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Ep 114: Year of the Yeti part 2 with Jermey Packer
99 Plays2 years ago
Zombie Yeti joins us to talk about his art from Foo Fighters and Venom along with the past years at Stern. Plus, a special announcement from Jermey Himself
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Episode and Guest
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
We're on episode one 14.
00:00:12
Speaker
I am Josh Roop.
00:00:13
Speaker
My co-captain has decided to fly off to another country.
00:00:17
Speaker
He will not be back for a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, we have an exciting guest on today.
00:00:22
Speaker
But before I get to him, I want to remind you venom just released.
00:00:27
Speaker
It's looking amazing.
00:00:28
Speaker
The gameplay footage is fantastic.
00:00:29
Speaker
If you haven't checked that out, go on YouTube.
00:00:31
Speaker
But if you want that game, hit up Zach and Nicole many at flipping out.
00:00:35
Speaker
I just got my foo fighters on my birthday last Tuesday, literally four o'clock on my birthday showed up.
00:00:41
Speaker
It was the best birthday present ever.
00:00:42
Speaker
And it's been a fantastic game.
00:00:44
Speaker
I am just loving this game.
00:00:45
Speaker
My family's loving this game.
00:00:47
Speaker
If you want that magic in your home, give Zach and Nicole many a call, or you can do like I do.
00:00:52
Speaker
I go on Facebook and I hit them up through messenger.
00:00:54
Speaker
And that way it's easier to get maybe a response.
00:00:58
Speaker
And kind of keep a track of, like, did I message him?
00:01:00
Speaker
Did I not?
00:01:01
Speaker
But anywho, enough of that.
00:01:03
Speaker
I have...
Zombie Yeti's Art Style and Industry Insight
00:01:06
Speaker
an absolute i don't know how to i don't there's no words to really describe how amazing this man is his artwork is driven the whole art front in pinball in my opinion he's a two-time twippy winning champion which means he has the most whoopies for artwork and it's year the yeti the sequel first it was avengers and ninja turtles and now we have venom and foo fighters so if you'll please welcome jeremy packer aka zombie yeti how are you doing sir
00:01:33
Speaker
I'm doing well.
00:01:35
Speaker
Other than you bring up something interesting, which is, if you recall the year of Turtles and Avengers, I did not win a Twippy.
00:01:45
Speaker
That is really weird to me.
00:01:47
Speaker
I split the vote.
00:01:48
Speaker
No, I split the vote for starting.
00:01:50
Speaker
So, whatever.
00:01:52
Speaker
Way to go.
00:01:53
Speaker
You were fighting yourself and someone else won.
00:01:56
Speaker
Nothing against awards.
00:01:57
Speaker
It's all nice and good.
00:01:58
Speaker
But don't worry, guys.
00:01:59
Speaker
I don't lose sleep.
00:02:03
Speaker
So what do you have?
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, we won't even talk about the competition on that one.
00:02:06
Speaker
I don't even know.
00:02:07
Speaker
I don't even know.
00:02:08
Speaker
I don't have all my I don't even have all my awards.
00:02:10
Speaker
And the ones that I do have, I think, are like in like a storage area or something.
00:02:14
Speaker
I don't I don't.
00:02:15
Speaker
Well, if you beat Franchi again this year, you've got to he tries to do the twippy stomp.
00:02:20
Speaker
And, you know, he's got to do it again.
00:02:23
Speaker
I think he's got like.
00:02:25
Speaker
four games coming out yet or something or something like that which galactic king force just came out in the in march or something like that yeah yeah but enough about that though but your artwork is everywhere this year how you feeling about this i apologize i actually uh so by the way i don't make the schedule
00:02:47
Speaker
And it just so happens that in this case, two games were scheduled back to back where licensors had me as part of the ask and the contract.
Foo Fighters Collaboration Journey
00:02:59
Speaker
Right.
00:03:00
Speaker
And and like I remember when when it all came about and they were talking about it and I kept going like like, you know, this isn't this isn't going to be fun.
00:03:11
Speaker
Like, this isn't going to be conducive for me to try to do my best work.
00:03:16
Speaker
I was concerned for that, right?
00:03:17
Speaker
Because I'm always concerned about, you know, being able to do the best that I possibly can with the time that I have.
00:03:24
Speaker
But in the end, you know, it was a similar situation with Turtles and Avengers where...
00:03:34
Speaker
the first game gets sort of a more attention.
00:03:39
Speaker
And then, and then the second game is like the, the, the rush to the finish line.
00:03:44
Speaker
Now, in this case, it wasn't quite as bad as turtles and Avengers.
00:03:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:48
Speaker
Because technically I had started doing a sketching on, on, on, um, Venom before it became, uh, you know, a priority, uh, to do, um,
00:04:05
Speaker
Foo Fighters.
00:04:06
Speaker
Uh, and, and yeah, but, but, but actually there's so much more to it, but yes.
00:04:12
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I, I am, I apologize because I, the last thing I want to do is, uh, make people get tired of me.
00:04:22
Speaker
And so, so I remember when they told me that these were going to be back to back, I said, uh, well, if, can you guys just not blame me, uh, when the year's over and you look at the, at the, uh,
00:04:34
Speaker
The
Managing Pinball Project Challenges
00:04:35
Speaker
numbers, like, just don't blame me.
00:04:36
Speaker
That goes both ways, by the way.
00:04:42
Speaker
Well, and honestly, these packages are looking fantastic.
00:04:45
Speaker
And the one, so let's talk Foo Fighters first, because when we both kind of discussed this, you said this was like a project 10 years in the making or something like that.
00:04:53
Speaker
So tell me more about that.
00:04:56
Speaker
So, like, I think the first, I mean, it's kind of true.
00:05:01
Speaker
So from my side of it,
00:05:04
Speaker
I first started doing work for the band merch work in like 2011, I think, 2011, 2012.
00:05:14
Speaker
As a matter of fact, some of the, some of the things I did during that time, they still like, it's, it's sort of made its way to now it's still being used.
00:05:25
Speaker
It's a lot of it is, is still sort of being iterated and I can, I can send you some of that stuff here.
00:05:31
Speaker
But, but anyway, yeah,
00:05:33
Speaker
And so, you know, that's a very impersonal situation.
00:05:36
Speaker
You know, you're working with like a third party or whatever.
00:05:40
Speaker
But over time, you get, you know, requests to do more and whatever.
00:05:45
Speaker
And it was actually like 2016 or 2017.
00:05:51
Speaker
Really bad with numbers, by the way.
00:05:53
Speaker
That's why I don't do anything with numbers.
00:05:56
Speaker
I just I can color pictures and draw things.
00:06:00
Speaker
But anyway, so what happened was they had asked me to start doing some gig posters and that actually comes from, in this case at the time it came from management.
Creative Process in Foo Fighters Pinball
00:06:15
Speaker
And so then it sort of parlays into something a little different.
00:06:21
Speaker
Anyway, tangentially at the same time in a parallel world,
00:06:27
Speaker
They were looking to do a pinball game.
00:06:29
Speaker
And so there were conversations being made, you know, obviously out of my purview.
00:06:35
Speaker
And it just so happened at the same time, you know, I'm doing, you know, Iron Maiden, I'm doing, you know, Primus, all these things.
00:06:43
Speaker
And so I think it was it was after Primus, Iron Maiden and Deadpool that year that it got on my radar.
00:06:51
Speaker
and actually management was like, Hey, by the way, we're, we're looking to do a game with Stern.
00:06:56
Speaker
We're, we're getting things going and, and we were making it.
00:07:01
Speaker
So you're going to be the guy to do it.
00:07:03
Speaker
And I go, Oh, that's cool.
00:07:05
Speaker
Like, that's nice.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:06
Speaker
And then obviously Jody Dankberg's the guy who handles all that stuff at Stern.
00:07:11
Speaker
And so Jody gave me a heads up as well.
00:07:13
Speaker
And I go, okay, so they weren't just telling me lies.
00:07:16
Speaker
They were telling me the truth.
00:07:17
Speaker
That's great.
00:07:19
Speaker
And, and, and from there, it's sort of,
00:07:23
Speaker
I remember having meetings like, like zoom calls with, with the, the management about the project early on, like probably as early as 2019.
00:07:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:41
Speaker
There was even another designer that was on it for a period of time.
00:07:47
Speaker
I think I can say that.
00:07:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:50
Speaker
Uh, and, and, but it was sort of like a weird transition time.
00:07:54
Speaker
And so it kind of was like, well, let's, you know, anyway, you know, we had zoom calls.
00:07:59
Speaker
I remember the first zoom call we had with Dave and, uh, he went ahead and basically made fun of all of our environments that, uh, where we were like our offices and stuff like that.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:11
Speaker
And I'm like, well, that's real nice, sir.
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:14
Speaker
Actually, that's not true.
00:08:15
Speaker
I was very quiet.
00:08:16
Speaker
I tried to be on my best behavior, so I didn't look like a total nerd.
00:08:21
Speaker
But anyway, so it was a long time.
00:08:26
Speaker
So I had time to think about it for years.
00:08:29
Speaker
And I actually kind of worked a lot of my gig poster concepts around sort of these little vignetted ideas that I started to sort of pad out in my head of where this could go and what it could be.
00:08:46
Speaker
Not ever thinking it actually would end up being what could actually be in the game.
00:08:50
Speaker
Because I didn't know who I was going to be working with.
00:08:53
Speaker
I didn't know where it was going to go.
00:08:55
Speaker
And it just so happens it was, it was Jack and Tanya and Jack and Jack and Tanya for some reason, listen to me and like me and respect me.
00:09:08
Speaker
And, and so they, when I, when I pitch ideas to them, they made them sound way better than what I thought they were.
00:09:16
Speaker
And so, so I sort of like laid on the table and,
00:09:20
Speaker
you know, my whole sort of backstory for, for some of, of, you know, the character of, of what became the overlord.
00:09:28
Speaker
He didn't really have a name at that time.
00:09:31
Speaker
And, and just between all of us, you know, sort of having these sort of zoom powwows, it just started, you know, avalanche and, and I just come up with concepts and toss them to them.
00:09:42
Speaker
And,
00:09:43
Speaker
and assume they were terrible and they'd all be like, no, this is great.
00:09:46
Speaker
And then it would get me all excited and give me confidence to go, well, I think I'm going to dig in a little further with this stupidity.
00:09:53
Speaker
And anyway, and then the band, the band was totally on board.
00:09:57
Speaker
And I do, I do recall, I will take credit for this.
00:10:02
Speaker
I think I was the first one to say this.
00:10:07
Speaker
And I just said, listen, guys, this is probably the closest we're ever going to get to being able to do an original theme.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:14
Speaker
It's not an original theme, but what they're allowing us to do here is the closest we're going to have.
00:10:21
Speaker
Probably as long as I'm in pinball, I don't, you know, who knows, maybe things will change, but, but I go, this is, this is probably the one.
00:10:28
Speaker
So let's not drop the ball on it.
00:10:30
Speaker
And, and, uh, I was, I was trying to be like, um,
00:10:34
Speaker
you know, supportive and energetic and like be like, hey, guys, this is great.
00:10:40
Speaker
But at the same time, it's also a lot a lot of weight when you look at it that way.
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:48
Speaker
So so.
00:10:50
Speaker
But, you know, thankfully, you know, working with Jack and working with Tanya was was, you know, it was easy and breezy.
00:10:57
Speaker
I mean, those guys are great.
00:11:00
Speaker
Tanya and I had worked on Deadpool.
00:11:02
Speaker
You know, and we bonded quite a bit on Deadpool, especially when it changed designers.
00:11:11
Speaker
You know, we were kind of in the woods on our own for a while.
00:11:15
Speaker
And so, you know, we have a really good rapport in that regard.
00:11:20
Speaker
And then, and Jack, I don't know if you know this or not, but Jack, you know, he is tall.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:27
Speaker
Which is funny because you're tall yourself.
00:11:29
Speaker
No, no, but he makes me feel short, so I don't like him because of that.
00:11:33
Speaker
Don't tell him that.
00:11:35
Speaker
We won't say a word.
00:11:38
Speaker
Anyone who makes me feel like I make somebody else feel.
00:11:42
Speaker
No, he's extremely dumb.
00:11:43
Speaker
No, Jack, it was interesting with Jack because he was kind of, I don't think I'm telling tales out of school to say this, but Jack was really, you know, he had done Jurassic Park and he had a lot of great ideas.
00:11:58
Speaker
And I think
00:11:59
Speaker
It was just sort of, you know, he was learning the process on a cornerstone of, and it's sort of, you know, the team coming together, everything.
00:12:09
Speaker
And I think that worked in his favor and to our favor because, you know, like he, some things he would go like, well, what about this?
00:12:18
Speaker
That somebody else might go, I know we can't do that.
00:12:21
Speaker
And then in the process, he would kind of come to a compromise
00:12:26
Speaker
He's a very efficient designer in that regard, which I relate to because to do what I do in the timeframe, you know, efficiency is very important.
00:12:37
Speaker
You know, like you don't, you got to use every, every second as best you can.
00:12:42
Speaker
So, but yeah, I don't know.
00:12:45
Speaker
There's, did I go too long on that?
00:12:48
Speaker
No, not at all.
00:12:50
Speaker
You know me, I can't shut up.
00:12:52
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with that.
00:12:53
Speaker
People love it.
Art and Animation Cohesion in Games
00:12:55
Speaker
Well, and the other question I had too, because you, if I understood correctly, you're brought in a lot earlier on the foo fighters process than most pinball machines.
00:13:02
Speaker
Was that because of the relationship and whatnot?
00:13:05
Speaker
It, well, it definitely was, but I will say this over the years I had, um, shoehorned myself in as early as possible on the projects I was attached to because I wanted to be able to get, you know, it,
00:13:25
Speaker
so when I dig into a project, like I really, I promise you there's until I completely get it until it clicks and until I have sort of my direction and sort of, you know, what really sort of drives me and excites me, makes me feel like I'm, you know, 13 years old again or whatever, which, which drives, you know, the, the, the focus and ambition to not fail by the way.
00:13:50
Speaker
Uh, so it's a good thing, but, but, but I, I,
00:13:54
Speaker
want to start as early as possible.
00:13:56
Speaker
And by the way, I wouldn't, I wouldn't charge a lot of times, even for some of those hours for things like that.
00:14:01
Speaker
Like, I'd be like, listen, just in my spare time, just give me a heads up on where we're going.
00:14:07
Speaker
Let me kind of feel this out and make some decisions.
00:14:10
Speaker
I would come up with different concepts for my direction visually on what I think we could do.
00:14:15
Speaker
Godzilla is a great example.
00:14:17
Speaker
So Godzilla is probably the first one where I started.
00:14:21
Speaker
I think I started right after
00:14:23
Speaker
Avengers.
00:14:25
Speaker
And like, even though I wasn't set to start, I said, I want to start.
00:14:31
Speaker
I want to feel this one out.
00:14:32
Speaker
I want to decide where, you know, where to go.
00:14:35
Speaker
I want to make sure I'm going the right direction.
00:14:37
Speaker
And so I was able to put a little bit more focus.
00:14:43
Speaker
I did a lot of sketches and a lot of them, you know, will never see the light of day.
00:14:51
Speaker
I didn't even show them to the team or whatever.
00:14:52
Speaker
I just, you know, throw them away, whatever.
00:14:54
Speaker
I mean, well, obviously I still have them, but, but, but at the same time, it was one of those things where, where I was able to, by doing that, have a much better understanding of where I could go and where I couldn't go.
00:15:07
Speaker
So coming up with creative solutions, um,
00:15:10
Speaker
for certain things, it made it a lot easier because I don't rush to the finish line.
00:15:20
Speaker
I probably, they'd love it if I did, but I kind of feel like I'm doing a disservice if I don't sort of feel my way through something, which sounds pretentious and dumb, but it's not, I promise.
00:15:33
Speaker
I don't purport to be an important artist, by the way.
00:15:38
Speaker
But I'm a careful one.
00:15:41
Speaker
I try not to waste time.
00:15:45
Speaker
Now, I'm sure there's some people on Pinside who would say that I do.
00:15:50
Speaker
Anyway.
00:15:51
Speaker
They don't count.
00:15:52
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:15:52
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:15:52
Speaker
Everyone counts.
00:15:53
Speaker
So from that experience on Godzilla...
00:16:03
Speaker
And just going, you know, that worked out well.
00:16:05
Speaker
And then seeing the response to Godzilla, which was so positive, minus the watermelon crowd.
00:16:14
Speaker
Sorry.
00:16:16
Speaker
I said, well, I've got to have another main character with Green.
00:16:22
Speaker
What's my next project?
00:16:23
Speaker
And they said, Foo Fighters.
00:16:24
Speaker
I said, no problem.
00:16:25
Speaker
I'll figure it out.
00:16:26
Speaker
Anyway, that's an Overlord joke.
00:16:28
Speaker
But
00:16:30
Speaker
No, so I wanted to start immediately, as soon as I could, after Godzilla, because, number one, I knew that, and actually it was Venom that I started on after Godzilla.
00:16:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:48
Speaker
And I think I had done concept sketches for cabinets, and
00:16:58
Speaker
uh, and, and, uh, and, and back glasses, but we're talking like thumbnails, like they weren't very refined.
00:17:04
Speaker
It was just sort of, well, here's an idea.
00:17:06
Speaker
Here's the direction.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:07
Speaker
And, uh, cause don't you guys do that when you're, when you're doing concepts for pinball machines, don't you do start out small and kind of just paste it on there.
00:17:15
Speaker
So that way it gives it a general direction.
00:17:17
Speaker
Well, I don't.
00:17:18
Speaker
Well, yeah, so I just basically make a very, I make the templates very small so that I stay loose and I say I don't get too, because I can get caught up in like stupid details and it's a terrible thing to do.
00:17:32
Speaker
And that's why thumbnails exist for artists.
00:17:35
Speaker
And the concept of it, kids, if you're artists out there and you don't like doing thumbnails, you're doing yourself a disservice.
00:17:41
Speaker
It took me many years to realize this.
00:17:44
Speaker
But color sketches also aren't bad.
00:17:49
Speaker
But, but yeah, I, I, I would come up with concepts.
00:17:54
Speaker
We didn't always blow them up and put them on, on boxes.
00:17:58
Speaker
That actually usually comes when we do like the, the sort of internal reviews with like the exacts and stuff like that.
00:18:09
Speaker
Like that there's times where, where we'll do that.
00:18:11
Speaker
And in the case of,
00:18:13
Speaker
Foo Fighters, we definitely did that because Jack really wanted to sell this concept of what we were doing.
00:18:21
Speaker
And, you know, I think if you saw like sort of the general crowd reaction when it leaked that Foo Fighters was being made, everyone's like, ah, band pin.
00:18:34
Speaker
And I think everybody, like even internally, a lot of people probably to some degree thought, oh, it's a band pin.
00:18:41
Speaker
And we were trying to say, no, no, no, we're not making it a band band.
00:18:45
Speaker
They're there, but it's not really a band band.
00:18:48
Speaker
So to be able to communicate that, that was probably part of the reason why he did that.
00:18:54
Speaker
And also, he's got that radio voice.
00:18:57
Speaker
So when he does presentations, he sounds so confident.
00:19:03
Speaker
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
00:19:04
Speaker
You can trust what he's doing.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, he makes me feel inadequate in my speaking voice.
00:19:10
Speaker
He's not Jerry Thompson, though.
00:19:11
Speaker
But anyway, shout out to Jerry because he always has the most booming voice whenever he does a podcast.
00:19:21
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:19:22
Speaker
I think I worked on Venom until almost Christmas of that year before.
00:19:30
Speaker
And then I started on... So, like, I think I maybe had worked on it.
00:19:38
Speaker
two months or something like that.
00:19:39
Speaker
Three months.
00:19:40
Speaker
I just started inking one of the back glasses.
00:19:46
Speaker
So it was weird.
00:19:46
Speaker
So like when I, when I went to Foo Fighters and I, you know, I went so deep into Foo Fighters, you know, for, you know, 10, 11 months, whatever it was.
00:19:55
Speaker
When I came back to Venom and I looked at stuff that I had done, I'm like, what the hell?
00:20:01
Speaker
Like, like, you know, like I had like a different, like I go, I go, okay, I like this, but what was I thinking over here?
00:20:06
Speaker
And,
00:20:07
Speaker
stuff like that.
00:20:07
Speaker
So like trying to make some adjustments on the fly and everything was, was it was weird for me.
00:20:15
Speaker
It was different, especially because it was a rushed timeline.
00:20:18
Speaker
But, but what I did to make it all sort of gel and make sense to me was I talked with Greg and I'm like, one of the things that has the longest lead time for parts and everything else is obviously the play field.
00:20:33
Speaker
Right.
00:20:34
Speaker
And so they had the play field at that point.
00:20:36
Speaker
It was, it was very much sort of tuned in.
00:20:40
Speaker
There was a lot, you know, little things to be, to be done, but, but it was pretty tuned in.
00:20:45
Speaker
And, and so I talked with Greg and Greg's like, Hey man, why don't you just jump into the play field, figure out the play field.
00:20:53
Speaker
And, and from there, like once you get back to those other pieces, you had already started.
00:20:59
Speaker
you know, you're going to sort of have kind of your anchor or whatever.
00:21:02
Speaker
And so the first thing I did when I jumped into the play field was I tried to think how in the heck can I make sure this doesn't compete with Foo Fighters visually.
00:21:14
Speaker
Now, obviously, if I'm doing it, there's going to be, you know, a little bit of connective tissue in that there's certain things that I like to see, I like to do.
00:21:25
Speaker
you know, versus others.
00:21:27
Speaker
And obviously then the actual layout of the
Designing Venom Pinball Playfield
00:21:30
Speaker
game, the shot paths, everything else that dictates a lot of it, the game rules dictate a lot of it, but, but I did go out of my way to try to make sure that these two games would not look like they were coming from the same universe necessarily.
00:21:49
Speaker
And, and whether, whether that was a success or not is up to other people, but, but I'm, I'm proud of what I got done.
00:21:56
Speaker
considering that I never had a weekend off for two years.
00:22:00
Speaker
So there's that.
00:22:02
Speaker
Well, and they do look great and they do look great.
00:22:06
Speaker
You can definitely tell that you separate the two from each other.
00:22:08
Speaker
You've got a lot of greens and whatnot inside of Foo Fighters and with Venom, it's a lot of blacks and dark purples and blues.
00:22:17
Speaker
Complimented with reds and whatnot.
00:22:18
Speaker
And it looks really good.
00:22:19
Speaker
It looks very, they're very different from each other.
00:22:21
Speaker
I know that when you did turtles and Avengers, the situation was you said that like turtles, you originally started on that and Marvel had requested that you do Avengers and you're like, well, I'm kind of busy right now.
00:22:34
Speaker
And like, if I'm, if I'm available and you haven't found anyone, I'll do it.
00:22:38
Speaker
And then when you got down towards the end of turtles, they're like, so how you doing?
00:22:41
Speaker
Was that kind of a similar situation with this?
00:22:43
Speaker
Or was it more with venom first?
00:22:46
Speaker
Like how did that all work out?
00:22:47
Speaker
Well, so in this case it was different.
00:22:49
Speaker
So, but after Avengers, it was pretty much a Marvel is just like, no, no, no, no.
00:22:54
Speaker
We, we got to work with him type of thing, which is cool.
00:22:57
Speaker
It just is very flattering.
00:22:58
Speaker
It's very nice.
00:23:01
Speaker
It's job security, I guess.
00:23:03
Speaker
And speaking of anyway, but so so on that one, I think they had tried out a few artists even in that in that sort of time period where I was working to finish Turtles.
00:23:18
Speaker
And and by the time I finished Turtles, they had basically rejected everything.
00:23:25
Speaker
And so it's like, OK, it's your turn.
00:23:27
Speaker
And at that point, I said, well, listen, if I do it, I'm like, you know, like I'm going to, you know, this is a lot to get done.
00:23:34
Speaker
And by the way, I would argue in hindsight, and by the way, you should never, as an artist, you should never tell people what you think about your shortcomings.
00:23:46
Speaker
But I don't consider myself an artist because that would be pretentious, like I said.
00:23:55
Speaker
No, I also don't consider myself very good at keeping my mouth shut.
00:23:58
Speaker
So I feel like had I done Avengers before Turtles, Avengers would have been a very different game visually.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
Turtles would have ended up the same.
00:24:11
Speaker
So had those two flopped, I may have approached them differently.
00:24:15
Speaker
But because I really changed my approach on Turtles at that time where I'm like, okay, I'm pushing to make
00:24:22
Speaker
you know, curvilinear forms, not, not a lot of, of, you know, hard edge, you know, sort of rectangular shaping, uh, things like that, because I was really trying to, you know, whatever, it's stupid.
00:24:37
Speaker
It sounds pretentious.
00:24:38
Speaker
So now I got to shut up again, but, um, uh, uh, but, uh, that, that's one where I go, oh man, that might've might've looked, you know, different in the case of Venom and Foo Fighters.
00:24:50
Speaker
The only thing that would have been different was my headspace.
00:24:53
Speaker
So I think when I got back to Venom, once I got done with the play field and I felt pretty good about it, it helped sort of, you know, when I got back to those little tiny sketches and I had to flesh them out and then ink and color and everything else, it made it a little bit easier at the end of the day, I think.
00:25:16
Speaker
But...
00:25:18
Speaker
One thing I've noticed too recently is looking at Venom and at Foo Fighters, the animations are a lot more cohesive with the artwork that you're doing.
00:25:29
Speaker
And I bring that up because I love the artwork of Turtles, but I feel that animations are lacking.
00:25:35
Speaker
So have you had something to do with the animations to make it more cohesive?
00:25:39
Speaker
Or is it just teams are working better together?
00:25:41
Speaker
How does that translate?
00:25:44
Speaker
I'm not going to take credit for anything because...
00:25:48
Speaker
Chuck Ernst and his army of talent are really the saviors of it all.
00:25:58
Speaker
So like for instance on Turtles, I think people, like in hindsight, I look at it and I go, okay, so people have a complaint where they go, it's a 2D animated cartoon and they decided to use 3D.
00:26:12
Speaker
In hindsight, even though it's cel-shaded or whatever, like in hindsight, I go, okay, I understand.
00:26:17
Speaker
what people are saying, but, but people, I don't think understand that the amount of work to be done in the timeframe to be done at that time, it was the right decision.
00:26:30
Speaker
And especially because licensors do have say in what can and can't be done.
00:26:37
Speaker
So what you're really seeing on Foo Fighters, sure.
00:26:42
Speaker
My, my, my pitch and idea of, of doing this, you know,
00:26:48
Speaker
cartoon, this, that, and the other, played into it, you know, stuff like that.
00:26:54
Speaker
But at the end of the day, you know, Jack was the leader of this.
00:26:59
Speaker
From the get-go, Jack really wanted to lean into, you know, more of a cartoony style, which lined up perfect for me.
00:27:10
Speaker
And then you have, you know, Chuck Ernst actually seeking out
00:27:17
Speaker
You know, some very talented individuals that that do just that.
00:27:22
Speaker
As a matter of fact, Phil Gullett.
00:27:25
Speaker
I believe he worked on like Animaniacs and like all these other like top tier stuff like between you and me and I'm dead serious.
00:27:33
Speaker
I'll help facilitate this.
00:27:35
Speaker
I could not even begin to give you the laundry list.
00:27:38
Speaker
of people who work on that stuff.
00:27:41
Speaker
And I'm actually going to try to here, see if I can at least find a little, I've said this before.
00:27:46
Speaker
I'm like, somebody needs to just give me a list.
00:27:47
Speaker
Cause I know all these people, I'm friends with them, but at the same time, I always forget people.
00:27:52
Speaker
But like, I think on that one, Paul was, was the lead.
00:27:58
Speaker
Oh no, no, no.
00:28:00
Speaker
That one was Zach.
00:28:01
Speaker
So Foo Fighters was Zach on lead.
00:28:03
Speaker
Oh, so terrible.
00:28:04
Speaker
Paul was on Venom as lead.
00:28:06
Speaker
And then, you know, you've got the Kizovet brothers who always do amazing work, storyboarding, animation, stuff like that.
00:28:15
Speaker
So the timeframes and the budgets on top of the creatives involved are why you get what you get.
00:28:22
Speaker
And so I think what happened was, you know, Turtles was still early in the LCD world.
00:28:27
Speaker
in my opinion.
00:28:28
Speaker
Like it was still, you know, that team of people were, were, you know, like, Oh, what can we do?
00:28:34
Speaker
What can we, you know, what will the license or let's give it?
00:28:35
Speaker
And I think what you're seeing now on these last two games are really, you know, again, it's a testament to that department, Chuck's department, those guys, you know, the, the talent there.
00:28:47
Speaker
And, and, and I, I want to facilitate this.
00:28:50
Speaker
You need to get all of these guys to,
00:28:56
Speaker
on a podcast.
00:28:57
Speaker
Like you literally like maybe just the leads as a starting point, but, but all of the artists that they work with are amazing.
00:29:08
Speaker
And, and you know, I I'll do like character sort of turns for them from the get go.
00:29:17
Speaker
So they sort of have, you know, a little bit of a style get to go with, but, but then I always defer to them.
00:29:22
Speaker
I always say, you guys do what you do.
00:29:24
Speaker
Like,
00:29:26
Speaker
I've got my stuff to worry about.
00:29:27
Speaker
You worry about your stuff.
00:29:29
Speaker
If they need stuff from me, I, I, I, I do it immediately and get it over to them so that they've got some reference for something or whatever.
00:29:37
Speaker
But the creativity, especially in Foo Fighters, that's that team.
00:29:42
Speaker
I don't, I don't, I don't want to take any credit for that.
00:29:44
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:29:45
Speaker
Well, you know, I came up with ideas, but they came up with better ideas of, of how to animate, you know, like what to do with it, you know?
00:29:52
Speaker
And a lot of that too, some of that came from, uh,
00:29:55
Speaker
Tanya and his writing partner as well.
00:29:58
Speaker
So it really, I mean, it really is, people don't understand how much of it is a, you know, a, a collaboration on these projects.
00:30:07
Speaker
And, and, you know, the, the, the game designer always is like, oh, the game designer.
00:30:14
Speaker
And listen, they're sort of the director of it.
00:30:16
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:30:17
Speaker
They, they should be.
00:30:18
Speaker
But like, you know, like for me, I'm like considered like lead artist, like lead artist to what?
00:30:23
Speaker
I mean, the LCD work has a lead artist as well.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
So so for me, I look at it like, you know, there's there's a whole segment of of people that are just not well represented and getting the recognition they need.
00:30:37
Speaker
So, well, I agree with you.
00:30:39
Speaker
We should do that.
00:30:41
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:30:42
Speaker
I'll make it happen.
00:30:44
Speaker
Sounds good to me.
00:30:45
Speaker
That's great.
00:30:47
Speaker
And these games are looking great too.
00:30:48
Speaker
Like the Foo Fighters.
00:30:50
Speaker
So you had a lot of freedom in this.
00:30:51
Speaker
Where did this freedom come from?
00:30:54
Speaker
Trust is, is the best place to get it.
00:30:59
Speaker
Every project I've ever worked on.
00:31:02
Speaker
Like I said before, even before I'm on the project, I will, I'll do sketches.
00:31:08
Speaker
I'll do concepts to get buy-in and to get confidence.
00:31:13
Speaker
from the licensor from, you know, early on from Stern.
00:31:18
Speaker
But, and so once you have that confidence in the case of Foo Fighters, I had it already.
00:31:25
Speaker
But at the same time, until we sort of worked out the direction and decided where we were going with it and got that confidence, it was a whole nother story.
00:31:35
Speaker
And I will say, and I don't want to, you know, go too far into it or, you know, labor the point, but
00:31:43
Speaker
The point when, unfortunately, Taylor Hawkins tragically passed was at a very crucial point in the game.
00:31:55
Speaker
Very early in some regards when it comes to sort of, you know, getting the absolutely run with it on certain key things.
00:32:09
Speaker
And that was big.
00:32:12
Speaker
really a gut punch to, uh, I think to everyone, it was, it was sad.
00:32:20
Speaker
It was tragic.
00:32:22
Speaker
And then as sort of, we're picking up the pieces of, of all of that, it's like, then it's like, Oh, but we also need to keep working.
00:32:30
Speaker
Like, what do we do?
00:32:32
Speaker
Like, how do we, how do we proceed?
00:32:34
Speaker
And, and, um, I just kept going.
00:32:38
Speaker
at that point, I'm like, you know what, I think we probably just better move or, you know, just keep going.
00:32:43
Speaker
Let's just assume the best and move on.
00:32:46
Speaker
And thankfully, when the time finally came and we sort of got back in, you know, after, I think, a lot of mourning by everyone, I think what happened was everyone said, you know what?
00:33:04
Speaker
And I think this came from
00:33:06
Speaker
you know, came down directly from the band.
00:33:09
Speaker
Let's, they're like, let's make this a celebration.
00:33:13
Speaker
Let's make this something for all the kids, you know?
00:33:16
Speaker
And, and at that point, like, it's like, you know, everything just sort of was like, boom, you know, that's our, you know, we're back to that, you know, focus that, that love excitement that we had prior, but now it was sort of, you know,
00:33:33
Speaker
it transformed a bit and in a, and in a good way, in my opinion, but, but at the same time, that's not what you want to have happen.
00:33:41
Speaker
I mean, obviously like that's, it's rough.
00:33:45
Speaker
It was difficult for a lot of people on the team as well.
00:33:48
Speaker
And, and I mean, we're a lot, all of us are fans.
00:33:52
Speaker
I don't know that anybody on that team was not a fan.
00:33:56
Speaker
And if they say they're not, you can punch them in the gut.
00:34:00
Speaker
I don't know.
00:34:03
Speaker
I just figured that'd be funny, but, and you got to get it on, you got to get video of it.
00:34:08
Speaker
I want to see it.
00:34:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:12
Speaker
I'll take full responsibility for the damage.
00:34:16
Speaker
Anyway.
00:34:16
Speaker
So, so yeah, it's, it was, it was different.
00:34:20
Speaker
It was different, but I think everyone involved, the love shows, like I said before, like, you know, when a game hits on all cylinders, you know, it really does show.
00:34:33
Speaker
And I think I've been fortunate.
00:34:36
Speaker
I try to create that from my side of it whenever I'm on a team.
00:34:42
Speaker
And obviously that's where my joke of filling my punch card comes in with working with Brian Eddy and stuff.
00:34:52
Speaker
So that was interesting because I had never worked with Brian before.
00:34:58
Speaker
And Brian's got a completely different style of
00:35:01
Speaker
You know, every designer has a different style, you know?
00:35:04
Speaker
And so it was really coming off of that one with Jack and jumping back in with Brian, you know, he made it a lot easier to sort of pick up from where I was and go.
00:35:20
Speaker
But I do feel like because of the rush, I felt like a little, like I was sort of at a distance at times.
00:35:30
Speaker
you know, with venom because obviously I'm off, you know, finishing up foo and you know, whatever.
00:35:35
Speaker
I don't know.
00:35:36
Speaker
Maybe they, maybe that's just mentally my, in, in my head or, or maybe they looked at me like a traitor.
00:35:43
Speaker
No, I'm kidding.
00:35:45
Speaker
You're in camp Eddie now.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:50
Speaker
How was, so it was obviously a different experience going in with Eddie and whatnot.
00:35:56
Speaker
You know, the first question that comes to my mind, I know you've had nothing to do with this, but we're getting so many questions of the doppel caker is what some people are naming him because he's got such a big booty.
00:36:08
Speaker
Was that your decision?
00:36:10
Speaker
Did you know the sculptor ended up putting a big butt because his butt crack goes all the way to the back of his neck.
00:36:16
Speaker
No.
00:36:17
Speaker
So so I'm all for butts.
00:36:20
Speaker
They serve.
00:36:20
Speaker
Listen, they're just you know, they're just trying to, you know, help people.
00:36:26
Speaker
survive and get rid of waste.
00:36:31
Speaker
But, oh, but.
00:36:33
Speaker
I said it three times.
00:36:36
Speaker
But four times.
00:36:39
Speaker
That actually was not on me.
00:36:40
Speaker
So I did turnarounds.
00:36:42
Speaker
I did designs.
00:36:43
Speaker
I did give him a but.
00:36:45
Speaker
But I did not, I didn't sculpt.
00:36:47
Speaker
I didn't pose the sculpt.
00:36:50
Speaker
I don't know who was involved in that.
00:36:53
Speaker
I like it because I look at it as a nod to Slimer because Slimer's butt.
00:36:57
Speaker
Yes, very true.
00:36:59
Speaker
You're the connection though too, you know, Ghostbusters and now.
00:37:02
Speaker
Or Dwight.
00:37:03
Speaker
Dwight, true.
00:37:05
Speaker
Actually, I'm going to have to ask him that now.
00:37:09
Speaker
He likes big butts and he cannot lie.
00:37:12
Speaker
That is one thing I will say.
00:37:13
Speaker
Whenever you're on a team with Dwight, you want to talk about excitement.
00:37:21
Speaker
Dwight knows how to be excited.
00:37:25
Speaker
Every meeting, when we're coming up with ideas very early on and all the teams in there, Dwight knows how to make things exciting.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:37
Speaker
And yeah, I always have fun working with him.
00:37:41
Speaker
Him and I have this weird shorthand for occasionally misinterpreting one another, which is fun, but it all works out.
00:37:55
Speaker
he wouldn't deny that so you talked about you came back to venom and one of the first things you jumped into was the play field was this was this kind of a harder play field because when i look at it there is a ton of leds in this game yeah it was it was difficult in some regard in particular this the anchor point had to be
00:38:18
Speaker
a way to use sort of those inserts that sort of surround and encapsulate rewards, right?
00:38:26
Speaker
And when I got in, because I was on Foo for so long, a lot of the light boards had been done and a lot of the layout of those inserts were there.
00:38:37
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, I could make it so much cooler if we could do this, this, and this.
00:38:40
Speaker
And so I fought a little bit
00:38:43
Speaker
I mean, I don't fight, by the way, but I, you know, kind of pushed to get a few of those changed.
00:38:49
Speaker
And thankfully, they were able to.
00:38:51
Speaker
And so, you know, and it was minor stuff.
00:38:55
Speaker
Again, when a designer lays something out, I don't like to step on their vision, but I do know where there are certain things that you could sort of polish just a hair.
00:39:07
Speaker
And it would make for sort of a better visual layout, you know, artistically speaking and stuff like that.
00:39:13
Speaker
And most, you know, every designer I've ever worked with has no problem with that.
00:39:19
Speaker
And so anyway, so once I got into it, that was my first problem is I go, oh, this is a big area down here where I've got to actually communicate information.
00:39:31
Speaker
They also, each of those,
00:39:35
Speaker
you know, sort of ladders of completion that sort of help you encapsulate that, each of those also had to be communicating that they were, you know, from a different path and a different character path.
00:39:53
Speaker
And so thankfully that's where the RGBs do help a little bit because as much as I can give a visual indication subtly or not so subtly,
00:40:05
Speaker
the ability for Dwight to control, you know, those light colors and everything else helps tremendously.
00:40:15
Speaker
But, yeah, so that was my big problem.
00:40:18
Speaker
The other thing was, in the back of my head, you know, this is a Venom game, you know, and while, you know, Dwight is super, like, he might be a...
00:40:32
Speaker
a much bigger comic book nerd than I am.
00:40:36
Speaker
And so like, he was like, from the get go, we're going to have all the, you know, like a bunch of different hosts, you know, and I'm going like, but people will, when they hear them, they're going to want Eddie Brock, you know, type of thing.
00:40:48
Speaker
So I knew that, that trying to balance that out and make sure that people are like, so this is, this is a venom.
00:40:55
Speaker
This is Eddie.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:57
Speaker
That that's where, you know, getting, getting him,
00:41:01
Speaker
nice and large at the bottom between the flippers was kind of like a no-brainer.
00:41:05
Speaker
That's kind of a decision where I'm like, I don't know where else I could have gotten away with that.
00:41:10
Speaker
Especially when, because the game has a lot of web slinging and combos and things like that, a lot of those shot paths up top represented locations, not characters.
00:41:25
Speaker
Like in a lot of games, it'll be a character.
00:41:28
Speaker
In this case, it was locations.
00:41:30
Speaker
And trying to crack the code of how to balance all these things and make it overall still a visual, interesting, a way to break up space in areas, but still communicate information.
00:41:47
Speaker
It's always a challenge.
00:41:49
Speaker
And I try to be very analytical and think it out and start where in areas that I understand and I don't know.
00:41:56
Speaker
And a lot of that was,
00:41:58
Speaker
Honestly, I think all comes back to working on Ghostbusters with Greg.
00:42:04
Speaker
I'd ask Greg, I'm like, okay.
00:42:06
Speaker
I said, so when I worked with J-Pop there, I said the one thing was when it came to play fields, he'd always make sure that I just had absolutely no way of knowing where I was going because he would constantly change everything.
00:42:26
Speaker
And, and, you know, he goes, okay.
00:42:29
Speaker
He's like, yeah, your J-pop play fields are terrible.
00:42:32
Speaker
I'm like, oh, thanks.
00:42:32
Speaker
That makes me feel good.
00:42:33
Speaker
Why'd you hire me?
00:42:35
Speaker
But no, he actually gave me, he gave me a lot of really great advice early on.
00:42:40
Speaker
And it really was, you know, the simplicity and there's more to it, but the simplicity of, of searching for the anchors that you understand, fleshing those out, looking what's left.
00:42:56
Speaker
And then starting to prioritize.
00:42:58
Speaker
And so it's a very analytical approach.
00:43:02
Speaker
And it served me well.
00:43:05
Speaker
And I chalk it up to Greg's influence on me.
00:43:11
Speaker
Well, and it's done great.
00:43:13
Speaker
Because I don't see any of your art packages and go, you know, those are terrible.
00:43:17
Speaker
They all, like I said, I feel like they all set a higher standard for what we're starting to see in artwork, pinball in general.
00:43:26
Speaker
So you said you're a big comic book nerd.
00:43:29
Speaker
Did you have to do much research for Venom or did you already know Venom?
00:43:33
Speaker
Did you know that guy?
Comic Book Influence on Pinball Art
00:43:37
Speaker
I grew up before Todd McFarlane started.
00:43:41
Speaker
I was reading before Todd McFarlane started his run on Amazing Spider-Man.
00:43:46
Speaker
I read all through that run.
00:43:48
Speaker
That was me literally getting comic books out.
00:43:54
Speaker
begging my parents for a couple bucks so I could get those.
00:43:59
Speaker
And so I read those in real time.
00:44:01
Speaker
I read the original Venom when they did the Venom miniseries.
00:44:08
Speaker
Mark Bagley did the art, stuff like that.
00:44:11
Speaker
I read all that stuff.
00:44:14
Speaker
I haven't kept up as succinctly as Dwight has.
00:44:19
Speaker
So I still read comics, but I
00:44:23
Speaker
Don't have the time.
00:44:24
Speaker
So I have such a backlog.
00:44:26
Speaker
I'm not joking when I say this.
00:44:27
Speaker
I may have years of backlog of comics.
00:44:32
Speaker
I actually have and have not gotten through.
00:44:35
Speaker
Now, some of those, some of the stuff that this is sort of pulled from, I had read, which is good.
00:44:43
Speaker
Not all of it.
00:44:45
Speaker
So I did actually go back through and sort of catch up on a few aspects.
00:44:50
Speaker
King and Black, you know, some of that stuff.
00:44:55
Speaker
I had not finished.
00:44:56
Speaker
I had, you know, I have the I had the books, but I didn't necessarily finish all of it.
00:45:01
Speaker
And so it was kind of weird for me to actually go in and like have an understanding.
00:45:09
Speaker
But then a few holes and I'm going, oh, wait a minute.
00:45:11
Speaker
What?
00:45:12
Speaker
But I got myself up to speed pretty quick.
00:45:14
Speaker
And obviously, you know, it's one of those things where at the end of the day, I hope people do understand that, you know, anyone who worked on this project absolutely loves all the characters.
00:45:36
Speaker
you know, you don't, you don't, it's stern.
00:45:39
Speaker
It's, it's really nice that they don't force people on things and go, well, this, your job is this.
00:45:47
Speaker
And here's a project you have to do this.
00:45:49
Speaker
Like they really do cultivate the creativity.
00:45:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:53
Speaker
Which is, which is fantastic.
00:45:55
Speaker
And it's amazing in that regard.
00:45:57
Speaker
And that's part of the reason why I have continued to work with them as long as I have.
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:04
Speaker
Well, and we do want to talk about that, but we'll tease it just a little bit longer.
00:46:08
Speaker
One of the questions I also had to was like you did with, with Avengers, you had to do the same back glasses for the premium and the Ellie on denim.
00:46:18
Speaker
Was that just a time constraint or was that.
00:46:21
Speaker
It was absolutely, it was absolutely a time constraint.
00:46:25
Speaker
And, and that was one, I don't know if you know this or not, but on Avengers, it was actually approved with just one back glass.
00:46:34
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:46:35
Speaker
And I got done and I said, listen, I think I had like, I don't know, three or four weeks or something.
00:46:43
Speaker
And I said, listen, you know, I think there's still aftermarket stuff to do, but I'm like, listen, just let me try to come up with something else.
00:46:50
Speaker
And again, both of those backlashes on Avengers, it's not like I, you know, tried to create the Sistine Chapel.
00:47:00
Speaker
Like I knew my limitations to a point, but at the same time,
00:47:04
Speaker
I had to come up with something else.
00:47:07
Speaker
I said, I'm going to get, I'm like, my goal from day one, and this goes back to, you know, even working with J-pop was, you know, I look at the, you know, like the, this world and back then prices weren't, you know, even what they are now.
00:47:19
Speaker
And I go, these are, these are high end pieces of art to me.
00:47:24
Speaker
They always have been.
00:47:25
Speaker
And I, you know, as a kid, I loved the artistry of it.
00:47:30
Speaker
I looked at these, you know, machines and was just like, this is just so, you know, it's such an incredible thing to be able to do that when I got involved, I said, I want to show that you can do more with it if I can.
00:47:50
Speaker
You know, meandering, I'm not, I shouldn't, I shouldn't probably
00:47:55
Speaker
beat a dead horse but me meandering and you know before i worked with stern uh you know was it was a different beast when i started uh working with stern it was okay we've got absolute finite schedules and by the way they aren't conducive to be able to do um this type of thing because again this is a business where you have you know time constraints and so
00:48:22
Speaker
I really honed in and developed my approach and sort of my way of being able to hit the marks I can.
00:48:31
Speaker
And one of those ways is never taking a day off.
00:48:35
Speaker
So there's that.
00:48:36
Speaker
Anyway, that's not a good one, by the way.
00:48:40
Speaker
I'm learning as I get older.
00:48:42
Speaker
That's not a good one.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:46
Speaker
Well, one of your things that you first pointed out to me when Foo Fighters come out was Gary was under the flipper as a little alien that said, ship it.
00:48:57
Speaker
Is there any other Easter eggs you may have put into Venom or to Foo Fighters that you're?
00:49:03
Speaker
You know, I actually don't set out to do Easter eggs because I feel like unless it serves a purpose,
00:49:14
Speaker
And in the case of Gary or Garelyan, as I like to call him, in that case, I was literally just trying to make a joke to make Greg laugh.
00:49:28
Speaker
And then Jack and then Tanya and then everyone else.
00:49:31
Speaker
And then and then it just sort of became one of those things where I'm like, OK, it'll stick in there.
00:49:36
Speaker
So are there I mean, they're always there always are.
00:49:40
Speaker
I don't I don't know.
00:49:42
Speaker
that many are as quite, quite as overt as that in that regard, but, but yeah, again, time constraints, you, you focus, you focus on what you can.
00:49:55
Speaker
I don't, I mean, I put a lot of stuff into, into these.
00:49:59
Speaker
I, again, I try to have intent.
00:50:01
Speaker
Sometimes the intent is, is, is funny.
00:50:06
Speaker
I prefer funny because at the end of the day, I would like people,
00:50:11
Speaker
To just look at these things and without even playing them, just be happy.
00:50:15
Speaker
Just feel happiness, you know, smile and be like, this is cool.
00:50:20
Speaker
So that's a starting point.
00:50:22
Speaker
So, yeah, when I can get something in there, I like to.
00:50:25
Speaker
I remember on Godzilla actually just getting Manila on the playfield.
00:50:32
Speaker
That wasn't even in the cards, I don't think, at the time.
00:50:35
Speaker
And I just kept talking with Keith and I'm like, oh, we've got to get this guy in there.
00:50:40
Speaker
Like, like, and I can't remember.
00:50:42
Speaker
And he, I don't think he was against it.
00:50:43
Speaker
It was just that there wasn't like, he just wasn't part of it at that time.
00:50:48
Speaker
But man, did he become part of it?
00:50:50
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:50:51
Speaker
With the whole ball drain sequence.
00:50:53
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:54
Speaker
Keith, you know, Keith, I got to give him credit.
00:50:58
Speaker
Like, and I watch all Godzilla and I, and I was a Godzilla fan and I've watched him over the years many times, but he had to scour through so much.
00:51:09
Speaker
Over and over again.
00:51:11
Speaker
And he came up with so many good clips throughout that game.
00:51:14
Speaker
And a lot of stuff that didn't even make it in the game and stuff like that.
00:51:18
Speaker
I've got to give him credit.
00:51:20
Speaker
He pours himself into that.
00:51:22
Speaker
I mean, for what I do, I pour myself into it.
00:51:26
Speaker
But he has to do so much more, in my opinion.
00:51:30
Speaker
Not that all designers don't do that.
00:51:31
Speaker
I'm not trying to.
00:51:33
Speaker
But in that case, that was a big undertaking for that game, in my opinion.
00:51:37
Speaker
Being able to really nail the vibe and pull the right clips and just sort of get that tone right.
00:51:47
Speaker
I think that's why people like that game.
00:51:50
Speaker
A lot of it is the personality based on sort of how he curated that stuff.
00:51:55
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:51:57
Speaker
I agree.
00:51:58
Speaker
So, well, we should stop teasing everyone.
00:52:01
Speaker
I guess, you know, typically we don't ask you, you know, are you doing another game for Stern because you're contracted out?
Career Milestone with Stern
00:52:08
Speaker
But an announcement just came out today.
00:52:11
Speaker
Why don't you tell us what was that announcement?
00:52:15
Speaker
Oh, well, so apparently I just found out, I guess I'm a Stern employee now.
00:52:21
Speaker
I didn't think you just found out.
00:52:23
Speaker
You just like, oh, told me.
00:52:25
Speaker
No, that's not true.
00:52:25
Speaker
That's not true.
00:52:26
Speaker
It's been in the works for a little while.
00:52:28
Speaker
I had actually been asked, you know, here and there.
00:52:32
Speaker
I think I was, I always told everyone like, like George and Greg, I'm like, ah, you guys couldn't get the same work out of me if I worked, you know, if I was an employee, which is kind of hard to get.
00:52:44
Speaker
That's what, that's what you were trying to do.
00:52:46
Speaker
Right.
00:52:46
Speaker
Well, no, well, no, I wasn't actually, I was being dead serious because I liked the freedom to be able to walk away.
00:52:53
Speaker
I liked being able to pick and choose other projects.
00:52:57
Speaker
But what happened was over time, I started to actually like these projects better than other projects.
00:53:05
Speaker
And I started turning away other projects to work on more projects like this.
00:53:10
Speaker
And it had nothing to do with...
00:53:15
Speaker
you know, with, you know, money or time or anything like that.
00:53:20
Speaker
It had everything to do with the people and the projects.
00:53:24
Speaker
Like, I have made a lot of really good friends at Stern over the years, and I have so much respect for everyone that I've worked with.
00:53:35
Speaker
At one point,
00:53:37
Speaker
It kind of hit me and I go, well, I'd be kind of stupid not to take an opportunity to work with these people.
00:53:43
Speaker
But then the real kicker came when somebody said the word paid vacation.
00:53:50
Speaker
That's when you realize like, yeah, I work myself way too hard to be nice to have a paid vacation.
00:53:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
And then somebody said, then they said benefits.
00:53:58
Speaker
And I go, what?
00:54:00
Speaker
Those still exist.
00:54:02
Speaker
No, listen, the person to think at the end of the day, and there's really two that I sort of put in tandem.
00:54:13
Speaker
Actually, there's a lot of them, but directly, it's Greg for basically giving me enough rope to prove that I won't hang myself.
00:54:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:28
Speaker
over these projects over the years and, you know, giving me these opportunities, you know, regardless of what a licensor says, art directors can decide, you know, if that's going to work or not.
00:54:42
Speaker
And he was, he always had faith in me and he's always been super supportive and he's always looked out for me.
00:54:51
Speaker
And along with that goes George Gomez, same thing.
00:54:56
Speaker
Both of those guys have actually made me at times feel almost like I'm good at what I do, which I question.
00:55:08
Speaker
But yeah, but then there's a lot of other people.
00:55:12
Speaker
I mean, obviously, Jody Dankberg has gotten the greatest licenses.
00:55:20
Speaker
You can't argue with that.
00:55:22
Speaker
Yeah, they're obnoxious.
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah, and he continues to.
00:55:25
Speaker
He's a good friend of mine.
00:55:26
Speaker
There's times where he'll be like, hey, I'm thinking about this, this, or this.
00:55:31
Speaker
Many of those interest you.
00:55:40
Speaker
you know, or whatever, just like off the cuff, you know, like occasionally.
00:55:43
Speaker
And, and I'm always like, you know, it's, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, first off, I have to say this, I'm not the guy for everything.
00:55:52
Speaker
So don't worry people who don't like me.
00:55:54
Speaker
I won't do your favorite game.
00:55:58
Speaker
For instance, I would not do a back to the future.
00:56:04
Speaker
And it's not that I don't love the,
00:56:07
Speaker
you know, that era and, and, and, and those, those movies, I'm just totally against doing any game based on a movie that,
00:56:18
Speaker
that involves two thirds of the runtime with incest jokes.
00:56:23
Speaker
Anyway, no, that's not, I'm sorry, that's not true.
00:56:26
Speaker
That's not entirely true.
00:56:27
Speaker
No, I'm just not the right guy for it because I know a better guy for it.
00:56:31
Speaker
And I know someone that would be better at it.
00:56:34
Speaker
And so whatever.
00:56:35
Speaker
But again, I don't know if that game ever gets made.
00:56:39
Speaker
I don't know if it does, if it's Stern.
00:56:41
Speaker
I've heard all kinds of wonderful rumors
00:56:45
Speaker
Those are plenty in this hobby or in this industry.
00:56:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:49
Speaker
By the way, when I make that, make that joke, guys, it's, it's Stern does not have back to the future.
00:56:55
Speaker
I can tell you, trust me, trust me on that one.
00:56:58
Speaker
But,
00:56:58
Speaker
But anyway, I can make other jokes.
00:57:01
Speaker
You're going to see yourself on NAP Arcade in a couple days, and it's going to be like, Bob Bighetti teases Back to the Future.
00:57:08
Speaker
It must be true.
00:57:10
Speaker
Speaking of which, I saw that Kaneda guy posted something about Keith Elwin having two games next year.
00:57:21
Speaker
And I just want to say, all I've got to say to that is only two, Chris?
00:57:27
Speaker
Anyway.
00:57:29
Speaker
Oh, no, that's, I'm totally, that's for Map Arcade.
00:57:32
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:57:35
Speaker
I'm just trying to cause trouble.
00:57:38
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:57:39
Speaker
Believe me, I'm not a talker.
00:57:42
Speaker
But, no, at the end of the day, yeah, I'm really excited and I'm really, I'm honored to be a part of the legacy at Stern.
00:57:50
Speaker
I mean, you know, what Gary's built and maintained over the years is, yeah,
00:57:58
Speaker
You know, not a lot of people will get to say they worked at Stern.
00:58:03
Speaker
And, you know, it's a cool thing.
00:58:05
Speaker
I'm not one that, you know, I don't really care about labels.
00:58:09
Speaker
I don't really care too much about, you know, they ask me, like, what do you want to be called?
00:58:16
Speaker
Like, what's your position or something?
00:58:18
Speaker
Somebody asked me that.
00:58:19
Speaker
And I said, employee, like, I don't, I don't care.
00:58:23
Speaker
Like, you know, like, I don't, I don't need a label, you know, like that doesn't prove my, hopefully my work speaks for itself.
00:58:29
Speaker
And no matter what I do, people will just go, he's the guy who did that art.
00:58:33
Speaker
They don't go, oh, he's,
00:58:36
Speaker
the junior I don't know what the hell I don't even know what my what I'm actually called but that's okay it doesn't matter but yeah no I'm very thankful very excited and hopefully I will continue to keep up the level of quality and hopefully wherever I can I'm going to help
00:59:05
Speaker
pass along things I've learned to other artists at Stern and hopefully help them make their lives easier too if I can.
00:59:14
Speaker
Definitely.
00:59:17
Speaker
I know that like with Jack Danger his thing is meme master or something like that.
00:59:26
Speaker
You should just be the man who makes the chimichangas.
00:59:28
Speaker
That's what you do on your business card.
00:59:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's not bad, actually.
00:59:34
Speaker
That's not bad.
00:59:35
Speaker
I'm okay with that.
00:59:36
Speaker
I'm okay with that.
00:59:37
Speaker
I actually would, I would be fine with any title that, you know, I'd be fine with just about anything, really.
00:59:49
Speaker
You know, president.
00:59:51
Speaker
No, anyway.
00:59:54
Speaker
I kid, I kid.
00:59:55
Speaker
But...
00:59:56
Speaker
But yeah, no, I, I, uh, yeah, that, that I think that, uh, that's legit now.
01:00:01
Speaker
Um, and it's been a long time coming and, uh, for years I said, you don't want to hire me.
01:00:08
Speaker
Uh, and then over time I just, uh, you know, I just really fell in love with everything.
01:00:12
Speaker
So I kinda, yeah, as long as people will continue to buy stuff and they don't hate me, hopefully I'll continue to get to do it.
01:00:24
Speaker
Sounds good.
01:00:26
Speaker
Well,
01:00:27
Speaker
I've taken up plenty of your time and I know you said you've been up since like four o'clock this morning.
01:00:31
Speaker
So I got weird.
01:00:34
Speaker
I grew up, I used to, I grew up, uh, my parents or my, my dad were construction and I, I would go out with him, uh, especially in the summers and on weekends.
01:00:45
Speaker
And so I tend to wake up early, uh, usually not 4am, but yeah,
01:00:51
Speaker
But when I do wake up early and I go, oh, I'm only going to maybe get another hour of sleep, I try to just get moving.
01:00:57
Speaker
Because if I don't, I'm just going to feel like just drain the rest of the day and then my brain doesn't work well.
01:01:06
Speaker
I mean, you could argue it doesn't anyway.
01:01:08
Speaker
So there's that.
01:01:11
Speaker
But listen, before we go, I have to ask, because it's been a long time since we talked.
01:01:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:19
Speaker
Any good...
01:01:20
Speaker
video games you've played in the past year what's your favorite my favorite right now well legend of zelda tears of the kingdom is amazing it is and the ninja turtles that new one that uh yeah shredder's revenge if you haven't tried that one oh man that one is amazing as well you know they actually that company uh approached me about doing the key art for it really but i was i was working on pinball and i couldn't do it
01:01:47
Speaker
But then they came back and they had me do like a limited edition artwork for the soundtrack, the actual physical record soundtrack.
01:01:57
Speaker
I actually have that.
01:01:58
Speaker
I got one of those discs and the art looks amazing.
01:02:01
Speaker
I love it.
01:02:03
Speaker
Nice.
01:02:04
Speaker
I'm a Ninja Turtles fan too, so I was pretty stoked when you did the Ninja Turtles artwork.
01:02:08
Speaker
Oh no, those guys, when they reached out and we had Zoom calls and stuff like that, I'm like, oh, there's no way I'm going to have time.
01:02:17
Speaker
And I felt really bad.
01:02:19
Speaker
And I like a legitimately like I felt bad.
01:02:21
Speaker
But I'm like, there's no way because, you know, the project I was working on at the time for Stern, I'm like, I can't cut corners.
01:02:27
Speaker
I'm like, and I would not be able to, you know, do less than what I think needed to be done.
01:02:33
Speaker
And so like it was it was quite a conundrum, but it was it was kind of an eye opening experience, too, for me, because I'm like, oh, this is.
01:02:40
Speaker
This is interesting because I'm choosing Stern over this, which has kind of said something to me, right?
01:02:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:49
Speaker
It showed where, number one, my loyalties were, but also why was I doing that?
01:02:54
Speaker
And so that sort of started some thought processes.
01:02:57
Speaker
But you're leaving out one of the best games I've played this year.
01:03:07
Speaker
Okay, what is it?
01:03:09
Speaker
Resident Evil 4 remake, believe it or not.
01:03:11
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
01:03:13
Speaker
I don't know why.
01:03:14
Speaker
I like Resident Evil games.
01:03:17
Speaker
But the remake, those remakes that Capcom has been doing are good.
01:03:24
Speaker
I never liked the original 3, so the 3 remake was eh.
01:03:27
Speaker
But 2 and 4 have been fantastic.
01:03:32
Speaker
And you had actually recommended Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy to me, and that game was amazing too.
01:03:38
Speaker
Isn't that surprising?
01:03:39
Speaker
I never would have thought, and it's not that I thought it wouldn't be good, but I kind of assume when it comes to video games, because when it comes to video games and comic books, there's been a decline over the years in quality on some of those things.
01:03:55
Speaker
And you go, well, I don't know.
01:03:58
Speaker
But but that I'm thinking of that Avengers game that came out.
01:04:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, it looked great, but it just wasn't a lot of fun.
01:04:05
Speaker
But yeah, no, that one was fun.
01:04:10
Speaker
I was an early adopter of the Steam Deck.
01:04:14
Speaker
Same here?
01:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, big fan.
01:04:16
Speaker
I actually pulled the trigger on the Asus ROG Ally.
01:04:23
Speaker
Nice.
01:04:24
Speaker
If you like the Steam Deck and you can handle yourself in Windows, you're going to like it more than the Steam Deck.
01:04:32
Speaker
Really?
01:04:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:04:34
Speaker
Performance-wise and the fact that you can actually play a lot of the
01:04:39
Speaker
the PC games that you can't on, on the steam deck.
01:04:42
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:43
Speaker
It's sort of a, I'm not saying I would actually, I'd probably wait for the steam deck too.
01:04:48
Speaker
If you, if you are inclined because the steam deck OS is so great, but anyway, so, so that's, that's literally the only way I get to play anything anymore.
01:04:58
Speaker
So like, I think, I think I played through a hi-fi rush.
01:05:03
Speaker
Okay.
01:05:05
Speaker
I couldn't start Tears of the Kingdom until I was done with Venom.
01:05:13
Speaker
But I snuck in an hour or two in the late evenings here and there.
01:05:19
Speaker
And I got to get back to it, actually, because I got... Yeah, whatever.
01:05:24
Speaker
The game is such a masterpiece.
01:05:27
Speaker
Street Fighter VI.
01:05:28
Speaker
Obviously, I'm a Street Fighter guy, so I love that as well.
01:05:31
Speaker
But...
01:05:33
Speaker
I can't get into fighting games.
01:05:34
Speaker
I enjoy them, but I always get my butt handed to me.
01:05:36
Speaker
So it's like I can't button mash fast enough, I guess, or do all the combos.
01:05:42
Speaker
I get it.
01:05:42
Speaker
No, I totally get it.
01:05:43
Speaker
The older I get, and I'm 20 plus 26.
01:05:45
Speaker
And the older I get...
01:05:55
Speaker
you know, like, like, you know, even playing like a call of duty or something like that.
01:05:59
Speaker
Like my tactics are different.
01:06:01
Speaker
I used to be head on run in there, take everybody out one, you know, boom, boom, boom.
01:06:07
Speaker
And now I snipe anyway, you know, I get you.
01:06:13
Speaker
I get you.
01:06:14
Speaker
And I have to, I have to keep my distance, but, but no, I, I only asked because last time we talked, I know you get, you were a big gamer as well.
01:06:21
Speaker
And, and, uh,
01:06:23
Speaker
Obviously, there's been some good stuff.
01:06:26
Speaker
Hopefully, there'll be even better stuff.
01:06:28
Speaker
I'm looking forward to Alan Wake 2.
01:06:30
Speaker
Yep.
01:06:32
Speaker
And Starfield has me interested.
01:06:35
Speaker
I'm hoping that it turns out okay.
01:06:37
Speaker
And obviously, Spider-Man 2 for PlayStation.
01:06:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:41
Speaker
Those are the three games that I'm focused on for the rest of the year, in theory.
01:06:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:48
Speaker
Well, I know one game that you talked about was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater when you came on.
01:06:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:06:53
Speaker
I love that.
01:06:53
Speaker
Oh, man.
01:06:54
Speaker
If we could get it, if you should put in a good word down there at Stern to get a pro pro skater.
01:06:59
Speaker
I've talked about this and I've talked about it endlessly.
01:07:01
Speaker
Don't get me started.
01:07:02
Speaker
No, I've talked about it because I think I think it's so ripe for it.
01:07:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:07:07
Speaker
I you know, what's funny is, well, I don't I don't want to say that because I don't want to pick favorites.
01:07:13
Speaker
I love all the designers there, but I can think of two designers because of two different reasons, by the way, that, that could do that game justice, I think.
01:07:23
Speaker
Um, but, but whatever, all of them could don't get me wrong, but, but I think two of them, I know for a fact are totally into it.
01:07:32
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:33
Speaker
So there's that, but, but yeah, no, I think, I think that would be great.
01:07:37
Speaker
I've said this before.
01:07:38
Speaker
Um, you know, we, we've,
01:07:41
Speaker
we kind of live in a world now where, where it's media overload, overload, like where we're like, you know, literally we, we all carry around a personal device.
01:07:51
Speaker
That's just media consumption.
01:07:53
Speaker
I mean, like, even though we're using it for communication, it's really media communication at the same time.
01:07:59
Speaker
And, uh, and so I go, oh man, you know, like we're, we're, you know, we've got the comic books are popular, which by the way, when I was in high school and when I read comics, uh,
01:08:10
Speaker
People weren't going, oh, you're awesome because you read comics.
01:08:15
Speaker
They were saying the opposite.
01:08:17
Speaker
So the fact that, like, I remember going to my high school, I think it was like my 15 or 20 year high school reunion.
01:08:23
Speaker
Obviously, I don't remember that well.
01:08:24
Speaker
So I'm lying, apparently.
01:08:26
Speaker
But no, it was one of those.
01:08:28
Speaker
It was one of those.
01:08:29
Speaker
And there was this one person, and I'm not going to even give gender on it because I don't want them to hear this and get their feelings hurt.
01:08:37
Speaker
By the way, no one's going to hear this that I went to high school with.
01:08:42
Speaker
But I'm trying to be nice.
01:08:44
Speaker
Except for Patterson, right?
01:08:45
Speaker
No, no.
01:08:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was Jeff Patterson.
01:08:47
Speaker
No, no.
01:08:49
Speaker
And they were all talking about the latest Marvel movie at that time.
01:08:54
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, that's funny.
01:08:56
Speaker
I'm like, that's awesome that you like that.
01:08:58
Speaker
Because I remember that at one time, and I had, I think it was a Spider-Man shirt on or something.
01:09:05
Speaker
And you guys were like making fun of me and calling me a little kid and all this stuff like that.
01:09:10
Speaker
And they got angry like, well, but that was then.
01:09:14
Speaker
And I'm like, well, I said, I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it.
01:09:17
Speaker
I'm just saying, like, isn't it funny how things have changed?
01:09:19
Speaker
And now like you guys are like, this is cool.
01:09:22
Speaker
I'm like, it was cool back then too.
01:09:23
Speaker
Like you would have loved it and probably enjoyed the movie more now had you actually been a nerd.
01:09:29
Speaker
But whatever.
01:09:30
Speaker
So yeah.
01:09:31
Speaker
Anyway, that's not where I was going with this.
01:09:34
Speaker
It's just an anecdote.
01:09:35
Speaker
But no, and it's not a good one.
01:09:37
Speaker
There's no point to it.
01:09:38
Speaker
But I think the next place to farm, because we got the comic books, we got television shows, we got movies.
01:09:47
Speaker
And how many classic movies are made in the last decade?
01:09:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:09:52
Speaker
Not very many.
01:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, not very many.
01:09:54
Speaker
Maybe.
01:09:54
Speaker
I mean, who knows?
01:09:54
Speaker
We'll see.
01:09:56
Speaker
We'll find out in 20 years.
01:09:57
Speaker
But video games, that's where you go.
01:10:02
Speaker
Definitely.
01:10:03
Speaker
I, I, I've said before the one thing I would love to do is, is mine like Sega or something like that.
01:10:09
Speaker
Right.
01:10:10
Speaker
Like do like a, you know, like you could, there's so many properties, you know, there's got a, what's Sega doing?
01:10:15
Speaker
They don't do much.
01:10:16
Speaker
Anyway, I, space here or anything.
01:10:20
Speaker
No, no, I'd be down for anything, but, but yeah, so that, that's my whole thing.
01:10:24
Speaker
I'm like, I think eventually, I,
01:10:27
Speaker
we'll get there.
01:10:28
Speaker
I mean, we're kind of getting there now, aren't we?
01:10:30
Speaker
Like, is there any, I'm trying to think what was, are there any video game pinball machines at this time?
01:10:36
Speaker
Obviously there's been street fighter.
01:10:37
Speaker
There's been super Mario, stuff like that.
01:10:39
Speaker
What goes for tycoon?
01:10:40
Speaker
If you really want to.
01:10:41
Speaker
Oh, that's true.
01:10:42
Speaker
That's good.
01:10:43
Speaker
That's a good point.
01:10:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:44
Speaker
That actually, that's what ruined it for us.
01:10:47
Speaker
I want big buck hunter as well.
01:10:51
Speaker
That's a good point.
01:10:52
Speaker
Rollercoaster tycoon.
01:10:54
Speaker
Who would have thought?
01:10:54
Speaker
What about the, isn't there that like one, there's like a, you drive a semi truck in the snow.
01:10:59
Speaker
What's that one called?
01:11:00
Speaker
That'd make a great pinball game.
01:11:04
Speaker
You just make goat simulator, the pinball game.
01:11:07
Speaker
Actually, I'd be okay with that.
01:11:09
Speaker
Lots of air balls.
01:11:11
Speaker
Anyway.
01:11:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:15
Speaker
I gotta be honest.
01:11:15
Speaker
Have you played goat simulator three, the latest one?
01:11:19
Speaker
I haven't.
01:11:19
Speaker
Is it?
01:11:20
Speaker
They actually made it a game now.
01:11:22
Speaker
Like, like before, you know, it's nonsense.
01:11:24
Speaker
Now it's nonsense with purpose.
01:11:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:27
Speaker
I gotta be honest.
01:11:30
Speaker
It's actually pretty enjoyable to meander around.
01:11:33
Speaker
Kind of like, uh, what's that deer simulator or whatever, but he can walk on two legs with a gun and he, yeah, it's better.
01:11:40
Speaker
It's better.
01:11:41
Speaker
It's more refined than that in regards to what can be done, but it's, you're right.
01:11:45
Speaker
You're, you're in the same wheelhouse there.
01:11:48
Speaker
It's very similar.
01:11:51
Speaker
Visually, though, I don't know what I don't know what you could do with a game like that.
01:11:55
Speaker
But it's interesting.
01:11:57
Speaker
Anyway, OK, that's it.
01:11:57
Speaker
We'll have more video game conversations off camera so we don't annoy people.
01:12:03
Speaker
OK, well, are you going to Expo this year?
01:12:06
Speaker
Yes, I think it's the the only show I think I actually know.
01:12:09
Speaker
I take that back.
01:12:10
Speaker
I'm supposed to go to.
01:12:14
Speaker
the tilt amusement thing in a couple of weeks here.
01:12:17
Speaker
Okay.
01:12:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:18
Speaker
Or what is it?
01:12:19
Speaker
The tilt gate at the night.
01:12:23
Speaker
I can't think of what it's called.
01:12:24
Speaker
The tailgate party.
01:12:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:27
Speaker
I think I'm going with, with Tanya and Jack.
01:12:30
Speaker
Nice.
01:12:31
Speaker
So the whole team of three of us will be there.
01:12:35
Speaker
That's a, obviously there's many that won't be because the whole team would be all those people I talked about before that you have to get on your podcast.
01:12:43
Speaker
And we'll talk about that.
01:12:45
Speaker
Sounds great.
01:12:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:46
Speaker
Other than that, no, I'm going to expo.
01:12:48
Speaker
That's the only thing that's on the docket.
01:12:51
Speaker
And unless they tell me, I was supposed to go to Comic-Con, by the way, San Diego Comic-Con for the thing, but I'm not a lot of fun.
01:13:01
Speaker
I'm not fun.
01:13:02
Speaker
And I don't, I don't like to travel.
01:13:04
Speaker
You can't drink Gary under the table, huh?
01:13:08
Speaker
No, I'm not fun like that at all.
01:13:10
Speaker
I wish I was.
01:13:12
Speaker
And I wish that I have lots of issues, especially in planes.
01:13:21
Speaker
My last few flights were so traumatic that I just, it's really hard.
01:13:28
Speaker
So I'll do whatever I can to get out of flying whenever I can.
01:13:32
Speaker
It's very unhealthy.
01:13:34
Speaker
You shouldn't be that way, but not a lot you can do.
01:13:37
Speaker
Anyway, and again, I'm just not fun because I look at it, you know, if it would have been like, oh, you get to do a Comic-Con panel?
01:13:44
Speaker
Like, you're legit.
01:13:45
Speaker
Like, that's what my friends would say, like, who are artists.
01:13:48
Speaker
And I would say, but I'd have to fly and I don't want to fly.
01:13:57
Speaker
So stupid.
01:13:58
Speaker
Anyway, that's a whole other podcast.
01:14:03
Speaker
Well, we appreciate you coming on.
01:14:06
Speaker
If someone wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way to get a hold of you?
01:14:09
Speaker
If you even want someone bothering you.
01:14:10
Speaker
I know Keith's like, no.
01:14:13
Speaker
Oh, well, so you can reach me via Keith Elwin.
01:14:21
Speaker
That seals it.
01:14:23
Speaker
No, I think I still have zombie eddie.com and I've got a contact form on there or whatever.
01:14:30
Speaker
Or you can just email, you know, whatever.
01:14:33
Speaker
I think I've got a stern email now.
01:14:35
Speaker
But it's not Zombie Yeti.
01:14:38
Speaker
It's Jeremy Packer.
01:14:41
Speaker
Which is not as cool sounding.
01:14:45
Speaker
But that's okay.
01:14:46
Speaker
But that's okay.
01:14:48
Speaker
It is funny though.
01:14:49
Speaker
Your name is so synonymous.
01:14:52
Speaker
When you do say Jeremy Packer.
01:14:53
Speaker
People are like who's that?
01:14:56
Speaker
It's not very cool.
01:14:59
Speaker
And then as you can see.
01:15:01
Speaker
I got all my hair and beard trimmed.
01:15:06
Speaker
to look like an adult.
01:15:09
Speaker
So I got to tell you this one, I swear, and you can stop recording because we'll bore people with that.
01:15:14
Speaker
But I got to tell you this one.
01:15:15
Speaker
So I went, and again, I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings here who may have cut my hair, but I went to get a haircut.
01:15:24
Speaker
And it's a friend of the family who has this business and she's cut my hair a billion times.
01:15:34
Speaker
And for some reason, I don't know what was miscommunicated, but I walked out of there and I looked like Steve Perry from like 1985 or something.
01:15:46
Speaker
And I go, what happened?
01:15:48
Speaker
I don't understand what happened.
01:15:52
Speaker
And like, listen, I don't mind looking goofy because I am by default.
01:15:56
Speaker
But I just really, and I'm like, oh, I can't do this.
01:16:00
Speaker
And so the next day I went to a barber and I said, hey, make me look like I live in the now.
01:16:08
Speaker
And so he cut all my hair off.
01:16:12
Speaker
Anyway, it'll grow out.
01:16:15
Speaker
Don't worry, it'll grow out.
01:16:17
Speaker
I will not show you photos either of what it looked like before, but it was not a good look for me.
01:16:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:23
Speaker
That's impressive you took photos.
01:16:24
Speaker
It's one of those ones that you usually throw away and you pretend it never happened.
01:16:28
Speaker
Oh no, I had to show my wife before I got home.
01:16:32
Speaker
I'm like, oh, prepare yourself.
01:16:35
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:16:37
Speaker
Well, if you want to get a hold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
01:16:41
Speaker
We're on all the socials, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook.
01:16:46
Speaker
I guess it's not Twitter anymore.
01:16:47
Speaker
Sorry.
01:16:47
Speaker
X. It's all at loser kid pinball.
01:16:53
Speaker
Check out our merch on silver ball swag.com slash loser kid.
01:16:57
Speaker
I'm wearing the George Fisher shirt.
01:17:00
Speaker
Don't panic flip.
01:17:01
Speaker
Sure.
01:17:02
Speaker
It's very awesome.
01:17:02
Speaker
You should go get yourself one as well.
01:17:04
Speaker
All right.
01:17:05
Speaker
Well, we thank you, Jeremy, for coming on and it's always great to have you on.
01:17:09
Speaker
And, uh, I guess we'll see everyone in two weeks.