Wret's mug (for a mug)

Art by Matt "Wretneck" Billingsley ©2015

Getting back into the habit of drawing the favored Wret. Got the idea that I will get a custom coffee mug made for work, so I drew this up and will print it along with my logo on it.

getting the right spirit to be an artist again, commission art and portfolio projects already in the works now that I got this done

Ziltoid the Omniscient (8-bit)

Pixel art of the week, a fan art tribute to one of my favorite musicians Devin Townsend of his intergalactic nerd, Ziltoid. This character has brought a lot of laughter into my life; I just wish he had his own tv series.

8-bit for your pleasure.

Ziltoid is created by and a trademark of Devin Townsend©2007

Art by Matt “Wretneck” Billingsley©2015

Midna and Minecraft

I need to post here better than I have. Here I have a Midna drawing I did as a gift for Krudman for his birthday; hint the cupcake with a candle. And below is some more Pixel weapons I did recently, this time I did it with the theme of Minecraft

also I am now starting to make the habit of watermarking my artwork. Even though art thieves will try to remove them, it will make them harder and the earliest posts will prove these are mind. Not to say my biggest reasons are, but mostly my friends and fellow artists are getting their artwork stolen and without watermarks, so I'm adding mine to help support the community of artists who do it now; if I was smarter, I would have raised my commission prices, too.

Art by Matt "Wretneck" Billingsley©2015

Sean and Jean, a thank you piece for James and Sarah

Final on the piece I was making for my friends (whether they want it or not, nyuck nyuck nyuck).

Some characters I made up on a cold-sweat night, their names are Sean and Jean; best friends since they were kids.

-Sean: the shy and hesitant one. Most of his time he's locked himself away listening to music and doodling in a notebook, asking "what to do?". His happiest moments are when he's outside with his friend Jean. Favorite Music among friends is Metal, but prefers more calm and melodic songs.

-Jean: The extrovert friend who loves the outside. Never afraid to speak honestly, for better or for worse, and prefers to be with friends. It's through her does Sean have any interaction with people, and always works her way to include him every time. Also shares the same musical interest with Sean

My friends will be getting the original piece without the watermarks and on the back of a Reese's Puffs cereal box

Thank You for helping me out!

See my friend James's work at http://manofgifs.deviantart.com/

See my friend Sarah's work at http://farcypenguin.deviantart.com/

Characters and Art by Matt "Wretneck" Billingsley ©2015

Pixel Matt and Wret- Banner GIF, and Logo Update

Made this for my recent page over on Weasyl.com, a quaint little site for anthro and furry art without having the porn shoved into your face; also a community who is there for the sake of art. Just features my own Logo and 16 bit sprites of Me and Wret with the awesome pencil of might.

Kind of caught in a Pixel Art and GIF rut for a while now, can't tell if I'll ever get over it

here is the recent update I made for my logo. For being a comic artist, I've been doing my best to make it as comic-book-ish I can, but seem to hit a wall in the digital world. Going to try again

Pixel Palace GIF- tribute to Video Game Confessions

Pixel Palace GIF done. Got more pixel art to do for this piece, though.

If you are not familial with Video Game Confessions, here’s the link-
http://channelawesome.com/category/videos/channelawesome/dougwalker/videogameconfessions/

Inspired by the Pixel Palace location inside the videos… dunno, really just made this because I could.

Pixel Palace, trademarked for Video Game Confessions by Doug Walker

Pixel art and animation by Matt "Wretneck" Billingsley ©2015

Pixel Armory 01

Did some more pixel practice, this time with making weaponry. At first I found myself discouraged by my efforts, until I decided to allow transparencies and gradients.

Screw the anti-second amendment hippies, I love weapons and I love designing them! There are genuine pieces of historical art found in weaponry and crafting; if I wasn't an illustrator, I'd be a blacksmith making swords every week. But since I'm not, I'm suppose to illustrate my shattered dreams on paper and tablets to express my emotionally broken sou!l

Anyway, which one(s) do you like best?

Art by Matt "Wretneck" Billingsley ©2015

It be awesome if there was a way to mod these into a game I play, like Minecraft or Terraria (that being if these could work)

Pixel Art and GIF practice- Blinking Hazel bust

Late night Pixel art test turned into a Pixel GIF 

Art and Animation by Matt "WRETNECK" Billingsley ©2015

Hazel created and owned by Matt "WRETNECK" Billingsley ©2013

Lucy Cometh: part 1

been working on making a merchandise mascot, or what ever the term is when an Original Character is turned into stickers and vinyl figures. One character I know would help determine the look of the characters is their lead member- Lucy: Princess of Darkness

Just been bouncing around with this project trying to find something that makes her unique and different from my other characters and projects. And even though I don't plan to make Lucy here over sexualized, but I do what I can to make her appealing; the only hard part is what I find sexy usually doesn't stick for everyone, and I like short hair.

And before people make stapled opinions about these designs here, I need to state that these aren't even near the final design. I plan to make these characters more toony while retaining a creepy edge to them. For all I know, Lucy will have an even bigger head

concept-1

In the world of an artist, even we lose children...

so concept-2 is missing and didn't think about taking a picture of her before I lost her

concept-3

Later decided to give her bull/bovine horns, which frankly make her more demonic.
Also I already have 3 characters with ram or goat horns, and need the variety

Concept-4 (colored lines)

Concept-4 (black lines, harsh rendering)

Sure some would complain about cheesecake, but being the devil herself* she can choose how people see her, and frankly gives no weakness and is all dark and powerful... Think Jessica Rabbit, but hungry for souls and only sees the living as a buffet

On the same side, I need to think of a name for my characters as a group. Besides Lucy, the other 7 (8 total) are based around the deadly sins. The idea being inspired from the day I finally hit the big leagues and people started hate groups about me. Yay! The concept being that no matter how much you hate me and wish for me to die, I am who I am and if I don't want to change that then you either can suck it up or live miserably with my existence... Born to be Damned!!

The only characters I've already started working on are Pride, Envy and Wrath. Others will come along, but the one thing I know I will struggle with is Lust; would I do the scariest things and Rocky Horror the character or look for a PG-13 appropriate design? The idea is to let these be characters that can appeal to most ages and both genders, and probably see if I can sell them in collection stores like Hastings, FYE, Gray Whale (Utahn business) and other alternatives... Hot Topic...

So far my only plan is to start with Prints, stickers and decals. Would have to see if I can even get them popular enough to sell as Vinyl figures

This will be part one, more to come with progress and presentation

Art by Matt "Wretneck" Billingsley ©2015
Lucy created and owned by Matt "Wretneck" Billingsley

sorry for being late on this post

Digital Formatting vs Printing Formatting, 72dpi vs 300dpi

NOTE: this is not an art bash, and I would highly recommend following the artist's work; link provided in their usernames in the line bellow name

I've recently purchase a design from Society6 of the art piece by Silisboo, or mablerok

by Silisboo

"you don’t have to be uchi to join the uchi gang!

(also made it available as a shirt!)"

I can't tell you how awesome this design of their's is, and I liked it so much that I went out and bought a T-shirt of it to add to my odd collection of T-shirts

and moments ago the shirt finally arrived and... well...

actual close up

It could be that this was an iron-on transfer, but it's quality is quite muddy; also doesn't help since I purchased the light gray shirt and it came darker than what the site presented.

I'm not hating the shirt, and most definitely won't call for a refund, but it does leave a bit of sour in the mouth when it looks like this, And it leads in to a rant of mine about artists working with 72dpi vs 300dpi.

dpi- Dots Per Inch
(I don't know what the term would be in the metric system, unfortunately)

72dpi is usually a default resolution for digital applications because 72 is the resolution for most computers and television screens. 300dpi is the resolution that which most print from on paper, books, and T-shirts (exception on billboards and banners). also 350dpi is the usual resolution for photographs; taken and printed, slightly hire for detail.

I'm not the greatest teacher, and I don't have enough resources and knowledge to thoroughly speak about this. But I will advise that artists should take a look into researching about printing and resolutions/sizes, both for on hand knowledge and for selling and distributing their work as prints. And if you yourself have some info to add/share/correct, feel free to contribute

to also note: the original first 2 photographs were originally 5456 x 3632 at 350dpi, and had to shrink down due to file size. This being the third time I wrote this

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If you like the art in the post, follow her work on tumblr here- http://silisboo.tumblr.com/

And if you like the shirt, then you can buy it here- http://society6.com/product/ac-gang_t-shirt#11=49&4=87