God Of Swords.

Well, I’m almost finished with my God of Swords, this one is my last-ish version.
I’ll let it rest for a few days and see how I like it with fresh eyes.
Regardless of the result I’m quite happy I’ve gone this far, I’m not good with long deadlines.
I mean, if I were a super hero my Power would be procrastination.
I would be Captain Tomorrow.

Anyway, something can still go wrong, I have to start the concept sheet and the workflow document yet, but I’m pretty confident I’ll finish everything before the 16th.

(*in movies this is when Wacoms explode, lightning storms erase hard drives and things like that*)

Week 16 in Pretty Pictures

Well, last week I stumbled upon so many pretty pictures that I had to make some tough choices. Life is hard.
And, like the week before, there were some pretty important anniversaries, mostly related to space exploration and travel, one of my most favouritest topics ever ever. I mean, when at the pub I’d be more than happy to talk about just that, and I’m perfectly capable of doing it without mentioning anything even remotely related to maths, which takes some skill considering the topic.
Anyway, last week it was Hubbles’s 21st birthday (Hubble the telescope, not the astronomer).
As a present, NASA’s astronomers released a shot of two rose shaped galaxies (that is, ARP 273). Happy birthday Mr. Hubble.

Last week also saw the Solar Space Telescope’s first birthday. It has been sending some pretty stunning images to earth for more than a year, and it’s supposed to do so for another four.
In the picture below there’s a flare that took place in December 2010. It stretched across 435,000 miles, the entire radius of the Sun (as usual, the images link to the original websites).

Now, some of the most beautiful pictures of Earth I’ve ever seen.
Below are some shots taken by ISS astronauts. I mean, thanks for sharing.

The 32 pictures linked to the following image left me speechless, I couldn’t decide which one to post. Then I decided for the one below, I think it’s almost moving. It’s a man, alone, floating in the void, over a blue planet. I think it’s as powerful an image as the famous one of the Earth seen from the edge of the solar system, one of those things that makes you think “wow, this is what Men are” and feel proud.
Also, now I fucking want a jet pack.

This is the winner of the Nikon’s Small World Competition

The image below, instead, links to Wired’s “35 Years of the World’s Best Microscope Photography”. Some Pretty pictures there (this one is a bunch of fluorescent actin protein filaments).

The last one is a set of pictures of abandoned soviet monuments.
I posted it because I love the russian bold, futuristic sense of aesthetics, as odd as it is.
As a concept artist I would never dare using that kind of shapes, they wouldn’t be believable, not even in a sci-fi game.

BONUS CONTENT:
An image that would ruin your childhood memories:

and one I simply couldn’t help posting.

The Four Horsemen Endless Lunchbreak Sketch

A while ago I had some spare time during my lunchbreak, so I decided to start a quick sketch.
As it usually happens, I didn’t know what I was about to do yet.
Soon enough the face of the thing I was drawing turned out as some kind of leper with rat’s teeth, so I thought “hey, this could be Plague!”.
I suddenly added the sick green glow and the other stuff (dark wings, insects, bandages and so on), and another twenty or so lunchbreaks after it was done.
Really, it took ages, I did it ten minutes at a time.
The other Horsemen wil be ready around next Easter.

God Of Swords Update #3

I’ve finished the value study and I’ll start colouring pretty soon.
Again, this is the page on Game Artisans for the Hub’s works in progress.
A three hours nap after work has improved my evening productivity by a lot.
Sleep is good.

Week 15 in Pretty Pictures

Last week was the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s heroic flight, I want to remember the first man in space with these famous pictures, doctored by the soviet propaganda. (Click on the image for more)

For some odd coincidence last week was also the 30th anniversary of the Shuttle’s first mission.
NASA announced the locations of the three space museum where the Discovery, the Enterprise and the Endeavour will rest in peace after three decades of honourable service. This, of course, after the last flight in late June.

Now, for something completely different, some pretty pictures about China’s daily life.
There’s nothing really other-corner-of-the-world about them, which is quite normal considering they’re pictures of daily life.
They caught my eye though, so here they are.

BONUS CONTENT – this one cracked me up. Unfortunately it can be appreciated only by gamers:)

God of Swords Work in Progress

Well, it’s going slowly but I’m still working on THE DOMINANCE WAR (I still think of it all caps).
This is where the WIPS are posted, mine is still down to moderation, it should be there in eleven hours.
There’s some good stuff already.
Anyway, this is my values study, still in progress but almost there.
The deadline is in 28 days, argh.

Week 14 bis In Pretty Pictures

Well, I found out that the first week of the year was actually week 52 of 2010, which makes last week the actual week 14.

If anyone asks you, this is week 14 bis of 2011.
Anyway, these are the pretty pictures I stumbled upon last week:

National Geographics photographer Alanna Schmidt took this amazing shot, which I’m posting with the added bonus of pleasing my wife (she loves big cats).

I couldn’t find her original post, but if you want to stalk her (the photographer, not my wife) or find other useful links, here’s the thread on reddit where the picture comes from.

The author’s full caption: “While on general patrol on Highway 527, 45 kilometers south of Armstrong, Ontario, my partner and I came across what we thought was only one lynx. Once we pulled over to the side of the road, three others came out of the bush. I was able to get out and take photos from the road without the family being spooked. I took 62 pictures in total.”

Some geologist descended into Eyjafjallajökull’s magma chamber.

After I read the headline I expected something spectacular like men vaporised by the rage of the volcano hollywood-style, but nothing happened. Pictures were taken though.

An underwater art museum off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula has opened a new “room” filled with concrete sculptures that depict scenes from modern life, while creating new homes for sea creatures.

Here’s another link (the image below leads to Wired) with a different set of pictures of the same place, I find this thing amazing.

Manta rays don’t like to migrate on their own.

As for the rest, last week Wired Science published the winners of the Geology Photo Contest.
The image below is in Wadi Rum, South western Jordan. Before reading the article I thought it was some artist’s impression of Mars, then I learnt that this place is actually so alien that it was used as the surface of Mars in the movie Red Planet.

Week 14 in Pretty Pictures

Last week NASA’s Messenger Spacecraft started sending loads of new pictures from the closest planet to the Sun.
This is the first one we received, from an area that was never mapped before.
I mean, people, it’s just rocks and craters but it’s another planet, these things always give me goosebumps.

Another pretty picture I found last week was in this article. If you don’t have time to read it just keep in mind that the prettier frogs are, the deadlier they get. This one must be pretty toxic considering its flamboyant colours.
I also learnt that, unlike other animals, frogs don’t produce poison automatically, but distil it from the food they eat, which is pretty cool as well.
Basically when they run out of it they have to find the right plants and insects to replenish their reserve.

Iori Tomita is a Japanese artist who uses a special preservation technique, a specific type of dye and something between five months and a year to turn dead fish into colourful semi-transparent works of art.

The following image left me astonished. It’s what happened in Pakistan after last year’s giant flood.
More than a fifth of the country got submerged, so that millions of spiders crowded on the few trees remaining to avoid drowning.
The result is that most of them got covered by spider webs, which makes interesting shots but also had some pretty disastrous consequences, as you can read in the article linked with the picture.

Northern Lights as seen from the ISS are quite stunning.

BONUS CONTENT: this .gif just cracked me up, lol.

Tsunami Project

Well, I guess everybody should know by now about the Tsunami Project.
As soon as I read about it and saw the amazing artwork I wanted to participate.
I don’t know if it’s up to the standards but here it is.

Week 13 in Pretty Pictures

This week I’ve been home sick because of a serious attack of Man Flu.
Since I felt so miserable I couldn’t even take advantage of it and play video games while complaining on the sofa, I just stayed in bed, still complaining but fiddling with my iPhone.

After only a few hours I finished reading the entire Internet and I started to get bored, so I thought it was the right moment to do those kind of things you never have the time to sort out, like rearranging my favourite links and bookmarks.
I soon realised I had lots and lots of websites saved there for reasons I couldn’t even remember, things maybe five years old that had already disappeared into the black holes of the net.

After having deleted all the obsolete and unused bookmarks I still felt uneasy for some reason but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Then the light struck me: I needed The Method. How could I store my bookmarks and favs even better than I already do?
After a couple more hours of browsing and casual complaining I ended up subscribing to Instapaper and Pinboard, both of which have wonderful plugins you can install on Chrome.
Pinboard even has an iPhone app that allows you to save pages from Safari, to read later.
I am a much better person now: my favourite folder is clean and tidy, I can save interesting stuff from my RSS reader for later (yes, that does mean on the toilet) and, like, once a week I can go through the things I’ve saved and then delete them.

Yesterday I made the first periodic clean up, noticing that I mostly save websites with pretty pictures, which gave me the idea of a weekly post where I dump all the pretty pictures I’ve found the week before.

So, here they are.

Last week was both Fat Tuesday all around the world and Holi in India, events involving loads and loads of pretty pictures.
Here’s a link to various Images related to Carnival

and here some to Holi

A friend of mine, a professional photographer, went there and I can’t wait to see the ones he took.

Then I found an article about rocks that look like human faces. Nothing new really, there are a couple of rocks in Sardegna, famous because they look like giant penises, but those would make an awkward blog post, so here’s the more civilized link.

Last week also saw Shuttle Discovery’s last mission, so here are some really nice pictures of this glorious spaceship.

BONUS: Black& White WTF for a few minutes of genuine fun