It was winter 2007. I was working out of a damp basement in Cranston Rhode Island. For my day job I operated machinery at a local metal casting factory, but at night I'd be up for taking on assignments...as long as they were interesting. That's how Insecticide came into my life. A gritty crime drama that takes place in a future where "Hominids" have devolved to a semi sentient parasite while ants, bees, and all manner of insects (and spiders) have become the dominant life form. The story plays like a film noir detective story. There's a murder, and there's a corporation with a dirty secret, and theres a plucky young police cadet named Chrysalis who's boss is a grizzled cigar smoking cockroach P.I. trying to get to the bottom of this case before he gets swatted like a fly...ok enough of the Mike Hammer speech. Insecticide was released for the Nintendo DS and then later for the PC and is now on Steam. It was a really fun project and made Rhode Island winter definitely more bearable.
I believe that when I first applied to Microsoft I had a very limited portfolio of concept art. In fact I had just a few drawings that I showed including a goofy sketch of a multi-hulled zeppelin that I somehow thought would get me a job drawing exactly that - multi-hulled zeppelins. I did get hired although not as a concept artist. Initially I worked on bitmap graphics for a UI, and then moved from project to project until one day I heard that Microsoft was building a sequel to Crimson Skies and were looking for somebody to sketch up a bunch of crazy airships. I raised my hand and said..."Hey, really the only thing I want to do is draw some multi-hulled zeppelins, I can do this, I can sketch your crazy airships". I got the job and what you see here are couple of my designs. As you can see these were done primarily with marker, pen, and pencil. I still look at some of these and wonder if I could actually sketch these again. I feel like it was a window in time when I had a lot of airships I wanted to explore and then I explored them and then it was time for something else. Clearly there are infinite airship forms out there. I've seen some wonderful concepts from a lot of artists over the years. That flying aircraft carrier from the Avengers for instance. Why didn't I think of that? Maybe I need to draw a few more to see what would happen...
After years of commuting between Seattle and Redmond and seeing the devastating impact that it was taking on the collective nerves of the techno elite, I decided to do something about it. The problem is that you can't get 100'000's of people across a lake with just two bridges back and forth everyday without clogging it all up. After extensive research into viable options Commutapult was born. Let's just launch people. Fun, effective, colorful...safe? I presented at Ignite Seattle and from the audience reaction I think this might be the solution that Seattle deserves...errr...needs. Forget about Lightrail, Monorail, and Tunnel Digging Fails...we need to Shoot Higher...we need Commutapult!
