Change. People are resistant to change. But change can be so beneficial if you are open-minded enough to embrace what is good, while providing solutions to what is not. (Notice the lack of whining option?)

Take the stylus for example. Please … take it! I don’t need it for my iPhone or iPad. I just happen to have ten, eco-friendly, organic styli conveniently placed at my fingertips. Yes, it requires a conceptual jump. Just like the jump from analog to digital, only this time I am jumping to my fingers. Oddly enough I have been using my fingers for years for all sorts of stylus-type jobs. They are willing soldiers just waiting to do whatever job I point them at. They are sensitive, flexible, and exhibit almost no fear in the face of the unknown. The real demon here is not the lack of styli, it is the software. Software is UI driven. In a world of 27-inch computer monitors, or multiple monitors, software engineers have become lazy, or in some cases downright belligerent, in filling our screen real estate with endless panels and docks. When this problem is forced into a small space such as the iPhone, the UI becomes paramount.

If anything, Sketchbook Pro is a pioneer at clearing away the UI so that an illustrator can concentrate on creative expression. Their gesture-based lagoon on desktop machines does a reasonably good job at subjugating the UI to the priority of the work at hand.

It is not surprising then that they where able to successfully tackle the limited confines of the iPhone. It comes at a price, however; You have to change your way of thinking.

The jump is not hard. You just need to drop the idea of a single stylus point and start thinking in terms of gestures.

After a few tentative strokes your mind begins to make the connections. Soon your other fingers jump into the fray and you realize that pinching, pulling, moving, and gesturing through a drawing is pretty intuitive.

The iPhone and iPad and related software have not taken away our stylus, they have given us nine more. I suspect that improvements will be made in both hardware and software as time moves forward. But in a gesture driven device, the last thing I want is a single stylus holding me back. As a matter of fact, When I go back to the tablet on my desktop I start to crave the simplicity that iPhone gestures have provided. The tablet begins to feel much like the pencil did not so long ago; like a tool of a bygone era.

After years of stringing my tablet to my computer; Often at the expense of comfort or natural positioning, Wacom has introduced a wireless solution. The only question left to be unanswered is why they did not send me one to review?

Now I have two pads on my wish list. An iPad and now a wireless tablet. Hmmm … I wonder if I cold get the two of them talking via my Sketchbook Pro iPhone app? Now that would be VERY cool!

After an exhaustive test of Blogo (by Brainjuice software.) I have decided I LOVE it and purchased it today. (The timed trial ended.) I must say that the interface is as simple as it gets, and the desktop power is incredible. I am a pretty finicky guy when it comes to my blogs. I like to have the graphics, and thumbnails, and the content, and tags, and categories all working for me. Finding a desktop client to post my content from my desktop is an easy enough task. There are a lot of programs out there that accomplish this job. But finding a client that will allow me to post from my desktop, where I will have 100% confidence that what I posted will look like it is supposed to, and have all the necessary meta info at the same time, so that I do NOT need to redundantly re-visit my site to fix the things the desktop client got wrong; That is a truly gifted product.

An added bonus was the Twitter feature that is built into Blogo. Stay with me now, ’cause the geekery is going to get a bit thick. But I have a pretty active Facebook page. I use it for work, rambling and keeping up with colleagues as well as friends and family. I also have a twitter account that is mostly geared towards my Web Comic: Artist Gullible. I have recently discovered a Facebook app that reads selective Twitter posts and places them on my Facebook page, often killing two birds with one stone. This is cool, but to level up, I can now create a blog entry in Blogo, twitter about it from Blogo and Facebook will then pick up the twit and the link back to my original blog post. ALL WITHOUT LEAVING MY DESKTOP!

My geekery is now complete and I am actually being more productive doing it.

A long time ago I received a demo copy of Comic Life from Plasq software. It was one of those rare chunks of engineering where you could tell they had a lot of fun developing it, and it actually did something very unique, using a unique tool set, in a very simple but special way. As a long time creator of comics, I fell in love with it immediately. I could now create in Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro and drop it into Comic life to finish up the bothersome chore of paneling and lettering.

Recently, I discovered a new version of Comic Life called Comic Life Magiq. With the success of Comic Life under their belts, the developing team; drunk with code driven excess, jumped off the cliff of infallibility into user-interface hell.

The upgrade (a cross-grade — because they still offer the original version of Comic Life) is not without some great improvements. More balloon and frame control (curving tails) and support for Photoshop layers makes it interesting and worthwhile. But the user interface is confusing, self indulgent, and often leaves you with that ever so wonderful “WTF?” look on your face.

The bottom line; There are parts of me that really like what they have done with the software and there are parts of the software that I really HATE. Comic life is built around the idea that you can use iPhoto as an image source for a comic-book-style layout using your own creative dialog and questionable wit. CLM takes this one step further and gives you special effects and retouching controls for your photos. These however are built into an artist’s pallet screen dialog that sacrifices clarity for gee-whiz smoke and mirrors. Instead of clearly labeled controls, I have icons that again leave me guessing at what I am doing and where I am.

Since I draw my own content, and I own Photoshop, I find the new interface to be underwhelming.

For fun I used a half-finished editorial cartoon from last year as the basis of my test. I have been thinking of reviving this part of my creative expression for a while. Maybe even starting a depository for it using ComicPress under a subdomain.

I will be using CLM for the next week or so to create some comics. Maybe my viewpoint will change. Maybe the interface will grown on me. Maybe I will see the everlasting light of truth buried under a pink button. It could happen.

We will see.

My grandfather had the Sears catalog. During the depression, he would leaf through the pages and dream of things he could never afford. It provided a generation with the catalyst for hope; unbound avarice. Gone is the Sears catalog and their pages of advertising delights, but in our current economic times I gotta admit that I too, turn to a catalog for my hope of better times and looser budgets.

My catalog of choice is ThinkGeek. It is filled with the things that make me go “I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!” Where else can you buy the world most convenient surge protector (the squid), a titanium spork, astronaut ice-cream, and caffeinated soap?
This past week was April fools and like every year, they offered a never before seen product. A Tauntaun sleeping bag. It is the coolest thing ever. Although meant as a joke, it generated enough response that they are actually thinking about creating it for real. Is this America or What? My 5 year old saw it and went crazy. He can’t wait to sleep in the belly of the beast.

This is just another reminder that I am geeky without reproach.

I try and teach my students to think outside of the box. In this way We are prepared to accept the unimagined or unexpected. This YouTube clip however, brings the idea of graphic design print mediums to a whole new level. Printing on and through water, using the material itself as “fluid” sheet of “paper”  that composes itself and then decomposes itself in a never ending circle of recycled media.

Just watch it … way to hard to explain.

YouTube

Today was the last day of class, and like most of my “last days” it was a deadline day. The students hand in their work (or use the last class time to finish up and mat projects) and then go home. Not much for me to do but oversee the class, review sketchbooks, and draw in my own sketchbook a bit. The picture here is the result of my doodles. Oddly enough, the reference shot is a picture from my “Owned” file. This girl has an unusual beauty that inspired me to jump off the deep end and do some steampunk daydreaming. Like most of my jump off points it is not meant to be a portrait, but still … something about her smirky smile that just wants to be empowered as a take-care-of-business heroine.

A note to self: Because I sort of just jumped in without thinking about it, I drew this as a low res file. By the time I realized what I was doing, I was too far in. so this is a web only shot sorry to say. I need to pay more attention to file sizes in my digital drawings.

I am the kind of guy that signs up for things and then looses interest, and then signs up for things again three months later. Thus the experience with my Facebook Account. I come and go with little or no interest and then I will be all hot and bothered with it again and then I will get distracted. It is a pattern that I am entirely comfortable with, and up to now has served me well.

Last week a friend introduced me to “OWNED” a Facebook app that generates points (or what they call “money”) for exchanging pictures. When you buy a picture you OWN that person. One might think this to be a politically incorrect nightmare. However, the amount of traffic and buying and selling and gifting that goes on is pretty high. I listed one of my pictures; most people use photos of themselves; I choose to use doodles. It was bought immediately and has been trading back and forth for days. Complete strangers buying and selling “me” with abandon. I of course join in and buy a few pictures of my own — OWNING their owners, until I am outbid and the picture moves on to the next owner.

It sounds ridiculous. It’s not really a game and yet there is some sort of casual gaming element to it. For the most part I do not know a soul of anybody I have bought (besides this first friend.) I find myself looking at pictures, looking at purchasing history, and making bids based on the likelyhood for the picture to be bought again, thus making me a profit and increasing my money score. At the same time, my own pictures are being bought and sold and their value is increasing. I am sure I will be bored with this in a week or two. But until that time — I doodled this and posted it. Let’s hear it for this weeks web distraction!

This is going to sound silly, but it wouldn’t be the first time. I needed to create a digital mosaic from a piece of Illustrator art. Not one of those high tech picture mosaic, where a person’s portrait is rendered with a thousand little pictures. I am talking about the old school little chips of tile, cut and clipped and assembled piece by piece to create an image or design. Of course I have neither the time nor inclination to do one by hand and the nature of the job I am working dictated a digital solution.

PhotoShop has a mosaic filter which is more of a name than a tool. It will apply a mosaic-like texture over a photograph and I am sure (like most of the filters) it is a great place to start to develop random fields of texture from which to build or apply masks. But as a stand alone solution it sucks. Not very mosaic like. Alien Skin Software makes a plug-in for PhotoShop that has a mosaic effect, but it falls short as well. While definitely more mosaic like, it nver the less looks “canned” and delivers a buggy, gap filled, inconsistent mosaic patten.

AutoFX also has a plug-in and a stand alone product which really doesn’t do much more than PhotoShop’s basic mosaic filter (plus or minus a few bells and whistles.)

After studying a few mosaics I stumbled across a solution that is perfect. I am not sure why I didn’t go here before but I never really thought of it. It is a tool I use a lot — but over the course of years have never uncovered this gem hidden in a menu that I obviously glaze over in search of other things.

Corel Painter has a Mosaic tool, that is not strictly a filter but uses your pen to fill in or “paint” tiles. This can be done freehand, (like the real deal only faster and digital), or you can use a cloned color source and paint over top. What really makes this outstanding is the natural way you control the pattern of tiles. Because it works like a pen, you can control the direction, the overlap, the natural gapping, the color, everything! You can override a portion or a single tile. You control the grout color and width and it works as fast as you can draw a line.

After drawing my test mosaic, I dumpped it into photshop, attached a layer effect to give the tiles some dimention, and exported it out to my program 3D texture program. Very cool.