New painting, a piece of Xenogears fan art, if anyone out there remembers that game.

There’s also a sort of sappy personal story behind this, if you’ll permit me.

This is a special painting for me, because it was the one that got me back into doing traditional painting. I started working on this one about a year ago, at the end of 2008. Now, since then, I’ve actually managed to finish a bunch of other traditional paintings before this one, but before I started this, pretty much all of my work was purely digital. Before this piece, the last time I’d done any traditional painting was 2005.

It didn’t occur to me how much I missed painting until I saw, of all things, a post on Penny Arcade showcasing some paintings that Gabe had started doing. The paintings themselves were pretty great, but he also wrote this in his post:

This latest piece is the first in a series I plan on doing based on my favorite games. I sat down and made a list yesterday of all the games I’ve really loved over the years and I plan on trying to do paintings based on as many of them as I can. The list has stuff like Zelda, Rez, Kingdom Hearts and Bioshock on it, plus lots more.

Strange as it seems, that’s what inspired me. Just the whole idea of painting something fun. Somehow, in the previous three years, I’d been so serious when it came to making art (anyone who’s been through art school maybe knows what I’m talking about) that it didn’t occur to me that I was allowed to have fun.

And so I started this painting. And now a year and five other paintings later, it’s finally finished.

Here’s hoping I can keep it up.

This started as a speed painting, and then I just kept adding more details.

The source is a Halo 3 screenshot, snapped at just the right moment in the grenade-throwing animation so that it looks like two guys (in full space marine body armor) shouting, “WHAT’S UP, FELLAS! Master Chief in da HOUSE!”

I’ve been playing a lot of Metroid Prime this week. I never played this one when it first came out, but even though it’s now half a decade old, it’s still fantastic.

This is the last of my E3 content, so after this, I’ll resume my normal habits of posting sketches in my sketchblog.

Rows of Nintendo DS demo stations.

Seth in front of said DS stations.

WiiSports: Tennis two-player demo in the Nintendo booth.

I WANT TO WAKE UP TO THIS IN THE MORNING.

Okay, I lied. Square Enix did let me photograph these. Probably because they’re SO ADORABLE.

Spore on EA’s GIANT 360 DEGREE SCREEN.

Maneuvering through crowds.

Kyle is either yawning, or screaming. You decide.

Spread the word. Share the love. The love of ROCKING OUT.

Jeff looks surprised, but really he held this position for a full three seconds while I pointed the camera at him.

That’s Seth staring off at something, and behind him, girls in bikinis.

Others have assured me that this title is an accurate description of the game.

This is about as close as I was allowed to photograph at the Square Enix booth. They were adamant about not allowing photos in their booth.

That’s fellow intern Jeff at the dead center of this shot.