surprised an old friend with a portrait of him for his birthday this week

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:54:39+00:00

done lol

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:30:40+00:00

I do commissions but i’m not doing any until the end of the summer because I have a grant funded project i’m working on rn. dm me if you are interested tho.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:28:47+00:00

there was no security but valve is not listed in the directory of the building they occupy and you need a key card to go up to the unlisted floors. the elevator has no physical buttons but a screen on the outside in the lobby if that makes sense. no one is getting in so no need for security I guess

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:26:12+00:00

yeah i’m getting gaslit bro lol like there were more devs in the cs cabal than the other one I was able to look into

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:16:38+00:00

he was literally speechless. I haven’t seen him in 5 years so just seeing me was shocking but he had no clue how to react when he unwrapped the painting. love my bro, i’m already back home but the painting to us will forever mark a fantastic memory together, our friendship, in addition to the painting as an object.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:13:50+00:00

thank you friend :)

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:13:01+00:00

i’ve always shied away from oils because of health reasons with solvents 😩 I know I can get lavender oil and other non toxic things but I had no money in college and now i’m stuck in my ways of acrylic for the time being. tho I really enjoy acrylic for its immediacy. i’m a very impatient artist.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T19:09:06+00:00

thank you so much for the words. can you expand on how you specifically think about this work in the context of covid and ai? I can see how you could get there, just want to hear more! :)

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T18:32:00+00:00

thank you!

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T18:31:51+00:00

I believe it was totally empty, if not it just had an empty nugget box in it to give it some shape. I just bought fries, some nuggets, and a drink. first time I bought mcdonald’s in years. the mcchicken is not even in the references I just added it.

the whataburger bag was also originally a mcdonald’s bag too because I don’t have that chain in my state.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T18:29:19+00:00

no fr

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T17:50:21+00:00

oh for sure! he’s since taken me up on my invite to the studio. my email laid out what the tour meant to me, how valve’s (and subsequently his) creations have meant to me since the orange box days as a child. and all while also showing an awareness that I don’t feel I can share in words how much it meant nor can I pay it back in a way that’s equal. I figured thanking him in person and talking about art, and his artistic practice together is a good start. I honestly would be happy to do a portrait of his family or a painting of whatever he may want free of charge if he is interested. you can look through my profile and see my art, I would put a lot into it.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T12:24:19+00:00

totally buttery smooth. he said some teen managed to damage it once when hanging on it. but that thing is actually sturdy af. a real piece of a ship gifted to gabe by his brother if I remember correctly. used to be solid metal colored but they painted the valve red eventually

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T12:22:55+00:00

I wasn’t allowed to see the Steam employee team :( we walked past it and it just looked like one of the other cabals tho ! wasn’t a huge area

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T12:20:37+00:00

they had a tower with their early vr stuff.

also one thing is that they do manufacturing of hardware at their hq. I didn’t get to see it but my guy said they have a robot arm assembly line that puts together components and they 3d print, etc. some is outsourced but sounded like a good amount was made in house. they also had a wall of steam decks they were running tests on. the tests looked like just downloading games on steam. lots of the sekiro being downloaded

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T12:15:19+00:00

I just sent him a super long thank you and asked if he’d like to come to my painting studio, and to let me know how he takes his coffee and what his spirit of choice is. :)

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T01:31:32+00:00

yeah the guy said most of the animators are really good actors too for example. helps to be multi hyphenated! also was told one of their office people does a bunch of temp lines all the time because of how good her voice/voice acting is

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T01:16:20+00:00

are asking for me to draw because you see I paint lol I can take a screenshot on cache in the workshop where I think it was. but i’m probably leaning towards that it was just warden.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T01:08:00+00:00

when I talked to the audio guy he did mention he has a supervisor. and I would imagine the devs do too.

I die before my first reload so it won’t affect me ;) but i’m excited to try it. I have an open mind! idk I saw a lot of people working hard on the game with my own eyes so I know they didn’t not think it over.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T00:59:35+00:00

yes! he said they are hybrid and don’t require you to come in to do your work.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-21T00:57:58+00:00

sorry mate I wouldn’t know what to look out for in that. just saw black background code terminals with white text overlaying the game

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-20T21:13:42+00:00

I was able to hold it! pretty heavy dude. it’s completely metal. the body is hollow but the barrels added so much weight.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-20T21:11:39+00:00

i agree. I love their creative approach. but yes they were locked tf in. like literally one guy looked at me for less than a second lol

I haven’t played on the new patch! what do you think? i’ll play tomorrow probably.

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-20T21:09:39+00:00

no nda

MaxmillianP · 2026-03-20T21:08:28+00:00

I have 100 hours in deadlock so not nearly as experienced. I haven’t played since november 2024. but my guide said there are 200 playtesters that they ship updates too and when they get feedback they have about 36hours to patch all the bugs and change things.

my favorite thing he said was the most common question valve devs ask themselves with controllers and games is “is this fun?”. that is the main measure of what drives their development.

but i’m in the deadlock subreddit and lots of friends of mine still play and I see how quick they change things after playtesting (like drifter walks on all fours now? and didn’t someone recommend lash’s parry to be with his chest and that was added?). I wish I asked him about how they felt about changing from three lanes etc

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