part 1, the art:
Here are some things I worked on last week, but forgot to upload.
firstly, some figure drawings.


i feel that i’m still rushing the measuring/composing phase in these drawings too much, resulting in weird proportions. i know that i know better, and i know that i know enough to do better; just need to slow down and execute… it’s like in Starcraft 2– stop trying to worry about micro and just build good macro mechanics.

and the latest revision for the X-Men cover for the KT Benefit Auction:
the last set of feedback included lightening Bobby Drake (Iceman) a bit so that Wolverine would stand out. I used FW white acrylic ink for this process, hoping it would work. Something I didn’t quite like was that the wet ink would pick up the Slicci pen ink I used for the ultra thin strokes, and the polluted white ink would have a cold bluish tint to it (as if white wasn’t cold enough by itself). In the end, it gave him this kind of cool “ice” effect, but i wonder if it being color won’t draw the viewer attention from Wolverine…

part 2: musings on Dreamhack and MLG results
Even though this is primarily my art web log, I like to add in a segment each post on the events of the e-sports world, to invite the people who follow this blog for the art to catch a glimpse of this crazy scene of competition.
This weekend, Dreamhack EIZO Open took place in Sweden, while Major League Gaming’s SC2 Spring Arena 1 took place in New York.

At Dreamhack, fan favorite Swedish pro-gamer Marcus “ThorZain” Eklof , representing team MouzSports, fought through the hellish open bracket tournament and emerged the victor, being a hometown hero by defeating the statistically favored TSL.Polt, a Korean Terran and a GSL title holder (who Thorzain admitted in the pre-game interview has a significant lead in their personal head to head score from previous meetings in various tourneys). The series ended 3-1 in T-zain’s favor, with game 3 in the series on Antiga Shipyards being the most memorable match for me. Thorzain played that map brilliantly, using really smart siege/medivac positioning to hit Polt’s base, sniping out critical upgrade structures (specifically the tech lab researching Stim) and hindering Polt’s production abilities.

MLG ended with a re-rematch of DongRaeGu and MarineKingPrime. This series was particularly hyped, since the two had met each other in the last two MLG finals, MarineKing taking first in both. MKP was poised to be the first to three MLG titles, while DRG was under pressure to win a first place or suffer being put back in the curse of “Kong,” the eternal second place (something both of these players have been known for at earlier points in their careers). What a grudge match, their rivalry essentially revolving around the stigma of second place, going back as far as the first Arena of Legends league, where MKP forced a win against a then-heavily favored DRG.
This series ended with a 4-3 score, a score that viewers always look forward to, signifying how close the series was. Unfortunately the final deciding game, played on the map Tal’darim Altar was disappointing for me to watch– DRG played it intelligently, as he should have given that the map and spawning positions was disadvantageous for him. MKP however, did not make any siege tanks, despite the fact that the map and starting positions was practically an auto-win if MKP had gone for tanks.  The victory was much needed for DRG, who himself, despite being last season’s GSL champion, had fallen out of Code S and had lost the finals to MKP in the last two MLGs