One Man Art Jam: How To Do Lean Concept Art

I’ve spent a few years in the concept art / creative director role in different industries. Each of them has their own process of creating concept art. As an app designer, my concepts look like user experience wireframes; boxes, icons and lines. As a concept artist in advertising they were rough sketches. In the architecture industry they are more finished renders. In the game design field, it’s a combination of all the above because you need the rough sketches to block out levels and establish composition, refined art to establish mood, themes and colors and clean wireframes to design UI.…

The  Mystery of a Mastermind Writer

I’m a big fan of Scooby Doo. I loved to sit cross-legged on the floor and watch “the gang” trap paranormal phenomena like an animated Mythbusters. As I watch the one-man development team of Mike Jarrell craft Affliction, I can’t help but think of him as a real life Scooby squad.

Think of the best version of a game, the one that exists in the ether just waiting to be made real, as one of the typical spooky bad guys from Scooby Doo.…

Mastermind Game Dev Stack

So I’m already well into development of the game at the writing of this post. The pre-production is done, the story is fleshed out, the vertical slice is complete, the trailer is out and now it’s just the grind of building the world and getting things done. So on the note of getting things done, something I wish I found more of is the development stack that indie game developers use to make awesome games. I’ll start by sharing mine.

Now it’s important to note that my game development stack is constantly changing based on new needs but here is what I’m currently working with.…

Who is Mastermind?

Mastermind Interactive is, technically speaking, a studio of one with various long running guest stars to help with things like writing, music and voice over. Now I’m not claiming to be a mastermind but the beauty of being a one-man studio (with guest stars) is that the buck stops with me.

I’ve worked in the games industry off and on, and in various roles for the past 10 years starting at a small outsourcing studio in Florida. Having worked on games ranging from Call of Duty (the old ones) to Bratz, I got my baby teeth creating 3D assets and concept art.…