The 'Bill is Bored' Board

Smuggle Truck and SNuggle Truck now available for Download

2011-04-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

I did the art for a game called Smuggle truck, a casual driving game for PC, MAC, iPhone and iPad. We had to change some of the art and the name of the game for the iPhone and iPad. You can buy the PC and MAC uncensored version here:

http://smuggletruck.com/

And go to the Apple App Store to buy Snuggle Truck, the stuffed animal version.

Its a fun little game and not expensive at all. Hope you like it!

-Bill

POTC Strange Tides and Ghost Pirate of Vooju Island

2011-04-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

A fan of Ghost pirates said the new character form the Pirates of the Caribbean On Strange Tides or is that Stranger Tides?...anyway... looked a lot like Jane Starling. I think she does. though not legal exactly like her, not enough to break any laws. So here are the similarities:- they are both: Spanish, long dark hair, big wide hat, feather in hat, long thigh high boots, con artist/ spy, maroon and brown clothes, vest thing, and puffy shirt, master of disguises, tricks/ seduces people to get what she wants, orphans, buckle in hat, both pirates That seems like a lot of similarities to be coincidental to me. And these guys took from a pirate adventure game I worked on before (Curse of Monkey Island), what would stop them from doing it again? They took/ bought the On Strange Tides story from an idea given to them from Ron Gilbert, who said he got the ideas for Secret of Monkey Island from the Stephen Powers book On Strange Tides. So they obviously read Ron Gilbert's gamer blog. They worked on games for Spielberg, and the Monkey Island move for Speilberg, the one ILM was doing. So why wouldn't they look at a pirate game by one of the MI artist?
And I thought I'd add mermaids and zombies to my game because we didn't really have them in Monkey Island when I was at Lucas, except Zombie Le Chuck. So I wanted to add idea into my game that had not been in a Monkey Island game before. So lo! and Behold! There they are in the movie- mermaids and zombies! So again none of these idea are copyrightable, so no laws were broken at all, and I am complemented they liked my ideas well enough to use them in their movie. I just wish they through a little credit my way. Might be asking too much? Let me not be a hypocrite and say I was inspired by the Disney Ride and very Much Monkey Island, and on Strange Tides book. Jane Starling is a feminine inspired version of Jack Sparrow. Jane was inspired by Catherien Zeta Jones in Zorro, and Brienne in Song of Ice and fire, and the Captain in Treasure Planet (same writers on that did POTC OST) And we made fun of Disney's Little Mermaid too. I always list my inspirations. I wish the makers of this latets POTC movie would list theirs as well.

Merry Christmas from AME and the Tillers

2010-12-24T17:47:00.001-08:00

This time Apple rips me and the Dig team off!

2010-10-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

Wow! Looks like we on The Dig team accurately predicted the future and designed the iPhone 4 before it came out. I think the similarities are eerie. But we didn't predict color, but we added a red light to our video phone to let you know it was recording. iPhone 4 doesn't have that! Lame! (I still want one!) But our works with alien phone cells so HA! Take that Steve Jobs!

Modern Creature From the Black Lagoon color rough

2010-09-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Camp Ground color study

2010-09-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

Had an itch to do some weird colors and a simple style. This is my idea of a campground in some sort of UPA animated TV shows from the late 1950's.

Proof of Alien Life on Mars!

2010-09-28T11:01:00.001-07:00

Curse of Monkey Island art inspire more games and movies....maybe. Probably. Yes! Part 2

2010-09-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

I saw a new adventure game on Adventuregamers.com that seems to have been inspired by Curse of Monkey Island art. What do you think?

Curse of Monkey Island art inspire more games and movies....maybe. Probably. Yes!

2010-09-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

These look a bit similar to me. What do you think?

The top one was made for the game The Curse of Monkey Island in 1997 and is a ship that has been thrown up on to tree in the middle of a swamp by a tidal wave, and is now being used by a black woman and voodoo priestess.

The second one was made for the movie Princess and The Frog in 2009 and is a ship that has been thrown up on to tree in the middle of a swamp by a tidal wave, and is now being used by a black woman and voodoo priestess.

World of Warcraft test art

2010-08-11T20:04:00.001-07:00

Witch Queen Doodle

2010-06-28T07:45:00.001-07:00

I was in a conference call, and I got a little board and drew this witch queen on her broom. I think I'll make this into a painting later today- a quick one- and fix the hands. i have a hard time with hands without any reference.

2010-06-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

One of these days I swear I am going to do the web page for the Mysteries For Hire company. This is a sketch I did trying to think how I'd do it.

2010-06-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

More doodles on my tablet PC. Can't wait to get a iPad and doodle on that!

2010-06-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Image from my game Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island. If I re did the Curse of Monkey Island SE game it would look as good as this.

2010-06-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

My scary vampire clown. He's very entertaining.

2010-06-26T10:09:00.001-07:00

Windy day vampire seductress enjoying the cool breeze.

2010-06-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

Some doodle from my sketch book/ lap top/ tablet PC. Enjoy!

My Christmas Card

2010-02-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

I alway loved the Charles Dickens book A Christmas Carol, and with the Disney/ Image Movers Digital moving coming out, I thought it would be fun to theme this years Tiller Family Christmas card on the book. Lily, my youngest is the ghost of Christmas past, Logan, the middle one, is Christmas Present, and Zoe our oldest is the ghost of Christmas yet to be. I wanted to paint this but I didn't have time, so I just colored the sketch I did in Photoshop. I always have more ambitious art projects in mind than time to do them in. Maybe I need to theme my cards with a thought towrad how much time I realistically have.

CMI and POTC Movie

2009-06-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Is it me or do these images look similar?

New MI1 special edition

2009-06-07T13:11:00.001-07:00

Back in 1998 I wanted to re do the Secret of Monkey Island with the CMI art style. I made this image to get the idea off the ground, but Lucas management wasn't interested at the time. I'm glad the new Lucas Arts president has seen the light. Anyway I just thought I'd share this with you all.

Cool Art Web site

2009-03-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share with you a good art web site that i go to all the time called www.arthistory.cc. Not sure what the CC stands for (community College maybe), but it has a wide sample of classic art and art from modern science fiction and fantasy artists. Go check it out!

AG Logo

2009-02-03T20:53:00.000-08:00

Notice anything different about this logo?

Yep. The guns. I was told that might imply that adventure games have a lot of shooting. So I was asked to changed it. So I did, to an idol and a Torch. I agree. Good call AG!

More Character Doodles

2009-02-03T20:44:00.000-08:00

When I was young I never drew cartoon characters or anything whimsical. but now that is all I seem to like doing is drawing weird and unusual faces. Here are a few.

Did I post this yet?

2009-01-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

I can't remember. Anyway this was justa color comp of a mountain I was doing, seeing how this color scheme might work.

Old Cowboy

2009-01-30T21:11:00.000-08:00

Some nights I just start sketching in Alias Sketchbook and come up with unplanned for doodles or characters. This is one of them, a grizzled old cow boy who has shrunk due to old age and hasn't bothered to get new shirts.

More Two Towers

2009-01-11T19:19:00.000-08:00

When i was working at Stormfront on EA's The Two Towers game, we came up with a good deisgn system for the levels. First the level designer would make a blue print of the level on graph paper. He would indicate height of the terain, positions of buildings, and locations of characters. A lelv modeler would scan the drawing in and lay it over a flat 3d planne, then raise the emsh to the correct height and place in basic shapes to stand in for house and trees. The we owuld throw in soem basic lights. After that we would take 12 or so screen shots of various locatiosn in the level and then draw over them and if we had time color them as well. Then the set and props modelers would take these drawing and build the whole level as closely to the drawings as possible. It worked out pretty good. It was my job to makse sure the final level looked as close to the drawings and aintigns that EA approved as possible. It was fun but that project was very stressful.

Tomb Robbers

2009-01-11T19:15:00.000-08:00

This was an image I did for Indian Jones and the Infernal Machine , a 3d Inday game that ripped off Tomb Raider or was an homage. Take your pick. I like this image ebcause it shows how little respect tomb raiders/ grave robbers have for history and other cultures.

Mona in Paris

2008-12-18T16:17:00.000-08:00

This is a color design (not a final costume design or drawing) of Mona when she is in Paris in A Vampyre Story 3. I want the game to take place in the day time, so Mona has adapted by wearing a wide brim hat, a veil over that, and a scarf that covers her face, and long gloves to cover her arms. As long as she has feed quite a bit, she can endure the daylight, just like Dracula in the book and the Francis Ford Coppala movie. I didn’t want her to always be in black and purple. That would get tiresome after a while. So she will be wearing some sort of Victorian dress like this one in AVS3.

Lord of the Rings Moria level

2008-12-18T09:24:00.000-08:00

After my six month stint at Arena. Net I boogied on down to Stormfront to design new areas not seen in the Lord of the Rings movie for EA's Lord of the Rings Games. thsi was one area. Those huge columns we impressive and ominus and I wondered how they made them so I picture soemthing like this image, with carvers working from the top down on scafolding and using these dwarf powered lifts to get dwarves and supplies up and down the columns. Eeriely I did this image just a month before 9/11 and at the time I thought it kind of looked like the World Trade center. So I can't look at this image with out think of those towers now. thsi level was cut from the game by Neil Young who didn't want areas that were not in the movie. A lot of work for nothing.

Deranged Proffesor

2008-12-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

This guy I figured was deranged proffesor from Cambridge. Could be a villan or just an odd side character.

Now that I look at it, definitely villan.

Father's Day Shoot Out

2008-12-17T12:24:00.000-08:00

This was a Father's Day card for my step father Jerry, who likes to shoot these guys, stuff 'em and then mount their heads on a wall to freak out my kids. But other than that he is a great step father!

Robot Assassin Attack Tiger Team Go!

2008-12-17T12:18:00.000-08:00

This here is a robot assassin that will be in Autumn Moons first episodic adventure game serial, IF we ever get any investors for it (big 'if'). It is a retro sci fi killer inspired by the movie Forbidden Planet. If you are an invetsor email me please!

2004 Christmas Card

2008-12-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

This was our Christmas card from '04. I spent housr putting this together and was it ever a big pain in the @$$! I love those Rankin Bass holiday specials. They a really are beautiful. Myzaki actaully used to work on some of these shows too, oddly enough.

The Lucky Carms of Money Island

2008-12-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.luckycharms.millsberry.com/

Lucky Charm's web site seems to be a bit inspired by a cool pirate game made by Lucas Arts. Look at the above images and then go to the Lucky Charms page. See if you notice any influnce there. Now, if only I could figure out how to get paid for all this influencing I'm doing...hmmmmm.

Did I influnce World of Warcraft a little? Maybe.

2008-12-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

I made a portfoli web page back in 2001 (the bottom image) and i noticed this cosmic map in Burning Crusade in 2007. Notice anything simiar? A Blizzard producer once told me the art in Curse of Monkey Island blew away the art in the Warcraft Adventure game and so they decided to cancel it. And when I interviewed the Art Director for WOW and aske dis puerto Pollo from CMI was the inpsiartion for Booty Bay, he said it was defineitly one of them. So my thinking is maybe they looked at my web page and were inspired by that too? What do you think?

Big Castle

2008-12-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

I like drawing and paintign large objects like castles, mountains and sky scrappers. The enormity of such objects give me a sense of awe. even though ironically I am not fond of heights. And NO! I am not compenstaing for something!!!

Twin Fang

2008-12-15T21:57:00.000-08:00

I really, Really wanted the World of Warcraft concept art job, so after I did my test I did one more Twin Fang Mountain, inhabited by monks and wizards who worshiped a blushish crystal that fell to Azeroth. The crystal causes the wizards and monks to go a bit insane and paranoid, so the buitl their citadel inbetwene these two peaks.

Darth Shrowd

2008-12-15T21:49:00.000-08:00

Darth Shrowd. Can brown be an evil color? Maybe.

Tallest building in the world

2008-12-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

Figure out which one is the fake super tall sky scrapper that I deisgned.

Coyote Spit

2008-12-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

Coyote Spit was a town in a version of Full throttle that wans't made. 'Nuff said (grumble, grumble)

Saw Mill

2008-12-15T21:31:00.000-08:00

My step father likes to hunt and collect hunting art, so this was the closets thing I could do that I think he would have liked, a old saw mill just belwo a pinnicale rock.

2008-12-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

Unfinsihed Purple Monster.

Dungeonas and Dorks

2008-12-15T20:54:00.000-08:00

Some D&D stuff for you. One is a map of the game play area known as Whyven. Notice the name of the town by the river? Rothingham. It was chnaged to rottingham and was the name I suggetsed for the Piartein Curse of Monkey Island. So this si where his name came form. Threepwood I heard came for a forest in a Dave Grossman D&D game. The other two are villians from the game.

Huanted House Attraction

2008-12-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

I love Disneyland and would love to deign an atraction for it, and this is sort of my idea for it, a huge victorian house built around a rock spire. the drawing was in ink and then I did a color rough of it in Photoshop.

Puerto Pollo Fort

2008-12-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

This was an early deisgn for the fort in Curse of Monkey Island, Figured I better put up a bright and happy image to counter mister ghoul below.

Nightmare Ghoul

2008-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

It was getting near Halloween and I was thinking about cool monsters for movies, and I thought "You know there are not any movies about ghouls, -carrion eating monsters." So this is my concept for a ghoul monster if they ever made a live action movie. This would scare me I am pretty sure.

Doodles Part 2

2008-12-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

Couple more character doodles. Lord byron is my attempt to do Herschfeld. i have NO idea what Lord Byron loks like. i just did this guy and felt he seemed LordByron-esque. The other is of a witch gilr, and Inever did finish her hands so just pretend they are drawn and we are good to go.

Doodles Part1

2008-12-15T20:04:00.000-08:00

These are just a couple of doodles I did using Alias Sketchbook on a tablet PC. One is George Carlin and the other some guy named frank. Sketchbook is a great drawing program for the tablet PC, but is not great with a Kurta

Space Base Closet

2008-12-15T18:09:00.000-08:00

I used to have a sliding door closet in my room above a stairwell to the basement when I was a kid. I to pretended it wa s aspace base and put all my space ships on the shelves. I even blew off an M40 in there to simulate an attack. This is what I saw in my mind's eye when I was playing.

Drenzla Reborn!

2008-12-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

This is a drawing of Drenzla from the Dungeosn and Dragons Module Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. I love hot vampire chicks!

Four Arms!

2008-12-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

Proof Darth Searin had four arms BEFORE General Grievious!

Another Stormy Day

2008-12-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

This is another stormy day image I saw outside my window at Lucas Arts. This was the winter of 'no ble skies.' when El Nino caused us to have 30+ striaght days of rain. Storms creat verys intersting shpes and cuase the ligth sources from the sky, usually the usn, to come form random directions, which I think is pretty cool.

Ghost Knight

2008-12-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

I had a book of huanted castles in my library so when I was inbetween projects at Lucas I painted this image based on the black and white photos. I added the knight just for fun, thinking he was a ghost that haunted the grounds. maybe he dies while protecting it an now he is doomed, forever cursed to gurad the ruins.

2008-12-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

I thought Darth Maul was the coolest character design in the new Star Wars Films before I actually saw them. I was inspired to make my own Sith, her name is Darth Searin. I wanted her to look a bit like a kabuki spirit. I thought she might have four arms, and cybernetic snake body below the waste and use the light sabers she took off Jedi's she had slain. Seems George and I had similar ideas since General Grievous was part robot and had four arms and used light sabers taken off his Jedi victims. I do not think George took my idea though legally he could because I was working for him at the time. I think we were both just thinking what might be cool for a new Sith villain to have. Two blades were cool! What about four?! That sort of thing.

2008-12-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

back in 2004 I think, I wasn't happy working at Midway, so I tried to get a job at Blizzard, and this was my test art. It is a Foresaken fort at the entrnace to a Harbor whic I called Port Forlorn. They liked it but they closed down Blizzard North and filled the position from that group.

2008-12-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

When I was at Lucas I had a desk by an east facing window and I saw this cool cloud one day after a rain storm. I guess this is what they call a color study, which i guess mean I studied it and it is in color.

2008-12-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

I have a lot to say but I can't spell, type and I mumble so low I might as well not evn be talking, so I am just going to speak with my drarwings if that is ok with you all.