Interesting Stuff||017

It's been ages since the last entry of Interesting Stuff. I'm great at collecting links and not posting straight away (and after few months most of them becomes unrelevant). Maybe one day I'll learn to do it properly.

Digital Painting Warm and Cool Colors  - is a short glimpse at Will Terry's painting process when choosing colors (illustration). However that's not the reason I'm mentioning it, as it comes with the simple instructions on how to get access to one of the SVS classes for free. So go and watch it guys :)

One Fantastic week # 82 - I came across OFW a podcast run by Peter Mohrbacher and Sam Flegal , some time ago, but never really had time to listen to it. Episode number 82 talkes about issues that women who work (not only) in illustration may face. And it's not just two white, privildged males, but three lovely and super skilled ladies talking this subject - Lauren Panepinto, Zoe Robinson and Karla Ortiz.

Copic Marker mega product tour - video from last year ComicCon, with a lot information about (mostly) Copic markers and other tools. Now I really need to win lottery and buy these lovely 72 piece sets!

It's been few months since the release of Taken King, expansion/DLC to Destiny, and if you're not sick of Taken or Oryx yet, take a look at these stunning concepts! It's a shame that only tiny portion ends up in game..

Interesting Stuff||016

• Loish started a Kickstarted campaign to fund the very first artbook featuring her art and guess what - it reached it goal within hours! I'm still debating which tier to choose, since having Lois van Baarle book is a must for every artist.
• Sketch wallet is another Kickstarted project, however this one already ended few days ago. I really like the idea of having a wallet and sketchbook together and wouldn't mind getting one as a gift ;)
• Double Fine Adventure!, a documentary series about making of Broken Age finaly ended with last episode uploaded to YT. Really nice ending and seriously guys, we need more documentaries like that!

Interesting Stuff||015

• Tutorial: How to paint red hair (or strawberry blonde) by Bobby Chiu - it's only 8 mins long and comes with exercise file and colour swatches so there is no excuse for skipping a practice part.
• Design Cinema Ep83: Designing with Silhouettes - I guess key word of this episode is 'spaceship' :) This vid is in real-time and Feng Zhu shows another approach for creating quick thumbnails/silhouettes
• Ross Draws YouTube Channel  - recently a guest of a LevelUp! stream, he also started YT channel with funky videos showing him paint and abuse color dodge :) Seriously, he's so funny, go check his channel now :)

Interesting Stuff||014

• The Art of Atomhawk 2 - Atomhawk, the badass UK studio, just launched their Kickstarter campaign to make second 'Art of' book a reality. It looks really good and I'm seriously considering backing them :)
• Jens Bengtsson (Rubisko) started few weeks ago a series of bi-weekly journals discussing concept-art related topics. Three entries he published so far are interesting and worth checking out. Also, he is a past FZD student and shared his experience in the school in one of the earlier journals.
• Klaus - teaser of the beautiful 2D short animation created by SPA Studios!

Interesting Stuff||013

• I found Zachatronics podcast few days ago and had a listen to the first episode. It looks like we are going to have a good indie dev podcastwith the behind the scene insight.
• If you missed Feast, charming animated short by Disney, don't worry, there is a 720p version on YouTube :)
• ARTCAFE is a new livestream goodie run by amazing Maciej Kuciara. Two recent episodes were about working in movie industry and using photos as reference and photobashing and incoming stream is titled : The Video Games Development Experience : How to break into video games industry. Along with Maciej we are going to hear Raf Grassetti, Ryan Hawkins, Nick Gindraux, John Sweeney, Alexandria Neonakis, David Lesperance and Jung Park.
• Working out podcast is something I came across recently and to be honest I haven't listen to any episodes yet but according to the website description it's about turning your creative hobby into business. 

Interesting Stuff||012

Three cool things to make this gloomy Bank Holiday Morning a bit better (why are we back to winter again, why)!

• Finally Juanjo Guarnido posted a making-of from the Freak of the Week music video and it's as sweet as the actual video. I just wish it was a little bit longer and not in French. I know, I know, there are subtitles, but it's always nicer to just watch video without having to rely on translation to understand it. Anyway, back to the video - it just shows the crazy amount of work that was put into making it. 
• Krita got a Kickstarter campaign! From the features mentioned I'm really looking foward to the animation tool set :)
• BATZ is a charming animated short directed by Max Maleo. Aurelien Predal shared on his blog recently quite a lot of development concepts and designs. Really loving art style. But hey, that's the same person who did colour keys for Monster in Paris, ofcourse it's gonna look good.

Interesting Stuff||011

•  Duik 14.23 is a plugin for AfterEffects.. or should I cite DuDuF R&D website:

 The essential tools for the animation on After Effects: Autorig, Inverse Kinematics (IK), Bones, Morphers, Dynamics… Animation becomes handy and easy on After Effects!The essential tools for the animation on After Effects: Autorig, Inverse Kinematics (IK), Bones, Morphers, Dynamics… Animation becomes handy and easy on After Effects! 

For me the most important is the Bones and Autorig features, which I'll test out as soon as I'm done with college animation :).

• Mark Molnar Steampunk Pirates Digital Painting Tutorial - to be honest I haven't watched it yet, but it's on my list. I've decided to mention it here as it looks quite interesting :)
• 12 Principles of Animation - series of short videos looking at 12 principles of animation by Alan Becker.
• DoubleFine Adventure! - along with other documentaries from DoubleFineProd channel, became a guilty pleasure of mine. Honestly, those vids are really well edited and interesting. Also, suprisingly, they talk openly about running out of kickstarter money gathered for Broken Age.

Interesting Stuff||010

Since Alice joined our little family and made me almost completly unable to paint I've started binging on all types of podcasts, streams, vlogs, hangouts, timelapses and whats not. BelowI tried combine a list of art related talks/tutorials. Some channels are still active, other been dead for years but still worth listening to (and few went into gumroad mode with more trailers than content). Probably forgot about tons of other cool stuff, but hey, thats me ;)

creative trek
levelUp
robotpencil
chrisoatley
sycra
cubebrush
ctr+paint
feng zhu
noah bradley
proko
collective podcast
bobby chiu
shaddy safadi
schoolism interviews
clint cearley
will terry
scott robertson
draw with jazza
dave rapoza
stephen silver

Interesting Stuff||009

Few things, some old, some new. Enjoy!

•  Female Potrayals in video games - quite a good article I came across recently thru elsevilla DA journal entry. Worth reading whenever you agree with it or not ;)
• New version of Krita which I need to download and test soon! (for symmetry tool and wrap- around mode)
• Chris Oatley interview with Loish - artcast #85 - a bit different to other episodes as it was an interview done in person, with all the funky background noise.
• THU2015 is upon us with quite expensive tickets some people can't afford. Luckily there is a competition going with a really cool prizes!
• The Freelance Handbook - free 116-page ebook.

::Interesting Stuff|008::

 I found these two things ages ago and wanted to add some more interesting articles and vidsto the list but currently I suffer from the lack of spare time (and sleep). One day I'll post proper, long list. Probably after I catch up with tons of YT videos and podcasts.. ;)

• Chris Chien's The shortcut to getting a Job as a Professional Concept Artist - another of those neat, fun to read articles.
• Video Games Are Fucking Awesome by Eric Jordan - nothing beats a silly, funny TedTalk.

Interesting Stuff||007

• Lately I've been listening to a tons of podscasts and youtubers and Your Dreams My Nightmare is my latest discovery (thanks to Matt Forsythe for posting link on his tumblr).

• Creative Trek is another cool channel with bunch of amazing artists interviewed.

• Also, did I mentioned Anthony Jones YT channel yet? Talks are a bit all over the place, recorded straight from livestreams (which I can't watch due to the completly different time zone xD).

Interesting Stuff||006

Another batch of things that are interesting and cool :) .

You Can Make Games - Indies talk about game industry. It's a short, 8 minute long video, but fun to watch.
7 tips for the 21 year old me - a short journal entry by Bobby Chiu with some neat advice

How I made out of the Looser Trap - another really good and worth reading journal entry, this time written by Olga Drebas

Mery Project is a free character rig made by two Spanish artists. I'm having tons of fun playing with her, making silly poses.
Hotel Transylvania Zombie Rig - perfect for upcoming Halloween, a free Zombie rig. If you watched Sony Pictures Hotel Transylvania you'll recognize a character. So cool that you can play with the actual character rig that such a big studio uses. Sweet.

Interesting Stuff||005

 I had this list in a draft for ages, but still worth uploading I guess ;)

• A really good advice on how to get to the animation industry by Dankrall.
• Brainstorm group on Facebook with weekly concept art challenges and really cool themes. I haven't participated in any of them yet, shold fix this mistake soon.
• 4 Keys to Staying Creative short article on creativity by Bobby Chiu.
• Tokkun Academy - Art School TV Channel - fundraising campain started a bit time ago on Indiegogo. I find the idea of art TV channel really weird, but since places like KiwiJuice and Gumroad been so succesful with selling tutorials, the online art channel might be not that bad afterall. Maybe it would depend on type of ads they decide to air in between classes and tutorials ;)
• Inside Velocity 2X: Animation System - since Velocity 2X is available for free with Playstation Plus offer for September, this particular bulletpoint is timed perfectly :). I've attended a Futurlad talk during last year's BAF and were already familiar with crazy amount of work they've put into animating Kai.

::Interesting Stuff|04::

Two things today :)

Women are not too hard to animate - an interesting article explaining why Ubisoft excuse for not having a female assasin is lame. Also, kudos for Sunset Overdrive Insomniac team for implementing an female assasin in their game within few days (yes, it's a same model with just diffferent texture/clothes but hey, no complains).

Duet  - a beautiful, hand drawn animation, created by Glen Keane. Also, a really nice making-of explaining the technology behind this piece.

::Interesting Stuff|003::

Three good thingies~

• Free Andrew Loomis Art Instruction Downloads on Illustration Friday - do I even have to explain this ;)?
• Project 2501 - homage to the GiTS done by a group of insanely amazing artists. 
• Let's Draw Episode 73 - another cool vid from FZDSchool channel, this time we got 9 different color comps inspired by Final Fantasy VII. It's a part 1 and part 2 should be out soon (adding detail).

::Interesting Stuff|002::

It's Sunday again, time to catch up with stuff ;).

• Concept Cookie - neat YouTube channel with some really good begginers vids for starting out digital painting, livestreams, tutorials and tips. If you are just starting out, definately check it out!
• Team Shakuro strikes back with this Kickstarter Campaing to create a new website full of delicous CG stuff. I really miss CGHUB...
• LevelUP website is finally here, tons of resources and weekly stream sessions. FusRoDa team did really amazing job on making a clear and easy to browse website that doesn't takes ages to load.
• Bahi JD tumblr - insane animator that worked on SpaceDandy and PingPong anime and.. OMG.. just look at these rough gifs.. so much energy.

::Interesting Stuff|001::

I've been watching a lot of different art-y YouTube channels lately and thought it would be cool to share stuff thats intereting and fun. So, lets jump to the cool bits quickly :)

• How To Break Through Artist's Block by Sycra - a really good video, which explains creative process and why we suffer from artist blocks.

• Painting in Values by Marc Brunet (bluefly) - timelaps of a value painting and few useful tips on painting in grayscale. I kept coming back to this channel every week, finding interesting stuff, and in last few days Marc uploaded follow-up vids explaining his approach to coloring a greyscale painting.

• The illusion of life -12 Princibles of Animation explained in cool, retro voice and in less than 3 minutes.

• Understanding Color - video by Andrew Price, which looks into color theories and how they work (with some cool examples used).