oi

Hi guys, a heads up: all my arts are at https://www.facebook.com/vijilart - this blog is defunct.

What's wrong with mobile art

So the Galaxy Note 10.1 just came out and it's pretty cool I guess. Wacom stylus, Photoshop touch included, other stuff. Kinda lame screen and touchwiz is a dog as usual, but meh.

Still there's one big problem with the wacom and nTrig API's available for these systems that really limits what an app dev can do. It's that you can't use the pen and touch input at the same time.

Think of it - drawing in PS or Sketchbook is probably second nature by now to most concept artists. You've got your off hand on the keyboard controlling pan/zoom, the eyedropper, and whatever other shortcuts you use. Right now you simply can't do this with a tablet. The best we've got is that PS Touch assigns the side button on the pen to the eyedropper, but that's it. There are better ways.

Why not have the entire screen disabled for touch input *except* for a set of toggle keys on the left (or right) which behave the same as spacebar/alt/whatever while you draw? Unfortunately you can't code that just yet. Doh.

BunnyMech

Figure it's about time to start doing stuff. I've been so frustrated at the usability (or lack thereof) of mobile solutions recently that I've practically given up! Will have to do a blogrant about that at some point...

A doodle

On the road

I'm sitting here looking at this right now - complete with that crazy blue god ray. Stunning.  Mount Ngaruahoe.

Done on my tpt with sketchbook pro, 3g upload.

Now back to driving, still a few hours to go!

First android cellphone art

Yeah so I know it's pretty generic,but it's the first one and not even finished OK :p . I gotta say that using a capacitive stylus on the galaxy a plus is a pleasure. I hardly even miss the pressure sensitivity at all. Amazingly it might even be nicer than the stylus on my Lenovo Tablet.

Which begs the question - have I been wrong to insist on pressure sensitivity when buying, or is it that the Lenovo doesn't do it that well? Maybe the galaxy stylus feels so nice just because its completely silent to use.

The Dom

 

And so it begins!
The finished picture you see here is the first digital artwork I ever made, using PS7 and a generic digitiser from a generic electronics store of genericness. At the time I was pretty chuffed, but I'm looking back at it and thinking it's about time for a rework.

The real question is whether the improvement will work on an android tablet. I guess we'll find out soon enough!

The second picture is the beginning of said rework - a photo of a doodle I made at work some time ago that faded badly. So I've started redrawing over the lineart on the tablet to get the shape as you can see. Not sure if this'll be the final design as I kinda want something more dynamically posed, but meh :)
In other news I'm putting together a video review of the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet for art. Later I'll review the major art apps available.  The biggest problem I'm having right now is a lack of decent video editing apps!