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Rene van Belzen

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  • Listening to the series about sexual depravities and general mischief of Roman emperors in the The Rest is History podcast makes me think of the current (clearly) autocratic leader of America. I wonder, will he become the first US emperor?

  • Art

    Pixel art

    A shrunken and improved version of an earlier piece I did for Pixel Dailies, prompted “paperweight.” This one I did for the Divoom community.

    A pixel art depiction of a smiling white cat wearing a red collar is displayed on a square digital screen.

  • Art

    Pixel art

    For a contest by a user in the Divoom community. It’s my cat Maahir, a Muslim name which means skilled, skilful, proficient, experienced, clever, genius, and fits him perfectly. I used two photos as my reference, and the rest is drawn as in-betweens, with motion blur.

    A pixel art depiction of an orange cat rolling from side to side is accompanied by the text my favorite animal.

  • Art

    Pixel art

    Only a week ago I reached level 7 in the Divoom community and told myself to pace myself with interacting with the app. How did that turn out? I’ve reached level 8 today. ’Nuff said.

    A framed artwork features pixel art with the text I've reached level eight! on a textured wall.

  • Art

    Pixel art

    My entry for Divoom’s 2025 Hugging Day, with the description:

    There are other ways to show love than through embrace. Not everyone is a hugging person. Love isn’t an emotion; it’s a promise to take care of one another, despite what feelings are at play right now.

    A pixelated word HUG appears at the center with a colorful pattern background, surrounded by strawberries, flowers, and bows. It then animates into anagrams of the word, HUG, GHU, and UGH.

  • 我在中国除夕夜获得了跑步锻炼的徽章！

    Two stylized oranges with red diamond shapes are set inside an orange hexagon with 2025 written on a red banner.

  • Art

    Pixel art

    Seeing how much effort it took to make this animation, I gave it away as a free template to the Divoom community for use in someone’s own projects, with a requirement to mention my username in the description. We will see if this has any legs…

    A pixel animation of an alternating blue and orange colored circle rotating on a pink background.

  • Art

    Pixel art

    Some pixel art animation for the Divoom community I came up with in a few hours.

    A pixel art image of an alternating purple cat with blue eyes and orange cat with yellow eyes is displayed on a digital frame.

  • Art

    I can see where I went wrong here. I was trying to make my sketch look like the reference. I’m supposed to draw a generic head shape first, and only then modify it, adding its personality. I need to step back and squint, so the person goes away, and structure, generic building blocks, remain.

    A partially completed digital drawing features a sketched portrait of a man, alongside a reference image in a grayscale palette.

  • Art

    I’m sure there are many out there who are not able to imagine the human head as a compound shape, e.g. a rounded plate attached to a sphere with its sides cut off, or a complicated construction. Why not simplify even more, and build a head out of that? It could be a good intermediate step.

    A drawing of a man's head with annotations explains that a head is neither a block on a cylinder nor a cylinder on a block, questioning traditional construction methods.

  • Art

    I’m trying to “get” the Loomis method of drawing heads from construction. I got as far as drawing a sphere, but still can’t see it as a three-dimensional object. It hasn’t clicked yet. I’m nothing but patient, though.

    A digital illustration features a geometric cube with a sphere inside and a sketched portrait of a person, accompanied by color swatches and the word SKETCH.

  • Art

    I had to confirm for myself that in order to grasp how to render 3-dimensional forms onto a flat plane, one has to understand how to render 3D forms as flat 2D shapes, and add shading and shadows to those shapes. Drawing from life (instead of photos) helps, but it is key to stay open-minded.

    A geometric sketch features a triangle, a circle, question marks, arrows, a multicolored checkered floor, and a color palette on the side.

  • Yesterday was a bit awkward, and I still feel a bit uneasy. My central heating needed maintenance and the repairman had a few issues. First he misidentified me as woman (I need a haircut, badly). Then he criticized me for not having children, mentioning proudly his dad fathered 35 children. Ugh!

  • Art

    Pixel art

    I probably should stick around level 7 on the Divoom community for a while, since being there causes me to neglect my portrait drawing skills. Priorities, priorities…

    A framed artwork with a stylized number 7 and the word level in a digital, pixelated design.

  • Art

    Pixel art

    I turned a selfie into a 64x64 subpixel animation for the Divoom community.

    A pixel art depiction of a person wearing a white visor and blue shirt is displayed on a digital screen.

  • The attempts of YouTube to thwart anti-tracking plugins simply means I watch less YouTube, which seems a fair deal. A video ad every 2 or 3 minutes is just not worth it to me, and neither is serving some freeloader to YouTube. In return I get more time to reflect and create.

  • Art

    Loomis states that we best construct the head “by drawing a ball resembling the cranium, which is round but flattened somewhat at the sides, and attaching the jawbone and features to it.” This proved to be very hard for me, almost impossible, because drawing by constructing is rather alien to me.

    Two overlapping spheres with intersecting lines, displayed in a digital art interface featuring various color and tool options.

  • Art

    Pixel art

    I wondered what would be a good animation for my Pixoo64 LED cloud display? I guess a cute cat on a floating cloud. Maybe this is the direction I should be going. It should also appeal to a younger audience.

    A framed pixel art of a cat with green eyes on a blue cloud and pink background.

  • Art

    Just three rapid sketches to keep at least some focus on portrait drawing. I can feel the New Year euphoria quickly fading. There are so many things that need “immediate” attention, since it’s a new year, and people like to try new things, so there’s a need to remind potential customers what’s up.

    A sketch features three portraits colored in red, yellow, and green, with a color palette and the word SKETCH below them.

  • The state of self-checkout, as I experienced it, as a customer. I see more personnel for assisting (and policing) customers than in stores with human cashiers. Long lines are replaced by busy checkout areas; the waiting time in line is replaced by busywork with checkout tech. It seems a failure.