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Photoshop Painting

I've been doing some painting in Photoshop recently. It's been a while -- I generally don't have the need in my regular animation work -- so I've had to re-learn some stuff. One thing I forgot I knew about was how to make medieval chain mail the easy way. Here's how:

1. Open a separate document, and paint one link of the chain mail.

2. Select all, and define a new brush.
3. The settings of your new brush should make it easy to paint the mail on. So set your spacing, direction, pressure, etc. so you get something like this.

4. And paint in alternating directions to get the mail effect. You may even want to paint each direction on a separate layer, so you can add highlights across each layer.
   

I remembered this technique while working on this sketch:

011210

Found out today.

Whence to pirate?

Recently I've been thinking about the benefits of being a pirate. I play bass in a little pirate band for kids, and we've been at it for almost ten years. Ten years. We have four albums to our name, and we draw decent numbers for our shows here in Portland. We pour our little pirate hearts into each show, even the ones that are... challenging, and I think everybody has a grand time. Every now and then we get emailed adorable photos of kids rocking out at home, or pictures they drew of us, and it bouys our hearts beyond compare. But on the whole, this enterprise is not a money-making machine. We're generally in manageable debt, and the money we make does help with the bills. But it's pretty nominal, and we all have other full-time jobs. With five of us in the band, with families and loved ones, it gets difficult to schedule and get on the same page. We get told a lot that we must have a lot of fun -- and we definitely do -- but there is a lot of overhead that weighs heavily. The crew are such wonderful people, it's hard to imagine they need to do any other work; but the reality these days... I don't know. 

Things I Hate About Flash

I don't hate easily. I'm usually a very forgiving and nice person. I use Flash every day for work, however, and there are things I genuinely hate about it. Maybe someone working at Adobe might read this, give a little pitying laugh, and fix them. But I doubt it.

• Undo. What nonsense. Half the time it crashes, the other half it takes forever to do whatever it is that it's doing.
• Non-standard dialogs and text entry fields. Seriously -- use standards, where cmd-. cancels, and tab or return enters the values.
• Shape hints. It gives you the impression of functionality, without actually giving you the functionality.
• Shape tweens in general. What's up with the random ease values?
• The timeline is a nasty piece of work.

There are many, many more problems with Flash. I might add to this list later, but for now I needed to get that off my chest. I hope, lord I hope, that Adobe fixes some of the crap in Flash while they add their selling points for the next release.

Justin Currie, Seen and Heard

Last night I went to go see Justin Currie perform at the Doug Fir. The short of it all is that it was one of the best shows I have ever seen.

The long of it is: I got there, met my good friend Sarah (who has a quirky face), had a couple of beers, and went downstairs to see the show. Not a lot of people -- I'd say between 70 and 100 -- but clearly everyone there loved JC. He came on, looking sharp, and immediately encountered technical problems which visibly irritated him. It was the last show on his tour, so I can imagine he was pretty exhausted and lacking patience. Once solved, he re-entered to great applause and jubilation. It took a couple of songs for him to relax and have a good time. The show seemed to pass quickly, and he ran off stage after the encore, hopefully to a well-earned vacation. Sarah and I, on the other hand, had french toast and a blt at the 24 Hour Hotcake House.

So what's my deal with Justin Currie? Good lord, he writes the best songs. Three minute gems. I would give my legs to write songs like that. That is not hyperbole. His songs have accompanied me in falling in love, broken hearts, depression and elation. He's a bit frustrating, really. A brilliant songwriter, still a little hung up over not "making it big", all very self-deprecating and Scottish sad bastard. Part of me wants him to either hang it all up and quit, part of me wants him to relax and realize what a gift he can give. In the end, though, I think he needs that self-torture to do what he does.

Anyways, if anyone is reading this drivel, go out and buy his latest solo release or any of his work in Del Amitri.

Justin Currie, Portland

Justin Currie is coming to town. He'll be playing the Doug Fir on May 14th.

I haven't been this excited about a show in a long time.

In Los Angeles

Well, I'm in Los Angeles on a work trip. It's been a while since I've been here. It's a little strange trying to fit in with the work crew here, but I'm definitely getting a lot done.