Sunday, October 27, 2013

Daily One Hour Studies 13/10/21 to 13/10/27

Another week of Daily One Hour Studies. At the suggestion of my mentor Owen, I decided to do less portraits and more compositions. All of these are from Kingdom of Heaven. One note I will mention now, is that I should do some smoke/gas studies.


October 21st, 2013: Siege of Jerusalem


 October 22nd, 2013: Siege of Jerusalem


  October 23rd, 2013: Messina


  October 24th, 2013: Battle of Kerak


  October 25th, 2013: Battle of Kerak


October 26th, 2013: Kerak Kings


October 27th, 2013: Terms

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Daily One Hour Studies 13/10/14 to 13/10/20

I suppose the theme this week was Kingdom of Heaven shots. I only wish I could make Saladin look so much better.


October 14th, 2013: Saladin
"I am not those men. I am Salahudin. Sala-hu-din!"


October 15th, 2013: Tiberias
"I have given Jerusalem my whole life. First, I thought we were fighting for God.
Then I realized we were fighting for wealth and land. I was ashamed."


October 16th, 2013: Balian
"What man is a man who does not make the world better."


October 17th, 2013: Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
"When you stand before God, you cannot say, 'But I was told by others to do thus,'
or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice."


October 18th, 2013: Hospitaller
"Holiness is in the right action, and courage on
behalf of those who cannot defend themselves."


October 19th, 2013: Imad
"Your quality will be known among your enemies, before ever you meet them."


October 20th, 2013: Godfrey
"You are not what you were born, but what you have it in yourself to be."

Thoughts on a Few Games

I played some games a while ago. Let me tell you what I thought about them.

Perhaps, my favorite game I've played from the selection, was Don't Shit Your Pants. While the game is simple, it prides itself on one skill alone: Critical Thinking. You might wonder how a simple game can involve so much critical thinking. It involve you selecting the write phrase to proceed trough the game. The game will punish you (and amuse you) for choosing the wrong words.


This Is the Only Level is another favorite of mine. The key ingredient in making this game is derivative design, where the same level has one feature changed just to make it a bit different, yet so challenging. I don't know how many derivations there are in the only level, but the game is quite addicting.


Canabalt was also a simple game, yet challenging. The only thing a player must do is hit one button, the jump button. However, it is a matter of timing. I suppose the key feature of this game is timing, understand when to hit the jump button. As the game progressive, the speed picks up, making it harder.


A very amusing game, QWOP, in which you control the thighs and shins of both legs and attempt to run. I always end up failing, and I guess the whole game is trial and error, and figuring out the physics.

You Have to Burn the Rope was also another interesting game. The game begins by telling you the rules and just lets you go to accomplish one single objective: Burning the rope. It's not even hard, but I suppose the art of it is the experimenting of being clear and concise with rules.


Sunday, October 13, 2013

Daily One Hour Studies 13/10/7 to 13/10/13

So I finally decided to do some daily paintings or whatever. It's not entirely organized, all I know is that I must paint for at least one hour per day from photo reference. So far, the week begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, which is why I am posting this tonight. I may change topics every week, but so far I have all of these knight images in my folder that I want to paint, so I might just paint some more knights for a while.

The purpose of these studies is to train my observational skills and painting skills. I need to learn to paint efficiently to knock down shapes and compositions. What I have trouble the most I think is hue, I tend to undersaturate skintone. I've been doing my best to not pick colors, but depending on what I want to focus on, I may pick colors for an area I just want to knock in quickly. For example, for the chainmail studies I picked colors for everything else but the chainmail.

Anyway, enjoy what I have this week.


October 7th, 2013: Knight helmet.


October 8th, 2013: Dueling knight parts 1.


October 9th, 2013: Dueling knights part 2.


October 10th, 2013: Norman cavalry.
I chose this one because I like the Normans.


October 11th, 2013: Godfrey of Ibelin.
A screencap from Kingdom of Heaven.


October 12th, 2013: Mail coif.
Studying chainmail.


October 13th, 2013: French knight.
More chainmail study.