Category: Demonstration

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Martin Sheen – The Details

Martin Sheen - PortraitYesterday, I wrote about why I painted this portrait of Martin Sheen’s character, Tom, from the movie ‘The Way.’  Click on this link, if you’d like to read it.  Today, I figured I’d write a little bit about the how, as there are always artists out there who want to know the technical details, and I’m happy to oblige.

This painting was done entirely in Photoshop CS6 Extended using a Wacom Cintiq 24″HD display.  No photos were used in the painting, aside from reference.  I didn’t keep track of how long it took me to complete it because I wasn’t on deadline or in a rush, so while I could easily say 20 hours, it was probably more, over a few weeks.  Without a deadline, I was able to nitpick it and get it as close to perfect as my current skills will allow.  At some point, however, I just have to call it done, because any changes become so minute that nobody will see them but me.

With all of my previous work, it has become my practice to start a painting at low resolution, usually around 9″X12″ at 72ppi.  Then, as the painting progresses, I will keep bumping up the size and resolution.  I teach this method in my PhotoshopCAFE DVD, “Animal Painting in Adobe Photoshop” and it’s the same practice I use for painting portraits of people.  There used to be two reasons for doing this.  First, when you’re working at low-res, you can’t get distracted by putting in too much detail because the size just won’t allow any.  This forces me to well establish ‘the bones’ of a likeness before working on wrinkles, skin texture, and hair.  The other reason for starting at low-res was that my computer had reached the end of it’s efficient life for this type of work and at full-size and full-res, the brushes just wouldn’t move well enough to make broad strokes across the digital canvas.  A completed painting was never more than 18″X24″ at 300ppi, because at that size, I could only work on the fine details without experiencing some lag.

Recently I had a new computer built and I’m back to working on a very current, high end machine.  Running 64bit Windows 7 with 64bit Photoshop, 16GB of RAM and a 4GB video card, everything is running incredibly smooth.  I could have started and finished this painting at full-res, without any problems at all.  BUT, I’m going to continue using my low-res to high-res workflow for the first reason I mentioned.  It forces me to get the likeness right and it works well for me.  That being said, I decided to push this painting to see if I could make it larger, which also allows more attention to detail.  This final painting is 32″X24″ at 300ppi.  At that size, the brushes were working just fine, and I could have bumped it up even more, with no issues in performance.

I’m still using the regular brushes in Photoshop and haven’t used any of the Mixer or Bristle brushes in my paintings.  Those brushes are designed to simulate traditional media and I honestly don’t feel the need to do that.  Digital painting is a medium all on its own, and I don’t try to make it into something it’s not.  I do intend to give those other brushes a try in the coming year, however, simply to see if they’ll offer me some choices to make my work better.  While I’m pleased with the quality of this painting and very much enjoyed working on it, there will always be room to improve.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

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Another Wacom Webinar

Wacom has invited me back for another webinar, coming up soon on Thursday, November 8th.  Click here or on the image to go to the registration page.  Best of all, it’s free!

When I was in Las Vegas in September for Photoshop World, Wacom invited me to give a demonstration at their booth on the Expo Floor.  Yesterday, they posted the session online in two parts.  While this one shows you more of me talking about painting, next week’s webinar will show my screen and you’ll be able to see the work up close and personal, just as I get to while I’m creating it.

Here are the videos from Vegas.  Enjoy!

PART 1

PART 2

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My Wacom Cintiq 24HD Settings

For this second blog entry on the Wacom Cintiq 24HD (read the first one here), I wanted to show all of the different settings I’ve chosen for the Express Keys, Touch Ring and Radial Menu.  I’m very comfortable using these hardware features on the Intuos tablets, but had to change everything up for the Cintiq for two reasons.  The first is that there are more settings to choose from.  The second is that working directly on the screen changed how I do things.

These Photoshop settings are in no way being shared in order to tell you what you should do.  Feel free to borrow anything you see here, of course, but I would encourage you to experiment with the settings and find ones that work best for you.  There are so many possible configurations that you can almost program each of the Express Keys, Touch Rings, and Radial Menu for anything you want Photoshop to do.  The feature I like best is that you can even program different settings for every piece of software you have.

My buddy Jeff Foster is an Author, Producer and VFX Artist at Sound Visions Media.  My setting for brush size on the pen, which I’ll explain later, was his suggestion and it works very well.  Since I’m no longer using the Touch Ring for brush size, he also suggested that the Touch Ring can be used for any keystroke operation at all, so it’s important to think differently and creatively.  I still haven’t finished experimenting with my Touch Ring settings, so some of the ones I show here will likely change.

Because there are so many settings to explain, I’ll just get right to it.  Here are some photos that show you what the buttons I’ll be talking about look like on the actual hardware.  I got these images directly from the Wacom site, so if you want to know even more about the Cintiq 24HD than what I’ve shown here, just click on any of the images and you’ll be instantly transported to their website.  It’s like magic, don’t you know?

As you can see from the image at the beginning of this post and the ones above and below, there are five Express Keys and a Touch Ring, with three settings each, on either side of the display.  Additionally, there are three buttons above the display for features I’ll explain later.  On the top edge of the display, which you can’t see here, there are a series of buttons like you would find on any monitor, to adjust your display color, brightness and contrast settings.  Incidentally, I like to work with my monitor brightness a lot lower than most people.  I have my Contrast set to 50, my Brightness to 13, and my Backlight to 0 (Zero).  You might think that a little odd, but it works very well for me.  My monitors have always been set to low brightness and my eyes don’t get strained as easily from long hours in front of a display.

Let’s talk about those three little buttons at the top right above the display.  From left to right, there is one that has a lower case letter i, one that looks like a keyboard, and one that looks like a wrench.  The i is for information, and when you press that, you get the image that you see below.  It fills the display, regardless of the software you’re using, BUT the settings you see displayed will be the ones you have set for that particular piece of software, or the default settings.  What you see here are my settings for Photoshop.  This is a great feature because you might forget what you have a button set for and this will show you in real time.  We’ll zoom in on all of these in a minute.

The second button will bring up the on-screen keyboard, which is pretty self-explanatory.  Sometimes you just want to type in a layer name, or press a number, and you don’t want to have to go fishing for your actual keyboard, especially since it might be under your Cintiq.

Finally, there is the button with the wrench on it, which will bring up your Wacom Tablet Properties.  I just think this is very clever to include this as a hardware button because sometimes you just want to make a quick change to your settings, and you don’t want to leave your software or go searching for it in your menus.  Press the button, it will bring up the panel you see here, make your change, close it and go right back to work.

Now let’s take a closer look at how I have my Express Keys, Touch Rings and Radial Menu set up.  I won’t show you how to make these changes, because that will require a whole new post.  If you want some help, I recorded a couple of videos for the Intuos5 and those will show you how to change your settings, even on the Cintiq.  Here are a couple of links, one for the Express Keys and Touch Ring and another for the Radial Menu.

Let’s take a look at the Express Keys and Touch Ring Properties.  As you can see below, the three buttons for the Touch Ring are currently set to Zoom, Brush Size, and None.  Rather than use the default Zoom, however, I have mine set to Ctrl- and Ctrl+ (Cmd- and + on the Mac) shortcut for Zoom.  The reason is that will zoom in and out in increments that keeps my painting sharp and crisp.  Some of the other increments in between can make images a little blurred and I don’t like that.  So my zoom isn’t a smooth transition, it goes in steps.

Brush Size is self-explanatory, although I now have that on my pen, so I’ll be finding another use for this spot, I think.  The third one is normally set for Rotate, as in rotating the canvas, but I have it set to None simply because I was recently recording a video and didn’t want to accidentally zoom in while recording if my finger touched the ring, so I set this to none and left it there while I recorded.  Again, I’ll be finding another use for this one, too.

For the Express Keys on the left of the display, I have them set as follows:

1) Undo – Ctrl-Alt-Z. (Cmd-Option-Z on the Mac).  When I’m painting, I pretty much keep a finger on this most of the time and it allows multiple undos.

2) Color Picker – This is not a normal keyboard shortcut, so I had to create one, which is fairly easy to do in Photoshop.

3) Shift – a Modifier Key that will give many tools more options.

4) Ctrl – (Cmd) another modifier key.

5) Pan/Scroll – In Photoshop, this is the Hand Tool and it will allow you to move around the canvas.

On the right side of the display, the Touch Ring again is still set for the default settings.  I know I’ll find a use for it, I just have to get creative and even more efficient.

For the Express Keys, they’re set as follows:

1) Gamut Check – Ctrl-Y (Cmd Y).  I draw and paint in sRGB, but I’m always aware that my editorial cartoons are printed in CMYK and some of my paintings and illustrations may be printed that way as well.  My color picker is set so I can only choose colors that are ‘in gamut’, which means when converted to CMYK, they won’t shift.  But sometimes when I make a Levels or other Color adjustment, it will shift colors too far, so I’m always checking Gamut to make sure everything looks as it should.  Newspapers do not have universal color settings.  Some publications have downright hideous printing, so I try to find a happy medium to please everybody.  Yeah, I know…good luck with that.

2) Hide – Ctrl-H (Cmd-H) When I’m working with selections, this hides the little ‘marching ants’ that define a selection, because I hate looking at the moving dotted lines when I’m painting.

3) Radial Menu – This is Wacom’s way of giving you even more choices.  It’s an onscreen heads-up display that gives you an opportunity to program your own menus and submenus.  I’ll show you my Radial Menu settings in a minute.

4) Fit Screen – Ctrl-0 (Cmd-0) Zooming in and out of a painting or drawing, often I just want the image to reset to fit screen.

5) Display Toggle – I have multiple displays, my other one is above the Cintiq.  When I want to access the other display, I press this button and my pen can move the cursor to my other screen, which makes the top half of the Cintiq display work just like a traditional Wacom tablet.  It’s a great feature.

My Pen Settings are as follows:

Erase – This button is a waste for me and I can’t even think of a reason to use it for something else, either.  I’m sure other people do use it, but I never have.

The button on the pen is actually two buttons.  Originally, it’s set for a Left Mouse and Right Mouse configuration, but as mentioned previously, my friend Jeff gave me a reason to consider other options.  For the left Mouse Button, the one furthest from the tip, I have it set to the keystroke configuration you see in the image.  What this allows me to do, when I have the Brush selected in Photoshop, is change brush size very fluidly.  I press the button, move the pen left or right and I can see the brush size change on the screen.  This was one of those, “I wish I’d known this sooner!” moments, because I would have had my Intuos tablet set to this as well.

The Right Mouse button, the one closest to the tip, is set to Alt (Option on the Mac).  When I have the brush selected in Photoshop, this toggles the Eyedropper Tool for easy selection of color in a painting.  I use this constantly for better blending and color transitions in my work.  So now I can change brush size and select color quickly and easily right from the pen.  It’s a very enjoyable way to paint.

And finally, here are my Radial Menu settings.

When you press the Radial Menu button, you get the circle on the right, which is fully customizable.  If you wanted to, you could make every one of those pie pieces into a submenu.  I currently only have three.  When you click on each of those submenus, you get  the images on the left.  Each submenu can not only have a full selection of pie pieces, but those can be submenus as well.  I’m no math wizard, but that gives you a LOT of choices for custom configuration.

Obviously I don’t need to explain every one of them, but I’ll give you some thoughts on what some of the more unique ones do.

Blend Modes Submenu – I use four Photoshop Actions for Blend Modes all the time in my drawing and painting.  OK, that one that reads ‘Cartoon Websize’ is an Action for something else, but I had nowhere else to put it and I use it every day.  But the rest are for Blend Modes, I assure you.  If you don’t know about Blend Modes in Photoshop, my buddy Scott Valentine just wrote a great new book that explains them very well.  I’ll have a review of the book very soon, but if you want to check it out, here’s the link.  The Hidden Power of Blend Modes in Adobe Photoshop.

Flip Canvas – Often when I’m painting, I want to shift my perspective, so I’ll flip the image I’m working on horizontally.  You’d be surprised how helpful this can be, especially when it comes to likeness in portraits.  Sometimes I’ll just know that something doesn’t look right but I can’t put my finger on it.  By flipping the canvas, the problem will almost always become immediately apparent.  Your brain gets lazy and this will often give your perception a bit of a slap.

So there you have it.  These are my settings on the Cintiq 24HD…for now.  I fully expect to make little changes and tweaks as I get more used to the display, but these settings are working very well for me at present.  There really is no excuse for not being able to customize this display to work exactly the way you want it to.  Yes, it will take some time to get it perfect, but it’s worth it.  Wacom has not only provided hardware that will allow you to create the best drawing and painting experience possible, but the software takes it even further.

Don’t be afraid of making changes.  There is a default button in the Wacom Tablet Properties.  If you mess it up too much, you can always start again.  When you do get the settings you want, however, back them up!  I can’t stress this enough.  Computers aren’t perfect, software can conflict with other software, and stuff happens.  There is a Wacom Tablet Preferences Utility included with the software.  It will allow you to save and restore your preferences should the unthinkable happen.  Just as you should back up your images and files, you should also back up your preferences.

If you have any issues, Wacom’s technical support is very helpful.  And finally, if you just have any questions, I’m happy to help, too.  Thanks for stopping by and hopefully this helped you see some possibilities you might not have considered, whether you’re using Wacom’s Intuos tablets or their Cintiq displays.

 

 

 

 

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What I like best about the Wacom Cintiq 24HD

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got the new Wacom Cintiq 24HD Display.  There are two versions of this device, and people keep asking me if I got ‘the Touch,’ meaning the one that has touch features along with pen input.  The answer is ‘No,’ and the reason is because even though I like touch features on my iPad and phone, I don’t feel the need for it on my main display.  I know a lot of people want that, so it’s great that this display is available with and without the option.  Keep in mind, there is also a significant cost difference between the two.

I’ve had my eye on the new Cintiq since it was launched earlier this year.  Many of the new features that Wacom included finally pushed me over the edge to get one.  Rarely do I develop an infatuation for new and shiny tech.  I waited two months before I got my first-gen iPad, just to be sure it was going to be useful and not just a toy.  Having used it every day since, I wasn’t disappointed.  That being said, it’s two years old and I’ll only replace it for a newer version when it stops working well.  I’ve never owned an iPhone and can’t think of any piece of technology I would line up for.

Now you might be thinking, why am I talking about Apple stuff, I thought this was about Wacom.  The reason is that I want to be clear up front that I’m not a gadget person who gets something just because it’s new and trendy.  If it’s not useful, I’m not interested.  So with years under my belt with the Intuos line of tablets and being very pleased with those, why did I suddenly feel the need to get the high performance sports car of Wacom tablets?

I’ve never had a problem doing all of my detailed painted work on the Intuos tablets.  They’re solid, they work well, they last forever and they get the job done.  The size wasn’t an issue, working off the screen wasn’t an issue, resolution and pressure sensitivity worked well.  The simple answer is that it was time.  This is the top of the line professional tablet and I want my work to be the best it can be.  From all I’ve heard from colleagues and other reviewers, their endorsement of what this display does for their workflow and better use of their time was enough for me to feel I needed to make the jump.

I’ve had the Cintiq 24HD for almost two weeks now.  Normally I’d write a review for something new a lot sooner than this, but I’ve been swamped with work, which as a freelancer is not a bad thing at all.  The upside of waiting this long for the review is that I’ve used it a lot.  There is nothing that I do in my scope of work that I now haven’t done on the Cintiq.  Daily editorial cartoons, illustrations, writing, and a brand new Totem painting from start to finish, I’ve really put it through its paces, and I am incredibly impressed.

There is just too much to talk about to do this in one post, so I’ll be spreading it out over two or three.  For this one, I just wanted to talk about the features that impressed me most.  I’ve never been one to do those ‘let’s unpack it’ reviews.  There are plenty of those out there.  As for the technical specs, you can see all of that as well as videos and other images on Wacom’s website.  I just want to tell you how this will impact my own work and why I like the display so much.  I made note of things that made me raise my eyebrows over the last couple of weeks.  A few of these things even made me say, “oh cool!” out loud.  They are in no particular order of importance.

1)  With a dual monitor system, I used to have my Photoshop palettes on a separate monitor.  The Cintiq is so big and has so many Express Keys along with the Radial Menu, that I don’t need that anymore.  I can do everything on this big screen.  But I still like my second monitor, so I have it positioned above the Cintiq, and I can keep all of my other windows, browser, music player open on that display.  By pressing one of the Express keys to ‘Toggle Display’, I can temporarily jump to the other monitor, and the Cintiq becomes just like a traditional Wacom tablet.

LOVE the new monitor configuration for reference photos!  Just feels so natural to look up from my ‘drafting table’ to see the pics.

2) They put a USB port right on the display itself.  Might seem like a small thing, but I frequently take images with me or grab them from a USB key.  This is just convenient.

3)  Wacom put a Tablet Properties button on the device itself.  This is great because it gives you quick options to open the properties, make changes, then get back to work.  It’s important to experiment with the Tablet Properties and more than a few times, I found myself thinking, “I should be able to program an Express Key to (insert operation, tool selection, or toggle here.)  They made it easier to do that.  I’ll detail all of my new settings in another post.

4) Pulling the device down over the edge of your desk, means forcing yourself to avoid using your keyboard.  This is a good thing!

5)  More buttons!  I really like the fact that with Express Keys on both sides of the screen, plus two (count ‘em, TWO) touch rings, you get plenty of options on how to customize your Cintiq so it works perfectly for the way you work.  A word of caution, however.  Computers aren’t perfect and sometimes program conflicts or an accidental pressing of the Default button in the Wacom Tablet Properties can erase all of your settings, so be sure to backup your settings with the Wacom Tablet Preference Utility.  I learned that lesson the hard way last week.

6) The display was so easy to set up.  OK, I did have to wait for my wife to get home from work so she could help me bring it up two flights of stairs from the garage to my office.  It’s 63lbs out of the box, quite large, and awkward to carry.  I wasn’t about to risk any damage by trying to do it myself.  Once I got it on my desk (oh, it’s staying there, now), the instructions were simple and straightforward.  It was very much like setting up any new display.  I use the Eye-One Color Calibrator and it was just as simple to calibrate the Cintiq as it is for any other type of monitor.

7)  The Cintiq is just a joy to work on.  The base is so well designed that I can’t think of any way to improve upon it.  As shown in the images here, it locks in place when it’s fully upright, so it can be used like a standard display (a BIG standard display) or it can be used flat in the upright position.  As someone who sits all day long while I work, I have contemplated getting one of those very expensive adjustable desks that allows a person to work standing up once in awhile.  I no longer have to think about that, because the Cintiq lets me do that when I need a break from the chair.  I did that a number of times in the past couple of weeks and loved having the option.

8)  Word of caution.  This thing is BIG.  I have a great coffee cup that I got at Costco (three of them, actually) made by Contigo.  You can see it to the left of the display in the photos.  It seals completely and to take a drink, you have to press a button on the back to open it.  It’s great because it not only keeps coffee hot for well over an hour, but it if you drop the cup or knock it over, it doesn’t spill.  Because I start work very early in the morning and work in low light as often as possible, my office is usually near dark.  In the first week of using the Cintiq, I knocked over my coffee cup three times when I went to adjust the display with the handles on the sides.  It’s just so big!

And finally, it’s solid!  There is nothing about this display that feels cheaply made.  The enjoyment I’m having drawing and painting on the screen is difficult to explain.  Working on little hairs with the pen at the same point of contact as my brush strokes just feels so much more natural.I’ve often dealt with back pain off and on over the years, usually stress related from working hunched over too much.  As I said, I was so busy with deadlines that I’ve spent a LOT of time on this device.  One thing I noticed, a great surprise, is that I had no significant neck or back pain as a result.  Sure, tight shoulders and strain just from sitting so long and working, you’ll get that in any job when you’re working long hours, but nothing that didn’t go away with rest and nothing that I had to take an Advil for.

So, yes, I’m enjoying the Cintiq 24HD a great deal, and I’m sure I’ll continue to discover things that make me say, “Oh, cool,” and I’ll be sure to share them.  Next time, I’ll talk about having to change all of Express Key, Touch Ring and Radial Menu settings.  When you’re working directly on the screen, it’s a whole new ballgame.

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Another Photoshop World

Photo courtesy of Chuck Uebele.

This past week, I once again found myself in Las Vegas for Photoshop World.  Following last year’s event, I wrote that it was unlikely I would attend again as the classes no longer offered me any significant benefit and that it had become very much a conference about photography rather than one about Photoshop.  Since I still believe that, you might wonder why I returned, especially since I only attended a few classes.

I got to hang out with many friends from all over Canada and the U.S., a number of whom I’ve worked with on projects or have plans to in the coming year.  I rely on these folks for reference photos, business contacts, and often just critiques of my work and moral support throughout the year, so it was great seeing them.  There is a great benefit to spending time with likeminded creatives with whom you can connect.

One of those was my good friend Jeff Tamagini from Boston.  Jeff is an architect, 3D designer and photographer whose work I really admire in all three disciplines.  Jeff was a big part of the reason Vegas was fun last week.  In addition to his introducing me to the amazing food at Julian Serrano at Aria (my wife was very jealous of that one), it was just guys hanging out, attending parties, dinners, and laughing an awful lot.  But I hired Jeff as a photographer while we there, too.

I plan to have a new PhotoshopCAFE DVD coming out this Fall, this one on painting portraits of people.  To avoid having to worry about model releases and licensing issues, I’ll be using myself as the subject.  The other reason is that anybody hired to paint a portrait is unlikely to have a model as their subject.  By using myself, I get to talk about how to minimize flaws (I have those in abundance) and to paint your subject in the best possible light, working with what you have.  I even woke with a zit on my nose that day, so I set aside my ego and told Jeff not to correct it from the shot, so I could show how to prep your reference photo as well.  The sacrifices I make for my craft, I tell ya.

Since I really like Jeff’s work and he’s a friend who’s also not going to make me look bad, I trusted him for the gig.  The shoot didn’t take long; I got the light and scene I wanted, to see the images in real time, and as a bonus, I have a little anecdote to share to make the DVD a little more engaging.

The second reason for attending was networking.  It’s an overused buzz word these days, but it basically means building new and reinforcing existing relationships to the benefit of your professional interests.

I was able to spend time with people from different companies, some of whom I’ve met before, but also a few with whom I’ve had no prior connection, but now have opened doors and dialogue for opportunities in the coming year.  There’s no online substitute for being introduced to a department head over lunch, and then realizing you’ve segued into discussing potential projects you might work on together.  You’re also a lot more likely to find out inside information about a great many things while sharing a drink with somebody at a social event than you will over email or social media.

At one point this week, I participated in an on-camera interview for an Adobe promotional video.  They asked me to show my painted work on camera.  At the end of the shoot, one of the camera crew gave me his card and asked for mine; because he might have a project he wants to hire me for.  Who knows if anything will come of it, but you just don’t find yourself in those moments when you only exist to people online.  I also had the opportunity to participate in an informal forum discussion with Adobe designers to discuss expectations and share thoughts on future releases and possibilities, a process I enjoyed very much.

And finally, I was invited to demo for Wacom in their booth on the Expo Floor.  I will admit to being a little nervous about that, but I’m also a firm believer that if you don’t step out of your comfort zone on a regular basis, you stagnate, especially as a creative.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been able to build relationships with a few key people at Wacom and I count myself lucky.  Wes, Joe and Pam have been very supportive of my work, and have treated me very well.  The trip alone was worth my time just to spend some with them. While the demo didn’t go completely according to my plan, (does it ever?), apparently nobody noticed and many told me afterward that they enjoyed the presentation.

Once I got rolling, it really did feel quite natural.  As Joe from Wacom said to me in an email the week before, “It is 45 minutes of doing what you do so well.”

You see why I like these folks?

After giving it some thought, I’m not going to make a ruling on whether or not I’ll go to Photoshop World again, but I can honestly say that I won’t be there as a conference attendee.  Without any advanced classes on painting and illustration, there’s just nothing there that I can’t learn online.  I may be back, however, for the reasons I’ve mentioned here.  What made the conference worth attending were the conversations and experiences I had at the Expo, as well as the number of meetings, planned and otherwise, in which I participated.  Some of my friends have said they won’t be back next year, so that will factor into it as well, but for now, I’m just leaving my options open.

All in all, I enjoyed the week.  While it was technically a business trip, it was also a bit of a vacation from the office, too.  Sometimes, even that’s just reason enough to go.

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Live in Vegas!

While it’s true that I’ve only got a few more skills than a professionally trained monkey (hey, I’m a self-trained monkey!), you know you’ve hit the big time when you’re invited to perform in Vegas!

Those wonderfully shortsighted folks at Wacom could have chosen to file a restraining order, but instead they invited me to present at their Expo booth at Photoshop World in Las Vegas next month.   Anybody who’s read anything on this site knows that I really enjoy working with these people, so all kidding aside, it’s an honour to be included with the other names in their guest roster.

That’s me with Wacom’s Joe Sliger at the booth last year.  Seriously, what’s with all the guys in glasses and beards?

I’ve been presenting to schools and other small groups for years, have done a number of painting demos at a few different galleries, and have had a couple of occasions to be a guest presenter for Wacom webinars over the past year.  I’ve even run a small demonstration booth for Wacom on my own about a year ago during Scott Kelby’s ‘Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it’ tour when it stopped in Calgary.  This will be the first time I’ve been invited to present live at their booth at Photoshop World, however, and I’m really looking forward to it.  I’m actually quite comfortable talking to people, especially when it comes to digital painting, as I enjoy this work a great deal. In fact, the real trick is getting to me to shut up,  which is probably why the session is only 45 minutes long.  I fully expect someone to be standing in the wings with a big hook, right around the 43 min. mark, ready to pull me away from the podium. (Yeah, I see you, Wes!).

The great thing about this opportunity is that it gives me a reason to paint something brand new,  something I can show during the demo in different stages, painting a little at each stage and talking about the different ways a Wacom tablet allows me to create the work I love so much.  The bad news, however, is that I have only two weeks to complete it, which means I need to stop typing, and start painting.

For those of you who will be attending Photoshop World in Las Vegas this year, stop by the Wacom booth whenever the Expo is open.  Check the schedule on the Photoshop World site for the Expo Floor hours.  They’ll have a number of different tablets on hand that you can try and a great group of pros eager to show you the tablet ropes or answer any questions you might have.  My presentation on the Wacom demo stage will be on Thursday, September 6th, from 3:00-3:45, but I plan to be spending time in their booth at other times during the conference, helping people out.   I wonder how long it’ll take before they call Security.

 

 

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Wacom’s Bamboo Splash Tablet and ArtRage Studio

Wacom just released a new entry level tablet, the Bamboo Splash, and I had an opportunity to put it through its paces.

The Bamboo Splash tablet is designed for the amateur or beginner digital artist.  It’s perfect for kids and teenagers, allowing them to experiment with digital art without having to spend a bundle to do so. Best of all, even though it lacks the bells and whistles of the more advanced tablets, it doesn’t sacrifice much in performance.

As I draw syndicated editorial cartoons almost every day, I wanted to see if I could still get real work done using the Bamboo Splash, rather than with the medium sized Intuos5 that I use every day.

The Wacom Intuos5 is a professional tablet.  With the programmable Express Keys, the Touch Ring, high end pen, and the onscreen customizable features, not to mention the larger size, it’s unfair to compare the two tablets as they are designed for different skill levels.  As I’ve been doing this for a living for many years, I’ll admit that the Bamboo Splash isn’t tablet enough for my daily needs, but then again, it isn’t meant for me.

The Bamboo Splash tablet was simple to set up.  Plug it in; install the drivers from the CD, restart the computer and it was working flawlessly.  Visiting the preferences utility, I found that very little aside from ‘Tip Feel’ was changeable.  For a beginner, that’s ideal.  It’s ready to go, out of the box, nothing confusing.

Put simply, it’s a great device.  The Bamboo Splash has 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, which is plenty.  While a number of people may wonder about the size, your mind figures it out fast.  I work on a larger tablet every day, mapped to two screens.  I keep all of my Photoshop tools on one screen and draw on the other.  That means I’m really only using half the tablet for drawing.

When using the Bamboo Splash, I didn’t change my screen mapping, so I was only drawing on half of the smaller tablet, too.  After a few minutes, I didn’t even think about it.  My mind just figured out that brush and pen strokes required less movement.

This cartoon (with the political commentary left out) was drawn and painted entirely with the Bamboo Splash in Photoshop and it worked very well.  While I did keep reaching for the Express Keys and Touch Ring of the Intuos5 out of habit, once I got used to their absence and reverted to using keyboard shortcuts or drop down menus in Photoshop, I was able to work smoothly and still got my cartoon out to my newspapers on time.

Trying to draw with a mouse is an exercise in futility.  You really do need a Wacom tablet to draw with a computer.  While the Intuos5 tablets and Cintiq devices will represent more of a financial investment, you’re not risking too much with the Bamboo Splash.  The tablet comes in at well under $100.  Best of all, it comes with two very nice pieces of creative software.  One is Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro and the other is ArtRage Studio.

I spent some time with ArtRage, and it was very enjoyable to use. While it’s not designed to be a professional illustration and painting tool like Photoshop or Painter, it offers a lot to anybody wanting to try their hand at digital art.  With pencils, crayons, chalk, oils, watercolors and a number of other tools, there’s very little to limit your creativity.  It even supports layers and blend modes, and has a number of other fun tools and settings to mess around with.

Pairing ArtRage Studio with the Bamboo Splash was a great idea, because they’re both designed to allow you to create digital art, without a steep learning curve.  You can start working with both right away and if you’re like me, preferring to figure it out as you go along, you’ll be able to get pretty far without having to look through the manual.

When you do want more info, the ArtRage website has plenty of tutorials.  You can also upgrade the software to ArtRage Studio Pro and they have iPhone and iPad drawing apps as well.  If you do want to try out the mobile apps, I’d recommend the Wacom Bamboo Stylus as a drawing device to go with them.

Here’s a video I recorded for Wacom’s ‘See What You Can Do’ campaign, designed to share a little bit of my thoughts on digital painting, and to show some of the drawing and painting tools available in ArtRage Studio.

 

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No Strings Attached

The Wacom Intuos5 tablet is a welcome evolution to the line, and while I never felt that the Intuos4 was lacking in any way, it has quickly become apparent that I didn’t know what I was missing.  The new design, heads-up display for the Express Keys and the Touch Ring, along with the improved pen response are reasons enough for me to love this tablet.  The Touch features just ended up being a bonus.

One of the best new features of the Intuos5, however, is the add-on Wireless Accessory Kit.  Even though one or two of the previous tablets had wireless capability, this is the best solution I’ve seen for the feature and it’s impressive how well it works.

The instructions for using the kit couldn’t be simpler, and after charging the battery while I worked, I was anxious to try it out.  My whimsical wildlife paintings hang in galleries in Banff, Canmore, and Calgary, Alberta.  From time to time, I’ll do painting demonstrations, to coincide with a long weekend or the launch of new paintings, both of which happened in May.

The basic setup of the demo is that of me sitting behind a table with the laptop and tablet, and a large secondary display facing outward so that viewers can talk to me, but also see what I’m doing.  With the Wireless Accessory Kit installed, I was able to come out from behind the table, stand beside some of the viewers, and even let them try the tablet right out in front of the secondary display.  It was a very interactive experience for the viewers.

While that would have been enough of a successful test, I recently found myself with another opportunity when I was asked to give presentations to a couple of 7th grade classes at the local school.  This is something I do from time to time, and it usually consists of my running a PowerPoint slideshow presentation from the classroom computer, while the students watch on the peripheral smart-board.   A smart-board is an interactive blackboard sized display screen that many schools are using now.

At the end of the slideshow and talk about editorial cartooning and painting, the students always want me to draw, and I usually end up showing them some rudimentary cartoons on a dry erase board.  While it works well, there’s really no ‘wow’ factor, and I can’t show them how I paint.

For the recent presentation, I hooked up my laptop directly to the smart-board, connected the Intuos5 tablet and was able to wirelessly control the slideshow from anywhere in the room.  The range of the Wireless Accessory Kit far exceeded my expectations.  With the laptop in one corner, I could stand by the door at the opposite corner of the room and there was no performance loss whatsoever.  It was easily 25-30 feet between connections, and I could paint as if I was sitting directly in front of the laptop.

While I was well aware that I would be able to control Photoshop with the tablet, I knew that controlling PowerPoint with it was going to free me up even more.   In the Wacom Settings, I customized the Functions specifically for PowerPoint.  I programmed four of the Express Keys for the operations I would need.   In order from the top, I chose Next Slide, Previous Slide, Start Slideshow, and End Show.  While you can see a screen shot of the ‘Express View’ here, I disabled it during the show, so that it wouldn’t pop up over my slides, and I could just keep my finger on the ‘Next Slide’ button.  Under the Touch Options, I had the touch features disabled for the length of the presentation.

I use the Keynote app on my iPad for a duplicate of the slideshow with my presentation notes, and I saw no reason why I couldn’t be free of my laptop for the entire session.  Since I only needed the Express Keys for the slideshow, I put my iPad on the tablet and carried it around (with both hands, of course) activating the slide buttons with my left thumb.So I had my notes, my slideshow, a controller for the presentation and freedom to move around the room.  It is true that the iPad has apps that can control presentations like this wirelessly, but in my experience, they’re pretty twitchy, especially when connecting to unfamiliar WiFi.

As I was using the tablet for multiple applications during the presentation already, this was a great plug-and-play solution, with no problems.  When the slideshow was finished, I removed the iPad, sat down at a desk in the center of the room in front of the Smart-board, launched Photoshop and proceeded to show the students a little on how I draw and paint digitally.

The two presentations took about three hours of my time, and with the Intuos5 tablet and wireless control of the smart board, I never once needed to go back to my laptop.  The integration was flawless, and this is how I’ll do presentations and demos from now on.

If you’d like to know more about how I setup the Express Keys, Touch Ring and Radial Menu for Photoshop, check out these videos.

 Wacom Intuos5 – Express Keys and Touch Ring

 

 Wacom Intuos5 – The Radial Menu

 

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Prints and Painting Demos

This is the half page ad that will appear in this week’s Rocky Mountain Outlook, for the launch of the four new Totem paintings.

On Friday, I picked up a very large print order in Calgary, a mix of matted paper prints and canvas prints.  While the majority of these were the four newly released Totem paintings, there were also a number of replacement prints for ones that have sold, and prints for online orders that I’ll be packing and shipping today.

For the matted prints, they come assembled and in a plastic sleeve.  All I have to do is insert a bio sheet into each one, sign it and seal the packaging.  For one or two, it doesn’t take much time.  For ninety-five, however, it took a couple of hours, and thankfully, no issues with the paint pen.  Paint pens are finicky.  I’ve tried a number of them and just when you think everything is going well, they can spontaneously spurt a couple of drops of paint on a print, essentially ruining it.  On a matted print, it’s a disappointment.  On a canvas print, you end up holding back tears.  I test the pen on a scrap piece of paper before I sign each print and make sure there is no excess paint built up around the nib.  You only have to lose one canvas (and I have) to never make that mistake again.  And even with the utmost care, it can still happen.

I’ll be signing the limited edition canvas prints today.  In addition to that, I have to print up numbered certificates of authenticity for each one, and enter each on a ledger.  When you’re offering limited edition prints, it’s very important not to double up the numbers.  People are expecting that the number they buy is the only one with that designation, and it’s up to the artist to ensure that nobody ever buys the same print number.

The new prints look incredible, and I’m very pleased.  All of the proofing that I did last month with my printer was well worth it.  While I know that I can always improve on my work, I love these paintings.  It’s been over two years since I painted the first one, the Grizzly Totem, and it’s still one of my favorites, and not just because it’s one of my best sellers.

With a number of critters waiting in the wings, there will be more paintings coming this year, all of which I’m excited to get started on.  The current Totem-in-progress, a Rockhopper Penguin, is well past the halfway point, and I’ll be working on that this Saturday at Two Wolves.

Painting demos are kind of fun.  Not only do I get to educate people about digital painting (“no, I am not manipulating photos”), but I enjoy the company of the people who work at Two Wolves, and just talking to the customers and answering their questions while I paint.

I don’t get out much.  It’s a nice change.

 

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Of Paint and Penguins

Seems strange that I was excited to have a day to do nothing but paint this morning and then woke to find little motivation to do so.  Just wasn’t feeling it.  While it’s true that drawing and coloring for a living (I love saying that) sounds like the greatest gig going, and it really is, there are some days that it just feels like work.  Editorial cartooning often feels like that, especially when I’m cartooning about a political topic that I really care nothing about, but if it’s making headlines, I have to address it.  Painting, however, is usually the dessert after eating all of my veggies, so it’s rare for it not to be a welcome experience.  This morning, it felt like work, but just as I have to do with cartooning, I plowed through and managed a couple of hours, anyway.

I was inspired to put on the headset and record ten minutes of painting and talking about whatever popped into my head while doing it, though.  None of it was scripted or prepared ahead of time, although I did throw up a quick DVD ad at the end of it.  Hey, we all have to make a living, right?  Obviously, I haven’t shown the full painting here, just a closeup of the head.  At one point, I mistakenly said, ‘radial wheel’ when describing the touch ring on the Wacom tablet.  Like I said, not scripted.

Anyway, hope you get something useful out of it.  Cheers!