uDraw, I Draw, We All Draw

So I've been busy of late, as I may have mentioned previously. All sorts of interesting things going on in the world of me, and since many of these things are art related, and stall me from posting here, it means I have some catching up to do. First of the many posts I kinda sorta need to do is one of two involving work.
I don't speak of work on here much, mostly because the work I do is pretty much unrelated to the sort of art the blog is about to any real extent, but I am an artist (according to my job description) - I just make things in 3D rather than painting them in 2. Oh, heck with it, you may as well know...

I am a vehicle artist for a video game company.  At this point the company can remain nameless, but they are a subsidiary of a larger company known as THQ.  You may have heard of THQ - they publish games.  Quite a lot of games.  A while back they fell on hard times; they were not unique in this, the entire video game industry did, as did many others, and I was very lucky to be working somewhere where my job wasn't at risk...  Hah! Right! Everyone in America's job was at risk for a time there, but I got through it with mine intact (unlike so many unfortunate others).

You're wondering if all this is going somewhere - it is, calm down,  You know you can just scroll through the pictures if the text is too boring.    ----     Now I've scared everyone off I can whitter on with impunity - MuaHahahaha!

Anyway, THQ...  So they were sick, but then they got better.  They restructured, poked sticks here, prodded buttock there and decided to try some new things, since clearly the old way wasn't working out so well.  One of the things that came out of this was uDraw.  It's a drawing tablet, for a console.

As far as I know this is unique in the history of consoles.  There have been tablets of various quality on computers for many years, but on a game console?  I don't think so.  So some clever boffin figured it was time to make one - one that was kid friendly, and therefore for the kid-friendliest system of them all, the Wii.

So, uDraw.  They sent me one, which was rather nice of them, but I'm skipping ahead.  THQ contacted my Studio Art Director, along with the Art Directors of other studios and asked him a favour.  Would he contact artists in the company and ask them to do art for the uDraw site done on the uDraw tablet and software (uDraw Studio). The deal was, you do some launch art for our site and you get to keep the tablet, plus this SD card we're sending you to save on.  Of course you had to have a Wii of your own.  Conveniently I do, though I rarely use it.

So the tablet arrived in the post*.  It'd seen a video of David Kassan painting with it online and it looked like pretty reasonable tech, so this should be easy right?  Wrong!  uDraw, I should say right now, is designed for two types of people - People who don't draw and children.  You can play games on it (like Pictionary), or you can draw with it (with uDraw Studio).  The former should be good fun, it's ideal for the purpose but as a drawing tablet for anyone really serious about producing art it has some drawbacks.

It has limited pressure sensitivity, and a cable that can get in the way from the tablet to the pen, while uDraw Studio is a pretty basic drawing package; it lacks some basic features that are standard in PC software these days (like layers and selections), has a very limited resolution (576x396), a fairly clunky interface (partly due to that res, although some of it is quite elegant) and it insists on placing "uDRAW STUDIO" in the corner of every image you export out of it.  It also has an oddly delayed response - this isn't bad, but it does feel a little like speed-painting in slow motion at times.

This sounds like I'm ragging on it, but I'm really not! I think it's great! Why?  Because it is perfect for it's target audience - kids with a possible interest in art, but who aren't ready for complex packages with hundreds of options. It also has some neat features you'll learn more about shortly, but it's time for some pictures!  Well, a picture (click to enlarge as usual)...

That was my first picture with it.  See what I meant about the watermark?  It took about 5 minutes, and it's a Jack-o-Lantern because I selected Cardboard as a background out of interest and the colour screamed at me to draw a pumpkin.  I like it, so there.  The next attempt did not go so well.

This was based on a quick sketch of a surfer I did in my sketchbook (I'm sure it'll turn up on here eventually).  The sketch was a lot better.  I hate this one - but the nice lady at THQ seemed pleased and I guess that's what counts.  Don't let me dwell on it, lets move onto the next one:

Better, but still not great.  This does highlight one issue I discovered (more with my setup than the software); my TV is a lot brighter than most monitors, so colours that looks vibrant and bright on the TV come out muddy and dark on the monitor.  This picture looks much less funereal on my TV, and likewise for the next two.

This one turned out well enough that is signed it.  Depending on your monitor this will be a collection of happy autumnal veg, or a sad pile of rotting plant matter.  On my one at home (and the TV) it's the former, at work it's the latter.  I would have put more work into this, but I ran out of memory.  Yes, uDraw Studio has a limit to how much you paint before you can paint no more.  This seems a bit silly, but given that this was 2 hours solid painting I have to wonder how many people would produce a work that could hit the limit...  Well, one clearly.  There's a reason for that memory limit that takes the sting out, but we'll get to that on the next post.

 

Yes, it's a dog, and it's a bit dark - what else need be said. Not terrible, but looks nothing like the subject matter.

After seeing how miserable the last three looked (in terms of tone, not quality) I decided to do something a little more jolly.  I think I succeeded there.  I also got to use some other tools that up to this point I hadn't (there's a leaf brush I used on the tree a bit, but it's hard to see).  Not the greatest piece in the world, but probably the most likely to make my son smile.  OK, final piece.

 So I mentioned seeing David Kassan do some pieces using the tablet, and was extremely impressed (more so after some of the disastrous pieces above).  I wondered if I could do something similar, and this was the result.  David Kassan I ain't, but this is a pretty good portrait.  Good enough that I'll go into it with a little more detail on the next post.

So there you have it, uDraw and uDraw Studio.  The whole thing should be a disaster, but once I was used to it's limitations I found it oddly freeing, and fun, and since it's for a console I suspect fun is the whole point of the exercise.  My son is going to love it when he's old enough to use it, and I think I may rise to the challenge of producing pieces in it again fairly soon, if only as a challenge to myself.

Oh, and there's the website all this work was for in the first place - World of uDraw - Go check it out, and make sure to peruse the gallery...  This may be the only time in my life I get to be in the same gallery as David Kassan; I think I should savour the moment, don't you?

*I say arrived in the post, but I think they sent it by rocket mail, because it came insanely fast(less than 24 hours from CA.  They forgot to send the software, so that arrived the following morning.  From California!  Mental.