This month I made my first set of pins that are based on an illustration from my upcoming coloring book. I picked one of the illustrations that I really liked and thought would translate easily as a pin. To create an enamel pin, there are a lot of rules you need to follow regarding prepping […]
Making enamel pins with mostly-free software Read More »
Infographics are a tricky thing. A lot of work goes into looking at data and figuring out how best to tell your narrative visually. The best infographics draw in viewers, giving a strong overview of the info at a glance. Although important, getting your audience’s attention is just the first step. The trick is keeping
How I developed an infographic and didn’t get MERS from a camel Read More »
Sometimes the second time is the charm. Last Friday my friend Mike (@lungching) came over to the house to help me install the Yiynova monitor tablet for Ubuntu. Yes, you heard me right—the Yiynova driver for Linux! This was our second attempt to install a Yiynova driver onto my laptop. We tried to install the
Yiynova monitor tablet works on Linux Read More »
A couple of weeks ago I saw an advertisement for an event on Google Plus. It was for an animation workshop using open-source software presented by Ricardo Graça. The only problem is that the workshop will be held in Rio. They will be capturing the upcoming event on video but the lecture will be in Portuguese.
Fridays with Ricardo Read More »
A few days ago I decided to start make an official break with Adobe in my personal life and work in open source software and other alternatives. I haven’t quit cold turkey. I left myself an Adobe parachute just in case I need it. It’s definitely risk-aversion. Instead of deleting the Adobe Suite from all
Inkscape and Gimp take the spotlight Read More »
I’m right at the wire, but I got my donation in for January. I ultimately decided to give money to Inkscape™. It’s one of the best vector drafting tools and it’s saved me numerous times while at work. Why not give back and donate some money. Inkscape vs. Illustrator There are definitely benefits for using either
Adobe Offsetting: January 2014 Read More »
There are many art apps in the iPad store. Lots of them are great beginnings, but they’re either gimmicky or you can’t figure out how to incorporate them into your daily work. Sorting through all the apps available can be daunting and the store itself feels like a hoarders paradise of crap. There have been
Inkpad is a free Illustrator on-the-go Read More »
A close and wonderful friend is starting her first Etsy site and it was my pleasure to help her out and create some illustrations and logo for her new venture. I thought it would be fun to show the entire experience from beginning to end, so I recorded my desktop while I worked. Captured on
Drawing for Maggie Read More »
Recently, I’ve been busy doing illustration work for my day job at Science News and for friends and their pet projects. All-in-all it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve tried to make it a point to push myself stylistically and with software. For the 100th Anniversay of Neils Bohr’s quantum atom, I was tasked
Never Boring with Bohr Read More »
Here is an example for the post that I just wrote on transforming your hand drawn line art to vector art. For this Illustration, I used the Modbook, ArtRage, and Illustrator. Through making this art, I learned that the larger you make your file, the better the auto (live) trace. If you want to create your image
An Example of ArtRage + Illustrator Live Trace Read More »
