Lunch speed-painting

One of the best things about working at a rad game studio is that you are surrounded by people with the same interests as yourself. And since I’m an artist, I love to paint (shocker). As do my fellow artists here at Arrowhead. So every Tuesday during the lunch hour, we digest our lunches (may or may not be from McDonald’s) and then we’ll grab our styluses and indulge in a thirty minute speed-painting session.

Speed-painting is just a popular term for doing a usually timed, rather quick, painting. The great thing about speed-painting, except that it is just plain fun, is that when you distill your painting session down to about 20-30 minutes, it is really much easier to get a grip on your own workflow. And thus, improve it!

We generate a subject with a topic generator just when we start the session so that no one is prepared or able to plan the painting in advance. And then all the participants (which do not of course always have to be just artists) do an interpretation of that generated subject in thirty minutes. Afterwards it is great to see the other interpretations since it can lead to some quite interesting, and very diverse, results.

A link to the generator we use: http://www.hydropix.com/3CH.htm

Here is some examples from our lunch sessions and the subjects that they were based on.

Sometimes the results are very different.
topic: on fire surgeon crushes a creature in the night

And sometimes very similar.
topic: an in a movie decapitated gecko carries an old lady

Sometimes very cartoony.
topic: a smoking carnivorous plant flees a squid in a western environment

And some times just bananas.
topic: an exposed to radiation female phantom ignites a gryphon in a tunnel

Happy speed-painting!