Archive for May, 2011

Fruit is, without a doubt, not as exciting or impressive as movie stills.

May 24th, 2011 at 9:19 pm No Comments

…But likely more valuable.

Then again, the artists I’ve mentioned the cinematic exercise to all tend to agree that it’s a really good way to learn how to paint.

The pear on the left was my first attempt at a purely-from-observation digital painting. It took a lot of squinting and puzzled facial expressions (which I’m convinced helps me think) to understand what crazy things the colors were doing. I believe the resulting image resembles a pear, so we’ll call that one a success. The apple on the right is starting up faster due to having a better grasp of how all this light bouncing works and I intend to spend more time on it, even if pears are far superior to apples.

I’m beginning to regret having placed it in a super wrinkly chunk of fabric, though.

[Edit]
Stopping work on the apple. Screw cloth >:|~

Categories: Art No Comments

Painting Exercise: Blade Runner (30min vs 1 hr), and the lack of fruit.

May 10th, 2011 at 1:05 am No Comments

I said there’d be fruit exercises about 3 weeks ago.

There is no fruit.

I did buy the fruit and it’s been sitting on my desk for 3 weeks (note: plastic), but no painting of the fruit. Felt quite rusty when I picked up the pen yesterday so I did a few more screen cap replications. The other 45 minute one I did featuring Harrison Ford is going to stay hidden on my hard drive because there’s an embarrassing lack of resemblance. Luckily, I don’t know who the actress who plays Rachel is or what exactly she’s supposed to look like.

An example of the difference 30 minutes can make (…or the difference focused detail can make). Also an example of why I need to focus on maximum capture at minimal duration. Reaalllly need to get better with that. Also would like to repeat excuse of how long it’s been since I last tackled one of these. It’s tempting to work past the 30 minute mark because I don’t want all of my exercises to be hideous ._. Must remind self that they’re for learning.

Reasons for neglecting the tablet (aka “Plugs for awesome things”)

1) The CreeD series, which Trent began publishing when he was 16 (!!), is being released by IDW (probably best known for their Transformers and maybe Zombies vs. Robots comics) this summer. I designed a mini-site to promote that fact.

2) Boey was prepping to launch a Kickstarter campaign so I helped with some updates to his site.

3) Trent received invitations to both Long Beach and Anaheim Comic Con which kept us busy for two straight weekends.

4) The computer building (previous post).

Categories: Art, General, Web No Comments

The computer is done, but may suffer from an identity crisis in the future.

May 7th, 2011 at 8:49 pm No Comments

When shopping around for cases, built-in LEDs were kind of a factor. I’m not a fan of glowing blue cases — they just feel far too chilly and emotionless. Red, while potentially demonic looking, generally resonates with me better. (White would’ve been neat, but those seem to be pretty rare.) I ended up purchasing a case that didn’t come with any prominent colored lights so that made things easier, and since the case had no lights I looked for fans with no lights (my shopping philosophies are guided by powers beyond my own comprehension). Unfortunately, with fans I prioritized performance + price over visual consistency, and due to Microcenter having limited inventory I wound up with 1 red fan and 2 blue ones. I killed the lights on the blue fans, but the plastic itself is blue and my motherboard apparently has blue LEDs. I’m sure there’s a way to turn the mobo lights off… Starting to think the red/blue combination looks cool, though.

Stopped keeping track after these items. I believe the total, including monitor and fans, cames out to about $1050. Ran memory and CPU stress tests over the course of 1-2 days without any issues turning up, but haven’t done major overclocking and am still wary that some random component’s going to go kaput in a week or two. Most painful part about this entire project? Threading the plastic fans by hand using a screwdriver. Cursed fans.

Categories: Gadgets, General No Comments