Last night I returned from a whirlwind weekend in Kansas City for the annual meeting of the North Central Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. It was a long drive back to Minneapolis (our chapter covers a very large geographical area), but it was well worth the trip. About thirty-five professional cartoonists, illustrators, and Flash animators took part in the...
Communication Arts is a quality art magazine for creatives. It's an expensive magazine printed on thick glossy paper, but it has a lot of good content. Several issues are themed around "annuals" (Design Annual, Illustration Annual, Photography Annual, etc.) which means that a big chunk of those issues contains the latest and greatest work being done in that media (at least, as judged by the editors). Lots of good content in the articles too.
Before getting into today's post, I want to thank the guys over at Drawn! for graciously writing a little blurb about my Schoolism.com posts on October 20. That day I got a lot of visitors to this site--over 3,700--and the following day my blog made #61 in the top 100 WordPress blogs for that day. Muchos Gracias, guys! And thanks to all you new readers who've been sticking around since.
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Yesterday my copy of Leopard, Apple's new operating system, arrived in the mail. (I ordered from Amazon.com and saved a few bucks. Their single-user version is $20 cheaper than Apple's retail price and the family-license version is $10 cheaper. Plus free shipping.) After reading thoughts about the upgrade from the talented and prolific Tom Richmond, I thought I'd post my own experiences.
Upgrading your entire operating system is always a big project, and there are bound to be a few glitches. Most glitches are usually ironed out within a few months of the software's release, but early adapters take the brunt of it. Since Leopard is only a few days old I knew I'd run into some bugs, but I never expected to run into as many problems as I did.
I recently purchased the special edition DVD of Disney's Jungle Book. It is widely regarded as one of the all-time classics of animation. Not because of the story. The plot is so simple that the movie should be a total bore. The movie is revered because of the characters. They are so incredibly entertaining and delightful to watch that you can't help but get caught up in the fun.
That is no small feat.
At the moment I'm under the pile with five freelance projects. I'm doing turnarounds and mouth charts for an upcoming episode of 3-2-1 Penguins!, I'm creating some spot illustrations for a website, I'm designing a character for a popular food product (can't say what yet), I'm illustrating some Spanish curriculum, and I'm getting started on a set of Bible flashcards....
HOW Magazine is a leading publication in the art and graphics community. If you don't subscribe, you should. There are a ton of great articles on both the creative and business aspects of being a commercial artist.
Recently HOW started offering a series of online "webinars". (A webinar is a seminar broadcast over the web.) These webinars are designed to help creative types improve their business skills so they can land more jobs and grow more successful.
