Set up your fresh Elementary OS install to kick ass for art!

I recently fell in love with Elementary OS when I was looking around for a way to spice up my computing and workflow. After several hours of tinkering and having fun, I decided to write a fairly complete script for installing all the stuff that I need as an artist. Perhaps another artist out there will want to use this on a fresh Elementary OS install as well. If that's the case, go to the link above, download the .iso file, use unetbootin to make a live stick for testing Elementary OS and installing, and then use the script provided below. Here goes!

Copy and paste this script into an empty text file in your home folder, my good Linux user, and then save the file as 'elemosautoinstall.sh'.

 #!/bin/bash  
 sudo software-properties-gtk &&  
 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update -y &&  
 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp &&  
 sudo apt-get update &&  
 sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks elementary-wallpaper-collection wingpanel-slim super-wingpanel elementary-.*-theme elementary-.*-icons indicator-synapse firefox adobe-flashplugin vlc ubuntu-restricted-extras libavcodec-extra-53 libdvdread4 unace rar unrar p7zip-rar p7zip sharutils uudeview mpack lha arj cabextract lzip lunzip icedtea-plugin scribus inkscape gimp krita mypaint gimp-gmic audacity openshot -y &&  
 sudo apt-get update &&  
 sudo apt-get upgrade &&  
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade &&  
 sudo apt-get autoremove &&  
 sudo reboot  
 done  

Now, in terminal, navigate to your home folder, and the type:

 ./elemosautoinstall.sh  

This is going to do a few things:

1) Run the software sources configuration app so you can choose your additional software sources.
2) Add PPA's so you can get some custom stuff for Elementary OS as well as GIMP.
3) Install additional Elementary OS components, some archive management components, and pretty things to customize the look of your desktop.
4) Install some key programs: GIMP, G-mic (GIMP add-ons), MyPaint, Krita, Inkscape, Scribus, Audacity (audio editing), and Openshot (because you wanna make videos of your art process for youtube, right?).
5) Update and upgrade your OS.
6) Reboot.

After all this is done, you can start kicking ass with your Elementary OS install, and start kicking ass with your art!

Merry Grav-Mass!

Sketch-a-day: 12/23/14 - Speedpaints on a Train in the North

Today I found it difficult to draw accurate lines while riding 14 hours on a bumpy train. However, I was able to crank out some rough speed paintings of the highline as viewed from the Empire Builder.

Each illo is a single layer painting done in Krita in 20 minutes or less. First, pre-dawn:

About 2 hours later:

Around 1pm:

Around 5pm, cusp of sunset:

I was happy to make use of some time that otherwise would have been a wash, and I hope you enjoy them. Happy Festivus, y'all!

Slumbering Ursine Dunes - cover sketch!

Backdated sketch - approved pencils for the cover of Slumbering Ursine Dunes, published by the Hydra Co-op.

Sketch-A-Day: 12/22/2014 - Hawk power

A quick hawk study done in Krita - 20 min, 1 layer.

May Art Lottery Winner - Garth Holden

Howdy! It's been a bit since I last posted, owing mostly to a welcome increase in commissions for tabletop RPG publications. In case folks missed it on Google+, Canadian author Garth Holden won the May Art Lottery. His submission:

"A friend of mine was born with a mutable soul. He is an Inuit man and it is
not uncommon for the people of the north to be born with both a human and an
animal spirit. People with mutable souls live hard lives, eventually
transforming over the years from one state of being to the other --
sometimes from animal to human, or from human to animal. My friend is a
world class soap-stone carver and a brilliant man, as well as being a polar
bear. That is the heart for my friend’s dilemma. Is he a man coaxing a
polar bear out of the stone? Or, is he a bear laying a man’s spirit rest
in the stone? All I can say is that this is a real world situation. My
friend does not know if he is a man becoming a bear or a bear becoming a
man. I’ve seen the bear rise up and take him over and I’ve seen the
incredible forms he draws out of the stone. Most of my friend’s works are
transformation pieces."

Garth and I discussed the piece a bit more, and I came to a kind of movie poster image montage solution to his image. Here it is:

I've been working away at improving my inking skills, and this was a successful opportunity to explore that vein of illustration a bit more. I hope folks enjoy viewing this piece as much as I enjoyed working with Garth to bring it to life.

 If you have any ideas you'd like to bring to life in illustration, you can always submit to the Monthly Art Lottery. If you need illustrations executed for your awesome project or publication, feel free to contact me via the info on my profile page. Cheers!

One Vile Pile at a Time, Petty Gods Style

The Petty Gods project, as I'm sure most folks know by now, has BLOWN UP. Greg over at Gorgonmilk shot some emergency adrenaline into the heart of what had been a dead/indefinitely forestalled collection of less than commonly worshiped deities from all sorts of OSR folks. You can get the full story here.

I volunteered my scratching and markmaking, completing a total of four particularly foul or corrupt outer beings thus far with more on the way. My first two, the Twin Blasphemies Nug and Yeb, come from Lovecraft through a number of stories which harbor no physical description aside from 'they look like their mom, Shub-Niggurath.'

So I consulted the Mythos-corrupted scholar Robert Parker, tended to his recommended reading (I call it 'research' to those who question my time management), listened to Robert Price read aloud Joe Pulver Sr.'s channeling of "The Black Litany of Nug and Yeb," followed the faint scent of Mesoamerican mythology from the stories, and arrived at a mixture of Shubby and physical descriptions of the Black and Red versions of the Azteca god Tezcatlipoca (Black Tezcatlipoca and Xipe Totec, respectively).

Now keep in mind this was my personal path to crafting an image for the two, as the illustrious James Mishler is writing up the  full descriptions for the two!

This is what came out:

 I also completed The Beast of Unbidden Challenges, based on an excellent description from Nate, the creator of A Desolate Shrine. Here's the cutie:

Following with the mad, lost god Qu'pan, developed by Richard Iorio II, who runs Rogue Games (Colonial Gothic; Shadow, Sword & Spell).

Full stats and descriptions for these godlings can be found in the forthcoming Expanded Petty Gods over at Gorgonmilk. Cheers!

April Art Lottery - Infected Beasts of Hubris

Mike Evans was the first person to submit an idea for the monthly art lottery when I started back at the end of January, and this month that very first entry was drawn!

Mike runs a fantastic blog over at Wrath of Zombie, and he is perpetually writing gaming material, ranging from system adaptations to original campaign worlds. One of those worlds of his, a grim and grimy sword & sorcery world called Hubris, has gleefully commandeered much of his attention. And it kicks ass.

Mike wanted a Tetsuo: Iron Man inspired plague beast fighting and infecting body guards. When I asked Mike to elaborate, he ended up mentioning The Thing as additional inspiration, and that's when I found the look for the beast. Here's the scene:

Ultimately this beast doesn't have quite as much metal on his body as Tetsuo, but the cancerous ick makes up for the missing industrial ugliness.Cheers Mike!

As always, feel free to keep submitting ideas! The next drawing goes down on the 5th of May.

You can submit here.