Today's pickings

Fuck if I keep it at this pace, I will get boring pretty fast.

Well I had some down time, taking a rest from all the other stuff.

Half watching Family Guy/ American Dad and doodling.

One thing is an old hand drawn sketch that I thought is not that bad so I touched it up, and another is this little tragic death of an Orc idea that was buzzing in my head since this morning.

Well, here they are,

And until next,

Cheers,

Milenko

First pinup for 2012

A week and a bit before Vessel ships.

It is firefighting time, but today, there weren't that many fires to fight.

So I was playing with a little pinup painting.

When I started posting again, I made a resolution that I will stop working on a piece the moment It starts feeling tedious.

This is how far this one got.

I still put a good couple of hours into it but then it god fiddly, I started stressing, so I stopped and called it done.

It is wonky and wobbly, and in general I refuse to use airbrush. Generic brush I use tends not to blend tones too well, so it looks the way it looks.

Also, the contrast on my cintiq is totally different than any other PC screen, so it is a bit more pale and desaturated.

Anyhow,

until the next time,

Cheers,

MIlenko

Maids of the Sea

Or,

Never let a colorblind man color without the reference.

It occurred to me that I have never drawn a mermaid in my life.

But this afternoon, I was waiting for other stuff to happen, and I did a silly sketch that I liked.

everything since was a disaster.

I made canvas too big, used a brush too thin, drew without the reference, and then decided to color to my own taste.

A chain of mistakes.

But we live and learn.

Anyhow, here is the fruit of an hour and a half of struggle.

Icing on the cake was the moment when I hit save, and my computer went pale.

I spent about 5 minutes dancing around it, cursing my luck ( nothing enrages me more than fucking PS crashing and loosing the work from scratch)

After all these years I am still an impulse saver. never remember to save or to increment my saves.

I do remember when shit goes wrong.

Also, I think that my PC is on its last legs, and I can not afford a new one.

bah,

all that.

Cheers to all,

Milenko

Sketch quickie

While watching Pawn Stars...

A barbarian girl, kind of.

Work is easing down, there is just a fire fighting from now until the release of the Vessel.

Which is in 2 weeks to the day.

Final days of testing, crashfixing and catching those annoying tedious art bugs that escaped our arttention so far :)

We got our own steam store page set up and running:

Vessel on Steam :)

And it is all happening.

Fuck it has been 21 months since I did first texture for that game.

I am seriously moved.

It is kind of like releasing your child into the world for the first time, but more intense.

On another note, there is so much of the normal life I am to catch up on.

Like getting out of the house and being touched by the sunlight.

Walking. These weak muscles need some juice put back into them or else I will remain forever a walking stomach with sticks for arms and legs.

Also catching up on all the TV I missed.

Spartacus, Walking Dead, Justified, Raising hope.

I hope they do not shut down internet by then.

Australia is a fucking backward place when it comes to TV, completely forsaken by the distributors of any good tv entertainment.

Best shows these days are fucking Bargain hunt, where people go and buy junk and try to sell it at an auction for a profit, Cool rednecks catching alligators and a bunch of fucking looser repo men taking stuff from fucking looser deadbeat fuckers who understand a concept of taking the loan and purchasing stuff they like, but somehow miss on the part where they are supposed to make payments on their loan and in the end find it hard to part with property which does not belong to them anyhow.

Top of the crop is the one about those two guys going through the barns full of junk trying to score a vintage oil can or a rusted out piece of shit bicycle.

I actually enjoy watching that.

Fuck I am old, when did that happen?

Good thing about those shows is that I can do my work and watch them in the background at the same time.

Reno 911 is the best comedy they show these days, but they show it at 1.30 in the morning, which fits awesome with my schedule and supplies 30 minutes of unwinding before I go to bed.

Anyhow, that's all for now and here is the sketch,

Till next time,

Cheers,

Milenko

Still Going :)

And going...

This time around it is some girly sketches, which I should have put more effort in, all together.

But I did not.

One is a quick sketch of an South African Band called Die Antwoord or something like that which I have discovered recently thanks to the David Letterman.

They are fucking fresh and awesome, and an incredibly creative bunch.

I like everything about them, from little background stories, appearance attitude to the music.

I wish I had more time as I did a sketch in only about half an hour and from memory so likeness is not exactly there.

The rest is some chicky drawings I did between serious work so they are half arsed and unfinished as well.

Hopefully, next time I will do better.

Well that is it for now,

Cheers,

Milenko

Also, what a shit fight posting on the blogspot has become.

Trying to put the image in and trying to get it where it needs to be is a fucking wrestle.

Blu-Tack versus Cintiq 21UX

And, Blu- Tack wins!

As there is another use discovered for an amazing substance made out of sticky fairy dust.

Well, the story starts many months ago.

I have purchased 21 UX Cintiq sometime in May 2009 as I grew quite fond of the one I had at work, before the company I was working for folded up.

From the moment of purchase, bloody thing did not feel right.

It was impossible to calibrate as the on-screen tip had a tendency to wander away from the tip of the pen (just far enough to piss you off, or make you delete layer instead of duplicating it and save your fucked up shrunk and collapsed file instead of "saving it as" etc)

It was happening anywhere except on the dead center of the screen.

So that prompted me to use the tablet only at the dead center of the screen which eventually started getting scratched and worn out to the point where it was screeching, grinding and bumping and the screen was getting murky.

I started to hate fucking Wacom and if it was a person, I would have punched him in the face.

(On another side if it was a female person, I would definitely not dare to punch her as I have fear of women and their potential for retaliation )

Add to the mix a fact that fucking screen runs on it's own contrast settings which I to this day could not figure out how to adjust.

So you work hard on your piece of crap art, making it look good and sweet (within your mediocre skill set), only to have your art look like washed out piece of crap on any other monitor but your own Cintiq.

That said, Cintiq was still pretty good and I was too busy to part with it so I put up with all the crap, because it was saving me a lot of time and I was really, really busy.

However I reached the point where i could not stand it any more.

My warranty is out, and fucking thing was close to useless.

So, one night, a few days ago, I started pecking on my Cintiq screen and found out that I can get a reasonably thin layer of film made out of stinky acrylic crap loose on one corner.

I started peeling the fucker off and after some 20 minutes of struggle and wrestling with flaky substance, and a lot of horrible stench coming out I managed to get it off the neat sheet of glass sitting underneath.

Glass was scratch free, neat and clear, a bit more reflective, but I live in the dark anyhow, so there is nothing to reflect off the screen.

Pen slides over it more loosely than it did on that acrylic film, but I do not care, actually I prefer that feel, because that is how my good old Cintiq felt.

However, after removal of the Film, there were huge patches of glue that remained stuck to the screen.

I tried everything to take them off (also trying to be gentle not to damage the glass) but nothing worked.

I did not want to use any nasty chemicals nor did I have any, so the only tool that I found working were tips of my fingers.

That seemed to take the shitty glue off, but firstly, it was taking forever and secondly, the weak, D-vitamin depraved, skin on my digits was wearing off at the same rate as did the glue, and since there was more glue on the screen than skin on my fingers, I was at risk of running out of the skin faster than getting rid of the glue.

That is when my wife, and also my hero came to the rescue.

She was tidying up the room while I was all manly and ripping my equipment apart, calling me an idiot for ruining a 3000 dollar tool and laughing at my impotent rage but when she realized I am not giving up, and am willing to sacrifice myself to get the job done, she decided to help.

Out of one of old boxes, she pulled a packet of Blu- Tac, made a big blob and started rubbing the screen with it while I was resting my fingers.

To my amazement glue started coming off neatly and in no time the screen was clean and free.

And ready to be used.

So, there is nothing you can not do with Blu- Tac.

And it picked and digested all the crap inside itself, so by the time glue was gone, it was nowhere to be found.

Anyhow, my screen now is shiny and scratch free and I have fun working on it, just like in the good old days. Even the calibration issues are less noticeable now.

However I can not recommend this solution to others, as I am not sure if different models have different components and also there is a serious risk of breaking the glass underneath while pulling the acrylic crap off.

So, do not try that at home, and if you do and something goes wrong, do not blame me for it, I warned you and I did do mine at my own risk, in a fit of rage.

Also, I have no idea how long will the bloody thing last, now that I raped it.

(also I have no idea if I was the only one in the world having this problem due to my heavy hand and disrespect for nice technology- to me it is just a fucking tool helping to get the job done faster and once rendered useless is to be discarded and replaced, or if I can not afford another one, I would just get a cheap bamboo and go the old school)

Aand this is the story for today.

Also, here is some art.

I decided to give up on my Afrika piece, as I lost all interest and stopped coming back to it.

So I am posting bits and pieces I got done so far, but I do have another neat sketch that I am hot for now, hopefully I get to finish that one.

In this post, there are also a couple of 5 minute chicky warm up sketches and some old vessel Art style pitching pieces.

And,

Untill the next time, cheers to all,

Regards,

Milenko