Category: Not Cartoons

Tablature

andertoons10 Comments

600X500 6X11

I ordered myself a nice new Intuos3 today.

My Intuos2 has served me well for a long looooong time, and I’d had great hopes for my NuLooq controller, but, sadly, twas not to be.

I’m a big guy with big hands and the NuLooq just wouldn’t stay put. Every time I twisted to zoom, or moved to pan, the damn thing slid around on my desk. So a one-hand time saver quickly became a two-handed time burglar.

I’ve got a fair amount of coloring to do for some greeting cards, and, frankly, coloring’s not my favorite thing in the world (there’s something about revisiting an older cartoon that just leaves me flat somehow) and, well, I just snapped. And after watching the movies over at DaniDraws (albeit quite sped up) I bit the budgetary bullet.

Kyle Miller commented at our last CCC meeting that he was using the Intuos3 in Illustrator to do his Working Daze and Game Creature stuff, so the seed was planted I guess.

Looks like the Intuos3 has all sorts of fun buttons and sliders to help me optimize my Photoshop time. I’m really looking forward to trying it out!

It does make me wonder, though, if I’ll ever make the jump to all digital. I haven’t really played with any custom brushes in Photoshop (anyone know any good ones?), and I’m kinda in love with my brush pens and markers, but I think someday I’m gonna have to do it. If for no other reason than my pens’ manufacturer stops making them or something.

I’m gonna be a pen and paper guy for a good while, but I think the new tablet is inching me ever closer to the all digital line in the sand.

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Elegant Technology

andertoons4 Comments

Have you seen this video?

Sure, millions have. But have you seen the new video via Fast Company? (I tried to embed it, but it didn’t want to take via Ecto.)

You look at stuff like iPods, the new iPhone, stuff like this, and all of a sudden, technology is, well, elegant.

After picking up a NuLOOQ to compliment my Wacom tablet, I was feeling pretty cool twisting and tapping with my left hand while drawing with my right. (I wonder how and when this sort of intuitive interface will make it’s way to something like the Cintiq.)

But after seeing the FC Han video, I have to wonder how long it’s going to be before I make the jump to cartooning entirely digitally.

So many guys already do it, I sort of feel behind already. And I have all the tools, but there’s something about the tactile experience of my brush pen on paper that’s so immediate…

To be fair, when I work in Photoshop I usually have a ton of other programs open and running, so my poor processor is working as hard as it can. Still, I do like ink.

I dunno how, when, if I’m going to make the leap, but seeing elegant technology like this coming so fast, I think it’ll be sooner rather than later.

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