5.00 star(s) 4 Votes

maggio1221

New Member
Jan 10, 2022
13
158


Hey everyone, here's the initial preview of the "Mermays" coming up this month.

It's always fun to make Iris and Maya alternative versions so I brought a bit of their original mermaid designs from other years and mixed with some new things.

Hope you guys like it!

mermay_small.jpg
 

maggio1221

New Member
Jan 10, 2022
13
158

Hey everyone, here's the final version of Jessie voyeur!

Wanted to keep a few elements of the series in the background, (those are plushies btw), and also keep the design I did on her pin-up, which I loved it

I thought it would be cool to have a "gamer room" to be fitting with the pokemon theme =D

And yes, there will be other variants =p
jessie_final.jpg jessie_final2.jpg jessie_final3.jpg jessie_final4.jpg jessie_small.jpg
 

Mirage809

Newbie
Mar 8, 2023
28
19

Hey everyone, here's the final version of Jessie voyeur!

Wanted to keep a few elements of the series in the background, (those are plushies btw), and also keep the design I did on her pin-up, which I loved it

I thought it would be cool to have a "gamer room" to be fitting with the pokemon theme =D

And yes, there will be other variants =p
View attachment 2647239 View attachment 2647240 View attachment 2647241 View attachment 2647242 View attachment 2647243
Blue hair on the dude. That basically confirms it: it's James.

On another note: dayum.
 
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Reactions: Nishit

Freekneger

Newbie
Aug 28, 2021
22
124


Hey everyone, here's the initial preview of the final image of May's pack: Aloy .. and Seyka!

I really liked how they managed to introduce another character that's really interesting to be around and has an overall cool story arc.

There was an unfortunate amount of drama due to one of the endings, but honestly, I think all options make sense in the scope of the story, and at the end of the day, it's up to the player to decide what makes more sense to them =D

And yeah, that's a top down view at the beach near the closing story moment of the game.

Anyway, hope you guys like it!

aloy3_small.jpg
 

maggio1221

New Member
Jan 10, 2022
13
158


Small changes and adjustments for future works.
Hey everyone, as most of you that are around for some time know, I like to be transparent on things happening and explain why I change things.

First things first:
From now on, pin-up images with more than one character will use "2 slots" of the month.

As much as I try to make them as fast as possible, there's a limit on how fast they can be done. I thought "hey, if I make the zelda image with less background and pack the characters in a smaller area, it will be faster".

Well ... it wasn't. It still took a lot more time than a "single character pin-up". For reference, pin-ups usually take 5 days of work. The Zelda image took around 8 days of work.
Some people might argue it was possible in the past, but the reason why it was "possible", was because I worked overtime to get them done (which means weekends, holidays etc).
While I do have a general idea of how much time an image will take, it's not an accurate thing as "oh, this area will take 15 minutes, this will take 30, etc etc".

Since I like to try out different ideas so there's more variety in the images than simply "random scene of the character standing there", I'm often painting things that I didn't paint before, which is great. The downside is that I can't really have a proper idea of how long it will take to make it.
Burnout, frustration, social media etc.

And this is causing another problem that's leading to frustration on my part. I imagine that nobody likes to see work piling up. I see the end of the month getting near and I start to think "oh shit, I have x days to finish this, what if this takes more time etcetc"

While I'm used to the effects of social media, slowly but surely the effects start to squeeze in through the cracks. As much as we tell ourselves we don't need the "approval" of social media, when I paint the images, of course I want people to like it, I want for it to reach a lot of people on social media etc. I mean, one of my favourite things when I post images is see how people will react to it.
And when images start to pile up and delay one another, I start to lose timing to post them, specific dates etc. Those things have a huge impact on the reach each image has. It really sucks when you spend 20+ hours on an image only for it to have a minor reach on social media because you posted 1-2 days later and lost the "trending" train.

And those things start to live in your head rent free. I start to get demotivated, which starts to affect the pacing of the production, I have days where I simply can't get much done in terms of work because my head "is not in the game", I can't focus properly, which further delays works, and it's a snowball effect.
The reason why I'm posting this, is because I'm not happy with the situation. It's one of those situations that I tried to make images that are more interesting, have more characters etc, but ended up having the opposite effect.
Conclusion / TL:DR
  • So moving foward I'll try to keep in check my own mindset of "the image needs MORE!!".
  • Images that have more than 1 character will use more slots.
  • I'll wrap up the current images of may (Gerudo Springs, Jessie Voyeur, Mermays), and send up those rewards by monday (june 5th)
  • Aloy image will be send afterwards by the end of next week.
Anyway, this is a bit of a rant / why things are the way they are. =)
 

( Y )

Member
Sep 12, 2021
109
224


Small changes and adjustments for future works.
Hey everyone, as most of you that are around for some time know, I like to be transparent on things happening and explain why I change things.

First things first:
From now on, pin-up images with more than one character will use "2 slots" of the month.

As much as I try to make them as fast as possible, there's a limit on how fast they can be done. I thought "hey, if I make the zelda image with less background and pack the characters in a smaller area, it will be faster".

Well ... it wasn't. It still took a lot more time than a "single character pin-up". For reference, pin-ups usually take 5 days of work. The Zelda image took around 8 days of work.
Some people might argue it was possible in the past, but the reason why it was "possible", was because I worked overtime to get them done (which means weekends, holidays etc).
While I do have a general idea of how much time an image will take, it's not an accurate thing as "oh, this area will take 15 minutes, this will take 30, etc etc".

Since I like to try out different ideas so there's more variety in the images than simply "random scene of the character standing there", I'm often painting things that I didn't paint before, which is great. The downside is that I can't really have a proper idea of how long it will take to make it.
Burnout, frustration, social media etc.

And this is causing another problem that's leading to frustration on my part. I imagine that nobody likes to see work piling up. I see the end of the month getting near and I start to think "oh shit, I have x days to finish this, what if this takes more time etcetc"

While I'm used to the effects of social media, slowly but surely the effects start to squeeze in through the cracks. As much as we tell ourselves we don't need the "approval" of social media, when I paint the images, of course I want people to like it, I want for it to reach a lot of people on social media etc. I mean, one of my favourite things when I post images is see how people will react to it.
And when images start to pile up and delay one another, I start to lose timing to post them, specific dates etc. Those things have a huge impact on the reach each image has. It really sucks when you spend 20+ hours on an image only for it to have a minor reach on social media because you posted 1-2 days later and lost the "trending" train.

And those things start to live in your head rent free. I start to get demotivated, which starts to affect the pacing of the production, I have days where I simply can't get much done in terms of work because my head "is not in the game", I can't focus properly, which further delays works, and it's a snowball effect.
The reason why I'm posting this, is because I'm not happy with the situation. It's one of those situations that I tried to make images that are more interesting, have more characters etc, but ended up having the opposite effect.
Conclusion / TL:DR
  • So moving foward I'll try to keep in check my own mindset of "the image needs MORE!!".
  • Images that have more than 1 character will use more slots.
  • I'll wrap up the current images of may (Gerudo Springs, Jessie Voyeur, Mermays), and send up those rewards by monday (june 5th)
  • Aloy image will be send afterwards by the end of next week.
Anyway, this is a bit of a rant / why things are the way they are. =)
A little rest between work wouldn't hurt.

Everyone here loves Krys' art, it would be a shame if it were diminished by something like burnout or social pressure.
 

maggio1221

New Member
Jan 10, 2022
13
158

Hey everyone, here's the final version of the "Mermays" for May pack.

It's always fun to make Iris and Maya alternative versions so I brought a bit of their original mermaid designs from other years and mixed with some new things.

Not gonna lie, this image was very tricky to pull off. There's a lot of "effects" going on (from wet skin, to sand etc) and getting them right is always a challenge.

But I loved the end result, so I hope you guys like it!

mermay_final.jpg mermay_final2.jpg mermay_final3.jpg mermay_final4.jpg mermay_final5.jpg mermay_small.jpg mermay_nsfw.jpg
 

DarkPulsar

Member
May 5, 2020
307
168
I got a working laptop and got photoshop installed but when I try and access the Alexstraza psd, this is what I get, any idea what i need to do to get it to look normal?
 

Longmire

Member
Dec 21, 2017
494
2,144
The colours are fucked up, that’s not what it’s supposed to look like
I am not about to turn this thread into a Photoshop help page, especially as you are (assumingly) new to PS, but try the solutions on this page:

If it doesn't work, then keep googling. The psd won't be at fault here and looks like a setting either in your monitor profile of your laptop or something in PS you may have accidentally played with and forgotten.
 
5.00 star(s) 4 Votes