Technorati

wuefj2vg7b

Brushes and Paint.Net

You’ve already heard me say how much I love Paint.Net, so there’s nothing new about that.  Paint.Net just IS the greatest thing to come along in the last few years, through the hard work of developers Rick Brewster and Tom Jackson.

Just one thing though — while you can do anything you could ever want to with Paint.Net, there is ONE single feature yet missing — Brushes.  Go to the Paint.Net Users Forum and you’ll see post after post, asking: “when will there be brushes?” etc.

Well just relax, everyone.  Here’s the solution: ArtRage 2.5.

I needed a really good airbrush for a recent client’s job and tried out ArtRage.  AWESOME!  Not ONLY does ArtRage have ANY type of brush or paint effect you could ever hope for, it costs only $25, and (here’s the great part) you can use it in tandem with Paint.Net.  Piece of cake.

ArtRage allows you to create multi-layered files just like Paint.Net and save them as individual files.  So you do whatever you like in Paint.Net and any time you desire a brush effect, save the layer as a .PNG image

and open that image in ArtRage.

When you have the effect you like, Save the ArtRage Layer as a .PNG image.

Pick the saved layer(s) back up with Paint.Net and finish the job.

Bottom line ?  Photoshop costs about $400.00.  Paint.Net is free.  Add ArtRage 2.5 for another $25.00 and you just saved yourself $375.00.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Google Wave – Better get ready now to catch this one

As a working artist I make it a point every day to study and learn something new. Now, I’m certainly not a “Geek” by any means, but I’ve been working at expanding my understanding of all of the ways I can use the internet in my work.

A few days ago I ran across several postings on Twitter announcing “Google Wave will be a tsunami” and “Google Wave will transform the way you do business” etc, so I checked it out.

After watching this presentation in bits and pieces over the last few days I have to say I believe this is going to be true. So you should make time to see this presentation yourself.

Now a lot of you at first are just going to think: “Oh, crap, that’s all we need, another Social Application to use up more of my time!” Okay, Me too, at first. But give it a couple of days to kind of sink in and then start to consider what you’ve seen here as you’re using your email, Facebook, Twitter and other tools you use in your work and communications.

With a little bit of imagination it will begin to shift your viewpoint about HOW (and why) you use different applications. You’ll start noticing a glimmer of the relationships between them and get the flavor of things to come. This one is going to be exciting. It is going to be big.

How big ? Not much, at first.

At first it’s just going to go around the arcane, inner circles of the Uber-Geek, where it already happens to be. (So if you know how to code and have an idea for a way to use it you can already sign up for an account and begin to create applications for it.)

When it finally comes into open release you will begin to see it mentioned in widening media circles – on Google accounts and Technology News feeds and blogs.

Then, after some time, Twitter will likely be the first to get a Wave application. Then Facebook. And Blogger, WordPress, Typepad.

As each of the various types of users begin to discover the growing ways to apply a “wave” and begin to think with an email that chats and collaborative albums that are social and documents that evolve, we’ll begin to see a radical shift.

Not overnight. But start to think with it. They have done something here that Microsoft will not – They’ve released it as “open-source” – Anyone with an idea may contribute a new application using Wave as its interface. You can use it on your desktop – not just online. Takes a while to grab you, but grab you it will.

Google was quite apt to choose “Wave” as the name for this application. Shakespeare gave us the phrase: “sea-change” — “Full fathom five…Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.

This

Classic Cartoon Style

Always loved classic animation. I didn’t watch Scooby-Doo or Speed Racer.

I loved Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny & The Road Runner. Foghorn Leghorn. Wile E. Coyote.

My absolute favorites were the gritty penned and washed black and white cels from the Warner Bros. Studios.

So imagine the delight in discovering Private Snafu. As it turns out, He’s drawn by the same animators that gave us Elmer Fudd and voiced by the marvelous Mel Blanc.

When I look at my own cartoons I’d say these guys really gave me my basic impression for the weight and mass of cartoon characters. My guys have the same bulb noses and round flap ears !

YouTube’s got a nice little pack of the Snafu shorts.

Happiness is a Day in the Studio

Well it’s another day in the studio and I’m sitting here at my digital tablet, pen in hand, and smiling like a fool.

I’m just plain happy, every day. But an entire day in the studio is just fabulous. I don’t about you, but I’m just not ever going to run out of ideas for work. So every day in the studio is another happy day.

When I get up in the morning, my studio is the first stop after the espresso machine.

My latest projects have been to pilot the use of Paint.Net and ArtRage 2.5 in tandem. Both allow painting in layers and saving those layers individually for further editing or new versions. It’s thrilling to have the use of ArtRage’s beautiful airbrush together with Paint.Net’s speed and technical effects (way too many to mention). I often go to the Paint.Net user forum and find that seemingly 90% of the questions from users or new feature requests involve brushes, so I’ll just say it again ! If you’re a Paint.Net user, go ahead and spend the 25 bucks for the pro version of ArtRage and use them together. If you’re not sure you can test the free version first You’ll miss out on the coolest features – the airbrush, and the ability to save your work in separate layers – but you’ll get a good idea.

Having those working smoothly, I recently discovered a new print-on-demand publishing platform named Blurb, that’s inspired me to dig a past illustration project out of the archives and create a new series ! So I’ll keep you posted as that progresses.

So, I’m darned happy.

Now all I need is a bigger studio and a lot more time in it !

Grab a pencil and join in !

Drawing Day is a fun concept and I couldn’t resist playing with it a bit.

Using Scribd’s new “ipaper”

View this document on Scribd

My Wife is a Genius

Really.  She is actually a genius.

Living with her is ALWAYS highly entertaining, but sometimes she kicks it up another notch and comes up with something that impresses the ever loving shit out of me.

Well here’s the latest:  I’ve been a HUGE Firefox fan now for awhile because of their fabulous assortment of useful applications called addons.  Nevertheless, once I have a set of them all configured to do what I need and want,  I’m then pretty conservative about changing anything.  I’m happy.  I’m good.  Don’t need anything ‘new’.

I have my desktop & Firefox all configured with my addons.   She has her own.  We’re widely different in taste as to where we put our icons and shortcuts, et cetera.

Today we got onto the subject of computing and sharing our most recent understandings in the realms of technology when I ran across an addon SHE has that I’D missed.

It’s a Firefox addon for managing passwords called sxipper.

I never paid ANY attention to password managers due to my aforementioned conservatism as regards to needing/wanting anything “new”  once I have everything I think I need. And I’ve always kept a bit of trepidation in there as well for online security concerns.

“So what’s sxipper? ” I ask.   She tells me “it’s awesome”.   I’m not really convinced.   I go to their download/about page, where I can circle around it and sniff at it without committing myself to anything in any big hurry.

HUH !

This actually looks pretty COOL.  Does about 50 things more than I ever might have expected and has all of the security aspects NEATLY taken care of.

What the heck.  I’ll give it a go.  ( One of the very BEST aspects of Firefox is the utter speed in which you can install, test, and then like/not like an addon and either keep it or uninstall it ! )  Just amazing.  From the moment you hit “Add to Firefox” to the moment you can then use the addon is SECONDS.   The same is true for uninstall.  So this makes Firefox eminently cool.

I’m not even going to try to describe how cool sxipper is.  Too much to say and they do it better anyway, so just take a second to go here and read up, and then amaze yourself by quickly trying it.

Me?    I’m going to go kiss her.   She’s such a genius.

Mick Jagger & Keith Richards hang out at my favorite pool

I’ve shared a lot of good times with many of you at The Fort Harrison’s beautiful poolside, and many of you have also heard the story of The Rolling Stones’ visit to Clearwater and where they had their inspiration for (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.   For you who haven’t:

[ "Keith Richards states that he came up with the guitar riff for the song in his sleep, waking up in the middle of the night, recording
the riff and the words "I can't get no satisfaction" on a cassette recorder and promptly falling back to sleep.  He would later describe
the tape as: "two minutes of 'Satisfaction' and 40 minutes of me snoring.^"  He and Jagger finished writing the song at the Jack Tar Harrison
in Clearwater, Florida, in May 1965. ]            wikipedia

Being an habitue of the Pavilion by the Pool, I dutifully clipped the news article confirming the story when the the Stone’s played Tampa in the 90’s.

A friend of mine had the honor this week of being the first guest of the Fort Harrison’s newly restored Presidential Suite and shared photos of the poolside.

So I happily shared them with a few other friends and was searching online just now for some historical images to compare them with. — When I fell over backwards in amazement ! As luck/fate/fortune or really-good-karma would have it, Ray Connolly of the UK Daily Mail just published these two photos.

I believe that no one in the U.S. has seen these photos before !  I haven’t !                               (SOURCE ARTICLE)

Wow!   Any of you visiting the FH years ago before renovations will recall the web strap furniture and the tables there in these shots.  So YOU may well have spent time in those very chairs !

Me, I’m certain I’ve moved them before.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Rocking in the Free World

I was just sitting here in the studio, painting and enjoying some classic Neal Young when it occurred to me that I’ve always listened to music when I work.

It’s a funny thing, but I can look at something I painted years ago and remember the music.  It works the other way too — Play me a cut from one of your favorites and I’ll have an instant recall of what I was painting or carving at the time !

If you enjoy music and want to kick your studio time into overdrive then try out this combination:

Download the free Winamp Music player at http://www.winamp.com/ .

You’ll see there’s a browser link to SHOUTcast Radio where you can pull up literally thousands of stations.

Get the Firefox browser and its slick FoxyTunes add on.  Add a great set of speakers (or a wireless headset) and you can carve tikis to a Polynesian beat or paint to the Stones.

Powered by ScribeFire.