Infinite Canvas - Milestone 2

This one latest update on the infinite canvas app took a while longer, partly because it was a lot of work and partly because I haven't had as much free time to work on it.  But I'm so happy it's done!

I now have an editor page that lets me do basic edits (and has features) like the following:

• create a new map
• add an image
• drag and drop to reposition an image
• save out map
• maintain regioning information and keep it up-to-date
• mouse-over highlights images
• dirtied images are highlighted in magenta
• grid lines to show regioning sections for debugging

The interface looks like this for now.  Extra UI elements are minimal to keep the interface clean and simple and very similar to the viewing page.

Using the new edit page I'm experimenting with laying out the 4 comics I have for "Official Kitty Cat Business".  See the comic map here!

Next stage:

• I may revisit some of the design choices I made this time.  In milestone 1, I made more use of cached images and regions.  In milestone 2, I'm forcing more queries to the datastore so the app is guaranteed to have fresher data, but it has started feeling a bit more sluggish. 
• add delete functionality
• add user permisions
• add arrow keys controls
•  get DanAnh, Hoyt or Mari to play with it a bit

That's enough on the tech end of this for a while.  Now the basics are here, I can start using it to put together thumbnails for Project Apricot and put up more comics for Official Kitty Cat Business.  I'll focus more on the artistic side for the next few months.  Yay!

Shaders on Batman!

I figured out how to load up an obj file and now we have Batman!  The toon outline shader is more interesting on Batman than the sphere.  Also, all that fur on Batman makes him look like Oscar the Grouch.
This is still available at: http://www.tingting-wu.com/webgl_projects/ttwu_shaders.html

Webgl shaders

I spent last week teaching myself some webgl and was surprised at how much you can do with it.  Especially when it came to shaders, much of what I could do in C++  8 years ago, I can now do for the web.  I used the three.js library and it was a really handy and fast way to get started with webgl.

There are some really compelling examples of its usage here:  threejs.org

Here's the page to my shaders.  Just click on a shader to start seeing a sphere shaded, and then pick other shaders and shapes as you choose.

Here are some screenshots.  I had a ton of fun working on these and am pretty pleased with how far I got in a week.

The fresnel shader and fur shader are the most interesting shaders, but the toon outline shader would be interesting with a more complex shape with more curvature.  In the future I'll add the ability to load in a model so it's not just generic library shapes.

Whitewater rafting!

I guess I never post about anything related to physical activity.  So this might look pretty out of place here.

Michael and I went whitewater rafting with a big group of friends this weekend up at the American River.  Here's an animated gif of us going down one of the rapids.

I'm feeling pretty sore this morning, but it was an amazing time.  The scenery down on the river was gorgeous and the whole trip really gave me a good kick of inspiration for creative elements I can add to my comics and stories.

It really is important to go outside one's comfort zone every now and then and get some new stimulation.

Cat walk cycle

Look what I made last night!  It's a pretty rough cat walk cycle.  My first 2d walk cycle and I think it's pretty cute :)  Trying to bring my usual cat doodle to life and find the style of its movement.

I'll add more polish later, but look how cute!

What Ting Ting is reading

I love the process of becoming a fan of something and the process of falling in love with a story.

I've been reading a lot of graphic novels lately.  Here are some worth sharing.

Boxers and Saints - This two part story about the Boxer Rebellion started snatching up all kinds of awards as soon as it came out.  Written and drawn by the incomparable Gene Yang, it tells the story from two perspectives in a complex and turbulent time in Chinese history.  I didn't know how he would be able to tie the two together at the end, but he did it.  I highly recommend it, but prepare yourself.  One side's triumph is the other side's defeat.  It's powerful and devastating.

Gene Yang is actually from the area (and went to church with one of my coworkers).  I was lucky enough to meet him and hear him speak at a local book shop.  He talked about the research for this work and how this reflects his conflicted perspective as a Christian of Chinese descent.  He's a really nice guy and generous with his time to talk and answer questions. 

Saga - This is series I've been hearing a lot about as well.  And I finally read through the first two volumes.  It's a great ride.  Writing is snappy and the art is stunning.  It's rare to see both elements at this caliber.  The world is fantastical and imaginative, while core has strong characters that are very human.  I'm definitely looking forward to reading more. 

Official Kitty Cat Business - strip 4

Here's the 4th strip of Official Kitty Cat Business.  She finally got to work.

Morning Pick-Me-Up done

Finished up "Morning Pick-Me-Up".  Not bad.  I came a long way from when I first started.  My sense of color definitely got better and the character shapes improved.  There's more I could do with it, but I'm eager to close this out and continue.

Here's the progression of work on it.

Official Kitty Cat Business - comic 3

Official Kitty Cat Business - strip 2

Here's the second strip for Official Kitty Cat Business.

sketch - carrying a mandolin

Doing a bunch of sketching for Project Apricot.  Liked this pair pretty well.  A mandolin musician.  Her on a good day and then again at the end of a rough day.

tingting-wu.com is up!

I also recently finally put together a page at www.tingting-wu.com.  Filled out some basics.  Will spruce up later.  Yay!  Productivity!  (Also, I'm tired.  Been staying really busy during my free time lately...)

Infinite Canvas

After having had the infinite canvas idea on my mind for a few years, I've finally found the time to try implementing it.  I've taught myself to use the Google App Engine framework and decided to use it to create a webapp for displaying comics in an "infinite canvas".

For more information about the concept, visit http://www.tingting-wu.com/infinitecanvas.html.

You can see a first test of the infinite canvas here: http://sketch-journey.appspot.com/test2.
You'll see one looooooong series of images in a linear row.  Keep scrolling to the right and more images will load.  I used all the images from my Avatar:The Last Airbender thumbnailing exercise, and this turned out to be a really good way to showcase them!

Enjoy!  I'm taking a break on coding for now, but I'm really looking forward to adding more features to it.

Some old in-progress sketches

I've been neck-deep in web-dev stuff lately and been mostly coding, but here are some sketches I had been working on.  They're still in progress, but I wanted to have some images to post up and also track progress of these.

sweet destruction

wonder-woman-esque

Cocktail Party

I had the extremely good fortune to be able to take a series of classes on narrative illustration from the phenomenal Pascal Campion (a very talented concept artist).  And though I was too busy to keep up with all the homework, I did do a sketch for the "cocktail party" assignment.

The concept of this assignment is that he gave us a list of phrases that characters in the scene would be saying or thinking.  Without using word bubbles, we were to draw the scene and characters that illustrated those phrases.  Here's my attempt.

Here is the list of phrases.  See if you can identify them in the image.  (I think I only got about 11 of them, so don't stain too hard looking.)

1. if only i was 20 years younger..
2. have you seen my business partner
   
3. this is despicable
4. better get out of here discretely before she sees me
5. if i ever put my hands on this one
6. how do you like it here
7. say when
   
8. you're a pig
9. i'm driving there
10. it is such a shame
    
11. no i never took it
12. where did you last see it
13. did you hear about jonesy?
    
14. ahahah!
15. don't cry please
16. again! (extra)
    
17. make it work (extra)

The classes were not quite what I expected, but I learned a ton of valuable exercises and started getting into the regiment of drawing again.  There's no substitute for practice.

Official Kitty Cat Business

Just started putting together a little comic series that I've been brewing for a while.  Simple but fun.  It tells a story of a kitty cat who works an office job as cuddle technician.

Working on creating a more official little page for it.

New Place!

Also wanted to address the 3 month gap between my entries.  It's been a crazy few months!  Michael and I bought a place and we moved in!  Between renovating, painting, and the move there have definitely been a lot of big and small projects here.  Will have pictures once we're actually unpacked and I have a work area setup.

Done thumbnailing for Avatar - The Last Airbender episode 2!

It's been somewhere between 6 months and a year of working on this on-and-off, but I finally finished thumbnailing for episode 2 of Avatar - The Last Airbender.  Here are the raw scanned pages below.  They're in the order that I did them, meaning, I started in the middle of the episode went to the end and then decided to wrap around to the beginning and finish the rest of the episode.

I'll find time to process these and clean up the bad frames, make the frame sizes uniform (like the later sheets) and maybe even turn it into an animated gif.

I learned so much in this process.  And it's pretty obvious to anyone looking at this, how much my basic mechanical skills improved as I went along.  Hope this is as encouraging to others as it was to me.  This is pretty simple proof of what raw practice can do.

Part of me wants to jump into thumbnailing more episodes (Samurai Jack?  Batman-The Animated Series?  20th Century Boys?), but I really should start applying what I've learned to Project Apricot.  I also want to do another exercise where I take this and try to adapt it into a comic form using comic and manga techniques.  I want to better understand and explore the best ways to portray an action scene in comic form.  This exercise already showed me the limitation of trying to turn animation into static frames (check out how many frames it takes to portray action heavy shots!!).  But are there ways to portray elaborate and compelling action sequences using the comic format?

Brick by Brick - Sustainable Creativity

Shared this with some friends a while ago, but definitely wanted to log it here.

Brick by Brick, by Stephen McCranie, is an excellent series of visual essays reflecting on sustainable creativity.  Gives very good practical advice about making plans, setting goals, and being creative continually with the goal to grow.  Love it!  It's very encouraging and inspiring.

2013 in Review and 2014 Goals

Happy New Year!  It's been a pretty good year for projects, learning and growing.

2013 was the year of the Cardboard Moroccan Cat Palace, the completion of the Prairie Rabbits pitch, of lots of thumbnailing (still have to finish one full episode of Avatar the Last Airbender!  please don't let this take a whole year!), of color studies, of really sinking my teeth into Project Apricot, of learning google app engine, and much more.  As a whole I feel like I'm getting closer to the vision of what I want to do with Project Apricot and Panataria.

2013 was a rough year, health wise, for Michael, but we also found a new rhythm to life and recovery.  It's been the year of wontons, ginger, and blandwiches and getting back to the gym.  Here's to good health in 2014.

It's also been the year of house-hunting.  May 2014 be the year we find the home for us.

Here are some plans for 2014.

• Panataria
• Project Apricot
• House hunting
• Trip to China
• Turning Prairie Rabbits into a series of shorts