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A Gypsy's Tale: Tower of Secrets is out the door! Go forth and download. It's an adventure/hidden object game focused around a curse-breaking adventurer, Reylin, featured in the previous blog post.  I've included some of the background images from the game below.  There are many many more in the game as well as a variety of cute and shady characters.  I worked alongside a few artists on this game, including talented David Kang and Tony Foti.  Enjoy!

Over at Amaranth Games, we're really close to finishing up A Gypsy's Tale.  It's so awesome to see everything coming together and to test the game. I'm really proud of all the people who worked on this.  It's been a long process, but I'm very grateful for the experience.  I'm looking forward to sharing some of the art here.  For starters, I thought I would post some promotional art I made for the game. I've posted some of the progress shots below. Apologies for the huge jump in progress in the middle.  I'm awful at remembering to take screenshots.

I also wanted to mention that the lovely people at Cat on the Wall did a three part interview series with Amaranth Games. It features the producer (and all-around superwoman) Amanda Fitch,  musician Aaron Walz, and little me. It's a good read, especially if you're curious about what goes into making indie games.  Also, there are images that I haven't posted anywhere else yet.  Go see! 

Earlier this year, I was contacted by the lovely people at Amaranth Games to do some background art and other game assets for a time management game, Yummy Drink Factory. I was told it would be a casual game in which you play as a barista who serves drinks to various fairy tale creatures. I jumped at the chance to illustrate for them and there was probably some excited squealing too.  I love things that are quirky and cute, so I knew that it would be a treat doing the art for the game. 

I spent a few months working closely with the game designer and she gave me a lot of freedom to create some unique and colorful backgrounds.  At some point, I was even asked to draw a bowl of warts, which was oddly delightful.  I believe I sat there with a stupid grin on my face while I was drawing them. Honestly, I made them look quite tasty.

While I was smitten with drawing warts, the wonderful Claire Belton created some fantastically adorable creatures to inhabit the villages and various game assets as well. Together we managed to cram all the cute we possibly could into this game.  So I warn you, it's not for the faint of heart.  If you're diabetic, I'd avoid it, because it's awfully sweet.  

As you can imagine, I've been eagerly waiting for the game to be announced so that I could share the artwork here on the site.  The game has now officially been released over at the Amaranth Games community.  There's even a nifty one hour trial version available for download. Later this month, it will be available at some large game portals. I strongly urge my fellow gastropods fanatics to check it out.  I, in fact, challenge you to find the slug on a stick in the game.  Oh yes, there's a slug on a stick in the game.  That alone is worth the $20.  

Hello everyone! I had a few months of staring at the redesign of the site and realized it felt a little impersonal.  It needed more... Karen.  So I talked to Mr. Web Dev and he put this blog together for me.  For that, I am thankful and I will try my best to put it to good use. I plan on sharing tidbits of my process work, news of my current projects, and some photoshop goodies with all you fine people. Mostly really, I suspect it will be flooded with process work and sketches. While I'm typing up some new entries, feel free to check out the links.  I added some of my very favorite inspirational artists and friends.