I’d like to announce the completion of the gem2arch script to the 1.0 feature set. This script has several interesting features:

• Invoked as “gem2arch sup”, it will generate a PKGBUILD for sup with the dependencies from the gem specfile. It will automatically fetch the gem specfile from the gem server. This PKGBUILD should be nearly immediately usable (but will lack md5sum line). The script will pull in the description and use your name from makepkg.conf if it is set there.
• Invoked as “gem2arch -dq sup”, it will list the dependencies that are given in the sup gem. The purpose of this is to be able to write shell loops along the lines of: gem2arch sup && gem2arch -dq sup | grep -Ev "list|of|dependencies|to|ignore" | while read dependency; do gem2arch ${dependency}; done
• A man page is included with the tarball.

Anyway, you can get the script here: gem2arch-1.0.tar.gz. Alternatively, you can get a git clone: git clone git://git.mercenariesguild.net/gem2arch-garoth.git

In general, the focus of this program was clear code and very simple usefulness. There is another gem2arch script on the web that predates this script, but the code was somewhat unpleasant and the old script required more work to use. This gem2arch’s in no part uses the old gem2arch’s code — it is a fresh rewrite.

I must massively credit David “davekong” Campbell for his work on this gem2arch script. I started working on this script many months ago, but lost interest (as I am apt to do…). Recently, he came along and wrote me many patches that improved the code and fixed up the rough parts. He also very graciously helped me in creating all of the side things that I was lazy with such as man pages and so forth. I also very much appreciate him beating me with a stick and forcing me to drop some of the crazier features that my original script had or planned to have. I can only do him the honour of calling him a co-author, but really, this wouldn’t have been pushed through the finish line without him. What a great guy he is to help a stranger randomly, eh?

But regardless, here’s something that I started working on recently. I’m not sure how much further I’m going to get with her, but I’m happy with the way it’s turning out so far. Note, of course, that I suck at pretty much everything that’s not presented. My colouring skills are grossly pathetic. My shading is fairly poor these days. My speed can only be described as slugish. Even drawing faces, which I did a ton of, is somewhat lacking for me lately.

I like to think of skills art in terms of leveling up. It is very much the case in art that you can obtain a basic education, and then you must only practise frequently for a long period of time to become a skilled artist. Sure, there are always more art programs to learn, more filters to experiment with, new materials to manage, and new styles to solidify. Ultimately, though, I feel like I’ve got the foundation that I need. Can I simply just “grind” enough to become very good?

In other news, I’ve ordered a copy of Chaos & Evolutions from blender.org. If you’re unaware, Blender is a highly respected open source 3D modeling program. A couple times a year, they make open-source short films and sell them online. Regardless, the concept artist for the latest film, Durian (ie. Sintel), has published a DVD describing his workflow and showing off some 8 timelapses of himself painting. I was extremely impressed by his free timelapse that you can see the announcement/link for here. I’m hoping the DVD (which I think is some 10 hours by the way) is similarly inspiring.

Another thing that impresses me about David Revoy (the aforementioned artist) is his use of open source tools. I know that there are many Adobe / Autodesk fans in the artist community — and there is much merit in these tools — but I’m extremely impressed at the quality of open source tools these days. I think David Revoy very much shows that it’s possible to produce extremely good artwork using an entirely open stack. In particularly, I’m involved in the community surrounding the open program, MyPaint (I offered to host their wiki and am currently doing so). For the interested, I used MyPaint exclusively in the production of the above sketch and the previous blog post about the new Dragoon concept art.

Cheers.

In this post, I’m showcasing a wildly different style for Dragoon that I came up with several months ago. I think it’s rather nifty.

Tell me what you think