May 2012
2 posts
4 tags
Underwater Tomato Ninja: Beginning Game...
One thing I know for certain: this workshop will invove the Underwater Tomato Ninja. What workshop you say? I’ve been making a game development workshop. Or perhaps it’s a series of workshops. Or then again perhaps it’s a game based workshop to make a game. Along the way I’ve played with many ideas as to the workshop’s form and flow. As I’ve been coding,...
April 2012
3 posts
5 tags
Polytechnicast - Juggling Part 2, De facto...
In this mostly “art journal” style episode of the Polytechnicast I reflect on how I’ve been applying something I learned via juggling to my creative projects. I also share how that relates to which projects are getting my time and attention. Links Mentioned and Related Jerzy Drozd Art Geek Zoo Guitar Fretter Lean Into Art Cast Scratch - a visual way to code via building...
3 tags
Polytechnicast - Juggling Metaphor and Actual...
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share a few observations about why juggling interests me and a basic overview of how to juggle a three ball cascade. Links Mentioned and Related Juggling for the Complete Klutz (affiliate link) Charlie Dancey’s Encyclopaedia of Ball Juggling (affiliate link) Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into...
6 tags
Game Workshop Card Prototypes
On Episode 30 of the Lean Into Art Cast, I mention my upcoming game development workshop. Here’s a sneak peek at the prototype card deck. Nope, not a “slide deck”. The workshop itself is a game - a multiplayer card game to be precise. Everyone starts with a basic working game engine and over the course of 90 minutes, everyone plays, designs, and develops new features and assets...
March 2012
4 posts
4 tags
Creature Design, The Wormbug Completed
I spent about an hour playing in Photoshop to finish the Wormbug’s linework and coloring. The flatting stage went faster than normal as I already had the silhouette. I played around with a cool color palette for the creature. Instead of my normal flat shading with tones of black and white I chose to shade and with warm colors, something I’ve been working on since taking Kevin...
3 tags
Polytechnicast - Comic UI with guest Krishna...
[[posterous-content:pid___0]] In this episode of the Polytechnicast I have special guest, cartoonist and art instructor, Krishna Sadasivam of PCWeenies.com. I’ve always found Krishna’s continuous refinement of the PC Weenies comic user interface very informative. Krishna and I talk about some of his recent UI updates and what constraints and goals he had in mind when revising the site. Links...
2 tags
Creature Design, Work in Progress
Bug creature design, work in progress. Started it as a rough-sketch iPad painting and I found the creature looked too blocky/brick-wallish to communicate clearly in silhouette (that stage isn’t depicted in the screencap). I refined the silhouette in Inkpad (image on the left) then started fleshing out details in the desktop version of SketchBook Pro (image on the right). ...
5 tags
Polytechnicast - Interactive Empathy
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share some thoughts on using empathy as a way to guide design choices in interactive projects. Links Mentioned and Related Links Original blog post - Interactive Empathy Collage Empathy on Wikipedia Mail Chimp Follow Rob on Twitter or his blog at Interactive-Storyteller.com and workshops at Lean Into Art ...
February 2012
4 posts
Polytechnicast - A One-Off Solution
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share an overiew of the technical details of my move from Google App Engine to Squarespace. It’s a bit about RSS, XML, why text formats rock and how web browsers are a fantastic place to build a little one-use data transformation. Links Mentioned and Related Links Art Geek Zoo Google App Engine Google Chrome’s JavaScript Console The Script I Used...
5 tags
Polytechnicast - Moving Away from Google App...
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share an overview of why I moved my comic to Google App Engine and how things evolved to considering moving away from that platform. I’m leaning toward moving to S3 or GitHub, using a static generated blog styled as a web comic approach. Then again, Tumblr is a pretty tempting option! Along the way I give an overview of why I chose a cloud computing...
5 tags
Polytechnicast - Hunting for and Interviewing with...
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I share thoughts on seeking a job doing what I love, serving a community I care about, using tools and methods I believe in, to engage in a fair and sustainable trade. Along the way I share observations on the process of job/contract hunting and some of the tools I find helpful. Links Mentioned Comic - Independent Voice (the first place I published my...
January 2012
14 posts
3 tags
Polytechnicast - Preparing and Topic Potpourri
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I have “preparing” on the mind. Working on a few projects simultaneously I find myself in the cycle of preparing, making, and finding useful connections between my projects quite often. In addition to “preparing”, this episode is also a bit of Topic Potpourri! Links Mentioned and Links That Came to Mind While Writing These Show Notes ...
5 tags
Principles of Perception, Design, and Comics
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo. Filling in the gaps. Bobby McFerrin didn’t ask everyone to guess a sound - he started a pattern with one sound, then another, and another. The relationship between those sounds is design (the Pentatonic Scale), the audience participating to fill in the gaps...
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Polytechnicast - Service of a Game
In this episode of the Polytechnicast, I delve into some behind the scenes planning and development I do to support Guitar Fretter. Recently I received an email from an Android user who is rather good at the game. On her Android device once she gets past level 12 or so the game has problems. I share details on how I’ll tackle that issue, ponder the complexities of the Android market, future...
Lean Into Art Cast - Skill Set Overlap
I call it an “emergent topic”. We started with the intent to mention my recent talk for the Comic Artist’s Forum at the Ann Arbor District Library and the topic took a life of its own. Jerzy and I went with it to explore how building an audience for your creative work is similar to both event planning and connecting with your local art scene. Download MP3 Show Notes ...
“But over the past few months the conversations often distilled: His frustration...”
– “The Life-Changing Rightward-Facing $20 Cow,” Leigh Alexander, Kotaku. Wonderful #longread about Ian Bogost, the creator of Cow Clicker, a game which satirizes Facebook games like Farmville. I’m fascinated by what I think of as protest programming. (via lifeandcode)
5 tags
Polytechnicast - Jumping into Clojure with Special...
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I’m joined by special guest Craig Andera for a totally unscripted tutorial session on programming Clojure. Clojure happens to be Craig’s programming language of choice. Clojure is a very different coding experience for someone like me who’s into Lua, Python, JavaScript, and ActionScript. Before this podcast I hadn’t written a single line of Clojure - now I...
6 tags
Interactive Empathy as a Design Concern
Considering how interactions flow - whether in-person or in an app/web system with empathy as a focal concern. Posted via email from Blog of an Interactive Storyteller | Comment »
6 tags
TurboGrafx Cameo w/Game Design Workshop Notecards
Notecards are part of my iterative process. These notecards are from whittling and playing with the topics I’ll be covering in my upcoming game design workshop at Lean Into Art. It’ll cover part of what’s outlined here - enough to design and build a basic game in HTML5 and JavaScript. More news to come. As to the TurboGrafx (actually the portable TurboExpress in this case)...
4 tags
December 2011
6 posts
4 tags
Polytechnicast - Making Comics in Adobe...
(#comics, #adobe illustrator, #art process, #making comics) In this audio+video episode of the Polytechnicast I’m joined by special guest Javen Ackerman, creator of the comics The Winchcombe and Q Burger! In recent years, Javen has made Adobe Illustrator the main tool he uses to produce comics. We chat about his process and in the video you’ll see him demonstrate his techniques and get...
LIA Cast 16 - Cheating!
jerzydrozd:
New Lean Into Art Cast, where Rob Stenzinger and I share some of our favorite art cheats!
You can download and subscribe to the audio podcast here.
6 tags
Polytechnicast - Keep Moving
In this episode of the Polytechnicast is more art-journal than art-thesis. I share how I’m feeling good-yet-still-recovering from 30 classes in 30 days, some reflections on 30 Classes, and other November-timed art challenges. Links Mentioned 30 classes in 30 days Jerzy Drozd Krishna Sadasivam participated in 30 Characters Tyler James participant and founder of 30 Characters Creating...
4 tags
Character Silhouettes
More practice with making character silhouettes! I’ve become rather taken with this outer-shape approach of designing readable characters by establishing a strong silhouette. I’ve doing this via Sketchbook Pro, pencil & paper, and the iPad app Inkpad.
See the full gallery on Posterous
Instead of a long post, I captured my thoughts in this 10 min video via another iPad app:...
November 2011
8 posts
5 tags
Character Design Practice
This design is based on what I learned in Krishna Sadasivam’s Creating Crazy Characters class at Lean Into Art.More practice to come, this time I tried to do all the steps in Sketchbook Pro which led to some improvisation on the silhouette step. The characters silhouette step is a way to establish a character pose and outline that “reads clearly” showing key aspects of the...
7 tags
Thoughtful+Entertaining+Cartoon Illustration =...
Presented by Brad Colbow at last week’s M3 conference. Paging through this deck is rather entertaining - would have loved to have seen Brad present this live. I couldn’t agree with the core thesis more: to provide a good user experience, first you have to care. M3 colbow-v1 View more presentations from bcolbow Posted via email from Blog of an Interactive...
7 tags
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UI and UX Commentary - Google+ Create-a-Page Final...
While using Google+ to setup a brand page for Lean Into Art - I noticed an interesting situation. The “finish/complete” screen tells me two things at once. First I see a message that I should know that I’m now using Google+ as a “page” user. Second, I see another message that I can announce my Google+ page - as my main user. A bit of conflict in those messages - which...
6 tags
Vash the Stampede - A Driven Metal Riff (Rhythm,...
If it’s been a while since I picked up my guitar, often I find a fun new riff or a new take on an old riff. If I happen to be recording, it helps me stay in the moment and not worry about losing the idea. I know from experience that if I stop myself part way through, connect my recording setup, then try to re-capture the idea it’s often already gone. A “creative energy...
5 tags
Songs for the Lean Into Art Podcast
Lean Into Art is an online art center/learning network I’ve been building this year with Jerzy Drozd. As part of the project we started a podcast called The Lean Into Art Cast which needed an intro and outro song. Looking back at the official intro song it feels as if I was channeling the up-beat let’s-go-kick-some-monster-butt feeling of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme. ...
@Jerzy Ran the @AdobeConnect "meeting connection...
via TweetDeck Posted via email from Blog of an Interactive Storyteller | Comment »
All Setup at Minneapolis Indie Xpo!
Posted via email from Blog of an Interactive Storyteller | Comment »
October 2011
6 posts
9 tags
Polytechnicast - Jonathan Rector on Exploring...
In this episode of the Polytechnicast I’m joined by comic artist Jonathan Rector. We chat about his recent delving into Manga Studio, how he used it for his 24 Hour Comic, what it’s like when you’re coming from an Adobe Photoshop background, and about using only digital tools to make comics. Links Mentioned Jonathan Rector on Twitter Scribbles With Jonathan - LIVE! and Scribbles With...
5 tags
Polytechnicast - Manga Studio First Impressions
In this episode I reflect on my first few weeks of using of Manga Studio. Adobe Photoshop Manga Studio Bizarro Krishna Sadasivam of PC Weenies Jonathan Rector Bryon Wilkins Web Comic Alliance - Getting Started With Manga Studio Rob’s 10 Finished Pages on 24 Hour Comic Day, All in Manga Studio Google Sketchup Export Sketchup to Obj (normally a Pro feature, this is a Ruby script...
7 tags
Lean Into Art - LIA Cast 08 - Participatory...
Can a podcast episode about artistic self determination and participatory culture be interesting? How can it not be? That kind of topic exploration is developing into a pattern for our show. The Lean Into Art podcast is only 8 episodes along. However, in a way, that’s 8 iterations. Each episode Jerzy Drozd and I are both building off what we think was working from the prior eposides and...
7 tags
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Polytechnicast - High Adventure Crossover with...
In this episode I’m joined by illustrator, musician, and teaching artist Kevin Cross. We discuss various aspects of making art for the all ages market. We ponder what styles and stories tend to reach all ages markets and which presents multiple challenges as a creator. Also: how to face the doubt that some parents have when some things seem on-the-surface not as kid friendly while those same...
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Three Starting Points for Learning to Code
lifeandcode:
Hackety Hack — Suitable for kids as well as adults, a program that contains a built-in programming environment with embedded lessons
CodeAcademy — learn to code without anything but a browser.
The EPIC HOWTO — Coding for Journalists and Other Busy People
September 2011
11 posts
4 tags
@micahgoulart I know it's speculation, but I can...
via TweetDeck Posted via email from Blog of an Interactive Storyteller | Comment »