change of plans

Hey guys, so I went to Houston, checked out TimeGate's studio, everything went really well, nice studios, and they seemed to enjoy my stuff, but while I was there I received an e-mail with an even better opportunity from Ignition Entertainment in Florida. So they'll be flying me out to Florida sometime next week to show me around the studios, lunch, talk art and the new project, the whole deal. The art Director, J.P Targete (!!!!) called me up to my surprise, super nice guy and super talented. Also Steven Stahlberg is working there as well, really super talented guys, and artists i've looked up to since I started doing concept art. You guys should look them both up. So if everything goes well, i'll be going to Gainesville Florida, instead of Houston. Just some tips and advice i've learned so far from this whole experience, and talking to some of the artists. I know not all of you are looking to be concept artists, but just incase you want to pursue it someday, some may be really obvious: Diversity- I'm talkin characters, environments, vehicles, creatures, weapons, storyboards, even some 3d thrown in there. Do it all! Passion- A game studio would much rather have someone who wants to learn everyday, draw non-stop and is just passionate about what they do! I know i'd much rather work with someone not so good, but has equal passion for drawing, rather than a really good guy with little to no desire to get better. I garuntee you that the not so good guy will exceed the other guy in a year or so. I've seen many examples of this happen! "forever a student" is a great way to think. The proof is in the pudding, Doing is a lot more than saying you will do something. I've unfortunately seen many of that too.. Style- It's prefered you don't have one. Better yet, is the ability to have multiple styles, ranging from cartoony stylized to realistic and choose what's appropriate for the project. just another aspect of diversity. Lifestyle - This is actually super important and a lot of people don't realize it. Sleep enough, Workout, eat right. It helps you focus and stay alert. Humility - yeah you wouldn't beileve how many amateurs i've seen totally dismiss a professionals critique. I've seen it the other way around as well, a professional thinks he's perfect. "forever a student" Time Management- you wouldn't beileve how much you can actually get done if you stopped doing all the random unproductive crap... T.V., internet surfing, too much video games. one of my friends put it very well " Think of it like this, while your watching T.V. you are now watching someone elses creation, people who put their sweat and blood into it to get it put on television, you could be doing the same thing." soo yeah, those are just some of the things i've been talking about with those guys. I hope it helps, as a lot of it is pretty universal to any artist. I should have put blogging in the Time Managament.. haha back to work! -mitch

Life after EPAC 2008

Steammachines had a very successful turn out at this year's El Paso Anime Con, I hear we had more people stopping by our table than anybody else. That's great news, and we will definetely be attending next year's event. Now that we know what to expect, we will be prepared. Maybe even a table cloth? A big thank you to everybody that supported us with their kind donations, I hope everybody enjoyed our work. Feel free to contact any of us, we appreciate any kind of feedback, positive or negative, but keep it constructive! I'll be posting some of the drawings I got from the other artists and some photos soon so check back soon! Edit: Here's the photos, much sooner than I expected! I took a LOT of pictures (most of them blurry) and I'll update with more later this week. Check back soon! Also, some of the cosplay pictures can be seen in my scraps gallery on my Deviant Art page, check it out.

M@'s and Barontieri brushes

His new brush set: http://mv.cgcommunity.com/echange/matbrushes07.zip The old brush set: http://mv.cgcommunity.com/echange/matbrushes5.zip Barontieri's brush set: http://www.barontieri.com/Misc/BARONTiERi.rar and both of their websites: http://mv.cgcommunity.com/ http://www.barontieri.com/ Thanks to Mario for reminding me. -mitch

Matthieu Bessudo

I realize that the main point of this blog is to share our own work, but I think it's also a good idea to share information about other artists who inspire us or who have a really exemplary body of work. That being said, I came across this illustrator through another blog that I read. His full name is Matthieu Bessudo, but he goes by the moniker McBess online. I find his style to be pretty awesome. He obviously takes a lot of liberties with his figure drawing, but it's pretty apparent that the exaggerations (like the Olive Oyl bendy arms everyone seems to have) are intentional. They make for very expressive poses, as well. If you poke around his website, you'll find quite a few images and comics. The hand-lettering on the comics is particularly awesome. He is an animator as well as an illustrator, and his demo reel is embedded below. Also, you'll find a few links to his website, and a link to the Desktop Wallpaper Project on the Kitsune Noir blog, which is where I found out about McBess. The Kitsune Noir link has a couple of really awesome high-res wallpapers. http://www.mcbess.com/ http://kitsunenoir.com/blog/dwp/

Ninja's EPAC preview

Some stuff by our very own Ninja for the El Paso Anime Con.

!!

sorry I wasn't able to make it to the meeting tonight, I have (potentially) really exciting news, but I won't be able to say until next week. See you then! -mitch