Bill Davis (artist)

William Robert Davis (born May 1949) is an Emmy Award-winning American illustrator, animation director, graphic designer, and painter. Davis received his Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Title Sequences for his work on NBC's The First 50 Years: A Closer Look in 1978. He was creative director at Sierra On-Line from 1989 to 1996, where he brought film production methods such as storyboarding and hand-drawn animation into the company's PC games.

Davis was later the creative director at Rocket Science Games and founded Mother Productions, a graphic design firm. Since the 2000s, he has painted under the artistic persona Trowzers Akimbo, focusing on landscapes of Yosemite National Park and the surrounding Sierra Nevada region.

Early life Davis was born in May 1949 in downtown Los Angeles and raised in the coastal community of Venice. He is the oldest of five children in a family with strong artistic traditions—both his mother and maternal grandfather were artists.

Career Davis attended the California Institute of the Arts, where he graduated in 1971 with a BFA degree and high honors.

Television Davis was a lead graphic designer for NBC and received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Title Sequences for his animated title and segue films on NBC, The First 50 Years: A Closer Look in 1978. He created over 200 "More to Come" on-air slides for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and he designed the logo for The Gong Show. Later, Davis worked as an animation director and designer for Kurtz & Friends.

Sierra On-Line Bill Davis was appointed vice-president of development and the first creative director of Sierra On-Line in July 1989.

By the late 1980s, Sierra On-Line, led by Ken Williams, had adopted technologies such as CD-ROMs, sound cards, and VGA displays, which let the company's games look and sound more like animated or live-action films. Davis was recruited from Hollywood to adapt Sierra's production techniques to these capabilities.

Davis introduced storyboarding, adapted from film production, into Sierra's game development, which enabled production teams to grow without lengthening project timelines. Artists worked in traditional media, drawing backgrounds and animations by hand before scanning them into games, in place of the low-resolution digital methods then prevalent, and introduced animation techniques such as rotoscoping and squash and stretch. He established the role of art director at Sierra and began outsourcing animation work to international studios, a practice borrowed from the traditional animation industry.

Davis advocated a consistent art style within each series, a shift from earlier practices in which only each title had a distinct look, and encouraged matching a game's artistic style to its thematic tone. For example, Davis explored cubism for Leisure Suit Larry to reflect its quirky tone, persuading creator Al Lowe to adopt a cartoonish style that emphasized the game's wild visual humor.

Other pursuits In 1996, Davis left Sierra to become vice-president of development and creative director for Rocket Science Games.

Trowzers Akimbo Since the 2000s, Davis has maintained an active fine art practice under the artistic persona Trowzers Akimbo. Working primarily as a landscape painter, he focuses on Yosemite National Park and the surrounding Sierra Nevada region, often painting on location.

Personal life Davis lives in Oakhurst, California with his wife, Betty Tikker Davis.

Games Name Year Credited with Publisher Oil's Well (DOS) 1990 creative director Sierra On-Line Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire 1990 creative director Sierra On-Line King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! 1990 creative director Sierra On-Line Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Mixed-Up Mother Goose (VGA) 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Police Quest III: The Kindred 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Castle of Dr. Brain 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Jones in the Fast Lane 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Hoyle: Official Book of Games - Volume 3 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Mixed-Up Fairy Tales 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards 1991 creative director Sierra On-Line Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero 1992 creative director Sierra On-Line Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel 1992 creative director Sierra On-Line The Dagger of Amon Ra 1992 creative director Sierra On-Line Slater & Charlie Go Camping 1993 director, producer, art director, writer Sierra On-Line Pepper's Adventures in Time 1993 original concept Sierra On-Line Rocket Jockey 1996 executive producer SegaSoft Obsidian 1997 studio creative director SegaSoft The Space Bar 1997 executive producer Rocket Science Games, SegaSoft Jewel Quest Mysteries: Trail of the Midnight Heart 2009 art director iWin Jewel Quest IV: Heritage 2009 art director iWin Jewel Quest Mysteries: The Seventh Gate 2011 art director iWin

References

Bill Davis (artist)

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