It's only taken me nearly two years to complete another tutorial video for all my friends on Youtube. That's not bad right? You guys screamed for another Illustrator inking video, so I obliged, this time using Illustrator CS4. This is the fourth video I've done, and being under the scrutiny of a screen recorder is still uncomfortable. I used a new drawing as well. My buddy Matt Martin drew this for me to ink, so with his permission, I figured this would be a great opportunity for a new tutorial video. The drawing is great rendering of a character he created in high school called Vortex. Special thanks to him for that. The pleasure is mine, really. I respect him greatly as an artist, so being that he allows me to ink his drawings is a real treat.
One of the reasons it's taken me so long was that I was trying to figure out a new way to present an old method. Well, I shouldn't call it old, but this method of digital inking has been around for awhile. So, I figured I would just use the same method with an updated version of Illustrator. I'll admit, I used to really dislike using Illustrator. But my job has forced me to learn it, and now that I'm used to how it works, I like it. It's great for this kind of a process.
A few people have asked if this is possible in Photoshop. And the answer is yes, partly. Photoshop is a completely different program than Illustrator. With PS, you're constrained by pixels and resolution. Or, as we call it in the business, PPI. (Pixels Per Inch.) Not to be confused with DPI. (Dots Per Inch.) They work together, but they are not the same thing. Illustrator is basically a vector program. It's not limited by pixels. I may explain in more detail in another post. But, if this video is as successful as its predecessor on Youtube, I'll consider doing one in Photoshop. I know a lot of people would like that, because Illustrator doesn't seem to be as common to users as PS.
My original inking tutorial has almost 80,000 views as grows every day. Thank you to all of you who viewed it and asked questions. And I hope you enjoy this new one that I posted today.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Thursday, July 08, 2010
The Book of Eli
Over the past few months, I've heard a lot of good things about this film. I didn't purposely post this in my film review blog, because I wanted to talk a little more about the content of film, not so much the film itself...if that makes any sense. I'll try my best to avoid any spoilers...
I love post-apocalyptic films. For some reason, it's of great interest to me to see how the human race would handle such things like nuclear war, fallout, or just extinction in general. It's probably why I'm drawn to the Terminator franchise. However, this film doesn't deal with advanced cyborgs that look like us, or the events that lead us to a war of that scope. There's no fish people running around with webbing between their fingers and toes, and no dreadlocked aliens coming to dinner.
We get the general idea early on that the world is wiped out, cities leveled, and anarchy reigns over territories. Money is of no value. Things we now take for granted, are treasure. Like, books, water and simple comfort of a warm bed. In this film, the war or fallout took place so long ago, knowledge of religion and law has been long since forgotten, or lost. People have no idea who God is, or where they came from as a species, with the exception of a few educated people in places of power.
Denzel Washington plays a character who has a vision of a society that needs brought to order. A society or collective race rather, that simply needs direction. The simple, age-old-cliche solution - bring order to chaos. How do we do that? Yep. With a book. But not just any book. The book. That's right. The Bible. You can figure all this out just from watching the trailers, so don't worry, I'm not ruining anything. Gary Oldman, who I think is freakin' great, plays a man who's in charge of town that needs guidance, or direction. Remember that $2 bill that your grandpa gave you on your birthday? That has no value here. But your bottle of water does. Hell, people kill for it here. People need direction. People need purpose. What better way to provide that than with the book. The book. Knowledge is power. Religion is power. It can give societies power to rule, or govern your way of life. The Roman Catholic Church did it. Islam did it. You can see where I'm going with this. Imagine that. A society of people with no order. No law. No knowledge of evolution. What once was, is lost. But, the Bible could change that. Or could it? If you were in that situation, and suddenly a book is found, describing the origins of life, sins of man and miracles, would you follow it? Or would you follow its message? Would it be enough?
It was an interesting film, both from a viewer's perspective and a speculative one. It leaves much open for debate and will leave you talking with your friends about it afterwards.