The Making of LEGO Island: Difference between revisions

When we got back to California I was asked to continue the best assignment that I've had in years: to come up with more precise, more immersive, fun ideas. This was an incredibly fun task because this is what I do and now I am free to do this and...get paid. I went to art school because I enjoyed, often to my detriment, making things up and drawing since I was a little kid or did I already say that? I know I did because I say it often. I think to rationalize why I didn't become a doctor, a lawyer, or a programmer. Actually, I spent my childhood doing this in addition to playing guns in the woods. I felt at the time that I was, at best, a mediocre illustrator; maybe enough to get a job though. I didn't have lessons. I just had the passion. I had to go to Art School after an obligatory Liberal Arts degree. I realized one rarely chooses what they are and I was an artist....Finally, after an obligatory two degrees with one at Art School, I was ready to enter the real world. I thought advertising or sdmeplace where I could be creative would be a perfect. It would satisfy my degrees in behavioral sciences and art. It would make me feel almost normal. The jobs I could get was just doing production (back when there was such a thing) and mostly for everybody else's ideas. I tried being a "wrist" which we called a job where one's brain isn't really required. It got to a point when I realized that if one really wants to work in the business of being creative than it's best to go into sales. They seem to have that job of having ideas and telling the art department what they and the client wanted. I didn't though. I hung in there.

Now at Mindscape, the company and its commanders were quite encouraged that we (well, Paul actually) got an inside number to call. I assumed, because of my low self-esteem, thought that I'll be asked to go back to moving pixels around though and they'll take it from here. It was just the way the industry worked and that's the way the game artist's job was in 1995. Surprisingly, I was asked to work on the concept some more while they set up an appointment with the Connecticut offices. I eagerly started out by finding out what these Lego things look like. I started checking out what the Lego characters are capable of doing. I was still kind of stubbornly closed minded about it at first. They just weren't the kind of toy that I grew up with. I mean, they can't engage in any kind of war and you certainly can't chew on these and no way can you set them on fire as easily. These yellow faced plastic guys with happy faces on them can move their arms up and down, which is kind of cool but rather useless, really. You can take them apart and mix up the pieces though which is cool. It is designed for building things. I noticed that I spent an hour or so doing just that and was getting increasing engaged by a handful of bricks. Maybe they are kind of cool after all.

I enthusiastically spent night and day just thinking about Legos. I started sketching out little scenes and options. Here's how you can knock down things. Maybe a big foot kicks it over, or you can blow it up with a dynamite brick. Then I drew a guy checking into a hotel...No, wait- what if you're the Lego character so you're at eye level and you check into the hotel. Another one was a guy walking along a street with another guy approaches him on a street with part of building in the background. I took these sketches and finalized them with markers on vellum, mounting them on Foam core with the obligatory flap. This was a presentation that varnishes with a coating of credibility. Put a company sticker on the front of the cover sheet and it looks like it's real. In between doing this, I did have other tasks, of course, working on a Mario Deluxe project making little building of different countries which was actually fun. We had to go to the library and find out how different houses and villages looked in other countries. One of my fellow art cave neighbors showed me some cool rendering tricks in the now archaic software. I had fun drawing some cool buildings or at least I was happy with them. It also gave me the opportunity to keep thinking about Lego as well as I moved pixels around. The company started hiring more artists. A new kid in town was hired since the workload was increasing did a really cool couple character sketches. Several more artists joined the core team now. The new kid was pretty cool and really talented. He had a friend from the same art school he went to who was a pretty unassuming kid and then in came a rather peppy girl who was rather a "good- looker" as my Grandfather use to say back in the ol' days. Finally, a really good friend of mine from Art school got hired. I felt rather proud because I recommended him and really proud because he was the best illustrator I ever met. H's name was, or still is, Jim, We called him Jimpy because his E-mail name was Jim P. The guy was great. He still is, I assume. The art cave was expanding.

I was really getting pretty excited that I'm being sent over to Europe. I was beginning to feel special but suspicious because I suspected that a programmer will take over sooner or later. I did know that, at least for now, this is an opportunity. I'm going to England! I did, of course, had to get a passport which was a bit of a wait in line for several hour but I felt like I was a world traveler, a global jet-setter. Consulting my Boy Scout Check List, I started packing days before departure.