Scott Kurtz has put out a call for Cintiq knowledge, and I thought I'd share here what I've learned since November.

NIBS:
Felt tip nibs are my favorite. The felt tip ones get mushy, but they won't hurt your screen. They have a nice pencil/Sharpie on paper feel. The plain plastic ones are good for if you run out of felt. There are some ones that are "brush"-like, but they're slippery. Hate 'em, but that's me.

PRESSURE:
Dunno how hard you're pressing, but if you want a heavier line weight, you can put more pressure on your screen (won't hurt it), or make your brush bigger and use lighter pressure.
Try inking with the pencil at 300DPI (at least, you can go as high as 600DPI in B&W without trouble), if you're not. Sounds counterintuitive, but once it's reduced, it looks smoother than the brush.


COMFORT:
A Smudge-Guard! $14.95 and shipping, fast delivery. (http://www.smudgeguard.com/) Helps so much. You know by now the Cintiq gets toasty at the top. This takes away some of the heat, and helps your hand move across the surface. Good for regular ol' paper and pencil drawing, too!
I cut a sleeve off an old long-sleeve shirt and sewed it to fit a little more snug to stay up. This does what the Smudge Guard does, but for up to your elbow. Because the Cintiq can get kinda warm.

OW, IT'S KINDA WARM:
A little desktop fan to blow on underside of the Cintiq. Because it gets freaking warm at the top.

KEYBOARD:
A Nostromo Speedpad. (Amazon.com) Found out about this at the Panel and Pixel Forum. Takes a while to program, and a little more to get used to, but it is TOTALLY worth getting rid of the strain on your keyboard hand since everything you'll need can be put under your LEFT  hand with no reaches for combinations.  Pretty soon you won't even need to look at the Speedpad. Sweeeet.

SCOTT MCCLOUD'S $5. WACOM PEN "TIP":
Program the side switch on the pen to undo and redo.  BEST TIP EVER.

BUTTONS:
I disable the right-hand buttons so my arm brushing across them doesn't  cause anything to happen. I actually hardly use the tablet buttons at all. The touch strip I use for zooming, but that's about it.

TOOLS:
Supposedly you can use French curves and rulers on the surface. I have. But tape some heavy tracing paper or the like over it. Avoid metal.

CARRYING CASE:
Heart-stoppingly expensive. $500. from Digital Graphic Resources. DGR is in Georgia, and they can take a while to ship.

It's the thing the cool kids (Kurtz and Penny Arcade*) are doing: streaming their desktops live as they draw. With people in a sidebar chatroom chatrooming as they do it.

Like them (observe how cagily I GAVE CREDIT, thanks), I'd be streaming on UStream. UStream is a quick register, makes no spam, and is easy to use. If you also have Twitter (and why not, it's also easy to register for and makes no spam), you'll get a Twitter when I started to draw.
My Twitter name is "divalea" and my Ustream name is DivaLea.

SO, I'm doin' this whether people watch or not, but of COURSE I want people to watch. Whatever I do would be work-safe (and kid or parent over the shoulder safe).

...they still haven't called back? WTF? This is my HEALTH, dudes. WhyTF hasn't my hospital sent in my paperwork so I can stay healthy? BUH?

In other news, my DS Lite (white one with the hinge crack issues, and it did indeed have a hinge cracked in two places) has disappeared from the face of the earth. We have torn apart the house and found remote controls, forks, garbage, an entire king-size fitted sheet in one of the couches (I kid not), but no DS Lite.
I am missing it, and feel like one of my waldoes is gone.

Even fecking used DS's are ridiculously expensive.

This is nothing on quakes and twisters, no mistake. But the lack of these things is uncomfortable, the medical more so than the gadget.

Including purloined images of Tintin's Snowy!



Click on Pooping Fake Snowy for more Mother's Day pictures, including a macro of a ladybug's underside.

That's funny. Turns out I'm not the first person to think of it, but it's still funny.

Or Summer's suggestion: "Iron Man: It's your daily requirement of iron."

Jeff Bridge=Daddy Warbucks. Robert Downey Jr.= both dom and sub, hero and prison bitch. A movie with only two women characters is going to need more soft characters, so Robert gets to have his shirt opened slowly by one man and be made helpless by another. GO SLASHERS, GO!
In an obvious but still literate and clever visual, Downey/Stark is the crippled Hephaestus. On top of everything else, he's a Tesla-like math savant, and a lone creator who has funny verbal interactions with his machine companions. (Some of the funniest lines are Stark  nattering at his waldoes.)

Being an interface wonk, I drooled over Stark's computer and design interfaces, and how plausibly they were depicted. An interface where virtual structures can be built and then tested for fit? That's for me!

The film was real-looking, like a celluloid print that's been showing for a few weeks. Even the CGI battle armor only looked clean for about two seconds. As someone who knows things in use don't stay clean, I loved this attention to detail. I kept a small sketchbook at hand, imagining myself like one of my heroes, Al Hirschfeld, who drew on paper kept in his pocket. I got some great gestures for later memory sketches. I am glad I did, everyone moved so beautifully, and were not varnished and zit-filtered to a fare-the-well.

There's so much more I liked, such as Stark's over-the-top yet believable indulgences and excesses in drink, women and luxury, but I want you to see for yourselves. IRON MAN is a solid, funny and smart action film. You deserve it.

 

Dirk Deppey links to Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time! regularly. It's Steven Gettis' art collection of authors, literary figures and characters as drawn by, well, everyone in comics.

Chrestomanci as drawn by Bryan Lee O'Malley:



And, just for arcana_j:

Harry Potter by Humberto Ramos:



It's brilliant. I wish there was a book.
I wrote to Steve and asked to contribute and found out he'd been trying to reach me for about nine years! I'll be doing something for the site. I'll let it be a surprise.

Go have a look and enjoy.

Bought a copy of "How to Make Webcomics" this past weekend from Kris Straub, creator of Starslip Crisis. (I also got my Jinxlet plush, and Summer bought herself another Jinxlet.)

"How to Make Webcomics" is a nice-looking book, formatted in a kind of "Dummies" style, with pull quotes in the margins, and comments in the text by the various creators (each identified by their own caricature/icon).  It's dense with examples of the authors' work and their knowledge.
The cover is an illustration of crumbled newspapers. I get that it means you don't need a newspaper (and a syndicate) to be a comics artist (and thank god for that!).
The cover's unintentionally ironic to me, though: "Huck the delivery system, but keep the form!" and that form is solidly rooted in the newspapers: the gag strip, and that's the kind of comic "How to Make Webcomics" focuses on. Not surprising, since this what the four authors, Kellet, Straub, Kurtz and Guigar do: they're comic strip funnymen, and they're talking about what they know.
There are extensive sections on monetizing one's work, promotion and etiquette, and these are useful. The making part is about making a newspaper-style gag strip and putting it on the web. If a reader wants to know how to make a gag strip and get it on the web, this book is solid gold. If a gag strip is not what a reader wants to do, it's time to add another book to the stack, or choose a different book entirely.

I'd recommend "Making Comics" by Scott McCloud for drawing and storytelling with "How to Make Webcomics" as a supplement on marketing and delivery. 
ETA: Glitchtown on the HTMW typos:



Rasmus Pettersson's Glitchtown is a relatively new webcomic about internet tech, and so far it's funny. Check it out!

arcana_j is right.

Now everybody have you heard
If you're in the game, then the strokes the word
Don't take no rhythm, don't take no style
Got a thirst for killin', grab your vial...

You put your right hand out give a firm hand-shake
Talk to me about that one big break...
Spread your ear-pollution both far and wide...
Keep your contributions by your side and stroke me, stroke me
Could be a winner boy, you move quite well...
You got your number down...
Say you're a winner but man you're just a sinner now

You put your left foot out keep it all in place...
Work your way right into my case
First you try to bed me you make my backbone slide
But when you found you bled me-- skip on by... keep on---stroke me, stroke me
Give me the business all night long...
You're so together boy...
Say you're a winner but man you're just a sinner now

Better listen now (said) it ain't no joke
Let your conscience fail ya, just do the stroke
Don'tcha take no chances keep your eye on top
Do your fancy dances you cant stop you just stroke me, stroke me

Now backing to kicking WRITING and DRAWING ASS!

This happy dude who bought a commission from me and was willing to be silly really sums up CAPE! 2008.
Click on his smiling face for my CAPE! 2008 photo collection.

Thanks to xochitl42 who posted this handy link to "Where's My Stimulus Payment?" in the comments:

https://sa1.www4.irs.gov/irfof/IRServlet?app=IRACTC

This IS a legit link, I checked it out.

You can also go to http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=177937,00.html, scroll down to the header "Economic Stimulus Payment Calculator" and choose "Where's My Stimulus Payment?"

You need to have either your SSN or the SSN of the first person who's on the return, and the number of exceptions you claimed, which can be found on line 6d of your return.

Ours was reduced, WTF. Fantastic. (ETA: Apparently has something to do with our pre-tax amounts, buh something. Calling IRS.)

ETA: Called IRS. On hold to "Nutcracker Suite." Just now realizing the irony of that selection.
Testy person on the other end. Believes explaining means saying the same thing over and over as I try desperately to tease nuance from being told the same thing over and over.
It was a matter of asking the right question, which was, "WHAT tax credits I took affected the payment?"
Our Stimulus was reduced due to my business performing poorly and the write-offs I took. 

I really hate this week. Hard.

I have lots of awesome pictures. I think instead of writing about the whole thing, I'll just post the pics to my Flickr account tomorrow and youse guys can make up your own stories for them.

We are home again, and yay! King did most of the driving to and from. The one hour I did, I was instantly sleepy, which freaked me out. I could not keep my eyes open, but a car without a pillow (we left ours at the hotel, oops), is hard to sleep in.

The Big Gay Bruch was Big and GAY. Great food, but we'd finished eating at our table and Chris, Richard, Waid and Kirkman were still waiting. I left at 11:50 and they'd just been served.

I went around the room and took pictures for the CAPE! Sunburn Gallery. One person of every three had a burn. One of every six was burnt so bad it hurt to look at them. Sean Jackson was the worst, having a whole naked pate to fry, but Marc Andreyko was a close second, being burnt at badly as Sean, but just on one side of his face. The knuckles of Marc's writing hand were pink, too.

I'll post pictures and write more later. Right now, it's nap clobberin' time.

Special thanks to Shon for watching our critters, Paul Riddell for being my booth bunny, and Paul Benjamin for entertaining Summer at breakfast. Thanks also to everyone who is not Daniel Way for peeing somewhere they could not be seen.

My intarwubs are spotty until we get to Dallas, actually. if you need my mobile number, email me before 9AM tomorrow so I can give it to you!

One last pre-CAPE push! CAPE! is in Dallas, Texas this weekend. Worth a drive from anywhere in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, or Arkansas! In Austin? Getcher ass up here!
Check out da vid and see what fine art goes for sweet prices at auction. All proceeds from the live art show on Friday go to the Ronald McDonald House.
Come see a galaxy of comic stars on Saturday in Craddock Park. Not just comic stars, COOL ones. NICE ones. Not a dud in the bunch.
www.capeday.com

Yah, entered a fanart contest on deviantART. First prise is a Wii, dammit!



If Y'all would be so kind as to click on the art so you go to this deviation's page and thus up its views, I'd be ever so grateful! And if you have a dA account, comment and fave!

Boy now has his own Flickr account as "mr.strangel"  for his digital photography. I discovered some excellent ones on a card in a purloined camera, and decided a Flckr account was In Order.

This is one of them. He was bouncing around a flashlight while he took the picture. My favorite of the lot you have to visit this set to see, it's so good I want it to be a surprise.



And if someone wanted to gift him an account, he'd be delighted.

David Pirkola. Comics retailer. Like a bunch of us in comics, he has no insurance. Unlike most of us, he got shot at his own store, Apparitions Comics and Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan, by some dillweed who'd already robbed him.
That's fucked up on an epic level.

Time for TEAM COMICS.

Read the story about David HERE. Donate. A buck helps. Seriously. Five helps.

As usual, make a donation of $10. or over, get yourself, a pal, a pet, whatever drawn into Rumble Girls: RLO.

Post here when you donate, get the love. Thanks!

King just got news that he has diabetes. FAN NOT TASTIC.
Like we needed this. Obligatory fuckity fuck here.

And us with no insurance, fuck you Mike pants on fire ex-Boss. And the King and I trying to work out the how to raise the kids together even though our marriage is teh ded.

Comments closed. Yeah, they're open. Thught I pulled down that pull down correctly, but obviously not. I'll take good wishes as read. It's to cut down the inevitable well-meaning advice about managing diabetes, which is about as  common and plentiful and advice about colds, cars and computers.

P.S. You do too blog about your drama. Eff off.

Apologies for not pimping this sooner. Surprisingly, my head is not up my ass, there's just a lot going on on the homefront, and all is chaos.

Anyway, I'm back for my fourth appearance at CAPE, I've been going every year since the first, even talked other pros into going, like Gail Simone. CAPE's the remedy for the Common Con. It's fun, energizing, positive. I always leave with a smile on my face.
I also get to see my homegriddles like Paul, Caroline, Richard, Chris, Bazzer, Scott Kurtz, Gail, Sean, darediva, Kit, Lisa (other), Katie, and people whose names I forget because I am a name forgetter, not because they are not awesome in every way.

So, this next weekend in Dallas, Texas, on Free Comic Book Day, ALL DAMN DAY FOR FREE is CAPE!

Also, there's a live art show on Friday, well worth coming to just for the EN-ER-GY and fun of watching live drawing. Also FREE, and moneyy raised this year is for the Ronald McDonald House! W00t!

I want to put the graphic here but LJ is being pukey.

ANYWAY, come see me! I'll be doing commissions this year since my new book for the year, Tori Amos' Comic Book Tattoo won't be released until Sandy Eggo.
BUY A COMMISSION, dammit!