Speed Painting 65: Ghost of Tsushima

This game is looking mighty hot, and I had to spend 3 hr drawing 1 of my 2 favorite moments during the E3 demo. Even the music I chose is from one of the best anime/mangas Rurouni Kenshin, which fits badass motherfucking samurais going at it. I used a silhouette of a sumurai before drawing the background. Anyways, I hope yall enjoy this video. :) :)

Speed Painting 58: The Get Down

One of my favorite new shows last season was a new show on Netflix called the Get Down. I believe it had 6 episodes in total for season 1 and by the last 5 minutes of episode 1, I was in. Story revolves around a group of kids that are going to make it in the music industries from the 70s, but the characters are what sell the tv show.

Anyways, I focused on the main two characters as the focus, my man Shaolin Fantastic & Ezekiel. Added some supporting characters through some creative means, although I wanted to add a few more.. especially the other guys that are part of the crew! Alas, no time and since no one is paying for this, I added as many as I could without the design itself getting clunky nor obnoxious. I hope you enjoy the video and I would highly suggest checking out the show. S2 comes out in April, and see if you're into it by the end of episode 1.  

Speed Painting 57: Horizon Zero Dawn

Hot new game coming out, which I'm playing after my birthday (because I gotta finish this speed painting first smh).  The concept idea about the game is actually really unique and allows for tons of fun actually drawing it.  They have a ton of unique characters (enemies) on top of a stunningly well thought out looking world. 

I used a similar that I've seen around from Edge's Horizon cover and just made it my own style.  Added one of the bird enemies in the middle of two separate background illustrations.  Also the outline of the entire illustration is of one of the monsters the main character has to take down.  Anyways, this was fun as hell to draw and I hope yall enjoy the video I've created.  

Speed Painting 38: True Detective

Last year, I was introduced to one of the best shows on TV in 2014, with Rust being one of the most interesting characters.  Season 2 brought an entire new cast, story and setting.  Very excited, and I decided to make a speed painting about it.

I focused mostly on Ray and Ani, my two favorite characters from season 2.  Even though I'm not quite good at it, I chose to use the same style that both s1 and s2 intros use for the character.  Weird abstract figures showing characters which I love.  I don't want to spoil the black background encompassing Ray, but you will know what it's about if you're far enough into the story.  Ani appears in the smoke and the town of Vinci is shown through her outline.  Enjoy. :)

Also, thanks HBO (or music corp) for taking down the intro songs of True Detective s1/2 openings from the original video, despite me never monetizing a single video.

I normally use real life pictures for nearly every speed painting but in this case, I used an illustration of an artist for ani's face only.  This is the reference due in a reddit link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueDetective/comments/3dhqka/fan_art_i_warm_up_for_work_days_by_digital/

Speed Painting 36: Batman Arkham Knight

So something-something related to Batman is coming out, and yes it is another excuse for me to once again to do a Batman-related youtube speed painting.  The final game of the Batman trilogy from Rocksteady Studios will release on June, and that is my next topic.

This illustration is heavily inspired by the wonderful Witcher 3: Wild Hunt concept designs of their artists.  Well done to them.  I used the Batman logo as the background while illustrating the two major villains of the game, Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight.  I also used one the Dark Knight songs from Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, and the second song from the Arkham City game.  This way, I pay tribute to both the best comic book superhero movie and one of the developer's own games.

I hope you guys (whichever person accidentally stumbles here) enjoy this one, because I believe this to be my best one in exactly three years of (creating) speed paintings.  Can't believe it's been three whole years so far!

Youtube Restructuring

I am two months shy of releasing a youtube speed painting illustration at the start of each month for three years.  Well, I am still doing that.  However, I had some issues with the latest illustration itself and then youtube is as usual unreliable.  So it released on the second rather than the first.  I think from now on, I am going to focus on illustrations that focus heavily on a single character.  The background on my latest speed painting simply took too much time.  The issue isn't that it's just painting it, it's the editing afterwards to remove all the times that I look at references.  This latest speed painting itself may have taken me 80 to 90 hours. 

Now if this was all I had to do, I wouldn't have minded it as much.  However, I am and have been working on a project I'm writing that's very likely going to fail.  However by the small chance that it succeeds, it needs a certain amount of my time every week.  I'm in that weird creepy place where I am optimistic and realistic at the same time.. it's.. it's weird.  A lot of its work is going through some final stages and if things go smoothly which a lot of the time don't happen, I might finally find out if this was all worth it or all for naught.  I have been working on this for three years and the last year has taken a lovely amount of my time.  I've cooled off even on freelance work for some time for this reason.

Anyways, the last speed painting, the last two-three days I wasn't having fun and that's not why I do this.  I always do things that I love, that's why I put an average of 60 hours a month on a project that makes me zero money.  I don't monetize any videos.  Of course I do have in the back of mind my mind that if a video blows up, it could open up a lot of chances for easy freelance options.  That doesn't escape my mind.  Anyways, I will be focusing more on characters for my illustrations to save me 20 hours worth of time.

Speed Painting 34: Game of Thrones Season 5

Here's my new speed painting for the month.  Came out a day late.  I'm going to find out the programmers who work for Google/Youtube and fight them.  Ok, I need to calm down a little bit pretending to be an internet tough guy.  I won't talk about the description or my process too much as it runs into 'have you seen season 4 of Game of Thrones' territory.

Speed Painting 33: Bloodborne

I played Demons Souls on the PS3, and its spiritual successor has finally come out on the PS4.  These games are hard as hell, and you basically get your ass kicked on a regular basis.  However saying that, the gameplay is fantastic and it's incredibly addictive.  The atmosphere and music just adds more to each of these (similar) series.

I used one of the settings from the game and added (one of) the main characters along with one of the enemies you have to fight.  The tone is pretty mellow.

Speed Painting 30: The Hobbit 3, The Battle of the Five Armies

With the final Hobbit movie coming out, I decided to make this the speed painting of illustration.  I hadn't painted a dragon in a long time, so I thought why the hell not?  I already created a speed painting on the first Hobbit movie, with a very light tone.  This one on the other hand, is much darker as you can tell by both the illustration and music choice between the two illustrations.

I chose a pretty good reference point of Smaug demolishing Lake Town and played around with a few things.  I decided to add someone in the middle of the lake pointing an arrow where Smaug's chipped armor is located.  I tried to use some of contrast of red, yellow, orange with blue.

Speed Painting 21: inFamous Second Son

I've got a PS4 and inFamous Second Son looks to be one of the hottest games of the year (or so I hope). I played the previous two, the new rebooted version looks absolutely kickass and I thought it be fun to illustrate. Since the game itself comes in March 21st, this became my choice for the March speed painting.. obviously.

The general idea is Delsin fighting basic DUP soldiers and creating him in an action shot that's interesting for the viewer. I decided to use both his chain and his hand and gave him a darker look (hint of evil Delsin?) with that shit eating grin that he seems to have. I added some small tidbits trying to trick people that I'm clever, adding 3 small badges from Sucker Punch's previous big franchise, Sly Cooper and another one from an early game that they made called Rocket: Robot on Wheels. However while I was looking for pictures of Delsin as reference when I had already thought of this idea, I saw that those sly bastards Sucker Punch had like me, created one of the badges on his chest with the official Sly logo.

A bit off topic, but the composer for this song is Lazerhawk, and their new album which includes this song is absolutely amazing. Check it out if enjoy the song in the video.

Speed Painting 18: Rob Ford

So I decided make the first Canadian topic about.. well yes, our own pride and glory, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. I normally have to explain most of my thought process but regarding this man, everything is as blatant as it can be in this youtube speed painting. The seems to have been involved, in drugs, alcohol, potentially prostitutes. I also heard an interesting interview before making this illustrating of Mayor Rob Ford, with one of the most ridiculous responses I have ever heard from a politician. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so watch until the end.. and make sure the sound and captions are on.