Tools / Software Posts

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Some interesting Adobe Illustrator scripts I’m going to maybe use soon

I think there might be one or two things in this collection of Illustrator scripts that I could use in lettering my comics.

I think the Divide Text Frame would be useful when working with sound effects or shouted dialogue.

With this script you can divide multi-line text fields into separate text frame objects, making it easy to separate lists, navigation items, and more.

Speeding up the chopping up of a block of text could come in handy.

Another on that might cut down on some fiddling and CMD-Zs is the Metaball script.

This script will create connecting arcs from shapes you have drawn. Very useful when connecting basic shapes to create more complex shapes for logos, icons and illustrations.

I can see using this to create a more organically shaped balloon, much like the final balloon this week’s The Winchcombe strip.

But I like these scripts. Seeing stuff like this always makes me wish that I had learned how to do this myself when I had more free time.

By the way, I think I got this link from a post on Art Geek Zoo a while back. Check it out.

Links

10 Free and Extremely Useful Illustrator Scripts(vectips.com)

Art Geek Zoo

July 20, 2010 | No Comments

Swooshy Winter Olympic vector effects in Illustrator


veffects.jpg

An interesting tutorial from Layers magazine:

In this tutorial we’re going to explore the graphics created for the Olympic Winter Games recently held in Vancouver, British Columbia. Throughout the winter games, they had a continuing graphic theme of very stylized vector art. Here, we’ll achieve a similar effect using only Adobe Illustrator and a PSD file of a snowboarder. Follow along below to learn more about vector graphics.

It’s sometimes strange to realize that, despite the fact that I live in Illustrator for making my comics, I really only use a small portion of the application.

Links

Vector Effects in Adobe Illustrator

July 19, 2010 | No Comments

Some highlights of Illustrator CS5

AICS5.jpg

For my money, Adobe Illustrator is the best all around tool for making digital comics.

A few months back Adobe released Illustrator CS5, and I picked it up.

I’ve definitely noticed some improvements in the new version. Mostly in terms of stability and speed, but there are a few new features that I’m looking forward to trying out.

Layers Magazine has a review of this new version and some videos that highlight a handful of the new features.

Links

Illustrator CS5 – Layers Magazine

June 24, 2010 | No Comments

Scene-based writing (featuring Scriviner)

Clay Moore posts a quick little description of a way to approach writing your fiction.

What i am proposing is not that you throw out the Chapter system at all. Rather I want you to think of your story as a collection of scenes, as if you were playing out the movie of your story in your head. Each scene can then be completely mapped out. You know who are in the scene, and the goal is for each character in that scene. You get all the pre-think done, and then do the writing. I find that my characters are better behaved.

This scene technique has worked wonders with my own writing. When I have a complicated plot, this technique helps with keeping the plots straight.

Another benefit to this scene based system is that I can see where I am lacking in the book. A character may suddenly appear and I need a scene to introduce that character.

This approach is very similar to how I write my comics.

Links

Using the Scene writing method with Scrivener

June 17, 2010 | No Comments

A common question these days: How do I delete my account?

Smashing Magazine is doing a public service and has posted a round-up of account deletion how-to’s.

What we often don’t realize when signing up for all these accounts, though, is how difficult it can be to permanently delete our accounts when we’ve had enough. Some require complicated, multi-step processes that can stretch over the course of days (or weeks). Others take less time, but still require multiple steps by the user.

Below we’ll take a look at the account deletion processes of popular websites and services, and how easy or difficult they make it. Then we’ll discuss why sites make things so complicated, and some things to consider when designing your own deletion policies.

They give the straight poop on how to wipe your account on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google, and many others.

Nice little thing to clip and keep handy in case one of these service providers pisses you off.

Links

How To Permanently Delete Your Account on Popular Websites

June 16, 2010 | 1 Comment
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