Drawing the iPod way

I recently bought an iPod Touch and one of the first things I was looking forward to was the "Sketchbook Mobile App". I had read about it on some blogs and seen amazing artwork created on it.

How Awesome it is to have a big bunch of tools to draw and paint in your pocket ! The Batman is my first attempt at doing a full painting on it. I am surprised at how well it turned out to be. Woody is a quick drawing I did today. I am totally hooked to it !

Pencil - 2d animation software

Aloha to the citizens of the internet kingdom !
This is something I have wanted to write about from quite some time. I came across this software called "Pencil" which is open source and is designed for artists to create 2d animation. The best thing is that it is free.
Unlike other proprietary software, this one is very simple to use. Only the time-line editing can take a little while to understand. You can have a camera layer, vector and bitmap layers. Some advantages other than that its free are that its very light and fast to use. You can export flash/swf files and even Quicktime .mov files if you are using a Mac. Their website has a good User Manual which can get you started and also a forum to discuss stuff.It is available for Windows and Mac OS X.
I had tried using it in class 1 for some simple planning and again used it for planning my pantomime assignment at AM this class3. Planning an animation in 2d before getting into Maya, can be very useful and can save a lot of time correcting timing and poses. I'll upload the 2d animatic (nothing amazing - simple stick-figure drawings) I did alongwith the final assignment which I will submit this week.

Give it a try and you might like it as well.
Heres a link to the Pencil website: http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php?id=Download

Hi, I m a Mac

and I was a PC


A change of topic. Recently I got a new 20” iMac 2.66Ghz and this post is my thought about how its changing the way I use my computer.

I have studied computer science in college and have used different Operating Systems. I first started using DOS and Windows 3.1 on a 286 PC when I was a kid, drawing in paint-brush and taking its printouts on a noisy dot-matrix printer. Since then I have used all consumer (non-server) versions of Windows till Vista SP1. In college I started using Linux, namely Fedora and RedHat and also used Fedora for all CS assignments. None of the OS and their different versions was a nice experience . I always felt Windows more comfortable to use over Linux. But I hadn’t seen Mac OS X yet.

I got a chance to try it out a couple of months ago. Last 3 months I was taking a look at the Mac side of computers, read a little about it, saw some how to videos on you-tube and I was blown away by the sheer simplicity, the efficiency of the OS and the Design. It dint take more than 5 days to get familiar with it and it soon made me feel at home. I hadnt ever seen before seen a computer boot within 40 seconds and completely ready to use.

Also, the hardware design is a world apart. Its so slick and solid. Gosh! I miss all the wires, bulky hardware and clutter :D Now with the iMac that sits on my desk, I totally can relate to the “Hi I am a Mac, I am a PC” ads. Of course those are sometimes exaggerated, but yes, close to reality. I am still awe-struck with it. How hadnt I seen anything like this ever before ?!

Its not that I hate Windows, I have XP installed through boot camp. But its there just in case there is a need to run some windows based program on that rare occaison.

I think if you hasn’t seen or used one, I would say do yourself a favor by trying it out and if you like it, free yourself from the hard-ships of “maintaining” the computer.

Cheers !

Wacom is here ! :)

At last I got my hands on the Wacom Graphics Tablet.. one word to describe it.. "Precise". Its a BIG 12x9 (A4 sized) Intuos3 with 1K levels of pressure sensitivity, so when you draw, it creates strokes like a brush. So, now I can draw in Photoshop with the Stylus just like pencil or a brush on paper. No mice now. I've read people say that though it takes time to get used to, the Wacom is a marvel and you eventually end up throwing away the mouse in the drawer :)
Here it the mighty Wacom :D ..