Mark Jardine

Yes please. If they ever build a new Z4 M coupe (read:...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:34:48 -0800

Yes please. If they ever build a new Z4 M coupe (read: non-convertible), so help me. But for now I’ll just drool over this Z4 race car. More Images

My latest photoshoot. Also on flickr.

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:06:24 -0800

My latest photoshoot. Also on flickr.

Ask me Questions

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:02:46 -0800

Ask me Questions:

I gave this a try on twitter today and it’s definitely an interesting idea. If they can create a nice API, it could be a nice subsection of your blog.

My 2nd video with the indislider. Not perfect, but I think it...

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:36:43 -0800

My 2nd video with the indislider. Not perfect, but I think it came out pretty well (for a video “newbie”). Go watch the larger version on vimeo!

I finally received my indiSlider, indiFocus, and indiRails...

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:44:23 -0800

I finally received my indiSlider, indiFocus, and indiRails hardware today. This is a quick (and very rough) test video of the results.

My Deviantart Account

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:14:54 -0800

My Deviantart Account:

I haven’t been active in that community for years, but I do add some of my recent drawings there just because it’s where they belong. I have drawings there that span back to when I was in high school (19 years ago!). On a related note, I’ve kept pretty much every single drawing I’ve done ever since high school. I have a big box full of sketchbooks and class notes that I drew on. One of these days I’ll post some of them up.

A video of me driving down one of my favorite local roads....

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:58:33 -0800

A video of me driving down one of my favorite local roads. Believe it or not, it’s a 2-way road. My first time driving it was pretty scary, but this is my 8th or 9th time now and you really just need to scan ahead for oncoming cars and bikers. Part 2 of the video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzFFbBTGCVM I also recommend watching it in HD on YouTube. Looks a little bit better there.

Pastebot, the 3rd App from Tapbots. More info available at...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:04:07 -0800

Pastebot, the 3rd App from Tapbots. More info available at http://pastebot.com (at least it is when the server isn’t being hammered to death). Shot with my trusty ol’ 5D Mark II.

The Tapbots version of the Twitter bird. (excuse the crappy...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:39:00 -0800

The Tapbots version of the Twitter bird. (excuse the crappy backdrop thrown in)

I’m no professional illustrator by any stretch of the...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:01:12 -0800

Rough Sketch

Retrace

Retraced Results

Retraced with Vectors

Vector Results

Flat Colors

Shading

Lighting Effects

I’m no professional illustrator by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil and always wanted to do it for a living. I know it sounds crazy, but I truly don’t have any talent in drawing (as you can see from my first sketch). What you see today is a result of years and years of practice and hard work (and it’s still not that great IMO). Anyways, I just wanted to share my process for creating a piece like this. I’m always figuring out better and more efficient ways to render artwork and this has been working well for me as of late.

Just like design, iterating is very important for me. I always plan to draw a showcase piece of artwork at least 3 times. Everytime I redraw over the last, I become more confident on how things should look. My very first sketch is usually on paper (not shown here). It’s very rough and at this point, I’m just trying to figure out the pose I want. When I know what I want, I draw my first few revisions in Sketchbook Pro. Once I have something decent, I’ll bring it into illustrator and retrace the lines as vectors. I use illustrator for my artwork for 2 reason. Live Paint and the ability to enlarge my artwork if I ever needed to. I can’t go into the power of live paint right now, but just know it’s extremely handy and very efficient. I might do a post on it sometime.

The final effects are done in photoshop. I add soft light glows of gaussian blurred circles to certain areas to give a sense of gradual light falling on the subject. It’s a very quick way of adding a bit of appealing depth to the character with very little effort.

That’s about it!

Another drawing. Sort of a sneak peak of what’s to come.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:02:57 -0800

Another drawing. Sort of a sneak peak of what’s to come.

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in awhile. Fobby CG...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:03:05 -0700

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in awhile. Fobby CG Steve Jobs and Bill Gates commercial for an iPhone Stand.

Machinarium

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:05:00 -0700

Machinarium:

A great puzzle game with gorgeous hand-drawn graphics and great music…and it’s full of robots! The game is developed in flash so you can actually play the first part of the game on the website. Definitely try it out and support the devs by paying for the full game if it’s your cup of tea.

Yes, that’s an anniversary gift from BMW for owning our...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:39:01 -0700

nice attention to details

a quick note

concept art print

Yes, that’s an anniversary gift from BMW for owning our car for 1 year now. It’s a beautiful concept art print carefully wrapped in design goodness.

BMW really knows how to make their owners feel like they bought more than just a car. About a month after I got my 1, they sent me a beautiful commemorative book with my car’s VIN number on it.

Pulled Over For Speeding

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:19:53 -0700

Sometimes a little honesty and friendliness (and maybe having a cool car!) can save your butt when you get pulled over. :D

So I was out for a drive this afternoon, looking for a place to grab lunch. Posted speed limit on this road was 45mph, but most cars drive at around 50-60. Lunch traffic was over so I was cruising at a comfortable speed and all of a sudden, I notice a motorcycle officer catching up to me and then throwing on his siren. I was the only car around so I knew it was me, but I didn’t think I was driving that fast. I was a little pissed at first because this was my 2nd ticket in this car and it hasn’t even been a year yet. That would mean a strike on my license because I wouldn’t be able to take traffic school again.

So I pull over, the officer walks up to me and asks if I knew why he pulled over. I told him that I assumed it was for speeding. He then asked if I knew how fast I was going. I said, “I’m not sure, but I’d guess around 50mph?” Then he told me that he clocked me at 57mph. 12 over isn’t too bad, but a ticket is a ticket. “Do you have a reason for driving so fast? Are you in a hurry or something?”, he then asked.

My first instinct would be to think of any excuse at all and take a chance that he’ll buy it. “I’m late for work” or “I really have to use the bathroom” would probably be the first on my mind, but logic kicked in and I realized that no answer is going to get me out of this ticket. I’m sure officers ask this question just to hear what crazy crap people make up. They probably make great stories at the bar after work. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to just tell the truth. I told him that I had no excuse for speeding and I just wasn’t really paying attention to my speed. He nods and requests my driver’s license and registration.

As I’m gathering my license out of my wallet and the registration from my glove box, the officer says, “This is the first 1 series I’ve pulled over. How do you like the car? Is this your first ticket in this car?” It was almost like déjà vu. I began to tell him that I was pulled over a week after I got my car. I told him I wasn’t driving too fast, just following the flow of traffic on a freeway. I also told him that the last officer asked me the same exact question about my car. Then to my surprise, the officer thinks for a moment and then says, “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to save you a bit of money this time and instead of giving you a speeding ticket, I’ll just give you a fix-it ticket (doesn’t go against your record) for not having a front license plate. Get it fixed and it’ll only cost you $25.” You have no idea how relieved I felt.

I told him thanks and that I really really appreciated it. He writes my ticket up and then mentions that he thought the red time attack lines that go around the inside of my wheels looked really cool. He’s seen them on the outside, but never on the inside. Nice!

I’ve been pulled over 2x in this car by motorcycle officers and both times they were really cool and curious about the car. I know a lot of the police motorcycles are BMWs (at least in this area). I wonder if that has anything to do with their interest? Regardless, I count myself lucky this time.

I don’t think any car pulls off the matte look as good as...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:54:59 -0700

I don’t think any car pulls off the matte look as good as a Lamborghini Reventon. Looks like a Stealth Fighter. What extremities I would give up for a day in one of these.

A Thought on Flash iPhone Apps

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:15:00 -0700

I’ve been thinking a bit about the news of Adobe’s Flash CS5 being able to convert/compile (whatever the term is in this case) .SWFs into .IPAs. Now there are obvious concerns like performance and battery life when running these apps. There’s also concerns about a flood of crappy flash apps (as if there already isn’t enough crappy cocoa touch apps) on the app store. But another thought came to mind regarding this recent news.

I began to imagine flash development firms (and freelancers for that matter) marketing themselves as iPhone developers and winning clients over with cheaper development costs. Will we start to see more iPhone apps built with Flash than in Cocoa Touch? Will the average consumer even know the difference? Will this hurt Cocoa developers who are doing client work for the iPhone Platform?

What about non-native user interfaces? Will that get out of control? (I totally understand the irony of that coming from me.) I don’t have any answers. Just things I’ve been thinking about.

Is Flash the new Java?

Having not used my camera in weeks and the fact that I just...

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:27:00 -0700

Having not used my camera in weeks and the fact that I just washed my car 2 days ago, I figured it would be a good idea to attempt to take some nice photos. This location is near my home and I’ve been wanting to shoot my car here for awhile, but have been scared because it is private property. Well I decided to man up and just do it anyways.

Click through takes you to a slideshow with the rest of the images in this shoot.

"I believe that in some ways, spam actually helps Twitter. Because what it does is it increases..."

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:45:39 -0700

“I believe that in some ways, spam actually helps Twitter. Because what it does is it increases follower counts on a lot of these smaller accounts and it gives people a perception of audience… They believe that there’s an audience there and so they engage with the product more.”

- Kevin Rose on a recent episode of This Week in Tech

I posted this last week here, but made a few updates to the...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:22:40 -0700

I posted this last week here, but made a few updates to the illustration. This was drawn in Illustrator and the gradient lighting effects were added in photoshop. Click-through takes you to the full-sized image.