AlexHW.com

I am a self-taught artist. I have experience making things look interesting and visually gripping. I'm determined, inspirational, with purposeful & meaningful goals, while keeping my sight on and beyond the common understanding. I enjoy stepping out of the box, and also standing inside the walls.

Specialties:
Illustration, Design, Creative Writing, Symbolism & Purpose Development.

My creative skill and understanding allow me to cover a wide variety of mediums and applications depending upon the intended style.

If you feel you can utilize my talent, contact me.

     The ship now silent on the wasted landscape of the desert planet, he came to a blurry state of vision. Looking out across the sand as dust and smoke rolled over his capsule the light grasped enticingly at his eyes.

     "I'm alive?" A smirk began to form on his face that quickly became laughter in the lonely space, a laugh that would echo across time as a shadow of his broken self. Why is it that a fallen man laughs at the pain? Is it because he feels something all too real, something undeniably true? Is this the method towards composure, a distraction from the release of everything out from his wounds, the meaning of nothing and the fear that encapsulates it like a shield designed to protect you from a disenchanted reality?

     He finds himself wanting to speak with this architect, the engineer that smiles at his misfortune and as moments relapse to looking beyond the glass, tears fall from his eyes. His face liquidized by the scenic sight of sunlight setting fast. He is hypnotized. All strength once held drips away as he slips into unconsciousness as day becomes night, as the darkness holds him in its heart he dreams of a new day to laugh away the pain.

     Falling in slow motion, the man descends through crimson screens of meditation. If no one’s around to catch a falling angel, only ground collision will bring back their sound and voice. The void of space fills his face he wears; the emotionless mask ghost of reflected fears, a coagulated film of feeling surrounding the bones that pulse between knowing and believing.

Animation process:
I begin with a roughed out body of a character- drawing each key frame from scratch so that motion is kept fluid. At this early stage, it is easy to quickly flesh out the transitioning forms as I decide how I want the character to move. I decide to work small so that detail can be generalized and so key attributes become emphasized. After I am satisfied with the overall animation, I begin to add specific features that describe the character's personality. It is important to keep forms in proportion so that shapes do not appear to morph or change lengths. Having a solid base to work off of keeps everything accurate as I begin to flesh out the surface angles. I also adjust and fix any issues I see as I prepare the animation for refinement. I increase the size of the character to allow more detail to fit, and begin touching up frames to get an impression to the overall look of the character, utilizing a neutral background color I imagine the environment to be. This base color helps push up the colors in the character allowing them to appear more vibrant. If the background were kept white, the brightness would overwhelm and diffuse the subtler darker tones within the character's palette. Having a better understanding as to the complete character, I can begin applying the design to the remaining frames. While it is tedious work, it begins to become like an assembly line process. After going through and fleshing out the frames with more detail, we get a more complete sense as to the finished anim, however, there is more refinement needed. I could increase the character's size as I add more detail depending upon what results I am looking for. I'll add some feathers and other apparel details.

..to be continued

Background process:
background art for use within a game. Progress state for developing final art assets. I begin by blocking in the overall feel of the scene to get a sense as to the scope of the design. This allows me to plan the color palette as well as the structure involved with the layers and pieces that will be used to construct the level. background art for use within a game. Progress state for developing final art assets. My intent with the background is to make it appear organic and alive, and to accomplish this will require more advanced implementation than simple tile-based games, which is fine considering current technology. I continue creating various pieces that will be used for constructing the environment. background art for use within a game. Progress state for developing final art assets.

..to be continued

Alex Hanson-White's Resume

Black Lantern Studios:

As a 2d artist and Lead artist, I both created and Implemented various artwork ranging from animations, backgrounds, characters, items, & etcetra using in-house development tools.

2010

	Sesame Street: Elmo's A-to-Zoo Adventure (Warner Bros). 2d artist
	Sesame Street: Cookie's Counting Carnival (Warner Bros). 2d artist
	Zhu Zhu Pets Wild Bunch (Activision). level design.
	Dora's Cooking Club (2K Play, Nickelodeon). 2d artist
	Dora's Big Birthday Adventure (2K Play, Nickelodeon). 2d artist
	Airport Mania: First Flight DSi (Reflexive). Lead artist, implemented & delegated production of art assets. Various art tasks.
	Airport Mania: Non-Stop Flights DSi (Reflexive). Lead artist, implemented & delegated production of art assets. Various art tasks.

2009

	Bookworm DS (PopCap Games). 2d artist, developed backgrounds, animated and implemented trademark character.
	Dora Puppy (2K Play, Nickelodeon). 2d artist, worked on developing and implementing backgrounds, character animations, and miscellaneous other graphics.
	Wizards of Waverly Place (Disney Interactive Studios). 2d artist, worked on preliminary construction and design of backgrounds. Polished 3d character animations into game-ready 2d assets. Animated 2d special effects for magic spells, etc. Created 2d graphics of various objects and images.
	Little League World Series 2009 (Activision). 2d artist, constructed and polished various background and misc. details.

2008

	Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess (2K Play, Nickelodeon). 2d artist.
	Go, Diego, Go!: Great Dinosaur Rescue (2K Play, Nickelodeon). 2d artist.
	The Wonder Pets!: Save the Animals (2K Play, Nickelodeon). 2d artist.
	Amazing Adventures: The Forgotten Ruins (PopCap Games). 2d artist. background, object/sprite, and cut-scene work. Used development tools to create game-ready assets.
	Mystery P.I. Portrait of a Theif (PopCap Games). 2d artist. background, object/sprite, and cut-scene work. Used development tools to create game-ready assets.
	Little League World Series 2008 (Activision). Minor details and touch-ups on select pixel work for the DS.
	Garfield Fun Fest (Destination Software, Inc). Pixel Animator. Helped polish and implement various animations. Used development tools to create game-ready assets.

5th Cell Media:

Worked in-house as an artist to create and provide all the game art including sprites, animations, gui, & tiles. Work included different resolutions for different phones.

Worked on a majority of pitches and prototypes for a start-up game company (5th cell media) including a psp title which required me to create street-fighter quality graphics and lengthy fighting animations.

2005

	Darts Pro! (THQ Wireless). 2d Artist.
	MotoGP Manager (THQ Wireless). 2d artist.
	Ministry of Sound Club Manager (THQ Wireless). Implemented new artwork and graphics from pre-existing style.
	Siege (THQ Wireless). Implemented new artwork and graphics from pre-existing style.
	SEAL Team 6 (THQ Wireless). Implemented new artwork and graphics from pre-existing style.
	Full Spectrum Warrior Mobile (THQ Wireless). 2d artist.

Pronto Games / IGN.com / Majesco:

Around this time, I had been freelancing; providing art for numerous companies. I had gotten my foot in the door of the game industry.

2004

	Wireless Messenger Majesco. Provided an assortment of graphical assets including icons, fonts, and backgrounds.
	Awaken 'Celling the Game' project (IGN). Was a weekly mobile game column at IGN website directed towards developing a cell phone game. Readers were able to give input as to the direction of the game.
	Spiderman Pronto Games. Provided conceptual sketches and pixel art and animations for enemies for the Spider-man TV game.

One Man Band (2003-2004):

Freelance work providing art concepts and assets.

Misc

Below are miscellaneous projects and hobbies I have spent time on. One past-time is programming; I have programmed in various languages including c++, c#, javascript, php, and have used various game makers such as unity, darkbasic, blitzbasic, klick n play, etc. I enjoy the puzzle and problem solving elements involved with programming and art as well as tying in meaningful stories that engage the player on a sub-level.

2005 - 2007

	A game I co-created with a couple friends within 72 hours as an entry into a challenge. Download It.
	A prototype I designed and programmed myself. Programmed the physics from scratch. I also have numerous other prototypes I've programmed. Download It.
	Pixel Artist's Beginner Booklet Chapter 1 Pixel Artist's Beginner Booklet Chapter 2 Pixel Artist's Beginner Booklet Chapter 3 Pixel Artist's Beginner Booklet Chapter 4 Pixel Artist's Beginner Booklet Chapter 5 Some chapters to a series of booklets I began writing.

2002 - 2008

Administrated and moderate an online pixel-art forum consisting of thousands of members.

My website link published in a European magazine.