The Earth-Toned Pill

Link: http://www.jonwalters.net/uploads/gitzo_2.jpg

Eco-Friendly

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Link: http://www.jonwalters.net/uploads/gitzo_1.jpg

Tis the Season

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Link: http://jackal111.deviantart.com/art/Rolling-Fast-103504244

I wanted to do a quick speedpaint and for some reason the M1 Abrams is at the front of my thoughts... No reference for this, just mental pictures for inspiration.

Time involved is about 20 minutes in Painter X.

Link: http://jackal111.deviantart.com/art/Highway-101573565

I've come to the realization that to become a better artist, I have to actually DRAW...

And paint. And create.

I've already known for a long time that you only get better by doing things, because in most cases, practice truly does make perfect. But for so many years, I've neglected my artistic talents and let my imagination become a stagnant nothingness that seems to delight in providing me only with artist's block when I need it most.

So in an effort to take a stand and make a change, I am going to pledge to myself that from here on, I will create at least one work of art a day.

And the digital painting you see above is my first step towards making this happen!

It doesn't matter if its big or small, polished masterpiece or scribbly sketchbook drawring (misspelling intentional), because all I care is that I am forcing myself to create and hopefully become creative again.

Maybe in the process I can get skilled enough to quit my day job too...

You never know, right?

Link: http://jackal111.deviantart.com/art/Caught-101300023

This is my latest finished speedpainting, done in Painter X with stock brushes. I used no reference for this, but had a general idea in my mind of what I wanted.

One of my main goals was to incorporate color well, and start working my way towards having some realistic lighting and shadows. I know its far from perfect in a lot of ways, but I feel like I'm starting to make progress towards becoming a better digital painter!

Want to see some real PS painting skills? These should be enough to blow you away...

I'm a gigantic tutorial whore when it comes to any of the Adobe apps... It can be the simplest thing, or the most complex task, but I love reading them and trying out new techniques all the same.

I can across this excellent tutorial today that discusses how to create the glossy navigation look for your site in photoshop.

Its short and sweet, and if you've never used these techniques before, quite cool...

One of my favorites, the Flash Blog, posted a link a few days ago to this great tutorial on creating a very simple Actionscript 3 based Flash preloader that I think you'll find useful.

The tutorial is clear and concise, and as an added bonus its a video...

Check it out!