Into the Iszyverse

The light at the end of the tunnel

2011-11-04T07:35:00.001-04:00

Hey guys! Iszy here. I know it has been forever since my last post but my day (and night and weekend) job has been kicking my butt for the last few months. I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and figured I would let you know that I am actually coming back.

I have recently freed myself of Adobe products and have not had the time to learn my Photoshop and Illustrator replacement apps. For the Photoshop portion of my production pipeline, I will be using Pixelmator www.pixelmator.com

It’s available in the Mac App Store http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator/id407963104?mt=12 for $29.99 US. As I use it more, I’ll put together a review, but for now I think it will meet my needs.

My replacement for Illustrator is Intaglio from Purgatory Design http://www.purgatorydesign.com/Intaglio/

Intaglio is available int he Mac App Store http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/intaglio/id417852764?mt=12 for $89.99 US. At this stage, I’ve not cracked the surface of the capabilities of Intaglio but it seems like a suitable replacement for Illustrator. Mind you I’m not a Illustrator power-user.

Now that I have these two apps, I’ll be able to resume publishing of my Cartwheels webcomic, and a few other projects that I’ll be announcing soon.

See ya!

I'm on my way back!

2011-09-08T21:47:00.001-04:00

Sorry folks! I've been overcome by events as of late but there will be more to come soon. Here is a sneak peek at a new Cartwheels strip I'm working on.

See you soon!

Iszy is in the house again with some iPad art.

2011-07-26T20:03:00.001-04:00

After some down time, I'm back at it again with the Brushes App. After seeing the stuff Jerry has been rockin' with ArtRage, I decided to give it a try again. As always however I fell back to my trusty Brushes App. Sure it's not feature rich but it just feels so natural. I started this at a lunchtime meetup and wrapped it up after dinner. I think I'll call him... Fred.

Captain America. They got it right!

2011-07-23T21:28:00.001-04:00

It looks like I've been slacking off but....

2011-07-19T20:09:00.000-04:00

I'm prepping new episodes of Cartwheels and working on a new strip called The Change. It stars Rodney, a little boy with an active imagination. After hearing his mom speak on the phone to her friends about a woman going through the change his imagination takes over and he finds himself in a world of monsters and demons.

Stay tuned for the debut!

Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon Review

2011-07-08T00:57:00.003-04:00

Ok folks. Iszy here to sound off about Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon.
First let me state for the record that I am a CG junkie. I am willing to forget bad plots and even terrible acting if I can get stunning visuals. This is what makes my feelings about the latest Transformers film so perplexing.

I'll begin with the quality of the 3d in this film. The 3d was quite well done. With the flood of films being released in 3d, it was refreshing to see the technology used to good effect. Never once did I feel distracted by the use of 3d.

Next up? The effects. I've read reviewers of T3 refer to the film as epic. WTF? The visual effects might be considered epic. I was truly captivated to see giant a giant Decepticon putting a choke hold on a skyscraper but it just was not enough. While the Autobots and Decepticons were well designed, rendered and animated, the gripe I had with the second movie applies to this one as well. Transformers 2 was plagued by action that was so complicated and fast, that it was difficult to tell which characters were fighting at times. The speed issue was improved upon in the third installment but I'm willing to bet that hand forced by the fact that the film was presented in 3d.

Now to the meat of my problems with the film. Plot plot plot. Where was it?
SPOILER ALERT!

So after one viewing here is my breakdown of the major plot elements:

1. Since helping to save the world from the Fallen, Sam has broken up with his old girlfriend and found love in the arms of a new hottie that is way out of his league. She is a very successful executive assistant to a strikingly good looking billionaire, which of course makes Sam feel woefully inadequate.

2. Speaking of Sam feeling inadequate... Since the last movie, Sam has been unable to find a job. His parents have been hassling him about this to no end. Poor Sam just wants to feel as if he is making a difference.

3. Oh I forgot to mention that there is some "tension" between Sam and the girlfriend because of the little Autobots that live with them. More about the Mini Autobots later. Tension is in qoutes because the relationship is completely flat. I wonder if they hated each other on set. Yeah, I think so.

4. Back in in time. An Autobot ship crash landed on the dark side of the moon. By the way all of the moon except perhaps some crater rims get sunlight. The dark side is just the side that faces away from us because the moon is tidally locked with the Earth. The discovery of this event leads to the space race.

5. The Autobots have been doing covert ops since the last film. Yep. The giant alien robots have been attacking points in the middle east and...never mind. During one of the raids, the Autobots discover that an Autobot technology is present on earth...and they didn't bring it here. Oooooooh I'm telling mamma on you!

6. Optimus gets pissed and confronts the secret "we work with robots" people. The secret wwwr people spill the beans and off go the Autobots to the moon. They bring back a few cosmic control rods "that's what I call them" and Sentinel Prime, the former leader of the Autobots. Optimus revives Sentinel with the Autobot command matrix and has his old teacher by his side once more.

7. Megatron has been revived at some point and sound wave is now the most kick ass Decepticon in the universe.

Ok this is getting just as monotonous as the movie so I'll just throw the next bunch at you in no specific order.

Sentinel turns on the Autobots because he has cut a deal with Megatron to rebuild Cybertron with the cosmic control rods.

The cosmic control rods are actually teleportation devices and they are used to bring in a sleeper force of Decepticons from the moon.

Supposed to be funny secret agent guy from the first movie comes back as an author and still has all kinds of secret agent connections and technology.

Retired air force special ops guy and his homies show up to battle the threat.

Girlfriends boss works for the decepticons.

Turns out that the decepticons needed the Autobots to bring Sentinel back to life to activate and use the control rods.

Sam is upset that Bumblebee hasn't come to see him.

Megatron and Sentinel have a tension filled alliance that Sams girlfriend manipulates to turn Megatron against Sentinel just as he is kicking the crap out of Optimus.

Flying wing suit guys do some hardcore stuff, the two little robots ground a big ship

Wang knows who Sam is and gets killed because of it.

Sam goes on a bunch of job interviews.

Lots of buildings get ripped up and people get killed.

I've left out about half of the movie.
Do you get the point?

There were at least four movies in there waiting to get out.

Romantic comedy

Armageddon style alien invasion film

An actual movie about giant robots

A buddy combat film

And some really cool video game cinematics.

How would I change the movie?

Take out:
The stupid racial stereotypes among the Autobots
The useless relationship story. Keep the girl, or a girl and 86 Indiana jones junior.
The endless falling through window scenes. (leave that to Robocop)
The stupidsupposedtobefunny secret agent guy
The parents
The job hunt
The two little robots

Put in:
More action and dialogue for the transformers

I could say much more but I'm tired. I'd love to have a crack at a re-edit on this film.

I'm out.

30 Days of iPad Art by Iszy Iszard

2011-07-07T22:31:00.000-04:00

Hey folks! Iszy Iszard here. As my first joint "Badmonkeybrain" - "Into the Iszyverse" blog post, I'd like to present a video of my 30 day iPad art experiment. My goal was to get a color sketch done each day using only the iPad. I used either Sketchbook Pro or Brushes on a first generation iPad, and spent from 30 minutes to two hours on each sketch. I learned quite a bit about working without pressure sensitivity over the month that I worked exclusively on the iPad. Much more to come!

You can see the video on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u33XiZ8Eik&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Thanks for watching!
Iszy

iPad sketch of the day for June 17 2011

2011-06-17T23:55:00.000-04:00

Playing with texture and mood a little on this one. Created on the iPad.
Succubus.

Day 30! The last scheduled iPad sketch of the day is "Proud Artist"

2011-05-24T22:32:00.001-04:00

iPad sketch of the day for May 23, 2011

2011-05-23T22:31:00.000-04:00

"Taking the Cat for a Walk" is today's sketch of the day.

iPad sketch of the day for 22 May, 2011

2011-05-22T22:41:00.000-04:00

Not feeling too inspired today.

iPad sketch of the day for May 21, 2011 "Blue shirt children"

2011-05-21T23:21:00.000-04:00

Don't ask me where this came from.

Today's iPad sketch of the day is "Roger"

2011-05-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

Lunchtime sketch.

Lunchtime iPad sketch of the day for 19 May, 2011 "Bye Bye Kitty"

2011-05-19T14:21:00.000-04:00

Thinking about Lee today. This is a tribute to his gentle little soul while acknowledging the killer inside of every cat.

iPad sketch of the day for May 18, 2011. "Flower"

2011-05-18T23:52:00.000-04:00

Not much to say here. My wife asked me to paint a flower.

iPad sketch of the day for May 17, 2011

2011-05-17T20:24:00.003-04:00

Lunchtime and after dinner sketch for today. Once agin done in the Brushes App on an iPad.

Watch the video on my YouTube Channel!

iPad sketch of the day for May 16, 2011 "The Herald"

2011-05-16T23:36:00.001-04:00

This is very loosely based on the Stag Guardian that I've dreamt of a few times.

iPad sketch of the day for May 15, 2011 "Overseer"

2011-05-15T21:49:00.000-04:00

One more dream image. This was from a rather disturbing dream. This being lifted his robe and revealed that he was composed of baby dolphins.

iPad sketch of the day for May 14, 2011. "Samael"

2011-05-15T00:29:00.000-04:00

Another image from a dream.

iPad sketch of the day for May 13, 2011 "Leave us..."

2011-05-14T20:24:00.000-04:00

I started this one pretty late so it carried over to the next day. I took my wife to see Thor in IMAX 3D and she liked it! After that we had dinner and did some shopping. I finished this up after we returned home to squish on our puppy Charlie. All in all it was a great day.

iPad sketch of the Day for May 12, 2011 "Guardian of the Diving Board"

2011-05-12T22:35:00.001-04:00

This is another quick one. I'm looking forward to reinforcing our tiki hut in the coming weeks and knocked this out while thinking about rebuilding it next year.

iPad sketch of the day for 11 May, 2011. "Bot On The Town"

2011-05-11T16:40:00.000-04:00

This dapper dude is ready to pick up his date. Perhaps she will be my next sketch!

iPad sketch of the day for May 10, 2011 "Taking Names"

2011-05-10T22:13:00.001-04:00

I went back to Sketchbook Pro for this one today I feel about as beat up as the guys up against the wall.

iPad Sketch of the Day for 9 May 2011 "The Meeting Place"

2011-05-09T21:48:00.001-04:00

Very tired today. Another piece from a dream.

iPad sketch of the day for 8 May 2011 "Journey Home"

2011-05-08T23:53:00.000-04:00

Mother's Day Sketch of the day.

This is from a dream I had a few days ago.