Archive for Miscellaneous

Check out my Friend’s New Blog

If you’re into old school gaming, be sure to check out my buddy Sean’s new blog ‘Power Pak‘ I especially appreciate the console section since I enjoy old school console game, but it’s for any gamer that shares an affinity for a time when the graphics were simpler, continues required more quarters and you knew Friday night was a good night if you closed out the arcade and you still had change in your pocket.

Highly recommended.

http://www.powerpakblog.com/

Vector vs. Paint — A Collaboration.

O'KeefeI came up with an intriguing proposition with Josette and we both decided to collaborate with our artwork. I would take some of her existing paintings and make them all vectorific them and see what happens.

The result is my first piece in this series. A digital reproduction of one of her best paintings, in this case a flower done in the style of Georgia O’keeffe that she is quite fond of. She apparently approves because I have a stack of he work to convert, now.

This piece called for extensive use of the gradient mesh tool and resulted in some pretty nice work. I added a few of my own touches and flourishes, but I think the spirit of the original piece remains. This will be one of the first pieces I place up for sale on Etsy once I set that up next week.

Details on that will be forthcoming.

Stygma Grafix: Coming to a Smart Phone Near You…

…could I have over-hyped that any more?

Probably.

Anyway, SG.com is now set up to detect your smartphone and serve you up an appropriate version of the site that will make it much easier to digest for your portable device.*

This is a new implementation, so if you encounter any bugs or issues, please let me know and I’ll do my best to address them ASAP.

I hope you enjoy the mobile site!

*If you are using an Apple device, then you will most likely not be able to see any of the flash elements I have sprinkled around the site. This is due to the ongoing Apple/Adobe tit-for-tat concerning flash. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Everything He Touches Turns to Vector.

Goldfinger PosterI have always wanted to try my hand at illustrating posters, so I decided to take my love of James Bond and craft a poster to pay homage to, probably, my favorite Bond film.

Unfortunately an hour in, Illustrator crashed on me and best of all, I didn’t save anything! Go me!

So, after a lot of swearing, throwing things, and cursing parts of my computer I didn’t even know existed, I gave it another shot. Five hours later and we have the finished product. I’m really happy with it and I’m considering making a run of posters for every Bond film.

Well. Except the Daniel Craig ones. I don’t like them. Should be fun!

Now the question to consider, should I sell a limited amount of these? What’s the legality of doing so? Is it worth it? Who knows! All I DO know is I’m printing one for my office wall or to possibly brighten up the cube farm.

UPDATE: 1.28.12
Created another poster. This time from the classic From Russia With Love.

bondposter02

Designing for Tablets: Feeling My Way Around in the Dark

Cracked TabletWhy designing for a tablet may just kill me…

So for a project at work, we’ve been tasked to come up with designs for tablets, now.

I thought just worrying about browsers was a tremendous pain. Now there are varying resolutions that need to be taken into account. Is it 1024 x 768? 1280 x 800? I’ve seen some sites say to keep it at 1000 or less for landscape. It’s enough to pull one’s hair out.

Oh and androids have pixel densities too, so apparently if I make anything in bitmap form, I need multiple copies in different sizes.

Aye yai yai.

I think I wish I stood in bed.

Winter blahs, or how I need to get off my butt and get outdoors.

Melting snow

Even in the dead of winter, beauty is easily found.

This winter continues to march on, however it is particularly frustrating. By any stretch of the imagination, it has been extremely mild. By this time last year, we were basking in a cumulative total of about four and a half feet of snow, this year I’d be shocked if we broke a foot. However, I tend to be a man of extremes.

I feel that if mother nature wants the weather to be mild, then make it nice out. if she wants it to be a whirling ball of suck, then make the snow fall and temperatures plummet. Lately it’s been a case of “not quite warm enough to do things outdoors” syndrome and so I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to get out and shoot photos, or to hike, walk or hit the bike trails.

Of course, that’s all in my head. I should probably just suck it up and go out anyway. Even though the ground is sloppy, the temperatures less than ideal and the skies a perpetual grey, there are tons of things to do. The question is when does one stop using mother nature as an excuse and get out there and do them!

My wife is on quite the tear…

When you have a second, stop over to Josette’s blog and check out her latest posts. She opens up and holds no punches about vinyl siding and vinyl windows. If you are passionate about historic architecture and old-world quality, and abhor mass-produced mediocrity, then then these posts should resonate with you.

http://brighentiinteriors.wordpress.com/

Going into Battle…

After I got home from work, last night I fell asleep and woke up around 1…ish… or so. Faced with the decision, should I go to bed and try to go back to sleep or just stay up, I sat down with a book and chose the latter.

Read more

‘Restoring the Forgotten Lady’

When you have a moment, please hop over to my wife’s blog. We’re in the processes of restoring a very large c.1890 victorian house and her blog is pretty much a running commentary on the progress. She is very passionate about historical preservation and so having the opportunity to live in a house your restoring is something she (and me as well!) really enjoys.

Feel free to contact her about business opportunities as well. Her business specializes in historical preservation and home improvement consulting.

http://brighentiinteriors.wordpress.com

Portfolio Galleries updated.

Finally after some arranging, caffeine and swearing, I think I have my portfolio galleries to where I want them to be. I was also able to integrate swf embedding into my galleries, so I can have thumbnail previews of my swf interactives.

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