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Get Your Mo Cap On With The Last Of Us
I’m still patiently waiting to see some gameplay from The Last Of Us. In the mean time, we can all enjoy so motion capture awesomeness, and then see the results past the break. You can also learn a bit about your main voice actors.
Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker are no strangers to the entertainment industry. Voicing and motion capturing for the 2 main characters in The Last Of Us, Ellie and Joel, are just specks on their resumes. Check out just what I mean below.
ASHLEY JOHNSON
This blonde-haired, blue-eyed performer broke into the business at age two as a clothing model and soon found herself in local and national commercials. By age five, Johnson was wowing the judges at a Universal Studio beauty pageant with her rendition of “Broadway Baby”. She won the talent competition and took her act to TV’s “Star Search”.
America first experienced Johnson’s charms when she joined the cast of the long running ABC sitcom “Growing Pains” as Chrissy Seaver during the 1990-91 season. Intriguingly, her character had ended the previous season as an infant and returned as the adorable seven-year-old Johnson. Johnson made her feature debut opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in the action programmer “Lionheart” (1991). She bade farewell to the Seavers in 1992 and moved on to specials and TV-movies, where she has worked regularly ever since.
Highlights include “Phenom,” “All-American Girl,” “Maybe This Time,” “Jumanji,” the voice of Gretchen in “Recess,” Amber in “Fast Food Nation,” the voice of Gwen in “Ben 10: Alien Force,” the voice of Emily in “King of the Hill,” The CW’s “Dollhouse,” and most recently, portraying Amber in AMC’s “The Killing” and on screen this summer as Mary Beth in “The Help.”
Troy Baker
A self-professed “card-carrying, badge-wearing nerd” this rockstar turned actor Texas native first began working in video games by playing Sgt. Matt Baker in the Brothers In Arms franchise. Since then, Troy has been chased by Ghostbusters as Slimer, shouted “Steel Guard!” as Snow Villiers in Final Fantasty XIII, dodged grenades, RPG’s and Russian ultranationlists in Activision’s juggernaut FPS Call of Duty, battled for the Autobots as Jetfire in Transformers: War for Cybertron, gone toe-to-toe with Batman as Two Face in Batman Arkham City, and even dealt with bizarre relationship issues while dealing with nightmarish “Qbert-ian” puzzles as Vincent in Catherine. Animation fans will recognize him as the evil Van Kleiss in Cartoon Network’s Generator Rex, as Clay Quartermain in Marvel’s The Avengers: Earth’s Mighties Heros and as Yamato in Naruto Shippuden. On camera, Troy has starred opposite Val Kilmer, Steve Zahn and Karl Urban in Comanche Moon, Lou Diamond Phillips and Glenn Morshower in Striking Range and has even traveled the country spotlighting pop culture conventions as the host and producer of Road Rage. An avid gamer, cartoon fanatic and comic book fan, Troy says “It’s quite rare to have a job that affords you opportunities to participate in creating something that you’ll geek out over later.”
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Legendary Grimdark ‘Warhammer 40,000’ Artist John Blanche Has Passed Away at 78
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.


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