I wanted, nay, needed to export a movie I was working on in 720p resolution. I thought I had everything ready to go. My project’s stage was not 1280×720, but it was a 16:9 ratio (711×400). My logic was, keep the stage small to save on memory and processor power while working and export to the larger size. All my content is vectors, so it should have scaled up smoothly just fine. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out that way. More »

Adobe Illustrator CS4 got a new tool that was recently brought to my attention. It’s called the Blob Brush and it acts just like the regular paintbrush except that it creates fills instead of lines. You can adjust the brush to be pressure and tilt sensitive, change its shape, and tweak its smoothness and fidelity just like the regular paintbrush. The fills that you draw on the same layer all merge together into one über-shape that makes it easier than ever to click fill with the decade old and mostly useless – until now – Live Paint Tool. Basically it does exactly what Flash’s paintbrush has been doing all along but with beautiful line clarity of Illustrator’s original paintbrush tool. So the question is, if Adobe can create a sweet new brush that makes fill shapes and remains true to the user’s intent why can’t it add it to Flash as well? WTF Adobe?
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Of all the nerdtastic entertainment I devour on a regular basis, the original Star Trek is my favorite. I watched my first episode at the age of five – it was “Devil in the Dark” – and have been hooked ever since. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only bring one TV series to watch for all eternity it wouldn’t be Star Trek, because I’ve already got all seventy-nine episodes and five of the six films memorized. So for the past two years I’ve been following the production of J. J. Abrams’ new film with great trepidation and doubt. Could he make this hardcore TOS purist believe in his take on a show he’s admitted to not liking all that much? The answer is a restrained and grudging “yes”. More »

I just saw Watchmen last night on an Imax screen. Critics have been so hard on this movie I could only be impressed by how my low expectations were exceeded. I liked it a lot, in fact – at least most of it. It was a far better film than Dark Knight was by a very wide margin. I think director Zack Snyder really brought the characters to life pretty much the way they were in the comic. The one thing that I was sure would be a disappointment, and turned out to really be one, was the ending. Massive but necessary spoilers ahead. More »

When you use a device day in and day out you get to know it better than the average reviewer who’s only dealt with it for a few hours. A digital art tablet like Wacom’s intuos3 is definitely one of those things. I bought mine the same month it was released in 2004, replacing my intuos2 tablet. It’s been four years since then and the rebates and Gun Metal Special Editions tell me the intuos3 is nearing end of life. So what better time to talk about its strengths and weaknesses than when awaiting the imminent release of the next gen? More »

Only a year and a half ago I wrote a scathing and fiery review of Adobe’s first iteration of Flash: CS3. Now I’m back to write a mildly pissy review of Adobe’s second attempt: Flash CS4. Score one for Adobe for making me slightly less annoyed with my day to day job. Flash CS4 is a huge step in the right direction for Flash. It’s got a lot of flaws, but while they maybe be deep and filled with puss, they aren’t quite fatal. Let’s take a look, eh? More »

Well, I just watched Bruce Timm’s latest DC animated brainchild – Superman: Doomsday. I love Mr. Timm. His simplistic, angular style made me realize my own drawings didn’t have to be bogged down with detail I didn’t enjoy putting into them. Timm also has always been one of the few artists, comic or otherwise, who could give women strength and power while keeping them feminine. He’ll always have my respect and admiration, but I have to say Superman: Doomsday is a disaster. An absolute disaster. More »

Update – The CS4 bundle has the same problems reported below. Nothing has changed on this front in the upgrade.

I’ve been working a lot lately between the CS3 versions of Flash and Illustrator and have stumbled on some eccentric behavior. First of all, Illustrator has two types of documents now – one for web and one for print. You decide on the welcome screen which you want. More »

It’s always a toss up when Flash is updated to the next version, especially for the non-programming artist. Flash 5 and MX were huge leaps and must haves. Flash MX 2004 was a major let down with more bugs than features (one of the few Flash versions in history to need patches). In fact, necessary features were actual removed (object level undo, normal actionscript mode)! Flash 8 Pro’s major features were the ones removed from MX 2004 (the two mentioned earlier) and a few photoshop style blend modes I haven’t used much – mostly because they require a player many haven’t upgraded to yet. Now CS3 has been released, and guess what? Again, there’s not much to talk about, especially for the artist. We’ve been waiting nearly two years for a change of logo from Macromedia to Adobe and a mild UI update. More »

Although neither has been released in the States yet *cough*bit torrent*cough* I’ve just recently finished watching two movies in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series – Last Order, and Advent Children. The first is a 20 minute cel animation, the second is a feature length, hyper-real CG render. Two different mediums, same basic flaw: what was the point? More »

I revisited a “classic” recently. I’m a moderate Anime fan and I lie pretty much in the norm concerning my tastes. I enjoy all the most revered of the genre: Akira, Gundam, Evangelion, Princess Mononoke, etc. These are all more than just “cartoons”, they are films with all the baggage that label entails. But there is one highly rated Anime that I don’t understand all the fuss over: Ghost in the Shell. Supposedly this thing influenced The Matrix more than anyother source. I remember seeing it several years ago and not being impressed, so I decided to see it again hoping that it would have a better effect. It was worse than I could have imagined. More »