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.

Overreliance on Technology

I recently had some issues with my internet service where it was practically unusable for nearly a week.  I called my internet provider they explained that for two months there have been issues and now it's gotten worse.  There was a small conversation on why they were taking their sweet time and all that jazz, where I rightfully got 50% discount for a certain amount of time.

Without a proper internet, I then got a taste of just how much I rely on it.  I always listen to podcasts or youtube videos while painting, and I was painting my latest speed painting at the time as well as writing.  In regards to music, I listen to grooveshark and in this computer I barely have any actual music downloaded.  So the choice was to either to paint in silence or listen to the same 10 songs over and over again.  Not being able to look for any images as references hurt a bit, as I had to make due in some occasions by finding them while I was at work.   Why not use your cellphone for data you ask?  Well because I only have 300MB of data per month.  I pay 40$/month which is perfect for peasants like me that use WIFI at home and at work while not having much money to afford a better deal. 



For me, it is a bit terrifying how over-reliant I am on technology.  I think as a society especially in North America, we all rely on it.  Husband and wife being in the same room and looking at iPads, cellphones and computer instead of talking more to one another, kids looking down at their cellphones texting instead of actually speaking to the friends they have next to one another.  We can't even go a bit away without looking at our phone even when we're driving, which has become such an incredible health issue in North America.  Louis CK goes over this subject in a manner that's much better articulated than what I'm doing on the youtube video above.

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.

Aftereffects - Particle World

Hey guys, this is a quick tip for people who might be interested in particle world effects for Adobe AfterEffects.  This is a way to make rain, or balls (among other things) that move around a screen in an organic manner.  It's very likely that I will be adding this effect for my next speed painting in the first opening 6 seconds that all my videos have.  You can even compare any previous video with the upcoming one and see the difference yourself.  If you would like a good step by step on how to do it, I have just the video for you.

Avengers: The Most Overated Movie of all Time

DC fanboy! Hater!  Internet hipster!  Let it out.  Let. it. out.  Now that you're feeling a bit better after frothing at the mouth when you read the title, keep reading.  I keep hearing here and there that Avengers is the best comic book movie of all time.  Now this rustles my jimmies.  I try to be reasonable and accept other opinions and preferences.  But I draw a line somewhere, both literally and metaphorically.  Some people for example have the nerve to find football ("soccer" for North Americans) boring.  The nerve of someone enjoying a different sport and not liking the exact same thing as I do.

Let me start off by saying that I enjoyed the first Avengers movie.  The main issue was that every time I thought about it, the worse it got.  When I saw it at the theaters with all the bells & whistles, the shine allowed several of its problems slip by me like a thief.  Still at the end of the day, one thing most people cannot deny about the movie is that it's enjoyable.  It still has a lot of flaws, but it's fun to watch.  I don't think I will ever watch it again since the movie got a lot worse the second time around.  Marvel movies in general aren't good for viewing a second time around, so this was no different.

As I said, the movie is fun.  The main protagonists are fun as hell to be around and they all have great chemistry with one another.  You want to root for them, you want them to win.  The comedy even though it's very sitcom-like and incredibly overdone, is still pretty damn funny.  The CGI is always on point and the action scenes are pretty good, so you're always enjoying yourself.  Also bringing in so many characters from so many movies as seamlessly as they have is something that's never been done so well nor do I think will be bested for a very long time, if ever.

That's supposed to be the main villain ?...  Loki, you're a shit villain.

Now that I got that out of my chest, lets get to the bad.  A huge problem I have is Loki.  He's a terrible villain, the worst in all Marvel movies which says something considering how bad their villains generally are.  It's a huge problem when half the Avengers team can solo the main villain of the movie.  It's worse when one already did it in a previous movie.  It's even worse when he gets humiliated by another one for sitcom-comedy.  I have no idea why Marvel didn't write one of Thanos' devastating subordinates coming out of that hole.  Then we would have had a proper tie-in to Thanos two movies earlier, showing that one of his soldiers can cause this much damage.. imagine what will happen when Thanos eventually comes.  Marvel completely fucked up any chance for a sense of danger and need for accomplishment in that regard.  You can pick any C rated generic action flick and find such uninspirational villains as Loki in the Avengers.  He was better in Thor.

Other issues that are (mostly) not as big.. well, here's a list of them:  Comedy witty banter often past the suspension of disbelief, everyone is a professional 1-line comedian machine.  Captain America not being captain of the Avengers.  It's basically Tony Stark as the leader until a 10 minute sequence at the end of the movie when Rodgers gives a few orders.  Tony even saves the day, and I wouldn't mind as much if he wasn't the star beforehand.  The hole closes, and all the villains conviniently get taken out?  Plot convenience at its finest.  The movie is by the numbers and not particularly deep at all (ie. no point re-watching it again).  It also contains what I consider one of the two worst pieces of writing in a comic book movie.  One is in a flashback scene with Clark in Man of Steel watching a certain event happen, and the second one is Banner turning into Hulk and being magically able to control himself.  No development, no hints, nothing.  Just purely out of plot necessity.  Only thing it needed is a cool 1-liner of "I am always angry" to rub the salt on the shitty writing.

Lets see how big of an improvement it will over the original

Ok, that felt good.  I feel better, looser, shed a few pounds talking about that.  Saying all that, I still am very excited about Avengers 2.  Ultron already looks like a far better villain than Loki so that already looks like a massive improvement.  Whether it will have the other issues of Avengers 1, I don't know.  But I sure am excited to see this movie.

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.