SHARING SATURDAY: Master Loominous, The Secret Link That Taught Spirit How To Paint

SHARING SATURDAY: Master Loominous, the secret link that taught Spirit how to paint

Today’s Sharing  Saturday because Spirit has decided to share a jewel of her super secret  personal stash, and that is MASTER LOOMINOUS.

This is a sample of Loominous’ art.

Spirit  would love to talk for 5 minutes to this guy  over a coffee, or Skype, but she never succeeded cause the man is a pure mystery. We believe his name is Marcus Kroopa. but we are not sure, and he can only be found through this link and running through his posts.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=988

His art is simply gorgeous, and he does the most amazing tutorials you could ever dream to find. We are posting one as a sample, purely for educational value (all credit to him, of course).

If you dig through his posts you’ll find a hidden treasure of jewels like this. He is undiscovered, you WILL NOT FIND his art on Pinterest, DA, TUMBLR, BEHANCE or FACEBOOK, just this obscure site.

I learned more  about painting and environment design from this secret link than I even did from CGMA, Gnomon Workshop or Schoolism. com   So I refer to him as MASTER LOOMINOUS, like a kung fu hero.

Enjoy. :)

Process Video Part 2: Flats and colours🧡

Links to tip and commission info in the source!

How being a fan made me a pro and got me a job

Welp!  it’s been two whole years since I professionally joined the animation industry, and  I should also count the  three years  I spent in games as a concept artist. Curiously enough there is a certain “frown” that is layed upon fans , but I feel that a word needs to be said in favor of being a fan, and enjoying  whatever you treasure with the might of a child, which is what most people in this turf are at heart. According to the general rule, fanworks are lesser because they don’t create anything original. Not exactly right… and here are top 3 reasons why: * Today you draw a pony, tomorrow a Disney pony, eventually, maybe your own colorful horse world. Reproducing what you love sets the foundation for creation. * When you work in an animation  /game studio, most of the time you will work with someone else’s IP, unless you are a concept artist which is 05% of the job positions available.  What good are you to a studio if you can’t match the IP look?  p-lease! * Whatever you love is a source of positive energy, which when put to good use can get you to achieve things that you thought impossible, exactly how I build this here:

Here’s a quick and very rough test I made on this new program I’ve been messing with recently, CACAni. It’s pretty amazing when it comes to automatic inbetweens and, when mastered, it will save a lot of time! Obviously I will still use Flash for most of my works, but a mix of both program will surely bring good! Have a little loop gif!

Patreon has laid off their security team

I know this isn't an update on my interactive fiction game but I just wanted interactive fiction creators and other people who have Patreons to be aware about this issue.

Whitney Merrill on Twitter: "Whoa @Patreon laid off their ENTIRE security team. Wouldn’t trust my data there. Also there’s some amazing talent to scoop up." / Twitter

For creators with a Patreon, I would recommend using a password manager to generate a randomly generated password so that when Patreon has (another) security breach, your password will be unique.

For creators that are uncomfortable with using Patreon and do not want to lose their Patreon content, you can import your Patreon content to a WordPress website with a WordPress plugin that can be used with a WordPress membership plugin like Paid Memberships Pro that lets patrons subscribe to your content like on Patreon. However, please keep in mind that WordPress plugins are also very vulnerable to attack so it is very important that you update the plugins frequently if you choose to go this route.

Ko-fi is also a good alternative that I know a lot of interactive fiction creators use for their work. SubscribeStar is a good option for NSFW artists.

Hopefully there won't be any serious security breaches with Patreon but who knows what will happen...

UPDATE (10th September 2022 - 11:30AM BST):

Patreon has confirmed to reporters that they are hiring an external security team to handle Patreon's security.

Kevin Collier on Twitter: "Wild. Patreon confirms the layoffs in emailed statement to me, says it's ok, they're using third-party security. https://t.co/zV9zw9yOlh" / Twitter

What this means is that Patreon has decided to go for the cheaper option by outsourcing their security to a team abroad instead of spending more money and resources on an in-house security team. This is what is known to infosec/cyber security experts as MSSP/MSP.

However, a lot of cyber security professionals have criticised this decision by Patreon because historically, organisations that have outsourced their security to a team abroad have usually had a lot of security issues/security breaches later on down the line because they do not check/scan the security of the company as frequently as an in-house security team would.

This also conflicts with what a laid-off security employee has said about the situation where they disputed Patreon's claims of this decision not impacting their security by alleging that Patreon has cut down of its use of external security vendors in the past four months.

So what does this mean for Patreon's future and how am I affected?

What this means is that there are things going on behind the scenes at Patreon that we do not know about yet, all we know is that the leadership over there is making incredibly unwise business decisions by firing their entire internal security team and what this usually means is there will either be a huge security breach down the line or an announcement of a merger or acquisition.

Another potential risk is supporter deanonymisation, where attackers with malicious intent could blackmail subscribers that pledge to NSFW artists and kink content creators and threaten to reveal their Patreon pledges to an employer.

Your payment information (credit/debit card information) should be safe because Patreon do not process payment information themselves, they outsource it to Stripe and PayPal.

This blogpost by a cyber security professional is worth reading to know more on what to do about this situation.

Should I delete my Patreon account?

If you have no other option, then I would not delete my Patreon account especially if it is your only active source of income. What I would do is what I have listed above: by turning on two factor authentication through an app like Google Authenticator or Authy and changing your password to a randomly generated password so that you are not too much at risk when a security breach inevitably happens.

If you do have other options and are not as financially dependent on Patreon alone, then I would think about switching to other crowdfunding services like Ko-fi, SubscribeStar (I hear SubscribeStar is a good option for NSFW artists) and Comradery

I was originally going to create a Patreon for my interactive fiction/narrative game studio after I release the demo/first chapter of the interactive fiction game I'm currently working on (Mutants of Mayprice) but Patreon's lack of communication about this situation and their unwise decision of firing their entire internal security team (which wasn't many people to begin with, five people) does not leave me with a lot of confidence about the future of the platform.

THURSDAY TIPS: How much do the elite animation schools cost?

There are four art schools in the world that are known to make industry recruiters rub their hands, which you can see right in this infographic, but man! are they pricy!

To make this chart we have calculated how much a year of tuition would cost you, plus  $5500 USD to ensure that you can cover all your living expenses. Of course, living in Singapore is less costly than living in California.

IF you want to calculate the living budget with accuracy, we recommend you

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

Now for a cold truth.  Usually, Calarts grads come out with a student debt of 100 to 250 K in average, which is the price of a house in red numbers.  It takes them an average of 5 to 15 years to pay that, trying their best with the US animation circuit rates.

Also, there is a percent of employability that goes as this

From any given year of graduates

* 2% will turn into industry rocks stars (Lauren Faust, John Lasseter… etc) and make a very decent living.

* 80% will have standard jobs and pay the debt in the 8 to 15 years frame of time.

* 18%  Will not be employable upon graduation and they will have to either change career or extend their practice/formation.

This is the quickest door to the industry, true, but not even this one comes without a risk.

NEXT WEEK: Why is this kid better than I?

Why talent is a myth and you should never feel jealous of a fellow artist.