David Luong is an artist who, aside from helping out on a number of big-budget Hollywood movies, has also been involved with several Blizzard titles, including Diablo III, World of Warcraft and StarCraft II.

While he's done visual FX work as a compositor on some of Blizzard's best cinematic trailers, he also does matte paintings, and you can see examples of both below.

Note that, obviously, the trailers are the work of many artists, not just David.

If you like what you see, be sure to check out David's personal site here.

To see the larger pics in all their glory (or so you can save them as wallpaper), right-click on them below and select "open in new tab".

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It doesn't matter that Sega hasn't made hardware for over a decade. Let's pretend that, in addition to teaming up for Olympics sporting games, the company also partners with Nintendo to make handheld game consoles.

These customised pieces show a 3DS and DSi with a very Sega makeoever, both given the livery of a Mega Drive. The white one looks to be a very nice set of decals, while the embossed text on the blue 3DS seems to be a little more permanent.

Nicolas Verlet [Twitter, via GameOvr]

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Use Twitter? You just might! You may, if you're one of the clever ones, be following sites like this, or people like this.

Those two are OK, I guess, but they're far from my favourite. Especially when it comes to video games. Instead, that honour is shared between two accounts. Two very different accounts.

I like them both because they epitomise the very best of what the service has to offer, at least to me: serving as a worldwide soapbox for jokes and information. I don't give a stuff what someone had for lunch, or why you're joining millions of other people making the same jokes about E3/the NBA/Mad Men. I do, however, like this stuff.

The first belongs to Al Swearengen of the Gem Saloon, who after hanging up his chamberpot and shot glasses has got himself a job as a creative director in the video game business. His daily exploits are...frustrating.

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The second is id's John Carmack, who at first glance makes it look like his Twitter account is being run by a machine. Until you realise it's actually being written by Carmack, and that instead of filling the service with what he hopes will make other people think he's cool, he just opens his head and dumps whatever he's actually thinking about. Which is mostly completely random code or tech talk.

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It was only a month ago we heard of a guy who tried, and failed, to hide a few bricks of coke inside an Xbox. Guyanese drug smugglers obviously don't keep up with the news.

Border authorities in Jamaica have arrested a man who, after initially clearing customs with two items of luggage, tried to re-enter and grab a third. This aroused suspicions, so the third package was checked, and inside they found an "X-Box". Inside that was 24 pounds of cocaine.

The man, who was only identified as a "Guyanese traveler", admitted to smuggling the drugs in return for $5 million.

The report wasn't clear whether it was an Xbox 360 or an original Xbox. I'm actually leaning towards the latter, if only because it was so damn big you could cram more drugs inside.

Jamaican agents seize cocaine hidden inside Xbox [Boston.com, via Game Politics]

Think back to the video games of the 80s and 90s and most characters, let alone protagonists, were dudes. But not all of them. Which is where the delightfully-named Femicom comes in.

It's a website that's looking to "collect information about 20th century electronic games and toys, especially video games and computer software, that feature feminine design elements and/or that were created with girls in mind."

There's no real agenda or heavily politicised slant to the site; it's just a database collecting examples where a group of people who weren't terribly well-represented in old games were, well, represented.

As such, it's a really interesting way to spend an afternoon's clicking, whether you're a guy who never even considered the "other side" or a girl who grew up seeking out these kind of titles.

Because the site is a work-in-progress, anyone interested in contributing should head here.

Femicom [Site]

This is the first episode of Did You Know Gaming?, a new series close to my heart because it does exactly what I try to do here with Total Recall: not necessarily dwell on the known history of games, but the more interesting stuff hiding in the background.

It's off to a good start, with discussions of some weird and messed-up bugs, glitches and deadly warnings to be found throughout the Pokémon series.

You'll also learn of a creepy theory involving Ditto and Mew, and even see the order in which Pokémon were designed, then inserted into the game.

[http://didyouknowgaming.com]

Oh hi there, Kotaku. Welcome to the Wednesday night open thread!

For tonight's open thread, a single prompt, brought on by a great article over at Pajiba. What will happen to Game of Thrones, long-term?

Brian Byrd lays out a number of big challenges for the show, including the fact that "There's no way HBO can continue to fund Game of Thrones for another six-plus seasons." In fact, he puts the chances that that problem kills the series at 20%. The bigger potential problem? That George R.R. Martin takes too long to finish the books (or just doesn't finish them), and it kills the series.

Martin is not James Patterson, shitting out paint-by-numbers fiction twice a year. The dude writes like a tortoise on Ambien. After three books in a period of four years, Martin apparently decided, for whatever reason, to viciously and repeatedly sodomize the concept of deadlines. The gap between "Storm" and "Feast" was five years; "Feast" and "Dance" six. This pace becomes a problem when, say, a hugely popular television show is dependent on your source material to exist.

No release date currently exists for "The Winds of Winter," the sixth book in the series. All anyone knows is that some of the chapters are written and that in an April webcast Martin mentioned that the final two books will weigh in around 1500 pages … each.

I gotta agree, that's a real potential problem.

Before I turn you loose in the open thread, here are a few of my thoughts on the second season.

Loved:

• Harrenhal
• The scenes between Arya and Tywin
• A lot of the changes they made to the books, actually
• Literally every single scene involving Tyrion
• How far they took Joffrey's villainy
• Cersei becoming a more interesting character
• The casting of Davos
• The casting in general, actually

• Worried About:

  
  
• They're going to start losing non-readers
• They're going to sprawl too hard in the next season
• There will be significant pacing problems posed by rearranging the next three books to keep all the characters in play
• The big "reveal" in the final shot was, frankly, a bit disappointing

• So that's just me! What do you think the future holds for Game of Thrones?

  
  

  Feel free to chat about that, or whatever else. The Open Thread begins in 5… 4… 3…

  
  

  2…

  
  

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Active, reserve, and retired members of the U.S. armed forces (and government employees) can buy a "Military Edition" of Medal of Honor: Warfighter when the game releases in October, Electronic Arts said today.

A news release announcing the "Military Edition" said it would be available exclusively through GovX—"a privileged e-commerce Web site where qualified members of the U.S. Armed Forces and those in related government agencies can shop for premium off-duty apparel, equipment and other products as well as on–duty tactical products."

To shop at GovX, one typically registers with his or her active .gov or .mil email identity, or supplies other verification of duty/retired status in the armed forces, Department of Defense, or other military, federal, local or state law enforcement agency.

The "Military Edition" is part of the newly created "Project Honor" fundraising program for the U.S. military's Special Operations Community. Project Honor is a charity for families and soldiers in special operations, designed to raise awareness of that mission and to support those whose loved ones have died or have been wounded in service to it.

The "Military Edition" of Medal of Honor Warfighter" includes all the content of the game's Limited Edition release, plus unnamed "exclusive in-game unlocks" that include a special Project Honor camouflage skin. For more information, see this page on GovX.

"We have a tremendous amount of respect for our service men and women around the world and a deep level of gratitude for the sacrifices both they and their families make on a daily basis," Greg Goodrich, Medal of Honor's executive producer, said in a statement. "We've teamed up with some of the biggest military brands to deliver an authentic experience in Medal of Honor Warfighter. We're excited to work with these great partners to also launch Project HONOR to raise awareness for the Navy SEAL Foundation and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation and drive real world contributions of which we can be proud."

A web site for Project Honor has been established; you may visit it here for more information on its mission.

Has anyone seen Daenerys' dragons? Anyone?

No? I guess there's nothing left to do but hang up some flyers like you would with any other lost pet.

What: THREE (3) MISSING BABY DRAGONS

Last Seen: QARTH

Reward: AN ALL EXPENSES PAID TRIP TO KING'S LANDING IN WESTEROS

HA. If you've seen them, call Jorah. Or, well, "Call" him.

This image is credited to "the-faceless-men-of-braavos @ tumblr", who have proven (appropriately) difficult to track down. But to those faceless men, I say: Braavo. I hope you actually posted these all around the city where you live.

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While E3 was occupying everyone's attention last week, Nintendo held an analyst event for their investors. During the Q&A, one meeting participant honed in on something many of us have been wondering since Microsoft unveiled their SmartGlass, and posed the question: "Are you worried about SmartGlass? How does Nintendo intend to differentiate its hardware system?"

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata responded with no more concern over Microsoft's new tech than he had earlier over Apple's.

Other companies all scrambling to mimic what Nintendo announced last year is a good sign, Iwata explained, signalling that they are on the right track. And as to a specific threat from Microsoft? Nintendo's banking on the fact that iPhones still don't have controllers, and that gamers need real control:

The question is, is what they're offering truly capable of doing everything that we're offering? From what we have seen so far, it looks to us as if what they are able to offer really is only a small facet of what the Wii U is capable of.

We know that the core users who love playing video games like controllers that you hold with two hands. But what you don't have on smartphones and tablets are the buttons and the control sticks that they prefer to use. Now, if they could hold a controller with two hands and hold a tablet or a smartphone with another hand, there would be no issue. Unfortunately, since it is not possible for humans to do that, you can't play a game in a way you can play with the Wii U.

Iwata raises a fair point about the impossibility of holding a smartphone and a game controller at the same time, something I may have, er, awkwardly discovered more than once in my life. We'll find out how good the controller really is when the Wii U launches at the end of the year.

2012 E3 Analyst Q & A Session [Nintendo]