For those of you into analog pencils you probably know about the legendary Blackwing pencil. Well, I just got an email from the folks at California Cedar Products and they have bought the rights to it and will be releasing the Blackwing in the coming months! Woot! I know, it’s the artist, not the tool… but the tool sure helps!

I’m not a reductionist kind of guy. But, I have my moments. And this article really sits well with me, because frankly, it fits in with my experiences and world view. If you want to pursue something and do well in that ’something’, you have to work at it. End of story. No excuses. By the way, I’m preaching to myself here… if you feel it applies to you, then great! If not, then feel free to move along… nothing to see here.

Do you want to be a good animator, draftsman, painter, graphic designer, concept artist, character designer, etc… then set your mind to improving in your chosen field and work hard at it. Don’t expect overnight miracles. That’s why Chuck Jones was told that in order to draw anything worthwhile you have to get the 100,000 bad drawings out. 100,000 drawings? That’s a lot of work. Get to it.

I designed this fella a while ago, just for fun. So I finally decided to paint him a couple of days ago. I think he has a lot of potential as a 3d character. Maybe I’ll model him and rig him and see what he can do one day.

 

If you are an original Star Craft fan, you obviously know about the new release. It’s been 10 years or so since I played the original and the new version is great! Lots of nostalgia and newness all bundled into one package. Nice!

 

For those interested here is an interesting article regarding Global Illumination on the GPU.

We describe an extension to photon mapping that recasts the most expensive steps of the algorithm — the initial and final photon bounces — as image-space operations amenable to GPU acceleration. This enables global illumination for real-time applications as well as accelerating it for offline rendering.

It’s released! A version of iSculptor made just for the iPad called: iSculptorHD. You can get your copy here!
 

It’s finally finished! A version of iSculptor made just for the iPad called: iSculptorHD. It is currently going through the Apple approval process. I’ll keep you posted when it has been approved.

There are no new modeling features (yet) but, you can play with larger models (up to around 5000 faces), it takes the extra real estate of the iPad into account, you can rotate the iPad in any direction and model in portrait or landscape modes, it has a movable tool bar for the buttons, and you can import and export models using iTunes. It is not a universal app, which means if you want a copy for your iPhone/iTouch you need iSculptor, if you want a copy for your iPad you need iSculptorHD.

This article is related to my previous post on composition. I don’t think that the reason why Rembrandt’s paintings endure was a secret, but it’s a neat confluence of art and technology.

 

Here is an independent review of iSculptor™ on AppSmile.com. I love feedback like this. It will help me to add/fix/tweak features so that the app gets better and better with each new release.

I really had to struggle with getting a good balance between cursor and touch technology. The cursor is needed for vertex/poly selection and work, while on the other hand you want to take advantage of the touch technology – all the while working within the limits of the mobile platform. Quite a challenge. Anyway, if anyone has more feedback/questions regarding iSculptor™, please feel free to contact me.

I’ve updated the iSculptor™ video tutorials page with another tutorial. This time, I show you how to take the object you’ve created in iSculptor™ and load it into your favorite 3d application. Well, actually only into Blender and Maya, but if you have any other 3d application it should be very similar. If you have problems just drop me a note through the support page and we’ll see what we can figure out.