The Secret Origin of Bubble Man. Pixelmator app and love.
Categories: artwork
Tags: iPad art, Wacom FineLine, Pixelmator app, Bubble Man
Date: 30 November 2014 14:55:47
Sometimes I draw a squiggle on a screen to see what it'll become. Sometimes it becomes an instantly obvious picture and sometimes it takes a while to coalesce into what I end up drawing. Occasionally I turn the squiggle around unto it become the basis of the picture I want to draw.
This picture became the Secret Origin of Bubble Man almost instantly, although it didn't have the bubbles. From the first line drawn in the app (Pixelmator app on iPad if you're interested) I knew it was going to be a pastiche of the famous Batman panel but, in my mind, as I drew, it was going to be a gnome flying through the window - and subsequently be the secret origin of Gnome man. It wasn't until I'd drawn the Wayne style character in that I realised I wanted the pipe to be blowing bubbles... The only real reason for the decision being that I wanted to play about with some of the photo editing tools in the app to see how they performed.
I'm a BIG fan of Pixelmator on the desktop (although not so much a fan of some of the more recent UI decisions they've made. Bringing the filters into a panel rather than a drop down I find unwieldy and less immediate). The app I downloaded on day one and had a quick play with, but have been too busy since to play with.
(this desktop picture was used in the Pixelmator 1 and 2 manuals :) )
Again, I like it a lot, but I find some of the UI decisions confusing and convoluted. It's a great app, just not an app which is one of the greats - at the moment anyway. It's V1 so I'm sure there's a lot to be added in the future, especially if the pace of desktop improvement is matched.
I drew the picture in two 45 min long sittings. The above image is after one session, which I drew in the evening before going to sleep. The top image - closer to completion but I may play with it some more - was worked on in the morning as I woke up. I did, admittedly, have weird dreams but don't think the content of the picture was to blame :)
Looking through the Pixelmator album I found this:
which remains my favourite Pixelmator picture despite being one of the first ones I did in the program and subsequently too small a pixel depth to do anything with and this:
...which I'd completely forgotten about :)
Sadly it looks like I might be picking up a Win OS device as my next laptop so wouldn't have access to desktop Pixelmator... And that's enough reason alone to give me pause to reconsider which laptop I need to get next...