Merry Christmas!

My Christmas gift to any/all of you who drop on by... My bespoke chariot for the fat man!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

It's time for celebration with family and friends. And more importantly, it's time for a bit of rest.

My contract is winding down, and I can now officially comment... I've been the vehicle designer/concept artist for United Front Games/Activision's "True Crime" franchise reboot.

Whether there will be any additional work for me in the new year... It's hard to tell. But if this year brings a close to my time working at UFG, I'll know that I was part of one hell of a great game! (And I can't wait for them to finish it, so that I can play it!)

Now for that R&R, and some additional contract work over the holidays!
May you get all that you need, and enjoy winding down 2009!

Much love to you and yours this holiday season, and a Merry Christmas (And a happy new year!)

-Mike

Website nice and tidy now.

The website has been tidied up a bit (www.hayes3d.com), and I'll be adding links to this blog, and my facebook page, shortly.

I'm looking for work again (though I'm still with UFG, but I don't know how long my contract will run). Kids are in bed... time for something artistic!

Black (Box) Friday 2.0

My heart and wishes go out to those who lost their jobs over the past week, and to those who are slated to lose their jobs on Monday.

On a slightly higher note, I've received some interest in my skills, and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Now I'm tweaking the website, and getting the portfolio section back online. (I REALLY wish I could put some of my latest stuff on there. It's SOOOOO good compared to my old stuff. But every artist hates their old work!)

Cheers gang,

-mike

Busy days ahead!

Well we are truly in the home stretch. Not much left to do for UFG, just some minor design work. It's been a blast. Once I finish there, and the game is announced, I should be able to do a massive art dump.

On a more personal note, my twins are getting huge, and the first little one has rolled over!

Cheers,

-mike

Winding down.

The end of the year is rapidly approaching, and my 2 month contract with United Front Games has become a wonderful 10 month relationship.  That said, all of the content that I am to design for them looks to be winding down by Christmas.  So it is with a bit of trepidation that I am again dusting off resumes and cover letters, preparing for the unknown.

I have a large body of work from this gig, but it is currently all under an NDA, so I cannot show any of it publicly.  I can probably show off some of the design stuff that has been shown in the “ModNation Racers” videos (Did some graphic design for the cars shown in the trailers).

If you are in need of an artist, producer, designer, hit me up.  ;)
I’ve heard that there are some openings out there, outside of the games industry as well…  While I will always love games, I’d love to try my hand in advertising or actual transportation design.  (Virtual is fun and all, but after seeing my designs on the Shelby Terlingua Mustang (NFS edition), and a couple of cars used in TV commercials, I’m itching for that opportunity.

Site is live.

Hey gang,

Site is now live. Portfolio/gallery will be coming online shortly, but I just can't manage to sneak enough time at the moment.

www.hayes3d.com !!! Try it, you'll like it!

Cheers,

-mike

Updates.

Hello again gang...

My prolonged absense is aprehensible, I know... However, I am mere days away from becoming the father to my soon to be born twin boys, and am also pulling six days a week at my wonderful place of work (United Front Games).

I've redesigned my site, and am in the finishing stages of debugging it, before it goes live. There's an "under construction" preview of the layout, currently online.
http://www.hayes3d.com/

I have SOOOOO much new artwork, but it's all under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement)...
Arrrrgh!!! But don't fret! I'm working with another artist at UFG to get a bit of an internal painting challenge, up and running!

Cheers for now,

-mike

(Oh, and go and watch the "Oz and James" series of shows on wine and beer. I laughed until I cried. Go on and google it!)

Relaunch coming soon!

Hayes3d.com is finally getting a full overhaul... Because I've gotten my business name approved, and am moving to get registered, and my tax #'s etc.

I've formed a partnership/proprietership as "Mike Hayes Design".

Stay tuned for further updates.

(My current contracts are keeping me completely slammed against the wall!)

Congratulations to my other clients for getting their business up an off the ground!

Cheers,

-mike

Snaggle in the works.

Well I was excited about my new contract with an un-named company, but now I'm waiting for the HR department and legal to determine whether or not working for multiple games companies is a conflict. I wish they'd just let me do some work for them. My other employer seems to be cool with me working for other companies, as long as the titles are not in competition in the market place.

:)

Ciao.

New contract.

Hey gang,

Just thought I'd throw it out there, that I'm just inking another deal. 2 jobs at the same time and what not. :)

With that will come some additional funding, which I'll use to create my own company, and purchase some newer software.

Cheers!

(Oh, and if I can fit it into my schedule, I'd love to compete in the "Dominance War IV" which is an art competition between several different art community forums!)

-mike

More fuel on the fire.

Hey gang,

Sorry for the drought. I can't post up any art at the moment, but I thought I'd post up an update. I'm still sluggin away at UFG (Best workplace on earf!), and now have another offer of contract work on the line. Just waiting for clearance from work.

Oh and there's that indie game that my friend and I have been kicking around in the background! :)

Busy busy. (And my twins have been confirmed to be boys!!!)

Cheers all,

-mike

Hayes3d.com got a make over this morning!

Go check it out!

(Oh, and for some reason... FireFox by Mozilla utterly screws up my layout... But Internet Explorer is A-OK!)

www.hayes3d.com !!!

:)

Projects Past... Back to haunt... And fill!

Hey everyone,

I dusted off a copy of NFS: Most Wanted today. Found that I had the "Black Edition" with a schweeeet making of DVD in it! So I fire it up. Oooo... It has the promo video that was shot during the Actors' Guild strike... You know what that means? That means that people throughout the studio did the voice work and stood in as characters at that point!

Now for the early promo, my friend Carlo did the gravel voice over of the bottom ranked "Black List" racer... They should have kept Carlo instead of going with a much less menacing "Professional". (If anyone knows Carlo... Well he projects "Professional" in a hitman sort of way. ;)

Anyways, on that disc was a collection of some of my designs for that game... so snap snap snap... I capped some images, and cleaned em up a bit in PS.

Here they be:

Some new old art...

Hello hello hello!!!

I've decided to post up some left overs from old art tests I've had in recent months...

Here's round 1. Redesign a Ford Torino into a super deformed toy. The client for this will go un-named.

But needless to say, I fullfilled the brief. And was offered the job. However, at that point I had already begun looking elsewhere, and had hooked up with UFG. ;)

The brief also required the design of a hood scoop and a rear wing. I got bored near the end and added a second wing design... And then went Starsky and Hutch with the graphics. :)

Cheers!!!

Sooooooooooooo busy. Sooooooooooo fun!

Hey hey hey!!!

Well again... I've been working like nutz over at UFG, making new arts! HAHAHAHA.
But as is the nature of working on un-announced titles... I can't disclose any of it! :P

ARRRRGH. But no worries. The assets are AAA the game looks tight. And when this thing is announced and out there, I can release some designs... So look for that in the future.

For now, I've got to reclaim some time to work on a portfolio piece.

Cheers,

-mike

UFG is AWESOME.

Hidey ho!

I've been cranking away on new stuff at my new gig. Though I think it'll be a while before I can reveal anything... The dev cycle on this thing is "a while"... heheheh.

When it goes public, I'll have a nice chunk of portfolio work to floss. ;)

I'm gonna try keeping up fresh stuff (non-work) for when the contract runs dry.

Ciao!

-mike

Officially official.

I can now spill the beans.

As of Monday morning, I'll be hanging my shingle at United Front Games, as a contractor (Concept Artist on a temporary contract).

I'm very excited at the opportunity to work on an, as yet, unannounced title. And this should allow me to broaden the spectrum of work that is in my current portfolio (Which has, up until now, just been cars).

Cheers gang, (And happy Friday!)

-mike

Employment rides again!

Hey gang!

Well all of the art delays have been for good reason. I am once again gainfully employed!

Boo Yaaaaaa!

Cheers, and all that!

-mike

Another interview today!

Another interview today and it went hella good! (The particular region of vancouver, in which this studio is located, makes me rethink not living in the city! Gorgeous... And the surroundings too!) Another offer should be here shortly, and looking at the facts, I think it should be the most solid offer currently before me.

I'll spent tonight doodling/drawing/otherwise being creative.

Oh, and good luck to Gabe who is one of the most amazingly talented artists I've ever seen. (Stopped by his neck of the woods today to check out his new 'folio... WOW... Just WOW.
:) The film wold doesn't know what's about to jump up and smack 'em in the face!

Cheers,

-mike

Pay dirt...

Well gang, I'm currently awaiting my first contract offer to come in (from the first art test).
Second art test is almost complete as well, and interview for that is day after tomorrow.

Wish me luck. I'll be posting up some work soon!

Cheers,

-mike!!!

Art test round 2!

Ok ok ok...

I know I was suposed to be adding more art. But here I am... And I have another art test for another company. So I'll have to postpone any updates for the next little bit. Art tests wait for nobody!

;)

See you in a few days! (It's Valentines as well, so that makes things a little more complex.)

:)

Cheers,

-mike

Art tests eat up time.

Heheheheh... Hi everybody!

I've been building a new website (www.hayes3d.com), as well as generating new artwork for the blog/site, and to top that off, I was contacted by a company to do a rather in depth art test. To make a long story short, over the past couple of days I've been doing art that I can't show off.

:)

But now I'll be completing the site, and updating the blog... back to normal. (Until my next job interview next week!)

Cheers gang!

-mike

My favorite commercial to bear my work.

Hey again!

So things are starting to roll... Interviews are happening...

And I thought. I should really share one of my favorite commercials. It's one of my favorites, because my designs are in it. :)

http://www.webridestv.com/videos/need-for-speed-prostreet-commercial-50534

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX shown (Red/White 4 door) in the ad was built to match the in game design created for NFS: Pro Street (My favorite NFS game to date). The other car (Nissan Silvia S15) was designed by my fellow concept artist at the time (Gabe Frizzera). Later in the commercial, it cuts to in game footage with more of our designs, though they're getting banged up and abused. :)

Thought I'd share. I really regret not getting photos from the set of the shoot. Rhys Millen drove the car that I designed! Woo haa! Feather... Get in my hat. ;) Hahahaha.
Daijiro Yoshihara drove the S15 as well. (To those who don't know who they are, they're currently Formula D drivers... But Rhys has been an automotive legend for many years, in many forms of driving/racing/etc.)

Finally starting to get some of my work trickling out of the Black Box.

Hey everyone!

My work has started coming back to me, from within the walls of Black Box. I can start posting up my stuff. I'm really eager to get some of my better stuff up and showing... I'll be using a website pretty soon, in conjunction with the blog, in order to host a gallery better.

Also, have to divert time and resources to sending some images to an interested party. Never a dull moment, this job hunt!

Here's the first piece, the Porsche boss car from NFS Undercover.
We spent all together too much time doing revisions on this car, but in the end, she looked spectacular! (And she's even become a toy!)

Here are the explorations...

The mean, grand puba of the NFS Undercover police force... The Nissan GT-R. This thing saw many variants created, but in the end, the blue and white won out. (And also became a toy!) :)

Here we have another sheet of variants. (Blue and white at top right, is close to the final design)

Some other police livery designs. (Andy Blackmore did a fantastic job on the creation of an original "Cop Muscle Car". Seen at left.)

Shelby Terlingua detail shots.

In order to flesh things out a bit... I'll put up a few more shots of that Shelby Mustang that I helped design.

;)

Gotta get my images up and pimped. Gotta design that web page and get it stood up ASAP.
(Lifted all of the Images from Speedhunters. Hope they don't mind. After all, I did write for them.)

Cheers!

-mike


I mean... Come on. Who are we kidding. This thing is FANTASTIC.

And love seeing it from the back.

Side profile shot

Now... Can your Mustang pull this???

Ta ta for now!

Today was Job Fair day.

Hey all,

Thanks to the Black Box staff for organizing the external recruitment fair.
I went in there, not knowing what to expect, but the turnout was great. All of the companies came out strong, and I talked to as many of you as I could. (Not all were seeking artists) Ryan from Blue Castle, thanks for your time man! I'm putting together a gallery/portfolio site right now and it should be up in the next couple of days. Anna from Slant Six, thanks for talking with me. I know you're not hiring right now, but it's still good to get a little face time with people. Mike and Co. at United Front, thanks for the critique, the advice, and the time. Y'all will see more images as I get them. (Still in talks to free up my art from Black Box).

To old friends I got a chance to reconnect with, hey! And putting a pic on your resume is a blessing and a curse. HAHAHAHA...

More fresh art coming!

Cheers,

-mike

Here are some pics of the cars that I designed for NFS/Maisto (Pics lifted from a Masito page):

All of these should currently be available at Walmart. And all of the toys come with a code to unlock the toy, in game. (Once I get my hands on some production samples, I'll get some good angle pictures) :)

A group photo:

Ahhhh... Maisto actually cast the body kit from the game, and used my boss car graphic design!

It's a pitty this is the small version of the Dodge Viper. In larger scale, this car comes off much more menacing.

A tiny version of my Dodge Charger design. ;)

Something sexy about satin grey paint, a double pin stripe, and some orange.

The new Chevy Camaro.

1:64 Scale Mustang GT (Teeny Weenie Itty Bitty Sized)

Mustang GT (I think these are at 1:18 scale. Nice and bigguns)

Dodge Charger with a nice color split, and an orange pin stripe.

An Audi R8 with British Racing green 2tone and a yellow key line.

Nissan GT-R Cop Car from Undercover. I designed the entire fleet of police vehicle graphics for the game.

New art on the way!

Hello gang,

Sorry for the short hiatus. My little dog Maggie has been having health issues, so I'm attending to those at the moment (We're hoping it's not too serious, but tests are pending). But there is more art in the pipe. (And I've kicked off a joint venture with a friend. If it goes according to plan, I'll have regular art updates to infinity!)

So cheers to you all!

And here's my little monkey, Ms. Maggie! May you be good as new!

Today's post. Double feature!

Hey gang,

To start things off, today was another industry "Hell Day" with a number of friends getting separated from their jobs. My condolences. And may we all find work and prosperity through the rest of 2009!
:)

Now that that is out of the way, let me say that today I decided to step back into my "NFS shoes" so to speak. I gave my self a rather tight deadline. I had to generate a base image of a car, render it, and then use that image to design a body kit (Or re-invision the car without totally changing it beyond recognition).

So I'll post the base car image, as well as the finished design that was layered on top of it. I may yet go back and fill the front fender straight down, rather than have the flare cut back in towards the original body line. We'll see.

Base car:


Fresh paneling:

1 More piece. An oldy, but a goody.

Hi gang!

With people calling, and hiring fairs happening next week, I have to put it into over drive. Going back through my work from my time with Need For Speed, I found a piece that stood up, and just needed some polish.

I took a few minutes to just clean it up a bit. (Though I didn't want to clean it too much, as that takes away from the character of the lines!)

If you click the small image, you should get a nice big version to look at!



Here's another animated GIF file of the basic process... pencils scanned, basic grey tones, tone rendering, and color...

Folio direction decided!

Hey gang,

A new update, in that I've decided on a direction for my new portfolio. Something of a driving direction. (Not every piece will conform to it, as some of my work is being reused... but all of my new pieces will be themed "Childhood fears") It's basically a theme that will allow me to branch out, creating environments and characters outside of my regular repertoire (Primarily I've dealt with realism and automotive themes up to this point).

First piece below.

The blanket of invincibility... Every child knows that the most terrible monster in the universe is unable to penetrate the shield that is a bed sheet!

Cheers!



Below is just a snippet of the process, from one step to the next...



Let me tell you, going from a nice big Cintiq at work, to a piddly little 4x5 wacom tablet... It'll take some getting used to. :) Heheheh

Start trickling out some work.

This weekend has been a mad rush to pour over my sketch books, digital paints, and other concept work... And then see what has stood the test of time. (As any artist will tell you, you never like work you did more than a couple of days ago... And that holds true for me too. I'm finding myself "freshening" all of my old work... Repainting, redrawing, and otherwise, just creating new stuff.)

Gotta "git er done" as one of those NASCAR fans would say.

From this point on, the work should start appearing here quite quickly.
Cheers!

RIP BlackBox Games. Now seeking employment.

Well it's officially official, the dust has settled, and a significant part of the studio I called home, has been uncerimoniously kicked to the curb.

After delivering top notch work to a company, selling literally tens of millions of copies of games, and making investors a tidy profit in the process, I had hoped things would have gone down a little differently.

Being an EA employee since late 2001, I need to pickup some new moves for the corporate dance floor... Time to mingle and impress.

But I digress.
What's done is done. Onward and upward. As they say. If you, or someone you know needs concept art, toy/product design, graphic design, car design, 3D models built, or what have you... Let me know.
:)

Cheers gang.

PS:
I'm prepping for a possible interview in Santa Monica, so I need to throw together a mini-folio this weekend. Nose to the grind stone and what not. Should see images up shortly.

Holiday Black Hole.

Hey gang!


The Christmas/New Years break is over, and I'm back at work.
While I'm still working at EA, I'll also be updating and uploading new portfolio work (speed paints, sketches, concepts, and 3d models).

I promise to get these updates flowing!

For real!

;)