I'm horrified at how long I've allowed my old blog to fester here in this long forgotten corner of the internet, especially seeing as how it still gets more attention than my new website. :-)

And so with much apology and embarrassment, I am finally giving one last update to this site and invite all you wonderful guests to visit my permanent new digs at: www.markcordellholmes.com.

You can check out my latest portfolio with some process breakdowns, including samples from my work at Dynamighty and Pixar, as well as previous professional and personal projects. You can follow my new blog on visual-emotional storytelling: Story by Design, and get an overview of my Cinematic Design workshop.

The site is still a work-in-progress and will shortly be going through additional refinements, so please forgive any typos or incomplete entries as I continue to update it.

To properly close off this site, here's a quick synopsis of what's transpired over these last few years:

After four wonderful, thrilling and challenging years, Dynamighty was unfortunately forced to shutter it's doors in early 2015 due to challenges in the digital marketplace.

Our uniquely talented team scattered to other studios in the industry while I was invited to join Google to help level up the Doodle team. After a privileged year-and-a half of helping design, art direct and manage Doodles, I decided it was time to get back my creative roots and I am now advising and consulting with Game and VR companies as I look for my next big adventure.

I would like to send out a personal thanks to everyone who cheered us on at Dynamighty and who enjoyed the fruits of our labors: Counterspy (still available on iOS, Android, PS3, PS4 & PSVita) and Fingers of Fury (on iOS & Android).

I hope to see you all at my new site and please let me know if there are any questions I can answer or any topics you'd like me to discuss in my blog.

Best to you all,
Mark

End of April update

Added some posts to the Dynamighty tab, including updates and inspirational imagery. Haven't posted anything new under the resources tab, but happy to answer any questions I can on the industry front to students or other design professionals. The biggest thing to report is that we are on the lookout for strong character designers for freelance work. Portfolio links can be sent to jobs at dynamighty dot com. We'll be posting other needs soon.

Dynamighty

I posted our new Dynamighty image here so there is something fresh to see. There are additional images under the Dynamighty tab which I'll continue posting to as I have new things to share.

I'm continuing to add new industry links under the resource tab. This is by no means exhaustive, so if there are other good resources out there please pass them on.

I'm hope to update our temporary Dynamighty website and Tumbler site in the next couple of weeks with new images and posts. Not much to report as we're deep in funding/publishing talks for the next couple of months. We're keeping our heads to the grindstone in the meantime, cranking as much of our first product on our own as we can.

It's remarkable to me how simple making the product now seems compared to the exercise of making a company. :-)

Update

Though this blog has generally acted as a static portfolio, I will now to try to make it a live blog for delivering updates on our aspiring SF games startup, Dynamighty, as well as for sharing industry resources, advice and posts for aspiring students and professionals alike.

Look under the Dynamighty tab for updates on our company progress and occasional inspirational images to titillate the imagination with what is to come.

Look under the Resources tab for occasional links, answers to industry questions, and assorted design posts. Feel free to comment or make requests and I will try to be as helpful as I can.

This site will no doubt go through some design changes as I move content around and make it more pretty-like.

Welcome

Thanks for visiting my online portfolio. These posts are a cross section of my professional and personal work, including my last 15 years at Pixar, as a set artist, graphic designer and art director. It marches more or less back in time, and by no means reflects all projects or tasks I've had the good fortune to be involved with. It should however give a sense of the diversity and scope of work I've been a part of. The above tabs include additional samples of Pixar and personal work. Thanks for visiting and feel free to comment.

Wall-e

I came onto Wall-e in the last year of production and was responsible for establishing the overall look and managing the vast quantity of static and motion graphics that remained to be designed, including major set pieces on earth and everything onboard the Axiom. I art directed and collaborated with of ten talented graphic and motion graphic artists.


A far more detailed account of my role and experience on this project can be found in this '09 interview.

Lifted

As production designer of this short, I was responsible for establishing, communicating and maintaining the look of the film through each department in the production. I designed (or oversaw) all set and prop design, character and set shading, matte painting, effects, shot lighting, title, and poster design.