Lowering the bar

Hello dear readers and great people all around,

With the season of giving gifts and too much of everything around the corner I thought this would be a great time to take a minute and talk about stress and staying loose. For most of us these months are filled with stress and it’s hard to see the good times through the fog of shopping wars. While I can offer little respite from the stress of shopping and cooking a 14 course dinner for 20 people of which at least a few ungrateful in-laws I can perhaps help with some of the stress at work, especially if you’re stuck trying to improve at painting.

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This is not a sprint

Learning is not a sprint. This little nugget of information you get for free. Many of us are very familiar with this concept but we might still catch ourselves trying to push that extra 1% of awesome into a painting when we should’ve called it done ages ago. We try to fix that perspective issue right at the buzzer. Take on that commission that is leagues above our skillset and putting in crazy hours just to get it done. While these things might pay off, the speed of learning, individually speaking, is like a universal constant. Meaning, you can’t learn faster than you can learn. It comes to no ones surprise that learning under pressure almost never goes well. To learn is to take time. Being patient with the material until it makes sense, repeating the material over and over until it clicks. Digging deep until we understand the underlying principles so we not only understand the surface and can repeat what we’ve learned but truly understand it’s workings. If this is so common knowledge to everyone, why do so many of us stress out when we create a painting or are close to finishing one?

Answering this question isn’t easy. Foremost because it’s a very personal thing, though, I do believe there are stereotypes that we all experience. Time for a small journey into the world of discipline and confidence! If we look at the stress resulting from trying to improve a painting beyond our skills we have to consider that each brush stroke we put down has to serve a purpose. Many times there is a disconnect with the principles of art fundamentals and how they actually translate onto the canvas. Meaning, many of us often just put down marks for the sake of it. Rendering bits, noodling, filler. Overall we look at the image and try to apply the knowledge that we have, but how much thought actually goes into every brush stroke? We know what the answer should be. The term ‘brush economy’ gets used a lot, which is more often than not simply describing our attempt to be diligent in our mark making. This means that we see this as a tool to try and do something which should always happen, which is putting down marks with serious consideration to how they improve the painting. The amount of information one mark can convey is astounding. It can inform the viewer about perspective, temperature, time of day, volume and so forth. But do we really see each mark this way?

Maintaining this level of discipline takes a great amount of energy and focus. If you’re reading this as a non artist and have ever wondered how difficult art is, hopefully this will have given you a better idea. Keeping up this discipline means that a lot of the activity during the painting has to be done passively - maintaining active focus costs so much energy that it will drain you out. If it’s done passively it means we are relying on the knowledge we already have, this self confidence is incredibly important to make a great paining. Putting the pieces together it becomes more clear how the masters make painting look easy. Each brush stroke seems effortless. More often than not it’s because they know exactly what each brush stroke should do. They rely on the knowledge they have and are confident they are making the right decision. There is little in the way of trying to learn on the spot. Does this mean we can’t learn during a painting? No, of course we can learn new things but trying to learn the actual fundamentals while trying to do final work, and this is a very important distinction, can lead to stress. It’s hard to know what you dont know but this famous graph highlights a painful contradiction for artists:

We’re constantly fighting between what we can see and what we know how to do. If we’re in a situation where we can see the shortcomings of our paintings we are more likely to try and push ourselves to learn new things and break that barrier. With what I’ve talked about above it’s easy to see that this is highly unproductive and a great way to stress yourself out. So, now what?

Stay loose and redefine what’s good enough

In sport’s, athletes perform better if they are loose. Tense up on a golf stroke? Forget it. Tense up while sprinting? Good luck! If you tense up you turn into a plank and unless that was the goal, you are not achieving a whole lot. Staying loose, both mentally and physically, is therefor also very relevant to us. We need to make sure we put ourselves in a position where we accept our current skill set in the full confidence that learning is happening in the background because we are actively making decisions, each brush stroke, that move us forward. Simply understanding that learning is an ever ongoing process and actively seeking out knowledge to help yourself grow is huge. Not every painting will be a masterpiece, so why would you pressure yourself to try and do so? This is something I was struggling with and my therapist passed on a real gem in the form of a few simple questions.

“If you had to assign a number from 1-10, of which 10 the highest, for the quality of the work you want to deliver, what number would that be?”

— My awesome therapist

A lot of people would most likely answer around 8 or 9 since a 10 would seem fairly unrealistic. Now here’s the followup:

“At which number would you accept the work as good enough?”

I’m going out on a limb and guess it’s pretty close to the original number but slightly lower. For the sake of argument let’s say we all answer 7.5. Seems reasonable right? What you’ve effectively done, according to many school systems, you’ve raised the passing grade from a 5.5/10 to a 7.5 out of 10. Making your margin of success 2.5 points rather than 4.5 points. Let me put this differently. You’ve given yourself a 75% failure rate. That is a steep bar. The question inevitably becomes, how do we lower the bar? How do we make sure that we sometimes take the 6/10, call it a day and don’t beat ourselves up over it?

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It’s OK!

It’s OK. It really is. Go on, say it out loud to yourself. “It’s OK that some paintings don’t look as good as I want them to”. Judging the value a painting has had to your overall artistic journey solely based on it’s final look is silly. It does not take into account the struggle and ongoing effort to learn new things. If learning was something that could be forced the world would look a lot different. So go on. Tell yourself that sometimes that 6/10 is good enough and move on. You will continue to learn and grow and make many more paintings.

The more you get to know yourself and figure out how to stay within your confidence the more informed your painting decisions will be and the more loose you can be. The more loose you are, provided you don’t turn into a gelatinous blob, the better you’ll be able to perform your work. As my man Phil from Modern Family has said: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast”

Now go out into the world and relax. Don’t force it. Ask yourself each time you put down a mark: “What does this mark have to say?”. If you don’t understand something, do some quick studies, a bit of research, and come back refreshed and tackle that problem. Stay loose and ask yourself when it’s good enough. This is not you being a quitter. This is not you slacking off. This is you, understanding art is a long road with no end. This is you understanding that you are never done learning and seeking and pushing on mindlessly for that holy grail painting that once and for all will reveal to you the secrets of our craft is futile. Sorry.

Titus

The creation of a Magic: The Gathering card.

Hello fine folk of the internet and good people all around. Many a time have I started an article and found myself lost for time in finishing one due to my busy schedule for, among other things, and you guessed it: Magic: The Gathering!

So what more of a fitting theme for this blog, which will finally go up, on how how I create some of my magic work! I will take you through some of the steps I take and how a brief actually looks like. For this piece I have selected "Icy Manipulator" art directed by none other than the great Kelly Digges whom I've had a great time working with and has unfortunately since moved on from Wizards of the Coast.

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The Brief:

When we get commissioned to do work most of the time the client will send us a description of the work they'd like to have, we call this the brief. Magic has a very streamlined system which gives us all the information we need in order to create the image which consists of a brief but also a style guide that comes with it. This style guide, a glorious 300+ page book of concepts made specifically for each magic world, will provide us with design callouts and much more. Normally, cards we receive have code or temporary names but, in the case of reprints we know exactly what it will be. So here is the brief:

Art ID:  405842
Art Title:  [Icy Manipulator]
Size: 3334 x 2449 pixels    •   Sketch Due: 8/11/2017   •   Final Due: 8/28/2017
Art Description:
Setting: DOMINARIA
Color: Colorless artifact
Location: Your choice

Intention: This is a brand-new take on a classic card. We're hoping for something that's unique and cool without owing anything to any previous versions.

Action: An Escher-esque impossible shape floats in front of us. (See refs for the shapes we have in mind.) Perhaps it's made of black steel, or maybe it's made entirely of ice. The object's immediate surroundings are unnaturally frozen and coated in ice. Perhaps it's floating in a tropical forest that's now covered in frost, or in front of or above a little fountain that's frozen solid. Things further from it could be normal temperature, but the majority of what we see should be near the thing and frozen.
We know we want an impossible shape and a sense of extreme cold. Other than that, feel free to run with something that contradicts the above if you think it'll make for a singular, striking piece.

Focus: The artifact

Mood: Sinister, impossible, and very, very cold

Notes: This card is a reprint, and its name is final. This concept is an intentional departure from the “springtime” topline of SOUP.

This brief is perfect. It gives enough information to work from but also a nice challenge in designing something unique. As an artist it doesn't get a lot better than this. There was however the small challenge of coming up with an Escher like impossible shape. That my friends, was not easy.

The impossible shape:

Here is the ref I got:
 

Right. So these look very cool but are tricky to design around. Right from the get go I knew I wanted something that could show the actual icy core. My idea was simple: The impossible shield would be the casing, a mysterious prison, for the super dangerous icy core. So, I got cracking and tried to come up with an impossible shape.

This is how a lot of my sketches start. Either in paper or digital. Scribbles. Scribbles everywhere!

Research plays a huge role in this job, so I found myself browsing forums and other websites trying to find a reliable way of making an Escher like impossible shape. I found some nice resources and tips and started to narrow down my focus using colors to help me identify the impossible connections. Diagonals were my friend.

Ice crystals? Snowflake shapes? Wait, this could be interesting!

Ah yes! A lead! Maybe snowflakes would be a good jumping off point. On brand too! Oh, wait, there is a problem with a lot of these shapes. They aren't 3 dimensional enough. Most of the shapes I found were either too flat or too compressed. I needed my goldilocks shape. I needed it to be just right. I was trying to find the right shape to work from, something easy. Something... I looked at my desk:
 

Bingpot!

And there it was, staring at me in plain sight, the glorious dodecahedron, otherwise known as the D12. It has the perfect balance between faces and space. Not too compressed, not too noisy and complicated. So what if I just simply grabbed a D12 and do some tricksy stuff with it.

Behold!

ITS AALLLLIIIIVE!!!

I briefly mentioned diagonals were my friend and boy were they ever. By simply grabbing the back face, which normally isn't visible, and placing it up front with some impossible connections I could quickly create a truly impossible shape. Having knowledge of perspective helped me wrap my head around the connections and how to make them seem believable, yet, impossible.
Now, you might wonder. Titus, is this all you did before you landed on this design? No, dear reader, it was not! There are tons of slushed sketches but I will give you a peak as to what might've been if I hadn't changed my mind, pushed harder and gone the extra mile:

I was toying around with the idea of the manipulator being on the volcanic plains of Shiv or perhaps in the Yavimaya forest. None of these worked, all looked boring and the shape was completely wrong. Hard pass.

The Theme:

Now that I have a shape, I need a theme. Backstories help tremendously with making a believable scene, so I had to come up with one for the Icy Manipulator. Dominaria is an incredibly rich world, with many opportunities to come up with something cool, but making an image is more about visual interest than anything else, meaning that the way I look for a backstory is different. In images, contrast rules supreme. Constrast can be anything, light versus dark, hot versus cold, and so on. I knew that the manipulator would be cool, so I needed something warm (this is why I initially went to Shiv) but also, the manipulator freezes so I need to show something easily identifyable as frozen. Like a fountain for example. A fountain however had a bit of an issue for me: it was too boring. Who would place this artifact on top of a fountain? How did it even get there? No, I had to come up with something more compelling.  And what better of a fit than a organisation turned death cult lead by the demonlord Belzenlok himself. The warm red banners of the cabal are a perfect opposite (contrast) to the blue of the icy manipulator. Their warm church tones provide a great backdrop for the device but at the same time there is also a narrative overlap, at least in my mind, of a cult that will use every and any device to gain an advantage. A stolen manipulator to further their cause. A Cabal cathedral had to be the backdrop.
From here things moved really fast. I was in familiar territory now. Painting architecture is my jam and the manipulator was sorted. So I started out with a line sketch and to my surprise nailed it on the first go.

The Icy Manipulator will be the focus. marked by the + symbol in the middle, this marks where the object will go. Long verticals line the sides to emphasize the height of the cathedral but they also contrast the rounded shape of the manipulator. Contrast! The arches move in towards the shape and using half domes I can 'mirror' the manipulator's shape - another technique!

So a lot of composition stuff is happening here. If anyone wants to know more, feel free to take one of my classes! I will host one later this year in September via the platform of none other than Noah Bradley himself.
Moving on, painting the thing.

Told you things would move fast from here! For me, the image now is basically done. All I need to do is finish it. Not the most interesting part of the process but a necessary one. This painting was made on 9000px wide so it took a fair bit of time painting in all the details. The benefit of working really big is that details compress down on small sizes and look extra crispy and nice.

A lot of people asked why I didn't zoom in more. While it does look cool, it also loses all story and context. It's like telling a punchline but no joke.

A look at the core at almost it's native resolution (had to shrink it a little) show's the impossible shape. Glass like structures moving criss cross, trying to contain the icy core. The power of the core is spilling out and even in small amounts is utterly freezing it's surroundings. Imagine if it every got loose!

There you have it my friends, this is how I create most magic cards. They are all special in their own way and I try to tell stories with each and every one of them. It's good to be back writing these and I hope you enjoyed reading this one. As a bonus, here is something I do with each and every card I do. Testing them on card frames over and over until it works.

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If you want to support me:

If you enjoy what you read here I would really appreciate your support! I've made some very sweet mini prints, including the Icy Manipulator, and am selling them for a steal. You can have a look by clicking the image:

Thanks again for all the kind words over the years and being an awesome community. It's you guys that make me go the extra mile on all my work!

The human in the Mirror: The art of looking at art

Hello fine folk of the internet and good people all around! It sure has been a while. How have you been? Sorry, perhaps an unfair question. In this day and age it seems increasingly impossible to give an answer shorter than a full blown essay to that question. Let me rephrase and say that I hope that, on the whole, you all are doing OK or better.
I've been wondering what to write for this next blog entry for a long time. I've started a number of drafts but was never able to get through them. As time grew I found it increasingly difficult to come up with something to write because I felt it had to be bigger and better than ever before. I stumbled upon a sentence that remedied that; 'Strive for excellence, not perfection.' This has helped me with my art and now also my writing. The phrase reminded me that perfection is an impossible task but excellence, that resides within a mindset that's bigger than just the task at hand. This concept of multiple disciplines working together is particularly relevant when it comes to visual art. Recently I kept seeing a discussion coming back which dealt with taste. Which got me thinking.

There is no accounting for taste

Or is there? If this sentiment was completely true it would be nearly impossible for a diverse group of critics to come to a consensus about what constitutes good art and what constitutes bad art. Since this is not, at least entirely, the case there is an obvious baseline we need to take a closer look at. There is more to art than mere opinion. The art of looking at art. Now, it's extremely important to understand that this has very little to do with personal opinion, to which each and everyone one of us has a fundamental right. I'll try not to fall into another discussion where we have to explicitly explain that things do not have to mutually exclusive. Meaning, just because I don't like A doesn't mean I am all for and only into B. Now that we've gotten that out of the way we can start.

Looking at art is a (surprisingly?) complicated task. It takes a lot of knowledge in order to be able to contribute to the discussion in a productive way. It's all about the frame (get it) of reference. When looking at art we have an incredibly long list of stuff to look at and understand, like (but not limited to):

• Fundamentals of technique
• Composition
• Storytelling

Or, to get a bit more specific:

• Brush economy
• Color choice 
• Color temperature and saturation versus the storytelling
• Perspective
• Anatomy
• Texture
• Emotion (nice and vague, just the way I like it)
• Oh, good glob, so much more...

This is all well and good but the problem is that so, so much of art is subjective. This leads to a paradox. If so much is subjective, how can we keep opinions out? Part of this is trust. Trust that a professional opinion is formed through years of exposure to artwork and this helps shape an informed opinion, not an off the cuff one. In essence some pieces speak to someone and not to others. This personal touch makes separating personal opinion from 'fact' (as far as facts go in judging art) incredibly difficult when looking at it from an outside point of view. Think: 'Why does the critics opinion matter and mine does not?'. See above on trust.
When you get started yourself you can judge a piece based on it's technical execution but even that would be pointless since some artists break the rules on purpose to get a better effect. What an absolute minefield.

Ship to Ship by Craig Mullins

The piece above uses multiple different light sources to convey the same daylight setting but in this case it doesn't matter in the slightest. The brushwork matches exactly the violent and dynamic scene that unfolds before us. The last thing we as a viewer are concerned with is how accurate the lighting is, the only thing that matters is the action. This means we have to shift how we look at art and redefine what it means to look at art. No one ever said this would be easy.

Look with your guts, not just your eyes

Because art is so much more than just the sum of it's parts (this is sort of the whole thing about art) we can't judge a piece just by following a checklist, even though we need to have a thorough understanding of everything on that checklist. It's important to remember that there is only really 1 important criteria:
Does the piece speak for itself.
This means, does the piece fulfill it's self imposed task of evoking the right emotion. This is something we can all form an opinion on. We have to really wonder what a piece is trying to say. With production art this can be more simplistic since it's a lot more functional than liberal art would be and it doesn't always get the chance to speak for itself on an emotional level. The one thing production art has to do is convey the scene it was meant to convey. The brief. If the task is to paint a zombie horse, and the result is a clear and unmistakable zombie horse, regardless of style, it has already succeeded on some level. After that, quality followed by taste. There is a 'buffer' zone in between where you can talk about the painting's merits based on technical application and skill and that's about it. However, some production art might have the task of evoking a certain emotion. You see how quickly all of this get's complicated?
Now, I know some of you might think: "That's all well and good Titus, but stuff these days just all looks the same!"

Oh boy...
 

Taste is like flavors

Ah, I do love a good cryptic statement. Here is the metaphor.
Looking at art is a lot like eating food. When we are very young we can only differentiate a few flavors. We have no real frame of reference and we only know if we like something or not. Cheese tastes like cheese. We like it or we don't. As we grow older and get more exposed to different flavors we get more nuanced. Cheese all of a sudden can be bold, flat, creamy, smelly, old, young and so on. The more we eat and explore the more flavors get unlocked and before you know it you can distinguish what a meal lacks. Perhaps more salt? (It's never more salt...)
So here is the annoying truth. By saying that 'everything looks alike' you are actually saying 'I can't differentiate these pieces because I haven't built up enough reference yet'. This is fine. We can't all be art critics. This is where your opinion is totally valid and yours. It just doesn't make it a fact. Just because it looks that way doesn't mean it is.

Sort of this. This statement is nothing short of brilliant and even though science and art have quite a different outlook on life, in this case they share a common sentiment. Opinion does not make fact.

Now, it's not entirely fair what I'm saying in the sense that I'm being too harsh. There is this fundamental truth to the function of art that artists and critics alike sometimes lose track of; at some point art has to make sense and appeal at first glance. There comes a point where if you have to explain a piece for 20 minutes before it works perhaps it's too complicated and overshot it's mark, no matter how clever it is. This is a fine line because the question then becomes: 'Where do you set the baseline of artistic understanding of your target audience?'. The higher the baseline the more you can get away with. If it's low, you run the risk of being perceived as generic. If it's too high your run the risk of alienating a lot of people because they don't know what the hell they are looking at.

This will surely break the meta. T1 guaranteed.

Here is an incredibly over simplified but perhaps handy questionnaire checklist to glance over when you are not sure if a piece is good or not, or if it looks too much like all the other pieces you are seeing:

• What was the brief?
• Did the piece stick to the brief? 
• Is the image clear?
• How does the artist handle light?
• How does the artist handle anatomy?
• How does the artist handle perspective?
• Hows does the artist use these 3 above questions to tell a story?
• Does the texture of the paint affect the image?
• Does the piece speak to you?
• Name 5 things why it does or doesn't.

Next time you are not sure, just for kicks, write down your initial snap opinion. Then go through the checklist and write down your opinion again. See if there is any change. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be. Self education will only make art more fun to look at!

Human in the mirror

Like Michael Jackson famously said in his song 'Man in the Mirror':

“Take a look at yourself, and then make a change”

For all it's cheese it's true. In times where the weight of the world seems inescapable, a time where there seems to be more unjust than just, more strife than fortune and more hate than love, we owe it to ourselves and others to look in the mirror and wonder if we are the best we can be. This is true always. And while that statement carries way too much gravitas to be applicable solely to art I'd like to hope that at least some of it crosses over.
The tendency seems to be that it's blame, complain, point fingers first, learn and ask questions later - if you're lucky. I'd very much like to see this process reversed if anything. Art, whether it's production or not, is always a reflection of current affairs. It's never created in a vacuum. Some pieces have more space to create a voice. Some pieces get to yell and others only whisper. All of it is made by people who have their own views of the world and this should be understood by the viewer. Ask yourself if there is more to be understood in a piece than you currently do. Is there a way that this artwork can make your grow your understanding, and if it does, isn't that a wonderful thing? Admitting we don't understand everything we encounter the first time is one of the most rewarding realizations. It means we can grow, we can discover. Looking at art can be fun and rewarding but it's more complicated than it might seem at first glance. In this it'd be silly to strive for perfection but excellence is within all our reach.

So moving forward let's not only stay awesome, let's also stay excellent.

- Titus

  
P.s
A lot has happened in the last few months. A lot of stuff that made me very sad and a lot of stuff that made me very happy. Perhaps it's me getting older but I find that I am reflecting more and more on the behavior of myself and others. It's baffling how you see intolerance once more take over. It fills me with a deep sadness that I feel I put into my work, whether it's noticeable or not. I desperately, almost naively like a child, want all of us to come together. To take a stand against intolerance, hatred, bigotry, racism and everything divisive. I see so many good people in my community do the good work and I urge everyone who reads this to pause for just a second and do a quick moral check. It's never too late to turn the wheel around and make a change for the better. I don't believe we are born bad. I do believe art and games can unite us. We cannot tolerate intolerance, we need to break that paradox. You might question why this is attached to an article about how to look at art, the reason is simple. Like I said before, art is not created in a vacuum. I just wanted to show you real quick what that actually means.

Beyond the horizon

Hello dear friends and fine folk of the internet all around and welcome to another year and another chance at achieving those goals you set for yourself. To prove once and for all that this is indeed your year and that you have what it takes to be a superstar. But let me ask you, if this is really how you feel, why haven't you done so already?
Many reasons, I know. I'm the same. Or was the same? Hard to tell when goals shift all the time. The usual suspects are: procrastination, not enough time, too many different goals and lack of discipline - or are they? Join me, for another journey into the mind.

I've talked on this blog many times before about the complexity of seemingly simple principles and the simple solutions to complex problems. Getting 'beyond the horizon' is no different. We've talked about the fact that maybe art isn't for you and how that's perfectly OK. One of the issues is that sometimes we react strongly to when someone tells us we can't do something. It lights that competitive fire under us which makes us strive for greater goals and achieving them. Sometimes that voice comes from someone else and sometimes it comes from yourself. Just like how sometimes you can break through and other times you can't and get stuck. This isn't a article about how to get back into the gym and lose those couple kilograms (Yes, I'm European, I'll use metrics) and make it stick; or how to finally get on that kale smoothie diet to get that extra energy boost in the morning. We already have something for that, it's called coffee or energy drinks if you don't partake in the cult of Java.

Event horizon

For those who don't know, the event horizon is the point of no return when approaching a black hole. The no escape zone. Nothing that goes on there can be observed or influenced by anyone on the outside, right before it get's sucked into the bottomless pit that is the black hole. At least, that's the theory for now.
Some aspects of my insecurities that I struggle through, which directly affect traits like productivity, have a shocking similarity to this event horizon which the exception that outside influences can very much affect me. So what does this have to do with getting better at art? Breaking those limits? Unless we test ourselves to the limit we'll never know where it is. The reason why this isn't the same as a 'going back to the gym' talk is because our mind, in general, is much less flexible and straight forward in growth as our body. The same rigorous exercise regime that might get you in shape physically might only strengthen some terrible habits and notions when applied to the mental physique.

That event horizon makes it hard for people on the outside to understand what's going on inside. It makes it hard for us to be objective and take a look at what's going on in the inner workings of our inner workings. There are countless of unseen barriers that drain our motivation and energy and prevent us from applying them to useful things like painting or whichever craft you want to do. Some tough questions that need to be answered; for me the most important one is:

What is my limit?

What is the best I can do? Not now, but ever. In my lifetime. The reason why this question is important is not because of it's measurable result but because of it's implications; simply coming to terms with the fact that it does have a definitive answer. It's in many ways a rhetorical question above anything else, just like the question we opened with: Why haven't you achieved your goals already? The reason why we need to come to terms with this is because if we ignore the fact that we have limitations we can never be comfortable with the fact that we might not achieve certain things. How come we are perfectly OK with the notion that we'll never be a rock star, even if we might want to be, or becoming a pro athlete even if we work out? We understand the complexity and we are realistic about it, we understand the implications. Yet, for our own work there remains in general - even with the understanding of the difficulties in achieving your goals - a willful ignorance to it's totality.
The key idea is that this sense of reality conflicts directly with the motivation required to achieve your goal. I.e. if you think you'll never achieve it you wont. While this is in large part true it's also a blanket statement that doesn't do justice to the complicated process of artistic creation. Creativity is only partially founded in technical expertise, which comes with obvious limitations, the rest comes from self expression and a personal touch that can't be measured directly. The subjective part of art is where you can really shine but not if you don't have the understanding that it is OK to let certain things go.
Coming to terms with your own possible shortcomings instills a sense of patience that is required to approach complicated problems. Not by giving up or saying to yourself you can never achieve it but by understanding that these processes take time. Painting is more than the sum of it's parts, it's more than just paint on a canvas. It's a mixture of many moving parts. From edge control to perspective and from value to emotion.

If we are too consumed by our own black hole of insecurities we can never see them for what they are. Facing that uncomfortable truth that there is a real chance we'll never be as good as some of our idols simply because we can't because we are not them. We can get good in our own way. Maybe it's even a better way, but taste is subjective. If we don't learn how to do this we can never take the time to be happy with what we can achieve. Not just on paper or canvas but also mentally. Be happy that we took the time to learn something, to do a study, to open a book, to read an article and to get that victory of understanding a new principle. We are all so keen on making the next masterpiece but this is missing the point. There is a real chance the greatest master pieces themselves are always reaching for a branch too high for even them to grasp. If you always keep your focus on becoming the best, and keeping that rope strung as high a tension as you can it's bound to snap. Give it some slack. It's not about getting good now, it's about getting better. It's about understanding where you are now, not so you can look ahead but to look around and appreciate how far you've come. Worry less about the rules and more about what you want to say with your work and designs; that should be the loudest voice.

Beyond the horizon

The cruel nature of the game with any visual or tangible creative profession is that we are constantly confronted with material which we can directly compare to our own. As a whole the quality might sometimes remain objective, as in - there is no accounting for taste - however at the very least some of the individual parts can be compared to whatever we are making ourselves. The use of color, certain riffs, values, contrast. That next level. The reality, once more, is that art demands our unwavering confidence in ourselves. The wishful thinking part is that we can somehow ignore the work of others and do our own thing - if it wasn't for this fierce competition Van Gogh wouldn't be where he was; nor would Cezanne and Monet. Walking this tightrope is the price we pay in order to push ourselves, to express how we see the world. Getting beyond that horizon and growing beyond those envisioned limits is to look less at the individual parts - how technically good something is - and more about if it moves you and if you can move others with what you want to say. That's what matters. There is a limit to how good you can get on a technical level but on a expressive level you can go beyond your imagination.

“Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and... stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want? ”

— Kandinsky

I'll leave you with a poem that was on a poster in my English class in high school. Written by a man who's biggest success came as his first book and never got back to that level. Mocked by his peers as a one hit wonder, driven to another country and into poverty and ultimately dead at 28. This is what he wrote in his last published bundle of poems and it stuck with me all these years. To me,  a very on point look at artists behind the art.

“I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never —”

“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on. ”

— Stephen Crane

Happy 2017 everyone. I hope this year is filled with less worry, more wonder, and a fire that inspires you to be who you want to be.

- Titus

My Precious! And why your ideas don't matter

Hello good friends and fine folk of the internet all around. Another Friday and another opportunity for me to tell you the world you know is a lie and life as an artist is pain; but in a good way. As with many things within our little community, the reality is often different from our perhaps idealistic view. Navigating the web and figuring out what's useful information can be tricky for the more seasoned artist, let alone beginners; not to mention the perception of the industry it forms.
One of the skills in the top five of 'Qualities you need to have' is a thick skin. Dealing with defeat and people critiquing your work is a must. As per usual there are many factors involved, it's not just all on you. You have to be ready for the feedback, it has to be done properly and with insight to how the artist communicates, it has to be necessary, etc. One of the things you can work on that makes this process is easier is understanding one thing:

Your ideas don't matter if the client doesn't like them.

Much like in the rest of the world it's not having the idea that counts it's how well you can execute it and whether or not you did it better or faster than the other guy / girl. As a concept artist you are not just paid to come up with stuff, you are paid to come up with stuff that works. It's that last part where things can get difficult as there might not just be one person telling you what to do, or how. Too many chefs in the kitchen is a far too familiar problem and it's not something that you can get used to either. So, here we are again, disillusioned once more. Do we ever catch a break?

My favorite part from the newest Rick and Morty Episode. Do yourself a favor and go and watch this show.

Ideas

When I started out I thought I was pretty great. My ideas were legit the best ever. I knew all there was to know about perspective so please don't talk to me about perspective. My lighting was A+. Solid 5/7 on composition and my understanding of how the engine worked was like Neo looking at the Matrix.
So, naturally, I was horribly wrong. My ego got crushed. Had about 25391 lessons in reality. Confronted myself constantly and moved on.
There are many things that only you can teach yourself through experience. Some stuff you can read about but it just won't change things, but when it comes to understanding the more business side of production art there are a few things that you should know. When I talk to beginning artists or those who want to break into the industry a common assumption I'm seeing is that many of them believe they can get in based on how good their ideas are. The belief that their ideas differentiate them enough from the pack that combined with their drawing and painting skills it will get them a job. Stephen Fry had a fantastic quote on this:

“An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them”

— Stephen Fry

Funnily enough, the notion that originality is dead is nothing new, it does however leave people in an awkward position. We as professional concept artist keep hammering on that it's not your skill that matters but your ideas and this is simply not true. It's at best a misnomer of what is really going on. A more closely accurate statement would be; It's not just about your skills but about your ideas and how well they fit into the current project requirements. It's a lot less catchy though which is unfortunate. 
The truth is that ideas are a dime a dozen. This is what you have to remember and, it poses a few problems:

• What if you can't come up with more than 1 or 2 ideas?
• What if you come up with so many you can't choose?
• How do you know how many you even need?
• How do you differentiate between a good and bad idea?

That last one might seem very self explanatory but work in the industry for a few years and that'll change - it's sometimes downright impossible to tell why any given idea got picked. The obvious outsider, the terrible fifth wheel, the nonsensical one. It will happen. Preparing yourself the best you can is a must and the road starts here!

What if you can't come up with more than 1 or 2 ideas?
Try harder! HAH! How's that for a shitty self help answer. But seriously, you need to try harder. Research is almost always the answer. The more you know the more you can draw from. I feel like I said that before... Regardless, almost every situation will have multiple solutions no matter how dumb they are.

What if you come up with so many you can't choose?
Time efficiency is a great skill to have and can help you decide how to approach this problem. How do you choose? backing up your ideas and being able to stand your ground is a incredibly useful skill to have in meetings and when talking to supervisors. This means you have to be pretty assertive, confident and have good people skills. In the beginning when I had none of these I faked it. Sometimes it worked and sometimes I got caught out and got an earful for not knowing what I was talking about. This is how I learned, learned how to read more, talk more, question more. Anything I could do to build a strong case for whatever idea I thought that worked. If you have too many ideas to choose from start valuing them based on their relevance to the subject. I'm sure you can come up with a way to do that; a point or merit system or perhaps just on how cool they sound. Whatever it is you do make sure you can back it up.

How do you know how many you need?
You don't. At least, I don't. Not very often anyway. It's mostly time that determines how many ideas you can have and how many you can execute. After a while you will develop a clear picture of how long it takes for you to complete any given task and assess it's complexity based on the brief you are given. This will drive the whole thought process and provides a base for you to build on. Some ideas will simply be too big and complex to ever fit the project requirements and as such should not be considered. This is where it goes wrong for a lot of people; they get an idea and get so attached to it regardless of it's qualities compared to the project requirements. When the idea then gets shot down it can feel really bad. Getting emotionally invested to some of the ideas you have might not be a bad thing but it can set yourself up for some bad times.

How do you differentiate between a good and bad idea?
Oh boy, this depends on a lot of things. Imagine working on the most tacky cliche game you can imagine. A refined solution to any given problem might not be what the product is after. A elegant acrobatic maneuver of a character to get in position for the ultimate assassination of the game's main bad guy might not be as good as a random bullet which ricochets off of twelve different walls, via a frying pan, hitting a fish, which scares the chef causing him to slip and accidentally stabbing the bad guy in the back. It's a terrible idea, but it can work in the context of the game. So. Good and bad are in our line of work super objective terms. The way you can tell if an idea works is to measure it's likeliness of success based on previous ideas, project requirements, how different it is from the trend of accepted ideas and feasibility. An idea can be great but if you can't get it to work or if it costs too many resources it won't get accepted, making it a bad idea.

So there you have it. Good ideas can be bad and bad ideas can be good. I prefer chaotic neutral which could be a fantastic name for a podcast on game development. You're welcome.

Thick Skin

I can be very short on this; it's combination of not caring and not caring. It's really mostly about faking it for me. Because honestly, nobody loves hearing their ideas don't work fourteen times in a row. At some point it get's old. I've talked about mental energy before and having ideas rejected takes a big bite out of this reserve. OK, so it's not all about not caring. Experience helps. Looking at it differently - but that's easier said than done.
At the base of this skill lies the understanding that ideas are part of a collective team effort in order to make the product better; which is a compromise between a lot of different parties trying to satisfy a multitude of different needs. 'The best game' is not the one that's executed the best. It's the one that finds the best compromise between what the publishers want, the gamers want, the money people want, the game designers want and so on. If there was one clear vision this whole article would be made redundant. The more you get on the same page with the team the better - and that's where you come in. Being able to switch gears and change ideas on the fly to reach a better end product will help everyone in the pipeline behind you. Seeing it as being part of that team instead of your ideas making your part of the product better is a huge step forward. Again, easier said than done. Let's not kid ourselves, everyone has pride. Everyone has an ego of some size or another. It's a learning curve for everyone and whether it's a hill to climb or a mountain to scale it will have to happen.
One of the big things I needed to learn how to say was; "we did this" instead of "I did this".

Now go forth and not care about your ideas! How's that for a Friday message.

- Titus

Catch 22

Hello fine folk of the internet and good people all around. After a week of being gone we have once more returned to the fray. We wanted to gather our thoughts on some of the recurring issues we've been seeing with starting artists in a climate that has become more friendly and yet more polarized at the same time. The internet will be and forever remain a strange place where it can be difficult to navigate your way through meaningless dredge and, I will leave it up to you dear reader, to decide if this blog is part of that. This week we'd like to talk about the catch 22 of getting professional experience and the professional conduct that goes along with it. We'll talk about the importance of taking yourself seriously if you want to do serious work and behaving yourself professionally if you want to be treated like a professional.

Let me start right there, professional conduct. I've had a lot of trouble rearranging the words in such a way as to not offend or state the obvious but I don't think that's possible. Professional conduct and the reputation you build is the cornerstone of your career, it will stretch much further than you might imagine. It's true that for every type of behavior there is a crowd but don't mistake the popularity among a given demographic as indication of a widespread positive image. That is to say, if you go around insulting people you might get a strong following though not everyone you might have to work with at some point in your career share the same opinion. Which leads me to that extremely crucial word which is paramount in understanding what professional conduct means; Opinion. The most common mistake is to mistake opinion for fact, which can be a slippery slope from discussion into rhetoric defenses. 
All this is amplified by social media, a place where false stories, 'vigilante journalism' and rhetoric reign supreme. Now when you think this only applies to politics you are mistaken. These forms of behavior can be found in almost any community, from politics to model trains and so too in the art community. This is a problem almost as old as time, especially on the internet but only recently the spotlight was put on it in a big way. We've seen it within the game community in 2014 and we've seen it again during the US presidential election. This blog is not a place for such political debates or analysis for a multitude of reasons, what is important to understand however is that the divisive nature of arguments, the aggressive isolation of a few and the drowning of solid logic with rhetoric is not unique to those platforms and that we cannot and must not brush them off as insignificant when we see them. While we might not have organised movements within the art community there are certain dogma's that keep rearing their heads, ones that have no place in a community or profession where freedom of expression are it's literal foundation and origin, and I cannot stress that word literal enough. Art is a reaction, a voice, a freedom of expression. Whether it has something meaningful to say or not. It's personal and in such there is no right and wrong. Expression is not the ability to adhere to the rules of theory; that's merely a tool you can use to help you with expressing what you want. So, where do we start?

Information

The 'solution' to all of this misinformation is of course to be well informed, but how can you do that if there is so much misinformation out there? The whole situation seems Kafkaesque. A high level of scrutiny and background research is required to form an opinion but that takes a lot of time and energy. Sifting through articles, reading multiple opinions, going back in time to see if there is any historical reference on both the topic and the discussion. Reading and re-reading the arguments or statements posted, making sure you understand what's going on. Should you have to do all that just to get your 2 cents in?

Yes.

Yes you should. As the saying goes, the buck stops with you. The final responsibility about your own words and actions lies solely with you, even if it's a nonsensical debate. Does it mean you should be a hard lining a*hole who busts everyone's chops every single time? No, of course not. Sometimes you just have to sit out a 'discussion' (as far as they still exist on social media) in favor of something else, like reading up on color theory or painting or drawing. The base principle which I'm talking about is to look more in  than out. 
One of the mistakes is looking at this from a single comment point of view; assessing the harm of a single comment (which can be devastating). When looking at a single comment it's easy to lose track of the bigger picture and especially in an age where perception can be skewed so easily we don't often ask ourselves the difficult questions; if we show systematic symptoms of a*hole behavior or worse. No one wants to admit they have deep seeded 'discomfort' with certain ethnicties , practices or convictions. More often, as the explanation goes, it comes from an alternate much more altruistic ideology that distances itself from these negative qualities. Yet, we see them everywhere over and over again, seems strange if everyone is truly just.
Again, if you think this only applies to theology rather than color theory I'm sorry to inform you otherwise. See for yourself if this sounds familiar:
Digital painting is cheating because it doesn't utilize the techniques of old.
Photobashing is cheating because it's not purely painting.
Hand painted concept art is stupid because it's too slow.
Character anatomy should be done by heart, not with reference.
Painting over a photo means the image will have no artistic merit.
Using anything other than the brush tool in Photoshop when working digitally is a hack. Don't use any 3D, that defeats the purpose of painting.

The list goes on but you get the point. Where is all this information coming from? The well that sprung the list where we can cross reference our opinions and transmute them into fact. The Philosopher's stone of this generations Fact alchemy (The mythical process of turning opinion into fact) is social media. The more likes a post gets the stronger the transmutation becomes. 
In the end all of this serves no other purpose than to be right and for the other to be wrong. This senseless divisive tool gets in the way of something extremely crucial to art. Self expression.

Opinion and Expression

When it comes to self expression there is nothing more important than the complete understanding of the relationship between opinion and fact. Between theory and expression. Which takes precedent, when, why and how. When do you break the rules of perspective? When do you break the rules of color theory? How do you do those things? What is your motivation? The more you understand these theoretical principles the better you can apply or ignore them in your own work and, hopefully it won't drive you straight to the message boards to criticize others for not utilizing them properly. Slowly we're coming full circle to professional conduct. And just to take a shortcut to the conclusion; the more you research theory, and the way it affects your own work and ideas on what you like to make, the less intimidated you become by the opinions of others. You see, it doesn't matter at all what you think to another person. It just doesn't. Same goes for mine - I realize that people aren't waiting to hear my opinion on their work if they don't specifically ask for it. You shouldn't care what I think about your use of color. Good or bad. You do you.
This is where our little world separates itself fundamentally from other practices. We don't have to be divisive, there are no polarizing schools of thought that shake the world. We have the appearance of such existence, do we ever. This is however merely an illusion - our expression is based on opinion. See we aren't governing nations, we govern expression. Art is a reactionary voice. We don't elect anyone, follow one leader, one opinion, we are united in our multitude of opinions and styles all coming from one simple origin; our opinion.
The more you know, the more informed you are, the better the resulting expression will be. To make a pun interjecting all this seriousness, the more you draw from the better you draw. Self expression is something that grows over the years and one of the catalysts for this is the connections you have with others, when ideas cross over. This does imply however that you have to be open to them. You can come across many different opinions, some that you agree with and some that you utterly despise, just don't make the mistake of mistaking your opinion for being better than that of another. 

Professionalism and Experience

Now that I've hopefully hammered home the importance of research and forming a well informed opinion to better express yourself it's time to tie it in with professionalism. Professional behavior is more than being polite. It's about being able to listen, absorb, interpret and translate opinions of others with compromise when needed, especially when working in a studio with others. It's a rare skill. Some people assume that if they work in a professional environment they themselves are therefor by proxy professional. This is very far from the truth. It's a skill that takes practice to get good at, it's a skill that you have to be aware of consciously, it's an active skill. You can be working in the industry for a decade as a professional and still not be professional. When trying to get a job it's important to understand that distinction. The company you are applying to might take a look at those 'one off' posts you made and see a behavioral pattern they don't like.
There are 3 factors involved when getting hired:

1. Your experience
2. Your personality
3. Your intelligence (not raw but that applicable to the relevant job)

Hit 2 out of 3 and you have a good chance. You can be a insufferable person if you are fantastic at your job and have a lot of experience and nobody needs to work with you. Concept art and illustration is unfortunately not one of those jobs. However, if you have little experience but are great to work with and you show a lot of potential you are still hitting 2 out of 3. This is why you should look at that Philosopher's stone, or a mirror, to figure out where you stand and how you measure up. This is why you read as much as you can and inform yourself, to keep up with others, to help translate, to understand what the logical course is of any given assignment. It's also why you should constantly work on your people skills and patience and ask yourself, truly, if you are an a*hole.

Catch 22

The phrase comes from a book written in 1953 by Joseph Heller titled 'Catch 22'. It follows a bomber squad in the second world war stationed on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa. The main plot device is the 'Catch 22' airmen requirement. Airmen who were mentally unfit to fly could declare to do so, however, anyone who applied showed a rational concern for their own safety and was therefor sane and required to fly.
Being rejected for a job that requires experience for lack of said experience is a catch 22, a Kafkaesque situation, a illogical loop. 

The solution to this problem on paper is very simple; make your own experience. It's the execution that's problematic. The Socratic Paradox; How do you know what you don't know? For, if you had the understanding of how to get the experience required, you would have, most likely, attained it or set out to do so and thus it wouldn't be a problem to begin with.
The easiest answer for this is simply faking it. Hit that 2 out of 3. Be professional, easy to work with and do as much research as you can on whatever it is you need to know. Ask other people in the industry, pick their brain not on what they do but what the requirements are for them to do a successful job. Then set out on your own to do a project where you fake those requirements as best as you can. Art direct yourself if you have to, demonstrate this understanding.
If you don't understand professional behavior you probably won't get very far. If you don't understand proper research and how to ask questions you probably won't get very far. the adage, "just don't be an idiot" comes to mind. Though, we all need help from time to time - thankfully.

In the end it all adds up. The better informed you are, the more you learn to listen and distinguish fact from fiction, and discussion from rhetoric,  the more you will grow as a professional. The more professional you are the more likely it is people will want to work with you. The more you work with others the more your work will grow and the cycle moves on.
My journey on this is still ongoing. I learn more and more every time I talk to people about how I can grow, when I'm being an a*hole. It influences my paintings. I come from a concept art background and never gave much pause to people who paint everything by hand since I was simply not fast enough to work that way in the job that I had. The more I tried it and came to realize it's merits the more it began to change my opinion about my own expressive qualities and the more my work began to change as a result. If you let your desire for a certain way of expressing yourself creatively drive your work rather than your desire for work drive your creative expressions you'll discover a new side to yourself. One that might very well lead you to be unemployed since self expression within production art is increasingly rare - yet - despair not. There will always be a place for a well rounded, well mannered, enthusiastic artist. 

- Titus

The long road: My time at wizards, part 2

Hello dear friends and fine folk of the internet all around. It's that time of the week again where we gear up for the weekend and look ahead to the holiday season. Before I look ahead however I want to, just like the last 'The long road' article, look back. Yesterday marked my 3 year anniversary of starting to work freelance for Wizards of the Coast and Magic: The Gathering in particular. And between me, Noah Bradley and Victor Adame Minguez playing at GP Rotterdam last week and Worlds in Rotterdam this weekend I thought it was high time to talk some more Magic. Last time I walked you through all the steps of the journey and how I got there; this time I'd like to talk a bit more about what the game means to the people I meet in the community, what it means to me and also how it's affected the way I paint and think about art.

Before we begin I'd like to give a shout out to all my Vorthos friends who have been crucial in informing me and keeping me on my toes.

This pretty much sums up my sentiment at the moment. Click the image for more magic comic goodness.

Six years of magic

One of the main reasons I got into magic is because my friend and co-writer of this blog Robin got me into it back around the Scars of Mirrodin block. It wasn't the first time I started playing, back in 2004 when I was a very poor 18 year old I got a few packs of Darksteel and built a massively illegal deck because I didn't quite understand the rules. The card I remember, and valued, most from back then was Mephitic Ooze.

Still absolutely love this artwork

Little did I know that the Arcbound Ravager that I also got and traded was actually worth a bit more. Like I said, I didn't know a single thing about the game. Not a whole lot has changed but I do try. Actually, that's not true at all. A lot has changed. 
Thanks to Magic I've:

• Met and talked to more people than I ever would have otherwise
• Laughed and got salty more that I ever would have
• Pushed myself harder 
• Relaxed more
• Sleeved faster
• De-sleeved even faster
• Read more about rules, architecture, design, color theory, brush economy and stack interaction
• Grown as a person

The beauty is, my story isn't a unique one. Every GP I meet more people who all share the same sentiment. Whether it is because they've played since '96, '06 or '16. The sentiment is the same but the stories are different, so if you have a good story please share it with us in the comments.

Out of those 6 years I've had the fortune of illustrating for the game for 3. I showed some of the Khans of Tarkir stuff before (I honestly don't know how I got work after that) but I never really talked about my personal favorites. Let's remedy that.

The list

Magic has a impossibly large pool of art to choose from and there is no way to objectively determine which are best. A lot of this comes down to personal taste and on top of that because of the nature of the game the quality and play-ability of the card influences this as well. This top 3 doesn't really do justice to the total pool and if I get into honorable mentions this article will go indefinitely so take this with a pinch of salt. 

1. Lux Cannon

Art by Martina Pilcerova. If I were to make a top 10 her work would be in there at least 6 times.

2. Mindslaver

Art by Volkan Baga. It's hard to choose, I like a lot of his pieces.

3. Glimmerpost

Art by Matt Cavotta. Back to my roots on this one, when I started playing MTG.

These pieces appeal to me because they are hugely expressive. The literal representation of what it is becomes secondary to the feeling they invoke. The feel of the brush strokes, the color economy, explosive swirly and dynamic compositions. All of it combined make for very compelling images and it's something I've been trying to get into my work since I've started. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it looks. With more and more great artists streaming in it's increasingly hard to choose, though, some of the older more crazier work will always hold a special place for me. This is the point where I actively have to stop myself since I can go on and on about art forever and I didn't want this article to become only about that. At least not this time.

Even as an artist, the art of Magic isn't the most important to me. Playing is. That sense of community it creates. Of course, it's not all rainbows and unicorns, there are times when the community shows it's ugly side but you'd be hard pressed to find another hobby with a competitive edge where there isn't any drama. The important thing to remember is the micro stories it allowed for.

Community

There are two very important aspects of the community for me. One, interaction as a friendly and fun place where I can goof around, make weird decks, go competitive if I want and have people teach me how to play. Two, the pressure to do better and better work because I know what this game and in a small part the art means to so many people. Magic has exploded in popularity over the last few years. Yes, there is clever marketing. Yes the game has changed a bit but more than anything else the game has gotten more inclusive. The community and game design have come together to create a atmosphere where a lot of people feel at home. We've gone from a stigma that only smelly nerds play this game to a open LGBTQ friendly community that invites people from all ethnicities, genders, sexuality, you name it to come out and have a good time. Is there room for improvement? Of course. There always is. But the game and its community have come a long way.
The art plays a minuscule role in the big picture. It's only one of the factors that binds people. It's importance ranges from conversation starter, to unnoticed to the reason why people play and that pressure is tangible.
I feel it every time I get commissioned and paint a piece. Every time I want to do the best I can. And so do a lot of my colleagues. It's a passion project.

No worries. I'm not worried? Are you worried? I thrive under pressure. Did anyone say I was worried? I'm not worried. I like pressure. You got this, I mean, I got this. Did you think I was worried?

I'd like to thank the community for six years of fun as a player and three years of support as a artist. Looking forward I hope I get to do a lot more paintings where I can focus on showing off the world as best as I can. Starting off in January when I will return once more to do a push.

I'll leave you with some of my favorite moments from last week's GP Rotterdam which sum up pretty perfectly how I feel about the game. Thanks to everyone there who showed me a great time while playing, had some super fun matches!
So to everyone out there having fun, watching worlds, playing FNM, doing online draft leagues, analyzing art, analyzing cards, speculating about future releases, predicting the lore, doing fan art, doing fan frames, critiquing, inviting new people, missing triggers, reminding people of their triggers (!!), mulliganing down to 3, shuffling and reshuffling, getting cards signed, hanging up prints, judging, score keeping and fans alike I hope you have a awesome weekend and thanks for treating me so incredibly nice (Yes, even you R/W vehicle players, even you).

<3

- Titus

Art Block and becoming the Demolisher

Hello dear friends and good folk of the internet all around. For many it's the time of the year where the sun has developed stage fright and is rarely seen and darkness has it's time to shine. With the days growing short our work ethic is being tested in different ways than usual because dear reader, whether you are a mountain goat or mansion mole, outside or inside person, we all need light. Lack of said light can do funny things to our demeanor, one of which is a higher susceptibility to depression and a general feeling of melancholy.
One of the things that tend to happen to us artists when we are not feeling A+ (I never understood letter grading, it's so inaccurate!) is that we tend to become susceptible to things such as artist block. Now, of course this correlation is highly personal but whether it is due to the seasons changing or otherwise, art blocks for many are a thing yet professionals deny this up and down. What's the deal? And if it's true what the pro's say, how do you get to that place?

Defining 'Art Block'

Go figure, we start off by breaking the problem down and looking at it's individual parts. We've never done that before! Just in case you are new to this site, this is basically our mantra. Right, in order to give art block it's appropriate place we need to understand where it comes from. When creating work we tap into a lot of different parts; curiosity, motivation and discipline, 'psychic energy' - or focus, technical skill and so forth. All these parts have to move together as one allowing us to channel it into creative work. We can immediately see that 'Art Block' is therefor a ridiculous blanket statement, and in case it wasn't clear by now, blanket statements in general tend to be a very bad thing.
So, we need a better term. In order to do that we need to look at all the things that can go wrong; if you aren't finding inspiration on what to paint maybe curiosity is the problem and you got a curiosity block. Perhaps it's the technical skill which keeps holding you back from doing what you want to do and it's a technical block - If the problem persists please contact your admin. You know, maybe it's your focus, a focus block, otherwise known as being distracted or lacking discipline. You see where this is going. A long time ago I said that one of the key things you can't say as a concept artist when someone asks you why a certain thing is the way it is in one of your concepts is; 'I don't know'. The forbidden words!
Just the same, when someone asks why you have a 'art block' you can't go:

It's absolutely vital you understand yourself to the point where you know all the moving parts required for you to create art intimately. Maybe there is a part that needs to watch cartoons and because you haven't, you are blocked. Now whether or not you can train that part to be less needy or even relevant at all is a whole different story. Knowing yourself or knowing the problem is not the same as solving it. And therein lies the rub. Mistaking identifying the problem for solving it can land you in a whole heap of trouble. 

Why it's not a thing

So, art block is a useless blanket statement and we have zero use for it. All the other blocks, when looked at in depth start to look a lot less intimidating. There are two main reasons why most professionals say that art block isn't a thing.

1. They understand the complexity of the root of creativity and also understand that knowing yourself and breaking down the problem often shows a much simpler solution than was expected at first.
2. There is no time for it.

Maybe I should've started with the second one, it's much easier to explain! The reality of that one is much more straight forward too. Clients don't want to wait for you to get into the zone to paint. A big part of the misconceptions that the general public have about art is related to the idea that artists can only function under perfect conditions. Artist rambling on about how 'the muses aren't talking!', or the 'chi not being aligned with the brush' is what gave the public this impression. Clearly those artists were not production artists because if you say that too often you might find yourself packing up your stuff. The show must go on, come hell or high water. You must paint, whether you are feeling good or bad. It really doesn't matter because the world will not wait for you to get ready. In that greater scheme you have to understand it's not about you, it's about what you do that matters. 

Becoming the Demolisher

Go from incapable to unstoppable, from blocked to breaker, confused to confident. The feeling of artist block is merely a veil, a clever disguise, of the real problem that needs an easy out. That blanket feeling we are all so familiar with is nothing more than a initial unwillingness to identify the real problem. Ask yourself where in the creative process it goes wrong. Here are some quick tips that do no real justice to the complexity of the issues we're talking about but might serve as a springboard to a more viable solution:

• Is it curiosity? Start reading more. Look at documentaries, the more you know, the more your curiosity can draw from the quicker you will find a 'out'. A solution to the problem.
• Is it technical skills? Try to simplify the problem, a different camera angle, more reference, do studies.
• Is it confidence? Art confidence is no different from actual confidence. They draw from the same pool. Get a win in anything, a game, a big run, whatever works. Then learn how to channel that positive energy into your work. I simply say to myself, 'I got this'. Blast some music and use that momentum to get going.
• Is it motivation? How about the end of your career if you don't just get on with it. How about that for motivation. Art is ruthless and you have to be strong or get strong fast. Art has no quarrel with leaving you in the dust if you can't get it together but remember, it's always just you versus you. Find your triggers, find that energy, channel it and use it. You got this.

Now look at your art block wall and become this guy:

- Titus

Fear and the glamour of GP life

Hello fine folks of the internet and good people all around. Another week another article. Such are the comforts we've come to enjoy! This week, perhaps slightly in the theme of Halloween - if it was on a existential and sort of joking but definitely not joking kind of level - I'd like to talk about fear. Hopefully you don't have a fear of overly long poorly written sentences because a writer, I am not. What I am very often is absolutely terrified. Whether it's clowns or spiders or shadow person from when you have sleep paralysis, fear is a a very familiar presence in our lives. 

Today marks a slightly less structured article. No tips, no tricks. Today I'd like to talk straight from the heart. Last weekend I had the fortune of attending GP Kuala Lumpur. I was joined by a few fantastic artists (Lius Lasahido, Renata Owen and Christine Choi) and some lovely people. Once I got there it was nice, but the weeks leading up to it I was terrified. It was the first time I would travel by myself for more than 4 hours by plane. For some this isn't a big deal. Some like to travel the world solo and meet new people. Talk to people they don't know. Explore the town on their own. That's not me. That terrifies me. To talk about my fear I'll show you how it influenced me during my travel to Kuala Lumpur.

The glamour of GP life

I started my journey on Wednesday in the rain at 1:30 PM here in Malmö Sweden by walking to the bus stop which is about two minutes away. They are digging up the ground in front of my building so there was mud everywhere. I had to carry the case so I wouldn't dirty the whole thing up. I left a bit early because the bus I have to take is never on time. The bus wasn't on time. I waited about 12 minutes in a thin jacket (which I forgot in KL) freezing my butt off. It was about 8 degrees Celcius which I'm sure is a weird number in Fahrenheit. Why not bring a thicker jacket? Because Kuala Lumpur would be 35c and I had limited bag space and didn't want to haul a big jacket with me.
I arrived at the local train station, paid 10$ for a ticket, waited 10 minutes for the train next to a broken wine bottle. Stood in the train for 24 minutes because all the seats were taken.
Hauled my gear up the stairs at the airport because the escalator was jammed.
Went to the gate for my first flight to Amsterdam. 
Waited an hour.
Flew an hour.
Landed in Amsterdam and proceeded to my gate to fly to Kuala Lumpur. I had 3 hours to kill so I called my mom and told her i was still scared of the trip and she gave me some good advice. She told me two very important things. One, there was no going back. I had everything ready, everything booked and a lot of people would be let down if I didn't go through with it. So in effect I really didn't have much choice. It's important to understand that no matter what somebody fears, even if it makes no sense to you, the listener, to them it's legit. The second was that if you don't push through these things you'll never grow. How can you grow, become a more rounded human, if you never push through? How can you teach it to your kids or help your friends if you've never experienced it? Bottom line, you can't let the fear control you.

All my bags were neatly packed, I even bought one of those neck pillows, and was waiting for the flight to leave for Kuala Lumpur all the while my mind was racing with all the things that could go wrong. For me it's not a fear of flying. I love flying. It's the fear of everything around it. Did somebody put something in my bag? Did I bring something that wasn't allowed? What if the taxi just takes me someplace else? What if I lose my passport? At some point the fear becomes very irrational, but then again, that's the point isn't it? I've never been great at reasoning with myself regarding my fear. That voice is the biggest and most insufferable idiot I've ever met and I have to deal with him a lot.

Much scare. Very fear. Yoda is not that idiot voice though. I love Yoda.

I boarded the plane, waited 12.5 hours, got off, almost got lost in the airport, passed customs and got into a taxi. The driver was incredibly friendly, told me a bunch of cool stories, dropped me off at the correct hotel and that was that. Two weeks of irrational fear for nothing. Stress for nothing. Nice... but at least I learned something right? We'll see next time. I have my doubts.

 

A GP day

Here is a small peek into a average GP day for the artists. Let me start off by saying that people lining up to get a signature is probably one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. My days normally consist of drawing for about 10 hours. Sitting behind my PC, answering emails, checking out MTG stuff and eating home made boterkoek. Nothing special. So when you are at a GP, it's a bit weird to say the least.
On GP days I get up around 7 AM, take a shower and get ready. I check my bags to see if I haven't forgotten anything and if it's the second day I pack my left over homework alterations. Go down, grab some breakfast and start setting up the table around 8:30 AM. I make sure I setup my booth in a way that people can see all the merchandise and browse through the artist proof binder. After that things become a bit of a blur. A normal day lasts from around 9AM to about 8PM (provided there are no alterations / sketches to take back to the hotel to finish later). A good 11 hours of signing, altering, talking, drinking coffee and eating snacks. It's amazing to talk to so many different people from all over the world but there are a few downsides. Here are a few things to note and or take into account:

1. After 10 hours artists tend to get very loopy. Processing stuff takes longer and we forget things. Coffee helps. After 3 days of this nothing helps and we're just a shambling walking mess even if we don't look it. (we totally look it.)
2. Putting bags or drinks on our tables makes us very nervous. 
3. We love to talk. If you throw your card on the table, don't say anything, then walk away without so much as a thanks doesn't make us feel great. We traveled pretty far!
4. Please put your hand in front of your mouth when you cough. Please. Thanks. (Editor's note: @bloodfraygiant correctly corrected to not use your hand but elbow. Very good!)
5. If you have weird requests for sketches with naked chicks and tentacles please keep them to yourself. Contrary to common belief, we have heard them all.

And lastly just a small note; we 9/10 times don't get paid to be there. We front all the costs ourselves. We constantly have to hover between being a vendor and being there to add something cool to the GP. Don't get me wrong - that's fine. I love the game and I want to make GP's a bit more fun for everyone. But please, please, don't complain right in front of my booth about how everything costs money. As a ballpark, the average GP costs us around 1200$ to attend. If we don't sell anything we can't keep doing GP's. I'm not saying BUY OUR STUFF! I'm saying be friendly and just hang out. Atmosphere is everything for us.

That feeling when someone puts their bag or drink right on top of the merchandise

A last note on fear

Fear is a serious pain in the ass. Fear is also necessary. It shows us where we can improve, an easy guide to teachable moments - or at least sometimes. Fear is something to consider, to work around or push through. It's not meant to be ignored, it's meant to define you by ways of how you handle it. There are many more things I'm afraid of than just traveling by myself. Some I can handle just fine and others I have to actively push back and try not to let them take over or have other people help me out with them.
For me art is a fantastic escape mechanism to get away from the pressure that fear sometimes puts on me. I think we're all like that at some level. That we come to a point where we feel the fear is close to shutting us down. The true test of character starts there, if you let it win or if you push through. If you can find the tools necessary to solve that problem. Whether it is on your own or with the help of friends. It's important to understand that no matter what you fear you're not alone. It's also important to note that if you meet someone who says they are not afraid of clowns, they are lying.

period.

- Titus


 

Working smart and failing

Due to some developments in my personal life I haven’t done any art in the last few weeks so there’s nothing really to write about there unfortunately. I am starting to miss it though and I really feel like continuing a piece I started a while ago! Maybe Sunday..

Maybe Sunday.. That leads me to the topic of today, seeing as it’s a common expression that the developers at 3D Hubs like to use when we think of nice little extra features for the website, but they simply don’t have the time to implement it and it most likely will never happen, definitely not on a Sunday!

A couple of weeks ago LinkedIn was nice enough to tell me I had a work-anniversary, 2 years at 3D Hubs. Quite a milestone for me actually because I never worked this long at a single company yet. And it’s definitely been an interesting two years because things move fast when you work at a startup.

I’ll first tell a little bit about 3D Hubs to give you a bit of context of what I’m actually doing. 3D Hubs is a company that is centered around the 3dhubs.com website, which is a network of 3D printing services (the Hubs). Think of it like AirBnB for 3D printing. It allows customers that have a 3D model, to upload their file to www.hubs.com/3d-printing and will then get automatic quotes for how much it would be to print their file at different 3D printings services (Hubs) in different materials and 3D printing techniques. It sounds fairly straightforward but it’s not so easy to keep up with the needs of a fast growing community that have registered over 32.000 printers and are active in over 155 different countries all over the world with a team that consists out of only 35 people.

It’s my job to address any issues that might come up on the website. This ranges from simple requests to make alterations to an order between a Hub and their customer to explaining why Selective Laser Sintering is a preferred method over Fused Deposition Modeling when printing large intricate designs with steep overhangs. Ok, to be fair that isn’t that big of a problem either but I’m sure you get the idea.

When you’re working in startup with a small team, it is crucial that you work with systems that allow you to work smart. For example, when we started off, it’s extremely important to us that we would guide every order from start to finish to ensure that both Hub and their customer had a great experience on the platform. With the fast growth of the platform we were quickly getting overwhelmed trying to keep up 4500 support requests per week with a team of 5-6 people.

To prevent us from losing our minds, we had to iterate and switch our tactics. This is where the power of such a large community comes in. Educating the Hubs on features of the website and giving them more control over their customers orders allowed us to bring down the support requests from 4500 a week to 700-800. This was not an overnight change though, it takes months of effort and a lot of data-analyzing to see what works best. But hey.. we can now breath again..

Now we can spend our time creating more valuable resources to educate engineers, professionals and hobbyists on what they can expect from 3D printing and how it works. The What-is-3D-Printing page was received very well along with our Materials pages. Currently we are working on the knowledge base which will go even more in-depth on different topics. And the cool thing, these articles are written members of the community that have already been active on the our forum called 3D Hubs Talk. There’s even an article in there partially written by yours truly on things to keep in mind while designing for 3D printing.

But I don’t just want to talk about what we do at 3D Hubs so I want the rest of this article to cover a strategy that we have and I think should be applied everywhere. I definitely need to learn on how to apply this to my art. So what is it? Failing..

Failing is so valuable, if you do it the right way. Fail fast. Learn, iterate, fail again.

“We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality). And yet, even as I say that embracing failure is an important part of learning, I also acknowledge that acknowledging this truth is not enough. That’s because failure is painful, and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth.” - Ed Catmull, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

This quote basically nails what I’m trying to say here. 3D Hubs applies concept this all the time, we try things that we think work really well on paper, we allocate some time for our development team to implement a version that will have all the functionality that we need without any fancy stuff on top. This version will at least allow us to start collecting data and measure if our assumptions were correct. If it turns out. If it does work, great, we’ll continue development and work out the full version that we had in mind from the beginning. If if the theory was quite different from reality we can easily abandon the project without much of a loss and move on to the next thing.

This is the idea I want to start applying to my own work as well, I want to create smaller projects, and quite a few of them. I did it in the past with my Super Meat Boy Wacom Pen holder which I could easily do in 1-2 days. The rest of my projects are usually aiming to be as good as the stuff you see on the top row of ZBrush Central or Artstation… which.. requires a lot more time.. If they don’t turn out great, no biggy, move on and create the next thing.

So.. my message for today is, don’t be afraid of failure and work smart. Of course you will have to put in the hours, there’s no way around that, but make sure the hours that you spend are well spend.. End of lecture from the guy that hasn’t done any sculpting in ages..

- Robin

Research and the Saga of Smart

Hello dear friends and good folk of the internet all around. After a small hiatus due to literally millions of tiny spherical virus particles invading my healthy cells, thus inhibiting my adrenocorticotropic hormone, leading to lowered cortisol levels, and therefor making me feel sick, we are back! As you may have noticed this week it's finally time to write about how to properly do research but before you do I'd like to take a quick detour, because as usual, nothing is what it seems!

Detour

As this blog is all about opinions I was very tempted to write a article on how to talk about the differences that can occur. It's a fact of life that people don't always see eye to eye. Whether it is on hard hitting political topics or who's more attractive on a TV show; and sometimes those seem to be one and the same thing. Some of these opinions can be formed by doing research and basing them on available information and or facts. However, not all topics lend themselves to this type of vetting. Art is one of those fields where it's fairly difficult to do the research because so much of it's foundations are subjective. It's almost as easy to argue art is all about rules as it is about breaking them. Because it's so incredibly subjective and hard to back things up there is an almost constant struggle for a moral high ground and this is where things get really hairy. People start throwing around ego's more than arguments. I urge everyone not to judge but just listen instead. Look, there is no one right way of doing things in art. There just isn't. And you know why? Because art is as subjective as a topic as they get. The fundamentals have some set rules but there is no rule that forces you to use them. It's probably a good idea when making production art but that's not what I said. I said art. The activity of self expression. And because there is no right or wrong way of doing things you can also not tell people they are wrong and their methods dumb. Sorry.

So where does that leave us? Hopefully in a spot where you can look at work and find worth in the final result or the idea that lead to it or what it's trying to say. Don't waste time worrying about how you feel about their technique; and if you would've done things differently or if you are better at it. Do that when making your own work. Appreciating images and looking at them without judgement is a tricky thing but much more rewarding. The point here is, the more you know, the better. The more you understand the processes and content of any given subject you are looking at the better equipped you are to add something of value. Snap judgments often lack in value simply because they aren't based on anything. So, research is our friend. Don't know something but have a super strong opinion about it? Maybe do the research first.

 

Starting out

So how do you add that extra layer of awesome to your work and yourself? Research! What's the big secret to doing good research? Doing a lot of it. And I mean a lot. Not just 5 minutes of googling an image and pretending to know the rest. You see, research is all about admitting what you don't know and seeking it out. Constantly asking questions and chasing the information.
It's going from:
 

To:

That's the beauty of research. It transforms you from a idiot to superstar, or, something close enough to it. Here is a quote (that I also used in my IW and IFCC presentations this year) that I absolutely love - even though Mark Twain had some serious flaws.

“Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty”

— Mark Twain

He hits a little close to home, particularly with what we are seeing on the internet today. People claiming to know all sorts of stuff when they really don't. People claiming all sorts of things as facts when it's really just an opinion. Research will save you from this. Knowledge has this way of making people humble, or at least in most cases. The more you want to know the more likely you are to have an open attitude towards others and the easier it becomes to have a normal conversation. Of course, empathy plays a huge role but that's something for another time.

The quest for knowledge and your 'saga of smart' is a forever ongoing story and it should be treated as such. Never should you come to the point where you feel you have all the knowledge. This saying of course isn't entirely literal, it's more of a philosophy to live by. It's meant to protect you from ever becoming to comfortable and arrogant about what you know. It's understanding that everyone is sharing this same path and some are further along than others for a whole host of different reasons. Understanding this concept will hopefully remove some of the judgement people have reserved for others and replace it with a desire to help.

Actual tips

Ok, enough of this rant. Time for some actual tips on how to improve your research skills.

1. The three question rule. On every topic ask three additional questions. You'll be surprised how far that will actually lead you!
2. Learn the names of things. Don't just google 'tree'. Find out what types there are and where they live. What's the climate of your painting?
3. Start using scholar.google.com for more scientific questions. It's so cool.
4. Listen to others. Don't have a thing ready in your head that you want to blurt out as soon as the other person stops talking. Listen and react. Same with research, don't just assume. Read and discover.
5. If you don't think you can remember all the info, start taking notes. I used to stick post it notes all over my work space!
6. Every time, in a conversation, if you don't know something, look it up if you can.

My struggle

I didn't get to where I am today, which in many aspects is - relatively speaking - not that far, without stumbling and making mistakes. One thing that got me through it is something that I've spoken about before but, because of it's importance, I'll do it again. The analytical mindset. Understanding that every problem can be solved by having enough information. Duh, of course it can. It's starting down this road which is tricky. Often it comes with many doubts; am I smart enough? Can I find the information? Where do I find it? How do I use it? Will I recognize it even if it hit me in the face?
Often when I see conversations that are actually just one sided opinion fling fests I notice that people assume this non existent baseline. One where everyone can - and should - do or know everything. It just doesn't work like that. Not everyone can be flawless at 3 point perspective, or anatomy, or color theory and so forth. These are tricky things and people learn them in different ways and different speeds. And that is OK.  What I don't see is an understanding of this. Because if there was a broad understanding of this problem people would attack each others methods less; or not at all, and discus them instead.
What helped me get through these times was research. Break problems down, research, learn and implement. I've seen some tough times where it was hard to look beyond them; reading about it, learning, talking, listening helped me through. It's the whole reason why I started this blog. To try and help give others some information.
We are all delightfully ignorant of everything we don't know until we are not.
Researching removes some of that ignorance.
 

Starting with this type of thinking and research is always tricky and some of those doubts never go away, and I'm not entirely sure they are supposed to either. I often kept thinking of myself as this complicated amorphous blob of emotions but the more I do this the more I realize I'm a tangled bunch of cables. From a distance a whole, up close a bunch of tethers. Each their own origin and destination. This helps me understand that I can set aside some doubts, some cables, and just focus on getting some knowledge in. For me research is a tool to help me gain an understanding of the world and myself. A way to mitigate some fears and doubts and not worry where on that bigger path or progress I am, as long as I'm a open and friendly person.

So, in the wise words of Rick and Morty:

- Titus

Making of: Dynavolt tower

Hello dear friends and good folk of the internet all around. It's that time of the year where we say goodbye to the sun, at least here in the northern hemisphere, and hello to the rain and cold, at least here in Sweden. What better time to snuggle in with some hot chocolate milk and some spreadsheets to determine the best point value for drafting, or just go here. Yes, that's right, I'm talking about Magic: The Gathering! 
With the release of Kaladesh I thought it was high time for another 'making of'. This piece marks a pretty interesting time in my personal style of painting, one where I struggle like crazy to let go of my concept roots and try to imitate what I think an illustrator is. The lost art of patience is something I made myself very familiar with over time.
So let's just Dive on in!

Uploaded by Katalota007 on 2014-09-19.

Did I ever mention I am a huge American Dad fan?

Dynavolt Tower

Let's start off with the brief, as art directed by Cynthia Sheppard:
ART DESCRIPTION:
Setting: KALADESH
Color: None (artifact)
Location: Any Kaladesh interior space (see p. 37-39)
Action: This is a large, impressive "aetherpunk" version of a Tesla coil, a device designed to store up energy and then discharge it all at once in an impressive display. Maybe we see it filling a large gallery like on p. 37, discharging bluish electric bolts in multiple directions. If you like, you could show one or more glass-and-filigree reservoirs for aether, the fuel source for this wondrous device (see p. 22-24 for examples of what aether looks like in glass pipes/reservoirs).
Focus: The Tesla coil-like device
Mood: An inventor's version of an impressive light show.
Notes:

When I read this I instantly knew I had to make a 3D model of it. I don't do this very often since I'm pretty slow at it and it more often than not it constricts like crazy but I had some ideas that I wanted to explore. One of the key reasons was that I wanted to find a cool low angle composition that showed off all the elements. Drawing and redrawing these can take a lot of time, got to keep that efficiency in mind! So how good are my amazing 3D modeling skills?

Pretty bad. The answer is pretty bad. However, they are good enough to get something quick down and I can iterate from there. From here my concept art brain kicked into overdrive and I started slapping in photo's from my trip to Istanbul. It led to the following sketch that I sent for submission. This might be my least favorite thing I've ever made in the history of ever:

I sometimes do wonder how I am still employed, then I realize most people think this, I buckle down and get things done. In the famous words of one of my favorite streamers; it is sadbad. Cryfrownbad.

Ok so, there are a plethora of things wrong here. The stairs, the pipe in the bottom, the pipes in the back just look nonsensical. The Tesla coil feels underwhelming, scale is unreadable, etc and so forth. I was trying to rush it at this point for no good reason. Patience.

Cutting, pasting, stretching. Starting to look a bit more impressive scale wise. The hall around it still is the worst thing ever. Kaladesh is a lush, decorative place. Filled with details and plants and magnificent inventions. This image right now looks like a miniature of a basement with the next generation of electrical toothbrushes in the works. A big fat nope, so, let's mix it up.

The two windows on the right in the previous image have been stretched and pushed back in this one. The door has been beefed up a bit as well. If you look closely you can see the remnants of the original composition reflected in the new one. Even if you start over it doesn't mean you have to throw away ideas.

When in doubt, just repaint the whole thing. Which is exactly what I did. I used some more photos from my Istanbul trip and a few from a trip to Warwick Castle. All the while I had reference open on Indian and Kaladesh architecture to make sure I would stay on point.  Use the right shape language and so forth. 
One of the major changes is that the 3 point perspective is pushed to the max. This tower is supposed to be impressive which, in an interior, means a low angle shot. You can do other things but there is a good reason why a low angle works. Cathedrals, who use a super high ceiling (forcing a low angle) are fantastic in inspiring a sense of awe. It makes us feel small and almost insignificant. 
Another thing to remember is that cultural appropriation and making sure you do justice to said culture is incredibly important for Wizards and me as well.  At the same time it's important to remember that all of these worlds are fictional. There are a lot of reasons why taking too much from real life is a no go. After all, Magic is a game about killing monsters and defeating your opponent, along with having a good time.

Some filigree patterns and what it looks like when I sketch. It's pretty chaotic! Progress is shaping up pretty nicely. The trees are helping a lot but the lightning is still too much. This process is a constant back and forth. Looking at every element and wonder if it works. What you don't see in these WIP shots is just how often I toggle on black and white mode to check my values, or flip my canvas to check perspective and weight. It's an ongoing struggle. You against yourself reflected in the work you're doing. In the end it really boils down to how honest you want to be with yourself. Since the old adage goes; you don't know what you don't know you have to make sure that you at least learn to see your own mistakes. It might be a gut feeling or you meticulously applying the rules, or a mixture of both. Do whatever you need to do to find those points that need improvement. 
Don't just say: "I already know how to do this so I don't have to worry about it.". This is something you will rarely, if ever, hear a pro say. It doesn't mean that you don't understand the fundamentals or are just too humble, it simply means there is room for improvement and the second you are too lax a mistake might sneak in and kick your ass later on.
 

That feeling when you spot a mistake and it's too late to fix efficiently so you have to repaint the entire thing just because you were too lazy to properly look before.

Alright, almost done. Still some life missing from the piece. Lighting feels kinda dead and non existent, lot's of glow and reflection missing. This is a final touch so it's tricky to see past it. Much of this process is also about learning to see where the piece will go long before it's done. This for the most part is down to experience and getting comfortable with making images, even unfinished ones. This is why it's important to make as much stuff as you can; you don't have to finish all of it!

So here is the finished version:

Bbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttzz zzzzttt 

And of course the final card:

As per usual there are a lot of things that I would do differently now, which is a good thing! It means that you can see where you need to grow. If you can see it, you can improve it. Even though I cringe looking at all the mistakes. Also, I love the actual card! I think the mechanic is a lot of fun and I can't wait to build a deck with it. Now it's time to go out, get some Kaladesh boosters and enjoy the weekend.

Thanks for hanging out, have a great day and weekend wherever you are or whenever you are reading this. Take care,

- Titus

Also, a big source of inspiration for this piece: (Think I hit about 4 hours of Tesla coil videos watched and another 10 reading about them)

For any licensing requests please contact licensing@break.com Mais informações: http://facebook.com/franzolielectronics

Small editors note: This article was supposed to feature the making of Burgeoning as well but unfortunately I have been too sick with the flu all week to properly get it done. At some point I will do a write up on that one too.

Like hiking up a mountain

Doing art can be challenging, the last few days just felt like I was hiking up a mountain.. And that’s because.. I WAS! And it was very fucking cool!

No but seriously, this week I feel like just chatting about the trip that I was on last weekend with the whole 3D Hubs team. Last year we went on a ski trip in Val Thorens and this year we went in hiking in the area of the Mont Blanc. And now you might be thinking, wow.. This must be a really fit team and Robin must be one-in-shape guy! And you would be completely.. Wrong..

I mean, what did you expect? I sit behind a desk all day and when I get home from work.. I just sit behind a different desk.. I do run a lot though.. In Overwatch.. And even there I mostly just use a Jet Pack to fly around! “DEATH FROM ABOVE”!

So, on the first trip to Val Thorens we went skiing… This was my first time skiing ever.. I borrowed all my things and I looked absolutely ridiculous. (see picture later on) I decided I would go for the snowboard simply because that way I only had to control one big ski, instead of two smaller ones that move individually.. Makes sense.. Right?.. Right?!?!

Well.. that was my first mistake.. Second one was.. I assumed it would be freaking cold if you’re all the way up a mountain in the snow… So I dressed up warm.. And I mean.. Reaally warm.. First experience snowboarding was during my lessons where we were supposed to learn how to get up.. So we did that..

And again.. And again.. And again.. And after about 15 times of sliding down a bit.. Falling over and getting up again.. I was completely soaked and my head was boiling and I had an insane headache.. So much for that..

The second day however.. I found out they also had sleds.. NOW THAT WAS COOL! Sledding isn’t that much different from go-karts and seeing how my dad and my uncle build those together.. I know how to fucking go in a cart! So, needless to say.. With my “build” I was by far the fastest and could not get enough..

Yes.. I am the guy with the very red nose and the ridiculous outfit...

So, this year’s trip.. As I mentioned, I am not the most fit guy in the world but I was very curious to find out how the hiking would go. The schedule was as follows. I had to get up at 5:45 on Friday morning in Amsterdam and by 11:00 I was in Chamonix France. The first day would be free to spend as everybody pleased. There was a pretty amazing spa in the hotel so needless to say about half of my colleagues took that option. Another quarter went to explore the town and local bars. 8 of us remained and decided to go on a hike straight away.

For me this felt as a good little test and a way to test out my new boots who I started wearing for an hour on the day before. And I have to say after a first steep climb to the cable-cart and having walked around for a couple of hours, it was absolutely amazing. To be in the cold fresh air of the mountains, chatting to colleagues outside of work and not about work, very very nice.

The first hike definitely felt like a good first challenge and the Sauna and ice-room afterwards felt really really good. That night, one of my colleagues arranged a club to open up early for us and at 11:00 we had an empty club all to ourselves.. And this is what I think of night clubs:

The next day would prove to be the most challenging hike. We left with 31 people to go on a 4 hour track up the mountain and seeing as some of my team-members are quite fit, the first 20 minutes was basically us running up the mountain instead of walking and if that was going to go on for much longer, I would have had to call it quits.

But thankfully, we decided to take it a bit slower after that part and the rest of the trip proved to be amazing. Our hotel (and the entire city of Chamonix) is located at around 1000 meters above sea-level. We hiked that day from about 1000 meters to 2300. And with the constant rainy-ness that we had in the days that we were there, the entire mountain was covered in a thick fog which made everything extremely quiet and eerie, I can't wait to do it again!

On the third day, we took a cable-cart up the mountain to about 2300 feet and we had a loong hike that went up at time and descended others. Again, the weather was the same as on all the other days and we had to go through the rain and the fog until we reach Lac Blanc where I had some colleagues who were crazy enough to go swimming in the lake with water of 2-3 degrees. The hot chocolate milk at the nearby "refuge" is probably the best I've ever had.

Finally, on the fourth day we wanted to go and take the cable-carts all the way up the mountain to an elevation of 3842 meters. And I'd like to close of this loooong report with these images. Next time, back to some artsy stuff!

Have a great weekend guys!
- Robin

What do I even art? And the importance of finding your voice

Hello again dear friends and fine internet folk all around. It's time for your weekly dose of pseudo-scientific, mildly researched, rant heavy, opinion filled reading. The perfect medicine for the weary mind grapes after a long week at work. Two weeks ago I made a post about why we art, talking about setting realistic goals and how to achieve them. Or at least, sort of. At the very least it hammered on about this blog's main theme, 'know yourself'. Last week I continued on that a bit talking about trust and why it's important to trust yourself and your own capabilities. This week I'll talk about what happens when you fuse these two together and arrive at the inevitable question; what do I want to paint? Thereby also asking how do I want to paint it. These questions are very important because they are at the heart of the artistic message you want to convey.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

— Edgar Degas

As per usual, before we can get to the ever mind blowing conclusion (hint: It's probably related to getting to know yourself), we need to understand yet even more things. One of them involves a very brief look at art history. I know, this sounds an awful lot like learning something, but it's worth it. I promise!
 

A brief history lesson

The year is 1839 and photography is born. It's not called photography just yet, people only know the daguerreotype. The principle of photography is a fairly old one with the invention of the camera obscura being first recorded in China in 470 BCE but it remained unpractical for a very long time. It didn't take long for this new form of practical photography to take off and become a public hit. It was introduced as an art form, similar to painting, during the 1850 and 1855 world fair, much to the dissatisfaction of realist painters of that age. I mean, how would you feel if you suddenly became obsolete? 
During that same time another revolution was happening within the art world. Slowly the influence of the church over the content of art started to fade. This was largely due to merchants gaining wealth which they wanted to display through commissioned artwork. It gave rise to a new form of artwork which finds it's roots in German poetry but is best known for it's dramatic landscape paintings, called Romanticism. 

'The great day of his Wrath' 1851-1853 by John Martin is a prime example of Romanticism even though it's painted during the later stages of the artistic movement.

This movement is one of the most important ones because it focuses on the motto; 'The artist as the hero'. It becomes less about what the painting is about and more about what the artist wants to say. This early movement towards less realistic depictions is very important and would fuel artists to do works such as one of my personal favorites:

'Snow storm: Steam-boat off a Harbour's mound' 1842 - JMW Turner

Photography was just the push in the back that painting needed to move away from the shackles of reality once and for all. All of a sudden the perfection of reality had been made irrelevant through the medium of paint and photography had been crowned the new ruler of that domain. Painters now had to look inwards to see what was important. The church wasn't telling them what to do anymore and many rich patrons didn't have a clue what they wanted either. It all came down to the artist. The beginning of modern art and the modern way of looking at art started right here.

“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun. ”

— Pablo Picasso

After this process had been started there was no going back. Realism wouldn't be in the spotlight in a 'meaningful way' - note; mainstream artistically relevant, ever again. This isn't to say there weren't successful or influential realism painters after this but the core idea of showing the world for what it really looks like was dead. There was simply no need anymore. Artists began to define more and more what art meant to them and people started to relate not only with the work the artists made but also with the artists themselves. They started to idolize and ignore them based on personal beliefs and the capability of artists to show those beliefs. Big questions arose such as; what is art? and when is something art? A medium which for centuries had defined itself almost overnight lost it's definition. Still today we have a hard time putting a clear definition on it and it seems that it's only becoming more difficult. What's important to understand is that this is not about the question what art is but the importance of the question: what does art mean to you. Most of you reading this, myself included, are production artists. We make our work for a specific client or product. We are not fine artists. Yet, even we cannot escape one of the tendrils extended by the fine art world. We too have to wonder how we want to depict the world around us, whichever world that may be.
 

Breaking the unity

Now this is where things get a bit personal. I did a talk at IFCC and Industry Workshops this year where I talk about the filter bias. A way of looking at artwork online through a filter. These filters can sometimes allow us to falsely assume there are certain trends happening however there seems to be a very clear sense of unity. 
Here is the extremely short version.
If you don't have information on the why a image was created both in it's purpose and execution you might misinterpret it. When you then create a image inspired on it you effectively make a copy with even less information in it. If someone then does the same to your work the same thing happens. Over time more and more information is lost. If we state that art is a purposeful expression of our view of the world we can quickly see that we need information in order to make an image and we need to communicate the information clearly. Looking back at the artist statement of the 19th century we also know that it's not only about the artwork itself anymore but also what the artist wants to say. This is, if you want to border on the realm of fine art. That 'next level' of being taken seriously. If it's not fine art, therefor being production art, it needs to serve a very specific function.
This is where we run into a serious dilemma. Most of the work we see isn't either of the two. It simply exists - and there is nothing wrong with that. At least, sort of.

The problem with this is that trends arise and artistic merit is only measured by it's success to adhere to the trend. I.e - this is the best dragon sci-fi crossover I've seen. Rather than: This is a good painting. 
I suspect a very big reason of everything looking the same is because we don't really know what to say, let alone how. We are so used to being spoon fed everything that we need to find cool it's becoming harder and harder for us to identify unique, niche parts of our brain that we enjoy. A new game comes out? Weeks of fan art for that game. Is that wrong? No, not in particular. But this is trend based way of working rather than a personal artistic voice. It's short term versus sustainable. At some point you might not remember what your real passion is. That one thing that might fuel your artistic career for the rest of your life.
 

“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.”

— Louis C.K

Replace I'm bored with; 'I don't know what to paint' and see if it's a familiar feeling. I know that for me it is.

Finding your voice

This is very difficult. In a survey people were asked if they wanted to be in a room by themselves for 15 minutes with nothing to do, or do a task they didn't very much enjoyed. Guess what people picked most.
We don't like to be alone with our thoughts yet as artists this is our most powerful tool. Our own voice. The voice that, just maybe, wants you to paint things a bit differently than what we've seen before. Trusting in yourself that your voice has merit has been the key to success for many artists in the past. Those who were ridiculed have gone into legend and the ones adhering to the status quo have been all but forgotten. You can paint something that you like which is a trend, you can paint the fan art of the game you love but that doesn't mean you can't give it your own spin. Your take on something. It doesn't have to be like all the others in order to be recognized and it doesn't have to be realistic either.

This has been a pet peeve, or rather massive annoyance, for me for a very long time. A almost puritan approach where everything has to be hand painted and real, otherwise it isn't 'real' or 'good'. If it's digital it can't be art! If you used photo's it can't be good! Whoever tells you that is ignorant. And boy am I struggling not to use every single swear word I know right now.
This ridiculous idea hasn't been true for at least 150 years and that isn't about to change. Anyone who has had some serious education in art will tell you the same. This isn't about the viewer misinterpreting their preference for 'artistic facts'. You just do you. If that's hand painted realism, fantastic - that's your voice. There is no rule book here. No set of rules which you need to stick to. You wan't to use photo's? Go for it. Want to use only shades of pink? Baller, go for it. Your passion is painting highly erotic rocks? I'm down. This is me telling you that you can do whatever you want with nobody being in their right to tell you it's somehow wrong or not valid. 

Individualism is what's important. Not your ability to paint.
What you want to say is important. Not how you say it.
It's about your questions and your answers.
It's about you showing us those questions and answers.
It's about us relating to your struggles, discoveries, wonders. Your vision.
It's about your journey through life and showing it to us.
It's about you trusting in yourself, looking inwards for artistic fulfillment, not outwards by chasing likes.
It's about the biggest question of them all:

Who are you and how do you see the world?

Now go make some crazy shit.

- Titus

And, because this post might've been a little on the heavy side, here is me during a game of DnD making a fool out of myself, enjoy.

Trust

“‘Trust’ - a hilarious coming of age story and a must read for the whole family!”

— ★★★★★ - some vaguely familiar magazine

Hello people of the internet and fine folk everywhere. I had half a mind to rant about paid movie reviews or the fact that this blog's save button sometimes doesn't work and thusly eliminating the whole entry only hours before release. However, the show must go on so this week it's time to revisit one of those old and familiar feelings, which we talked about here before, but this time I'd like to be slightly less analytical - no promises. This week I'd like to talk about trust - and no I'm not talking about a place where you can put your money. I would like to show you the things I struggle with, the stuff that keeps me up and can wreck my work day. For me the 'path to greatness' which is a part of the greater struggle in becoming an artist has not only been paved with obstacles by way of technique, such as the ability to render horses or some such thing. It's been mostly me. I'm constantly getting in the way of myself.

One of the problems is that observational skills and technique always offset each other creating highs and lows. If your technique is good but observation low you feel great, everything looks good. Then, as your observation gets better you start feeling worse about your work. Actually, here is a neat graph to help illustrate one of the most famous artist dilemmas:

You have to accept that these two don't grow at the same speed so these highs and lows are very normal. One of the governing aspects of the two is your ability to understand and deal with this process, your tenacity, the ability to push through. Tenacity is a sort of passive mental ability. Discipline is it's active counterpart. A active driving force that you can train by making small tasks routine. And then there is trust. All three work together, or rather should, work together to make you a fully (dis)functional artist. Whichever you prefer.

The trust is real

Here is my problem; I'm not very good with trust. As a person I'm very confident in some of my skills like public speaking. I trust in myself that I can do it. I trust in myself that I can wreck a dude if I pick Roadhog in Overwatch and I trust that in myself that I can make a mean apple crumble. This confidence wavers tremendously when talking about art. I trust in myself that I can make a functional image, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a artistically rewarding image. Therefor there is a disconnect between what I paint and how I would like to see it painted. Painting on a technical level is the ability to translate images you have in your head onto the preferred medium exactly as you see them in your head. Painting on a artistic level is a unique way of looking at the world. These two have to fuse and in turn trigger a reaction in the viewer, preferably on multiple levels. An emotional level, or perhaps a political message, a deep longing or holding on to a fleeting memory of times gone. It's also here where we see the problem of production art being actual art - since their functions are inherently different. However, that's a different story.

Trust and growth

One of the most familiar paraphrases within the art world is that trust is important not only for yourself but also for the benefit of others. Trusting in your own work and demonstrating a certain sense of confidence to the outside world will help younger generations of artists to feel a bit more relaxed knowing that their idols are only human as well. Here is a very simple example:

BAD:
Skilled artist A: "My work sucks, everything about it is sadbad. Cryfrownbad."
Less skilled artist B: "Oh man, if skilled artist A feels that way about their work then my work must really suck!" 

GOOD:
Skilled artist A: "I really don't like this piece, the perspective is weird, can't get the colors right and this horse just looks like a potato."
Less skilled artist B: "I don't see anything wrong, piece looks great to me, guess I have lots to learn! But, it's comforting to know even artists I look up to struggle with stuff."

We can always keep dreaming, and the world isn't as black and white as that but the point still stands. The key difference here is being a bit more articulate in the why - as a courtesy towards other artists. The baseline is supposedly trust. Trust in yourself that your work is good. I'd like to propose a different way of looking at it which at it's core might not be as altruistic in regards to the community but arrives at the same destination. Trusting yourself to be capable of creating images that are functional, for whatever function this may be, is the start to being able to produce work time and time again, even if you are not pleased with the result. The reason being that you can see the bigger picture. Here we get to the trust and growth part, and as usual I'd like to propose that you may have been misidentifying trust all along. More observational issues, can this guy even talk about something else?! I can, look at it this way: 

"I had a super cold and rainy summer, guess global warming isn't real."
The inability to differentiate between weather, a micro view, versus climate, a macro view.

"This piece is bad, guess I suck as an artist."
The inability to differentiate between micro observation versus macro observation.

Trust is the bridge in between this gap. I get asked quite frequently how you implement the studies you do back into your own work. It's a fair question but it highlights the above. It's relatively rare that you get to implement exactly what you've studied into another piece. As in, the exact piece of cloth with the exact lighting that you studied before. The idea here is that you learn and grow and come to a certain understanding of the world around you.

“The ability to trust in the growth of your understanding is more important than the finished result of the paintings you make.”

— yours truly

Trusting in yourself that this process is happening if you are actively trying to learn is of huge importance. It's this trust which will allow you to do piece after piece without worrying too much about it's individual merits. This is what helped me greatly when I was starting out and it's something that I have to remind myself of almost every week when I start to get discouraged. Remember, not all of this stuff is some sort of passive trait you either have or lack, it's something you work on.

Trust and discipline

Which conveniently brings me to my next point, almost as if I had planned this all along... Now, because I lost this whole article - thanks Obama - I'm missing a link or two so you'll have to trust me on this one; it takes roughly 6 weeks to 6 months for an activity to become a habit based on it's complexity. We all have habits and according to google we have to seriously worry about our kidneys.

Page 1, the first results. We have a problem...

Aside from our kidneys being in trouble we have to worry about our energy that goes into turning a activity into a habit. Note that discipline is the precursor to becoming a habit. The one, discipline, is a much more active and energy consuming trait. The other, habits, are much less active in their energy usage in terms of motivating yourself to do them. You have to be constantly aware that expressing yourself and painting is the culmination of a ridiculous amount of moving parts that all consume energy. Negative thoughts have far and away the most impact and consume the most. Now, it's hard to find a real clear answer to why this is happening but it roughly comes down to this. Negative thoughts are frequently inward focused and often arise when no particular solution is available. Meaning we get stuck. Our brains do not like to get stuck, it's a problem solving machine. Check out this nifty quote:

One of the fundamental human cognitive processes is problem solving. As a higher-layer cognitive process, problem solving interacts with many other cognitive processes such as abstraction, searching, learning, decision making, inference, analysis, and synthesis on the basis of internal knowledge representation by the object–attribute-relation (OAR) model. Problem solving is a cognitive process of the brain that searches a solution for a given problem or finds a path to reach a given goal. When a problem object is identified, problem solving can be perceived as a search process in the memory space for finding a relationship between a set of solution goals and a set of alternative paths
-On the cognitive process of human problem solving by Yingxu Wang. 

Our brains, or at least a significant part of it, is literally designed to just that. You don't have to remember any of that, just remember that creating a habit takes discipline, which takes energy, which can be drained by negative thoughts which can be mitigated by trusting in yourself. Good, with me again? Fantastic. Back to habits for just a minute. Check out this other quote:

"Habits emerge from the gradual learning of associations between responses and the features of performance contexts that have historically co-varied with them (e.g., physical settings, preceding actions). Once a habit is formed, perception of contexts triggers the associated response without a mediating goal."  A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface by Wendy Wood and David T. Neal.

The goal here is to feel good about getting stuff done. So discipline is a active trait which consumes a lot of energy. We use this energy to transform tasks into a habit, which uses less energy. The 10,000 hour rule may have recently been "debunked" because it was too shallow, merely repeating a task over and over doesn't make you good at something. And in fact long term studies have concluded that some people will simply be better than others no matter the age when you start, the amount of time you put in or how well you are being taught. Depressing huh? No matter - all we're trying to do is build a certain level of trust and self scrutiny so that we can:

1. Trust in ourselves to lessen energy required to repeat learning processes such as doing studies and making paintings.
2. Trust in our observation and learning skills so that those learning processes keep pushing us forward.

The ways for us to get in our own way are truly endless! The way we look at the world, the way we look at ourselves, how we want to express ourselves, how to actually express yourself, the list goes on and on. 

“Trust is not a magical, elusive, mysterious quality. It’s you telling yourself over and over again; ‘I got this.’”

The deets

That's what the hip kids say right? I may have eclipsed thirty recently but that doesn't mean I can't be cool yo (It has meant that I enjoy going on long rants and browsing through furniture magazines). As promised in the beginning I will share some of the stuff that wrecks my day and keeps me up at night and, because at it's core this blog is still about giving a peek inside the brain of artists, I will now summarize them for you. Also, I said I wasn't going to be too analytical but let's face it, we all knew that was never going to happen.

• Failing to trust in my own capabilities. My trust often wavers when dealing with work for clients that I respect and or admire a lot. This self inflicted pressure undermines the trust I have and more importantly they have placed in me. Here the difference between confidence and trust becomes most clear for me. At some level I'm confident I can do it but I don't trust that it'll be to the required standard. At these moments I have to repeat to myself over and over again that I in fact do know what I'm doing, otherwise I would not face this problem. The problem that you worry about pleasing a good client doesn't arrive if you're not good enough to get a good client to begin with.
• Failing to see the macro picture. I often worry a lot about pieces that I do when I'm not happy with them. Thinking that all of a sudden I have lost all ability to paint and consider myself a fraud. I always go back and put a shitty old image from 2008 next to one I've done in recent history. That way I can make fun of the old me. What a terrible, terrible artist....
• Failing to get out of the micro picture. And here is another focus problem! Yay! Sometimes I get so stuck on not being able to solve a 'simple problem'. In my mind it will feel small and simple and I beat myself up over the fact that I can't solve it. Such as; 'I can't get the values right in this shadow region of this image.' News flash - it probably means that all of the values are bad. Which means you have to practice values more. It's not that tiny part in the painting. Sorry.
• Stubbornness. You might not guess it from this blog but I do not like to admit to myself that I haven't in fact figured something out. I try to be all cool and casual about it; it's fine, I'll just start over from scratch and really learn how this works. Or, that's what I want to say but in fact it's more like

No, no, no, nope, nuh-uh, no, hell no.

And there you have it! Another week where a few of the hardcore people have made it all the way to the end or have it least scrolled all the way down! As a small semi sentimental note at the end I would like to thank everyone for the hugely positive feedback we've received so far. Each week we're humbled by the reactions we get from the community, you telling us you got something from these pieces of text means a lot to us. We all seek validation of some sort in our lives and if that can come off the back of actually being of some use to someone then that's just peaches. Cool kids say that right? Peaches? 

Peaches.

- Titus

Why do I even art? And, the importance of setting goals

Hello fine folk of the internet and good people all around. Come hither, come near, it's Friday so have no fear! The work week is coming to an end and thus the weekend arrives so your sore soul can mend. But doth we have to fret? With anguish relentless drag us from our bed. Every day the struggle is real so let me talk about how I feel. Denizens of our fine realm let us be smart and ponder the query, why doth I even art?

Or you know, whatever.

Yes, this week we take a little tour of the most important aspects of the creative career chiefly being the question why we even pursue this at all. Last week we talked about what it means to be a concept artist so this week we extend this into the broader sense and ask what it means to be a artist in general. I don't want to get too much into the definition of art since that is just a huge pit of snakes so we'll dance around it and focus on how it affects us in a more practical sense by means of setting and achieving goals.

Why setting goals is important

A somewhat famous notion about goals is that they help with the long term vision while solving short term problems. It's a healthy balance between managing long term expectations and the quickest way to get there, which is never a singular task. Getting better at art is often used as a metaphor for other branches of life so I don't have to find a novel one. If we want to get better at painting we have to break it down into it's individual components such as composition, color theory, perspective, etc. Those components can be further broken down into smaller and smaller tasks which provide short term goals that are part of a bigger whole. We can slowly work our way towards the bigger goal and keep motivated by smaller victories. That motivation and energy to keep going is just as crucial as understanding what the goal was to begin with and, right here is where things get dicey. 

“Setting goals helps long term vision while solving short term problems.”

— Internet people

Understanding the goal might sound very logical but there is a huge caveat. One of the problems of setting a goal far off is that you might not have a clue what it actually means. The whole, you don't know what you don't know bit. Take the example of "I want to be good at art.". This sounds like a very reasonable goal but it's also rife with ignorance. It leads to questions such as; 'what defines good?', 'what aspect of art? Dance, painting, illustration, still life, all of it?', 'when?', 'how?'. You might set a goal which you wont be able to recognize even if it hit you in the face.

"But, Titus! Isn't it all about the journey and not the destination?"
Absolutely! Provided you know where you're going. It's like going on an epic road trip, it's all about the journey, but if you don't do your research and have no clue where you are going you might end up driving circles in the desert or get lost in a shopping mall. A little direction is always a plus.
 

Why understanding your goals is more important.

What a punch line - good thing this blog is free right? But in all seriousness, this is quite important. Understanding your goals is all about understanding yourself and doing a healthy amount of research, and I do love research so get ready for a post about that. The question that lies at the foundation for all of this is "Why". Why do we do what we do. Why do we want what we want. We need to explore these questions to make sure we actually want to achieve certain goals or if we're just forced into it by parents, peer pressure, lack of alternatives etc. It might be somewhat of a depressing notion but it's important to think about. So, to you dear reader, I pose the question: "Why do you want to be an artist?". Whether you are one already or an aspiring one doesn't matter.

Let me give you my answer.
I want to become an artist because I think I have something to say with the things I paint. I'm confident about my ability to transport people into a world they are not currently in and thus adding something to their experience library.

This might come off as a bit arrogant but the answer is the same as your artistic message. So it's OK if it's a bit cocky, arrogant, out there, floaty, touchy feely or whatever your message is. Based on this answer I can start setting goals and also test whether or not I'm on the right track. Let's go back in time to when I was 16, it's 2002 and Ja Rule is on No1 of the US charts for 2 weeks straight. I wanted, more than anything, to become a concept artist and I started a bumbling 8 year path to get there. On November 21st 2010 I had my first day as a concept artist for a company called Rebellion on the game 'NeverDead'.

I came into work and thought; 'Shit... and now what.'
See, the problem was when I was 16 and up to this very day I was / am pretty stupid. Especially about things I know nothing about. When I started that journey I didn't have a clue what it meant to be a concept artist and thus my goals where skewed like crazy. I achieved something I had no knowledge about, which, in many ways rendered it completely and utterly useless. How do you celebrate victory when it doesn't feel like one because you had no clue what you were chasing to begin with?

Yeesh. Heavy stuff.

There are a whole host of reasons why it went 'wrong' and it's not a bad thing either but the underlying theme should be clear by now. What if the goal had been more important? Something that took longer to achieve? Or if I would've done it when I was older and less flexible time wise? A problem with not understanding your goal is that you might not understand all the necessary steps or skills you need to get there. Which might mean you go off on the wrong path straying farther and farther from your goal. You won't be able to see this because you don't know what you're looking for.

So why do you art? Is it for money? Glory? Self expression? Fun?
Do you understand all the steps to get there?
Before I stated that I think I have something to say with my work, but so far I'm not. I'm working as a illustrator - which by the way I absolutely love, don't get me wrong. It has shown me that how I paint things is almost more important than what I paint, which I couldn't have told you a few short years ago. At the same time it shows me that I still have a ways to go. And with this new understanding new goals appear.

 

The punch line

As you learn more, goals change. Be flexible.
 

Real ground breaking stuff, I know! I could've just said so at the start but then again, where's the fun in that? Time is valuable. Now, I don't mind wasting a few minutes of your time every Friday, especially when it might save you more time in the end! I see this so often, people wanting to become an artist but don't know why or be the best but don't know how. They see cool things online and want to imitate. They see flashy movies and want to be part of it. They see a cool game and want to do something, anything for it for no other reason than wanting it. As if it were a primal instinct that's ingrained in their DNA. And who knows, maybe it is.
However, please, please, please, understand that on some level all art, even production art, is a form of self expression. The better you know yourself, the more depth you create, the more you are focused on the why of things the better your work will be. And perhaps, that game, movie or even this career is not what you want deep inside. Take some time to think about it. You have one life, spend it well.

- Titus

Defining concept art

Hello dear readers and welcome to another weekly installment of fun filled... positive... You know what. I can't do this right now. This week it's time to lay down some truth about the perception of concept art. Today it's time for salt. So let me just dive right in and talk about all that is awry in the world of concept art and the people trying to get in. Besides, I don't know about you but it's way too warm to read happy stuff!

1. The perception

People online, due to a lot of misinformation and marketing, have the idea that making concept art is about making pretty images that you can share on ArtStation and might lead to a feature on a gaming website or reddit or [insert favorite site here]. I have just one thing to say about that:

Whooooooooooooooooooooboy do I not like that mentality for a whole host of reasons. Yes, getting exposure to get work is a good thing. Calling it concept art, is bad.
Posting your actual concept work online to showcase what you've done: good
While making the work thinking about followers instead of the project: bad

2. The Danger

So here's the thing with thinking that what you make is concept art.
1. Actual AD's and concept artists know this isn't concept art and they won't look at it that way lessening the strength of your portfolio. Meaning, they might not take you serious because it looks like you have no idea what you are talking about.
2. This attitude might lead to the assumption and or situation that once in house you can make pretty pictures instead of engage problem solving. Building a concept art portfolio should be foremost about demonstrating your problem solving ability, research strength, initiative, design sensibilities and understanding of technical restrictions of the game / engine.
3. Other, perhaps newer companies or less routined senior staff, might assume that making pretty pictures is the definition of concept art forcing newer generations to only focus on making cool images rather than something useful. I've seen it time and again, pipelines and schedules being thrown out the window because someone wants a last minute shiny image for something or another that isn't the actual game. 
4. Personal style has always been a iffy subject when it comes to concept art. The art has to be clear enough for another to work from it but it also has to speak to the imagination. There is a fine balance between production art and fine art sometimes as projects can take on, especially in the pre-production phase, lavish design principles. However, if the idea spreads about a "acceptable form" of concept art personal style will become endangered. Everything might be pushed towards one and the same thing. Of course not every project is the same and therefor might not lend itself for personalized art. C'est la vie!

3. What needs to change

It's so easy. Stop calling your non concept work 'concept art'. Done. Call it illustration, or personal piece or whatever else you can think of. Here is a neat and tidy checklist, if you meet the points on here you are free to call your work concept art:

1. When it's clear for what type of game / project / department this is.
2. When it's clear what the original art direction is.
3. When the design problem is clearly communicated
4. When the design solution is clearly communicated
5. When multiple solutions are clearly demonstrated
6. When a clear insight to 3D or integration is demonstrated
7. When it's not a shot of a dude on a horse with a castle in the background
8. When it's not a half naked chick with giant headphones looking over shoulder with no design visible with a random nonsensical background.

Point number 7 and 8 might be cool but they sure aren't concept art. They might be concept art if the project demands but still the other points have to be met as well. Also, concept illustration is a very fine line. It still has to be for a project, with clear art direction etc. Failure to demonstrate this makes it very difficult for anyone, especially Art Directors, to figure out if you actually understand how to follow a brief. 

4. Definition of a concept artist in 3 words or less

Problem solver.

So why write this, why show the whole world my inner salt mine to what many call a semantics problem. It's because the less educated people as a whole, maybe not this generation and maybe not even the next, but eventually their lack of insight will catch up with the industry and put down its roots. Corners will get cut, insightful solutions overlooked and it will further the generic games that we are already seeing. Same is true for film.
When people start to choose money over quality or mistake rendering for quality we are in deep trouble. Good projects demand good solutions and designs. Good solutions and designs require people to understand the finer details of the development. This understanding comes from time invested in this area, not anything else. It doesn't mean you can't have both but if you can't tell the difference between illustration and concept art in your own portfolio maybe there is still some work to be done.

This was Titus live from the salt mines in the inner regions of my ego.

Hugs and kisses

Staying motivated

Another Friday, another article! Welcome back guys!

This week I'd like to continue the topic that I started on my very first post here on Project Discovery, my struggle with finishing projects. In my post, I am a Pro, I talk about my struggle taking my art to a professional level. In this weeks article I'm here to give you all an update on my process so far:

The reason why I haven't really progressed as much as I would have liked to comes down to a couple of factors. One of them is definitely the fact that I have no real urgency to have to finish anything, the pieces that I make are for myself and do not provide any source of income. I have a full-time job at a great company with an awesome team, it pays the bills and allows me to live a reasonably comfortable life.

Besides that, I am still struggling with procrastination. Or is it actually procrastination? I believe you have to intentionally keep yourself occupied with other things in order for it to be procrastination right? Hold on, let me look up the definition real quick, brb..

“Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task which needs to be accomplished. It is the practice of doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones, or carrying out less urgent tasks instead of more urgent ones, thus putting off impending tasks to a later time.”

Yeah see.. I don't think that applies here.. I love sculpting! It's just scary as fuck.. I sometimes even start cleaning up the house instead of sculpting, I don't think that qualifies as more pleasurable.. right....? RIGHT!?!

Day[9] approves

I do tend to get lost on "The Interwebz" a lot of the time. There's simply too much clickbaity stuff out there that I actually find amusing. Take FAIL video's for example.. yesterday evening I just got stuck watching one YouTube fail compilation video after another.. that's not extremely productive..
 

Anyway, getting distracted again.. Where was I.. oh yeah, the things I blame for me not finishing any personal projects.. Next up.. concentration.. I seriously have the concentration of a young puppy these days. Everything is fun, everything is interesting.. I used to be able to just sit down and play a single player game for hours and hours straight but these days I already lose focus after a couple of quests in The Witcher.. and then I go back to creating a new Magic deck, or playing Overwatch.. or Hearthstone.. or watching Mr Robot.. you get where I am going with this. It used to be so different though, before social media absolutely destroyed my ability to focus. 
For example, the amount of hours I played Fallout 3 straight was just nuts.. I think it's time for a little side story about my experience playing Fallout 3!

Fallout 3 came out during my second year of college, at the time I was on a very limited budget but I did just buy a new laptop which was supposed to be top of the line. An Acer with very respectable stats (seeing as I needed to be able to run Maya, Unreal Engine, Houdini, ZBrush etc.) It should have no problems playing Fallout 3. Not long after my first tests playing Unreal Tournament 3 I noticed some glitches in the video card. It seems it overheated quite easily.. I contacted Acer customer support about this issue and after no reply for a week I got an answer that if my Blu-Ray player wasn't working I should try and download the latest drivers.... thank you.. Acer customer support... I actually believe the contacted me again right after my warranty expired that I could send in the laptop for repairs.. (costs not covered of-course) So in the meantime I had already bought a laptop stand with built in fans and everything which kept down the temperatures a little bit but not enough to keep the game from crashing every 20 minutes or so.. To counter this, I played the game in the winter with my windows wide open and me wearing a thick coat and gloves.. I simply stopped when my fingers turned into ice-cycles. Some of the best times playing a game I've ever had!

So, to get back to my original topic. I need a plan of attack, just have a set schedule on which I sculpt! My plan is to stream on Twitch again this weekend and by announcing it right now to you fine people here, it'll leave me no choice but to actually go through with it and actually continue sculpting! Brilliant, right?! There's this project I've been wanting to continue for a while now and after having received awesome reference photo's from a friend I really owe it to her to continue!

So! Hopefully I'll see you bright and early on Saturday morning 10:00 AM Amsterdam time (GMT+1) to make sure I do my work!

And if not, have a great weekend guys!

- Robin

Curiosity and the ways it defines you

Hello good people of the internet and fine folk all around and welcome to another week here on Project Discovery. Summer is still brewing, it's almost time for the weekend and thus we can relax with a bit of light reading. This week it's time for a more personal message, perhaps not jam packed with 'sciency facts', but more so with something that has held a lot of value for me and is along the feelgood lines. Curiosity. Since it's in the title there really isn't any point in hiding until the end of the article, otherwise I would've called it something like '10 ways to define your career and cooking skills'.

Now to give this article a bit of structure I will do this through the lens of becoming a better (concept) artist, this might make it more beneficial and, I will have something more to say than:

“Stay curious”

— pretty much every famous person

This image has no relevance to the article but it's just one of my favorite comics ever. If you don't know nedroid.com just click the image, you'll have a neat time.

As per usual, and as taught to me by my father, let's break this word 'curiosity' down in order for this reasonably abstract concept to show it's true colors. In order to understand what curiosity does for us we need to define it's key components and what other attributes it's connected to.
I always like to imagine a web of attributes, each linking to a state of mind, together forming patterns and pathways that we use for anything and everything in our daily lives. Trying to see the bigger picture in this way has helped me understand problems such as: 'why am I not motivated?' or 'how do I stay disciplined?' and 'How come Zenyatta keeps killing me and no one is counter pushing'. Each of these questions is covering one or more of these attributes and states of mind.
Toggling one of these attributes off in the web might mean a whole lot more get disconnected. The way this web is configured is different for each and everyone one of you, this is what makes us so different, but also makes us interesting. For one a trigger might lie in relaxing through knitting, for another a run, and another can't relax unless the heart rate is going through the roof via a lovely jolt of caffeine.

Curiosity for me is one of the most interconnected attributes in this web, it's so important in fact that without it almost every other system of my creative functioning would shut down.

I went through a whole host of jobs that I left for many different reasons. Most of them were in the field of concept art as well and, it took me a while to figure out why I couldn't figure out why I couldn't find a fit. Glad we all got through that sentence. Good job.
I've spoken before about the importance of getting to know yourself, it really is the cornerstone to a happy life, for the simple reason that if you figure out what you dont like you can start eliminating those factors thus being more happy. Easy.
One of the things I found is that curiosity is the key driving factor behind motivation. It works as follows:
Curiosity - leads me to ask silly questions.
Those questions lead to discoveries.
The discoveries energize me because my brain receives a stimulus (I spoke about psychic energy before as well as brain atrophy which I basically just copied from here)
That energy leads to a visual stimulus in the form of inspiration (I really do hate that word)
Inspiration gives a certain drive. This drive has 2 parts
Autotelic: I want to paint this because I think it's cool
Exotelic: I want to paint this because I might get praise or jobs from it. Having both is good to keep balance since the autotelic reason is mostly a road to self loathing, crushing artist fear and so forth.
With these powers combined this forms

 Captain motivation. One part incentive, one part artistic passion for self improvement and deprivation, one tablespoon of inspiration and a good helping of curiosity. 

Pretty neat if I say so myself. But that's not the only thing. Curiosity has a lot of fringe bonuses, aside from being a wise ass at parties, that each have their own even more fringe bonuses. It's just a matter of diving down that rabbit hole to see how far it goes. The more you map this internal chart the more you can identify culprits of a whole host of negative influences. Grumpy for days but can't figure out why? Do some digging!
Curiosity for me leads to a lot of researching which takes me to places I would've never thought of visiting. From weird microbial structures to the graffiti they use to mark utilities. And as expected, it goes even further.

But back to concept art for just a minute. The core definition of concept art, and I will write a blog about this because people keep getting it wrong, is solving problems. Not making pretty pictures.

“Concept art is not about making pretty pictures.”

— All the cool kids

So what do you need to solve problems? Information. Lots of it. As Sir Francis Bacon said: "Knowledge is Power." And now you know where that comes from too, you're welcome! 
The more information you have the more versatile the solution can be, which in this profession is kind of a big deal.
 

Do yourself a favor, if you haven't seen Anchorman, go see it.

This means you have to find the information in which case it helps if you are curious because, curiosity gives you energy to go out and find it. Which leads to motivation, and, well. You've seen where that goes. It's a pretty nifty cycle actually.
Getting this information and turning yourself into a problem solving superstar will cascade through other aspects of your personality and thus career. It can lead to useful traits such as initiative, assertiveness, trivia trophy master and conversationalist. Some of those are more important than others. Better still is if you get the information from talking to other people which in turn will make you more social as well. There really is no limit.

You see, at the end of the day what defines you as a person is a huge part of what defines you as a artist. The ability to identify who you are will help in identifying what you want to paint. Which will lead to questions such as how you want to paint it, both in style and medium, cascading on and on. Once that curiosity machine is turned on and reaches full power there is no stopping it.
Curiosity helped me through a lot of difficult trials, whether it was in personal life or at work when I felt overwhelmed. When I was new in the industry I had no idea what my day to day tasks were and I was too afraid to bother my AD every few hours after he told me off. So, I got curious and started talking to people to see what was needed. Everything on the road to becoming better at art starts with you asking questions. Once you get going you'll find that you can answer most of the questions yourself. Trust me. 

So what does your internal map look like? Is it a web like mine or are you configured in a different way? I would love to know, so you can drop a comment right here or on twitter or facebook.

Lastly I will leave you with a useful link to more articles! Suzanne Helmigh, my lovely girlfriend, writes a metric ton of stuff as well which you can find on her deviantart journal page right here:

http://suzanne-helmigh.deviantart.com/journal/A-guide-on-making-an-art-portfolio-627501063

That's it for me this week, go enjoy your weekend!

-Titus

Making of: Polymorph, a 3D love story

Picking a concept

It’s a recurring topic by now and it’s not very logical for it to come up in a post about 3D printing but I’m going to do it anyway! Magic the Gathering! The world and art of MtG has inspired me for over 2 decades now and I’m sure everyone is familiar with the feeling of wanted to do fan-art to pay respects to something you enjoyed very much. Whether that’s a game, movie, television series, whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s just nice to give your own twist to it.

So, a couple of months ago I created my version of the card Polymorph. I picked this particular one because I loved the art, I thought it would be something I could re-create and something that would be 3D printable. But first and foremost, I just think it’s a hilarious illustration, I mean, come on, a bunny/kangaroo (I’m still not sure) freaking out because he’s turning into a monster? That’s awesome!

A little side story about Magic

I started playing 20 years ago, 1996, it's the year of Space Jam and Independence Day! It all started when my dad bought us the 2 player starter pack, Zakk vs Kazz!

Ours wasn't Italian though ;)

Seeing as I was 9, I barely spoke or read English, so as you can imagine, my first 100 games were kinda tricky... I relied on the power of my creatures and I remember getting extremely upset when my strongest creature, the War Mammoth - 3/3 - was the strongest monster I could muster. But my dad, he somehow got a 4/4 Durkwood Boars in his deck, talk about unfair!! Just look at those evil smirks!

Anyway, we're getting a bit of track here, lets talk about..

Sculpting! :D

In order to create this little guy I used the same tool that I use for about 90% of all the 3D work that I do, namely, ZBrush. I will spare you all the little details of how I went about creating it so here are the cliff-notes:

1. Starting with ZSpheres. Using ZSpheres allows me to quickly built up the form of the model without spending a lot of time box-modeling something in Maya. I guess this part of blocking in the form won’t have taken me more than 10 minutes.

2. Then, I converted the Sphere’s into polygons. Thanks to the most brilliant tool known to mankind - ZRemesher - I was able to convert the messy geometry I got from the ZSphere’s into something much more useful.

3. This is where the fun part begins, turning the sculpt from a blob into something that could actually be recognized as the deformed freaked out bunny (yes we’re gonna go ahead and say it’s a bunny, don’t argue with me!)

4. Once all the global shapes are defined, I subdivide the model to give me 4 times as many polygons to work with. (If necessary I remesh my model again but I’ll explain how I go about doing that in the Tricks section)

A couple little tricks for fellow sculptors

For all of you non-ZBrush-sculptors, feel free to skip this part ^^ 

Remeshing + preserving details
I like clean geometry, I really do, and sculpting can sometimes really stretch out individual polygons and cause the distribution of all polygons to be quite uneven and stretched out, ewww.

But you’ve been spending a lot of time working on it, and you really like some of the shapes/details you already have an don’t feel like having to re-do them all over again. This is a little trick I learned on how to maintain as much detail as possible whilst still having that nice clean remeshed polygon flow.

So what you do is:
1. Duplicate your current model (keep it on the highest subdivision level)

2. Take your new subtool and re-mesh to the lowest polygon amount you can have while still preserving the overall silhouette of your high resolution part.

3. With only the high resolution subtool visible and the new one active, subdivide your mesh (with smooth on) and go to SubTool -> Project -> ProjectAll.

4. Then, repeat this process until your new mesh is at the same polygon count as your old version and has almost the exact same look as the old one, but with nice clean geometry

Saving on costs
Usually when you use a 3D printing service, you pay a startup cost and then you pay for the amount of material required to make a 3D print. An easy way of reducing the costs of your model is by hollowing it out. Feel free to check out my tutorial on how to go about doing this right here.

 

The 3D Print material choices

The sculpt is done and ready for 3D printing! Now I’d just like to take a moment to explain what material options are available for 3D printing figurines. It just so happens to be that I work at 3D Hubs during the week (I'm actually writing this blog post on my break) and we have some really nice material pages available that explain the different materials: https://www.3dhubs.com/materials

But if you don't feel like visiting the page, here's a quick sum up:

UV-curable resin on SLA printers: Great for highly detailed parts but requires support material in order to print which can leave traces on the model. 

Black Formlabs Resin print of the TMNT Donatello - Model by me, picture taken by Ken Giang

Then there's the very affordable prototyping plastic PLA which is not as accurate and also requires support to print overhanging pieces. Please excuse the little bits of dirt on the print, it's been standing on my desk for almost 2 years now ;) 

White PLA print of Warcraft Orc - Model and picture by me

And finally I want to talk about SLS Nylon, which is printed on higher end professional machines. SLS Nylon is a powder based material that is sintered together using a high precision laser. This technique requires no supports to print and is also very precise. The only drawback for this technique is that the surface finish of the model is a bit grainy. But seeing as polymorph has these very small slim fingers, I opted to go for this technique and hope nothing would break in transport!

Finally, I do also want to mention 3D printing castable models and resin kits. For high end professional users, this is probably the most used technique. It's also the priciest (unless you print in bulk). Artists such as Dominic Qwek and the awesome couple from New Zealand, Jon Troy Nickel and Layna Lazar make use of this material in order to be able to distribute their kick-ass work to fans all over the globe. I'll definitely look into this one for my next project!
 

The final look

There it is, the final result! I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to experiment with other materials.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little making off, I'd love to hear your comments, questions, complaints etc! Feel free to give me a follow / message me on Twitter, you can find me right here on www.twitter.com/ixi87

Until next time, take it easy and have a great weekend everyone!

- Robin