App update: Affinity by Canva suite for iPad

 

After over a year of waiting, Canva has released the new iPad version of the Affinity products. I thought this would be released much sooner— before I retired— but that was not to be. Even so, I am extremely happy to see this on the iPad. I still do work on it, just personal work and photography, especially if I am away. This update brings me almost where I want to be with the iPad. I am still waiting for Blender and Krita to get there. 

The best thing about this app, other than we now can work between the desktop and mobile versions seamlessly, is how close the interfaces are to each other. If you have been using the desktop version, this should be very familiar to you overall.  It does add a new studio, Sketch, something meant to be the start of most projects where you can doodle, etc., or use as a procreate replacement if you like. One that has access to all the tools in the other studios at the press of a button. 

The update is free like the desktop version. You pay a monthly fee if you decide you use the AI extras Canva offers.  I am on a new, powerful, 13" iPad Pro, so this is very close to having a laptop again. There are no lag or performance issues, and the screen is not my 27" Mac display, but neither were any of my laptop screens. This is better than any of them, and this is the sort of app made for iPad Pro use. 

Games: No Man's Sky for ipad

As a fan of No Man's Sky I got a couple of surprises recently. The game added another update after a huge one for its 10th anniversary. Then it added an iPad version, something not on my list of things that might happen soon as the game doesn't seem possible on a mobile device. Glad to say that it's more than possible, apparently. 

The port of the game to iPad is really good! It doesn't have colonies or multiplayer (2 things I don't use) but everything else is there including 10 years of missions.  It looks amazing and it is very fluid as you fly from planet to space to other galaxies. 

The interface, like all mobile games, is a challenge for me. I find controlling characters with a finger press difficult to control. I have much more practice to do to get comfortable with it. You can use a game controller if you have one but I tried to use it with my keyboard and it didn't work. Too bad since then, it would have been a seamless transition playing it on the run. 

I had to start the game from scratch, no surprise there, and I will eventually get to a point I don't feel like I am catching up to the desktop version. I don't plan on  making the iPad version the same as my desktop but instead use the new game to concentrate just on the things I really like and avoid all the learning curve errors I made on the computer version. 

Since I use the game as a way to relax, this will be perfect while travelling or if I ever finally decide that I can sit in a café and do that "relax" thing I keep hearing about.  At 20$ USD this is really a no-brainer if you have any desire to try the game for the first time or as a portable version. This also works on the iPhone and your iPad game will automatically transfer to the phone and, vice versa, if you are stuck in an airport or somewhere and can't get to the iPad. 

Updated portrait of me

 

I added another year to my profile portrait project started in 1981 and did a few more, mostly to have something for my soon-to-be updated website as the photo there was pretty old. I was in Montpellier, Vermont, with my friend Keamy, who helped me take the photos while we were walking through Hubbard Park. 

I am not fond of photos of myself so it was good to have someone else there and I think they look OK if you take me out of them! 

* edit

I discovered I had another of these portraits I did in 2021 and I really didn't like seeing the skin on my arms in the current black and white portrait so I hid that in the shadows.

Remake:Music of Erich Zann - Zann's room

 

In this version, I made Zann's room smaller and less maintained, looking to show his station in life is not much more elevated than the narrator's. It is a bit better but they are, after all, in the same dilapidated rooming house. This set includes a hallway with a door leading into the room so I can show it from the opposite direction as well. That can be switched on and off so I can film inside easier. 

I can move on with the animation until we get time to redo the narration now and all that is left if to model and rig the monster. My goal is to finish this before the end of December but no one will die if that doesn't happen! I get anxious because I have other films to remake and a new project I would love to start. This one is coming out really nicely, I think. 

Photo essay: Montpellier Vermont

Montpellier

Greenwood Cemetery

Hubbard Park 

Animation: Music of Erich Zann. In side the old house - lower floor.

I got some work done on the project the last couple of days. The top image is the finished look and the one below this is the same set but before I "aged" it. Then there is an earlier version before any set dressing was added. 

 

Animation: Music of Erich Zann - new POV shot

The POV shot from the start of the animation is redone. It was a 25 hour render for the old version and 2 hours for this one. 

Animation: Music of Erich Zann (remake)

  My third animation remake, Music of Erich Zann, was my first full-scale attempt to make a short animation. I had made "Dust Bunnies" a few years before, but this was more complicated with human characters and several sets. The first version took me 5 years to make. I had to learn basic modelling, rigging, lighting... the whole works. It was done in Cinema 4D and the opening POV shot walking up the street took 25 hours to render. 

Like the previous 2 remakes, I like the original version, but it lacks, mostly because of the skill and technical deficits I had at the time, the look and feel I wanted to achieve. My goal is to have online the best versions of my films on display and use the remakes to get better with Blender and animation in general for future projects now that I am retired and have (in theory) more time to work on personal projects.

Old version of the street. Not the reason this needed to be redone, I was satisfied with the look. 

Old and new version of Zann. New is more realistic and will have more emotional range. Same with the narrator. 

The narrator: old and new

New Business Card - when I don't have a business anymore

 My old business cards are sort of useless now that I don't have a business anymore, so I decided on a generic card for myself. I can give it to people I ask to photograph so they can see more of my work or more banal stuff like showing it to places that need my name and other info. I tend to stutter at times, and my name is LONG, so it avoids that embarrassment.  I never remember my phone number, so it helps with that as well. Next September, I am planning to take photos at the fetish weekend here. Some might be good photos, but I think most will be for making illustrations as some of the outfits and looks are really well made and professional looking. 

The card has no info on the back and is simple and professional looking, I hope. I used my old studio logo, which is taken from a detail on a building here at the Vieux Port de Montréal. 

Illustration: Paris Metro

 It's September and this is the first drawing I have done this year. I will sometimes do 20, but this year is a tough one. After losing my dad, I wasn't motivated to draw or do much, but this summer I was inspired by some work my friend Mike did based on photos he took on the London tube and some video tests another friend did in Paris.  This image is not like really any of my work in that it isn't an isolated subject (I think 18 figures in this one) and it's a "full painting," meaning, to me anyway, that it’s a fully realized environment and composition - not one plain or stylized background. 

It was a bear to get started. I bought a new iPad and the new Apple Pencil and Procreate had updated over the year a bit. This meant that nothing worked like it had, and I spent an 8-hour day swearing and being frustrated as a menu popped up blocking my work every time I touched the screen, and the pencil kept randomly switching from drawing mode to eraser mode, and I would constantly erase the work I had just done. I had to adjust the program settings and the pencil setting on the iPad end to get it all working again. 

I used a paintbrush for 90% of it and didn't obsess over making people look too realistic and instead tried to capture their expressions and body language in a looser fashion - something that has always eluded me. I drew it on a 30-inch canvas, so it's pretty big. I don't try and get all the details perfectly even on the train cabin. I did add a little refinement in Affinity Photo as Procreate is lacking in some of those features, but if I took those out, you really wouldn't see a difference. I think I captured the experience of looking into a passing train and not seeing everyone in there clearly defined. Some of the figures are sort of mysterious, and I like that. 

(detail)