Friday, January 26, 2007

In lieu of a real post

About the only thing of note I've managed to do recently (and in this instance, the term "of note" has a very flexible definition) is to re-draw my little avatar dude, using the almighty drawing tools in - take a deep breath everyone - Microsoft PowerPoint.

Yes, PowerPoint, on the premise that I'm already a PP jockey, I can figure out how to make bendy lines and things easily, and Illustrator just stumps me. So before we get into *that* argument, yes, I know that Illustrator is faster, stronger, shinier, and probably smells like fresh dew on rose petals. I just don't know how to use it, and I'm way too lazy to learn.

On the left, the original fella, pixelated all to crap because he's blown up from avatar size and I didn't keep the full-size scan of the original felt-tip drawing (or the drawing itself, for that matter). On the right, Mr. Spiffy as a vector drawing after I traced over the scan.



And as an extra bonus, here's one of his friends:


You may notice a similarity. In fact, if I drew another dozen or so little dudes like these, you'd notice they all look similar (take a look at the badger too... notice a trend? One day I'll draw something looking to the right. And then the world will end).

It's not hard for me to push my artistic boundaries, because they're so easy to find.

NB: I stole the idea of vector-drawing over scans from Andy Weir, webcomic genius artist and author of Casey and Andy (sadly on hiatus, but well worth perusing the archive), and the clever Cheshire Crossing. Here's an entertaining tutorial on how he makes his artwork.

4 comments:

WrathofDawn said...

ARRGGHH!! "New" blogger is blogging up my attempts to comment...

A re-creation of my comment, if you will...

You be havin' da w00t! sk1llzz, dude!

Also: Anyone who's anyone in the cartoon world faces to the left. 100% FACT!!!*


*Some of the above may not be strictly accurate and may be based on imagination, conjecture and/or sucking up to the artiste.

And now I'm off to free my car from its prison of ice and snow. It snowed (a lot), then rained (a lot) then got really cold (a lot) and now we have high winds. So it's going to be loads of fun. Wish you were all here!

No. Really. I could use the help. I might run out of hot chocolate, though.

Richard Wintle said...

Ah, I *thought* you might have changed over to "new" (as in "new and improved" - possibly) Blugger. I could tell 'cos commenting over at your place is a bit weird at the moment too.

'cjwljdyg' - Welsh for 'bugger, it's cold and it snowed'.

WrathofDawn said...

Yes, Blogger forced me. Last time I logged in it told me I had one more opporutnity to sign in under the old system and then yesterday, the only option was to move the blog to the new Blogger.

Be forewarned!

It was painless, though. A few clickies and typies and there you are. It's messed up my ability to sign into any comments boxes first try as I keep singing in the old way.

You might want to save a copy of your template, just in case, but it didn't mess up mine. And it only took about 10 minutes or so from start to finish.

"xiwkbayz" - the ease with which you will move to the new Blogger. And you WILL move. Resistance is futile...

alicat said...

Hey, I LOVE powerpoint, and I use it to make my drawings too :) (and I also can make the bendy lines - spent at least a day that should have been spent on my dissertation learning how to do it so I could make totally awesome and completely unnecessary graphics for my dissertation presentation! I like your little squiggly dude, too :)