Customizable Blood Bowl Poster: Beastmen

Coming back at you this week with a brand new poster for your Blood Bowl Team. You can download the pdf here, fill in your own team name, and print straight from Adobe Reader. Enjoy!

Customizable Blood Bowl Poster: Goblins!

Coming back at you this week with a brand new poster for your Blood Bowl Team. As always you can download the pdf here, fill in your own team name, and print straight from Adobe Reader. Enjoy!

Dear GW, Stop It

Oh, a storm is coming? Really? Because last time I checked we hadn't even received news that the last storm you said was coming had actually run it's course and cleared up. I know you guys live in England and all, but really, how many storms/dark tides/ominous omens are heading our way? You can only have so much "bad" weather before it becomes commonplace and is just referred to as "weather".

"How's the weather today Bill?" 

"Well, the sky is the color of fire, it's raining acid, and there's giant mechanical aberrations everywhere. You know, the usual."



Stop it. 

And it's getting dangerously close to 2013. Photoshopping a static image and having it scroll across the screen isn't exactly a new trick in the playbook. That's some Ken Burns stuff.

I get that motion graphics is a highly specialized technique that is an artform in and of itself. It takes very talented people months of intense work to create even 30 second spots in digital animation, I've actually worked in the field myself. That being said...

Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. 

Buying a copy of Adobe Aftereffects doesn't make your Photoshop guy a master animator. He's your Photoshop guy, let him be your Photoshop guy. But who will do the animation you may ask? No one. 

Stop it. 

The new models are cool enough. You've invested so much money and development time into making these staggeringly cool new chaos models, just show us the models! Or how about one of the many, many sketches and concept art pieces I'm sure exist as part of the production of the Chaosy-Mecha-Dragon-Thing? I'm sure those are gorgeous, and speak to the quality of work that has been put into this model.

It just kills me to see this, because I know the product is so good. It's a cheap used-car lot ad for a Bentley Dealership. You already hit the home run guys, just let it speak for itself.

Just stop it.

Originality, Practice, and a new Chaos Poster

Most weeks when I sit down to start a new piece, I'm expecting an evolution of skill. From project to project, the difference in craftsmanship isn't very pronounced. While a better concept will ultimately result in a better execution, I "know" roughly how good a piece will look well before I've finished. It's one of the big barriers of extended practice, not being able to see yourself dramatically improve every time you do a new piece. Except for that every once in a while, something weird happens. 

You can download the new poster here.

Those of you who have been following my work for a while will recognize instantly how much better this is than anything that has preceded it. This is one of those very rare moments, not of evolution, but revolution. This is a game changer, and inevitably will become the new standard by which all my other work will be judged.

So what gives? How did I make such a dramatic change in just 1 week?

You don't always have to be original

In a speech I listened to long ago, an industrial designer was trying to tell us something important. It would be several years before I finally understood his message. He said, quite simply, that most of the problems had been solved, and it wasn't my responsibility to try and re-solve them. 

"Of course it is!" I thought. "If I'm going to be original, I can't build my work on someone else's ideas!"

Bullshit. 

Einstein used an existing system (math) to address his questions of the universe. Picasso painted with materials made by other people, most likely in a mass manufactured setting. Beethoven composed music for the instruments that everyone else had been playing for hundreds of years prior. My point is that even with 95% of their work already done for them, it took the lifetime of massively dedicated individuals to reach the zenith of human achievement. Originality is important, but it must be tempered with moderation. 

They already solved your problems

Enter the DC Comics Guide to Inking. I bought this book on a whim to get free shipping from Amazon. I rightly figured that someone who had been professionally working in illustration longer than I've been alive has a thing or two they could teach me. I got the book about a week ago, and read the first third of the book.

Wow.

I haven't even started in on the rest of it. The information contained in that book is so incredibly useful that I dare not go too fast for fear I'll miss something. But, in that first third, I learned enough about inking to revolutionize my technique. Every single thing I was doing wrong was covered in stunning detail. Not only did the book show me how it was wrong, but why. Most importantly though, it showed me how to fix it.

It was relieving in a way to realize that I'm not very unique and that I am running into the same mistakes as everyone else. Because if I make their mistakes, then I can make their victories as well. Needless to say, after seeing what this book could do for me. I went out and immediately ordered the other four in the series.

Practice

Time for the practice thing again. 

It's not enough to just keep slamming your head against the wall for ten thousand hours and then call yourself the master. This needs to be very deliberate practice with the intent to improve. Ten thousand hours of drawing lousy pictures will only make you really good at drawing lousy pictures. 

I just keep looking at that guy at the top of the post. I still don't believe I did that. But I will. In the meantime, it time to start the next poster sketch, and I can't wait to see what happens this time around...

Customizable Blood Bowl Poster: Wood Elves

Coming back at you this week with a brand new poster for your Blood Bowl Team. As always you can download the pdf here, fill in your own team name, and print straight from Adobe Reader. Enjoy!