(no subject)
my new home studio. i need to do something about the desk situation....
my cintiq came friday afternoon in what is possibly the most astonishing feat of free shipping i have ever seen in my life. bought it online to avoid paying taxes (which would have come out to more than $200) and expected it to take a week to reach me; i ordered thursday morning, it arrived at my office friday afternoon, and i was merrily posting away for the rebate on saturday morning.
this thing is worth every penny, even before the rebate. what makes it the most worth it for me: as most of you know, i have carpal tunnel syndrome from a long war with 3D animation in college, and it never really went away. as such i can't really draw for a length of time without my wrist and arm beginning to hurt. i do a lot of stuff digitally, and until now i never realized that my tablet was part of the problem; the discombobulation between what the hand is doing and what's on screen. i must have drawn on the surface of the cintiq for 4 hours straight and was stunned to realize my wrist, tho a bit sore, didn't hurt at all. drawing on the surface is so amazingly natural that after erasing i found myself bringing my hand up to brush the surface, the way i do with paper.
now, will it make me a better artist? well, no- but it will make me a faster and more productive one, as i've gotten really used to hitting ctrl-z for about 4/5 of the strokes i'd make with my intuos2 tablet because they weren't quite right. it's similar to my gps unit: it doesn't make me a better driver, but it sure as hell makes me more confident about the ride and gives me a sense that i'm gonna make it to where i'm going with a minimum of trouble (....since im a dumbass i sometimes miss the turns it tells me to make when i get off highways, so 'recalculating' is the thing my gps says most often). however, the fact that i can draw for longer without my hand hurting makes the buy more than worth it. my art production over the last few years has gone down a LOT because of the CTS problem; i love to draw but it actually physically hurts to after awhile, which means i can't even practice as much as i want to in order to get better. i'll still be using a tablet at work (i don't think they're gonna spring for cintiqs for our team- cost control is really tight at the moment) but having a cintiq at home will mean that i can draw for myself at home more.
sadly though i haven't been drawing much at work lately; i'm on (corporate...boo) website for the next month or two, and i'm also a project manager for a new module that'll be launching which is why i've been so freaking dead lately. well, it's all good experience.
in other news, did everyone know that james jean did a collaboration with prada?! i sure as hell didn't.
Click to view
i'd been seeing the fairy bag he designed in the fashion glossies for months now but it'd never really clicked more than a vague "that kinda looks like a james jean drawing" and never warranted more investigation. it took an article i happened upon to find out it IS his drawing, and not only that, he did not only the art direction for the above animation AND a huge mural in NYC's prada store, but also a ton of gorgeous drawings that have been screenprinted all over dresses and such (in my defense, none of the magazines i get mentioned the name of the illustrator). it makes me ridiculously excited, as james jean is one of two illustrators i respect the most- him, and jo chen. as the most fobtacularly taiwanese-american chick out there, i'm so happy to see both these taiwanese-americans doing our country(ies?) proud. of course, having just dropped an alarming amount on the cintiq i can't even BEGIN to afford the bag (and i realize that for as much as it costs, i could buy one of his real paintings- also, the bag has a three month waitlist as it's basically the hottest bag for spring)- but i do find myself very much coveting the clutch/wallet version, even though i already have a prada wallet (though not the james jean one!)
and lastly: sarah slean's new album the baroness, though not her best (she plays it too safe) is slowly growing on me. i find i keep listening to this song:
was telling tarysande that i don't know why this song and slean's "california" affect me so deeply even though i've never been in a similar situation and that i was probably in some horribly painful love triangle in a past life. she countered it was either that or i was preparing for an upcoming horribly painful love triangle. NEITHER PLS.