Gloominatis stuff -march 5th

[Gloominati]

sooooo here's a comission I finished some time ago and which I can show now.
Its an Illustration I painted for for Strength in Numbers Studios' game Tuebor which is based one one of their characters. Check out their Fb Page now that you're here!! https://www.facebook.com/SiNStudios

[Artezianin]

Very cool man very cool)

[DennisH-Art]

Great stuff dude! I love how your rendering looks very organic and lifelike! Very inspirational!

[Gloominati]

Hey everyone,

Well to be honest, I don't really have anything that would be worth showing, and these two turds are no exception to that but I figured since my last deathline-challenge weigh-in is already 3 months ago (WTF?!?! Time is so crazy!) I might as well fill this blog with another caffeine induced rant.

Sooo whats new and at least a bit new and interesting??
First "big" thing is that I am actually moving to be able to fullfil my most important goalwhich still is be be fulltime freelancing by the end of 2012. So I will be moving from my niiiice and biiiiig (and therefore expensive) appartment into a small shitty one in order to save up more money and thus make the beginning of my freelance career easier by simply reducing the bills I need to pay. Turns out however that finding a little appartment in Berlin is not thaaaaat easy because you are mostly competing with students and god knows there is a shitload of them here So yea I am still searching and hope that things will work out soon because looking for appartments is annoying as fuck!!

As far as personal work is concerned I still do a LOOOOOOOOOOT of sketching and experimenting with pretty much everything. I am glad that drawing in my sketchbook has become a part of my daily routine again, just feels sooo good. I don'T show too much of that stuff because most people don't understand that doing that kind of stuff is not about making pretty pictures, so the self-concious asshole in me kinda refuses to post all that stuff. I am still not sure if this is actually a bad character trait which needs to be fought since a part of me just things that I should post all that shit just top be present on the internetzzz but another (at the moment stroneger part) sees all those badass artists out there who post "sketches" which just frigging blow my mind

So for now to justify this little rant, here are the digital sketches from this weekend. No pretty pictures, just failed experiments
If you still care to take a closer look, feel free to download the PSD files, the links are on my blog:

http://cgbrush.org

[MeteorCat]

These are both excellent and I would love to see your more quick, daily, traditional sketches

Best of luck with finding a new place!

[kikindaface]

nice skills dude, keep it up !!

[Gloominati]

Thanks guys

Heey.
As I said in my last post I want to post more scribbles and experiments and stuff like that in here no matter how I feel about it..........soooo yea I think I am bound to post this one as well then

So this was all about the light going on there, obviously the perspective is totally busted but honestly I did not give a shit about it for now haha, there were more important things in this one.
I haaaaaaave to say though that with this method of working, painting really tight perspective and architecture is still a miracle for me, just as far as the process is concerned. Again its all about barriers in the head and fear, just wrapping your mind around that something kinda "rigid" like architecture can be tackled in a loose way just like a portrait or any organic objects. And as always this will be a matter of just doing it a lot.

What else? I think I already ranted about this but I am still in the middle of the process on how I go about making images. I have always been able to just sit down and render soemthing to death, pushing it more and more, but the mroe I did this teh more I hated it, even if I felt that it is something that I would be good at. So this 180° turn I am doing right now is reaaaaaaaaaally hard but I want it so much, maybe at the end of that road I can finally start getting a bit happier with where I am going with my paintings

Also one thing that I am noticing that for me it is waaaaaaay harder to paint "this way" when doing a study than when I am working from imagination. It proves to be really hard to "redesign" an existing picture like in a photo so I tend to mess things up as far as .......well everything is concerned. When I work from my head it seems to be easier for me to make my priorities clear and use everything there is (color, value, edges bla bla) to get this across. I will try to push this aspect more when I do Photostudies like this in the future. And because this process is so rooted in classical painting I will definitely be doing many many masterstudies and hope that I might get something out of them as far as process itself is concerned

Again, if you're interested, check out the PSD fiule on my blog: http://cgbrush.org

[Imaginary Friend]

Wow! Great work, man! I love how crisp and detailed everything is and yet still very.. eh alive and stuff!

[Gloominati]

ouuuuuuu hey guys. Not too much to show right now exept for a piece I did from memory to try and find out what I got out of the last study, huuuuuuge fun. I did some more of those to hammer some stuff inside my head, gonna post them later though.

Soooo I think I mentioned it a few times before that I have been searching for a new appartment for the last few weeks and FIIIIIIIIINALLY I got one.
So in the beginning of September I will be moving out of my great huge appartment I have now into a new very small and CHEAP one in order to be able to fulfill my deathline goal which is to be a fulltime freelancer by the end of the year.
haha kinda strange but this decision gave me a new wave of people not understanding why I am doing all this, why I am willing to go "back in lifequality" for this. The strange thing about it is that I actually believed that this was over quite some time ago and that I would not have to deal with all those nay-sayers in my life anymore.

So yea that's whats up I am SO friggin happy and even more excited, not only becaue this is a major step towards my freelance goals but also because it simply feels good to change up everything from time to time. Doing what I do every day all day long can make life pretty mesmerizing in a way, being in that robot mode where every day is pretty much the same for months and months.
Things are goingggg goooooooooooooooood I'm so pumped !!
Oh and yea the PSD for this one is up as well, check zee blaug http://cgbrush.org

[Alexandr Pascenko]

really nice details man!

[Gloominati]

alex- thank you sir!

heeey, just a quick update.

Still in play/experimenting mode and having huuuge fun with it. Have been dicking around with this one for the last two days in between all that moving-excitement thats going on right now. So everytime I was fed up with packing stuff, and painting the walls of my old appartment to make it nice and clean for the people moving in here after me, I sat down and played with it for a bit. SO much fun, and I am learning a ton, it's just crazy the stuff you discover when you make a 180 degree turn and start seeing things differently. Also I was trying to push that new approach into a more "illustrative" direction. So all in all around 6 hours, no ref.
Since i worked mostly on one layer with this one I did not upload the PSD but the fullres jpg. instead, check it out on my blog: http://cgbrush.org.
See you next time!

OOOOOh and while I am here: I also started a tumblr, with personal stuff and random fancieness I like, check it out, follow me, reblog my stuff and so on
http://cgbrush.tumblr.com

[MeteorCat]

I really love this latest piece. The main characters pose is splendid and the trees and horse in the background are great too. I like the looseness of the image and yet there seems to be some sharp area of interest which create a huge sense of depth.

I think you reached a level where you don't worry too much about the technical side of drawing/painting but rather enhancing the storytelling side of the image which I am so envious about. Not to be too icky, but you're a great inspiration to us all.

[Kungfoowiz]

Solid =)

[Gloominati]

Heeeeeeey guys, wheeeew it's been a while. Actually I don't really know how to fill this update up with blabla, everything new that has been going on can be also read on my blog http://cgbrush.org. As an overview of the major stuff that has been going on I can say that I have been trying to push my work more towards a direction that I actually like instead of trying to force myself to do stuff that I think people would like. Ironically it turns out that people seem to like my "new" stuff which definitely looks a bit different more as well, so yea this is really great and it shows me that it's definitely worth pushing towards this direction.
Ah and also as I have already mentioned I finally moved into my new small, cheap, freelance-startout-friendly appartment which is just awesome

So without more blabla here's some mroe stuff. Having huge fun paintiung those WoW characters!

oh so ca.org seems to be resizing images now, one more reason to go to my blog and see that stuff in higher resolution: http://cgbrush.org

[Gloominati]

Heeey people. So okay I admit, this is a little silly, but I got the Idea and I though it was fun, here's "my" QR code, try it out and see where it leads you

So yea if you like what you see please share the crap out of this no matter iof twitter, facebook, tumblr, whatever, I would be crazy thankful and I'm just curious where this can go

Also friend me on facebook!! https://www.facebook.com/christof.grobelski

and on twitter !!

https://twitter.com/gloominati

[Gloominati]

so yea this is a sketchbook, right? So here's a sketch!
Comp sketch for the next WoW piece I will start painting tomorrow. Might actually throw this one on livestream, don't know yet
http://www.cgbrush.org/p/live.html stay tuned !

[Gloominati]

heeeeeey just jumping in with a characterdesign I've been playing aroundf the last two days, hope you like it for more of my stuff + some blabla check out my blog:

http://cgbrush.org

also friend me on facebook : https://www.facebook.com/christof.grobelski

and on twitter!
https://twitter.com/gloominati

[Jamie Romoser]

Wow man I come back and you have evolved to an epic pokemon!
great to see you still on the grind
keep it up looking forward to seeing more
-Jamie

[Egbu]

I love the second character in #1124, the strokes, the mood it is just . I have been looking through you sb and some of the posts have really helped me as well. thanks, keep on posting!!!

[p sage]

His right hand seems a bit larger than the left hand... and seems he's a little off balance maybe (right foot too far forward).

That is an epic belt buckle.

[Flaskpost]

Sick work lately, Gloom! inspiring to see.
and i´m totally with you on getting a cheaper appartment to be able to freelance, definitely the right decision. doing something meaningful and what you love for a living is the highest life quality in my opinion.

[Gloominati]

*hops in

thanks a ton guys

*leaves picture



*hops out

[Overtoom]

Amazing work, such fine brushwork and lighting! Great inspiration you are

[midknight523]

awesome rendering, dude

[MeteorCat]

What a comeback. I love the storytelling and limited colour pallete in this image. Good work!

[Gloominati]

thanks a ton guys. means so much to me that you like that new stuff since this is really new ground for me and I want to take this further

souuuu about one year ago on November 4th 2011 I decided to pick a set of goals for me connected to my art and my career as a professional freelance Artist to achieve within the next 365 Days. So yea here we are, the year is over and I figured it might be a cool thing to actually look back on what has happened and on what is coming in 2013 so to speak.



One thing is for sure: A LOT has changed on the career-side of my life as well as on a personal level. Actually It's kind of strange, as I went back to my original post from 2011 where I wrote down all my goals it almost feels to me like there was a whole other person typing that stuff than I am now. It's weird and just another sign that I have changed quite a bit.

So yea lets break it down, first off to the goals that I set for myself, then to the stuff that I reached beyond that and theeeeeen to what's coming up next.

Here is the stuff I wanted to achieve, copy/pasted from the original post in 2011 I structured it in a way that the maingoal was to become a fulltime freelance Artist with the helpof reaching this goals first, so I'm gonna take on these at first and then see if the fulltime freelance thing worked out:

1: "I want to structure my Daily workingschedule as following: Due to my fulltime conceptartist job rightnow I do have to spend 8 hours of each day at work. After the workday I am going to work for at least 6 more hours doing studies and portfoliowork, so my schedule will be as following: Getting up at 6am, being at work until 4pm, being home at 5pm, deathlinechallenge-work till midnight"

So yea this worked, actually I did this for the most time of last year. It's just a month since I changed it up again quite a bit to be able to put even more time into personal work by simply going to my fulltime job in the studio at the weekends as well so that I am only around 5-6 hours in the studio every day instead of 8-9 in order to fill my 40 hour work-week. So yea I have literally maximized the amount of drawing I can get done in one day. Man it was so hard to get used to only 6 hours of sleep every day including weekends and other days where I actually could sleep longer than that but refusing to do so in order to really get used to it

2:"I want to get a broad base of internetpromotion going, trying to use every medium possible (my blog, communities(!!), livestreams etc) I want to start using the internet in every way possible to get my work out there"

Yeaaaaaaaaa. no! This did nor work out as I wanted it to and is a huge part (if not the biggest) of the next year. The main reason for that is basically the amount of work I got which made it too hard for me to devote enough time to personal work, then again this was not as much a time-problem as an Issue of me not being able to find out how to work around it and actually MAKE time. I do think however that I managed to do that in the last 2-3 weeks so there is a plan and I'm gonna stick to it.

3:"I want to devote serious time into actively searching for potential clients, getting a big list of companies I can apply to work for."

Yepp did that, actually I spent quite a bit of time learning how to research potential clients just learning what's actually out there

4:"I want to get absolutely familiar with the business side of being a freelance artist (taxes and stuff like that)"

What a weird goal now that I look at it But yea I sat my ass down and learned what's coming as far as "business" in the widest sense is all about. Actually business I kind of the wrong word I believe, this was more about the things concerning all the law stuff and taxes and blahblah. So yes I did that if certainly not "absolutely familiar" but I for sure know what's coming and what I need to take care of. Actually the times where I was confronted with that stuff were the only times where I kind of wished that I was a student, these things are just so easy when you don't have to care about them at all

5:"I want to gear my portfolio more towards the kind fo work I WANT to work on" 6:"I want to save up 7500€ to be able to pay off the credit I had to take for the one year of artschool I attended so that I can pay it all back and close this shitty chapter in my live. So that I can start a live as a freelance illustrator without having to worry about things like this."


Ha, yes and no actually First, yes, I did make the money BUT I did not use it to pay off m students loan all at once with it. The reason for this is pretty straight forward. I found a way to pay off my student loan in very small rates so that I basically don't even notice that I'm paying it off, so getting rid of it would be more of a psychological thing rather then putting off financial pressure. So instead of paying it off completely I decided to save the money for my start into fulltime freelance, just seems as a smarter way of using that money for me.

So yes 4 out of 5 seems pretty nice but now teh big thing: Am I a fulltime freelance Artist now, did the big thing work out?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell hard to answer: technically I guess no, I still work at the studio I have been working one year ago, I still want to get out of there and work fulltime freelance, so that has not changed and changing that will be a major part of next year.

I got quite a nice amount of freelance work last year but I think it's just not reliable enough yet to take the jump and quit my dayjob. So the weird situation right now is that I have a fulltime dayjob AND I'm a fulltime freelance artist as far as the working hours are concerned so counted together I'm at a 80 hour workweek so to speak
BUT (and here is the exciting part)
Around a month ago I managed through a friend of mine who is a concept artist at another german gamestudio to get a freelance gig for this studio that would pay me enough to pay all the bills for the entire next year, the thing with this is that it's still going and that I will get paid in february when all the work is done. So when this is done I am in a safe position to quit my job and go fulltime freelance.

So to summarize: I am not a fulltime freelancer now but I will most certainly be in february, which is good enough for me

Whew yea so that was it, 2012, what's coming up? Since this is already such a wall of text I will keep the stuff for 2013 short and will take some time in a future post to formulate the goals nice and clean. Basically what i want to do is to tackle the "being out there" side of freelancing and really get this going, simply making the time to be able to put out new personal work constantly.

Also another thing is that I believe my work is changing quite a bit right now towards a direction I like much more and is basically the stuff I really want to do, especially as far as technique is concerned. During the end of this deathline thing I kind of noticed that I got caught up in doing stuff I THOUGHT I SHOULD be doing in order to get jobs but that was not neccessarily stuff that I enjoyed which eventually lead to the thought " If I manage to get a freelance career going with this sort of stuff, would I be happy?" and as hard as it was to admit the answer was clearly "No!" so I decided to simply change the way I was working. Luckily I do love fantasy Illustration and conceptart very very much so I am safe to say that I am not drifting in some crazy fineart realm when I do stuff that I really like. The changes were more concerned with how I approach painting and the look of the final outcome.

So I will be doing more of that hopefully resulting in a whole new portfolio by the end of 2013.

I believe in general I want to put the focus the next year on stuff I really like doing, caring more about the art than about the money and career coming ot of it. Fortunately I also noticed that the response to my newer, pretty different looking work is very positive, and actually even more so than towards my other stuff. Together with that I really want to get back to pencildrawing and sketching. this has absolutely nothingt o do with ym career but is just a personal thing that has gotten very important to me the last weeks.

NOW ENOUGH OF THIS. Sorry for stealing your time but I thought writing a little more might be appropriate concering the end of the deathline.

Here is some stuff from the last few days, just pencilwork so that you have sooooooooomething to look at at least

[Jessibelle]

I actually really enjoy reading through those 'walls of text' of yours; it's really inspiring and motivating to hear that level of dedication, coming from someone who is putting the work in and acheiving their goals.
Also, those pencils look gorgeous. The lines and the soft shading is lovely.

[MeteorCat]

It's incredible to see how much one can achieve by really dedicating the time and effort. I'm very happy to hear all the good news and I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more from you.
I must say that it's nice to see you drawing in pencil. Your figure drawings are superb. The lines are so smooth and beautiful. The portraits are great too.

[Gloominati]

Thanks a ton guys

So here's todays sketchbook page. jeez I'm learning so much from these already. Just working with pencil and paper really helps me focusing to recognize the general mistakes I tend to always do. AND its crazy fun!!

[Gloominati]

hellouuuuuu again.

So here's todays sketchbookpage with some skulls from life where I really tried to focus on the structure which was CRAZY hard and a 45 minute speedpainting. I have never really been able to sketch in a way that actually looks nice, I see all these amazing speedpaintings of all the cool artists out there busting one painting out after the other and it always kinda bothered me that I did not have that skill, so yea I want to really dive in there and push the speedpainting side of my art, not only is it fun it is really handy when working for clients just to be able to get the idea out as accurate, quickly and kiiiiiiind of cool looking as possible.