Well, I just updated my web presence with this neeto carpet and rough paper theme! I spent about 4 hours designing it last night, and about 8 trying to get it all uploaded. The godaddy is not happy with me apparently, every FTP client I tried was throwing me errors (including the 2 goddady provides). So needless to say it was a frustrating process.

There are still a few things that need fleshed out, so expect some more small updates to the site. The big one is my portfolio, probably my least favorite project. I think the blank metallic expressions of my robot friends (seen to the left) pretty much match what the tiny art guy inside my brain is doing every time I try to gather some good work... I hope I'm not missing something... I know I have done something worthy to put online...

Sorry about the lack of posts. Work has a knack for keeping me insanely busy. I am going to begin creating tutorials again soon. Digital painting will likely be a focus for a while, and I might consider Flash and Actionscript 3.0 tutorials.

For now I hope my latest project will serve as a reminder that I am still trying to keep the skills going. This painting is my oldest daughter, Myla. It's a hybrid of sorts, part painting part drawing, but thanks to Myla it's all cute. OK, enough girly talk. Really though I am happy with how this came out. I am going to be painting similar candid portraits of Payton and Danielle. It's tough to get good candid photos for reference though...

It has been a while since I have had time to sit and do a digital painting, or any art for that matter. Recently I hosted a quick workshop on color. We mainly discussed the color wheel and how to use it to create color schemes. The fun part of course was the hands on! For anyone who needs a fun project find some way of getting a red or green light. As you can see from my quick painting, the shadows cast when using a colored light have color as well! It's of no coincidence that the cast shadow appears to be the complimentary color of the light source. In fact, a blue light will produce an orange shadow, green light produces a red shadow and so on.

For anyone testing this experiment, make sure your room isn't too dark or else your green shadows are apt to still look black (even though they will actually be dark green). But I hope anyone with the time will give the experiment a try. Not only is it interesting, but it provides a great opportunity to observe light and colors. Being forced into an unnatural light situation really makes it easy to observe what is actually happening. And next time you are outside and see some nice shadows, don't let your mind fool you, those shadows have color!

I have recently spent some time building small pieces of code I can use to build a game in Flash CS4. I had actually started this several months ago using Actionscript 2. Now, however, I am re-building everything using Actionscript 3. Not only do I hope things will run smoother, but I have been able to really clean up my code, and get more out of less.

I have built a small level that the player can run around in. I went with a top down isometric view, and built a control system that relies only on the mouse. The character will run to whatever location you place the mouse, run faster if it is farther away, and even make it's way around obstacles. Of course right now my character is an orange box... but you get the idea. I did add some blue arrows to indicate direction, and that must count for something.

I will continue to post my progress as I add more to the code. I have already built a save system that saves data to the users local files (sorry, gotta play on the same PC) and I plan to integrate it soon. Check it out:

My Game

I have recently been spending time studying ideas, how we come up with them and what we can do to improve our ability to develop good ideas. I read a small book on the subject: "A Technique for Producing Ideas" by James Young. I recommend picking it up if you can, it's a quick read, but only costs around $5-6.

Several other books and resources have given a similar method to "producing" ideas, and they all share the same basic steps. The first step I have adopted (although it isn't a step in every process outlined) is to narrow your goal down to one simple question. Assuming we are trying to create an ad for a hot sauce, we would want to narrow down our goal to a question like "how can I show that this hot sauce is the hottest on the market?"

Once we have a single goal in mind it is time to generate ideas (no matter how silly or generic) and research the subject. Part of this step is to look at the hot sauce from any possible perspective. How does the hot sauce appear to a child, or a dog. How would a rock or a tree see the hot sauce? There should never be guidelines to what we relate to the subject. It is also important to be scientific about it. How does it work? What is it made of (ingredients)? These kind of questions will help us learn as much as we can about the subject while we develop ideas. As we think of ideas we can never block ourselves by setting up blocks like "this idea is to simple," or "this idea has been done before." Limiting your mind in this way is extremely counter productive, so don't do it!

The next step in the process is to take a break! Everyone has experienced the idea that seems to come out of nowhere, like remembering someones name hours after you needed to. Our brains don't stop thinking about something when we do. So taking a break, sleeping, doing something you enjoy all allow our brains to rest and "digest" the ideas we have come up with. It is during this stage that we are likely to get a bigger idea. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, or while watching a movie an idea will pop into our minds. This is the last step, and it happens on it's own. If we try to force it it likely won't happen, or not with the results we expect.

The above process contains ideas I have studied and practiced, and generally seem to work without fail. Never think it sounds too simple! Creativity may very well be a reflection of our ability to allow our minds to accept ideas that may seem silly or trivial and allow them to germinate in our minds, mix with our other thoughts and grow into something new and unique.