On this episode I discuss doing things to help yourself out in the future. Things like adapting a routine, establishing workflows, building templates, putting together lists to fill empty time, and making tasks easier to deal with as opposed to just putting up with them.
On today’s episode I discuss using the iPad as a digital sketchbook. I mention the growing number of pressure-sensitive styluses out there, including the Jaja,the Jot Touch, and the Pogo Connect. I discuss software, including:
I mention Brushes was used to create a magazine cover in this episode. Checking my sources I found out it was an issue of the New Yorker using the iPhone version.
I also bring up some examples of how artists will use whatever tools are available to them if they’re determined to make art.
This week on the podcast I discuss social media sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook. I recommend the iOS apps Everypost, Flipboard, and Lost Friends (I say this app is free on the podcast but apparently it’s $1.99 now. That’s the life cycle of apps. There are probably similar free apps available if you’re looking for the same functionality.) while I lament over ImgTumble. Finally I discuss the web apps Tweeter Karma for managing your Twitter followers and IFTT for automating the tools you use on the web, respectively.
It’s a new year and a new season of the NoRights Podcast. I’m hoping to have a regular co-host in the near future. For now I play catchup, sharing some of the things I’ve been working on, thoughts and fears, and of course ramble a bit about Minecraft.
Topics include Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr – I didn’t get to mention it during the show but one thing that influenced the content of this episode was the article When I Became Successful Selling Art Online by Carol Marine in Professional Artist Magazine. She discusses hangups she had about art and how she used to approach it. When she started daily paintings and blogging her work became much more fun.
I recorded this with my new Yeti from Blue Microphones. The sound is improved though it probably picked up some noise from my space heater because it’s like the coldest day of this Ohio winter.
This weekend I had a fun skype chat with some friends of mine from Twitter – Amanda, AKA The Posh Panda, and Jordan, AKA Dori-Mingu. We talked for over 2 hours and even though I trimmed it down it’s still kinda long.
Stuff we talked about:
I’m exhibiting at Mid-Ohio Con October 22-23. I’ll post my artist alley table info once I get it. Visit the convention’s site for more info.
We also have a chuckle over some videos by Rob Liefeld. One where he’s talking about an infamous drawing he did of Captain America and another where he’s drawing while driving.
On this episode of the NoRights Podcast Ben talks about stuff. Particularly reading webcomics with RSS, what he’s looking forward to with WordPress 3.1, and of course he talks about Minecraft’s 1.3 Beta.
Crafting Mines: A Minecraft Adventure, an audiobook interpretation of the game Minecraft as read by Ben Thompson. Minecraft is developed by Notch at Minecraft.net. Music by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com
Episode Transcript:
Episode One
Day One: I appear on the bank of some body of water. I have no idea where I am or what awaits me. My first instinct is to build a shelter, to dig, collecting sand and dirt to fashion into walls of some sort of structure. As I work this chilling yet somehow comforting music begins to play from… somewhere. Strangely sand falls to the ground while the earth does not. I cut down a tree to find the leaves hover over me strangely. What strange sort of world is this? I hear chickens and cows in the distance. I refine the wood and use it to make a door, a work bench, and a pickaxe I use to collect stone. With that stone I make a stronger, better pick axe.
The sun begins to set as it turns into my first night. I don’t know what to expect but I just knowing something will come. Darkness quickly fills the house. All I can do now is stand by the door and wait for daylight to break again. I see something moving in the distance! I hear groaning and growling outside my home. Brains? Is that what it’s saying? Is… is that a jumping green scrotum I see outside? Amongst the mumbling and gurgling noises comes a lilting piano. And synth? What strange land is this?
Day Two: The sun is rising just as I hear some sort of serpentine hiss outside. I see a skeleton walking across the water. I continue to hear moaning outside. I make a window and see the sun is up. Has my house suddenly become my tomb? I feel the urge to rush out my door and escape whatever foul beasts have surrounded me. But that is madness. A green monster appears at my window! I swing my pick axe and do battle! After several hits it falls never to come up again. I quickly dart outside and back through my window to retrieve the strange item the creature dropped. I continue to hollow out my shelter, constantly hearing footsteps, hisses, and groans coming from above me. How do I escape this before the daylight is expired? I start adding windows on one side to let in more light and to afford me the best view of the outside world as possible. Realizing the floor beneath me is made of stone, I decide to attempt to tunnel underneath the sand outside my house. Hopefully whatever monsters await me won’t be expecting such a maneuver. Drat! The sand caves in! I must tunnel deeper! What’s this? A cave? I dare not explore it in the dark. Oh no. The sun is setting already.
Darkness comes quickly as I peer through my windows. As I listen to the disgusting hiss outside I resolve to escape this prison once the sun finally rises. I see the glowing eyes of a giant spider floating in the water outside. How will I ever survive this? A spider is outside my window! Ouch! It wants a fight, does it? I grab my pick axe and prepare to do battle! I have defeated the spider and now I wait for my savior daylight. Now I must destroy a green monster. Now a second spider appears outside my window and needs destroying. At long last, sunlight!
Day Three: Holy crap, I see a skeleton on fire! Two green monsters appear outside my window. I destroy them both. Will this madness never end? I can take it no longer, I make a mad dash out my window, growing weaker as I’m attacked by a giant spider and constantly falling. I pick arrows up off the ground as I try to heal myself. I collect a small deposit of coal and some wood while trying to avoid the green scrotum monsters. I’ll call them creepers. I kill a pig and eat it’s ham replenishing some of my strength. Safe inside my house again I construct a large chest in which to hold the items I’ve been collecting. I make torches and build a furnace. I explore the tunnel I’d been digging earlier. It leads out the mouth of a small cave just outside my house. As the sun sets I make stairs to access my new back door more easily.
The night begins by slaughtering another pig that climbed in through my window. I cook it in the furnace as I put a proper wooden door on my tunnel. I’m almost to full health again as I hear the familiar growling outside. I decide to spend my time expanding the lower floor of my house. By torch light I tunnel down, step by step, until I reach iron ore. This will certainly come in handy. All the while the moaning and groaning of the monsters outside continues. I thought I heard the sound of bones clanking around outside! I narrowly avoid getting struck by an arrow in my attempt to climb the stairs! As the sun rises outside I can hear the skeleton collapsing.
Day Four: I stow away the iron I mined and kill a creeper outside my window. Now that I have torches to keep my home lit I seal the windows up. They’re much too dangerous to leave open. I step out to explore the other sides of my house. Outside I find more arrows, a feather, and another piece of iron. I cut down trees and collect low-hanging branches. I need to find more coal. I foolishly venture across the water to gather reeds as the sun sets. I make it inside just before dark.
I return to tunneling out my basement. I stumble upon a vein of coal.
