What a week to kick-off.

“Everybody Else Is Too Loud” is my new podcast. The goal is to update on weekends to discuss the prior week’s events – the subject will be anything I feel like talking about: film, art, games, music, family, webcomics, graphics tips and discoveries, gadgets, news, and likely some highlights of my current work(s)-in-progress.

Please press “play” on the audio controller and thanks for checking it out.

Episode 01 Show Notes:
RUNNING TIME: 5:05

• The King of Pop: Michael Jackson
• Farrah Fawcett

For the last couple of weeks it was becoming clear that I should be prepared to share my Farrah experience since her health was declining, but this snuck up on me nonetheless. Here’s the story:

In 1977, the year Farrah Fawcett “broke” and left “Charlie’s Angels” the TV show that propelled her to household fame to try her hand at theatrical movies, my father presented an opportunity to have a drawing of mine signed by her. I was fifteen.

He wouldn’t let me take the day off from school – that was just his way. Farrah had been using the theater at my father’s firm, Movielab, to look at dailies.

She was so huge at that point that she was refusing autographs; but somehow my father was able to arrange for her to sign a pencil drawing copied from her publicity photo.

My mother – a cancer survivor – felt the TV reality show chronicling Farrah’s show was “commercial”. I don’t know because I never watched it, but I think raising awareness is always a good thing.

Rest in Peace, Farrah.

I am in the process of planning a webcomic called “My Life In the Trenches” which is slated to launch sometime in the early Fall 2009. To that end, I have been exploring an efficient workflow so that this doesn’t become a chore.

For now, I’m working digitally from start to finish. At this writing, I’m awaiting shipment of the new Wacom Intuos4 and anticipate productivity and speed gains. Look for a video review here soon. In this case study I’m using a Cintiq.

Step 1: Sketching with the Photoshop Pencil tool, the layout is roughed in at 300 d.p.i.

Step 2: Import the Photoshop sketch into Illustrator as a template, making composition adjustments as needed. The Brush tool in Illustrator yields the line quality and pressure sensitivity I prefer.

Step 3. Using the free Multi-fill Photoshop plug-in from Boudewijn Pelt, instant “flatting” of color is possible with random colors. This plug-in prefers that all shapes be closed, which is at odds with my loose drawing style, so I must take care to close gaps. I may re-think this compromise, or learn to refine the plug-in’s behavior.

Step 4: While step 3 is great fun, I select my desired colors and start building a palette (.ACO) file.

Step 5: Shading and modeling – without fuss – plus some special effects if appropriate, and we’re done. This step took only a few minutes.

Conclusion: While the Illustrator Brush tool yields satisfactory results, it is taking more time than I would like. To be specific, using a stylus to tweak Bezier points has always been a pain – literally. It’s my goal to be able to keep the entire process in Photoshop in the next exploration.

[EDIT] My follow-up to this process is posted here.

To explore vlogging I decided to oil-up some rusty Final Cut Pro HD chops and dive back into the fray since I have been concentrating on graphic design for casual games the last couple of years.

I was never a huge fan of the interface of FCP even when I was more deeply immersed in multimedia and nonlinear video editing. I cut my teeth on Adobe Premiere and Avid Xpress and preferred their interfaces, but a “can-do” artist should always be able to make do with what they have.

As a first foray, I did a quick edit of “Number One Son”‘s honors recital last night. As he arrived at the conservatory, he was clearly in pain from a sudden stomache ache. I knew these were not mere jitters because he has been doing the recitals long enough to be beyond nerves. I was fearful he might projectile vomit onto the grand piano on stage, and at the risk of sounding uncaring – I would be looking at YouTube hits to rival Susan Boyle or any doped-up kid after a dentist visit.

Whenever I hear his – or my esteemed mother-in-law’s performances – captured from the Sony DV Handycam, I’m struck by how unfaithful the recorded piano tone can be. Clearly the omni-directional mic on a camcorder is not the tool for the job, and the craft of micing and recording acoustic pianos is beyond the scope of this post. You have to be there.

Furthermore, at the height of his griping at practice (show me an eleven year old who would choose piano practice over video games) he was once able to produce a tone in spontaneous playing that sounded literally “divine”. Like an angel plucking a harp with full velocity. Like Zeus on Mt. Olympus striking a crystal goblet to attract the attention of assembled gods for a toast… you get the picture. I suggested a concert of playing just that one sound, as a one-up to John Cage’s silence.

Look out for my first video review of the upcoming purchase of Wacom’s well-received Intuos4 graphics Tablet. This will be the inaugural Gear Review vlog for “Dempsey Doodles”.