on my back
Sunday, March 22, 2009
ballbe...
I love your pictures
Sunday, March 15, 2009
alex529...
nice
Friday, March 13, 2009
LightningRocker...
I would print the skill and put it a coloring book for some kids!
Friday, March 13, 2009
MILLWRIGHTMASTEROFALLACCORD....
warring is a shortened lifestyle so the Rock Band Skull is my pick!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
kngstn...
awsome
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Socko8q3f...
I love the elephant :D
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Oscar-Rio...
wow, i really love this work. Not so much the skulls, but the elephant is amazing. Good stuff.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
*raith...
I love his works here. I cannot wait for his future contribution to the RockBand series.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Riddycal...
The Tiger is the best.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
cheetahman17...
tiger is my fav to
Thursday, February 26, 2009
punk-picasso...
i dont like the 4th one but the rest are SICK!
the tiger is my fav
Thursday, February 26, 2009
HeavyHorse...
The elephant and octopus take the cake. Although it's nice to see the tiger got a new head to hold a conversation with, the elephant and octopus are animals that make you go "that thing would kill me quicker than a bullet". Plus having you eyes just travel along all the detail is an adventure alone.
Also the skulls were probably the most notable in the upgrading. One of my avatars/rockers- always has a skull covering the face (the rest being covered in jet black) as part of his regular look (think The Misfit's, cept with Dee's more detailed skull designs). Since my old choice was gone, I had the forced pleasure of looking at the new bone heads. Great stuff.
Nonetheless, incredible art. Extremely clean but absorbing stuff. My eyes get a mind of their own when viewing your talent Dee.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009