The librarian's tangents.

Working title. I may go with ScreenPainter instead but this title always makes me smile. Stylus t. and I have shared quite a journey over the past few months.

The other thing I’m working on at the moment is a book. So, yes, another of those then. This one’s different though, in as much as it’s an art book almost solely about my travels with a variety of Apple devices: iPod touch through to iPhone 4S.

It’s a 100 pages long, contains over 150 pictures, photos and all sorts and chats over which is the best stylus, which art apps make the grade and some of the large scale art events I’ve run over the past couple of years.

Not sure how much it’ll be when it hits the iTunes store (I’m thinking around the £4.49 mark?) but hopefully it’ll be worth that at least I’ve made it in iBooks Author and that’s been a lot of fun to work my way through with only the occasional incidence of teeth grinding frustration.

Bit of luck it’ll be released on or around March the 1st.

First talk on the book 8 accidental tour will be at the London Mac User Group this Monday.

So I’m more than enjoying the new series of Doctor Who. There’s been a couple of dud moments but nothing like the rollercoaster of quality that the past four series were and, so far, it feels like a story being told by someone (to mix the metaphors) with very safe hands.

So, in the back of my mind are the two Dr Who stories that I’ve always wanted to write and, since I’ve got to set myself a project on the iPad to keep my brain ticking over, I feel I may pick one of those and illustrate it… Maybe. I’ve been asked a couple of times what the next project will be and that, I think, is it. To begin with I’ve started to draw out some doodles and for the lunchtime just gone, I thought I’d have a bash at a Doctor doodle.

And, for the first time it’s a picture that’s done what I wanted on the bigger version of my favourite art app. Brushes on the iPod touch I felt as if I’d, if not mastered, then had a high level of confidence in. Brushes on the iPad pretty much tore me down to the beginning, or at least the foundation stones. This is the first picture, number 64 my untitled library tells me, that I can point to and say it didn’t fight me throughout. Hurrah.

More to come, I think, although I’ve got a fair amount of other stuff to sort through as well.

So… In answer to the first things that spring to mind: yes they were and yes they are.

Without doubt this is the coolest iPad case on the planet, full stop.

The backstory: wifey makes things, amazing things, sometimes out of metal, sometimes out of fimo/sculpey and sometimes out of socks. I’ve not posted many as I’m intending to make a collection of the images for her in blurb book format, but she is amazingly talented and I’m lucky to live in an wonderfully creative (albeit messy) house

The other day she nicked the iPad out of the box to make me a case. That would have been a wonderful surprise apart for the fact that I then picked up the box to move it and had a near heart attack at how light it felt. Once I sussed out what had happened I felt a little calmer and when I managed to get back from work I was delighted to see a new case to care for my new baby. It’s made, in case you were wondering, from a protective layer of bubble wrap, a nice soft cuddle of fluffy cloth and a decorative layer of old cartoon socks. The ones which have served me well and can be darned no more. I like the fact they live on and, to reiterate, yes they were washed and yes, they were clean.

So: while I was excited to get an iPad in the post I’m now doubly delighted to encase it in the grooviest of coverings. The pic of the Hulk is the fourth thing I’ve drawn in Brushes; the others very sketchy and doodley things created to get my eye in and used to the feel of the screen which feels strangely resistant for some reason (quite possibly the oleophobic coating that is said to resist fingerprints, scratches and so on). It’s a completely different way or drawing which I’m both loving and growing slowly into… On the iPod touch I could be fairly tight with the lines/detail whereas on the iPad it all feels free-er, move expressive and expansive. I hope that in a years time I’ll have found the way of using it as much as I feel I have with the iPod touch… We’ll see. More on here as regularly as I can do to show how things are progressing but, for the moment, it’s time for the socks and wifey’s skills to take centre stage

©Wifey

© Wifey

© Wifey

Happy bunny. Sadly youth working all day and tied up with stuff all night but shall be playing with this when time allows

So, amongst other things, I love the Buzz Out Loud podcast. In general it sings me to sleep at night, being the last thing I tend to download around nine o clock.

As a show it’s effortlessly and magnificently chaired by Messrs Molly (Wood) and (Tom) Merritt and each spark off each other in different ways. Molly rants in the best possible way and Tom provides the very best in cheesy links. If you like tech then this is the show I tend to appreciate the most. The back up cast of Howell, Cooley, Tong, Bell, Needleman, and so on are all excellent fun and the guests all tend to add a lot. There have been a couple of dips and low points but its a thirty minute slice of tech joy I always love catching up on…

Hence doodling this. A cowardly caveat before uploading though: Apple are still the most vocal technology company in my life and Steve Jobs is still someone who has achieved much more than I ever will. Jony Ive’s designs are still a thing of wonder and I can’t wait to get an iPad. I’m sure Jobs’ sense of humour won’t see me banned from Apple stores prior to the launch of the iPad, right? I also, remembering one of the mini-in-jokes on the page, don’t find myself hideously offended by the Worldwide loyalty team per se, more the fact that it needs to exist more than the idea of it existing in the first place (although like much of what Apple does it’s very… heavy handed). I can see why some would disagree with that pov but I like surprises at trade shows personally. I hate seeing spoilers

As ever drawn in Brushes on my iTouch. This time over brekkie, which was, ironically, apple and blueberry porridge, so called because there was only one blueberry.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDCOGnMFiI[/youtube]

Low day yesterday. Sent off a good few Sylver and Wombat emails over past week and had one reply. And taht was about something different. Hey ho. The path to any sort of visibility on both projects seems to be steep and rocky and (ironically) I’ve also done my back in yet again and am shuffling around like a Zombie film reject. And I mean a proper zombie, not one of the rubbish running ones.

Anyhow, when things are tepid I do seem to hide back into Brushes and I doodled this yesterday during my lunch hour. Normally I don’t get one, just a sequeway between one project and the other, but yesterday I had an idea, gleaned from an off hand Twitter post, and this came out of it. I’d change a couple of bits if I did it again, one arm seems confusingly attached to the Louse’s head, but for 59 (ahem) minutes it’s not so bad.

Music by the mighty Open the Skies. If you ever see their name attached to a Boileroom gig get thee there. They OWN the place. Very good stuff indeed.

Hmm anything else? Nothing springs to mind and 4% battery so onwards again. Oh yeah, one thing – quickly – the image/vid is a nod to the Uber Brilliant Mouse Guard comics by Mr David Petersen. They are an artistic wonder, beautiful books and well worth a look see. Not only that but in reading various blog posts (and the odd email we’ve exchanged) David also comes across as a thoroughly nice guy, which is good. I’m glad a few of them walk the planet

2%.

Work proceeds apace on Wombat Wambot, my online comic drawn almost entirely in Brushes. It’s happening now at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wombat-Wambot/373739641256 with one page a day uploaded (weekdays, I deserve a break now and again) from now until July.

Or so the plan goes…

Also: Oh Apple why do you taunt me with a ‘buy your iPad now’ email when you know I am in t he UK and cannot buy one until the end of April when it’s released way off in the future two months

Updates soon, honest, but for the moment Wombat’s sit heavily on my brain.

Edit: Also also, should I post the pages here? Would that make sense? I wonder…

One of the things I’ve been working on, well, two of them actually, comes to leave my hands and go to the hands of others soon enough.

The first, Dr Sylver and the Tapestry of Time, hits shelves in April after the most protracted birth of any of my projects, ever. Oh boy.

The second hits shelves before hand, despite only having been worked on since Christmas in any real sense. It’s been a theraputic piece of work in some ways, exciting in others. Ladies and Gentlemen meet Wombat and Wambot. It’s the tale of a small, furry amnesiac and his large robotic counterpart. Fairly obviously the name came first and the story… Well, there’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that in there. Sometime soon it becomes my own and then, shortly after, it’s going to be given over to others: much like the Big Book Draw the fun of Project Wombat is that others will fill in the middle up until the last page or so. That part will be the most fun of all. I had intended to show the project off sometime in the Summer but with the release of Brushes on the iPad in a months time it makes more sense to try and hit before then which has compressed my stretching out and relaxing time to a small, stressed ball of lack of time off. Still, I do love working on a project so hey ho, all part of the game.

Anyhow if you’re so inclined you could join the twitter feed at @wombatwambot or add the facebook page here… The more the merrier (and of course the more would help me out in showing the project off to others in the future so any adds would be gratefully appreciated).

One of my mates has just had a double eye operation so I did this card for her to take the shades off to.

I… um… probably don’t have to say what software I used to draw it with?

A smorgasbord of possibilities and entertainment angles, provided I can evade the kids and family long enough to keep up with them. Was going to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (awesome film – up there with the best 3d adventures and proof finally that Mr T can act rather than just be Mr T) with family, with one eye on the Apple tablet announcement, but that’s postponed til tomorrow so that some members of the household can go out and cheer up other family members not in the household. Which leaves me on child end of day duties, with one eye on the Apple tablet announcement.

These things WILL happen:

No-one will talk to Mr McGraw Hill. He’s either a twit or a shill and everyone will shun him and he will stand in a corner alone eating canopes.

Stevie J will take to the stage wearing an artists smock and beret.

The naming game will end. It’ll be called the Apple PaintSplodge.

The PaintSplodge will eat newspapers for fun.

It will be the best comic reader known to man.

My wallet will cry.

It will have Pixelmator and Brushes built in, or easily buyable from the SplodgeStore. I will be very happy about this.

Molly Wood, CNET’s Apple antagonist par excellance (and the person who sings the word ‘awesome’ better than an-e-bod-e), will be the Chun Li to Stevie J’s Ken.

The internet will buckle and crash and burn as a million twillion uber nerds refresh Engadget every four seconds. Twitter will cease to exist after the first four seconds of the iNote under a deluge of mostly related hashtags. Lots of people will say it’s just a bigger iPhone.

Apart from that it should be quite a quiet evening I’m a guessing. I’m also guessing I will end it substantially poorer than I started it.