New Toys and Better Movies

For years I have looked up to Wacom and their incredible line of products. I always had the notion that I would someday be able to afford a beautiful Cintique monitor and create my art digitally. Unfortunately(for Wacom), in 2015 Apple released their brand new Pencil that works seamlessly alongside their iPad Pro, and all for half the price of a Cintique of the same size. I was torn between a history of high designer praise and what could easily be the flavor of the week in drawable touchscreens.

Finally, after swaying back and forth deciding on this next big purchase while stalking a few artists on Instagram to hear their opinions, I finally landed on the iPad Pro. Portability, price point, and familiarity all coincided to make it the right choice, and so far it has been!

I'm stoked how my rendition of Mariah Carey's "Glitter" as a movie about the loot boxes in Destiny came out. Presenting, GLIMMER! Starring the charming Cayde-6, voiced by Nathan Fillian.

I used the app Procreate to sketch up this dude and it felt so natural! Apple really got it right with the pencil. So far, this thing has become a perfect companion on flights and I know it will only help my art grow. Can't wait to see what else I can do!

https://mikeoncley.deviantart.com/art/Glimmer-707406633

the original

Hey look! I also posted a time-lapse video to my Instagram.

A post shared by Mike Oncley (@heyoncley) on Oct 4, 2017 at 10:02am PDT

Crawl Out From the Fallout

Two New Paintings/Videos

It has been a lot easier for me to compile time lapses lately thanks to Twitch. It always feels like such a waste running a camera on art while it dries, with Twitch I don't have to blink an eye about computer disc space or camera batteries and I love it!

Here are two paintings I made last month and their time lapse videos.

The first is a commissioned piece entitled "Speak Up" that is a mix of decopage and acrylic paint. The prompt was to add a visual to Proverbs 31:8-9. After reading the text I felt a woman in despair would be appropriate to use to depict what the text was saying. I don't want to specifically say how she is in distress because I feel that the writing can be translated to mean many things to different people.



Youtube didn't like my music selection so the music for Speak Up is just some instrumental royalty free music that YouTube provided.

My newer painting is a little less serious and revolves around the video game Far Cry Primal. I loved the visuals and the time period of this game and jumped at the opportunity of painting someone with paint on their face sine that look would go well with my sloppy methods. Check out the time lapse below.



This video uses the song "Soultwerk" from the album Pizzacult by Graz! You may remember Graz from my Pizza Party Month last year involving my Stupid Little Squares and his new album.

Twitch Stream

Graphics or gaming?!

Watch below to find out.

Watch live video from MikeSpicy on www.twitch.t

RockStar's Rampage!

The folks over at RockStarGames.com were nice enough to feature my rendition of Trevor Philips from GTA V on their blog.

Thanks for the shout out, and thanks for making GTA V a thing! Early 2014 could have been particularly boring without it.

RAMPAGE

Here is my original painting for the 2014 PRESS START III: Turbo Edition at the lovely Ltd. Art Gallery in Seattle.

A bit darker than my usual pieces, but when anything contains Trevor Philips from GTA V, it's gonna get a little scary.

See the making of, here:

Is it Possible to Play Mario Kart Alone?

Computer 4 Dead

I bought Left 4 Dead a while back and have had endless difficulties being able to play it. Either wrong processor or not enough memory and so on and so forth. Yesterday was its release onto Mac OS X so all of the Steve Jobbers can play too.... except for one of them.

I suppose it is time to face the music and deem my laptop as obsolete in this cruel cruel world, and this time I DID have the right processor and just enough memory! Although, without a proper graphics card, where does that leave me as a wannabe graphic designer? So I suppose declaring my next purchase to be a laptop to benefit my future is a strong and acceptable statement. Plus I'll get to use my old laptop as one of those stay-at-home laptops, you know, the ones that just sit on the desk and are constantly plugged in! You just open it up and treat it like a desktop computer even though it's like "I aint no desktop computer! Why haven't I left this desk in weeks? Do you still love me?"

At least I can still play CS: Source

Coma

Awesome flash game called Coma. It's really beautiful to look at and very clever. It's mysterious, sad, aesthetically pleasing and easy to start. Also it's not that long so you could figure it all out on your lunch break. Kudos Brush.

Get to it.

The only downside was at various points I had to turn my brightness to 12 million and even tilt my screen a bit, you know so it get's all white washed and you can see everything. You know.

Castholes

Sometimes I wonder where professional casting agents get the balls to cast certain people in movies.

While sitting in the San Jose Cabo airport and eating a $72 sandwich I was watching TV. A movie came on that I hadn't seen. Max Payne. I played the video game briefly and ogled at the billboards for the final game. What I want to know is, who cast Mark Wahlberg and thought to themselves, "Yea, this guy is totally Max Payne."

Wrong

Even if you weren't a Max Payne fan or even if you've never heard of the game, you can see where I'm coming from. Max Payne is a tall, thin, dark haired detective with chiseled features. I know, it's a video game and they can make him look how they want, but Marky Mark is a short, stalky, light haired guy with a round head and a big nose. There are so many more actors that could have played the role as the dark detective.

Jon Hamm

This guy is cool! Hamm plays Don Draper on Mad Men. We know he's a good actor, we know he looks good in a suit, and we know he's got Paynes features down to the squinty eyes. Definitely my #1 choice.

Thomas Jane

This guy is rad too! Just because the Punisher was so-so doesn't mean we need to shun him.

Danny Devito

Ok that one was a joke, but I really don't like Mark Wahlberg in that roll. Don't get me wrong, I love him in most other movies, but I feel like you can't just stick a descent actor in movies and expect them to bring an audience. Plus, Mila Kunis was in that as some Russian chick or something..... in black leather and dark lipstick. WTF? You know when you see a person and think, "boy, they look like they'd be mean/nice/sweet/dumb." Well you can't stick a sweet looking person into a mean persons role. A science of a sort; it's closer to common sense I think. Why do you think Batman & Robin sucked so bad(besides the writing)? Clooney makes a great smart-ass millionaire, but as a kick ass crime-fighter, I don't think so.

I didn't finish Max Payne since I had to get on my flight but the first 20 min was enough.

There are plenty more tall, dark and Payne-y actors out there that could be in the running too, but I don't have time to name all of them. Just be certain it won't contain the words Mark, or Wahlberg.

Mega Dog

Meet Rico, the injured Chihuahua. I think hist cast resembles a certain video game hero.

Rush never had the balls to use Mega Man's trademark blue. Where as, Rico just never had balls period.

Codeweavers? more like Dreamkillers

Left 4 Dead is the most popular video game of 2008. Hands down, this game is the tits. So successful that is got its own sequel just a year later. The release for L4D2 is April 7th, but the Demo was available today for everyone who pre-ordered the game ie. ME. How lucky for me right? Nope sorry.

When attempting to boot up my new $35 game, which i might add, to someone with no money is the equivalent to leasing a new car, i dont get very far. I see the Valve logo, i see the Sierra logo, i even get to watch the awesome pre game movie. Right after the movie ends the game then decides to quit and tell me there was an error. The nerve! The little error window says it was a problem with "Wine" which is what runs my Crossover program (Crossover enables windows games on Apple computers....pretty rad).

The thing is, Codeweavers (who made Crossover) saw how popular L4D was. They saw the hype of L4D2, I mean computer nerds were jizzing their pants for 6 months about this game. I dont see why they couldn't be a little more prepared for the release of this game. Luckily this is just the demo right now and hopefully they will get this damn bug fixed before the 17th, or else i see a revolt by all Crossover wielding dorks. But luckily the ones that pre-ordered the game can revolt with a baseball bat (wink).

Left 4 Evil Dead

It has come to my attention that there has been a great fault in the world of video games tonight. Not that the fault has been done tonight, but the fault has been realized...... by me...... tonight....

During the middle of the wonderful film Evil Dead II, i saw a small group of people that could potentially be used to fight hordes of zombies ie. the evil dead. To my knowledge, with partial help from coworkers and DVD previews, Evil Dead came out with 4 video games a few years back. One where you play as Ash and have a little midget friend and kill zombies and whatever, bottom line is that from what i hear it sucked big time. Along with that fact that no one spoke of it during or after its release made one think as well.

On to my next subject....

A big huge popular awesome fun video game out now is....of course.....Left 4 Dead. The only game that will have it's successful sequel after only 1 year. If you haven't seen or played it it is a lovely story about 4 survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to get across the city in search for more survivors while saving their own skins simultaneously. What i am wondering, is why these two wonderful plots of Evil Dead and 4 survivors weren't put together before to make the ultimate video game. I know as of now it is way to late to make this switch because the world has already fallen in love with Zoey, Francis, Luis and Bill....but if Sam Raimi knew what could have been done with his characters im sure he would have taken that route. The unique characters are all there, the game aspects of the movie are there too. I mean, you've got your redneck tow truck driver, your redneck tow truck drivers wife, the cute book of the dead expert and then the macho chainsaw wielding Ash. It's a sure thing everyone would want to play as Ash, i mean he's got a friggin chainsaw for a hand! but im sure if every character had their own special skills it would be awesome. And then there is the book of the dead.....maybe have a "find the lost pages of the book" portion of the level. I mean your bosses and "special infected" are all there.....fruit cellar grandma, dead ex girlfriend, dead ex boyfriend, evil trees. It would be PERFECT. I'd love to have THOSE zombies and demons chase me through Riverside. If only i knew a necronomic spell that could open a rift in time and space and send me back to a time where i could influence Sam Raimi and Valve to colab on a video game (cue book of the dead).

L4D

ED2