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Friday, October 19

Painting animations


Someone suggested on my Facebook page that I make animated GIFs of my work in progress pictures that I sometimes post of the drawings I’m working on. I thought that was a cool idea so I made GIFs of my two latest endeavors. A Jensen Ackles painting and a Colin Morgan painting.
They’re big files so they might take a while to load!
Colin Morgan animation
Colin Morgan animation
jensen Ackles Animation
jensen Ackles Animation

Tuesday, October 16

Colin Morgan Painting






Jensen Ackles Painting







Sunday, October 7

Wacom Cintiq 24HD: a first look


Wacom Cintiq 24HD
Perhaps you’ve noticed me talking, over and over, about Wacom’s fabulous Cintiq 24HD. I guess if you talk about it long enough people (your parents) get so sick of you talking about it (or realise that you really really would like nothing better than to have one) that they decide, that since you’re turning 25, to give you one!
Oh yes, I have a Cintiq 24HD! It’s really really beautiful, and really really large (the screen itself is 24″, but along with the frame, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is 30″ total). I did not get to unbox it, as they say, because I was on holiday and when I got back, it was on my desk, all hooked up to the computer! My parents like to do this, surprise me with stuff after I’ve been away.
Right, so I should probably tell you what I think about it now, right? The first thing I noticed was how incredibly smooth the screen is. It feels almost liquid. Secondly, it uses the same pens as the Intuos 4- upward, which is really nice, since I have a few of those (pens, not multiple Intuoses (Intui?)). It has a lot of express buttons. I love express buttons, because you hardly have to leave your screen to do things you’d otherwise have to go into menus for. It also has two fabulous touch rings that can perform six different, fully customisable tasks. I think this is Wacom’s most flexible tablet yet. Same goes for the positions the screen can be put in. I tend to go for my usual only slightly tilted position, though. Also because I can’t change the position by myself because you need to use two hands for that (sheesh, Wacom). The only thing it doesn’t do, and the Wacom Cintiq 21UX did, is rotate. I didn’t use it that often, but that was pretty handy. I think I should now just digitally rotate the canvas. No biggie.
Wacom Cintiq 24HD
Another, really, really neat thing is the Cintiq’s perfect compatibility for multiple screens. You can set one of the express keys to ‘toggle screen’, which allows use to use the Cintiq across your other monitor, as a regular tablet. Really handy if you’re working with multiple programs at the same time. You only need one hand instead of two. Way to go Wacom!
I’m sure there are many many other cool things that I’ve yet missed, but I never have the patience to check out all the options as I always just want to create as fast as humanly possible.  I’ll write down more cool stuff when I come across them.

Bringing this blog back to life

I still get a lot of visitors here on this blog, so I can't just sit around here and ignore all of you anymore.

What can you expect? Art, for one, but I'll also post book reviews, movie reviews and other entertainment and opinions on this blog.

See you guys soon!

Maartje

Saturday, January 21

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green review

One of the best books I've read in 2012, so far. No shit, Sherlock, it's only January. 

But no, seriously, I love this book. I'll go ahead and label it as 'cancer book', but I don't think it's negative in this case. 

John Green approached the subject of dying from cancer with a good sense of humour, without taking away the seriousness of the disease. It made me laugh out loud and cry intermittently. 

I finished it in one weekend. It was interesting to read about Amsterdam through the heroine's eyes and discovering some of the magic that I never really saw there, myself. 

Definitely worthy of a read, or two.


Buy it on Amazon here:



Friday, January 20

Looking For Alaska by John Green review

Looking for Alaska is a deliciously tragic and dark book about young people who all go through something they shouldn't have to.

Everything in this book feels tense to me. I'm not even sure what I mean by that, but it had me sitting on the edge of my seat for the entirety of the two days it took me to read the book. 

The characters in the book almost seem subsequent to the things that happen to them, and that makes me wonder if we, as non-fictional beings, are as defined by what we do and what happens to us as the people in this book. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much now.

John Green writes about tragedy like most people breathe air. Or at least, I'd like to imagine he does. Death, the great mystery of the unknown and acceptance are themes that are written about often but no one does it as well as John Green.


Buy the book on Amazon:

Saturday, December 17

Darren Criss paintings

I thought it would be nice to put all my collected Darren Criss paintings into one blogpost. I think this is about three years worth of Darren, haha.















I met Darren a couple of weeks ago, and he signed my art. That was lovely!