artistpavel.com

[Mod] Call of Pripyat Complete

2011-05-07T03:35:00.004-04:00

Version 1.0.2 (728MB)

Call of Pripyat Complete is the third entry in the Complete mod series, which is a set of modifications created by professional artists dedicated to enhancing the production quality of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series. The Complete mods emphasize on improving the original graphics, sound, and atmosphere of each game while preserving the core game elements.

Built upon the success of Stalker Complete 2009, which was downloaded by one in every five S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl players, this entry in the Complete mod series is the cumulative culmination of the series’ achievements in aesthetically updating the game without introducing unnecessary or gameplay-redefining features.

Designed to meet the desires of new players and veterans alike, Call of Pripyat Complete unleashes the full potential of the latest, most climactic chapter in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R and the Complete mod series.

Official Trailer:

[Download] Call of Pripyat Complete Theme Mp3 (1.3MB)
[Download] 720p uncompressed trailer version (204MB)

Call of Pripyat Complete Overview:

Version 1.0.2 by Artistpavel

The weather system in this mod is constructed out of two primary components: the classic Complete Weather that has put this series on pages of magazines, and the popular and widely acclaimed AtmosFear massive weather overhaul by Cromm Cruac, effectively making it the biggest graphical collaboration in the game series’ history. Featuring incredible diversity in weather conditions and landscapes varying between game areas, the graphical enhancements include:

Distant scenery texturing and an increased actor visual distance that put the player in the middle of a large open world, rather than the previously “enclosed” map
11 dynamic weather cycles (compared to only four in the base game) including a unique probability factor for each different game environment area
26 Complete Weather and 123 AtmosFear new photorealistic sky cube textures
Authentic scenery recreation using our original photographs of the Russian industrial town of Mednogorsk, which represents how Pripyat once was
The Jupiter and Pripyat game areas feature the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Limansk radar and the Red Forest Brainscorcher visible on the horizon line
High resolution nighttime constellation map and full moon
Dynamic Depth of Field that changes according to weather conditions
AtmosFear Emission sequence with dramatic scenery and a complex shockwave particle system

The included Absolute Nature and Absolute Structures texture packs solve the game’s most noticeable visual shortcoming: overall blurry textures and noticeable grass pop-in. With over a thousand new and reworked original textures (with gradual sharpening of separate MIP map levels in every texture), the game environment remains sharp as it fades in the distance. These texture packages have been customized and further edited to
match the rest of the Complete series’ art style. The most noticeable enhancements include:

Sharpened metal and concrete structures, effectively changing the way the much of the game appears
Color corrected ground and foliage textures designed to be unique for each game area
Reworked foliage and terrain, making the grass draw line less noticeable
Detailed texturing for most weapons
Refined human and mutant body textures
New, detailed textures such as smoldering firewood, leaves, sand and stones
Vehicles are now retextured to appear realistically rusted and abandoned

The artificial intelligence has been greatly improved, giving NPCs new abilities such as:

Weapon Selection - NPCs are now able to determine the best weapon for the situation based on the number of rounds they have left for their weapon and distance to target, switching appropriately.
Using Add-Ons - NPCs are able mount add-ons, such as scopes, silencers, and grenade launchers, and use them accordingly.
Armoring Allies – NPCs can now be equipped with player-selected weapons by either dropping them by or selling to them to NPCs. To ensure NPCs continue using their new weapons be sure to also sell or drop by them ammunition for the weapon, which then acts as an infinite ammunition supply.
Friendly Fire - NPCs avoid friendly fire, and they will even stop firing and switch positions if their allies get caught in it.
Melee - NPCs use melee attacks with rifle butts and knifes when the opposition gets close enough.
Self-Healing - NPCs are able to heal themselves by using Medkits if hurt badly and apply bandages when bleeding.
Reloading - NPCs are able to reload their weapons when needed.
Stealth - Actor footsteps, knife use, silenced weapons, and the sounds of fallen bodies won't alert nearby enemies unless they are observed.

Since S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat is the most stable title released in the series, it naturally doesn't require extensive bug fixing. However, there are some remaining bugs and glitches that have been eliminated:

Unreachable Stashes Fix - Makes the unreachable stashes (such as items that are wedged or stuck in environmental geometry) accessible.
Jupiter Scanners Fix - Fixes the bug where the player could place the initial three anomaly scanners into the two additional anomaly fields that scanners aren’t supposed to be put in until later, which caused errors in the mission’s completion.
X8 Burers Fix - Fixes a bug in scripting that gives the three Burers in the X8 secret room extremely large health regeneration (which made them virtually invincible).
One Shot Fix - Fixes a potential game lockup during the One Shot mission cutscene.
Helmet Fix - The actor’s helmet in third person view now matches the one equipped.
Crow Fix – Fixed excessive crow spawning, eliminating the masses of crows that would occur after repeated quickloading.
PKM Ironsight Fix - Enables the use of ironsights on PKM machine gun.
Berill-5M Fix - Allows Berill-5M armored suite to be upgraded.
Bodies Cleaner - Removes creature bodies at certain time intervals, reducing their unnecessary presence in the environment and improving the game engine’s performance.

Since the game was made by a foreign studio, quite a few language related errors in dialogue, translation, and text in the English localization exist. As with the first game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, misspelled words, typos, grammatical errors, and humor lost in translation can be charming at times given the context, but create unnecessary difficulty in understanding their meaning. Numerous typos and grammatical mistakes have been corrected, and most of the conversation text has been changed to make more sense and read better to English speaking players. Some parts of the user interface have also been changed to be more internally consistent, and as a bonus the subtitle timing during the intro and outro sequences has been altered to sync with the audio.

We are proud to introduce the work by a special guest, internationally acclaimed sound designer and composer Michael "sQwurm" Tornabene, known for his work for games, films, TV, and media exhibitions around the world. His contributions include new sounds for creatures, anomalies, doors, a reworked footstep sound system, and more. Improvements to ambient sounds are done in Imperialreign’s Ambient Audio Overhaul, and each map now includes a sound theme that varies between night and day. Also, all weapon sounds have been replaced with comprehensive analogues. All of the new sounds have been integrated into the game without removing the original sounds unique to the game, ensuring a superior audio experience aligned with the Complete mod’s vision.

Call of Pripyat Complete introduces over a hundred acoustic guitar and vocal songs, with 23 new compositions added. New guitar tracks have been added to the existing campfire music sets. This live music was recorded specifically for this game, creating an unforgettable ambience.

Putting the fate of NPCs unfortunately caught in an emission wave in the player’s hands, you can decide if they will turn into zombies to satisfy all your zombie killing pleasure! This feature is brought to you by AtmosFear, and is selected during the installation. Players can choose whether NPCs will be killed upon contact of the advancing emission wave, at its end (as in the base game), explode, or turned into zombies.

Real Weapon Names - All in game weapons now are labeled after their real life counterparts.
NPC Variation - Adds new NPC models and skins in the gameworld, increasing the variety.
The Wish Granter - Activated via the ESC+F1 keyboard shortcut, a hidden interface designed to let you spawn items, place anomalies, characters, mutants and much more on the map is at the player’s fingertips. You can essentially build the game around your preferences through this interface (this feature can be toggled on and off, see User Manual for details).
Sleeping Bag - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat features a newer native sleeping mechanic. The fans of the traditional Complete series’ sleeping bag won't find it in the actor's inventory, but will be able to purchase it from traders, and in rare cases, find it on NPCs.
Loot Money - Players will be able to randomly collect small amounts of money from dead NPCs. The collection will be indicated with a coin sound effect and the amount will be shown by an on-screen alert.
Absolute Scopes - Improves the scope system to be similar to those used in most modern FPS games.
Breakable Bulbs - Lights can now break by being shot or by nearby explosions, changing the ambient environment.
Elite Nightvision - Improves the green and black & white night vision.
Teleport - Allows the player to jump between points in the environment with the ability to save custom location coordinates for future use.

With the new user interface update, skipping through introductory movies isn’t necessary. The HUD colors have been muted to not be distracting, and the inventory window is now semi-transparent, which allows the player to view the weapon currently being equipped. The HUD also features new hitmark and mutant scratch textures authored by our studio. Also, the ESC+S shortcut from the other Complete mods is added, which
works like a “smart quick-save”, creating a separate save file with level name, in-game date, and timestamp each time it’s used.

Screenshots:

A collection showcasing enhanced weather, textures, and environments: [Flickr]

Download:

Version 1.0.2 (728MB)

[Call of Pripyat Complete User Manual] (.pdf)

Get the latest updates on [Facebook][Twitter][Moddb]

The mod features two installation versions to choose between:

Normal - A well balanced combination of graphical features designed to stay within the original game's system requirements. This version is recommended for most systems to ensure a trouble-free gaming experience, especially if using 32-bit Windows, a laptop, or only moderate hardware.

Advanced - Offering a greater variety in weather conditions and NPC appearances, this version is designed to take full advantage of high performance 64-bit systems with 4GB or more of system memory and at least 1GB of GPU memory. Select this version if you have an enthusiast-level system and are comfortable with significantly increasing the system resource demand.

You may change which mod version you have at any time through uninstalling & then reinstalling the mod. However, while the Normal version saves are compatible with the Advanced version, the Advanced version saves are not compatible with the Normal version.

UPDATE, May 7 2011:
Version 1.0.2 is released, it contains the Jupiter Underground Crash [Fix] and other fixes.
I will be out of town for the Summer, please refer to CoP Complete thread on [GSC Forums] for support during that time.

Nvidia 3D Vision Surround and ATI Eyefinity scope [Fix]

The Stalker Complete series:

[Call of Pripyat Complete]

[Clear Sky Complete]

[STALKER Complete 2009]

Credits:

The User Manual contains a comprehensive credit list with references to all authors involved in the project. Huge thanks to everybody in the Stalker modding community.

[Mod] Clear Sky Complete 1.1.3

2010-12-20T01:28:00.010-05:00

Version 1.1.3 (358MB)

Clear Sky Complete is a part of the Complete mod collection, which is a series of modifications created by professional artists dedicated to enhancing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. The Complete mods focus on improving the original game’s graphics, sound, and atmosphere, while preserving its core elements. Built upon the success of STALKER Complete 2009 (which was downloaded well over 100,000 times), this entry in the Complete collection continues the tradition of aesthetically updating the game without changing the original story or gameplay. Fans can expect a polished and pure Zone experience designed around the most graphically demanding title of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky.

Clear Sky Complete Overview:

Version 1.1.3 by Artistpavel

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky is a graphically improved prequel that integrates newer visual technology that we introduced in our previous mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. This gave us a solid foundation for further enhancements, letting us focus solely on the design elements of the games’ art style and aesthetics.

The most notable feature is the introduction of the brand new set of distant scenery textures that put the player in the middle of a large open world, rather than the previously “enclosed” map. The original photographs used in this project were captured by our studio during our travels to the Russian industrial town of Mednogorsk, which represents how Pripyat once was. Once we returned to the studio we applied our graphic design expertise to edit our real-life environment captures to closely match the fictional in-game Zone environment.

Other graphical enhancements include stunning new lighting effects, natural daytime/nighttime transitions, vivid sunsets/sunrises, redesigned emissions, a new high resolution nighttime constellation map, a full moon, and many other aesthetic improvements too numerous to list.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky features improved textures compared to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, however there was still a lot of room for refinement. Instead doing a total retexture, we only needed to replace select sets with respect to game designer's vision. This new texture set contains the best work by the community along with the introduction of new rendering techniques authored by our studio, such as:

Reworked foliage and terrain, making the grass draw line less noticeable
Detailed textures for most of the weapons
Replaced bricks, concrete, metal and ground textures
Refined human and mutant textures
New details such as smoldering firewood, leaves, and stones
Vehicles now appear realistically rusted and abandoned

The purpose of this sound overhaul was to further enhance the ambience and atmosphere of the Zone with the addition of higher quality and more realistic ambient audio files. Each map now includes a sound theme that varies between night and day. All this has been integrated without diminishing the original sounds unique to Clear Sky, ensuring a superior audio experience. All weapon sounds have been replaced with comprehensive analogues, and footsteps, bullet impacts, anomalies, creatures, and many other sound categories have been improved.

This mod introduces nearly a hundred acoustic guitar and vocal songs. They have been added to campfire music sets, and are unique to each faction. This live music was recorded specifically for this game, creating an unforgettable ambience. Also, some new and familiar music tracks can be heard on the radio and megaphones throughout the Zone. However, this mod doesn't modify the dynamic combat music, which can still be turned on and off in the game options.

Bug fixes are the specialty of the Sky Reclamation Project, a community patch which brings the joint effort of a large number of community members together to address bugs still present in Clear Sky after its final patch, and eliminates many game breaking issues. This mod is included in Clear Sky Complete, and features:

Crash Fixes - many potential “crash to desktop” errors have been eliminated.
Quest Fixes - fixed bugs in 9 quests that couldn't be completed under certain conditions.
Gameplay Fixes - fixed a large number of gameplay bugs that could keep the game from progressing, like preventing the accidental death of important characters and other triggered events.
Weapon Fixes - fixed animations, incorrect ironsight positions and corrected the depth of field effect on most weapons.

Various tweaks have been implemented in Clear Sky Complete to create a more fluid experience for a player and to maintain continuity with other games in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Noticeable tweaks include:

Reducing the grenades available to NPCs to prevent “grenade spamming”
Bandages and medkits heal and stop bleeding, and less bleeding in general
All pistols now have ironsights
Weapons now have real-life names
Enabled trading weapons with NPCs, and NPCs now sell ammo and supplies
Reduced military minigunner's vision distance
Added the ability to carry explosives
Corrected Bandit behavior so they won't mug the player if their player-status is friendly
Increased flashlight output

The Wish Granter - activated via the ESC F1 keyboard shortcut, it is a hidden interface designed to let you enable vehicles, control weather, and place anomalies, characters, mutants and much more on the map. You can essentially build the game around your preferences through this interface.
Sleeping Bag - allows the player sleep in-game, and now features an advanced safety level indicator.
Gnomus' Scopes - a scope system similar to one used in most modern FPS games.
Elite Nightvision - improved black & white night vision.
Teleport - allows the player to jump between points in the environment with the ability to save custom coordinates for future use.

With the new user interface update you no longer have to skip through introductory movies. Also, the HUD colors have been muted so they don't distract and the inventory window is now semi-transparent, which allows the player to view the weapon currently being equipped. Also, the ESC+S shortcut from Stalker Complete 2009 is added, which works like a “smart quick-save” creating a separate save file with level name, in-game date, and time each time it’s used.

Screenshots:

A collection of screenshots showcasing enhanced weather, textures, environments:

[Flickr]

Download:

Version 1.1.3 (358MB)

[Clear Sky Complete User Manual] (ReadMe, PDF)

The Stalker Complete series:

[Call of Pripyat Complete]

[Clear Sky Complete]

[STALKER Complete 2009]

International support:

[French support site]

[Italian support site]

Credits:

The user manual contains a comprehensive credit list.

[Mod] STALKER Complete 2009 1.4.4

2010-12-09T18:56:00.002-05:00

This poster was created entirely from in-game screenshots, except for main character, this is what the game really looks like with SC2009.

Version 1.4.4 (700MB)

[language patch]

If you haven’t played 2007’s most immersive and atmospheric shooter, or you’re back for replay, this mod is for you. This is the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. like you’ve never seen before, with updated graphics and added functionality that don’t change the original story or gameplay. The game hasn’t been changed beyond recognition, but rather enhanced while preserving the core elements that made it the unique experience it is.

What makes this mod different?

It was designed by professional graphic artists with rich experience in the field, following industry standards for creating interactive 3D environments. It features artistic works and modifications from many community members unified under one art direction. The game has been redesigned with new visual qualities, and is offered as one convenient, complete package to reach a user base beyond the modding community. This mod has been created with a thought of bringing the beautiful and immersive game of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl from the previous generation when it was created to an up-to-date experience you’d expect from games currently being developed.

STALKER Complete 2009

Version 1.4.4 by artistpavel

The following list details the carefully chosen collection of technically advanced and aesthetically brilliant modifications that were created by talented modders, concept artists, and programmers over the past two years. They are meant to technically and artistically enhance the original feel and atmosphere the developers meant you to experience, without compromising it in the process. You’ll notice every single detail has been retouched and has a polished feel to it.

This is ideal for first time players or people who finished the game in the past and now are coming back to replay it on newer, more powerful hardware on improved resolution and graphics.

Natural lighting, vast panoramic views, depth of field, parallax mapping, SSAO, over 900 reworked texture files, including vehicles and armor suites with manual bump editing, you won't believe it's the same game.

Summary:

Developed by a professional art studio, the weather system in Stalker Complete 2009 is a pinnacle of visual game design. It features work by several artists including challenge winners from conceptart.org (the largest concept art community which produces works for games and movie industries). It’s based on the same elements and principles found in representational art such as aerial perspective, composition, balance, and color theory, to name a few. The key features include:

Natural multi-phase day and night transitions, based on daily observations, photographs, and studies by artists from Dolgov Studios
Vast distant views, creating large open world around the player.
New multi-phase moon design authored by Dolgov Studios.
Proper sun travel according to date (01.05.2012) and geographic location (Ukraine).
Enhanced High Dynamic Range lighting and Sun effects (including realistic sunsets and sunrises).
Increased weather cycling.
Different types of storms, both fast and slow.
Wet surfaces during rain.
High resolution nighttime constellation map.
Improved water animations.

This mod takes full advantage of Shader Model 3.0 and introduces advanced shader technology first seen in the game “Crysis”. This tool allows creating close-to-life illusions of true relief and depth, in addition to adding rendering techniques creating an enormous difference in the way the game looks. Improvements include:

Parallax Occlusion Mapping - Gives 2D textures the illusion of 3D geometry, most visible on surfaces such as brick walls.
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion - a shading method, approximating the way light radiates in real life, creating soft shadows in corners and hard to reach places.
Depth of Field - A shading method that approximates the way light radiates in real life, creating soft shadows in corner-type places with a difficult lighting sample.
Motion Blur - A streaking effect frequently used to show a sense of speed when the camera quickly moves around.
Particle system - Enhanced rendering of fire, explosions, smoke, muzzle, sparks, falling leaves, anomalies, fog, and more.
Water Shaders - Improved water effects ported from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky.
Fire Dynamic Lighting - Fire now illuminates the surroundings, casting dynamic shadows.

This mod includes a texture overhaul featuring the “Photorealistic Zone”, a total rework of every texture in game by Argus over a nine month period. Special attention has been given to preserve the game’s original look while the original textures have been replaced with higher quality versions and manually bump-edited files. The textures are heavily optimized to reduce performance impact. Elements that are improved include:

Locations - All location textures have been replaced with higher quality photographs with partial use of original files and assets other games in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.
Living Creatures - Mutated creatures have soaking wet flesh showing through wounds, creating a disturbingly graphic effect. Also, all humans in Zone have been retouched down to even the finest details (armor, shoes, wrinkles, faces, even their eyeballs).
Vehicles - 20 year old vehicles in the Zone now appear realistically rusted and abandoned.

The game’s notorious reputation of being a huge bugfest ends here. Over the past two years a joint community effort has accumulated fixes for most known bugs and crash to desktop exits left out by developers after patch 1.0005. With the release of the unofficial community patch, bug fixes and numerous positive gameplay tweaks are implemented, such as realistic weapons names, reduced head bobbing, increased actor’s height, increased inventory weight limit, extended quest times, and more.

Artificial Intelligence received major reworking:

New abilities - NPCs can avoid anomalies, remove dead bodies from camp sites, throw grenades, change armor, and even heal other NPCs. You can also give weapons and armor to NPCs by selling or dropping it near them and giving them privacy to equip them (NPC’s preferences may prevent them from accepting the items, however).
Early detection - removed the ability for NPC's to notice you at unrealistically large distances.
Stealth - Removed the ability for NPC’s to notice the player at unrealistically large distances.
Death panic - Reduced the sound distance of death cries (in the original game it caused the entire camp to alert once one member was hit, as it was set to be heard at a great distance).

This mod replaces a massive amount of in-game sounds, including weapons, anomalies, equipment clatter, footsteps, nightlife, bullet fly-by sounds and more with higher quality versions. Also, the mod adds unique ambient sounds for each weather cycle. “Repetitive” NPCs will now only say their lines once (such as the “Get out of here, stalker” line), and hundreds of additional ambient sounds like bar kitchen cooking, nighttime horror sounds, fog sounds, and more have been added to the game, creating a more immersive audio experience.

The mod also adds a new music collection, featuring 84 new acoustic guitar compositions added to the existing set plus a few vocal songs in authentic language unique to each faction. This is the only music mod where compositions have been performed live and recorded specifically for this game by a musician (no MIDI or generic karaoke tracks were used). This is live music with human touch that blends seamlessly with the ambient soundtrack, and makes you want to spend more time by the campfire. Also, NPCs will now randomly play the harmonica in addition to the guitar. Finally, 19 authentic music tracks can be heard on the radio and from the megaphones throughout the Zone.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is not exactly a textbook example when it comes to localization. Misspelled words, typos, grammatical errors, and humor lost in translation can be charming at times given the context, but creating unnecessary difficulty in understanding their meaning. Most of the text received a grammar-friendly rewrite, providing a much improved English localization.

A visual overhaul mod isn’t complete without a new, custom user interface. This is why we are proud to present our very own Main Menu, Loading Screen, and redesigned HUD. Created by our graphic design firm, the interface incorporates existing in-game art and photographs of actual Chernobyl disaster zone artifacts, adding a unique art style and authentic feel. Certain buttons have been conveniently reorganized for more intuitive access and new shortcuts added, such as ESC S which works like a “smart quick-save”, creating a separate save file with the level name, in-game date, and timestamp each time it’s used.

Sleeping Bag - It’s always in the inventory and allows the player sleep in-game.
Faction Change and Reset - Now players have the ability to reset hostile status and join factions outside of the storyline.
Ragdoll Physics - Natural death and hit animation, and kills will no longer cause extreme ragdoll effects.
Bulb tweak - Now you can shoot the lights out!
Gnomus' Scopes - High resolution scopes for widescreen and standard monitors.
Repair Kit - A special item to the game that allows you to repair weapons and armors out in the Zone. The only way to get this rare item is to loot it from a NPC’s corpse.
Repair Services - The bar trader and Screw now sell weapons and armor repair services.
Chernobyl TV - Replaced the original TV animation with actual Chernobyl footage.
Elite Nightvision - Black & white night vision based on the psy_antenna postprocess effect. This one really makes you see in the dark.
ZRP Teleport - The ESC J shortcut lets you jump between the points in the environment.
Third-Person View - Press F1, F2 and F3 to cycle through camera views and + or - to zoom in & out (by default this feature enables camera toggle only, add -psp switch to a shortcut to activate a third-person gameplay, please refer to Technical FAQ page 15 for assistance).
Other features - Authentic food and drink skins, the ability to drag dead creatures’ bodies, the ability to carry selected explosive fuel cans & barrels, the ability to shoot birds, and more!

After your journey ends with the “good” ending, you’ll get the dialogue that will let you continue the game in freeplay mode, allowing creatures and NPCs to migrate freely about in the environment. It will be a living and breathing zone with self sustained A-Life and unscripted events. This feature doesn’t remove the ending scene, so players will still have the enjoyment of viewing the cinematic completion of the game. You can skip the entire story line from the start by pressing ESC T while in-game and teleporting to the last map or by clicking Freeplay and “Equip for Level” to start from the first map.

There is also a large number of small subtle changes that make big difference in overall experience. ReadMe contains extended list of mods and their respective authors who contributed to this project.

This mod will run smooth as long as you have a video card with Shader Model 3.0 and large amount of memory to accommodate textures, it performs better than S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky/Call of Pripyat, while providing similar and often better visuals, it's DirectX9 and the X-Ray engine at full potential.

Designed and tested for STALKER version 1.0005/1.0006. Starting a new game is required!

Screenshots:

Weather, environments, textures, interiors:

[Flickr]

Reviews:

STALKER Complete 2009 in retrospective S.T.A.L.K.E.R. review by PCFormat magazine, issue #234.

Lighting – the new day-night cycle’s particularly spectacular – and textures are what’s most lovingly touched by the hand of mod, but on the non-graphical front much of the in-game text gets a more grammar-friendly rewrite and the HUD receives a much-needed overhaul.

[rockpapershotgun.com]

[...] the graphical changes are immediately smack-you-in-the-face obvious. It's stunning. Whereas looking at old STALKER made me think of, well, a 2007 eastern European PC title, the texture and shader upgrades in STALKER Complete 2009 made the place instantly come alive.

[gamerswithjobs.com]

Stalker Complete 2009 combines several modifications that improve Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl in matters of graphics, gameplay and atmosphere.

[pcgameshardware.com]

As mods go this is one of the most subtle imaginable. It does not attempt to change the atmosphere or effect of the game world, but simple to enhance it. 900 new textures, an improved sky and weather system, and the introduction of expanded graphics options make this one of the most exquisitely beautiful experiences ever to grace a gaming system. [...] this is, finally, the finished and complete version of Stalker - as good as it could possibly have been on release.

[eurogamer.net]

This is the "STALKER Complete 2009" mod [...], which does an admirable job of making the game look like it was, well, made in 2009. New textures, new lighting and new weather effects help get the game looking ship-shape...

[kotaku.com]

New main menu art based on real photographs from Chernobyl zone, I placed items one by one as I was looking through pages of disaster documentaries. Contains references to labs X16 and X18 and in-game items.

Download:

Version 1.4.4 (700MB)

[language patch]

[STALKER Complete 2009 User Manual] (Readme, PDF), please read the Technical FAQ on page 11, it contains answers for many common questions, updated regulary.

Compatibility:

Retail DVD versions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl game with 1.0005 (also works with v1.0006) patch
Direct2Drive digital copy with Digital Distribution 1.0005 patch
Steam (launch & exit the game at least once, check for version 1.0005 and install the mod, start a new game after)

It's recommened to temporary disable Microsoft Security Essentials, if you have it installed (this can be done under Settings inside the program), as it will try to unpack and scan the installer resulting in unresponsive system. The file is obviously clean.

For languages: Czech, Hispanic, French, German, Italian, Polish and Russian, please download and install the international patch, otherwise your game won't start:

[international localization]

The Stalker Complete series:

[Call of Pripyat Complete]

[Clear Sky Complete]

[STALKER Complete 2009]

International support:

[Italian support site]

Credits:

The User Manual contains a comprehensive credit list.

2009-03-31T08:44:00.004-04:00

Test sketch using lightweight Japanese software PaintTool SAI

Custom Hand Painted Faceplates - Spiderman

2009-03-17T19:34:00.003-04:00

Latest faceplate commission, gotta love the Spidie.

Quick Digital Sketch of a Power Plant

2008-02-25T02:41:00.007-05:00

Today I came across this power plant hidden in the middle of the city, how cool is that! I painted it in about an hour and the sun went down in the first 20 minutes, so I had to finish it from memory. I tweaked the Levels and Unsharp Mask setting (Photoshop) later. Now I can turn this piece into any futuristic concept.

Check my previous post to see how I paint from life.

Laptop + Photoshop + Wacom = Live Sketches

2008-02-24T12:10:00.006-05:00

Painting from life is essential for anyone who wants to become a better artist. Back in a day I used to carry a sketch box with oil paints and brushes, now with the power of technology, I can paint directly on my laptop, which helps me focus more on the process of painting, thus work effectively, because of convenience.

Thanks babe for helping with making of this video.

The Truth Will Come to Light

2008-02-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

How about going little dark for a change. I'm not a fan of horror movies, but some of them have profound style. This piece was inspired by "The Ring" and the name came from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, 1600:

LAUNCELOT: Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son: give me your blessing: truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son may, but at the length truth will out.

Thanks to gelund and autowitch for pictures of real abandoned houses, it added extra layers of creepiness.

Cloverfield Story Explained 1-18-08

2008-01-26T14:21:00.000-05:00

Cloverfield is a unique experience inspired by Youtube generation. There is no "stop and explain" in this movie, we don't know what is happening and or why and it keeps happening fast and furious. So I went online and collected a few story clues based on movie viral marketing. Warning, contains SPOILERS:

Origins of the monster:

The Japanese oil company TAGRUATO's satellite (Chimpanz III) crushes into the ocean (shown at the end of the movie when Rob and Beth were on the Ferris wheel). TAGRUATO works with SLUSHO (a slush company), as the main ingredient for SLUSHO is found in the deep ocean. It awakened Cloverfield (the monster) from an underwater trench.

On the right side of he screen you can see tiny splash on the water:
[youtube.com]

People who were at the party in the beginning of the movie, were seen wearing SLUSHO shirts. Rob apparently was going to be the Vice President of TAGRUATO in Japan. Slusho is a very addictive drink, with signs of steroid drug like effects. Makes people stronger, constantly happy.

The main ingredient of Slusho apparently turns a tiny fish into a HUGE whale in Ganu's (he found the nectar) dream, which explains the size of Cloverfield. The main ingredient is a deep sea nectar.

Monster first attacked Chuai oil/seabed nectar drilling station, then followed the tanker to New York:
[youtube.com]

For animals/fishes/insects to survive in the deepest ocean (very high boiling temperature), they naturally have very high heat resistance. This explains how Cloverfield is able to withstand numerous bombs and attacks from the army.

Actually Cloverfield is a codename for the military operation and refers to the field formerly known as Central Park. Clovers are usually prone to grow at places after bombing. Thus the term "Clover" and "field" referring to park.

In reality Cloverfield is named for the boulevard in Santa Monica where the Bad Robot offices were located during the мaking of the film.

Marlena's death (the chick that blew up):

The parasites on the monster have a way of feeding of it. They have an agent that bursts blood vessels. On something the size of a skyscraper - it would have the impact only on the localized capillaries - using the same agent on a human - probably every blood vessel in the body will burst - explains the bleeding from the eyes and the dizziness.

Before she "blows up," a dead soldier with his stomach already burst passes them as they first enter the military HQ. Then a captured spider creature is shown, so that's a foreshadow to what happened to her.

Camera battery:

The events take place over less than 7 hours and the whole movie is 84 minutes. So 84 minutes of film over 7 hours means the camera was off or not filming at some point. Lithium-ion can last a long time. Probably more like 4 hours tops on a stock battery. More than the light or night vision it's the LCD viewfinder that flips out on the side of cameras that drain the most, and it appeared that Hud was using the scope viewfinder.

H.U.D. is also short for Heads-Up Display, much like the way the film was shot.

Last words in the movie after credits: "It's still alive...help us"
[youtube.com]

About movie concept:

Think about how much isn't solved in the movie and then think about how much information they have put out there for viewers to research and either make their own conclusions or find the definitive answer (assuming there is one)... people get online to find out things about movies, before and after they have watched them, that it's genius to have created this online world within a movie world. Disregarding all the information: Slusho, Taragato, the anti-Taragato organizations would be dismissing what half the concept is about.

Here are the official Web sites affiliated with "Cloverfield." Click at your own risk. Hours seem to vanish navigating these pages:

www.cloverfieldmovie.com -- Not much content, just a trailer, a cryptic plot synopsis and a link to the film's MySpace page.

www.1-18-08.com --Here, things get more interesting. Although this appears to be a random assortment of photos, you can click and drag them to dig for clues.

www.slusho.jp -- Slusho is a fictional beverage that contains a secret ingredient scooped up from the ocean floor. Don't be fooled by the cute graphics and music on the Web site, there's something sinister about this "happy drink."

www.tagruato.jp -- The evil parent company of Slusho, Tagruato drills the deep sea for oil, jeopardizing ocean habitats in the process.

www.tidowave.com -- An environmental activist group, Tido Wave is dead set to stop Tagruato from plundering the globe's natural resources. They may or may not be involved with the destruction of the company's drilling station near the Bermuda Triangle.

www.jamieandteddy.com (Password: jllovesth) -- Jamie is one of the movie's characters and she sends a series of increasingly hostile video messages to her missing boyfriend, Teddy.

[Cloverfield wiki]

Self-Portrait

2008-01-19T09:27:00.002-05:00

I felt like I had to reflect my current state of mind and this is what I've got. A stone bust staying in tranquil misty forest, motionless, undisturbed for ages, preparing to release greater potential. Hopefully, the next portrait will be more "alive"

Free Microsoft Zune 30GB Skin Design

2008-01-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

I was looking for portable media player for my workouts and I got the Zune (dig the large screen). I just couldn't settle for stock plain color, so I designed the funky skin and decided to give it away. All you have to do is have it printed by DecalGirl.com or any other company, it's usually around ten bucks. I put instructions inside along with the matching wallpaper, so it looks like the skin continues from the screen. Send me pics if you use it!

[Download Size: 7.83 MB]

I'm also accepting custom skin design commissions

Call of Duty 4 Prestige Medal Icon Pack

2007-12-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are hardcore Call of Duty 4 veterans, check out this pack of Prestige medal icons, these are great to use on forums, MySpace, blogs, etc.. show off your level of Prestige

[Download] Size: 259 KB

Trying Hand in Character Design

2007-10-25T11:22:00.001-04:00

This week started off well. First I downloaded and watched very useful tutorials by Jason Chan and Andrew Jones, second I made first attempt drawing people in sort of comical way since high school. So here's the example of my line work and character design as commissioned by 360style podcast community. (lettering and logo by Avid x3ro)

Edit: I felt I really had to learn human anatomy before making next figure drawings, so I purchased 9 great anatomy books, reviews are coming.

Bs Angel as Cortana Piece and Interview

2007-10-04T12:27:00.000-04:00

Halo 3 inspirations: my friend bs angel is a known gamer chick among Halo community, so I decided to surprise her with a portrait of her as her favorite female game character - Cortana! Check out my interview at her popular haaawt blog:

[hawtymcbloggy.com]

Edit: this picture showed up on Kotaku

Vegas Baby, Veegaaass!!!

2007-08-10T11:37:00.000-04:00

I'm officially back from vacation, which was amazing to say at least and ready for business. Check out some of the highlights from our trip to Las Vegas:

Custom Faceplate Skin Design for Halo 3 Clan

2007-07-27T12:41:00.001-04:00

Last week I've been commissioned to created custom image for Halo clan 8-Bit Brigade. Artwork will be used for making Xbox 360 faceplate skins at decalgirl.com and clan gear. Hi-rez image is jag free. The left side features Valhalla like terrain with crushed spaceship similar to Pelican, and the right side resembles Halo 3 Legendary Edition box art with clan logo as focal point. Mockup:

If you'd like custom art for your clan, send me a note. The only thing I can't do is use copyrighted ideas, it has to be twisted or totally original. Price for a skin size image (3700x1356) - $96

This is what the skin looks like applied to console:

Digitally Painted Landscape with Traditional Look

2007-07-16T19:55:00.000-04:00

Today I digitally painted the landscape for my exclusive art distributor in Florida who wanted particular colors and looks. The reason I'm proud of this is because it looks like I made a pretty easy transition from traditional oil on canvas art to digital format after a few basic tutorials, and I'd like to say - I enjoyed it! (thanks to Corel Painter X and new RealBristle brushes)

Details:

Faceplate Art Recapitulation - Summer 2007

2007-07-04T21:47:00.000-04:00

Since the release of my Xbox 360 painting tutorial video I was introduced to Microsoft, met new friends and was commissioned to paint at total of 10 new faceplates. The last 2 works are shown here. The pink Master Chief hugging the teddy bear doesn't mean I felt a little fruity at the time:) It was commissioned by a cool girl gamer 'bs angel' who were kind enough to write numerous reviews about my service, describing in steps the creation of her cute Halo 3 faceplate (above) and also her friends' Spartan sniper one (below) from 8bitbrigade.com. Both faceplates were featured on HBO (halo.bungie.org), you can read her detailed articles with links:

[#18 Pink Master Chief w/Teddy Bear]
[#19 Halo 3 Sniper at Valhalla]

Also 4 steps service review: Part 1 Part 2 Part 2 Part 4

The rest of collection is at [faceplates] and [fan album]

Portrait - Artistic Representation of a Person

2007-06-27T11:51:00.001-04:00

This is the portrait of my friend Nicole Oppermann I painted, it is probably the last one I did using traditional acrylic paint on canvas medium, my next series of portraits will be painted digitally. Nicole is a talented model and actress, she appeared as Sarah in the movie Stay Alive, check out her website:

[nicoleoppermann.com]

The necklace was meant to say 'kcuf', I just forgot to pay attention to that part.

Xbox 360 Overheating - Don't let It Happen

2007-06-06T13:08:00.000-04:00

While waiting for a replacement from Microsoft I've drawn quick aerodynamic sketch (above) to see how I would prevent my next console from overheating. My temporary office is a busy place. These devices are usually powered On all at the same time, no wonder why xbox 360 showed the red ring of death. I bought the Intec G8646 stand fan to go under console and the standard fan for the room to improve air flow. I haven't received Intec G8646 yet to give opinion, you can check it on: eBay

There's a Wikipedia page about this problem: [Xbox 360 Technical Problems]

Dizzler - Free Online Music, Video, and Radio Player

2007-06-05T14:04:00.000-04:00

Dizzler is the new kind of online/desktop player which lets you search and listen to your favorite music, watch videos and do more for free. It's fully customizable with skins and playlists, as you can see I added my own picture which links to this blog. You can embed it to any webpage or MySpace. It indexes and streams files already available on the Internet, so if you keep stuff on your website and you don't want to share your bandwidth, check this tech writeup on how to protect files from Mp3 search engines. Otherwise enjoy free music!

Website: [dizzler.com]

Microsoft Surface - Future Greatest Art Tool

2007-06-01T01:52:00.000-04:00

A "multi-touch, gestural- and object-recognition interface technology" almost only seen in Sci-Fi movies (Minority Report) is coming Fall 2007. I predict this will turn into useful art and design tool in addition to Wacom tablets most digital artists use today. For now it only supports basic painting program and mostly designed to enrich our social life experiences:

Name of Product: Microsoft Surface™
Category: Surface computing
•Music - You put your music player on the table, and your credit card. Both are recognized, then you drag songs to the player. Zune is obvious first device, but potential other partner in the works. One demo used a nano. Could partner really be Apple?
•Virtual Concierge - A fairly self explanatory guide program, complete with mapping programs
•Food & Drink - Not just interactive menus, but glass (and presumably plate and maybe even silverware) recognition. Like Music program, it reads credit cards just by placing them on table.
•Photo - A simple photo editor reminiscent of iPhoto
•Puzzle - A game where you assemble actual pieces of glass on top of the table, each with a sliver of live video playing
•Water - A water screensaver that you can touch to make ripples
•Paint - Simple painting program that reads pressure sensitivity by judging the size of your fingerprint:

Microsoft's Mystery Product: [gizmodo.com]
Fact sheet from MS marketing team: [gamerscoreblog.com]
Microsoft impressive flash demo: [microsoft.com/surface]

Rocking with Gamerscore Blog Microsoft Team - Toronto Event

2007-05-23T14:38:00.000-04:00

Microsoft Games Global Marketing team from gamerscoreblog.com is on the road with GSB Road Show '07, meeting community members in different cities across North America. It's by invitation only so I felt really honored to personally meet and play with people who make our Xbox 360 experience happen. Thanks to John Porcaro, Chris Paladino, and Tony Hynes for a great party last night in Toronto. Open bar, Guitar Hero II, getting to know community members, playing pre-released games on huge HDTVs made the event unforgettable (Forza 2, Shadowrun, Halo2 PC, Project Sylpheed, Guitar Hero II, Mad Tracks, Undertow, Track and Field).

Girls like to drive sexy cars (Forza 2):

Check more pictures and details at [gamerscoreblog.com]

LISTEN to audio from the venue including myself talking about faceplate art and how to get wives/girlfriends into gaming:

[MP3 File: 9.5 MB, 28 minutes] via Gamerscore Blog Podcast

Second Life Virtual Girl Makes Maxim Hot 100 List

2007-05-16T12:26:00.000-04:00

Here's another proof of gaming going mainstream phenomenon. Maxim's highly anticipated annual Hot 100 list of stunning (real) women included a virtual hottie from Second Life video game. On the radio Maxim directors said that they had to acknowledge the interests of multi-million user virtual community. From Hot 100 list editors:

Second Life—a 3-D virtual world that’s imagined, created, and owned by its online residents—was launched in 2003 and now boasts nearly five million inhabitants around the globe. Never taken part in the nerdfest? Isn’t she reason enough?

LISTEN to Maxim radio talking about Second Life avatar placement in Hot 100:
[MP3 File: 2.42 MB, 2.39 minutes]

Too bad she wouldn't be able to attend the 2007 Hot 100 party by Maxim tonight in New York so we could see nice red carpet shots of her. (by the way it's 9 pm Eastern, the party is about to start, more event pics will pop up)

#95. Second Life Girl [maximonline]

Official Corel Painter Magazine Launches!

2007-05-15T18:33:00.000-04:00

I'm really motivated to learn my new software of choice down to every nuance so I can be ready to contribute to the industry in the shortest period of time. Therefore I ordered first 2 issues of The Official Corel Painter Magazine. Launched in February 2007 (perfect timing) this is the only magazine in the world that's dedicated to the Corel Painter software.

Quote from Painter press release:

The magazine's tutorials provide step-by-step instruction on how to achieve a certain artistic
style, and there are targeted guides for tools and commands in the program, giving the readers
a better understanding of the software. Regular features examine a creative topic each issue
and the inspirational interviews give readers an insight into how professionals create their
jaw-dropping art.

My second book purchase was 'Digital Character Design and Painting' by Don Seegmiller as many artists have found it highly educational. Amazon.com reader's review:

This book is totally out of this world on the topic of character design. Very detailed and well thought out. I will definitely recommend it to designers and artists.

#1 Maxim 2007 Hot 100 List - Lindsay Lohan

2007-05-15T18:32:00.000-04:00

I've been listening to Hot 100 list commentaries by Maxim magazine directors on the radio. According to them, Lindsay, who is a full time tabloid troublemaker cover girl, is the hottest woman in the world. They said they took different factors, such as popularity and talents of the contestants into consideration (e.g. hot career wise). I think lists like that are always subjective so I wouldn't take it too seriously (on the other hand, movie producers cast roles based on this list, so it must be important for the industry) . The rest of the Hot 100 is available via Maxim's site. Oddly, they’ve chosen to make it pretty hard to navigate, I had to go through pages to get to number one for you:

#1 Lindsay Lohan [maximonline]

Maxim's Hot 100 list also includes Jessica Alba in second place, Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Biel, Ali Larter, Eva Mendes, Rihanna, Eva Longoria, Fergie, Sienna Miller, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce and Katherine Heigl. Paris Hilton went off the list this year..

New Digital Art Tools Review: HP w2207, Corel Painter X, Wacom Intuos3

2007-05-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

Being traditional artist for many years I always appreciated works done in all creative media and now I decided to officially expand my art to the beauty of digital realm. Geared up for some intense brush work I got equipped with the latest and greatest tools the industry has to offer. Here's the short review:

1. HP w2207 22" widescreen LCD monitor. w2207 vs. 226bw: released in April HP clearly has the edge in picture quality (eg. colors, detail, sharpness) due to gloss screen surface. I picked it over Samsung 226bw with same specs but mat finish which made colors look a bit washed out. w2207 may have reflections but as long as you are able to control the light in the workspace it won't bother you. Specs: refresh response time: 5 ms, display brightness: 300 cd/m2, contrast ratio: 1000:1: (great for Xbox 360 gaming too)

2. New Corel Painter X is the world's most powerful painting and illustration software - features unique digital brushes, art materials and textures that mirror the look and feel of their traditional counterparts (the imitation of a real brush was stunning). That's all I need basically:

3...and of course painting software works to the most of it's potential with Wacom Intuos3 Pen Tablet. With 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, you can control things like exposure, brush size, opacity, and more:

I'll write full review after I use products more, for now expect new gaming and erotic art to show up in my portfolio and poster gallery.

P.S. I just painted that RSS feed button on the top right as my first test. You can use it for free if you like with your image hosting.

Gears of War Hidden Fronts Map Pack Visual Review

2007-05-01T21:20:00.000-04:00

Whether you have already spent the 800 MS points on Hidden Fronts Map Pack like I did or you'll be waiting for them till September you will definitely enjoy these neatly drawn overviews by aspiring designer Davidorff. Click on thumbnails:

NSFW: Maxim Radio In Studio With HBO's Cathouse Stars

2007-05-01T20:20:00.000-04:00

Ever wondered what happens behind the microphone when radio hosts say they have to keep studio curtains closed to interview their guests from adult industry?

On pictures Spotty the producer welcomes HBO's Cathouse Bunny Love and Brooke Taylor from Dennis Hof's Bunny Ranch. Click on thumbnails to enlarge:

Photo courtesy of Maxim Radio Covino and Rich Show [covinoandrich.com]

My Custom Xbox 360 Monster Machine Art

2007-04-28T15:54:00.001-04:00

In support to my previous painting tutorial post I'd like to show what my own decorated console looks like. It's been chill white up until today when I thought - heck, if I do it for my clients why don't I indulge myself a little with my own artistry (kidding).

Click on image to enlarge and guess where this character came from.

Video: Painting Xbox 360 Faceplate In 3 Steps

2007-04-20T21:40:00.001-04:00

iPod ready video (Save Target As)

If you are looking to customize your Xbox 360 console with art (perhaps giving your new shiny Xbox 360 Elite a personal paint touch) you may find my how to video useful. I made it instructional and a bit entertaining. The idea may not be new but it would help new console owners. That faceplate paint job was commissioned by one of my clients from U.K. who wanted a particular scene from Capcom game Dead Rising. All of my faceplates are hand painted and come signed and numbered. Check them: [faceplates] and [fan album]

The 3 steps are:

Preparation: sand the surface first with #180 and #220A sandpaper, then mask the power button with vinyl application tape and cut the shape of the ring of light and the power simbol with X-acto knife (you can mask the infrared port before sanding). Prime with 4000 series base coat sealer (from airbrush paints) and let dry. [pic]
Painting: it's all yours, make styled graphics with aerosol spray or paint cool art with acrylic paints. [pic]
Finishing: remove tape from the ring of light, clean around the button and apply 2-3 coats of Krylon Clear Glaze in a steady motion 10-12 inches from surface in well ventilated area. Make sure you wear filter mask . Let dry, unmask the infrared port and enjoy your artwork! [pic]

Brief history:

It all started in early 2006 when Live user 'altdelete47' came up with the idea of bringing my wall gaming art onto a hardware. My first custom faceplate was born and thanks to Brian Crecente it later saw the world on Kotaku. I'd like to say painting faceplates is not really profitable for me in terms of the price vs. hours and the fact that I'm setting the bar high in painting realistic images, but it lets me meet many wonderful people and inspire other creative members of community to express themselves. That makes me happy. Thanks to all editors of their respectful websites, who have highlighted my faceplate art in the past year:

[gamerscoreblog.com],[kotaku.com], [xbox360.qj.net], [aeropause.com], [thexboxcollector.com], [arstechnica.com], [xbox360fanboy.com], [maxconsole.com]

You can order your own custom faceplate at paveldolgov.com/faceplates

DeVore and Diana Night Show On Maxim Radio Sirius 108

2007-04-18T23:34:00.000-04:00

My self-employed work schedule gets pretty hectic leading me to stay and paint in later hours. This is when my favorite show "DeVore and Diana" kicks in! "Eighty proof radio for men who love women, and the women who put up with their crap". Hosted by John DeVore who likes to be "b*lls deep in women" (former Maxim magazine Senior Writer) and completely opposite co-host Diana Falzone who is a delicate flower of Maxim radio, a good looking intelligent young woman who's voice heating up the airwaves every night, go check her Maxim photo shoot! Whatever they talk about, like news, relationship, weird stuff, just turns into fun. D&D style keeps my work hours and driving full of energy. Tune in Monday through Friday 7 pm - 11 pm ET if you have Sirius or sign up for free trial online.

Official website: [devoreanddiana.com]
Maxim photo shoot: [maximonline.com]
Diana's website: [dianafalzone.com]

John, you're the man of Dudocracy and the king of Bad Newzzz brodawg! (along with Dan Falzone)

My Newest Art Influence: Craig Mullins

2007-04-15T23:42:00.000-04:00

I simply can't stop gazing at pages of this artist's portfolio. The impressive part is that Craig Mullins is the master of all media, he has strong traditional art background and he does stunning digital art for gaming and move productions. He did matte paintings and illustrations for the following titles: The Matrix Revolutions, Armageddon, Apollo 13, Need for Speed, Marathon, Halo and many other (in fact he is legendary in the Bungie community).

From what I learned, Mullins was introduced to digital art back in 1987, then he entered the digital age with the purchase of 33MHz Apple Quadra 700 with 36 MB RAM in 1993. He started from scanning his hand drawn sketches and editing them on an early version of Photoshop. I appreciate the ease and power of today's technology providing tools for all types of artists. My current expansion to digital medium has now became a passion. I'm sure Craig Mullins' art will inspire you too:

Craig Mullins art: [goodbrush.com]
Halo-related art: [nikon.bungie.org]
Interview: [ballisticpublishing.com]

Halo ©Bungie Studios and Microsoft
All artwork in this post ©Craig Mullins

My Love, My Muse, My Inspiration!

2007-04-13T22:09:00.000-04:00

This the first portrait of my fiancée I painted. It was done on the third week of our dating and has special meaning to me (this is one of the romantic moves artists do to impress the lady!) I love the beauty and serenity of the moment hiding her true sexiness. I will be painting new portraits of her, it contributes more nuanced memories to our history.

...and now the real her, posing with the above portrait (you may know her from the movies). She is heavenly beautiful hottie with smooth long legs, luscious smile and golden personality, trust me, girls like this come from "over the rainbow":

Paris Hilton Meets Gears Of War Comic Strip

2007-04-13T19:31:00.000-04:00

Click to enlarge.

*ahem* It's actually "Bears" not "Gears"! Since my blog contains posts about Paris Hilton, Gears of War, and I wanted to introduce you to the comic artist I like a lot, I think this picture fits the blog well. Presenting you the series of parody comics "Bears of War" by Mr. Herring. Now, if you have special feelings for Winnie the Pooh, don't look the rest: [bears of war]

Covino and Rich "The Show" On Maxim Radio Sirius 108

2007-04-12T18:27:00.000-04:00

Photo: Steve Covino, Fergie, Rich Davis at Maxim Super Bowl XLI Party in Miami.

If you are on the market for satellite radio (Sirius vs. XM) then look no further. Maxim, the best magazine for men, has expanded to a radio format on Sirius. My studio time flies by while listening to "The Show" by Covino and Rich. Those highly professional national radio personalities from New York talking about what the Maxim lifestyle is all about and how you can maintain your game and date hot ladies. It all comes from personal experience, they actually go out and live the life, interviewing A-list celebrities and most gorgeous women, covering the biggest events like Super Bowl Party in Miami so their topics are always fresh and relevant to what you really want to hear. Mixed with humor, parody songs and listeners' calls it makes an all around great show. Tune your satellite receiver to channel 108 at 3pm-7pm Eastern if you haven't done so or sign up for a free 3-day online trial at sirius.com/maxim

Official website: [covinoandrich.com]
Fan website: [whatdatmean.com]

oh .. and this month's issue Fergielisious Maxim cover girl. Would you?

Don't Cha Wish Your Xbox Was Hot Like Me

2007-04-12T17:16:00.000-04:00

I bet you've seen many pictures of girls posing with their boyfriends' consoles, but how often do you see a good looking brunette lying on a bed wearing nothing but xbox 360 controller?

The second pic is creative too, it involves PGR3, Halo 2, and Call of Duty 2, any guesses? [flickr.com]

Note: pictures were randomly found on the net, they were not taken by me.

Paris Hilton "Stars Are Blind" As Fine Art

2007-04-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

This artwork was inspired by debut single from heiress, actress, and singer Paris Hilton. Painting resembles the monochromatic feel and sexiness of the music video "Stars Are Blind". Paris' publicist is aware of this work thanks to my friend, a talented actress, model, TV Show host and poet from L.A. Mary L. Carter who occasionally enjoys my art. I've been also commissioned to create six paintings for the main lobby of the new Hilton hotel in Toronto.

The original acrylic painting is available on eBay.

You can also watch the short video I made upon completion of the painting ~~no, not another Paris Hilton sex tape.~~

Kids Drawings Turned Into Professional Art

2007-04-09T23:45:00.000-04:00

Great Renaissance master Leonardo Da Vinci was looking for ideas watching wet fresco plaster, ancient Greeks were designing architectural details after natural flower forms proving that the timeless ideas are the ones provided by nature. But what is the best source of creativity in contemporary saturated world with constant demand for fresh ideas for games and movies? Artists from The Monster Engine turned their views on simple children drawings and repainted them with professional skills, look at them, the result will surprise you:

Drawings [drawergeeks]

Hey, game developers, looking for a killer character design? Check what your kids are expressing with crayons.

Xbox 360 Elite Sent From The Future (Shop)

2007-04-08T22:17:00.000-04:00

User 'viewdrix' from digg.com have noticed an unusual Xbox 360 Elite description on Canada's biggest electronics chain store website futureshop.ca (owned by Best Buy). It refers to 1984 Sci-Fi movie classic "Terminator" about humanity's one last fighting chance in it's war against the machines. This move franchise gets the first place on my list of the most captivating stories of all the time (T, T2). So according to Future Shop website editors Xbox 360 Elite is pretty much a steel hearted cyborg sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor.

Link [futureshop.ca]

Screenshot: via [digg]

5 Gears of War Weapons Tutorial Videos

2007-04-08T01:53:00.000-04:00

The youtube user 'nismojoe' who seems to record every minute of his skilled gameplay regularly uploads his stunning montages. Whether you play GOW multiplayer from day one or you just got the game and want to catch up you will definitely learn something new about your weapons from those videos (like taking that perfect headshot with the sniper rifle by feeling the target rather than aiming) I'm sure we all had great shots but the fact that he nicely puts them in continues timeline makes them easy to watch and learn. (just a reminder - active reloads only last 10 seconds)

Gears of War special weapons:

1. [sniper rifle]
2. [boomshot]
3. [torque bow]
4. [hammer of dawn]
5. [grenades]

P.S. (that enhanced Crimson Omen avatar is a little creation of mine, feel free to use, just remember Epic doesn't like it).

Video: 16 Blocks Movie Behind The Scene

2007-04-07T13:42:00.000-04:00

Back in 2005 I was lucky enough to work for a number of major Hollywood movie productions as a scenic artist including this top notch thriller "16 Blocks" starring Bruce Willis. More to that my friends and I were actually in the movie. The set was located in downtown Toronto with traffic blocked for the weekend. We were not allowed to film on set so unfortunately there's no Bruce Willis in my clip. What I can say being a fan of this actor for many years I've been really glad to meet Bruce in person. The beginning of this sneaky video shows the bus crash scene set and me driving the cub. The prop was a real yellow N.Y.C taxi with greasy dashboard and meter, I had hell lotta fun driving it around the block for two days. Bus driver stunts were truly professional. The rest of the video is just us having fun on the break between shoots. Enjoy:

Turn Your Vacation Memories into a Painting

2007-04-06T19:30:00.000-04:00

ah.. don't we all wish we were at the beach now escaping the office routine like on this picture. The relaxation and fun of your summer vacation might be behind you, or it could still be on the horizon. Whatever the case may be, turning your vacation photos into original oil paintings would save your precious moments in the most timeless way. This is the second painting I've done for the same client and if you think you have that perfect picture you wanted to show in the living room fill out a commission request on my website.

Gears of War Fan Art Story

2007-04-05T16:29:00.000-04:00

I got really inspired by Epic's game Gears of War and created the above hand painted artwork. Soon I've been told by Epic Games Inc. to take it off my website and also to destroy the original. The "destroy painting immediately" part was a bit harsh but the rest was somewhat fair considering the painting was up for auction.

The story appeared on kotaku.com, I received support from community and fun drawings. Some of the quotes:

The guys artwork is pretty damn good (I like how he paints tree’s) and it seems that his soft spot for video games has gotten him in a bit of trouble. Cmon Epic, you guys should be proud that your game has inspired quality artwork.

[thehappygamer.com]

Take a look at the awesome creation above. This hand-painted acrylic masterwork was created by Pavel Dolgov. Within days of releasing images of his baby to the Internet, he has already received a very crude warning from Epic Games requesting that he either destroy the piece, or send it to them.

[younewb.com]

I for one smell a collectible item and should Pavel be reading this we feel the painting would look great in the MobyGames offices and Epic need not be the wiser.

[mobygames.com]

Mr. Rein's official reply.

Unique Call of Duty 2 Xbox 360 mod

2007-04-05T14:45:00.000-04:00

Since I occasionally paint Xbox 360 custom faceplates I like to watch what other people do. This unique Call of Duty 2 themed case mod first shown in January has really grabbed my attention. I mean we have seen many great mods with leds and paint but seeing a complete three dimensional miniature world with terrain tanks and soldiers is truly unique, kudos to artist!

More mods [fresh pics]

Introducing Gaming Art Prints!

2007-04-05T03:02:00.000-04:00

Remember this xbox 360 seductive girl?

Finally! By popular request I found a good print-on-demand website from which I can sell prints of my original artworks. I just got myself a sample and it looks great! Online framing can be fairly expensive so I would suggest buying a poster and getting an affordable frame later if needed. On the website you have a choice of mat, gloss and other textures, I think gloss looks best, check out my entire gaming art poster gallery (includes one Halo 3 inspired artwork) :

My current biggest print size is 16"x20", however I can resample the image to 24"x30" with maybe a little loss. Just send me request if you would like bigger size.

The original painting is currently available on eBay for $600. A low price for the original painting in the fine art world but may be high for a gamer fan since it costs more than console itself...

Thanking Friends

2007-04-04T20:12:00.000-04:00

Now starting my blog I would like to use opportunity to thank all my friends who supported me for the last few years. I met hundreds of wonderful people through my art business and I wish I could include all of them in this post. Let's start with gaming art:

Thanks to Chris Erickson owner of 360style.net for discovering my art on the Internet and further supporting me in the world of gaming business until present day (someone make this guy an MVP for all he does for community), to John Porcaro from Microsoft for bringing it to the world, to Brian Crecente for constantly highlighting my art on one of the most popular gaming blogs, to Richard Windsor from Aeropause for posting most positive reviews of my art, to Zeus from Maxconsole for bringing me business, to Louis Wu for constantly keeping an eye on my Halo inspired art.. and to guys from mastersfew.com for keeping the gameplay fun and friendly.

Edit: special thanks to Gino D. for his article about my Halo 3 faceplate [xbox360.qj.net]

Gaming vs. Work, Sex, Life

2007-04-04T06:04:00.000-04:00

Fellow gamers, I don't know how you keep the balance between gaming, work and family but after I've noticed that my work productivity has been greatly reduced and the fact that I miss some of the benefits of real life (like quality personal life) I had to take the break and stick this note to my console (below). So far things are only going uphill:) I'm sure many people have gone through this.

My beautiful fiancée (main pic) who works two jobs, takes classes and does occasional modeling and movie jobs is not so happy about my gaming habit and I kinda understand. So my Xbox Live buddies I'm officially on the break till at least my career goes next step up, I'm sure I'll see you!

Working Orders

2007-04-03T22:48:00.012-04:00

Your faceplate orders are posted in priority sequence by newest on top, please bookmark this page and check on the status of your order. Pictures shown on this page are mockups only, complete works go here. If you want to keep your custom art private, please let me know. Shipping normally takes 5-10 days. Please, send me some pics of your newly received faceplates, I really enjoy them, they go to special album:

Done. Shipped June.23.09:

Done. Shipped Feb.09.09:

Done. Shipped Nov.12.08:

Done. Shipped May.06.08:

Done. Shipped Feb.24.08:

Done. Shipped Nov.11.07:

Done. Shipped Sept.26.07:

Done. Shipped Sept.15.07:

Done. Shipped July.11.07:

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Done. Shipped July.5.07:

Done. Shipped June.19.07:

Done. Shipped May.30.07:

Done. Shipped May.25.07:

Done. Shipped May.23.07:

Done. Shipped May.11.07:

Done. Shipped May.11.07:

Done. Shipped May.11.07:

Post number One

2007-04-03T17:44:00.000-04:00

My post number one. Will keep 'em coming.

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