Chris Howard's Writing & Art

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Chris Howard's Writing & Art

 

“Teller” Tarot iPhone/iPad App

I built another app over the weekend. This is one of those things that’s been in the back of my head for a couple years.  I just thought it would be cool to make a mobile app that goes along with my book Teller, with a complete usable tarot—all 78 of the original 1909 Rider-Waite tarot deck, the most popular deck in the US. I also wanted the ability to identify the cards, the meanings, reverse meanings, and other interesting stuff from A. E. Waite’s “Pictorial Key to the Tarot” (published in 1911). 

I still have some testing to do, but it’s pretty much complete, with the following features:

1. Complete deck, majors, minors, with the ability to shuffle, deal any number of cards.
2. The ability to move the cards around easily—the ability to use any spread you want, with a slidable background/tabletop with enough room for big layouts (see the 7-card spread in the screenshots).
3. Support for reverses and sideways card placement
4. Some gesture driven functions, like press-hold to bring up the help for any individual card with meanings for upright, reverses.
5. Simple help layer that points out the main features
6. Sample chapters from Teller (the first five)
7. Going to add some art from Teller.

Some screenshots.  What do you think? 


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Hand rest for your tablet or phone

I draw and paint quite a bit on my iPad and what I've always wanted is a mahl-stick--something to rest my hand on while I'm drawing.  This isn't a problem with your typical Wacom tablet which works with electromagnetic signaling between the pen and the pad and your hand resting on the surface doesn't affect anything. Because iPads and tablets have touchscreens (capacitive or resistive) it usually means you can't touch them with your fingers, hands, toes, or noses unless you plan to draw with them.  You're forced to work without putting your hand down. The answer is a brace that can move anywhere your hand moves, that's strong enough to take the weight of your resting hand (and arm), and that can be easily positioned across the screen at any angle.

I've built my prototype hand rest and here it is.  It cost me somewhere under $4 to make and that's with enough material to make five or six of them.  What do you think?

Saltwater Witch Wallpaper

Two formats: 1280 x 800 for the typical desktop/laptop display and 768 x 1024 for the iPad and other tablets. Download links here:

http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com/SaltwaterWitch-ChrisHoward-1280x800.jpg

http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com/SaltwaterWitch-ChrisHoward-768x1024.jpg

 

 

 

Sketch Progression in Art Rage on the iPad

I see a lot wrong with this one, but here it is anyway.  This is all done in Art Rage on the iPad.  Drawing today at lunch and saving off the work into a set of steps to show my progress--going from a really loose scribbly form and using new layers on top of it to build up the definition, working on the face, hands, background, and finally some light shadowing.

Click for the full view:

Kassandra at the Beach

Sketching in Art Rage on the iPad, about 3 hours. Click for the full version.

Comic panels

Something I've been thinking about for a while. This is a scene (or set of them) from the book I'm currently working on. I've been doing some scripting and panel sketches along with the writing, with the intention of completing a comic edition along with the prose.

Chloe and friends are making cookies for a school dance tomorrow night--they're making cookies tonight--and a lot of noise, and I've just been sitting in the dining room drawing these panels in Art Rage on the iPad.

 

Asteroid Mining

Drew this on the iPad in Art Rage, about two hours.

 

 

Sketching in Art Rage on the iPad

I'm putting together a tutorial for drawing and painting on the iPad, and I spent a few minutes tonight saving off the progress of a quick sketch, focusing on the use of layers in the Art Rage app on the iPad. "Layers" is a fairly common feature in the better drawing and painting apps on any platform/OS--from Photoshop, Painter, Sketchbook Pro, to Art Rage, and a batch of others.

Think of a layer as a sheet of tracing paper you can put down over your drawing to use the underlying line work to guide you--but with a lot more power, including blending modes, which I won't get into.

From left to right: a quick sketch to get down the figure in motion and not much else.  Adding a second layer, I reduce the transparency of the first and draw--or redraw--the figure with more definition, bringing out folds in the cloth and giving the face some guidelines. Creating a third layer, reducing the transparency on the second, I now use the work in first two layers to redraw the figure with even greater detail.  

Click the image for the full view:

Here's what the Art Rage UI looks like on the iPad--with the layering menu up at the bottom right.

Another page up!

Page 239 of Saltwater Witch is live, another quick four panel piece with Kassandra down in the basement of St. Clement's Education Center.  I did these four entirely in Sketchbook Pro and Art Rage on the iPad--with the exception of the lettering and balloons, done in CS.

Check it all out here:

http://www.saltwaterwitch.com