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Archive for July, 2006

• Cartoons

  I was working through an article at the weekend based on building up a videogame scene in Photoshop, combining a realistic photographic backdrop with cartoon characters in the foreground. This was so much fun, I’ve decided I should really be able to make little cartoon people from scratch.

  I haven’t really done any drawing or sketching for a really long time, but this seems like a really fun thing to get my head around. I also hadn’t really been exposed to some of the techniques you can use in producing cartoon work digitally, so I’m currently reading through Digital Manga Techniques and starting to learn. I made my first manga character last night, and it didn’t turn out to be the monster I was expecting.

  As I don’t particularly have a technique yet, it seemed like I should jump straight in and learn to work directly on a PC using a tablet. I know a lot of people sketch on paper, scan the images and work from there. However it seems (to me) that it’s so much more versatile to work directly.

  I think sketching with a tablet probably takes longer to get the hang of, but you can do all kinds of things like move bits of the sketch around, rework sections, undo bad strokes etc. The technique I was trying involved making a very rough sketch, taking the opacity of the layer down to about 30%, then sketching it again on a new layer. By repeating this several times you can refine the design, until it’s ready to use in creating an ink outline for the final piece.

  I also love how you can go back when you’re finished, and see the image gradually building up by making each layer visible. You can also try out different colours and shading styles, and keep the alternate versions. All of this is generally much less scary than working on paper where everything you do is a little more permanent.

  I know it will take a while before I get the hang of this, but I’d love to be able to produce designs that combine elements of photo realism with cartoon drawing. I’ve also decided to get a lot more serious about photography to cover the other aspect of this.

  Now I just need about twice as much free time

  Posted:

  July 19, 2006 @ 12:31

  Categories:

  Personal

  Tags:

  cartoons, drawing, mange, photoshop, sketching

  Comments:

  8 comments so far

• Rabbit in the Post

  I really don’t mean to talk about rabbits the whole time. Really. However I can’t quite hold back this time – rememeber the post a while back about the little, wifi-enabled rabbit? Well it’s waiting for me when I get home tonight.

  After the initial fever and excitement about the possibilities of such a thing, I was dissapointed to find out how hard it is to actually buy one. I guess a lot of people feel the same way, and stock was hard to come by.

  Not any more! Firebox have new stock, and my own personal package has finally found it’s way home. They left it long enough for me to forget about it completely, then out of the blue – wham! Rabbit in the post.

  Posted:

  July 18, 2006 @ 11:06

  Categories:

  Personal

  Tags:

  nabaztag, rabbit

  Comments:

  1 comment so far

• Rocky Rabbit Show

  I don’t usually tend to force people to watch amusing things that I stumble across on the internet. However this has to be one of the best creative efforts I’ve seen for a long time. The Rocky Horror Show enacted by bunnies, in 30 seconds.

  I haven’t watched all of these, but there are a few other cool ones. Check out Pulp Fiction.

  Posted:

  July 12, 2006 @ 8:45

  Categories:

  Personal

  Tags:

  flash, rocky horror

  Comments:

  2 comments so far

• Blink

  I was pondering recently how quickly I form an impression of a company or service the first time I visit a website. I attended a session a short time back where a number of site designs were flashed in front of the audience for around half a second each. I had a distinct opinion on the sites that I trusted, and how I felt about the companies purely based on exposure to the design for a very short space of time.

  You frequently hear people talking about how good design is about communication, not decoration, but you only get a strong feel for this when you actually pay attention to your own behaviour on exposure to a new design.

  I looked at a number of sites recently and realised that I very rapidly come to trust or reject a company based on how I ‘feel’ about them. This is usually a snap judgement made on a subconscious level within the first couple of seconds of seeing the site.

  I can come away with a radically different opinion of a company purely based on the design of their site. I think it’s fascinating how all of the small decisions that you make with a design all convey a message and contribute to the first impression that people form.

  I think a lot of the craft involved is not so much coming up with a good design, but one that conveys the right message when people make their snapshot judgement.

  Incidentally, there is a very interesting book called Blink all about how we make these kind of rapid assessments when exposed to new information.

  Posted:

  July 11, 2006 @ 11:52

  Categories:

  Design

  Tags:

  books, reading, web design

  Comments:

  No comments so far

• Atlas or YUI?

  For a little while I’ve been meaning to take a proper look at Atlas, Microsoft’s main offering to help out in building AJAX applications and richer web based interfaces.

  Javascript is definately back in fashion, with a number of libraries popping up to help out with application development. I think overall this is fine, so long as you have an appreciation of what is actually happening under the scenes. I don’t think a library should dictate the way that you build an application, rather enable you to build it more efficiently.

  I’ve started using elements of the Yahoo YUI library which is very impressive. There seem to be a lot of very useful little utility functions available, the kind of thing that you would typically rewrite on each project.

  I’m quite curious about how the Microsoft and Yahoo libraries compare. I’ll post some information about this when I’ve had a chance to look in more detail at Atlas.

  Posted:

  July 3, 2006 @ 12:16

  Categories:

  Development

  Tags:

  ajax, asp.net, javascript, libraries, YUI

  Comments:

  No comments so far