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.

So Long, Farewell.

Web-presence will continue on these sites:

• LinkedIn
• deviantArt
• Vimeo
• Carbonmade

 Yes, it's true.  In an interest to simplify my life, I will no longer update this blog.  This decision was not made in haste and is based on a few good reasons:

1. Including this blog and not including my facebook (because it's way too easy to put info on facebook), I have to manage my information on 6 separate web-sites (this blog, the above links, and a school job board).  A professor recommended I add one more.  That's a lot of internet time.  This concerns me.
2. This blog is read by very few people.  Most of the blogs I've seen on blogger are updated even less than mine.  There's not much potential for networking here.
3. deviantArt has a journal wigit.  It has the Earworm posting feature built-in.  I'm already on dA on a daily basis, so it makes sense to condense.
4. The thoughts in my head are not nearly as useful as the work of my hands.  Much as I would love it to be true, my rants about stuff are doing nothing to change the world.  Making someone laugh by showing them a kangaroo chasing clam-frogs around a kitchen at least improves that person's day a bit.
5. Speaking of videos, I'm tired of messing with embedding code to share videos I've made.  Linking to my Vimeo account is just simpler.
6. I've graduated from college with my B.A., 2013 is less than a week away, and as said before I'm job-hunting.  It's a good time for change.

With that, I say goodbye to Blogger and all the people who've been reading this public diary of mine.  Though I must leave you with one last Earworm of the Day:  So Long, Farewell from The Sound of Music

An Excuse to Post Another Earworm.

So I finally saw Wreck-It Ralph.  I can honestly say it lives up to the hype, and even my trope-savvy brain didn't see the ending coming. Though I really should've.  It's foreshadowed way ahead of time,but it's so subtle that on the first viewing it's hard to catch.  It ranks up there with Megamind on my list of "Movies I'm Impressed With".  I did not see Wreck-It Ralph in 3D, but frankly it doesn't need the 3rd dimension (unlike Megamind which certainly does).  My exposure to video game culture came in handy for this movie (a character used the Konami Code and I'm pretty sure I was the only one laughing) but even if you don't play games this movie is entertaining because it's all about the characters.  Any plot-relevant game mechanics are explained in-movie, so the audience can just sit back and get absorbed in the story line.

It also has catchy music.  Wanna hear the catchy music?

Earworm of the Day: Shut Up and Drive by Rihanna  It's in the movie.  It's been stuck in my head for days.