Wacom Inkling Test

There are a lot of images here.  I got this new Wacom Inkling pen for Christmas and I was testing it out.  It took me a couple of pages of doodling to figure it out.  Not that it is real difficult, but flew a little bit by the seat of my pants at first.  Since it is designed to eliminate the need to scan images in I thought it would be interesting to compare the scanned image with the image as it was captured by the Wacom.  So I posted both for you to review.

This first page went completely uncaptured.  I included it because my deal with you is to share my sketch pad.

This you can see for some reason there is an issue with the line work lining up.  See the bald guy's eyes and double stroking the lines.

The main thing I noticed on this page was for some reason the Inkling didn't capture the "u" in the "your".

 

This grouping of Happy New Year's celebration was done using the layer function.  You can't tell her but when it is uploaded to the reader you can eliminate layers.  Here I just included them all.  I also drew higher up on the paper and you can see the natural margin of the Inkling reader didn't pick it up.  The bottom half was done by coming back later and starting a separate page on the Inkling.

Christmas Card Thought Process 2013

 You've already seen the Christmas card that never got mailed.  These are the sketches that lead to the card's creation.  Some how I went from a dialog between two trees on a Christmas tree farm to yard inflatables, to absurd inflatables.   Of the the decorations people put out for Christmas I like the inflatables the least.

On my drive home from Christmas at the in-laws I was listening to a re-run of last year's year end Prairie Home Companion and they did a skit of two trees on a tree lot talking to one another.  I swear I drew this long before I heard the skit.

 

Farewell Facebook - My Open Letter to Facebook

Dear Facebook, We Need To Talk. It's Not You, It's Me.

December 22, 2013 at 2:22pm

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Facebook, you came into my life in 2009.  Wow, nearly 5 years now.  At first you were cool, neat and even a bit mysterious.  Over time I learned more and more about you.  I discovered how to find and connect with people I'd long forgotten.  People who I'm sure had completely forgotten me.  I searched for names of people who had passed through my life.  It was my curiosity and a bit of my personality flaw to enjoy searching (I' would have made a great treasure hunter).  At the point of discovering that lost name, we'd do the dog dance.  You know that bit of walking around each other, sniffing each other over...of course there was no actual sniffing online but we'd exchange cordial greetings, and request the proverbial update.  We'd share the highlights (some shared way more of the lowlights to the point of making me depressed more than I normally am).  We'd look over each other's minimal collection of photos, because in the beginning most people hadn't shared much.

These connections grew and expanded to really forgotten names connected to the formally forgotten names, so forgotten I had to either look them up in a dusty yearbook or just accept I'd known them at one point.  Never absolutely certain.  Then the connecting seemed to take on a kind of hording mentality.  A new sport was created.  How many forgotten names can I connect with.  It was easy then.  Just start asking everyone and anyone associated with another name or dug up from memory.  The connections grew and grew.

As the hours, days, and months passed the excited small talk of re-connecting faded.  The mundane and idiotic started to grow and saturate my news/update feeds.  Pictures of foods, pets and kids.  Self congratulatory messages and bragging became the norm.  I continued to marvel over what comments spurred the most feed back and comments, likes and shares.  I've yet to figure out why one person's statement about breaking a shoe lace this morning would get 100 "oh sweetie that's too bad", "Yea I know the feeling", "I'm sorry", "LOL, wear loafers" and another 100 shares, but a comment about current events, socially, nationally significant and insightful thngs get at best a couple of "LIKES".  I once even tested this observation by posting sequential post about pulling into the garage, rushing to the bathroom, enjoying a satisfying poo and the sadness of the good-bye flush.  This series of post yielded more response (eventual censoring by my loving and concerned wife), then a post previously made about some real event.

I eventually concluded I needed to cull my "friends" to those who's comments I enjoyed the most.  I started adding connections to companies who's service or products I enjoyed reading about.  Now I get more advertising self imposed upon me than I care to admit.

Yes, I know there have been times when you could assume I love you FB.  I posted drunk, or during a football game.  While enjoying a cigar or relaxing alone.  Maybe it was just me reaching out for companionship.  Maybe I'm the classic self described loner who really isn't.

FB you've forever ruined my desire to attend any type of reunion.  I've seen and heard whatever would of made be inclined to attend.  There are forgotten names that I've never been able to find in your mass of humanity.  I'm not sure if these individuals have foregone your allure or I'm not really good at finding them.  I think the former, because neither have they reached out to me.

I tried to use you to grow awareness for a business.  This fell flat with a total of 33 LIKES of which very rarely do any of them acknowledge or comment upon my "business" page.  They are merely strangers who I've rub shoulders in a crowd.  No more significant.  I even tried to use you to connect everyone sharing my last name.  While I collected over 100 it never really became anything resembling a community.

So, after 3 years I'm going to break this relationship off.  I'm going to make a clean break in 2014.  I wanted to share this before I deleted you from my life because obviously you'd never see this after the fact.  It's been interesting.  I'm sure I'm forever change by you being a part of my life, but I just don't think we need to continue. It is best for me and I'm sure you will realize it to be good for you in the long run.  We just are not right for one another.  Really, it's not you.  It's me.  I'm sorry.

Good-bye

Christmas Card For 2013 - Blog Exclusive Release

Well here ya go  My 2013 Christmas card.  Feel honored because only you, my blog followers, will have the pleasure of enjoying it.  When I went to print it my printer decided to crap out on me.  Actually it threw an error message and I can't fix.  Well that is not actually 100% correct.  I fixed twice, not sure how, only to have it throw the same error message when I tried to feed card stock again.  It's never done this before.  I've had the thing for nearly 10 years.  Why it decided to do it now I have no idea.

For the uninitiated, this is the mock up so it will print on a 8.5 x 11 card stock that is folded to make a portrait 5.5 x 8.5 card.  So the image on the lower left is actually on the lower back. It is my logo, which if you read past Christmas card postings will recall I tweak a bit to fit the theme of the card front.  Since this one focuses on those stupid yard inflatables my logo is plugged in and leaking air.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS

&

HAPPY NEW YEAR

God, Not The Only Creator. I Just Created This Creature.

 Who said God is the only one who can create life.  Here is proof positive that is forms of life can be created by others.  I just created a new animal.  It is so new science is still trying to identify any associated genus and species.

It just appear in the animal kingdom and over two pages of sketch pad has begun to evolve and take the shape that will become familiar to everyone eventually.

Cute and adorable animals sell cartoons.  What could be more cute than this huggable little creature?

Oh Shit It's Christmas Again!

Recognized the other day it is time to start focusing on Christmas card ideas.  I'm so not in the mood or spirit of the holiday.  Surprise, surprise (sarcasm).  Which seems to be a pretty normal state of mind for this time of year...reference past blog post in December.   I have absolutely no ideas....so I just start doing some word association and see what comes.  Current status - NOTHING!  Stay tuned.

Pilgrim Brings Axe, Turkey Brings Gun - Thanksgiving Tradition Changes

I had this Thanksgiving inspired idea.  My intention was to make it my cover photo on my Boondawgoggle Facebook page.  It never made it further than a few pages of my sketch pad.  Rather than bore you with each page as its own image I decided to make a collage.

The joke/gag was the you don't bring a axe to a gun fight with a turkey.

Exercising Obsessed Mom Can't Handle The Truth

One of my Facebook "friends" started posting her daily workout status.  She established earlier on that she was going to challenge herself to do some workout every day for 30 days in a row.  The entire month of November.  I followed these post and noticed there were some who would comment the expected comments, "way to go", "keep it up", "whew, you are making me tired"...all well deserved, but no one was giving her the kind of comments that might inspire her to push harder, like: "is that all you go?", "hmm, only 10 miles", "come on get back in the gym and off FB!"

There did come a day when she posted she was not able to workout due to some conflict.   And still no real comments to motivate her.  This post got me to thinking, what was the intent behind her post?  Was it to keep herself on track.  Was it to publicly "brag" or "show off" (felt that was unlikely).  Was it hoped to receive some accountability, as in her friends would keep her on track if she were to expose her success and failures and when she was not able to motivate herself get some motivation from her friends.   I took her intent to to be the latter and since no one else was taking up the call to action I felt I needed to.

Having been a workout obsessed individual in my youth, I understood the value of knowing there was someone at the gym expecting you to be there.  You relied on them and they relied on you.  If you were ever to not show up you'd catch hell and equally you'd give hell.   During the workout if you were showing signs of weakness or a desire to "puss" out you expected your workout buddy to push you that extra bit.

So with this level of accountability in mind I proceeded to call her out on her moment of weakness.  Well guess I misunderstood her objective.  From her response it seemed to me that she took it more personally as she attempted to make excuses and justifications for her missed day.  I kind of expected her to just do what a guy would do, "yea I'm a big puss, but I'll show you next time asshole!"   Then her other friends, all girls, were all like, "it's okay", "you're trying really hard", "I'm sure you deserved a day off"...yadayada.

REALLY!!!  Jeez..  Just goes to show you there is a huge difference in guys and girls.