devvyn

I neglected to mention in other exciting news, I picked up my Cintiq and set it up, which was so exciting I didn't bother to post about it, lol. This thing is a display and a drawing tablet in one comfortable device. It uses a pen stylus with pressure & tilt sensitivity, an eraser and programmable rocker switches. The tablet itself features a 1280x800 LCD display with a great viewing angle and colour accuracy. It also has two sets of buttons and touch strips which are also programmable. It's so immensely more intuitive to control the cursor on the viewing surface I can honestly say it is fully worth the money. I wish I could demonstrate this for more people because it is really thrilling to sit in front of one and try it out.

The picture below is of the Cintiq being used in PhotoShop to colour in a line drawing someone posted to dA. If you want to see what I was working on, check the original here and the finished piece here.

My drawing tablet is sitting at a Purolator station in the middle of nowhere by the highway between two neighbouring towns, and about 10 km from here. I'm not looking forward to figuring out how to get this thing considering I'm traveling by bike these days and working until 16:30 each day this week. The location it's being held at is open until 19:00 so I suppose I could bike there, but it's a gamble because I really don't know if this package will fit in a backpack. Maybe I'll try after work.

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Okay, well, having said that, I have to admit I'm like a kid every time I go shopping, and when you have a credit card and an Internet connection any day can feel like Christmas Eve.

Well, I'd like to admit that I'm the type of person who tries to be creative and do music and draw and so forth but gets discouraged and makes excuses for not keeping up with it. The news now is I've done my best to eliminate those reasons for excuses and I'll soon know if I was feeding myself total BS or if I was right (to a certain degree of lameness) in thinking what I believed would be the answer. So, to elaborate, I blamed the tools I had. I stopped making music for ages now, and I blamed the fact that I didn't have a music keyboard like I used to be able to improvise and experiment on before composing a song. I also blamed my frustration about drawing on the fact that I hate drawing on paper because it's harder to correct my mistakes and complicated to add finishing touches to, not to mention that I'd then have to scan the finished work and I don't have a scanner.

So when I was in Saskatoon a couple weeks ago I bought M-Audio's KeyStudio, and yesterday I ordered one of the most extravagant digital artist tools on the market: Wacom's Cintiq 12WX. Long have I been frustrated about the trouble I have coordinating tablet movements into on-screen actions. The Cintiq has a WXGA display built into the digitizer board, so I can draw on the screen! It's a bit on the pricey end but I've been thinking about this thing day after day for over a month. I think it will accomplish one of two things: either it will make my dreams come true and give me the freedom to go full-blown creative in a digital world with all the magic of a software canvas but with the intuitive interface of pen and paper, or it will make me feel like a foolish ass for spending a thousand dollars to alleviate my sense of inadequacy.

M-Audio KeyStudio




Wacom Cintiq 12WX

If I Were a Penguin by ~Devvyn on deviantART

This month has been good for my DA account which up until recently has had little attention.  With the posting of some photos I wasn't doing anything else with, I've attracted a new total of 26 favourites.  I also felt inspired by one of the photos I saw on someone else's profile and graffiti'd it onto my FaceBook wall.  I posted my doodle of it on DA and the original photographer faved that as well!

FaceBook's Graffiti application is difficult to draw with, because it only has one brush type and an undo button.  You get brush size, colour, and opacity, and that's it.  Even the colour chooser is limited--if you want a colour not in the palette you have to type its hex value.  The cool thing is you can watch a replay to see how the artist built up the image from strokes of colour.

"You bring me tranquility."

Zombie-cat It's just fatigue and hunger in combination. You'd be the same way too. ..right?

I needed a little distraction from packing tonight, so here's an animation of a zombie tabby.  Amber-cat sometimes types "bwaaaains" when she's tired, so here's what I picture when I hear that.

Hey everyone,

I made the mistake of volunteering for overtime this week, and as a result, I've been neglecting everything else.  Not only have I not been on MSN or checked my email, I also haven't bought groceries or gotten enough sleep.  Rest assured, as soon as the weekend comes, I'll upload photos from my crazy vacation and stuff like that.  In the meantime, here's a drawing I made to reflect what I've been wanting to do all day:

I used paths a bit on the letters, but I still have no idea how to edit the shapes properly.  I managed to figure out how to stroke the paths, too, in spite of the incomplete instructions in PhotoShop help.  I used a texture this time, even though I usually stick to hand strokes on principle, because I didn't want to spend more time on the background than the subject, but I still needed a realistic setting.  I didn't consciously choose a colour scheme that relates to the subject matter, but it turned out that way and that adds an extra element of delight for me.

Red-Yellow-Green

	Tuxedo Cats I figured Elena could use an animated LJ icon. I was discovering paths in photoshop and found an easy way to animate the word bubbles.
	Tuxedo Cats (for LiveJournal icon)

For coniferous_you.   I'm not sure if it's what you were expecting but hopefully you didn't know what to expect.
...I'm not sure why there's so much space at the top.  LiveJournal has been acting weird lately.
 

	pencil The unedited original scan of Chris's pencil rendering of this character. It later became the detailed outline for the coloured version I produced.
	colour The completed picture, fully coloured, after about 8 hours from start to finish.

Chris asked if I'd colour his next drawing (after "Mashu") and of course I said yes.  I scanned his pencil drawing and cut out the outline one day, did the basic colouring another day, talked to him a bit and made some minor changes along the way, then finished the shade and light today, as well as the background.  This was really a lot of work but I enjoyed it and feel very satisfied with the results.  My technique for shading and lighting has really improved, I feel.  I need more practice with textures, I think.  Perhaps I should get into some art communities and get a feel for what works for other artists.  I want to thank Chris for letting me use his drawings as a testing ground for my learning process.

Komodo's Feast A request by Cody. I opted to have the komodo actually feeding. Really unhappy with the rocks and sand, but very pleased with the texture and shading on the shirt and jeans. I think the lighting on the lizard is pretty good at giving a sense of shape to the body.

Devvyn said:
I think I'll draw something.
Jason said:
LOL
Jason said:
ok

*sends drawing 18 minutes later*


Jason said:
fucking awesome
Jason said:
now give the bunny getting whipped a bondage outfit and the one with the whip a suit and tie and we're in business
Devvyn said:
I was thinking about it. lol

Puppy Eyes Just felt like doing a quick animation before bed. View the full size image to see the effect.

Zappy Demon The animated version of Zappy the demon, which was originally a request by my room-mate, Cody.  He asked for a badass demon, and I warned him it would turn out cuter than he expected.  Sure enough, he's got tiny little glasses and a sparkly look in his eyes.

I  put this colouring project off for a long time, but I'm glad I spent today finishing it.  Chris inked the original black and white by hand, and I scanned it and coloured it in PhotoShop.  I think it has a lot of vibrance and life in it.  The colour adds a real sense of depth, and I got to provide a lot of creative input by choosing colours and doing my own background.  I definitely will look forward to doing a colour job for someone again as soon as possible.  Chris doesn't like working with colour, so I'm sure the opportunity will come up again soon.

"Mashu" by Chris Stadnyk Original by Chris Stadnyk, friend and co-worker of mine. I commissioned the black and white drawing and did the colour job as a thanks and for some practice. Colour time approx. 4 hours.

Mischievious Raccoon A request by Nick as an LJ avatar.

Requested by nasukkin as a LiveJournal picture.  I've been wanting to draw a raccoon anyway.  I really enjoyed this, and surprised myself with how well this turned out.  I can see a few details I could have done better, but I'm going to save my efforts for future drawings.

By the way, thank you very much to everyone who posts comments on my drawings.  It makes me feel quite encouraged.  Don't be afraid to comment on my drawings' weakness as well as strengths.  I take constructive criticism pretty well, and I appreciate the outside perspective on my work.  Also, if anyone has any more requests, let me know and I'll see if I can come up with something.

Sick Frog I made this as a "get well soon" picture for Warren. I think the lilly pad looks very realistic. I'm pleased with how this turned out. It's got an odd cartoony/realistic mixture of styles, which I'm not too sure about yet.

Time to complete: 2.5 hours

Just finished up the bird picture tonight, and realised I haven't posted Cathy's request yet, either.  So here they are so I can go to bed.

Corvid! A spontaneous gift-art for ruffledbirdy. All that talk about birds turned out to be inspiring. If you want this as another LJ pic, I'd be flattered if this was deemed suitable.  It's in JPEG, so LJ should be able to automatically resize it. I didn't use any kind of reference for this one because I wanted to challenge myself.  I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.  Adding depth to an all-black bird without making it too greyish is a challenge, I found.

Salon Panda By request from a friend, Cathy/cassie_3419, it's a "hairdresser panda", complete with pink bow and dolphin pendant.  Ironically, I think the part that turned out the best was the floor tiles!

A recent post in ruffledbirdy's LJ inspired a bit of sympathetic anger, and since I was in a creative mood, I thought I'd draw myself an angry-looking LJ picture for when I want to post an angry rant of my own. Since it's Easter, it ended up being a rabbit. An angry rabbit. Note the angry-looking smouldering and pointy star over his head.

Arbitrary journal posting!! Feigned enthusiasm! Exclamation marks! Superfluous phrases!

I stayed up until 2:30 helping to clean the apartment. The front closet hadn't been cleaned since our original group moved in two and a half years ago, so Adam and I decided to spontaneously clean it. After vacuuming all the common areas plus my own room, we had enough dust to sculpt an actual life-sized bunny. Mind you, we chose not to.

So tired, so tired. Woke up at 7:30 to begin struggling to wake up in time to get ready for my 9:00 shift. Had a headache all day from the strain of being so poorly rested. I'm so tired. I'm glad today went really well. The events committee has been having fundraisers lately, so today our "bunny-grams" arrived (coworkers can send candy and a little plush bunny to each other). Someone on the events committee has seen me bringing stuffed animals to work every day, and sent me one. It's very cute!

Also, my tiredness has inspired me to make a new animated icon. Unfortunately, I'm so tired now I feel nauseous.

Good night.