Youtube, the place for crap customer service

Ahh youtube, yet another niche song that I pick for one of my speed paintings.. yet another time I get an infringed mark from a company that has nothing to do with the music company that published it. Well done Youtube and Google, I can only hope that one day the monkeys that are running behind that lengthy programming can end up finding a better way how to not screw over the people that originally made them money. Google really needs to find a better middle point.. or rather to find a middle point. Do better testing in regards to what company calls for an infringement, and adding a human contact after contacting the 12 customer service robots and their answers after which you never hear from them again.

It's unfortunate the amount of suits making decisions for Google that have bit by bit, transformed Youtube into a soulless website. Hopefully in a few years, there will be a competitor because at this point, I don't see a company doing a cruder job than what Google is doing with Youtube. I would imagine this post will fall more in line of either people sympathizing with this ideology or calling me a whiny, entitled prick who should waste less time on things he doesn't like than the things he does enjoy.

Speed Painting 25: The World Cup 2014

If you have been living under a rock that's living under another rock, you may have missed that the World Cup has started in June. It's located in Brazil this year, Russia in 4 years, and the slaves of Qatar are ensuring that stadiums are ready 8 years from now. Before I start going on a rant that the entire population of two people that will ever read about this post on the Qatar bid, let me just try and get past the ADHD to get to the point. I love football (or sawker as the only two countries on the planet like to call it) and decided to make a speed painting about it. I created a bunch of characters and added a bit of flavor to the story to attempt to make it interesting to watch.

This is just a note after you watch the video. I had Suarez sketched up 1 day before a certain incident happened. If you would like to know what my thought process was in regards to the speed painting, head to either my youtube video and read the description, or go to the videos section of my website. I wanted to try something different as I sometimes do and instead of copying and pasting the entire description on my blog, I would instead talk a bit about the project from a different angle.

Football is my passion. You take the work I do professionally (illustration, design), and you get 1/2 things I'm most passionate about. Hopefully that passion translates in a fun 5+ minute youtube videos for the two people that watch the video! I don't want my massive following to be disappointed.

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 23: The Amazing Spiderman 2

With the new Amazing Spiderman 2 movie coming in a day, I thought I'd give it a shot since he's one of my favorite comic book superheroes. Also the idea of Electro and Spiderman meant that I could go crazy in terms of colors when creating the illustration.

I used part of a scene from the movie and change it around a bit to my choosing. Enjoy it!

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.