Mekazoo Greenlight and more!

Less than 10 days ago, we posted our game Mekazoo on Steam's Greenlight. Upvote it if you haven't!

Click Image to go to the Greenlight page

Anyways, I didn't scroll through all the comments on the Greenlight page, but one did caught my eye. User rybaby commented that "furry artists dont deserve yes votes". Well sir, you get what you want. Introducing my latest artwork and perhaps a new series of paintings:

Character Lore

General Wroofus is the chief commander of the 301st Infantry battalion of the Republic of Dogmanican.  Legendary for his expertise in handling numerous weapons on the battlefield with the flail being his signature, the mere act of mentioning his name strikes fear within the ranks of the Catopian military. Despite his fierce-looking demeanor, Wroofus is one of the few Dogmanican leaders who shows concern and care for his fellow soldiers. Because of that, he is widely respected in his home nation and an idol to many aspiring recruits.


With this character, I want to kickstart a series of more character-centric artwork. As we enter full crunch-mode with Mekazoo, I have less time to dedicate to personal work. I still hope to churn out personal stuff once a week or two, so doing something simpler will be less taxing for me.

Recently, I finished reading James Gurney's "Color and Light". Yes, I'm ashamed to have only finished such an important book now. But better late than never, right? Anyways, the book inspired me to pursue more academic learning on the subject of painting. I took it upon myself to start with some studies of master drawings. I post the ones I do on the Level Up! Facebook group, to force myself to continue that habit. Here are the ones I've posted so far:

These are all 45~60 minute sketches. I did not want to invest more time in it as I want to brush up my painting speed too. Some of the things I've learned from doing these studies so far:
- The fastest way to do hard edges is to just use a hard edged brush
- Despite being common knowledge, I realized I start detailing paintings way too soon into the process. Always build up the entire painting as a whole and start with the details on focal points of the painting.
- It is OK to leave stuff blurry and unfinished as long as it is not the focal point of the painting.

I tried to keep these learning points in mind when I created the General Wroofus painting. It did cut down a lot of time from my previous attempts at doing a character painting. I'll continue to work on the characters and the studies, so please look forward to it.