Ewan's Art and Things (and Also Stuff)

Sorry, everybody, no Blender progress this week. I've been spending the last 3 days playing catchup on multiple responsibilities at once, and didn't get to completing the tutorial I'd selected like I meant to for Thursday. I think that the thing to do might be to make a quick little PSA instead, to tide things over until next week, when the Blender project will properly begin. For a person who needs a full night's sleep to feel fully functional the day after, I find myself staying up late a lot, either just doing nothing or scrambling to scratch out homework for a class that I had two weeks to do. I'm no stranger to all-nighters, and I'm typing this blog entry up after basically two in a row at this point, and so I feel that I'm in exactly the right frame of mind to remind everybody that this state of mind sucks like nothing else. The unfortunate effects it has on short-term mental ability is a real doozy, and it doesn't do anybody any good. Steer clear ...

My whole life's been focused on 2D art--drawing, that is. It's been mostly traditional drawing, of course, from when I first picked up a pencil as a little squirt of a kid, up to a few years ago when I saw myself turn mostly to digital art. Regardless of the exact medium, drawing's always been my big love in art; painting, sculpture, none of it compares to just scratching out a satisfying little doodle. Of course, that points to a danger of artistic complacency. Though having taken studio classes that force me to confront different traditional media have done their work in combating this, my ultimate comfort zone has never wavered. It's hardly in my interest to keep to this one thing creatively, much as I do feel it's my mother medium. So, I'm going to go a step in a novel direction from here--I'm going to set my sights on learning the 3D modeling/animation software known as Blender. It's free to download and use, and though by all accounts it's a do...

It's lots of people's dreams to make a buck or two off of a creative hobby that they love. Fortunately, there's about as many people who would love to pay for artists' work, too, which seems like a match made in heaven, right? Well... Wherever there's a system, there's someone who wants to crack it, hoping to extract something or anything out of it. However many there are out there, there are few more stressing and debilitating to the individual than a commissioner who tries to screw over an artist. There is, however, a most basic measure to countering this. This measure is the dedicated creation of an invoice; that is, the creation of a document that forces satisfaction on the client's part. In order to ensure the validity of the order, they must accept. It is the most basic way one can abide by the system and also ensure that works in the creator's favor. Do yourself that favor, and properly invoice your client.

Foes to conquer, battles to fight, and power to take: this world has much of these, and more, to offer those who can handle them. Hey there, everybody--tiding over this week's consumer review with a game that's been sucking up my free time particularly severely this past little while--Mount and Blade: Warband. Mount and Blade: Warband is a role-playing game that puts focus on action and strategy; players must fight their way from poverty to power in a merciless medieval world called Calradia. Multiple warring kingdoms pull and tug at one another, hoping to put down their rivals and eventually dominate the continent. Deciding which--or none--of these powers emerges at the top is up to the player. The world is entirely open from the very beginning of the game; if you really want, you can start riding horseback all the way to the opposite corner of the world the second you first pull up the map. It's always wise, though, to see about performing local tasks, gathering some fres...

  Hey there everybody, actually back this time--gonna take this in a bit of a different direction this week with a short review of one of my favorite games, Payday 2. Payday 2 is a co-operative first person shooter game, in which 4 players work together as career criminals. They must perform a multitude of jobs, from robbing banks to transporting shipments of drugs, all the while fighting off relentless waves of computer-controlled police. Players must build their characters with a huge arsenal of weapons (which can be customized even further with attachments), as well as with a rich system of skills and perks, to complete their missions without getting gunned down and arrested. There is a massive roster of missions to choose from, and this with the mileage of experimenting with different character builds makes for an extremely replayable experience. Players casing a scene before making their move. First off, I'm a sucker for 4-player co-op shooters, and they've sapped a shamef...

WEEK 2 Art Software Review - Clip Studio Paint Hey there, everybody! This week I'm gonna follow up my artist-oriented tablet-review of last week with a review for my favorite digital illustration program: Clip Studio Paint. This program was already featured in plain sight in last week's Huion Kamvas 16 review, as it was the very program that I had pulled up on the screen. Since all I had used it for in those photos was one photo of a blank canvas and one VERY quick 2-minute sketch, I'll take the opportunity this week to highlight some of the great things about CSP and exactly why this is the program I use (almost) every day. To begin with, Clip Studio at its base is a very powerful and professional program. There are canvas presets that allow for simple illustration canvases, presets for professionally-configured comic pages, and animation files. Once a user has opened one of these, they are met with an intuitive interface that offers a fantastically broad range of tools, ...