- This topic has 9 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 7 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
Today, I need to confide; eight years ago (!) I stepped into a university classroom in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and fell in love with a device which absolutely revolutionized the way that I created digital art. This device was so extraordinary and it absolutely blew my mind like no piece of technology has before or since (with the potential exception of the Saturn V rocket – hot tamales that thing is incredible in person!)
It was the tremendous, beautiful, powerful, industry standard, animator’s best friend – the Wacom Cintiq tablet monitor, and for two glorious years I got to play with them all the time. Then I graduated with my diploma in traditional animation and my play time with cintiqs ended. Lots of stuff happened to prevent me acquiring one of my own in the past eight years; I could not hack working in an industry as stressful and dependent on social relationships as animation so I worked in retail for minimum wage. Eventually, I could not afford to live anymore in North Vancouver, nor could I even afford to move somewhere cheaper, so I was evacuated home by my parents. Then I worked more retail, minimum wage jobs, busting my butt at places where I could never stand to work for more than eight months.
And then, just before Christmas 2014, I was hired by a Canadian outdoor store and I have been with them, happy, ever since! Fast forward to today – I now have a driver’s license, a car and now, as of this morning, although it is not yet physically in my hands, I have achieved my dream, the powerful tool to re-revolutionize my digital art and create visual stories as I haven’t done since university.
I finally own a cintiq!
Nobody else knows this yet. I don’t really plan on telling anyone either, but I just wanted to confide how beautiful it feels to have finally acquired a cintiq of my own after all these years. It’s much smaller than the behemoths that I used in university (thank gods – those things were horrifically heavy and were most comfortably used with a sort of hydraulic arm, otherwise owwwww caused by weird posture contorting yourself to use it – BUT THE PAIN WAS WORTH IT) but that’s okay, because those were too big anyway. I am so stoked and excited, especially as I move into creating serious webcomics. (One, secret, the other, an environmental story about how habitat loss greatly aggravates already extremely difficult survival of wildlife, specifically predators.)
I am so, so excited – this is gonna be big and I can’t believe that it is at last happening. I am so grateful for everything that has led to this point and I can’t wait to be much more productive with my digital artwork, the same as I once was. This is a wonderful day!
Check out my finished artwork at http://falcolf.deviantart.com/ and my sketch/studio blog at http://rosannapbrost.tumblr.com/
Excellent!
So amazing you have finally gotten this tool that is so inspiring to you and that you are doing things your way. The animation/film industry is very difficult and time consuming to say the least. By the way, my husband is a visual effects supervisor in Vancouver and my daughter just finished. Her schooling at Art institute and is now working doing map painting for film. We know many people who have left to Persue other things as it really is difficult. I wish you much luck and inspiration in your future. <3
Thank you so much Marianne! <3 I still know many people in the industry, some who your family may even know, but I’m happy to be outside of it and creating my own work with myself as my own art director. I went to school at Capilano University; I did consider Art Institute but it was too much for me but still, another awesome school! Sounds like you have one heck of an artsy family! 😀
I’m now writing, planning the before-mentioned graphic novels and doing various illustrations. I might not get paid for it (yet,) but it’s still fun and my education in animation certainly hasn’t gone to waste. I’m proud of what I’ve done, even if the industry wasn’t a match for me and I’m hugely proud of my classmates who are still in it.
Check out my finished artwork at http://falcolf.deviantart.com/ and my sketch/studio blog at http://rosannapbrost.tumblr.com/
Excellent!
Fantastic attitude. Great to see someone still so inspired. Im sure there is some amazing things in store for your future. Being creative and true to yourself should be very rewarding. I worry for my daughter sometimes but she seems to be enjoying it so far. She is so young though. Not even 20 yet. At least she has her art to fall back on though. Like you do. It must be so empowering to be able to reach in and create something beautiful. I’m a tad envious of all you artistic folks.
🙂Way to GO Falcolf! 😀
Fantastic News!
I had looked at Wacom’s newsletters and info on the Cintiq, so I know the exhilaration you feel! I look forward to seeing more of your Graphic Novel about the Falcofs – hopefully you might get to the point where you can do a printed run of it. I’d love to get a copy. 🙂
I need to find more time to get on DA more often – I’ve been so neglectful due to issues and being busy at work/home.IN SEARCH OF MY NEXT GRAILS:
Black Peacock & Butternut Adult Poads
Kickstarter 'Rainbow Tiger' Bantam Dragon*~*~*~* Ela_Hara: The DragonKeeper *~*~*~*
*** Come visit me on deviantArt at http://ela-hara.deviantart.comThat’s awesome! Do let us know where to look for your webcomic when it’s ready.
Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmJust do be careful and don’t overdo it! I have a friend that “Drew till it hurt” frequently. Several surgeries later, and they are only now, years later, getting control over their drawing arm again.
Also a good read: https://animationguildblog.blogspot.ca/2016/08/then-theres-this-regarding-board-artists.html
With the advent of cintiqs, board artists are ruining their eyes, [staring endlessly at computer screens]. I have gotten letters from so many artists, a number of them from Pixar. They are having retinal detachments.
Wacom says the cintiqs were designed for four hours of work a day. Staring into an LED blue light is the light that damages the retina.
I called UCLA a while back and asked them if any studies had been done on the effect of cintiqs/LED light. I explained that artists stare close to the monitor for eight hours. The research/clinical trial person told me there would be no trial unless wacom paid for it.
We are canaries in the coal mine and I am hearing more about it. Artists will not speak up about it because they do not want to rock the boat.
Spoken from one digital artist to another: Take care of yourself and be careful. 🙂
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comThanks everyone! 😀 I’m really excited! I can’t wait to play with it.
I actually haven’t been on dA very much lately Prezaurian, so if you were looking for anything from me there you probably haven’t missed anything if that helps you feel any better. 🙂
Jennifer, I saw that article a few days ago! 😀 Someone posted a link to it on Tumblr and I gave it a good read over. It wasn’t really new information for me though because in university they taught us to be super careful visually with digital stuff anyway. I’ve been teaching myself to glance away every few minutes from my laptop screen for years and focus my eyes on something else in the room, which my cats are great helps for because they’re always getting up to silliness. For the cintiq, I only have around four hours a day at most to do digital art anyway, so I don’t think the negative effects of them will effect me like they do people who have to spend all day five days a week chained to them for work. Even so I’m taking the danger seriously though, I don’t want anything to happen to my sight, I depend on it too much! My fluffy boys will have to help me with that too, the goofballs. 🙂
Check out my finished artwork at http://falcolf.deviantart.com/ and my sketch/studio blog at http://rosannapbrost.tumblr.com/
Excellent!
I’ll definitely show off my webcomic when it’s good to go! It’s going to be a couple of years at least, though. 🙂 I’ve got loads of conceptual work to do on top of actual pages still.
Check out my finished artwork at http://falcolf.deviantart.com/ and my sketch/studio blog at http://rosannapbrost.tumblr.com/
Excellent!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Recent Comments