Published on
December 12, 2009 in
updates.
Tags: art, ArtCast Network, artist, cartoon, cartooning, Dani Jones, drawing sketching, how-to, Illustration, live, streaming, tips, Tutorials, Ustream, video.
Just a quick post to let all you artists out there know about an up-and-coming new website from the amazing illustrator Dani Jones — the ArtCast Network.
Dani loves to share her extensive illustration technique knowledge via live streaming videocasts on Ustream, and decided there needed to be a website that brought together all the talented atists out there who do live streaming webcasts on Ustream or other similar sites.
I have a Ustream cartooning & illustration channel, but I am just getting started. The ArtCast website has inspired me to do much more of this, so keep an eye out for future live video stream where you can watch me sketch & draw live in Adobe Photoshop, and work on cartoon-style vector art illustrations in Adobe Illustrator. And all videos will be recorded and saved to my Ustream channel for those of you who aren’t able to watch live.
The ArtCast Network is still in the ‘under construction’ phase right now, but head on over at the link above if you are an artist and want to participate.
Cartoonist and illustrator extraordinaire Tom Richmond has an excellent in-depth guide to drawing hands over on his blog. As per usual with Tom’s instructional articles/blog posts, he goes into far more detail and insight than one could possibly imagine he would have time for, even down to supplying illustrated diagrams explaining everything.
Here’s a quote demonstrating the level of insight you’ll find:
Many people think the knuckle of the finger rests directly behind the crease that represents the base of the finger right under the bottom finger pad. Now turn your hand around. That main knuckle is SIGNIFICANTLY lower on the hand. In fact it’s below the upper pad of the palm that curve below all the fingers. A lot more of your finger resides inside the palm/body than you might think. Understanding that is a big part of figuring out hands.
At some point I can see Tom collating all these posts into a book of some sort. His blog tutorials are better than any book on cartooning I’ve ever seen, and this one is no different.
Probably one of the more difficult parts of the human body to draw, and Tom is a master at the cartoon hand. Head over there and learn from the best.
Published on
November 27, 2008 in
video.
Tags: Adobe, Adobe Photoshop, art, artist, cartoon, CS4, illustrator, keyboard commands, keyboard shortcuts, Photoshop, sketch, software, Tutorials, video.
Another brief video in my instructional series introducing some great new features in Photoshop CS4 for artists, cartoonists, illustrators and anyone else who sketches or draws using Photoshop.
This video features the excellent new Spring-Loaded Keys feature that allows you to access a tool temporarily by holding down the key for that tool, similar to using the Spacebar for the Hand tool – only for every tool in Photoshop now.
Published on
October 31, 2008 in
productivity and resources.
Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, art, Bezier, Creative Suite, free, graphic design, how-to, Illustration, illustrator, PDF, Photoshop, reference, software, technique, tips, Tutorials, vector, walkthrough.
Sharon Steuer’s free ”Zen Of The Pen” PDF is an excellent introduction to the inner mysteries of the vector pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.
The pen tool is one of those obscure graphics programs tools that everyone tries once, and then gets so confused by that they never get any further with it. And understandably. It looks like a fountain pen, but it doesn’t act like one. Click and “draw”, you get weird “handles” sprouting out from a dot. Ignore that, and some annoying rubber band line gets stuck to your pen tip, all distorted out of — not even a straight line! Right there most Illustrator users think to themselves “this program sucks”.
But they couldn’t be further from the truth…
Continue reading 'Zen Of The Pen'
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