Master Chief speed painting is incredible

68 Comments by Justin McElroy Nov 30th 2007 9:50PM
Filed under: Culture, Microsoft Xbox 360, First Person Shooters

We'll admit that sometimes we start to think a little too highly of ourselves. We'll just be sitting in the back of the limo popping Cristal with Shiggy and Mario or getting massages with CliffyB, and we'll all of a sudden realize that we're getting above our raising, as they say. Luckily, YouTuber macpulenta's striking drawing of Master Chief is there to remind us that Ben Folds had it right - there's always someone cooler than you.

His art is fantastic, that's a given. But the special thing about macpulenta should become pretty quickly. Namely: He's a drawing android. Or he's using magic. If there's any other excuse for the speed with which he's able to render our favorite Spartan, we'd love to hear it.

[Thanks, Moo]

Tags: halo, halo3, master-chief, masterchief, speed-painting

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Obie: Nov 30th 2007; 9:56PM

As a Halo fan myself I hate to say this, but can we get a break from Master Chief, for like a week? Please?

Platinum_Skeet: Nov 30th 2007; 10:00PM

That's like asking if we can get a break on Mario for a week...

Blah: Nov 30th 2007; 10:08PM

its not that fast, probably took him around 4-5 hours to do all that. still for tablet painting its pretty fast.

Mighty Healthy: Nov 30th 2007; 10:17PM

lmao @ Chief looking like he has a Mega Blaster on his left arm

rv: Nov 30th 2007; 10:19PM

Proportions are off on the body. That said, hella awesome!

had to be said: Nov 30th 2007; 10:21PM

can someone get that air brushed on a t-shirt for me?

Rob Accomando: Nov 30th 2007; 10:38PM

nice music

colin: Nov 30th 2007; 11:10PM

i've heard that somewhere before. what is that music?

wickedpheonix: Dec 1st 2007; 5:48AM

"Halo" from the original halo soundtrack. Says so right at the end of the video...

colin: Dec 1st 2007; 6:09AM

halo?

rdj75: Dec 1st 2007; 9:09AM

@ Colin

Please just say that you were joking, please?

Phillip: Dec 1st 2007; 10:28AM

@rdj775: He is.

Matt: Nov 30th 2007; 10:44PM

That's some seriously wonky anatomy on the right shoulder.

The painting is nice, but (s?)he really should have given the undersketch another pass.

acanaday: Nov 30th 2007; 10:56PM

If you watch the end, he fixed the shoulder in the final pass.

Matt: Nov 30th 2007; 11:03PM

No, he really didn't. Darkened the hell out of the image so it's hard to see, but the shoulder is still really messed up.

horngreen: Nov 30th 2007; 10:55PM

Why don't you give MY UNDERSKETCH another pass pal!

Sky Shark X2: Nov 30th 2007; 11:01PM

seems more like a sped up painting video then a speed painting. Look how quickly the windows flash up on the screen, there is no way to do it that quick, but awesome none the less.

Fernando Rocker: Nov 30th 2007; 11:03PM

Are you actually saying that words? What a noob.

Matt: Nov 30th 2007; 11:05PM

lol wut?

Blah: Nov 30th 2007; 11:11PM

of course its sped up, no one wants to see a 7 hour vid of a dude painting. Since most of these things can take a week or more and he does it in a day thats why its called speed painting

Sky Shark X2: Dec 1st 2007; 1:29AM

Oh thanks for clearing that up for me Blah, and Fernando I'm sorry I could understand what you meant. See I actually made a coherent sentence that had a subject and stuff you however made a pseudo sentence that made almost no sense at all. Yet you call me a n00b for no reason? I didn't know the full term of speed painting and now I do.

Sky Shark X2: Dec 1st 2007; 1:30AM

"couldn't* understand"

colin: Nov 30th 2007; 11:11PM

non native speaks give funny insultments

Derick B: Dec 1st 2007; 5:25AM

"See I actually made a coherent sentence that had a subject and stuff you however made a pseudo sentence that made almost no sense at all."

As you've decided to point out his grammatical blunders, I have to direct your attention to this sentence.

At least two commas and one hypen are missing.

Also, /lol at "and stuff."

colin: Dec 1st 2007; 6:06AM

it's ok, he didn't understand the full term of speed painting. now he understands the term of speed painting. you know, not everyone knows about the term of speed painting; we have to be accepting of those who don't understand speed painting's term in it's [speed painting's] entirety.

Derick B: Dec 2nd 2007; 5:14PM

speed painting

NintendoFanbot: Nov 30th 2007; 11:17PM

I SWEAR I could do that if I had a Wacom tablet or a tablet PC. I can't even pay for real-world art supplies.

Can Joystiq give me money? =(

Rob Accomando: Nov 30th 2007; 11:26PM

I bought a Tablet and found it tough at first to draw without looking at my hand and having to look at the screen.

I want to try a touch screen or a tablet PC next.

Chrysee: Dec 1st 2007; 1:03AM

I've had a Wacom Graphire for several years now, they usually run ~$100? One of the best purchases I've ever made. It can be hard to get used to it at first, but now I can't imagine using real media (no undo button on paper :P)

Anni: Nov 30th 2007; 11:21PM

I don't care much about this video (impressive, thought), I'm just all about the Ben Folds reference in this article. Well played, McElroy.

whymog: Dec 1st 2007; 4:42AM

Second. Favorite musician ever.

colin: Dec 1st 2007; 5:57AM

didn't you hear? citing artistic differences, the band broke up in may.

Yubastard: Nov 30th 2007; 11:28PM

Best... Three minutes... Ever.

Dio: Nov 30th 2007; 11:34PM

Impressive, but I like the videos that use MSpaint or HTML more =/

Casey Ockunzzi: Nov 30th 2007; 11:42PM

Congratulations, you've found the painting android! You must be the pride of your hometown. Please return to the Equipment Recovery Annex for your cake.

Sam: Nov 30th 2007; 11:50PM

What program is this? it looks nice, is it photoshop or not?

PhoenixSS: Nov 30th 2007; 11:59PM

Yes, it is Photoshop.

bill51: Nov 30th 2007; 11:54PM

I agree with the above comments; goofy anatomy on that right shoulder/arm.

Unless a brute just pulled Chief's arm out of its socket. Then it would make sense!

Farseer (GDI): Nov 30th 2007; 11:56PM

I'm with Anni. It's good to find another fan or two out there.

BTW, the link was a nice surprise - great call. :)

PhoenixSS: Dec 1st 2007; 12:01AM

Master who? Who is this? I'm sure I recall this alien being from somewhere... hmm... Well whatever.

Dio: Dec 1st 2007; 1:06AM

MASTER CHEF

His true identity is Gordon Ramsay.

Ranko: Dec 1st 2007; 12:02AM

All that continue to comment on the wonky arm: The final product at the end, the artist realized their mistake and moved it to the logical area.

@Sam: Yes, that is Photoshop.

I love this guys work, I've seen a few of his stuff previous to this. It's great stuff.

2ez: Dec 1st 2007; 12:21AM

Except this isn't a speed painting.

A speed painting is not a fast foward video of an actual 4+ hour work. Speed paintings are quick half hour to an hour exercises artists use for practice, or warm up.

bm: Dec 1st 2007; 3:46AM

Indeed.

"Speedpainting"? Hilarious. Hold on, let me make a time-lapse of people building a house over a few months and show it in five minutes. Speed-house-building, woo!

Jonathan Tran: Dec 1st 2007; 12:38AM

"how did he paint so fast?"

He... fast forwarded it?

ZeroCorpse: Dec 1st 2007; 12:55AM

Actually, it's not "fast forward" but something else entirely.

It's possible to save all your actions in certain art programs as one big macro. Basically, you're recording all the actions and then saving them as a filter of sorts. Then, all you need to do is apply the "filter" to a canvas and BOOM! It starts off duplicating everything you did previously, but at computer speed and without needing to mess around with dragging sliders and clicking buttons, as all that is automated by the application.

So he probably spent several hours doing this, saving all his strokes and changes and tweaks as a macro, and then he just recorded the macro doing the "speed painting" by itself.

That said, it's very well done, anyway.

I just get sick of seeing video game characters as the subject of art. Do something unique and original, please. Drawing other people's pop culture characters is only a few steps away from being the kid in art class who only ever draws the "Metallica" logo when asked to do a project.

You all know that kid.

Dio: Dec 1st 2007; 1:09AM

Dude, this one girl on DA combined Starscream, The Scream, and Starry Nights. So I guess it's more like nerdcore than videogames.

bm: Dec 1st 2007; 3:53AM

None of the scripted scripted drawing animations in apps I've seen and used (quite a few) save the actions of turning brush windows on and off, or zooming, or even showing the mouse cursor (usually too fast to see, but check it adjusting a brush size near the beginning). So somehow I doubt that this is it.

Just a sped up FRAPS recording or something similar seems much more likely.

wickedpheonix: Dec 1st 2007; 6:51AM

do you have any idea how much room a 5 hour fraps video takes up?!

bm: Dec 1st 2007; 4:41PM

Look, I've used at least 5 different applications which had drawing animation functionality. None of them save things like zooming, turning windows on and off, or the mouse cursor.

If it's not a 5 hour recording (though, hey, with harddrive sizes these days, why not?) then maybe it's a timelapse.

Well, who cares anyway, it's simply a bad drawing.

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