Reference, Resource, Research: Bizarre Flower Images

This story I'm working on right now has to with flowers in some respects and I thought I'd share some of more unusual ones that I've found while looking up pics and info about them. Here is the Pinterest gallery that I found which has all the original links to the images. There are a lot of great photos in there that I decided not to repost. Definitely worth a look.

Android Art Apps

 
So far I have only picked up the one I already knew about, SketchBook Pro. Any residual disappointment in the pre-loaded apps is gone. SketchBook Pro, I am finding to be an excellent drawing experience and tool. At a glance it was a little confusing figuring out where all the tools are and why they're in more than one place, but I think it's just something to get used to. I'll post about it more once I've gotten deeper into it.

Anyway here is a nice list of apps and a run down of the original poster's thoughts on them. Thank you very much to micahganske for putting together the original post.

It can be hard to find the right software in Android and the apps suggested by the Wacom Reccomends app are not that great. I want to also say that until we get a feature complete version of Wacom's Bamboo Paper that is compatible with the Hybrid, we're missing a big piece of the digital sketchbook puzzle. Right now the Android version of Bamboo Paper is crippled (when compared to the iOS version) and is exclusive to Samsung devices. Not cool Wacom. You've entered the Android ecosystem so it's time to support it fully!

Anyway, here are the apps that I've found are great with the Hybrid:

Layer Paint HD: This is currently in beta but can be purchased in the Play store. It's the best app hands down for hi-res line art as it will let you work in just about any resolution you want. I've been working on 6000x4000 pixel images and it's smooth and responsive. If you want to do more in-depth painting at that size, you'll run into issues as the brushes don't go up to really huge sizes, but for pencil/pen simulation at super hi-res, it's absolutely fantastic and the dev is quickly updating and improving the app. There has been 3 upgrades in the last week for instance.

ArtFlow: This is a fantastic app with a beautiful UI. I really love it but the problem (right now) is that it crashes on the Cintiq. There is currently an issue that causes it to crash when touch input and stylus input happen too close together. It will be a wonderful app for the Hybrid eventually though. I've been emailing with the dev and he's eager to get it all working smoothly. Right now it only supports 2556x2556 canvas sizes but he's also planning on upping it to 4096x4096 soon.

Clover Paint: This app is sort of crazy. The UI is really awkward but it offers unlimited resolution for canvases and is EXTREMELY customizeable. You have more control over brush settings that you do in desktop Photoshop which is bananas. It also has a really nice brush engine. Definitely not for everyone but an interesting option to be sure if high-res artwork is what you're looking for.

Infinite Painter: This is a nice app if you want to simulate real-world type painting. Honestly, if I want to do detailed color work I'll connect to my pc and use photoshop though. This works well with the Cintiq but with a limited canvas resolution.

Sketchbook Pro: Everyone already knows this app but I'll put it in here anyways. This isn't my favorite app as I find the UI to be really slow to use, but it does work perfectly with the Hybrid. The issue for me is that it's limited compared to the iOS version and is also has a limited max canvas size.

Paperless: This app isn't very good but I'll include it since it's the only app in the Play store that tries to pull off a "Paper by 53" style. It's very mediocre when it comes to it's brush and line quality though. I really just wish Paper by 53 would come out for Android. Or Bamboo Paper...



Apps to Avoid (for drawing and painting)

Photoshop Touch: It has a terrible brush engine. Simply awful. It's okay for basic photo editing and collage though. Just very disappointed in it.

Wacom Cintiq Companion Hybrid First Impressions

No, really. The first of my first impressions, even. I had some things to do last night and setup actually took a little longer than I had expected so I didn't have as much time with it as I had hoped. I'll just hit a few points as they occur to me for now.

Size and Dimensions:
I don't have much to say about this because I don't think it matters all that much if you need the device's functionality. Though as far as first impressions go, I was pretty surprised at how thin it was.

Drawing and Writing:
The accuracy and sensitivity are incredible. I was really surprised because I've never used anything remotely as accurate. SketchBook Pro on my iPhone is also precise, but I don't have a stylus for it and the screen is small, so I still haven't used it for much other than to let my friend's kid play. The matte finish on the screen feels really fantastic as well. I wouldn't say it feels exactly like paper, but gloss would have made for a much less enjoyable experience.

Using the preloaded applications I felt a little let down. Just as I had read, they are as bare bones as it gets. There is a serious lack of tools and functionality. I've heard for Android apps that SketchBook Pro is a great buy and I saw some people talking on the Wacom EU forums about something called Artflow, but I have yet to check it out. I kind of get what I had read to be the consensus anyway: in mobile mode preliminary work is not a problem, but it's not really possible to take an illustration from start to finish without plugging into a PC and loading up a graphic art suite.

Android:
I've never used an Android device before. Navigating menus was smooth and comfortable, more so than I had anticipated. Using a device with all my Google apps and data integrated is the cake-taker though. I had sort of forgotten that this would be the case and was ecstatic when it prompted me to load all my Chrome bookmarks and my Google account. I think I'm going to really like this.

I'm going to buy a card for Google Play today so I can pick up some sketching apps. After the Sony Playstation Store hack and credit card info scare I stopped using credit to buy apps online or I would have downloaded some last night. I'll post about it when I get into some of the other mobile apps.


Edit: Probably the first thing I noticed were the little rectangular insulators you can see in the screen. I used to wonder what that grid of dots was before I worked for Micro. Now I know they're insulating bridges that allow current to pass through the X and Y axis without shorting out. Depending on the touch panel they might be clearly visible or maybe not at all. Some designs don't have them, but I haven't personally worked with those. Just a neat tidbit in case you've ever wondered about those as I did.

Interview with Aviva Gittle

Recently Ms. Aviva Gittle featured me on her blog with an interview. I just wanted to take a moment to finally link to it here and to say thank you for all her hard work. There is a discount coupon for Bear with Me in the interview which is good for 25% off until Christmas. Oh yeah and speaking of holidays, happy Chanukkah, ya'll!