Painter IX Exercise

A chalk and charcoal skecth done in Painter IX

Draw When You're Ready

As you know, Adobe has swallowed Macromedia in merger that makes everyone except the consumer happy. Check out this link to see what most folks in the design industry would have never happened http://www.macromedia.com.

Anyway, with this merger, competition in the vector area has been all but nullified. Freehand, the Macromedia tool wasn’t included in the latest release of the Macromedia Suite of tools (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks). Conversely, Adobe Illustrator CS2 is still dominating the vector world—and why not; not only is it the biggest vector player, with the merger, it becomes the only player.

Well, not so fast. From an unlikely place, a competitor arises to face the Adobe Graphics behemoth. A small (one man) company was developing its own vector graphics tool about a year or so ago. He was approached by a software company in Redmond and promptly sold his tool.

Microsoft Expression Code Name Acrylic Graphic Designer is the first entry from Redmond into the graphics industry (come on now, you can’t really count Paint, Publisher or, (shiver) Front Page). According the site, Expression does both bitmap and vector art from within the one tool. I downloaded from here today link (free, but you do need to register (of course, that’s what gmail accounts are for)) and it is a good tool. I did the cowboy with the freehand tool in about 15 minutes. If you are used to Adobe tools, you will find yourself doing quick keys that don’t work the same way in AGD, but the interface will be familiar. I will play with it some more and post a full review next week. In the meantime, check it out for yourself though only Windows version is available, but a MAC version should be out shortly.

Illustration Friday: Imagine

Car radios were different when I was a kid. First off, you could only get AM radio—which meant your favorite song would fade out as soon as you went under a bridge. Secondly, AM sound...well, before stereo AM anyway, sucked. Radios were push button analog jobs that had a red pointer that lined up approximately with the station's frequency. You couldn't really tell the exact frequency you dialed to because all you had were the number markers and the stations resided somewhere in the middle. I used to listen to 77 'Musicradio' WABC which was somewhere between the 7 and the 9. To find and set the station, you'd push the button closest to the number you wanted, fiddle around with the tuner (the knob on the right) and then pull the button out and push it back in quickly to save it. If you pushed too slowly, the pointer simply returned to its original position and you had to try again.

Ok, having said that, when I was a kid, I imagined the inner-workings of the radio consisted of a row of disc jockeys sitting at a long table. There was one microphone, its position indicated by the location of the red pointer. When the listener pressed the button, the disc jockey who was talking slid the microphone down the table to the guy (I don’t remember many lady djs from the late 60s—though I am sure they were out there) who was next to speak. Also, for some reason, I imagined that the table was covered with tacky looking imitation crushed velvet.

Pictured from left to right is a talk show host (yes, they were around way back then—WMCA I believe); the aforementioned WABC Top 40 station that featured Dan Ingram and Cousin Bruce (there actually wasn’t a disc jockey quite that hippyfied, he wouldn’t come along until much later on WNEW-FM); a religious disc jockey and the R&B guy.

I created the radio in Illustrator CS2 and drew the disc jockeys in Flash MX. I composited everything in Flash MX and converted to a jpg for your viewing pleasure.



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If Jesus Were Here Today

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Illustration Friday: Surprised

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TV Quick Sketches

Just some quick sketches of people I saw on TV. Done completely in Painter IX with a Wacom tablet.

Quick Sketch

Just a warm up sketch.

Illustration Friday: Blue

I was thinking 50s movie poster.

Your comments are always appreciated.

So that's where the other liquor cart went...

Two of the 'tailies' in Lost were arrested for DUI.

HONOLULU - Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros, who star on ABC's "Lost," were arrested within 15 minutes of each other in Kailua for allegedly driving under the influence of an intoxicant. Both failed field sobriety tests and were released Thursday on $500 bail each, police said. The actresses, who were in separate cars, were arrested after their vehicles were spotted weaving on Pali Highway, which connects Kailua and Honolulu, police said.

Link