I did some artwork for the new Brothers in Arms game back in April, which was just announced at E3. It was internal art for Gearbox through another company, so I'm not sure it'll ever see the light of day officially, but it was fun to work on.

However, the game itself is getting extremely mixed reactions from E3. The concept is sort of a Inglourious Basterds take on the Brothers in Arms experience, and I think a lot of people are seeing it as a cheap rip off instead of a cool new direction.

I'll reserve my judgement until I see some gameplay, but I'll definitely put up the art if I get the all clear from the client at some point. It's a sort of hero shot of all four characters, really gritty, not quite as Team Fortressy as the trailer.

I haven't actually played a BiA game since the first one, but I've heard mixed things about each once since. Who knows, hopefully this one comes as a surprise and is fun.

Other than that, just keeping busy with my work for Lionsgate. Loving working on film so far, everyone is awesome and I get to try a lot of cool things, even putting my After Effects skills to work. Won't be able to show anything 'til probably next March at the earliest, but the design work is a blast.

Anyone else got any cool news?

Catch ya soonicus!

I landed a really cool film gig, with no small help from `DanLuVisiArt and some other good friends. I definitely owe them a classy Burger King dinner on my dime next time I see them, any combo on the menu, no sweat!

Anyway, I've been hired on to do some environment work for The Hunger Games film due out in 2012. Other than that, I really can't say much else, but I can say that I've been working on it a week so far, and I'm loving it. The team is full of really cool, hard working people with a great vision.

For anyone not in the know, The Hunger Games is based on a book by Suzanne Collins, in a sort of dystopian future, where each year a group of kids is forced to fight to the death in a massive arena while it's televised. It reminds me a lot of Battle Royale or the Running Man in concept, or even The Long Walk. It's been on my reading list for a while, but now I've got the perfect reason to finally start it, right?

I'll be pretty busy for the next month or so now, so I'm not entirely sure when I'll have some new work up, but I'm going to try hard to push some cool stuff out in my free time. I'm really excited about the job, and hopefully it'll lead to even more cool stuff later on.

Take care everyone, catch you soon!

So I got my 6th DD yesterday, thanks to ^KasumiCR! It seems like just yesterday that I was hoping I'd get my first one, which ironically is now in storage because of how horrid I think it looks.

The DD was on my brush set, which is awesome, because for once it wasn't about displaying my artwork, but providing a valuable resource to people who can benefit from it. I've had a good set of brushes for so long now, I sort of take it for granted. I forget what it was like to have no idea where to get a good base set of brushes, and just messing with a bunch of crap I was finding all over the place, which was never what I needed.

Of course the easiest solution is to make your own, but that's a little intimidating at first, and the results the first go around are usually.... interesting, and not in a way that helps, haha.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for all the support over the years guys, and maybe I can get an advanced brush pack up soon. The only reservation I have with that, is that many of the brushes I use regularly are modified versions of other people's brushes. And while I don't think they'd mind, being as they supplied them to people in the first place , I feel a little funny about re-purposing without crediting, and I've had some so long that I wouldn't know where to start.

That said, maybe the solution is to just say, "If you recognize this brush, let me know and I'll credit."

As always, take care everyone, I'll have some new artwork very soon. An epic space battle, including wallpaper versions, and hopefully my Mass Effect painting by next week.

Hey guys! Just wanted to say hey, been super busy lately, but hopefully I'll have some awesome work to show for it soon.

Just got a quick job doing some promo/testing art for a big game franchise. The new game will be announced at E3, but I can't say much more than that right now. Also got my Mass Effect painting to finish, an epic space battle commission for an arcade machine, and potential work on an upcoming movie that some of you would know of, in addition to all the personal work I have planned.

Also, I only mentioned it on FB, but I lost out on a job working for 343 Industries on a new Halo game. I got head hunted, but it all fell through. It was a disappointment, but hey, makes room for other great things.

What have you all be up to, any good news to share?

As always, take care!

Hey guys! I just got a free Dropbox account, and I'm loving it. The reason I bring it up is for the sake of referrals and extra free space. If you use my link to sign up, we BOTH get extra free space on our accounts. Basically the service lets you sync files between all your computers, back stuff up, host images or other files, or transfer large files to others, instead of using some unreliable hosting site.

You can also say, upload something at home, and go download it at work or school, so you don't always need a USB drive. Plus it's fast. It's seriously cool, it basically puts a fancy folder on your computer, that you just put whatever in, and it auto-syncs online and to your other computers.

So if that's something you're interested in, consider signing up, and we both make out well. I plan to use it for hosting my work and any files I want to share with you guys, as well as transferring things between me and clients. Thanks guys!

P.S. I'm working my ass off, so expect lots of new work soon, as opposed to the once every month and a half, rofl.

Oh my god! I just won the lottery! I also got mauled by a bear, stabbed a hobo, rode a sasquatch, met George Clooney, killed myself, came back to life, slapped `DanLuVisiArt' ass, and got hired at 14 game studios! Also, I married J.J. Abrams and I gave birth to a lens flare.

April Fool's day!

P.S. One of the above is true.

You guys may have noticed my poll, so you might know that I'm very seriously considering starting a new YouTube account to put up weekly tutorials/painting videos. I've put together a huge list of all the things I could think of that would be great to go over and do with the channel, but I'm hoping you guys could look it over and tell me if there's anything else you'd like to see on there.

It'll give me a huge database of things to draw from when I have the time, while helping everyone out as best as I can, and just being able to have fun with it. Here's the list, let me know what you think!
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Might take me a little while to get it off the ground, but I'll need your guys' support once it's up so I don't end up spending hundreds of hours of time for an audience of 15 people, rofl. Anyway, thanks and take care!

I just wanted to say thank you for all the birthday wishes! It really means a lot to me, and hopefully I can pay you all back with some really cool original art soon. I've been working super hard lately, and I should have some stuff to show for it in the coming weeks!

Also, in addition to cooking up some ideas for a texture tutorial/Livestream, I've been thinking about putting together something on how to use layers masks, clipping masks, and the lock transparent pixels button, all things I think every digital artist should be aware of and know how to use well. I hope that's something you'll all find really useful.

Anyway, I had a great day, and I hope everyone else is doing awesome.

_{P.S. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the tragedy in Japan, stay strong friends.}

This is one of the biggest problems I see other people running into, and I've had to explain it a countless number of times. The bummer is that it's really quite simple, but if you don't know how it works it's easy to get mixed up.

The following is more or less what I'm going to tell you, but in a less comprehensive fashion. So if these 2 main points make enough sense to you, then you can decide if you need more information and explanation:

  You only need to set DPI when working with actual dimensions like inches or centimeters, etc. So if you're working directly in pixels already, it's useless.

  Therefore, the only time you really need to set the DPI is when you need to ensure good print quality, and know your real world dimensions but not the exact pixels. The program will set the pixels for you based off the other information.

First and foremost, you REALLY don't need to work in real world dimensions such as inches or centimeters unless you plan on going to print with the work, like with posters or a book. Working directly in pixels is absolutely fine and works for most circumstances, the catch is knowing how much is too much, and how little is too little. More on that later, but let me break down the two main ways of setting up your work.

SETTING UP IN PIXEL DIMENSIONS

The main way I set up my documents is directly in pixel dimensions. It's much easier, especially when most of my work is meant for web or screen display, and not print.

Anyway, if you know the dimensions you want your image to be in pixels, or have a certain aspect ratio in mind, just input the numbers. After this is where people trip up and cause themselves the most problems.

They often ask, "What DPI should I set it to now?" Or they say things like, "My image is 3000x4000 pixels at 300 DPI."

The catch is, if you're working in pixels already, then setting the DPI literally changes NOTHING about your document. It doesn't make it higher resolution, doesn't make it look better in any way. Just leave it alone, you could set it to 1 if you wanted and it wouldn't matter.

In fact, try changing the number and you'll see that your document size at the lower right will not change at all. There is, however, a use for setting the DPI properly, which I'll talk about at the end, but it doesn't affect the quality of your document, which is what most people are concerned with.

SETTING UP IN REAL WORLD DIMENSIONS

If you know your work is going to be printed, you need to set up the document with real world dimensions. After you decide the size of the image, you need to set the DPI (actually in Photoshop it's PPI, but the difference doesn't matter and the term is often used interchangeably). It should be under Resolution and has units of "pixels/inch".

When working in print, usually the minimum resolution you want is 300 DPI. That ensures good quality, crisp printing at the intended size. The downfall is that often a 300 DPI image is going to have very large pixel dimensions and may slow your computer. To combat this, you can often get away with 150-200 DPI for print and still be fine.

One big thing you need to know is that when you set your work up in inches, and designate a DPI, it AUTOMATICALLY sets your pixel dimensions for you. It can be very useful for this reason, but it can also result in people working in either too small of a resolution or waaaay too much.

HOW LARGE TO WORK

I mentioned earlier about knowing how large to work in pixel dimensions so you know you're at a good resolution to get lots of detail. A solid gauge to go by is to have the smallest dimension on your painting, whether it be width or height, be no less than 3,000-4,000 pixels or so. That might be overkill for some, but it's what years of experience have shown me is a safe zone. You can certainly go higher if you want, but keep in mind that making something super high resolution will often result in people feeling the need to add more detail than necessary, making their job harder and more time consuming.

The main exception to this if you're working for film and doing something like matte painting. In that case, it's standard to work double film resolution (or higher) and set your canvas to 4,096 pixels wide, and just let the height be whatever the aspect ratio dictates, which is okay if it's less than 3,000.

I also mentioned when it can be beneficial to input the DPI even when you're working in pixels. This is for when you might want to know what the real world dimensions of your work are at a specific DPI.

In this example I set a canvas to 900x1200 pixels, then set that to 300 DPI. You can see that by going to Image > Image Size that it tells me that at 3x4 inches, this image would be at 300 DPI, standard print quality, something I wouldn't have known without doing the math myself.

Anyway, I hope this has been helpful in clearing up any confusion and saving people some headaches in the future. Good luck!

It's totally 3am right now, but I'm in a super good mood, painting away, and I wanted an excuse to use my new journal skin. I almost had an impromptu Livestream today, but decided I'd rather give people a bit more of a head's up before I do that.

Anyway, someone was asking if I would do a tutorial on texturing earlier today, and I thought that was a good idea and I'd wanted to do it a while back but forgot. I'm sure I've asked before, but I'm too busy (lazy actually) to go looking, so what sort of texturing would you guys most like to see? I assume skin and metal are on the list, is there anything else you guys have trouble with?

Just let me know, and I'll get some ideas together. I haven't decided if it'll be a deviation, YouTube video, or Livestream yet, but I'll let you know when I figure it out. Some sort of video format is most likely.

Also, I still want to do that paint-over Livestream that I asked for work for a few months back, I've been just a little too busy to put it together. Hopefully I can get that on track soon as well.

Hope everyone is doing well! Catch you real soon!