Meet the husband!

I am really thrilled to announce the new blog, "AKAperly" by lead character artist, and my husband, Matt Perlot (known to many as Perly). I am not a video game guru, so this is how I describe what Matt does: he invents people. Have you seen this commercial?

This is Harmonix's brand new dance-based music game, "Dance Central." Matt designed and created the characters for this game, from sketch to what you see in-game: visual appearance, names, attitudes, "social hangups" as he puts it, and personal storyline. It is absolutely magical for me to see his invented people all over the place now, inviting people to play! Oblio "commences with the dance":

Matt's always been an amazing artist, with a signature style full of sharp angles and edge. What's really interesting for me as a fellow artist, is to watch him take his characters from concept sketch, to hyper-stylized/urban/iconographically flat art, to a fully rendered 3d person alive on the screen and standing (or dancing) in space, while maintaining the character's vibe and personality. I am continually inspired by his work, and its fun to share our love for character while I work on books and he works on games. We are always helping each other to push our own visual styles further too. Matt's got a good eye and you better believe I get a full crit on my art when I ask him for one or he'll brainstorm page design with me if I'm stumped. He's a good guy to have around :)

He kicks off his new blog here:
http://akaperly.blogspot.com/