s4ndm4n's blog

Elements of Nature - Brushes for Photoshop

Media Militia's latest contribution to the design community is an article that gives you what they call "natural photoshop brushes" but what I'd more appropriately tag as "Elements of Nature".  Why?  Because natural brushes says to me, that they act like natural paint brushes in their behavior whereas these brushes actually allow you to paint the elements and/or things of nature such as trees and the like.  Mind you, some of these are stylish renditions and others are realistic.  Enjoy! Check out their article after the samples below.

 

 Get all of them here

 

Aside From the Tech, This is Creepy.

You may or may not know that I read an online comic called Mega Tokyo, by Fred Gallagher.  Its a manga-style comic (very well done, I might add) that is just hilarious and interesting, with a mix of crazy fanboy stuff, related to Japanese culture. 

One such crazy idea is a robot girl (forget the name at the mo') that is made by Sony, who is intended to be a companion and a game at the same time, or something to that effect.  Over the course of the story things happen and she tends to be more "human" than you'd expect from a robot. 

Anyhoo, long story short, the concept of a robot friend tends to be a fascinating one until... you start seeing that the day where the creation of the real thing is a possibility is drawing near.  Let me introduce I-Fairy, unveiled at the 2010 CES show.  Funny thing is, take a look at the image the follows which is, of course courtesy of MegaTokyo.  I only place that here to make a point (notice the ears)....    :::::shiver:::::

I-fairy

MegaTokyoRobotGirl

Read more about I-Fairy:  News on Japan, Coolest Gadgets

Anime / Game / Art

Ok here is my latest sketch, this one's ready for vectorizing in Illustrator.  I've done it completely in Sketchbook Pro 2010 so far.  I won't do the colorizing of this one in SBP because its for istockphoto and has to be in vector format.  I'll post progress as it gets done.  Vectorizing is pretty quick anymore unless I use gradient meshes.  Not this time though :P  

WK_inspired_2ai

Hoodie kids...

Kithoodie

SlimHoodie1

I love hoodies.  I am not sure why but they are fun to draw.  Between the Bunny things and the hoodie kids, I think this will keep me busy awhile!  

Here are a couple new Hoodie kids.. 

Sketch-frenzy 2

Bunnyman

Hoodie1

M109_wallpaper

Bunnywip1

Just some of the sketches I have done lately going into a mad sketching frenzy with my wacom tablet.  Ok so the last one isnt' a "sketch" but it was done completely with the tablet and by hand after an initial motion blur on the lighter purple.  My favorite bike, if I ever got one, would be this one.  This wallpaper is set to 2560 x 1024 because I have a dual screen set up at work, with resolutions of 1280 x 1024.  To use in this way, set it to "tile" on your screens. 

Inspiration from Media Militia #023 (reBlog)

Here is my favorite from Media Militia's #023 of its "Get Inspired" Series. 

Mmilitia_insp023

Media Militia is a blog dedicated to graphic designers and graphic design fans alike, with posts of art, tutorials, freebies and more.   

Nexus One: iPhone killer or not, I want...

So yesterday I was waiting to read the press release about the Nexus One phone, the newest Google phone.  If you haven't read or heard about it, its their brand new phone that is once again, made by HTC.  This time, it has Android 2.1, the newest Android OS and incidentally, the Nexus One is the only phone carrying this version.  Sporting a 5 Mp Camera with an LED flash, and the fastest processor (so I've read) which is 1 ghz, in the smart phone arena, I have been drooling over it.

Today, just by chance, after Firefox forced me to install updates, I found that I was at the regular Google page instead of my usual iGoogle page.  Guess what I found:

GoogleNX1link

I was happy to oblige.  I am very interested in this phone, since you can develop for it like apple's iphone/ipod touch, but android, considering the source, is going to be way more open.   That's what its got going for it IMO first and foremost.  The cam, the speed and the other tech specs are just niceties but will it be an iPhone killer?  Honestly, I can't say but if at all, it will take awhile to dethrone the king of smartphones.  Even if its better, and catches on, Apple has a strong brand loyalty from its customers and I believe they will stick with them through almost anything. But I'm getting away from my point. 

The Google Nexus One is here, and frankly, I'm excited.

GoogleNX1image

GoogleNX1logo