Whats up muddy colorers? Hope you all are well. What to say? Wild times.

The bright side is that a lot of us are used to staying home and keeping busy. Now’s that opportunity to get those things you’ve been putting off around the house or start that painting!

Gotta be honest, I’ve been struggling a little with it. Been waiting for inspiration to strike, but the well seems dry at the moment. In the meantime, been hanging hard with the kids, and running the dogs a bunch. Trying to create some sense of normalcy in these uncharted waters we’re all adrift in.

Yesterday we cleaned out the light wells around our house and found DOZENS of salamanders, newts and frogs who had fallen in and become trapped. We carefully gathered them up and released them into the shady bushes near my barn.  Kinda cool/gross depending I guess.

The density of the wildlife out here is astounding. Heres a pic of what was hiding underneath one small piece of wood just outside of the boys’ bedroom window:

If you’re at home on your computer, and looking for something to do, we’ve been working on this art forum thing… So it’s not really so much a portfolio site or a school type thing…more of a community thing?

Little backstory: some of you old timers might remember the old conceptart forums that were very active back in the early 2000s. At one point it was a thriving community frequented by many working professionals sharing work and ideas on a scale that had simply not been available pre internet.  Some events transpired which led to sort of a mass exodus of users in around 2009-10.  A good amount of that group has kept in touch since then, bound by this strange marriage of shared interest and community that happened in the early 2000’s on the internet forum boardz.

Every so often there’d be a nostalgic thread someone would start on facebook and a bunch of old forum members would come in and post and it’d be a big love fest which would inevitably spark casual discussions about how we wished we could do it again outside of pre existing social media platforms. somewhere a little more art centric, and built with the intention of better suiting our needs as painters and illustrators. where you could post work and get feedback from peers. where the compression didn’t totally kill the subtle values in your shadows and maybe without your grandma commenting and telling everyone how talented you are and how proud she is of your orc battle illustration.

So we reached out to a bunch of the old mods and users about a year ago and started this effort up. Its gone through a couple of iterations and its still very much a work in progress. There are still lots of bugs to sort out and whatnot. Honestly, it’s not even close to being ready for prime time. but its a distraction, and I figure if there was ever a time to show it, now’s as good a time as any…What’s cool is its ours, and we can do whatever we want to it, and the hope is to build it with the community’s needs in mind.

Anyway if you’re looking to pass some time, please check it out, and we’d love to hear what you think.

www.beta.massiveblackforums.com

use code: ARTyay!

Heres a coronavirus inspired 3d test thing I made last weekend. Little vr sculpting, some stock models, 3ds max, vray, and aftereffects. Just being silly and trying to make light of this a little bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlTHK-0kEN0

Please stay safe everyone.