Speed Painting 37: Final Fantasy VII & XV

If you are a gamer and haven't been living under a rock far, far beneath the Earth, you know about Sony's E3 conference.  They announced that Square Enix is remaking the most popular jRPG of all time, Final Fantasy VII.  This time around, Shinji Hashimoto is not trolling us with a PC port as was shown half a year ago, but the real remake.

Now I have been waiting for Final Fantasy XV (known as Versus previously) since 2006, when initially revealed.  It's looking like a 2016 release, and there a chance the FFVII Remake might be a 2017 release coinciding with their 20th year anniversary.  FFVII ironically enough, is the only mainline Final Fantasy that I have not played (other than XI and XIV, but those are MMOs).  Somehow, this game has always alluded me.  I've always wanted this game to be remade rather than my favorite FF which is IX for this reason.  I also created both games in this illustration because I will very likely make them as their speed painting on their months of release.  

Speed Painting 35: Avengers 2, Age of Ultron

With the new Avengers moving coming out in May 1st, I thought it'd be a good choice to pick A2 as my next speed painting. I wanted to practice illustrating metallic substances, so Ultron was a perfect reference. I chose to go with Ultron looking as intimidating as possible while in the process of ripping Captain's shield in half, and Ironman and Thor trying to get involved behind him. Enjoy.

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 32: The Order 1886

The Order 1886 seems to be the first really big game coming out on consoles this year.  I love story driven games like Uncharted and The Last of Us, and this game really piqued my interest.  Knights of the Round Table who never age and have been living for centuries to fight Lycans, aka werewolves.

The entire premise for the first game is set in England.  From what I've seen, the story seems incredibly interesting.  The game has the typical 3rd person shooting and what looks to be some exploration/creepy sections in the game, which is what I focused on during the illustration.  I created a scenario where the main character Gallahad is searching in a room and the blood leads the viewers eyes to one of the Lycans.  There's a few little tid bits here and there but I'm not going to tell you.  Where's the fun in that?

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.

Personal Projects - Pushing The Schedule, Taking Your Time

Note that this does not include work with a client. Once the date is set and the contract is signed, there is no turning back. If you need extra time, then you really have noone to blame but yourself. This is about personal projects. Artists generally have an issue of knowing when to let go of a project. People get better at this unsurprisingly enough the more they keep painting. This recent project I worked on was the opposite case. I had a plan of when the project would end. I finished the project. But, it didn't look all that good. It was "ok".

I create a youtube speed painting every month, and release it on the first of the month. If you look at the dates, most are released on the 1st of every month. The few that are not were videos that I had to re-upload due to song, copyright infringements despite not monetizing any of my videos. Now before I start on another rant on Youtube and their idiotic policies, I'll try push my ADD away and try to focus on the topic at hand. I decided for the first time to take an extra day and work on the final illustration and improve it to a level that I was satisfied with. This is my 29th speed painting, and it's a shame that my run of releasing my videos on the first of every month was finally broken. Lets hope my next run is more than 28 speed paintings!

Make sure you know when to let go of your illustrations and in some rare occurrences, going back and improving your work! 

Speed Painting 28: Supernatural

With season 10 of Supernatural coming out in October, my sister suggested I illustrate one of my favorite TV shows of all time.  Same & Dean have been through hell their entire lives, especially once the series picks up.  The episode where they go to jail was used as inspiration for my entire speed painting.

I decided to put them both next to one another making poses.  Dean is being silly, and I add a bit of intensity to Sam, especially with the whole Lucifer arc that revolved around him.  Dean is wearing black, and Sam is wearing white, though with those eyes looks can be deceiving.  None of my previous 27 speed paintings have a song that fits the illustration/topic lyrically as well as this one does, so make sure to pay attention to the lyrics.  Enjoy.

Speed Painting 26: Guardians of the Galaxy

August 1st. Guardians of the Galaxy the movie comes out. This movie was practically begging me to illustrate on my youtube channel where I create one youtube speed painting a month on the 1st of every month. I focused on Groot and Rocket for this illustration. One because I didn't want to illustrate all 5 of the main characters, and two because they seem to have a pretty good bond together.. based on 0 actual knowledge and only basing it off off the 3 trailers I've repeatedly watched over and over again. Played with light and colors a lot. Still a long, long way from where I need to be, but it was still a great exercise for me.

I have to go see the movie. You have to watch my video first. You read this far, might as well spend over 5 minutes watching a video that hopefully you like. I'm really exuding a lot of confidence in that last sentence...

Speed Painting 24: The Last of Us

With a summer release of the hit PS3 game The Last of Us confirmed to be coming out in the summer of 2014 to the PS4, I decided to illustrate one of my favorite games for June. Since it's E3, and they will announce it what month it will come out, I thought it would be a good time to do it now.

The illustration was pretty basic (but too a while to do) and used 2-3 references to really recreate it. However, I added a few easter eggs for fellow Naughty Dog fans from their previous franchises. Can you find them all?

CG Hub down officially, potenially new website for designers, 2d/3d illustrators & more

CG HUB is officially down.

They have closed it and their reasoning is "because they feel like it".  One really has to question why they didn't at least sell it to several potentially, rumored suitors, but I guess they felt like it.  Exact reasons have not been given and a lot of this have been vague, but many artists are wondering why the fuck this has happened the way it did.  CG Hub for people that don't know was a website where artists in 2D, 3D, caricatures, concept art, and many more uploaded their work.  This involved anything from personal projects to movies, tv, videogames, and books.  Many of the best artists in the world uploaded their work there.

Besides CG Hub opining a "Pro" version which allowed many artists to pay for the full year and start to get a few extra benefits.  This happened roughly 2 months prior to the website shutting down.  So this if not illegal, is incredibly shady.  People paid money and got screwed over it since CG Hub decided to close the doors.

At the end of the day, it's their product and they have every right to do with it as they please.  However since part of freedom of speech has not been completely closed off by government officials on the internet, I'd say this is a pretty douchey and illogical move from them.  They could have at least sold it off to another company that would have kept going.

hope of a new website

However there is hope that there might be another website made in a very similar fashion to CG HUB, where they take the best design/UI aspects and take off the crappy variations.  There is a potential Kickstarter coming out soon, but until then I can just send you the link to the company creating the website, Shakuro.  I'm still skeptical, but at least it's something.

Link Here

Speed Painting 22: Game of Thrones

So Game of Thrones season 4 comes out in a few days. I don't usually paint black & white illustrations, but I decided for it this particular issue, partly from a creative side and mostly from a lazy side. For this piece, I decided to illustrate Oberyn and Tyrion accross from one another as I get the impression they will play a massive role both in the Kingdom and among one another (I haven't read the books).

The sparrow and the tagline "all men must die" in Game of Thrones season 4 promos have been everywhere, and gave me the idea to make something stark in contrast (color wise) with the rest of the illustration. The two songs are also part of the GoT promos, and I thought I'd give some love to two good songs. Joffrey sitting on the throne like the douche that he is, and I included him there because I have a feeling he's finally going to die.

I was going to initially illustrate Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and even begun the speed painting. However during the early process of painting the piece.. for the first time ever, I scraped the piece and started from the beginning with very little time. This also explains part of my reasoning to go B&W in terms of color. Enjoy :)

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 17: Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad. One of the greatest shows ever made. I made a different scenario for this youtube speed painting illustration, with my type of circumstances added in there. I don't want to say anymore however, since I wouldn't want to spoil this masterpiece to the people that watch it.

The video doesn't work if you use a cellphone apparently, because Youtube is not allowing it for this one video.

Speed Painting 15: Person of Interest

You are being watched. This is the theme of the tv show Person of Interest. Cameras everywhere, listening and watching everything everyone does. Watch_Dogs, a new videogame is all about using technology to take advantage of the situation and control an entire city. It shows how easily the current technology can be manipulated. Add Edward Snowden's whistle blowing which confirmed that America is spying on every single citizen, which made my decision quite easy to make a speed painting about Person of Interest. The series also starts this month.

Enjoy the video. I worked a bit more on Adobe AE for both effects at the end and played with the music quite a bit.

Speed Painting 14: Batman vs Superman

The new Man of Steel 2 movie has been announced, and it has been revealed that Batman will play a major role in it. In its introduction, they quoted part of Frank Miller's comic where Batman and Superman fight one another, likely foreshadowing that the two will fight at least at some point during the movie. This is how I came with a basic idea of the two going against one another for my next speed painting. Now before Superman fanboys start raging about how Superman will always win, just stop. Batman is a much better character and always will be then Mr. "I have 0 flaws and every superpower they could think of when they made me". I used an outline and caricature style for this illustration, moreso for experimentation and to get out of my comfort zone. The green light at the top is supposed to give an idea of Green Lantern getting involved on what looks to be a city in massive chaos, trying to stop Lex Luthor. As we know, the Green Lantern movie that should have never been made was made, so I included him in here. Ryan Reynolds was born to play the Flash, not Hal Jordan.

Speed Painting 13: Star Wars

Hey guys, a new month and as always, a new speed painting coming out on the first day. I chose to illustrate Star Wars and have a detailed paragraph explaining what I was trying to convey. Hope you guys enjoy it, cheers!



So I finally watched all 6 Star Wars movies and decided to make a speed painting about it (yes I live in a cave, that's why I've never watched them all). An ex boss of mine was a huge Star Wars fan and I wanted to make a poster for him, and I thought might as well make it a speed painting while I'm at it. I've been checking out Dan Luvisi's pop culture work recently and may have subconsciously been innovated to make a Star Wars variation of such nature, where I make a gangster realistic style Star Wars crew (if you call that realistic...). I've put a lot of Easter eggs in this illustration, the question is can you find them all?

Speed Panting 12: Gears (Concept Art)

Hey guys, here's a quick update a new speed painting from me. I tried out concept art for the first time.. Well in my website I did have a concept art done 2 years ago, but that was looking at a reference and changing it "a small amount". This character is part of a world and story that I have had in my mind for about 8 months, but I was too scared to start concept art until now. Why not try concept art in a speed painting video where people can see you fail so many times over and over again? Well that was my way of thinking... Also my friend Ted also pushed me to start concept art instead of just talking and thinking about doing it. Below is the video, and below that there is a brief explanation of the main character Gears. Hope you guys enjoy it!



So the character's name is Gears. He is a normally goofy and at times quite idiotic, though he is also incredibly sarcastic and very provoking when he fights. Gears however is a genius only when it comes to technical aspects such as building or creating things in general. He also always goes on adventures with his partner Monkey (yes, the monkey's name is monkey...) Gears also uses gears (yeah...) that he puts around his body, and they speed up when he fights to give him both more speed and power.

Speed Painting 11: Gentleman (Psy)

Here's a new speed painting for this month, based on a new music video by Psy, called Gentleman. Hope you enjoy it as usual!

Speed Painting 10: Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)

Well if you want to watch Game of Thrones but don't want it spoiled (tv show not books), look at my other videos instead. There is this character in the show, white hair, young, that wants to rule over Kingdoms. Oh yeah, she also has three fucking dragons with her as they goes after what she thinks is rightfully hers. I love strong, deep women characters in TV series rather than a pretty face, and Daenerys fits this criteria very well. I illustrated part of the scene at the end of season 1 with her when her dragons finally hatch from their eggs and come to life, and added a few things such as one flying and another breathing fire. This happens a bit later in season 2 and season 3, but I wanted to give a slightly different perspective. If you somehow read this and don't watch the show, watch it. Go watch it right now.

Speed Painting 9: Mario Caricature

I still remember when I was a little kid playing Mario on the SNES with my mom, certainly one of the most iconic video game characters around. It was just a matter of time before I drew him. I wanted to try a "cartoony" (is this a even a word?) style illustration. Make it very welcoming, very sweet, great bright colors saying this is a nice picture, and then show Mario about to a eat a mushroom with his mouth filled with saliva at the thought of eating the mushroom while the mushroom is crapping his pants (doesn't have pants) at the thought, thus the massive amount of sweat. (unnecessary run-on sentence to display message vs illustration feel).

There is some animation at the end of the video for those interested, enjoy! ;)