intrond

I thought some of you might be interested to know what I think about the iPad as a drawing tablet.  I got an iPad2 for Christmas and I've finally got around to finishing up a piece on it.  First I noticed that there are a ton of drawing and painting apps to choose from.  I purchased several and tinkered with them until settling with Art Rage.  I also tried Procreate and SketchBook Pro.  Each app has its strengths, but Art Rage had a few things over the others that I felt outweighed everything else.  Procreate had an awesome interface extremely intuitive and easy to use, and it's ability to create custom brushes is very appealing, I may still find myself using this one in the future because of the brushes.  SketchBook Pro seemed to have a good arsenal of tools but I didn't think it was as intuitive.  So why did I go with Art Rage?  Well for a couple of big reasons: unlimited layers (as far as I know all the other apps out there limit the amount of layers that you can use, unlimited edit undo and redo (again this was a limitation with the other apps that I tried and read about), great brush customization, and feature that it has that I find quite neat is that you can actually record the entire drawing/painting and play it back on the desktop program at a higher resolution so you can do print quality work.  But even with these great tools, don't think you've got a portable version of Photoshop with a portable Cintiq, cause you don't.  For an iPad app I think it's getting to be very well rounded.  There were a few things that  I found myself really wishing that it had; like a selection tool or gradients.  Another thing I kept running into was that the brushes can't go as large as I would like them to be, this becomes a problem when I am trying to keep things smooth and consistent.  ArtRage is very memory intensive partly because it allows you to pile the layers on thick, but this didn't bother me, since I knew what I was getting into from the beginning.  I was willing to sacrifice memory and speed for functionality.  The brushes were very responsive, it was only when I was messing with the layers that it would slow down (for example: merging layers, changing the layers mode, duplicating layers and the such.)  I wasn't a fan of the swatch interface in ArtRage but I found an excellent work around.  I took a screen shot of my favorite color pallette in Photoshop, cropped it and I was able to use that as a "reference image" in Art rage, which pins it to the top of my art work and wherever you touch it, it swabs the color that you touched.  But this all refers to the app not the iPad.  The iPad itself was pretty great.  It isn't pressure sensitive which would really make this thing amazing, but you can still accomplish similar results without it, it just took me a lot longer to do the same thing.  Also an iPad IS NOT as accurate as an Wacom device.  This is especially noticeable when you are trying to do detail work.  I found myself using edit undo a lot to try and get the stroke that I wanted.  I tried two different stylus'.  I was really excited to try the Adonit Jot pro, It has a great feel to it, and I did like how it worked, but it scratched my screen the first day that I used it, which really pissed me off.  So unless you have a screen protector (I hate screen protectors) DO NOT USE THE JOT.  So I ended up using a stylus that my wife got for me for Christmas.  I'm not sure what the brand is, it says AL on the stylus.  It has a rubber tip and worked fairly well,  I also have a pogo sketch which I didn't like all that much.  So overall the whole experience was fun, and I was able to come close to what I normally could with Photoshop and a Wacom tablet, it just took a lot more time and work to achieve.  I think it would work a lot better for looser paintings that don't need the exact precision, but as a portable sketchpad I definitely recommend it.  So sound off, let me know if you have questions or experiences of your own that you want to share.

I don't normally get involved in political things but this is important.
Please go to Google and sign the petition.

www.google.com/landing/takeact…

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

Hello everyone,
I finished my last commission, so I am open for commissions again.  

Here are some basic guidelines.
line art - bust=$20.00, full body=$35.00
W/ basic color (no shading) - bust=$35.00, full body=$50.00
full color w/ shading - bust=65.00, full body=$85.00
These are per character prices.
Send me a note with more specifics if you would like to have one done, or if you have any specific questions.

So I finished watching Claymore yesterday.  I really liked it but I hate it when there is no ending.  So if I want to know what happens next I have to get the manga.  The same thing happened with Beserk, I loved the anime but they only did one season with no resolution to the story.  I have already read a lot of the mangas from Beserk and it is pretty good but the problem I see with most ongoing mangas is that it seems like it gets to a point when the story just starts repeating itself and the author/artist is just milking the story to keep it going instead of telling the original story that they had in mind when they started.  Has anyone read Claymore or Berserk?  What did you think of them?

So I'm still using an Intuos 1 tablet and would love to upgrade to a 4.  Wacom is currently running a competition on their site with the grand prize being a new tablet.  I'm currently in 4th place but there is a big gap to close for 1st.  So I would really appreciate your support in a vote for my piece.  This is the image that i submitted: intrond.deviantart.com/art/Onw… so look for that picture.  The only pain is that you do have to register first with the Wacom community, before you can vote, but it is free.  So if your feeling generous Vote for me.
Thanks,
Here is a community.wacom.com/contests/e… to the contest.