This is my first time participating in Illustration Friday (I stared something for last week: “Patterns”, but didn’t finish it so it doesn’t count). I’ve known about IF for years, and always wanted to participate – but I always had some really great excuses: “I need to have a real website before I can start posting artwork”, “That scanner is SOOO far away and it’s not even plugged in”, “Oh look, a beer and a TV”. But now’s the time to get in there and start illusterating some friderays. Todd is giving it a whack too. Check out his awesome rendition of “germs” on Flickr or on his blog, Snugglefux.
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 7:14 pm. 0 comments
Recently at work I got to take a little break from web app massaging for a fun Flash animation project. It’s basically just a little movie that shows people how to use Facebook Connect in the Wacom Community site (which eROI designed and built). I had the pleasure of working with one of eROI’s awesome designers, Andy Hugelier, who put together some great visuals and had some fun ideas for how everything should move. Working off his storyboards I put everything together with some basic timeline-based animation in Flash. It was super fun and kind of gave me the animation bug again. Though it might not seem as though this type of animation is similar to character animation, you use a lot of the same principles in motion graphics that you do with making characters move (squash & stretch, follow-through, exaggeration, timing).
So, anyhoo, it’s up right now on the Wacom Community homepage. Woowoo!
eROI has done a bunch of other cool projects for Wacom, too, including: Power of the Pens and the Bamboo Touch microsite.
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 9:07 pm. 0 comments
I came across this fun Flash drawing app, Odosketch, the other day – when I attempted to draw something with my mouse (needs kind of a big monitor otherwise the girl’s head gets cut off). Tonight I gave it another try, using a loaner Wacom Bamboo Touch & Pen that I brought home from work. (See PB+J full size) Odosketch is cool but frustrating for me because I like drawing with thick, clean black lines – and it won’t let me have those, gash darn it. It’s fun though if you have more of a painterly drawing style. But it is a fun challenge for me… and it’s cool to watch the drawing progress with super speed. There was another Flash drawing app that let you record your drawing and play it back, but the name of it is escaping me right now…
Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago at 4:28 pm. 2 comments
We’ve had a few nice sunny weekends in a row here in Portland, which gives us a false sense that summer is FINALLY here (until another two straight weeks of clouds and rain hits us before REAL summer actually starts). The warm weekends came just in time too; Todd and I were going a little stir crazy waiting out the rainy weekends. We snowboarded for the last time this season about a couple months ago and since then we haven’t had much fun-time outdoorsy activities to preoccupy ourselves with. So when the sun came out again (hallelujah) we were itching to get outside. Our first choice would be to spend some time surfing, but the swell hasn’t been amazing enough to warrant battling the weekend crowds at the coast. Sad!
So instead, we’ve been doing the next-funnest thing. Yard work! I never thought I’d say it but I’m totally addicted to digging in the dirt now. I’ve been pulling weeds like a madwoman, Todd’s been building all kinds of planter boxes and things and we are both trying to grow some veggies for the first time ever.
So, here’s what the backyard has looked like, at least for the last couple of years. We didn’t do anything to it last year, except for Todd’s once monthly weed-wack-a-thons to keep the grass manageable.
I did end up giving all the cards away while at SXSW. Did you get one? Let me know which one you got! I didn’t keep track of who got which one, with the exception of two (Ben Huh got the orange card with the kitty cats, and I think Heather Armstrong got the one with the dog holding the flowers).
Todd and I are packing are bags for Austin, where we will be spending 5 glorious days being complete internet dorks at SXSW. I feel really lucky that I get to go this year. Things just happened to work out so that I’m not really spending an arm and a leg (maybe just an elbow and a foot). I’m really excited just to be involved in the spectacle, and hope that I at least learn a little something along the way. I feel overwhelmed by the schedule… at many points during the conference there are 3 or more panels or events that interest me happening at exactly the same time. Torture… But I suppose that’s how these things go. It’d be boring if you didn’t have to make those tough decisions, wouldn’t it?
Aside from all the learning and being inspired, SXSW is also a time to meet lots of cool, interesting, creative and smart people. But those cool, interesting, creative and smart people are going to be meeting a lot of other CICSPs too. So how do you make them remember you, and the awesome conversation you had about social media or Playdoh? Lots of people do business cards, stickers or other types of swag. I thought about making some MooCards from my Flickr photos. But I don’t really pride myself in photography – so if I had to pick something from Flickr to make cards out of, it would be some drawings. Then, I thought, why not just draw some doodles on some frickin’ cards, write my name on them and give them out? Continue Reading…
I love love love love love good animation that goes along with music. If it’s good music, it’s even better. Here’s a little collection of some of my favorite most excellent animations set to music. Some are bare bones hand-drawn animation – some are live action mixed with motion graphics. All are cool.
I’ve brought back my website with a shiny new look – but the look is not from me but rather from the mind of Michael Whalen. It’s a Wordpress theme called “Elixr”. Pretty nice, huh? I got sick of waiting for myself to come up with a new design (Jeez, take FOR-EV-ER, huh!?) so for now I’m going to roll with Elixr and make modifications as I go.
Also, today Todd got rolling with his blog, which – as soon as the domain resolves – will be at www.snugglefux.com.
We’re a couple of blogging fools, we are. We just don’t spend enough time on our computers as it is, so this way we’ll be able to set aside some more quality screen-time. Feel the retina burn!
