Lightwave 2015 release, my work featured.

Yes, Lightwave 2015 was released today and so I installed the trial version to see if it's worth the upgrade price, which in my case is something over $500. During the install process I saw one of my images pop up in the install wizard, I wasn't quick enough to screen capture it this time around (one of my images was featured in the last version before this one which I posted some time ago), so here is the one they used.

I am allowed to get excited about this aren't I?  Anyway enough about me, I hope this latest release is a successful one for the Lightwave 3D Group.

Krita review 2014

For some reason in the past I was unable to install Krita (the open source paint program), but today I was able to. So having had a bit of a play with it I can give it a quick review. Having recently gotten back into illustration using Photoshop, I do have something to base my observations on.

Krita is a lot of fun. A LOT of fun. It felt so easy to draw with, I really think there is more control here. Mainly I was trying out the brushes, going through them one by one and getting a feel. I'm sure some of the sheer pleasure was on account of the stabilization and smoothing functions built into the brush engine, making my strokes seem more sure and accurate. You might think this could wrench intent away from the artist, yet in my case it made up for the disadvantage of not having my pen on the screen but on a separate tablet, perhaps not removing that disadvantage entirely but definitely closing the gap (people who use "pen to screen" tablets might not have this problem). I was able to draw what I wanted on the first takes rather than using lots of practice runs and I do put this down to the stabilization since I can't think of any other reason.

There is a good selection of brush types and it seems you can create your own, no doubt there are presets out there from other users, this is important because the thing that is going to keep me using Photoshop is the fantastic library of brush presets I recently bought. In Krita the canvas rotation is better implemented, or more easily activated than Photoshop's and this helps bring the experience closer to that of having a real piece of paper in front of you, moving it quickly around to best suit the type of strokes you intend to make. Even the funky layer system quickly lost it's alien appearance and became familiar to me. I'm writing this review after having spent less than thirty minutes in Krita, and I'm winding it up because I want to fire it up again and explore further. Worth the download, go get it.

Smith Micro added me to their channel.

Just found a bunch of my videos were added to the Smith Micro VIMEO channel, I didn't even know they had a channel. So I spent a bit of time watching several videos there. I really need to upgrade to version 10 and do more 2D animation.

Getting back into drawing.

I've been too long in the field of 3D animation and motion graphics and decided it was time to make use of my Bamboo tablet, I knew I bought it for something. After a frustrating search around the room I finally found it hiding in plain sight under a layer of dust. Here are some of the first things I've done with it.

 A couple of days and I suddenly have this new interest. It can take months to turn out anything decent in 3D or motion graphics, because of all the problem solving involved, but with illustration you get speed, it's just you and the pen, I'd forgotten all about that. I discovered a bunch of excellent Photoshop brushes (they deserve their own post), very cheap for a huge variety and I'm having a blast trying them out.

This Machine Thinks - Goto80

Here's one of my own animations for a change, I just uploaded it. It started as an experiment in making boxes from solids in After Effects and went on from there.


This Machine Thinks_Goto80 from djwaterman on Vimeo.

The music (as attributed) was found at this place, and a handy box roll rigging lesson discovered over at the School of Motion, I don't think this video would've been possible without it.