Every once in a while, I do artwork. These are posts related to that.
In the wake of posting up the video of my talk on “Practical Creativity,” I got this:
@raphkoster how do you usually practice the creativity habit?
— Karlos Zafra (@solkar) December 3, 2014
What a great question.
First, I have to admit I slack off a lot. 🙂 But, here are some ways in which I practice, or have practiced it. You might notice some commonalities across media.
Hope you’ll bear with me, because I will get to games last.
Quite a while ago I wrote a review of the Yiynova MSP19U, a Cintiq alternative tablet monitor. I was pretty pleased with it, but it did suffer from relatively low resolution and from a TFT screen with poor viewing angles for color reproduction.
The Yiynova MVP22U V3. Plus a sneak peek at some game artwork for an upcoming game of mine.
Now I have a review for you of the upgrade model, the Yiynova MVP22U(V3) Tablet Monitor
I was an early adopter of the V1, which does not seem to be available anymore. The V1 suffered from the fact that the large screen was a TFT, like the 19 inch model — even close up, you would see color issues resulting from the viewing angles on a TFT screen, just because the 22″ screen was so big. There were also font rendering issues caused by the drivers for the monitor itself. I returned my V1 in favor of a V2
The V2
The gradual conversion of the old site into the new format continues. Old links out there still point to old pages, since I haven’t put any redirects in. But the new pages are appearing, and if you are mostly hitting the front page of the site, the menu choices will start pointing to the new pages rather than the old. Don’t worry, I won’t switch over the top pages until all the lower pages are in place!
The Yiynova MSP19U. And the piece I finished today on it.
I’ve always wanted a Wacom Cintiq: a tablet monitor, where you can draw directly on the glass screen at your desktop. I would enter the raffles at every GDC, hoping. I have used Tablet PCs for years now, but of course, that also means working on a laptop, which isn’t the same as having desktop power. (I just recently picked up a new one of those — see my last two posts for that experience).
As I was doing the new color versions of the cartoons for the revised edition of Theory of Fun without a tablet PC, I was borrowing my daughter’s Bamboo tablet and trying to adjust. I ran across mention of a new Cintiq competitor out of China. I was pointed at it by just a few reviews out there on the Net: Ray Frenden’s and PC Weenies.
For those who don’t know, a big part of the reason why Wacom is king is that they have a technological lead that is hard to surpass. Their digitizers have better pressure sensitivity, tilt support, and much more. Competitors typically struggle to keep up with the basics, like “tracking the pen as you move it across the screen.” You get jitters, lines hopping about randomly, etc.
Well, the good news is that the Yiynova MSP19U Tablet Monitor
Life with a new Windows 8 tablet.
Oh boy, are there teething pains. Here’s some of what I did, located after insane amounts of Googling and multiple days. I am posting it here to save other people all the pain.
An amazing resource: the forums at http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/
Gosh, the storage is limited.
Yes, it is. First off, don’t even bother getting a 64GB model. You need the 128, I guarantee it. In the case of the Smart PC Pro, people are even buying 256 or 480GB SSD’s – unlike the Surface Pro, the machine has some user-serviceable parts, and you can replace the SSD without a huge amount of hassle. If you’re brave, check here: http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/samsung/54457-ativ-700t-question-anyone-open-unit-yet.html
If you’re not brave, well, then:
