In The Creative World - Use Your Friends

Wait.. wait.. WAIT!!!  Don't run away, it's not what you think.  If you thought this was meant in a malicious way, you are a horrible human being.  If however, you're thinking that the title is a click bait title for the sake of pulling in 1 more viewer than I normally pull then.. yes, that's pretty much it.  This blog post's primary role is for you creative people to do something that seems like common sense, yet a ton of you still don't do it.  Ask other creative people for advice on projects you work for.

My work revolves around illustration, all related design work, web development, and some writing.  I have several friends that I use for all these creative outlets.  In regards to illustration, I use several friends.  Two of them being my good friends I went to school with, another is professional comic book illustrator, and another is my illustration teacher in college that is now my friend.  In regards to design, I use another friend that I went to school with along with the designer that taught me both design and front end development during my 2 month period where you work before graduation as a requirement.  Two of my best friends are programmers, so I can ask them for help on what I need to look for in web development, sometimes via hangouts while I'm at work.  My sister wants to be a professional writer in the future and has the grammar & vocabulary that an idiot like me does not come close to.

My point is use the people around you.  It's very likely some will come and ask for your input as well.  If they don't.. well then, you need to get better because they clearly don't think your input means much.  Before you start crying in a corner how you will never be good enough.. well actually go on ahead and do it.  A good cry as long as noone ever hears or knows about it is good for you.  Now I never cry because I am a man, and men don't cry.. but I have heard that it is good for you...

Recently, I was creating a mobile video game app logo for a company.  Throughout my creative process, I talked to one of my friends which helped me reach the logo to a level I don't think I would have had I not asked for her view on it.  Sometimes no matter how many hours or how long you look at a project, you need a pair of fresh eyes (that sounds creepy...) to take a look at it.  Having another perspective is huge and many times can give you a nice roadmap in telling you if you're going in the right direction.  This is something that sounds so simple, yet a lot of people in the creative world don't do it.

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 31: Arrow

So Mid-season Finale of Arrow season 3 was pretty crazy, and I felt like this had to be topic for January when the second half of the season begins.  Unfortunately, I cannot go into huge detail on my process thinking into this one unlike previous illustration videos since this video contains spoilers only for the ones that are caught up.

I purposely illustrated this piece this way for the simple fact that some people may get interested in the show or simply not caught up.  This illustration is set up for both people that are caught up and those interested.  Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy and don't mind how vague or how little information is being conveyed in the description unlike other instances.  Cheers! :)

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and hope you get some nice gifts if you celebrate.  If you don't celebrate or noone loves you, then work on that for next year.  Happy holidays you creative bastards! :)

Keep App - Fastastic Free App for Android Users (Keeps You Organized)

I used to write everything down.  Monday to Sunday, a list of things I had to do whether it's drawing, design, freelance, personal project and the list goes on.  I killed a lot of trees.  Fear not android users, for people like me I have come up with a solution.  I'm going to tell you to use the pre-installed app that comes with a lot of android phones that other people have designed and developed...

it's useful and looks might pretty & intuitive

You can make notes for each day of the week and make a list of it.  You can check them off, and even set a reminder for it.  I looked for 20 seconds to find an image online.  As you see above, you can change the color of the background to diversify the content.  I have 7 green blocks created for the 7 days of the week.  The other blocks have different colors to separate the content.  You can even take images and add them there to make a note of it.

By no means is the app perfect, but it's still fantastic and free.  The reminder for example is incredibly basic and you can't add your own sound effect for it to make it more prominent.  It would be nice if there were different sections or folders.  That way, you have one section where you have weekly list, another section for work list, and another section for other.  Arranging blocks could use a bit more fine tuning, though it's still pretty good.  Add subsections to lists would be nice.  So Project 1, has 2 mini lines with work #1 and work #2 for example.  Enough of these ramblings however.  You need to have some type of list app/routine to stay on top of things, and this app does it for free.

iOS users, the app doesn't exist for you all.  I'm certain there's similar apps for iPhones, but I can only help android users in this case.

Youtube Copyright Changes - You done good Google

You done good Google, you done good. I have been complaining to my friends, making facebook statuses about it as if anyone cares, and to random strangers on the street that Youtube's copyright policy is pretty terrible. How dare Google have their own way of doing things for a free service that they provide to me?

I hope that "2" icon isn't a copyright flag, as it 

still states good standing on my account....

I create illustrations that are recorded then uploaded in a sped up process into an average of just over 5 minutes of said illustration. I upload them on the first of every month.  I generally have to look everywhere to find a song that doesn't get copyrighted, or just use a Ramin Djawadi/Two Steps from Hell song since their music doesn't get flagged. I never monetize any of my videos. My idea is not to make money on this personal, monthly project of mine. It gives me deadlines to paint digitally every single month. I get to learn more about programs like Adobe Premiere, Audition, and AfterEffects. Of course if I am lucky, a video blowing up would give me the opportunity for a lot of potential clients in the future as well. The more people that would see the work, the more likely I have freelance, job opportunities.

 About time!

As you see above, it states that you can have music background as long as you don't monetize it. All I can say is thank you and about time, because I'm as entitled as the average person albeit quite self-aware of it, which I do not believe makes it any better.

Normally I would have to go back to AfterEffects, change the song, change the image icon of the song and re-upload everything again.  This might not include all songs but if it does, it's all I ever wanted Google.  Well.. it's one thing.  I am human, which means I'll always want something else the second that I get or attain something that of which I've longed for. 

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.