After a few hectic weeks I’ve completed all my freelance jobs (woo-hoo!), so now I have more time to do some of my own stuff.
This is something that, as usual, I started without really knowing what would come up.
And since for some reason I had saved the early versions, I can post the first two stages.
If it were a tutorial, it would be something like “draw a silhouette first, paint shit in after”.

There’s a whole bunch of concepts I had been given permission to post.
Unfortunately I suck at Internet, so, despite my WordPress interface being fool-proof, every time I have to post anything I must get everyone out of the house, shut the blinds, put classical music on, pour a coffee and be prepared to spend the next couple of hours fighting with ftp and stuff.
This means posting things requires time, which I have an chronic lack of.

Anyway, now that I’m done complaining about my first-world problems, here are another couple of concepts I made for my favourite quest so far, One Piercing Note.
They are both for the clock tower. It was quite a challenge, the combination between quest requirements and engine limitations made the whole thing a mine field of issues to address.
Also, the drawing distance didn’t allow too high a tower, increasing the risk of something closer to a can of tuna rather than a graceful structure striving to touch the sky.

In the end I think we did a good job, so if you haven’t played the quest yet, do it now!

Richard Robinson is an artist I’ve been following for quite a while.
Well, he’s not only an artist, he’s an art teacher, and his videos about light and colour are amongst the best I’ve seen around.
He’s also a fan of Sargent and Sorolla as I am, so well, it has been love at first sight, so to speak.
There are plenty of painter’s tutorials on the internet, but only few of them have a style I’d really like to see in my own work.
If my colours were half as vibrant as Richard’s I would already consider myself an accomplished artist. In the meantime I try and learn what I can from his monthly workshops.

They work slightly differently from other workshops, in that there’s a monthly assignment, people post their work in progress, and Richard posts his comments and suggestions along the way.
Attendees can express their approval on fellow artists via the usual Like button forums often have.
The one with the highest number of Likes at the end of the month wins, a part from the mere enjoyment of peer’s approval, one of Richard’s paintings.
For the workshop he also paints his own version of the assignment and posts the video of the process at the end of the month. Which is great, because you see which choices a master would take in the same thing you tried to do.

The community is quite nice as well, there are some skilled artists there and they’re all really nice and helpful.
More often than not, other people’s eyes are better than yours, especially if you’ve been staring at the same things for a few hours.

Anyway, I had the time to work only of two of the four workshops so far, because it always clashed with some of my freelance deadlines (gosh I can’t wait to be allowed to post THOSE things!)
I was pretty happy with the first one, now looking back at it I realize it’s pretty weak.
Maybe I’m getting better already?

This is another one of the environments I made for Runescape.
The quest it was made for is One Piercing Note, maybe the project I’ve had more fun working on.
There were many requirements we had to comply with in terms of gameplay. There’s something happening at some point, and I had to design the building to make this main event as interesting as possible AND at the same time overcoming some pretty tough engine limitations.
For this reason I had to model the entire environment on Google Sketchup first, and try and address all the possible issues together with the modelling team before they happened.
I’m really happy with the result, the monastery is one of the best looking places in the game so far (the next releases are going to be even better!), not to mention the fact that the content is top quality, a really fun quest to play, with a unique feel and a wonderful soundtrack.

As if all this weren’t enough, the lore this quest is built on – The Song Before The War – is a great read, check it out on the author’s blog, which links directly to its page on Runescape’s website.

I’m finally allowed to post some of the artwork I made for Runescape.
Well, to be honest I could have posted some concepts month ago, but production material is often rushed and not always aimed at “being pretty”, so to speak.
It needs to be clear for modellers, mostly, and usually completed as soon as possible.

This is, instead, one of the loading screens, for which we are usually allowed some more time.
I enjoyed a lot drawing this, more to come in the following days, it’s late now!

For the big version go here.

A couple of months ago I so happened to delete my entire music library.
About 100 GB worth of it, like a couple decades of carefully and lovingly selected music. All gone. With a click.

I won’t go into the detail of how it happened, I’ll just throw there two sentences: “Mac root password” and “I’m an idiot”.
Anyway, one of its consequences, apart from having to gather some of that stuff back from backups, rip it from CDs and beg friends to lend me their copies, is that I’m going through the tedious process of putting playlists back together.
And, most importantly, tagging songs and embedding album artwork.

You see, people have this misconception of artists being all messy and carefree and chaotic.
That’s bullshit.
I mean, ok, I scatter clothes around and wash dishes only when the pile in the sink reaches the tap preventing me to use the kettle. But those are not places where I spend my time, if you know what I mean.
I couldn’t bear to work on a less than spotless desk. Mess would distract me.
Also, while listening to music on my iPhone I can’t stand songs popping up with Apple’s ugly default “generic music file icon”. That’s unacceptable. Not pretty.
Hence the tagging.
I know I’m not weird.
Really, I’m not!

Anyway, all this introduction is to say that today I am listening to music I normally don’t listen to while drawing at home, for tagging and rating purposes.
Enter Iron Maiden.

I haven’t listened to the Irons for ages. They used to be my favourite band when I was a kid, I played their songs thousands and thousands of times, I stopped listening to them just because I don’t need to, they’re just there.
It’s amazing how things can remain branded in our brain for decades, tucked under some neuron, between eighties’ clothes and adolescent traumas.
Then all of a sudden one song comes on, just one, and an entire closet of memories blows up in your face. I had long hair back then. Long and curly. I mean, proper heavy metal hair.
I put conditioner on it, to keep it soft and shiny, you know.
You can’t do head banging or play air guitar with short hair, that’s just silly.

One other, less painful thing I remember of that period is the pure joy of unwrapping a new Irons’ CD (no wait, it was vinyl at the beginning, fuckin hell I had vinyls).
And now we get to the point of this wordy post.
Derek Riggs.

Derek Riggs is the guy who designed Eddie, Iron Maiden’s famous mascotte.
He illustrated Iron Maiden’s covers from their first album to Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son.
These covers, for example.

He is a self taught artist, (like myself!), he briefly attended Art School but dropped out soon because it bored him and he disagreed with their approach.
His covers were exquisitely drawn, and packed with details. All those details were some kind of more or less obscure reference to the Irons’ history. A shop sign on the background recalled the first pub where they played their very first gig, another detail referenced a line in their lyrics and so on.
I used to spend hours observing those drawings, trying to figure out what the symbols might have meant. Because you know, there wasn’t the internet back then, we used to make shit up on our own sometimes.
I copied a lot of those covers. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s when it all started. Derek was one of my teenage heroes, even before Frank Frazetta and Boris Valleyo (not so much a fan of the latter’s style now, but he was The Man back then).
I can’t say that I’m a concept artist because of Derek Riggs, but well, yes maybe I can. Thanks Derek, virtual manly hug for you.

So there, I just put all these pieces together only because I’m listening to the Iron Maiden while drawing.
So it wasn’t that bad that I erased all my music library, was it?
Who’s the idiot now.

How long ha sit been now, fifteen years? Twenty?
Whatever, I can’t hold it in any longer: Mrs. Fausta, when you were teaching me how to use coloured pencils back in Primary School, I was thinking of something else. There, I said it, I feel better now.
I should have listened to you, and I didn’t, ok? I can’t remember what I was thinking of, spaceships, rainbows, who knows. The fact is, I’m as good at drawing with coloured pencils as I was when I was 10. I don’t know why. I don’t want to brag but I’m kind of ace with normal pencils. Coloured pencils, instead, don’t like me.
It’s not my fault, I actually love them, and I fiercely envy those who are proficient with the apparently sophisticated art of drawing with kids tools.
No matter how hard I try, they have the despicable tendency to turn brown as soon as I look away, colours don’t mix the way I expect, and, well, did I mention the turning brown issue? They do it a lot.

I drew something a few days back. I won’t post it because it sucks. Big time. But I tried blending the colours with my awesome watercolour brush, and even if that made them suck even more, I understood why. There’s hope with watercolours. Coloured pencils, on the other hand, will be an upward slope.

The good thing about my failure is that I went back to traditional media, at least a bit. I’ll always be better at sketching on paper than I am on screen. The only way around it would be buying a Cintiq, as I said before. Or inheriting one from a deceased artsy uncle I haven’t yet met.
God I’d really love having a Cintiq.
Anyway, I did some doodling the other day. Nothing special but I love paper, always will.

By the way, I highly recommend this website to buy drawing material. They have a lot of stuff and they’re quick to deliver.
I’m in love with the sketchbook I got, Artifolk A3 Landscape harback 150gsm.

I’m not a man of many appetites, you see. You could ask anyone. All I woud ask of Life is, maybe, being prosperous to the point of not having to work, ever, and possibly healthy and witty for another 80 years or so.
And I would be good: If I were rich I wouldn’t waste money in fancy cars, yachts and drugs. Nothing like that. I’d be content with what I have now, give something to the poor, be moderate and generous, and just buy Wacom products the very moment they are released.
Ok, there’s a shitload of other gadgets I’d waste money on, but the new Cintiq, gosh, have you seen it?
I’m not just fascinated by technology. I know I would simply be a better person if I owned one. I know I’m not asking much, it’s just $2499 for the 21″ version.

Look, I’m not even asking Life to get rich at this point, I’d be more than happy to have a rich friend who decides to buy me one. I’ll paint them a bloody portrait for Christ’s sake!

The sad thing (ok, first-world-sad) is that – lacking rich friends as I in fact do – I can’t even say “right, I’ll save money and I’ll buy it later”, because marvels of technology are usually released when two other conditions occur at the same time:
1- I have barely enough money to feed the lot I live with.
2 – I’m going through a period of shopping frenzy and I have alredy planned to buy ALL THE SHIT.

For example, I’ve also seen this a few weeks ago, and I MUST HAVE IT.
It’s the new Wacom Inkling, look how shiny it is.

Really, Life, be good to me. I would be like a proper artist, I’d carry it with me all the time, and I would roam through fields and meadows drawing the living crap out of trees and bunnies.
I’d be like one of those romantic painters, always strolling in the countryside and painting flowers and stuff. Except that I won’t be covered in paint all the time like a frickin primary school kid: I’ll get home, plug the thing into my computer and colour my drawings in photoshop.
Really, I need it!

I’ve also started going back to Life Drawing. As you can see from this link, the venue it’s no less than the King’s College in Cambridge.
I’d like to go there even if I couldn’t draw, just for the feeling you get of entering Hogswarth when you step through the gate.
I mean:

Going back to pencils made me fall in love again with traditional media, even if I’m afraid my short attention span and the lack of undos in real life will keep me solidly attached to my Wacom for professional work.
Nonetheless, I think I’ll try and divide my time between ZBrush, Photoshop and some proper paper and canvas in my spare time.

This, of course, counts as one of the things I’d like to spend money on and I won’t be able to afford for a long time.
I spent an hour shopping online for painting gear, and after I realised my shopping cart was already about 100 quid worth of brushes and paint, I decided to stick with just a couple of drawing pads for this month. Oh, and some coloured pencils, and this.

It’s a waterbrush, which implies you can use it to blend watercolour pencils without the need to carry water with you.
I think it’s pretty cool, I’ll practice with this for a while and then shift to proper watercolours when I’ll feel comfortable enough.
On always-awesome-James-Gurney’s Blog there’s a demo of himself painting a donkey with this technique.
Check it out, it’s nice even if you’re not into this sort on things, and he looks like a pretty decent bloke:)

Last week Time.com released its list of the 50 Best Websites of 2011.
Since I recently spent something like 8 hours re-organising my bookmarks, I can afford to place some more links in my favs folder.

These are the websites I saved, either because they’re cool or because I’ll recommend them to people in order to look cool\receive compliments like “aww I’ll visite this website all the time, I don’t know how to say thank you you’re my hero” and so on.

Howcast. It’s like Youtube, except for the fact that there are no 10-years-old uploading their cover of Justin Bieber, but only people who know their shit posting things like “how to build an electromagnet” and things like that.

Poptropica. It’s a site for kids. They’ll love it.

Wonderopolis. A website that explains facts, like “how does an eraser work” and “how people removed pencil marks before Englishman Edward Naime invented the eraser in 1770“.

GetHuman is possibly the best website of the entire internet. It gathers together the phone number Big Companies try to make difficult to find. Like, Facebook, Vodafone, Visa, you name it, they can’t hide from your frustration anymore.

ScienceDaily, a website about what our friends The Scientists discover every day.

Kickstarter. is a website where you can post you Big Idea (or your small idea!) and people bid to finance it. I’ll never use but I know some people out there who might find it useful.

Airbnb I won’t use this one either any time soon, since I don’t have enough money to get from Cambridge to Ely right now. Other people might find AirBnB a precious source to find cheap accommodation mostly everywhere across the world.
It’s a market place – like eBay – for spare rooms, unused holiday houses and things like that.
It also provides an insurance to cover possible damages your guests might leave in your place.

Hipmunk is an engine that makes finding flights and comparing fares extremely easy.

Retrevo helps you find the right item for your needs, comparing prices, qualities, reviews and so on.

Qora it’s like Yahoo Answers but with less trolls and more qualified people.

Storify. I haven’t tried it yet but I’ll quote the entire TIme’s caption here because it seems interesting.

Twitter is full of pithy, smart stuff, much of which is seen by relatively few people before it is buried and forgotten. The best of it is worth preserving and sharing more broadly. Enter Storify, a clever service that lets you bundle up related tweets, TwitPics, Facebook updates, Flickr photos and other elements onto one page. You can add your own commentary and publish the assembled package on the Web. Even professional newsgathering outfits are experimenting with Storify as a new way to report on major stories like the London riots.

KhanAcademy Free lessons in thousands of different topics, Math, Science and so on.

OpenYaleCourses Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn. Isn’t cool? I mean, knowledge, spread for free.

I noticed I tend to use strong lights more often than not, maybe because that way it’s easier to draw the shadows.
This time I wanted to try and draw a scene with that dim kind of light you get in the first minutes of a hazy dawn.
So I thought about it, planned ahead, read about it on blogs and stuff but then ended up shamelessly picking up the colours from a picture I randomly found on the Boston Globe.