New Comic

Posted a new comic on Punch Card Zombies' homepage. This one shows Sam's cubical at Zombeets, Inc. and also hints that he's the graphic designer of the advertising campaigns there. I haven't done too much research, but hopefully the internet isn't already saturated with web comics and cartoons about office zombies. Judging by the sudden surge of popularity of zombies, it very well might be done to death so to speak. I'm not trying to make any money off of the cartoon so I'm not really concerned, it's just a project I enjoy creating.

I got to play around with Toon Boom Animate over the weekend. It seems very similar to Flash in some aspects and very different from Flash in other aspects. I think with about a solid week of playing around with it I'd be comfortable enough to use it for animations. I may continue to make the first episode of Punch Card Zombies in Flash anyway since I already started the storyboard in instead of Toon Boom Storyboard Pro.

Flash vs. Toon Boom

So I was just about to get started mapping out the storyboard and animatic for the first episode of Punch Card Zombies, but first I did my daily reading of blogs and tweets that I follow in the animation/digital design realm. I started to notice a lot of blogs about how Flash is going to be phased out in the future, HTML5 is the new wave, .FLA files are going to be extinct, Toon Boom is better for animation, etc. Seemed a little disheartening since I pretty much make a living off of Adobe Flash.

Thankfully, my company is a little behind on software upgrades and our clients still demand Flash player 8 and actionScript 2.0 so we don't have a need to supply the latest and greatest technology out there. However, for my personal animation projects I was considering switching to Toon Boom to see just how much better it actually is for traditional 2D digital animation. It seems like it'd be like taking a few steps back at first since I would have to learn a whole new interface and software system, but maybe once I grew accustomed to the new layout it'd streamline the process. Does anyone have experience with Flash vs. Toon Boom and is one better than the other for certain projects?

PunchCardZombies.com

Punch Card Zombies is my new upcoming web series. It's about Ned Zombie, a white collar zombie who works for Zombeet Inc., and his co-workers who also happen to be the living dead. Ned is in charge of advertising, where he tries to win over zombie customers into the realm of vegetarianism with his catch phrase "Beets are like Brains, but Better!" Unfortunately, most of the zombie population doesn't want to give up their carnivorous lifestyle, but Ned and his co-workers are determined to change the world. Check out www.PunchCardZombies.com for new updates and news about how far the series is progressing.

Adobe Certified Associate of Flash

Yesterday I finally decided to take my certification of exam to become an associate of Adobe Flash.

However, to get to this point it was quite the ordeal. Not because I had to learn the software, I've been using it for six versions now so I wasn't worried about that, but because testing centers in my area are scarce. In fact, there's one in all of northwest Georgia apparently.

Since the exam is work-related my company allowed me to schedule it on my lunch break and to reserve a conference room. The day of the exam, the test center called me and said they're going to let me take it when I get to my home PC and that I can log-in from there. Later that night, I paid for the exam, installed all the plug-ins and tried to take the exam. After about three hours of errors, tech support and back and forth on telephone calls I decided to try it another day. Finally, the next day I was able to go to a learning center in Atlanta to take the exam on a computer, which I'm pretty sure is at least a decade old and ran very slowly, but at least I finally got to take the exam.

To become Adobe Certified was more of a personal goal to show that not only have I been using Flash for 8 years and am qualified for my position, but just as proof that I know it well enough for Adobe to recognize it. Maybe in the future I'll try the Adobe Certified Expert exam, but for now I'm just happy to finally have this exam completed.

Photo Hunter Game

Things started getting busy again so the cartoon has been put on hold, which I figured it would eventually. I did have some free time to goof around with my camera and Flash though so I started making a photo hunt style game. The interface still needs to be revamped and more photos added, but it's something to goof around with.

http://www.gpanimations.com/photohunter.html

Wacom Cintiq 12wx

Today I'm going to review the Wacom Cintiq 12wx graphic tablet I use to do photo editing and Flash illustrations. This tablet is my third Wacom tablet I've owned. I started my Wacom adventures with the Graphire, which is now called the Bamboo that I had purchased in 2005. Being a left-handed designer, drawing with a tablet instead of a mouse was a dramatic advantage, but the Graphire was too small and the drawing surface was too slick. This was the tablet I used to create After College: Episode 1. Then I upgraded to the Wacom Intuos 6x11, which I bought off of eBay. The drawing surface is much more natural and the size increase was a huge help. This was the tablet I used to create cartoons just as America 2027 and Life. In early 2008, I saw an ad for the Wacom 12wx and quickly ordered one because I always wanted a Cintiq, but couldn't afford the larger models that were only availabe at the time.

Drawing directly on the screen of the Cintiq is probably the second most natural feeling besides drawing on a piece of paper. The response is instantaneous, pen is comfortable and the on-screen colors are vibrant. And with just about all Wacom tablets, there are programmable buttons on the tablet itself and on the pen, which allow unlimited customization for each piece of software that you use. Pressure sensitivity is most helpful in photo-editing software such as Photoshop, but Adobe/Macromedia Flash actually has a special brush tool option that appears just for Wacom tablets, which utilizes the pressure sensitive options. The only drawback to the Cinitiq 12wx is the price tag, while although cheaper ($1000 USD) than its bigger brother ($2000 USD), is still a lot for the average enthusiast to shell out.

Overall, I would say if you're serious about graphic design, computer animation, 3D modeling, or photo editing and aren't ready to shell out $2000 for the 21" Cintiq 12UX, I would defintely recommend giving the 12wx a try. You'll be happy you did.


Created with the 12wx: