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| Stanley Associates, a government contractor in Alexandria, Virginia, was founded by three World War II Marine Corps aviators that ventured into the private sector with a new division to develop strategy and tactic games for the PC. Originally working from home in Georgia [via modem], I set about creating the artwork for their first game: 5th Fleet. My wife and I moved to Bowie, Maryland, mid way through development, and I have my good friend Chris Tepe to thank for helping me meet that big deadline! |
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Mouse-over the ships above for a simulation of the opening splash screen. I drool at the thought of what I could have done for this game using Adobe Flash...
At any rate, it was during this period that I was also creating pixel art for a company developing biometric security software, and found my plate filling very quickly. Upon successfully completing 5th Fleet, I was offered a salaried, full time position in-house to oversee the visual design of their second game: Wooden Ships & Iron Men. I was now working with the robust palette of 256 colors in Deluxe Paint II Enhanced, by Electronic Arts, and was first introduced to an amazing program: 3D Studio, by Autodesk…
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| Originally envisioned working with 3D models, that quickly proved an unrealistic option given our resources. Instead, the great bulk of the work would be pixel painted and cell animated, a daunting task somewhat alleviated by way of the assistance of a graphic artist attached to another division. He’d been learning to use 3D Studio with the CEO’s program (our only licensed copy) and created the logo you see above, as well as the sets that I would need per my storyboards… |
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| Inspired by the book: Cross Sections: Man-Of-War, by Stephen Biesty, we attempted to give players a “you are there” look, by painting over 3D renderings and photos of the programmers posed as crew. The still scenes were never finished, in my opinion, because all of my time was spent mouse painting 6 unique ships at 8 ( compass ) views and 4 levels of magnification, each, and the attending animations of various sail configurations, guns firing, wakes, splashes, et al… |
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Nevertheless, Wooden Ships and Iron Men was way cool to play, got great reviews in all of the trade journals, and was voted “ Best strategy and tactics game of 1995 ” by PC Gamers’ World, which also gave the artwork the very generous grade of A.
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