FourBux

Monday morning sketch-off!

In response to the clamor, yes, clamor, regarding my artistic prowess, I wanted to take a moment to bare my soul, to show you how it really works. Sure, I can post up a scan of some pencil sketches, and then show you a near-complete vector illustration, but there’s a lot that goes on in between those stages. Lots of sweat, tears, broken crayons, trips to the art store and pub. To get more bar napkins, of course. They’re the designer’s medium of choice. It’s a vicious cycle.

I wandered across this cool site, sketchfu, and by the looks of things, I, once again, am the last to get here. Somebody throw me a bone! At any rate, here you can doodle and draw, but the coolest part is that it records your actions as you make the strokes. Then you can play it back for yourself, or, in this case, others, and show off your noobie mistakes. Such as, drawing the foreground objects first and then trying to drop the background and shadows in behind it. Not so much fun in a primitive drawing program. If you pay attention, you can note the exact moment I utter the illustrator’s slogan “Screw it”, and then erase the teeth. Another cool thing is that people can take your drawing and base one of their own off it. Which, if you’re really attached to your art, you may take issue with, but if it’s really something you’re serious about, I doubt this is the application you’d build it in.

You have to try this thing out…it’s the perfect way to kick-start that Monday morning. And if you do one, shoot me a link. I’ll post it here just for funsies. And we’ll all get better together.

Cheers.

Joe DaVinci

PS And then there’s this kind of stuff out there too, if you’re into that whole amazing, classical art thing: Venus And since I am into that classical art thing, I decided to try something more difficult than a two-dimensional alligator drinking coffee:

And the best part? I get paid to do this.

Crafting logos and corporate identities is my absolute favorite graphic design-related activity. Back in college, I once told a professor that I would love to have a job where I did only that, and the response, although accurate, was a bit of a buzz-kill. There’s no way that I’ll be able to make a living doing just that, they are too few and far between. She was right, but I still really enjoy the jobs as they come in.
More »

Ah, memories.

So, as we inch closer to the impending move, I am at the point in my packing that I’m going through the boxes that didn’t get unpacked from the last time we changed addresses. And somehow, the things in these boxes are the ones that I would feel the most loss for if they were ever taken from me. Childhood toys that I hope to pass on to my kids one day (although since they don’t plug in or have any graphics per se, I don’t know how well they’ll be received), things I’ve inherited from relatives who’ve passed away, my grandfather’s purple heart medal from World War II, and old photos from college, like this fancy one below. I thought I’d share it with you before I pack the scanner.

The back-story here is that in that picture, only two of us are from Arizona, and since the others were from all over the country, including one from Canada that we let hang out with us, they wanted to do the old-timey cowboy photo. That’s me in the back row, right end. Since I got into the little dressing room later than the rest of the guys, I ended up with the costume leftovers, hence the bullwhip and tasseled jacket. At least I got a gun.

My roommate is the front row, middle, and although a great person today, was a constant source of much angst during my years at school. I especially like the basketball shoes behind the lanterns. He now lives in Denver and seems to be working on his baby-making abilities. Apparently, crossing your fingers doesn’t really work as a form of birth control. Go figure.

Directly in front of me is my best friend through school, and the best man at my wedding. Sadly, I’ve seen him less then five times in the last seven years, and we live about fifteen minutes from eachother. I blame it on his Colonel Sanders bow-tie, or maybe those white socks.

Top row, left end is the token Canuk from our group, who, along with Pancho Villa next to him, were a couple of great soccer players, at the school on scholarships. I’m not sure where they ended up. Although I didn’t smoke any of it, these two provided me with my first experience with marijuana. Mostly because they thought it was funny to leave whole leaves outside my dorm room door and listen when the R.A. came calling.

To my right in the photo is one of the nicest guys you’d ever hope to meet. He followed his girlfriend to college and they got married the summer after our freshman year. I drove from Phoenix to Kansas to be in his wedding. The night before the ceremony, I was bitten by some kind of spider, and my hand swelled up to the point that I had to keep it behind me in all the photos. Today, he’s a pastor in his hometown.

Then, bottom row left, is one of my closest friends. For spring break during our sophmore year, while all our friends were driving to Mexico to lay on the beach and drink margaritas, he convinced me it would be fun to drive to Cheyenne and hang with with him for the week. Since it was, after all, spring break, all I packed was shorts and t-shirts. What did I know? I’m from Arizona. Once we got to Wyoming, there was a foot of snow on the ground and more on the way. I spent all my money on warm clothes, which was okay, because as it turned out, there wasn’t a lot to do in Cheyenne anyway.

You better believe that the next year we went to Mexico though.

Is CafePress the best?

Okay, everybody’s heard about CafePress, the site that lets you upload our own artwork and people can get it printed on T-shirts, mugs, hats, mousepads, etc. Although I like this model, I’m not sure it’s the best one out there, and have been burned in the past on some of the dark items, like black t-shirts. I was just recently exposed to Zazzle (from the Win an Item from the Cigar Jack Store contest), and it makes me wonder what other online vendors are floating around.

I’d like to start putting some designs together, but I want to go with an online product provider that has good quality items to start with and decent printing/production for the actual application. I mean, if I am considering a FourBux line of swag, I certainly want to make sure it’s the best possible quality. Even if it just for fun.

Anyone have any experience with any others out there? Any suggestions? Anyone have any stores set up already that I could take a look at?

I’ve been tagged

So, it seems that I have been tagged by BabyChaos. Not unlike the real game of tag, I guess I’m “it.” I have to play the bad guy though: I am going to blatantly disregard the third rule below, which is to tag eight other bloggers. Which, by default, also eliminates rule four. The reasons for this are two-fold:
One - I am the last person in the English-speaking world to have gotten into blogging. Hence, everyone else has already done this in one form or another. Much like Amway, there’s nobody left to rope in.
Two - This is primarily the reason that I dislike MySpace, so rather than inch toward that line, I’m just going to conscientiously object. Sorry to be the party pooper in the group, but someone has to be, right? And this may change if I wander across eight poor souls in need of click-throughs.

The Rules

1. Post the rules first.
2. If you are tagged you have to tell your faithful blogging public 8 random facts about yourself in a post on your blog. It can be habits, an idea, facts or just um… stuff.
3. At the end of your post, choose eight other bloggers you’d like to know something about and tag them.
4. Leave a comment telling them you’ve tagged them and that they will need to read your post on your blog.

Since I’m disobeying the rules though, these will be quality confessions. Of course after the jump…
More »

I do feel a little dirty about it

So, folks, I’m a little embarrassed. I did something last night that I haven’t done in a very long time. At home, and by myself no less. After waiting until my wife had gone to class, I changed into something comfortable, turned down the lights, turned up the LastFM station, and went to town.
More »