About this project
About the artists & project
In August of 2000 Brad Henderson and Ryan Ford met randomly as dorm mates in college down in Savannah, Georgia. Ryan majored in painting and Brad in computer art. Over the last 10 years Brad has been moving between the east and west coast honing his video game developing skills while Ryan has been further developing his painting skills and having gallery shows in New York City.
Brad recently decided that he wanted to move back to Brooklyn and as any good friend would do, Ryan provided him with a couch to sleep on. Overnight Brad thought about the surreal versus paintings hanging all over the walls in Ryan’s apartment. And in the morning Brad approached Ryan and said, “ Hey man, what do you think about turning your paintings into video games? I was looking at them all night and they just look like they would be really fun to play.” Ryan flipped his lid with excitement for the project!
They immediately turned Brad’s apartment into the Bromand Center think-tank with scribbled drawings all over the walls. In their new laboratory hide out their creative forces conjoined and exploded which then made other mini-explosions and then further turned into nebulas which further turned into new galaxies of moist heat and erosion.
Brad and Ryan knew deep down that things would never be the same again.
Two cups of coffee later along with sketches covering floor to ceiling that seemed to make sense about something, two hours of shooting video of Ryan drawing 16 Nintendo controllers, one day of shooting 25 takes of 4 minute video couch footage, two days of editing video, and four days of adding animation to the video.
They were ready to unleash their mega idea.
With the funding that they would receive from Kickstarter they would spend the next 3 months in creative harmony (along with a month and a half for testing and fine tuning). Ryan would paint all new versus oil paintings with crazy environments hosting new far out characters. He would paint till his finger tips bled raw with turpentine burns and then he would make a new painting based off that called, ‘Bleeding Finger Tips vs Turpentine.’ Meanwhile Mad Brad would be in the Bromand Center mixing up the medicine flexing his full digital might turning Ryan’s paintings and their character ideas into fully operational interactive video games.
In the meantime they would lock down a hot gallery location in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Upon entering the gallery space 3 months later one would walk into a well lit, white walled room #1. Room #1 would solely be dedicated to showcasing the oil paintings. Then once you got all hype from viewing the twisted versus paintings one could walk into a darker lit room #2. In room #2 projections of the paintings would be laid out in the same format as room #1 but the difference being that you could walk up to any of the projected paintings and pick up an old school NES controller (controllers would be mounted on the wall under the projection of the paintings) and play the characters in the paintings. Room #2 would be a fully interactive video game experience which equals an opening night of kick ass fun and excitement. Not only would it be a celebration between the creativity of two good friends but it would also be dedicated to finally welcoming the video game world into the fine art realm and giving the artists who develop video games the long over due credit that they deserve. We welcome all of you to join us and if we don’t know you we look forward to meeting you and sharing creative ideas.
Thank you ,
Brad Henderson & Ryan Ford
FAQ
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Funding Unsuccessful
This project reached the deadline without achieving its funding goal on June 16, 2011.
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Brad will call you at a random time in the future and yell "HADOUKEN !!!"
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Phone Call + we will email the special meaning of the word “Hadouken” with a picture showing our extraordinary appreciation for you.
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Invitation & fist bump upon arrival to the opening night
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ALL THE ABOVE + a black T-shirt with the versus logo
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ALL THE ABOVE + 17” x 22” print of a versus painting.
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ALL THE ABOVE + two 17” x 22” prints of versus paintings.
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ALL THE ABOVE + customized original 2.5ft x 3.5ft oil painting on a stretched canvas to your specifications. You can send us photos of yourself and I can pit you against any character that you can conjure up in your imagination. If you don’t want to be in the oil painting you can create two characters of your own design. Or you can mail us personal information about yourself, music you like, artists, your spirit animal, or anything about crazy dreams or experiences that you’ve had and we’ll put you in a painting versus a character we design. Or we can create two entirely new characters for you and customize the painting based off your personal information. We will also do customized backgrounds for the painting with photos that you provide or we can research your region or environment ourselves and create a background to your specifications. It’s a total collaboration between you and us. You can do ‘You vs Us’ if you like but be careful because Brad’s tall and therefore has a long reach advantage. All information will be gathered and emailed back to you for your approval before we start to work on the painting. Once we get your approval we will keep you updated on your painting through the process and I will email you photos of it from start to finish. Depending on how many orders we get will determine the amount of time it takes for you to receive your painting along with the other gifts. We guesstimate that it will take anywhere from 3-4 weeks.
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ALL THE ABOVE + a customized original 2.5ft x 3.5ft oil painting on a stretched canvas, and we will turn your oil painting into a video game. We will customize your characters with any special moves. Any outlandish, absurd special moves you can think of we will make it happen. You can give us up to ten ideas and we will probably narrow it down to three or four special moves per character. You will get a DVD with the painting turned into an interactive video game.
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Customized oil painting, video game character, and We will bring the complete gallery show to your town or city with your help securing a show space that is agreeable to both parties (preferably a museum, established gallery space or show space).
Project By
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Brad Henderson and Ryan Ford originally met randomly as dorm mates in
college down in Georgia in August of 2000. Ryan majored in painting and Brad in
computer art. Over the last 10 years Brad has been moving between the east and
west coast honing his video game developing skills while Ryan has been further developing his painting skills and having gallery shows in New York City.
