I hardly make posts about being published somewhere but I just learned that I got accepted into Spectrum 15. I consider that a huge honor, specially since I submitted for the first time and only one piece (and I actually totally forgot about that until today..)

Good news is really welcome right now Specially since I had to turn down the 3D Total Masters Art Book Invitation due to health issues. (Sad puppy I am, but I am happy for the artist who got my spot )

That being said - I hope you forgive me for bragging a bit

Anyway, that's all - oh and I installed WoW again -.- shoot me..











Tips and Tricks for Photoshop Users
Separate your Linart in Photoshop
Basic Theory for Beginners
How to paint hair in Photoshop
How to paint silk fabric in Photoshop (PDF)
About Shadow and Light
How to use two windows of the same painting in Photoshop
Color blending in Photoshop
General tutorial page overview

Isn't it quite funny that some of my first longer posts since a looooooong time is about gaming not painting? Well it is kinda logical since I haven't really painted in almost over a year, gaming however I never stopped. Quite the opposite. It provides me with a welcomed emptiness of my brain while playing or grinding - being totally involved into something without having to really deal with anything else that might occupy my mind otherwise.

So, yeah. That means I have been downloading every free MMO I could the past few month - also included going back to Vanguard for a short visit to my lvl 60 monk and other trips down memory lane (like DAoC and AO for example). My I-net is currently also busy with downloading all the patches for WoW I missed since playing back in 2006 (yeah yeah I know....wow sucks)

Anyway, the reason for this post is actually something slightly different but reading a lot of forums linked to MMOs is a huge hobby of mine and I just find it slightly amusing how many people are linking FFA PvP games immediately with griefing.

For the not so geeky: FFA PvP = Free for All Player vs. Player Games (in this case I am talking about MMOs btw).

So, imagine you can attack any player anytime and try to kill him or her. Sounds like a huge fun breaker to you, doesn't it? Asshat player xy is just out to ruin everyone elses game experience with just randomly killing them left and right.

So, well. That is what we would call griefing, right? Ruining someone elses gameplay fun with being a total idiot.

All right, let me look at normal games without any pvp:
I am sitting at my favorite hunting spot killing rats (yay for rats!) Player x comes along who has the same quest or is grinding on the same mobs. So he goes on taking my kills because he thinks it's fun. Nothing I can do about. Well I can report him/her but that rarely does any good.

Or

Player xy is annoying as hell over public chat. Insulting Countries or making racial jokes. Some think it's funny, I don't. Nothing I can do about that. Report him maybe..

Or

Idiot xy is cheating on a trade - nothing I can to do prove it to the GMs (most probably).
I could probably think of more examples of griefing in a normal non pvp game but I think you get the point.

Let's now move on to pvp games with factions and level areas within which you can attack other players (WoW, Vanguard or EQ2 for example)

The same as above applies if you have a member of your own alliance/faction grief you.
On the other hand you might be able to get back to that idiot who is in the opposed faction.

But behold and beware if he/she has better gear and higher level you get your ass handed without a chance. Besides what would keep that person from doing it again? Being killed in any of those games doesn't really hurt so is no incentive to play nice or not mess with the wrong people, right?

Now take FFA PvP Servers for Games with level and classes.

On those you are mostly restricted to be able to attack people say within 10 level range. Good thought initially but the problem is that:

a) you see the other persons level and most griefers pray on the weak. Making sure they only attack people they overpower in level (and thus in pretty much every game - in skills. Since skill gain is linked to level).

b) Try to be sure to get the overhand in gear - too many variables that can just ruin the outcom of a "fair fight"

Once again, also hardly any loss for dying thus no real danger in actually attacking someone.

All those example in my opinion don't do anything against griefing - if anything they encourage or at least don't fight it hard enough. Luckily there are not that many idiots playing those kind of games but nevertheless every MMO, no matter what kind of has those.

Now take the FFA PvP approach without level and class.

I can attack any person I want but do I want to do that?
First of - I have absolutely no indication of what skills that character/person has. No idea how skilled that person is or how long he or she played. I also might have a harsh penalty if I die. So I am really thinking about the decision of just randomly attacking anyone I see or pissing them off for that matter.

Not to mention, that person might have many friends to backup on at a later time.

The other way round, if you decide to attack me without any reason whatsoever, maybe even being the same race as I am then be assured that I will call in my friends to hunt your sorry ass down for that.

Don't you think that in ffa pvp your actions count much more then in a normal non pvp class and level based game exactly BECAUSE you could attack but you also know that it will have consequences which in most other games it doesn't?

I am by no means a hard core pvper. Not at all - but I just don't understand how people can be afraid of it. Actually - I guess it is because they experienced the incidents I listed above in games that were not really laid out for pvp, maybe?











Tips and Tricks for Photoshop Users
Separate your Linart in Photoshop
Basic Theory for Beginners
How to paint hair in Photoshop
How to paint silk fabric in Photoshop (PDF)
About Shadow and Light
How to use two windows of the same painting in Photoshop
Color blending in Photoshop
General tutorial page overview





3D Total's Digital Art Masters
The Art of George RR. Martin's a Song of Ice and Fire
Exotique
The art of Call of Cthulhu
My artwork will be shown during this years Conflux Art show in Australia.
Exposé 5

We didn’t expect this at all when we, me and Henning, started the Pixelbrush forums one year ago we had different plans; lesser plans than what it turned out to be.
We wanted to launch a simple art-related forum where the two of us could answer to questions that we kept getting sent to us repetitively, we didn’t plan on starting an art community, or this resource site you can see today.

So what happened?

Well, people actually signed up and started using our little corner of the internet. New suggestions would lead to alterations of the forums, new features added, and here we are today, one year later (per February 3. 2008), with 681 members, 32.646.675 page-hits, 50388 written posts in our forums.

We would like to thank everyone who is, for being part of this little community. We think that the fact that we never really tried to start something big was the recipe for success; this place evolved on its own based on what we had from the start, heading towards what ever lays ahead of us. We are saying “success” as this is faaaar from what we were expecting would happen to our forum from the start. It’s been a fun year, with great events where we keep getting amazed at the amount of activity and quality from all of the members.

Any plans for the future?

Well, since we’re rolling, we have some vague plans and ideas. We’re still taking it easy as we don’t want pixelbrush.net to be too complex or extensive. We want this place to be easy, fun, and educational for all of us. And this is something we want to hold on to in the future as well.

We probably want to start some kind of daily sketch solution (probably starting off with new themes 1 to 3 times per week). This because doing daily speed painting is incredibly important for any artist to evolve, and by having a simple solution and a place to post these kind of things in an existing system, might help us out to actually do this.

We will naturally continue our monthly events, as they have been very successful, and probably and hopefully have one major event, or competition within the year with possible prizes (this will be with judges only and not as the events).

We want to finish our first art book, featuring all works from the Events of 2007. (Sorry, it's having a sliiight delay because of this site and lack of time, but it's coming along)

So we now launched the resource and information site to go with the forum. We want this new addition to evolve and get filled with all sorts of helpful and fun content, and need YOUR help to do so by sending us links or articles that you believe would be educational or entertaining to fellow artists.

Without further ado, please feel free to visit [link]

Nuff' said - that's the coolest news in AGES!!!!

[link]

Another Events deadline has passed and the voting has begun!

Besides working on the official Pixelbrush-Site I finally managed to get my own redesign up. After trying out about 5 different layouts and designs I settled for the current one.

Still some issues to be solved and some content to be added but hey, for now I am happy it's finally online

-> [link]
(and darn, I really need to clean up my webserver)










Tips and Tricks for Photoshop Users
Separate your Linart in Photoshop
Basic Theory for Beginners
How to paint hair in Photoshop
How to paint silk fabric in Photoshop (PDF)
About Shadow and Light
How to use two windows of the same painting in Photoshop
Color blending in Photoshop
General tutorial page overview

For more tutorials, critique and fun join *henning's and my forum at: