q4 concepts and the real deal

shotgun · Oct 2005

okaY! forget it
i was hoping that wasnt the case but, oh well.
i had no idea.

sorry.

better get back to flipping burgers.

CheapAlert · Oct 2005

that's not official concepts, those are renders themagicpen leaked sometime ago in 2003 upon "joining" Raven with a stolen portfolio

oXYnary · Oct 2005

What ever happened to that guy? Seriously. I was new at the time to polycount.

Its one of those "What is he doing now?" Type of questions. Flipping Burgers? Dropping the soap in prison? A up and coming CEO?

SouL · Oct 2005

I think Raven has asked everyone who has a copy of that collection of screenshots to refrain from posting a direct link.
You may want to take those down.

AstroZombie · Oct 2005

adam · Oct 2005

Wait wait wait... some dude got a job at Raven with a stolen portfolio?

tsk. tsk. Raven

KDR_11k · Oct 2005

Apparlently he was good enough to keep the job for quite some time.

CheapAlert · Oct 2005

he still has the job!??

KDR_11k · Oct 2005

No, he left around the time he was found out but he was employed for at least months (not sure, I think it was even years but my memory is always hazy on time) before that.

poopinmymouth · Oct 2005

He works at a picture framing store now, and thanks to Jason Manley on Conceptart.org, he most likely won't be working in the industry ever again. The entire story, as well as the stolen portfolio, was a sticky in all forums on CA.org for about a month.

thomasp · Oct 2005

yeah, who could forget themagicpen? i just found those links while cleaning out my bookmarks folder.
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~polycount/ubb/Forum1/HTML/008391.html?00032
http://www.gfxartist.com/community/forum/28639

_Shimmer · Oct 2005

is this story avaible somewhere, actually working. Just fund dead links and stuff. I need pictures, I am a media spoiled kid!

malcolm · Oct 2005

Wow, this shit actually happened. Does anyone have a link to his real artwork? Could this guy draw at all? How long did it take Raven to notice they hired a fraud?

Thegodzero · Oct 2005

The sad thing is guess where the idea of art tests came from? So many people have been doing this that they couldnt trust a portfolio. Now they cant trust an art test. Thats why i think the next step they might ask for is WIP shots of your art test. So now if you do an art test dont show any WIP of it. This way it cant be ripped off. People cant steal whats not shown.

KDR_11k · Oct 2005

I don't think many people will do the same because it's a very hard fraud to keep up. Art tests aren't easy to fake, either. Though I guess it's easier for a concept artist than e.g. a modeler who'll have to copy something of equal technical limitations. I don't think a paranoid reaction is warranted, you won't run into many people like this that manage to pull it off. Most are caught just by looking at their portfolios and seeing a piece you have seen elsewhere before.

Cubik · Oct 2005

Well, this http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/art/m/r/mrchris/mrchris.html
is supposed to take you to his art, but it seems that he came to senses and removed his page. A quick ten minutes search on Google gets nothing at all.

CheapAlert · Oct 2005

haha, not even archive.org saved it

and what kind of "industry artist" uses a furry/fantasy gallery site anyhow

Cubik · Oct 2005

Eh, this comes from the gargoyledick man

.

pogonip · Oct 2005

I remember there was a thread about that guy for a long time over at gamedev.org forums , from what I remember someone who was close to the situation I think one of the developers who he ripped off got word that he had went to Alaska to work on the fishing boats and swore off games forever , anyways I guess he was killed in a fishing accident from what I remember so not much of a point keeping the torches lit .

While we are talking about notorious industry people what ever happened to Derek Smart ?

MoP · Oct 2005

I did find this in the web archive, though...

http://web.archive.org/web/20040219024324/www.conceptart.org/fraud/chrisrunyon/

Jason Manley put up the guy's portfolio of stolen images so that people could identify what was theirs. A lot of the archived images don't work, but some of them do.

motives · Oct 2005

I dont get it. He pulled togheter a stolen folio, gets the job and then KEEPS it for months or years?

they never suspected him to have faked it? If not then he must have had some real skills aswell. Too bad he had to throw it away by trying a "shortcut" like this

thomasp · Oct 2005

pogonip that does sound a little fishy

what about poop's version that he now works in a picture framing store? somewhat more believable to me.

i think employers will always look at someone's portfolio with a little doubt. not because of concern about blatant fraud like this but because in many cases artist's do only describe very vaguely what their exact part in the work was. sometimes apparently to hide that they only had a minor role in very well known work.
i had a look at some film artist portfolios and oh my... a shot of gollum here or aki's head closeup there. and then on somewhere else's portfoliosite you read that that guy was only responsible for painting toenails

no wonder art tests are common at the major places where probably crowds apply everyday.

wip shots? easy to fake. unique art tests seem like a better choice - give a concept artist strict guidelines and let's see if he/she can dig up someone else's work that fits in.

killingpeople · Oct 2005

i remember the magicpen; chris runyon. the version i heard is he didn't stay at raven long cause he couldn't produce anything like what he had in his 'folio, i heard he got caught looking at porn at their studio? glorious rumors.
i heard he got hired at a startup game company here in arizona (gilbert area) named realms interactive after he left raven. they were working on a game called guildwars/exiarch or something. joe madd was doing concept work for the game. he left there, not sure why but he was pretty much black listed by then. [/rumors]

q4 concepts and the real deal

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