Spring Has Sprung
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Spring Has Sprung
or: @#$% Underpants Gnomes
Spring has arrived, blue skies, 50ºF. Do I get to enjoy it? Heck, no. I have to tear apart the studio because the stupid underpants gnomes left a free Cintiq on the doorstep the day before :) Don't ya hate it when that happens.
At 15", 4x3, it's no larger than a big laptop. But space is at a premium and this needs a dedicated home. This isn't something to whip out when convenient, constantly plugging and unplugging. The warnings are dire and many: Disconnect powered up, smurf the whole system! It needs a semi-fixed, permanent location.
The old computer/scanner/printer/monitor-workstation has to go. The monitor and wi-fi printer go, too. The scanner has to stay. Within 3ft of the tower no less. That means overhead.
The drafting table is made spotless. Oh, MAN, there's great big table under all that stuff. Cool. Everything at the old workstation gets dumped on the table… D'OH; That didn't last long.
With surprisingly little help from the hardware store (4- 3" wood screws) I slap it together with scrap wood and orphans from the screw jar. I go to cut the top and… @#$%! That's not plywood, that's 3/16" masonite! …tomorrow… for now, I still have enough wood for planks (insert Big Tom Sick cheer…. yeah)
!! NOT A REVIEW !!
A long discontinued model, with 4x3 aspect ratio, 1024 x 768 resolution, 512 levels of pressure, no pen tilt… I'm not going to be doing any real drawing with this. But, for everything else, this is pretty sweet. No mouse, no head-bobbing twixt tablet and screen, no drawing off to the side… sweet.
So, feeling sufficiently manly and engine-ery like, I flash back to some thumbnails filed during the "clean up the table" portion of our program. Marvel had asked if I'd like to do an Iron Man cover. I responded with a couple of sketches along the lines of Tony as the constant tinkerer. They said cool but, they needed something as a build-up for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy flick… thanks for thinking of me, really. Maybe another project, another time...
Happy Trails
Smitty