5.14.2012

And the art sucks, too

I can't say that I'm very much into playing video games these days. They occupied a great deal of my attention back in junior high school, but I have since lost interest and neglect to keep up on them. That said, the "Call of Duty" franchise has gained a strong following over the past three or four years, and me being in high school amongst the target demographic, I am sure to encounter buzz when new titles are announced.



The Call of Duty franchise was once renowned for its realism in presenting the battlefields of WWII. The trailer reveals the upcoming title, Black Ops 2, is to be set in the future, justifying these legged mechs. Which, if I may offer my opinion, are butt ugly. Perhaps the developers are new and inexperienced at creating futuristic universes and technologies, or maybe it is that they're rushing to crank out a new title for every holiday season and don't the time or resources to put together a better art direction.

Here's some guys within the LEGO sphere doing it correctly.
 


Dane and FateHeart, respectively. I like how Dane's look as if it was a tracked vehicle retro-fitted with legs, the greeblies are great. FateHeart's is just a fun time on teeny feet, there's good humor in the crewman with the katana as well.


Mladen Pejic, of course.

But this isn't to say that wheels haven't gone out of fashion in the future, as Jas Nagra's recent future-military models prove:

Boar. Runt.
Two years ago I featured a couple of vertical tanks of his design, so he's not all about wheels and tracks. I can really admire Nagra's control regarding excessive detail. No surface is made more complicated than it needs to be, the result is something very clean and functional. As the cluttered Black Ops artwork shows, restraint isn't always exhibited in science fiction artwork.

Posted by Erik at 14.5.12

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Jacob
Occasional driving force of the blog, self-proclaimed Lukas fanboy, and aspiring engineer, Jacob spends too much time building LEGO, not enough time practicing piano, and not nearly enough time doing school. He also enjoys long sentences. In the instance of blogging, he believes in quantity over quality, wherever quantity can be maintained.
Mike
One of the cofounders of YSAB, and the founder of YSA, Observing Mike actually being productive is a rare occasion. Mike enjoys making outlandish claims in relation to actually building, pretending he's actually sorting his collection, and making excuses for why he hasn't photographed his MOCs. In his free time he enjoys learning CSS from Spook, photography and poking badgers with spoons.
Dean
Occasional builder, occasional blogger, and full-time procrastinator. That's really the only way to describe Dean. He rarely gets anything done, but is a very active lurker. He's probably seen and liked your MOC, but just forgot he had a blog.
Erik
Erik is still a teenager.
Lukas
Lukas is tall, blond, mildly OCD, and doesn't build nearly enough as he would like to, thanks to school. He has a webpage.
Spook (Tim)
The resident codemonkey and graphics person. If something isn't working correctly, it's probably his fault. Fitting to his name, he doesn't post often, but someone has to do this stuff too, right? Spook does build with laygoes, and has his own blog as well.