Citadels Almost Out + Other News

Well, my Mac Pro was kind of ageing, one of the graphic cards was gone and every brush stroke I asked of him was given with that “ok here you go but I’m not liking it because I’m old” attitude that makes work a lot less pleasant.
Therefore, I bought a new iMac.
You know, the one with the HUGE 27″ Monitor. The screen is so wide that if you stare ad its center the edges are in your peripheral vision.
Images are unbelievably crisp, I doubt there’s a better monitor around, and I can’t wait to start drawing something.
I just need to finish installing stuff and moving files from one place to another.
It will be vampires for the next couple of weeks, btw.

Anyway, Eurogamer (and other websites) are starting to talk about our next release.

In this article there’s one of the images I’ve made for marketing, and a pretty cool trailer.
I can’t wait for the content to be released, it will be a huge thing for MMORPGs.
In the meantime, I’m back to moving files and configuring apps.

Some Overdue Pretty Pictures

Well, I’ve been pretty busy recently, which is why I haven’t posted anything for a few weeks. My Instapaper folder is full of “read later” links which I’ll never have the time to read, so I might as well delete it and get over it. I hate when that happens, who knows what I’m about to get rid of? What marvels of the human mind am I leaving behind forever?

Of the whole bunch I’ll just post the next two. The first one is a website with a load of pictures from the backstage of famous movies. Some of them are incredibly cute so it deserves to be saved on my blog forever. As usual, the image links to the original website.

The second (awesome) link is Inspirational Works of Art, which gathers together like a billion paintings from old masters. I found it a while ago on Gurney’s blog, which is, as always, an inestimable source of information.
As if that weren’t enough, the site is also packed with anatomy images, photo references and links to other useful resources.
I can’t find any information on who went through the hassle of putting all that stuff together. It’s a pure act of love, so, guy I can’t find any contact information of: thanks.
Of all the images you can find there I’ll post this portrait of a man with an alien tucked in his crotch.

In other news, I’m working on an incredibly cool project that (hopefully) will fill my evenings for quite a while. The sucky part about it is that I can’t reveal what it is until it’s published, which I will do as soon as possible TO SHAMELESSLY BRAG ABOUT IT.

BONUS CONTENT:

Weeks 23 and 23 in Pretty Pictures

Well, I have been quite busy again (as I will be for the next month or so), so I had to skip AN ENTIRE WEEK OF PRETTY PICTURES OMG!!1!, which makes this post the usual two-for-one.

Anyway, I do sincerely feel sorry for the hundreds of people around the world forced to spend their wages on car wash to get rid of all the hot ashes from their windshields; but it so happens that everyone else really enjoys pictures of volcanoes erupting in a display of flames and thunder.
So, here’s a few pictures of another volcano, the Puyehue in Chile, possibly even more scenographic than the unpronounceable volcano that recently erupted in Iceland.
Really, have a look at the article linked in the pictures, there’s some pretty nice stuff, as well as here.

The next picture is perhaps the best I’ve stumbled upon last week. Those eyes are mesmerising. This is the post on reddit where I found it, whereas the picture links to the author’s page on Flickr.

BONUS:

Stanley Kubrick taking a picture of his daughter and himself behind Jack Nicholson’s back.

Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson washing their dishes,

Freddy Mercury on Fabulous Vader’s shoulders

and possibly the funniest gif in the entire Internet.

Carvetown Mining Site

I’ve been following lots of tutorials, lately.
I’ve copied them from my computer onto my iPhone (thank you Jailbreak guys!), I watch them on VLC mobile while I work (which is still awesome, thank you VLC guys!) and I complain about the fact that Tutorial Guys are sooo much better than I am.
When I finish putting together the broken pieces of my ego I usually try to put in practice what I’ve learned.

I thus realised that my palette is still quite limited, and I still struggle a bit when it comes to handling certain colours.
I feel confident enough with values (which, apparently, are the most difficult thing to master), but with colours I definitely need more practice.

In the next few days I’ll try to experiment with some techniques I’ve never used before (textures, ways to harmonize hues and such, matte painting), but most importantly to use palettes slightly out of my comfort zone, hence the warm, saturated colours of this last drawing.

I was more interested in the colours so I didn’t give much thought to the subject.
I took a picture I found on the internet as a reference, where buildings built from local rocks merged perfectly with the surroundings.
I thought it would be interesting to see it as a town carved directly from the hillside, possibly by a primitive, undefined civilisation.

Week 21 In Pretty Pictures

I’m kind of late on my personal schedule this week, I’ve had a dearest friend over from Italy and I’ve spent most of my weekend showing off my beautiful Cambridge and dealing with my hangover.
Since I’ve been preoccupied all week with yet another Volcano eruption in Iceland, which would possibly disrupt flights to England, here’s a couple of pretty pictures of Vatnajökull, angry as hell.

The other big event of the week was a series of tornadoes that wreaked havoc all across the US. The images that crowded the internet were far from pretty, which is why I’d like to post the following, which I won’t comment about.

The following image is moving and beautiful. The man has the face of someone who could do no evil, ever. You know, the kind of guy you would hug for no reason.
The picture is the winner of the People, Places, and Nature category in 2010 National Geographic’s Photography Contest.

BONUS CONTENT (from Reddit)

Votes are open

The Dominance War public votes have started, the page is here, do your job!

Some good stuff in there btw

Week 20 in Pretty Pictures

My God week 20 already, where has 2011 gone? I’m happy I wasn’t sucked up to Heaven by Jesus anyway.

Once again I’m in two minds about the best picture I’ve stumbled upon during the past 7 days.
After long consideration I think that Prince Philip longing for a pint is not bad at all.
The picture links to less pretty images, some people weren’t too happy about Queen Elizabeth visiting Ireland.
I still think she’s a sweet old lady:)

Second best picture of the week is undoubtedly the following. How cool is this man? (I can’t remember where I found it, sorry about that).

Then I found a website so cool that I started following the guy on twitter. The entire website is a laugh, I recommend as many minutes of browsing as our diminished internet attention span allows.

I’ll close with National Geographic’s best Night-sky Pictures of 2011.

BONUS CONTENT:

(Source: Reddit)

Well, I’m finished. I really am this time.

I eventually started working on my Dominance War entry again.
Considering that the deadline is tomorrow (and most importantly, that I have submitted it already) this is my final version.
There’s some good stuff out there, I don’t think I’ll have many chances, but the competition has a nice feel and working on it has been quite fun.

I’m not much into long projects, at least at home, so I don’t know if I’ll ever take part in anything so time-demanding again.
I usually prefer drawing quickies while watching TV shows (MY GOD HAS ANYONE SEEN GAMES OF THRONES YET?), but who knows?
Anyway, here are all my finals:

Week 19 in Pretty Pictures

Last week there was the 66th anniversary of the surrender of the Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union, commonly known as Victory Day.
It was first begun in the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union following the signing of the surrender document late in the evening on May 8, 1945, but already after midnight by Moscow time, thus May 9th.
After the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, most former USSR countries retained the celebration. In Russia during the 1990s, May 9th was not celebrated massively, because Soviet-style mass demonstrations did not fit in with the way the liberal power base in Moscow communicated with the country’s residents. Things changed when Vladimir Putin came to power. He started to promote the prestige of the governing regime and history, national holidays and commemorations all became a source for national self-esteem. Since then Victory Day in Russia has increasingly been turning into a joyous celebration in which popular culture plays a great role.

As expected there were lots of pretty pictures taken that day.
I couldn’t decide which one to post here, so I picked two. As usual the pictures link to their original post.

I think this man must be the most decorated in history. There are other over-decorated people in the original post but this man is the coolest. I’m dying to know what every medal is there for. Really, I’d love to sit in that guy’s living room and hear him talk for a few hours.

Then I chose this picture for the simple reason that it’s disturbing to my sense of proportions. I mean, I’m pretty sure that those soldier’s legs are longer than they’re supposed to be. By a lot.

Last week also saw the winners of the World Photography Awards 2011.
They were chosen from more than 51,000 submissions from 148 countries.

As a concept artist I love to (and have to) keep a considerable amount of pictures as reference for my job. Most of them are creatures of various kind, and I’m always amazed at how Nature, most times, surpass Fantasy, even when it doesn’t have any brief to be constrained into.
The next picture is from Wired Science’s The Ocean’s Oddest Creatures And Why They Matter

Browsing Reddit I found this picture of the well known Al Khazneh in Jordan.
It has been seen in a lot of films, after Indiana Jones 3, but this shot is pretty cool.

BONUS CONTENT (I used to do it all the time to my sister, lol):

Weeks 17 and 18 in Pretty Pictures

Right, it’s not that I’ve been lazy, I’ve just been really busy and last week I never had the time to post the pictures I had saved the week before.
So this week it’s Two For One time.

The big events of the last two weeks were of course the Royal wedding and the celebrations for the 1st of May.
I wasn’t exactly among the people looking forward to the Royal wedding, but the event gave the chance to everyone in the UK to enjoy a looong weekend, so well, I’m happy they got married in the end:)
As usual the images link to their original post.

The pictures I stumbled upon on the 1st of May are nowhere near as pretty as those I found for the Royal wedding.
People are restless around the world, with good reason, and that day most of them took the chance to manifest their malcontent by, well, rioting.
Here’s some pictures of what happened last week, and as I said they’re not pretty.

The other week I learned about someone who travelled something like 6000 miles across the US and Africa (sorry I can’t be more accurate but I can’t find the original post) taking pictures of the Milky Way.
The result is this stunning interactive map of the sky, as a matter of fact the biggest interactive map available on the internet. It’s pretty amazing, sorry I can’t find the link to give the author his credit.

On the National Geographic I found the following pretty pictures of Space.
As I said in other occasions I have a thing for Everything Spacey, so here you go.

BONUS CONTENT:
These images cracked me up, I probably found both of them on Reddit. I still can’t stop laughing (lol)