Tablets and Glitches

Getting back into animating stuff hasn't been easy lately.  I like 2D animation; it looks nice regardless of how rough it is and computers are generally more willing to work for you.

That being said, I've been low-tech lately because my graphics tablet went obsolete.  My tablet is a blue Wacom CTE-640, which was gifted to me when my dad bought it on clearance back in 2007 (or round-about that time).  Buying it cheap was practical because I'd never used a tablet in my life and there was no guarantee that I'd like it.

To my dad's relief I took to the tablet like a bird to flight; a little awkward at first but raring for more.  Though I often claim that my first digital drawings look like my 7th-grade self drew them, the novelty of having Ctrl + Z and no eraser lines kept me coming back.  I still prefer line drawing with paper, but I love digital painting.

My little Wacom tablet survived my senior year of high-school, 4 years of college animation classes, being stuffed into book-bags, being dropped on the floor, and having the USB cord replaced.  It has scratches, sticky notes, and sparkly smiley-face stickers stuck all over it.  The pen tip has never worn out, and neither have the buttons or the eraser bit on the end.

A month or two ago I plugged my tablet into my desktop computer...

...and the computer did nothing.  It was clear my tablet was working, but the computer had forgotten what a graphics tablet was.

I went online to download updates, because that usually fixes weird things like that, but there were no more updates for the CTE-640.

Here lies my first tablet, brought to death by software obsolescence.

For a time I borrowed a Monoprice TWA60 from a friend, but that model doesn't have an eraser, which bugs me.  It also developed this quirk where it would start drawing at a point as much as 2 inches away from where I intended to draw, so I'd get done coloring a character's belly, and then have to erase all these unwanted freckles from their backs and tails.  When it stopped registering pressure differences (essential for my calligraphic lines) I decided to return the TWA60 to its owner rather than download the software updates.  The tablet design overall didn't thrill me.

I'm planning to get a brand new, professional-grade tablet this time.  My aim is for longevity as well as quality.  I need something that I can get comfortable with and then keep for the next 6 years or more.  I've had my eye on an Intuos5 Touch.  It has an eraser :) .

Earworm of the Day: Fortune Days by The Glitch Mob
.  On a related note, I recently started using Pandora.  What took me so long!?

Blog is Back Online!

Penguins with Jet Packs is back!!!  Kinda.  The name is being changed to EY Productions: The Blog.  

Reason 1: How many times have I actually drawn penguins zooming around with jet packs on in the last few years? Twice?

Reason 2: There's a band.  I'm just going to back off and let them rock.

Reason 3: Consistent personal branding.

I have profiles on a lot of websites, and I like to keep my user names and avatars consistent so people can tell it's me across all 5 or so websites.  EYproductions is my user name for both DeviantArt and CG Society. The dripbird logo (supposed to vaguely [really vaguely] evoke a coat-of-arms critter) will also be a reoccurring avatar image.  The "Made By E.Y." hamster will still be stamped on all of my digital art.

EY Productions: The Blog has a mission statement: To chronicle my growth as a digital artist/animator.  Stuff that you can expect to see from here on out:

• Concept sketches & thumbnails
• Updates on modeling projects
• Short but hilarious commentary about bugs/inconvenient features of various artistic software
• Short computer scripts for fun and other artistic purposes.
• Recommendations for resource materials
• Earworms (because I just have to, it's my thing.)

Things I will NOT be posting about from here on out (sorry, but it's for the best).

• Random craft projects & photography (that's what deviantArt is for).
• What I cooked for dinner last night.
• 3 paragraph rants about tropes or personal epiphanies
• The latest novel I'm reading (unless it inspired something relevant).
• Lengthy descriptions of my Animalburg characters (I really want to make a web-comic of that someday, so I really need to stop giving you people spoilers.)
• Apologies for not posting!!!  If I miss a post, tough cookies for all of us, the world will keep spinning.

Posting will resume with the traditional schedule of Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  I will aim to post an original image each week, and an original animation once every 4 weeks.

That's all you need to know for now.  See you Wednesday!

P.S.: I would love to ramble about the tv show I (finally!) started watching, and the knitting project I've been working on... but I just banned that kind of rambling from the blog.  I'm sure you can guess both of them by listening to The Earworm of the Day.