The Beziér Artist’s Liberation Front: Adobe Illustrator Feature Requests

Adobe Illustrator logoAfter an engaging exchange on Twitter with illustrators: Garth Bruner and Von “Vonster” Glitschka, who are constantly Twittering about their frustrations with being forced to switch from Freehand to Illustrator after Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia, things reached the point where all involved thought that we need a way to band together and get some feature requests implemented in the next version of Adobe Illustrator.

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Ten Essential Low-Tech (and Cheap!) Tools for Cartoonists & Illustrators

Still using that pencil you found in the couch and an old dictionary as a drawing board? Don’t feel like the biggest computer wiz when it comes to graphics software? There are plenty of inexpensive tools out there that will boost your productivity and enjoyment level when drawing, sketching or just doodling. And you don’t have to spend a ton of money to expand your tool kit in ways that are sure to make your life much easier, giving you more time to draw.

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Copyright Laws – 14 Years The Optimal Limit?

There’s an interesting entry over at the excellent blog Drawn regarding a study done on copyright term lengths by a Cambridge economics PhD. He argues that 14 years is the optimal amount of time, due to production and other economic factors.

Head on over to the post at Drawn.ca for some interesting discussion in the comments, and also a link to the original article at Ars Tecnica which has a link to a PDF of the actual paper.

Copyright is a very interesting concept, especially coming from the creative/creator side of things. Part of me wants to own and control everything I create for infinity, but the other side of me can understand the need to stimulate creativity in society. However, patent holders only have 20 years to capitalize on their work. There seems to be a dichotomy there, but perhaps there are finer points which separate the two.

In the meantime however, make sure you always drop a © (that’s the “C in the Circle” symbol, which is Option-G on your Mac) on your artwork. You can include the date and/or your name, but don’t have to. You don’t even have to officially register the art to use the Copyright symbol (although it’s recommended for added protection).

Here’s a quick overview of Copyrights at the USPTO (United States Patent & Trademark Office).

Illustrator Chris Bishop & the continual struggle to eliminate self-doubt

I was recently turned on to this illustrator Chris Bishop‘s work by my friend Todd. Fun, chunky & bright colors.

This guy’s work was a nice helping hand for Todd as far as chiseling away the erroneous notion that your work “needs” to be “better” than what comes naturally and what you enjoy doing. We had a long discussion over some food the other night about this phenomenon that he & I both share. For years I struggled with the idea that the artwork I produced needed to be more than the fun cartoon stuff I love to create, something serious, something ‘heavy’.

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Like a New Sketchbook

…intimidating, but exciting.

So what’s this all about? Well, it seems you almost HAVE to have a blog nowadays, at least for the next few months before something else gets popular. I guess it better than having to have a MySpace account. Can’t hurt in Google ranking either.

I’ll be posting some random artwork, mostly stuff not found on my cartoon illustration portfolio site, and hopefully this will contain all new artwork & sketches, like this cool zombie I need to finish:

I’m just setting this up, so that’s all for now.