Archive for July, 2009

7-Star Challenge Week 7

Technically speaking, I’ve produced more than 8 pieces of work this week, but I refuse to show you the other 6, because they are awful. It’s the new tablet. It’s driving me crazy.

I finally figured it out after an A/B comparison with the old one.

Artz II

Surface: smooth
A light touch yields: very little paint

Intuos4
Surface: Smooth, but has posterboard-like resistance to pen strokes
A light touch yields: ZOMGPAINT

I’ve been changing the settings to the sensitivity, and it’s getting closer to a usable response, but it’s still either too heavy-handed, or too ginger. That I think I can tweak into submission eventually. I don’t know what to do about the surface. 2000 grit sandpaper doesn’t seem like a graceful solution. Lucky me, too: the year I buy a replacement for my old tablet, they release a brand new surface.

I seem to be the only person on the planet who hates it, which tells me I may grow into it.

Or that the rest of the world is just stupid, which is my current inclination.

omgpainter

Holy crap.

I have been slaving away at Photoshop 7, making custom brushes, tweaking my tablet settings and basically pulling my hair out trying to make it a more natural drawing experience, with the usual result of producing art I am happy with only after 6-10 hours of tweaks and repaints. The piece above? The one that captures the quality I’ve been trying to get in my brushstrokes for, oh, say, FOREVER? That’s Painter. 15 minutes of Painter.

“But, Mike,” you may say, “what is it?”

Who cares what it is? Look at the thing, it’s gorgeous! I’ll draw swanmarshdragonfeatherfiresnakes* all day if they keep turning out that glorious!

Now for the groans. I own Painter. It has been sitting on the hard drive of each of my last three computers for years. I used it for a class in college then I switched to Photoshop. Never looked back.

Really should have looked back. It seems the old copy I have is still pretty awesome. Can’t wait to see what kind of craziness you can pull off with the brushes in version X or XI if this is what you can do with Painter 5. I have a coupon, after all.

Anyway, this isn’t my 7-Star entry for the week, unless I get really pressed for time, in which case, um, it is.

_{*Swanmarshdragonfeatherfiresnake is © and ™ Mike Moss 2009. Cough.}

New tablet

My lovely wife* let me borrow against our savings and get a new Intuos 4 tablet to replace my ancient Artz II (it’s mostly wood and railroad spikes) a month ahead of schedule. Sigh…she is lovely (see above).

However, as it wouldn’t be a moment of my life if it wasn’t somehow marred by fate, it turns out some jerk bought this tablet ahead of me, left everything sealed but registered the serial number, and downloaded the “bundled” software (you can only get it by registering) before returning it to Fry’s, where I purchased it. So now I can’t complete registration and I can’t get the software I just paid for. Sure, the software sucks (PS Elements FTW), but it’s a principle thing. Also, I’m eligible for a nice discount on Corel Painter if I can register, and I’m still running version 5, which is so old it’s practically a beta (it’s mostly wood and railroad spikes).

But even more importantly, we now have to admit the existence of someone who would spend $400 on a fraud tablet purchase just to steal Photoshop Elements. Elements, people! That’s like buying a car for the floor mats.

Anyway, rambles aside, I’ve contacted Wacom and hopefully we can smooth things out. In the meanwhile…drawing frenzy is go.

In other news, the remainder of this month will be Spaghetti Fest at the Moss house. It’s unrelated, I assure you.

*Also my only wife, for the scorekeepers among you.

7-Star Challenge Week 6

When I need you
I need you quickly.

Wanted to get a sense of urgency in the pic. It could use more monsters and explosions. And boobs. Maybe next week.

I think it’s about time I gave up and just did a full character design for the guy. At this rate, I’m going to have to rename my contest 36 Weeks of This Dude.

More practice

Never hurts to practice painting eyes. Except tonight, when it hurt terribly.