Here is one of my prints. The name is pretty obvious. It’s colored in Photoshop and is 10×15 inches.
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I finally decided and pulled the trigger on buying a new camera. I’ve been researching which one to buy for the last year. I wanted to get one earlier this year but then both my laptop and printer broke and repairing the laptop and replacing the printer cost me my money that I was planning on spending on a new camera. Such is life.
I was an early adopter of the digital format in photography. I switched over to a digital camera way back in 2000. It was only a three megapixel camera but it cost a whole lot of money. Before going digital I shot with a Canon EOS Elan 35mm SLR camera. I liked it. It was a step up from the Canon Rebel and a step below Canon’s pro SLR. I don’t think that category exists anymore.
My first digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 950. At least I think it was that model. I really can’t remember. Besides liking digital photography the one thing I learned with that camera is that I liked shooting from the waist. It had a body that twisted so that you could look down at the LCD screen. Instead of putting the camera in front of your face and looking through a viewfinder or at the LCD screen you could hold it at waist level like an old fashioned box camera.
Since I like shooting candids and street photos I found it easier not to have the camera in front of my face. Not only could I see what was going on around me easier but people were more relaxed. Somehow putting a camera in front of your face makes people tense up. Or maybe that’s just an easy cue telling them that they’re on camera. Shooting from the waist is less of a cue and people stay more relaxed. I’ve made sure all my digital cameras since then have swivel LCD screens.
The lack of a live view swivel LCD screen has kept me away from digital SLRs for the last decade. I don’t want to buy any camera that I can’t shot from the waist with. Except for a pocket point and shoot camera. I’ll accept no swivel LCD with one of those because they don’t make them with swivel LCDs and it’s just a supplementary camera for when I don’t want to carry the bigger one.
The last time I bought a new camera was 2005. A nine megapixel Coolpix 8800. It’s served me well but after five years there have been many improvements to digital cameras so I wanted a new one. That camera is one in what has become known as the “Ultrazoom” category of cameras. It’s a camera for the advanced amateur that has a big zoom lens on it but the lens is built in. There is no switching of lenses in this category. What the camera has built in is what it has now and forever.
In deciding what camera to get I, kind of, wanted to step up to a digital SLR system. But almost all of those don’t come with a swivel LCD. That is a deal breaker for me. Even the Nikon that does have a articulated LCD doesn’t have the range of motion that I expect from a swivel LCD. Though I didn’t necessarily want another Ultrazoom I certainly wanted that swivel LCD.
Over the last year or two a new type of digital camera has come onto the scene. The new four thirds standard. You see a DSLR doesn’t shine the light of the picture you’re taking directly on the digital sensor. It’s reflected on by a mirror. With a four thirds camera the light directly hits the digital sensor. The sensor is also smaller than on a DSLR. The cameras I was looking at were micro four thirds camera which means they were small and light.
The micro four thirds cameras I was looking at had swivel LCD screens and interchangeable lenses. Of course the immediate question with an interchangeable lens system camera of any kind is, “What lenses should I get?”. Lenses can get real expensive. Every photographer wants a “Fast” lens. That’s a lens that opens wide and lets in a lot of light so the shutter speed is fast and the photographer can freeze the action without blurring. Or the photographer can take photos in low light. Both of those thing come with a fast lens and a fast lens can be expensive. A fast zoom lens even more so.
In researching the micro four thirds system and lenses I found one that I wanted. It consisted of the camera body, which only came in a kit, a short fast lens, and a zoom lens that wasn’t too fast. The cost for each of those parts: $700, $350, and $300. You can see how that gets expensive quickly. Not only did I not have the money I wasn’t sure I wanted to drop that much on a new camera even if I did.
I went on to check out some of the new ultrazoom models that have been coming out. Though they have nice big zooms they are fairly slow lenses. No slower than what I’m shooting with now but I wouldn’t be able to switch to a faster lens if need be as I would with the micro four thirds system. I ended up with about nine cameras bookmarked on my wish list and I kept looking at them and trying to decide which would be best.
After a month of pondering the low-priced option won out. I went with an Canon Powershot SX20IS. That’s a new ultrazoom model that is a lot like my old Nikon Coolpix 8800 except it has a bigger zoom, is 14 megapixels, and saves to the card a lot faster. Saving to the card a lot faster was also a reason I wanted to get a new camera. I like to burst shoot (the digital equivalent of a motor drive) and after I did that with my old camera it took nearly a minute to save to the card. The new one takes seconds to save.
The Canon ran me $429. With tax and a second battery it came in at just over $500. Not an insignificant sum but a third of what going for the micro four thirds model costs.
I’ve shot with the Canon a couple of times so far and I like it. The zoom is ridiculously big and I will probably not have much need for it at full magnification but it is cool. The controls seem pretty easy to learn but I’m not sure if I’m totally happy with the image quality yet. That could be because I have a setting wrong, specifically using the auto-ISO, and it’s going to take some more photos to really know but I’m glad I got it. I’m very much a “Use whatever equipment I got” kind of artist but I like to get new things too. Plus now I can stop wasting my time trying to decide which camera to buy. That’s a plus.
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comic plus a trade paperback collection:
And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.
“Cuba: My Revolution” by Inverna Lockpez and Dean Haspiel
This is the latest graphic novel illustrated by my old college chum Dean Haspiel (though I haven’t seen or spoken to him in over half a decade, time flies). I generally buy all of Dean’s work not only because I know him but because he’s talented and his stuff is really up my non-mainstream alley.
This book is either historical fiction or autobiography. I’m not really sure which. In the author’s note Lockpez speaks of the story as if its based on her life but the lead character has a different name than she does. Either way I found it an interesting story.
The tale takes place in Cuba from 1958 until 1966. The lead character’s name is Sonja and she is 17 years old when the story begins. Sonja is a city girl and the daughter of Cuba’s middle class. She is idealistic and supports Fidel Castro and Cuban revolution in general. Though she has nothing directly to do with the revolution she decides to become a doctor to help the cause and joins the militia to serve her country after the revolution is successful.
The rest of the book is about Sonja, her family, life in Cuba after the revolution, Sonja’s slow disillusion with the revolution, and her eventual emigration to the United States. I found it all very interesting. I’m a fan of history but I don’t think I’ve read much about this period in Cuba especially from the point of view of a young idealistic Cuban living through it all.
Sonja had high hopes for the revolution and how it could finally bring justice to her beloved country. She even suffered a very painful and traumatic injustice at the hands of the new government but Castro was a hero to her and she believed in him. So it took a long time for her to see that he was flawed and wasn’t going to bring much justice to their society.
Dean’s art was very lush and brought the era and location to life. His storytelling is also top notch and I especially liked the design and layout of a lot of his sort-of full and half splash pages. It’s all easy to follow and serves the story well. The grey and red color by José Villarrubia was also well done. I’m not sure about the publishers paper choice though. That may have softened things too much for my taste. I also didn’t think much of the design of the cover. But it is still a very well drawn book.
Overall I liked this book a lot. The story was very involving and the art was excellent. So if you’re in the mood for a tale of human drama during an interesting period of history in an interesting place then check this on out.
This is one of my small acrylic paintings. It’s 8×10 inches and painted on stretched canvas.
I’ve been watching football all day today. As much of a football fan as I am that is not a normal Sunday of football watching for me. Often I’ll have games on but actually watching them is a whole different matter. I’m a New York Giants’ fan so it’s normal for me to watch their games but after that it’s anyone’s guess as to what other games I’ll watch on any given Sunday. It really all does come down to the Giants for me. They can set the tone for the day by winning or losing.
In general there are four start times for pro football games. 1:00 PM, 4:00 PM, and 8:30 PM on Sunday plus around 9:00 PM on Monday night. All times are US Eastern Standard time in case you were wondering. I prefer that the Giants play the 1:00 PM Sunday game. I don’t want to wait around all day for them to play. I want to see them play first thing. After all that’s what I’m watching football for. Not everybody likes their team in the early game. Especially people on the West Coast where the early game starts at 10:00 AM because of the time difference. But I’m an early bird. Heck, I might even like a 10:00 AM game.
Waiting all the way until Monday night is the worst for me. I want to see the Giants play now. Not later. When the game is on Monday night then it feels like the whole football word has passed the Giants by. At least it does on Sunday. When Monday night finally rolls around I’m too involved in the game to care. Like I said, I just want to see them play.
Of course the worst part about playing a night game is that it ends so late. A game that starts at 8:30 PM won’t end until 11:30 PM at the earliest. That puts a 9:00 PM game at midnight. That’s only a little bit later then I’m usually up but it’s hard to fall asleep immediately after watching a Giants’ game. It takes a while for the excitement and adrenaline to wear off. Or the disappointment if they lose. So I’m losing at least an hours sleep with a night game. I like my sleep and don’t like losing it.
I can remember one Giants’ game that I went to that was as late as it gets. It was a Monday night game, the September 15, 2003 one, where they played the Dallas Cowboys. Not only was it a night game but it went into overtime so it ended later than usual. I was staying with some friends in Brooklyn, who went to the game with me, and we took the subway to the bus to get to the game and did the same thing coming back. Not a bad way to get to the game in the daytime but the one thing I remember thinking while standing and waiting for the subway at sometime near 2:00 AM was that it was no time to be getting home from a football game. Especially since it was now Tuesday morning and the work day would be starting soon. And the Giants lost the game making it an extra miserable 2:00 AM ride.
If the Giants lose their game it makes all the other games less interesting to me. That’s common with any fan. Who can get involved in the drama of another team winning or losing if your team has already lost? Your stake is gone. That’s why gamblers love all the games. Even after their team loses. If they have a bet going they always have a stake in things. But I’m not a gambler. I’m just a football fan. Plus if a person’s team loses then most people don’t want to see the score or the highlights of the game flashed on screen all day. I’m no different.
What else makes for a good day of football watching? The other games being interesting of course. If I haven’t seen every Giant’s game since about 1980 or so then I’ve seen close to every Giants’ game. Since I live in the NYC area that means the Giants are are TV every week and so are the Jets. Sometimes there is another game on opposite the Jets but most weeks there is not. That means I’ve seen a lot of Jets’ games too. Sure I’ve watched plenty of them with only one eye on the TV and even napped through a bunch but I guess that I’ve watched at least a fourth of the Jets’ games since 1980. That’s a lot of games.
It happens to be that the Jets are good this year so they’re fun to watch. That hasn’t always been the case. I think it was the two 1992 Jets v. Colts games that were a couple of the worst football games I’ve ever not watched very closely. They were so dreadful that I remember them all these years later. The Jets have been awful in many a year so there have been many an uninteresting Jets’ game. So I like it when the Jets are good because I have more of a chance of seeing an interesting game.
So today the Giants were on at 1:00 PM and they beat the Lions. Always good to see the team get a win. And then there were two interesting games on at 4:PM. The Jets vs. Broncos were on one channel and the Cowboys vs. Vikings were on another. I have two TVs near each other (don’t be too impressed one is from the late 80s and the other from the early 90s) so that I can watch both games at once. And both games were tight contests that went down to the wire. That’s what you want in a football game. Unless it’s your team playing. Then you want to see them trample their opponent in a laugher.
So a Giants win and then two interesting games to follow. I don’t think I’ve sat down and watched that much football in one day in a while. Sure I turned off the later games to have dinner for a bit but I turned them back on and they were still interesting. It was quite a pleasant day of football. I’ll take that. Especially since the Giants play their next game on Monday night.
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:
And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.
“Ultimate Vision” by Mike Carey, Brandon Peterson, Mark Millar, and John Romita Jr.
I’m back to reading some of the Marvel TPB’s I was given by a friend. This one is from 2007 and ties in to Marvel’s “Ultimate” universe. That universe started in 2000 and is a relaunching and modernizing of the whole regular Marvel universe. Though I read volumes 1 and 2 of “The Ultimates” comic, which is a take on Marvel’s regular universe “Avengers” comic, I haven’t read many Ultimate universe comics. To an old timer like me they are just a bunch of remakes and I have zero interest in reading rehashed stories.
“Ultimate Vision” is the Ultimate universe take on the regular Marvel hero called “The Vision”. Except now he’s more like another more obscure Marvel character called “The Recorder”. If my memory serves me The Recorder was a robot, built by some alien race, who wandered the universe recording as much as he could of all the civilizations he could find. In this story the Vision has the same function except he’s recording civilizations destroyed by Galactus.
That’s what makes this volume a little weird. A few years ago they rehashed the original Galactus story from the 1960’s only now in the Ultimate universe. The first issue reprinted in this collection is all about the Vision warning the Ultimate heroes about the coming of Galactus. At the start of the second issue Galactus is already defeated and a new Vision story starts.
All my griping about the Ultimate universe aside this was a pretty good comic. The first (Zero) issue was drawn by Romita Jr. and then issues 1-5 were by Peterson and those are some first rate super hero artists. The artwork is highly illustrative and the storytelling is solid. No disappointments there.
The story is a continuation/add on to the Ultimate Galactus tale but it’s not necessary to have read Ultimate Galactus to follow it. I know this because I haven’t read Ultimate Galactus. There was certainly more plot in this story than in the few other Ultimates comics that I’ve read and I consider that a good thing. Oddly enough it continues the Ultimates storytelling habit of ending a comic not with a cliff hanger but with a character making a sudden appearance. I find that kind of annoying but much less so here then in other Ultimates books that have much less plot.
Overall “Ultimate Vision” was a good comic. Nice artwork, solid writing, and an interesting story. If you’re looking for a good super hero book to read give it a try.
Here is a charcoal drawing that I made a while ago. I haven’t used charcoal very much since my student days but I revisited it for a couple of drawings. Charcoal can be dark and scary.
In looking around the internet lately I’ve noticed cartoonists posting demos of them working in a relatively new program called Manga Studio EX. I enjoy a good demo video but, let’s face it, most such videos are dull. Drawing is just not a performance art and watching somebody draw on a computer seems to make it even duller. But it got me contemplating the place of the computer in making comics and comic art.
The use of computers to make comics is nothing new. It’s been going on for at least fifteen years but mostly computers have been used on the production and coloring end of comics. Until lately not a lot of people drew comics on a computer. Brian Bolland immediately springs to mind. His comic book cover illustrations have been made completely via computer for years now. But he was the only one I knew of who did things that way. Now he is far from alone. I keep reading about new people doing all of their drawing and cartooning on the computer.
I think there are two things driving this trend. The Wacom Cintiq and the Manga Studio program. For years artists have been using pressure sensitive tablets from Wacom and other manufacturers in order to draw on the computer. But they are not easy for novices to draw with. The pen is on the tablet but the line comes out on the computer screen. It takes practice to draw when you can’t look at your hand. The Wacom Cintiq is a pressure sensitive tablet that is a computer screen. For about two grand you get a twenty one inch LCD screen that you can draw on with a pressure sensitive pen. Much less of a learning curve than a regular tablet. That smaller learning curve is key.
Photoshop has been the program of choice for artists in general for ages now. Almost all comic book production and coloring is done in it. When you see comic books being printed from “Enhanced pencils” rather than ones that are traditionally inked that just means that someone played with Photoshop sliders to make the pencils look more like inks. Inking is actually pretty hard to do in Photoshop. At least for a novice.
Inking for comic books is usually done with a pointed paintbrush or a old fashioned dip pen dipped in ink. The ink is then applied to the paper. The inker basically re-draws the pencil work in ink adding shadows, light, and giving it its final form. This is something that can be done in Photoshop but the brush and pen tools are not set up by default to do this. They’re set up to manipulate photos. If you want to ink comics in Photoshop you have to fool around with the brush settings and figure out how to do it. It’s a pretty steep learning curve for the novice. There are a lot of bells, whistle , and distractions in Photoshop.
This is where Manga Studio comes in. I’m no expert in the program and have only fiddled around in it a little bit but I can see why so many young artists have embraced it. It doesn’t do anything Photoshop can’t but because it’s specifically made to create comics it takes away the steep learning curve of how to use the tools. There is no figuring out how to make the brush tool mimic an ink line. That’s its default setting. There are also perspective drawing aids that make things easier.
Learning to use a real ink brush or pen takes time and practice. Some inkers are pen people and some are brush people. It’s just what suits you but the novice won’t even know which until he tries one or the other and spends time learning each. I took to a brush but not so much a pen. I’ve seen people pick up a brush and grow frustrated and put it down forever. Manga Studio eliminates that frustration.
A novice can make a perfect thick to thin ink line on the first try. The skill needed to use the tool is minimal. That doesn’t mean the novice will know what he is doing and do a nice job but it does mean he doesn’t have to spend time learning to make the most basic marks with his pen or brush. The program also makes hatching and crosshatching marks that it would take even more time and practice to learn. All this is right out of the box with a minimal learning curve.
Add those things together, a program that makes inking simpler to learn, drawing aids, a computer screen you can draw on, and then throw in how easy it is to correct mistakes on a computer compared to ink on paper and it’s no wonder so many new cartoonists are embracing making comics without pen, paper, and pencil. Besides the initial costs it’s easier to get started.
This all brings me to wonder about the state of original art in the comic world. I and many others collect the original pen and ink art used to make comic books. With digitally created art such work doesn’t exist. Will it in the future? Sure the vast majority of comic art is still ink on paper but for how long? More and more artist who learned to draw on computer and have no idea how to use physical world tools will emerge but will they ever be the majority? I have no idea. We’ll see what the future brings.
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a hard cover collection:
And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.
“Moving Pictures” by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen
Here’s a book that took me by surprise in that I had no idea it even existed. I usually keep up on the latest graphic novels and collections that are coming out but somehow I never saw mention of this book until I saw it on the shelf. I don’t know the Immonen’s work very well but it was the fact that this is a historical fiction story that got me to buy it.
The story takes place during World War II in Paris when it was occupied by the Germans. The book jacket claims it’s about the “Disconcerting and dangerous private relationship” between the two lead characters Ila Gardner, a Canadian curator of a Paris museum, and Rolf Hauptmann, a German officer in charge of securing French works of art, but it’s really about Ila Gardner. I didn’t even read the book jacket first so I didn’t realize the two were involved in a physical relationship until late in the book.
Ila’s story is one of confusion, loss, and a person who has lost her way in the world. At the beginning of the story Ila has a friend with her who Ila gives her passport too so that the friend can go back home to Canada but Ila refuses to go. I’m not sure why except maybe there was nothing to go back to Canada for. We are not privy to the characters thoughts and so only have their words to figure things out.
A lot of the story takes place in the office/interrigation room of the German officer Haumptmann as he tries to get Ila to cooperate with him and reveal where certain works of art are. They are not even particularly valuable works but he wants her to tow the line. She is defiant but also doesn’t really want to stick her neck out. Plus she’s a low level curator so she doesn’t really know much about the important stuff.
There are other everyday characters who come in and out of Ila’s life. She interacts with her co-workers and other people who want to conserve and hide France’s art. In hind sight knowing that she’s physically, I hesitate to call it romantically, involved with the German officer I wonder if some of her failures at saving some art was her tipping him off. I don’t know. He could have easily found out on his own and it’s not mentioned.
The artwork in the book is a very high contrast black and white done in a simple shaky lined pen style. Though I liked it and the storytelling was good I wasn’t too fond of the shaky lined part. I just didn’t find it attractive and I’m not sure why they chose to do it that way. Maybe it had something to do with the reoccurring motif of bits of paper blown on the breeze.
Overall I really like this book. I find the time it take place in, WWII, a very interesting time. It was a time when you could find yourself powerful or powerless based on what side you were on, what your choices were, and yet a lot of the time people had no choices. Ila’s story seems to be about the choices or non-choices she’s made. It’s a thoughtful book with no real heroes or villains despite being set in a time where heroes or villains abound.
So if you’re a fan of historical fiction or comics that are about people then check this book out.
One of the odd thoughts that comes into my head is that I always think a writing program is going to help me with my writing. But it never does. Mind you I do like computers for writing. They make things a whole lot easier than pen and paper for me. As a matter of fact I’ve done a lot more writing since buying a computer than ever before. More specifically since buying a laptop five years ago.
I bought my first computer back in 1996. It was a desktop but my computer setup is different than most people’s. Even since art school where I spent much time standing while painting at an easel I’ve preferred to work standing up. I find it less fatiguing than sitting down. As a consequence my easel, drawing table, and even my desktop computer are at standing height.
Standing while I work has served me well. Except when it comes to writing. That’s a whole different ball game and it turns out that I can’t stand and write. At least not at my desktop computer in any kind of regular fashion. I have certainly knocked out plenty of short e-mails and even some longer short stuff before I bought my laptop but never with any consistency.
That was always my goal with writing. To make it a habit. I wanted to get some thoughts and ideas out of my head and down on paper with some sort of regularity. Just for myself. I’ve never had any grand goals for my writing since I tilt at enough windmills with my art but I wanted to write some things down. It’s good exercise. It stretches my brain which otherwise might stagnate with the same old thoughts.
I tried other methods of writing. Small notebooks, big notebooks, index cards, loose leaf paper, unlined paper, and probably other things I can’t think of right now. I still like and use a small notebook but only for notes. I like the act of jotting something down in a small notebook but they’re not for working out ideas in a long form. No, it wasn’t until I got my laptop that my regularity of writing began.
When I first got my laptop I wrote mainly in the design and layout program called Quark. That was only because I was used to it from my job doing design and layout. It’s not really a word processing program but duplicates a lot of the stuff found in one. I think I would also use Simple Text the predecessor to Text Edit which is the simple word processing program found on all Macs. It, once again, isn’t a super powerful word processing program but it did the job. I’ve never used Microsoft Word much. It’s the one everyone uses but I always found it clunky, awkward, and distracting. So I stay away from it.
It was back in the late 1990’s that I bought a “Creative” writing program. I can’t even remember which one it was but I wanted to try one out to see if it would help me out in any way. I don’t remember it being very expensive but it must have cost $30-$50 bucks. It was in no way worth the money to me.
It turned out that it helped with the creative process by asking a series of questions about who was the protagonist, the antagonist, what was the plot, where was it going, etc., etc., and so on. Then it stored the answers to those questions on some screen. That’s it. I was already asking myself those questions whenever I started to write something. I was already writing the answers down. I found the program pointless and never did bother to try any other one.
It also didn’t help that I was years away from getting a laptop so I could sit down and write. That’s what really jump started my writing habit. It was February 2005 when I bought this laptop and it’s still going. I started this blog in December 2005 and it’s still going too.
Nowadays I’m always looking at various different “Journal” programs. They allow you to write, attach pictures, add links, keep notes, and do other stuff that I’ve lost track of. Being an artist who uses words in my art plus a cartoonist I would think that one of these journal programs would be right up my alley. I’ve demoed a few of them and I always come to the same conclusion. I have no use for them. They don’t help me in the least. Worse, I find that they confuse me. They’re overkill for me. Trying to organize my thoughts using a multimedia presentation is too much. I like to strip things down to the basics when I’m thinking not add clutter.
I’ve ended up writing all of my blogs and other things in a little freeware program called “Idea Knot”. It doesn’t even do much besides present my writing in a three tiered “Tree View” but somehow the simplicity of that view helps me organized my thoughts. Strangely when using the Finder on my Mac (or even in Windows equivalent) I hate the tree view. I find it too cluttered and confusing for navigating to files yet somehow it clarifies my writing ideas. Weird.
So that’s the intertwined relationship between my writing, my computer, and the programs I run on my computer. Without a laptop I’d still be writing but not as much nor as often. I’m glad I have one. Even if none of the fancy writing programs ever help me much.