An Easy Way to Make Your Own Ascii Art

[ahem...insert annoying over enunciated infomercial voice...]

Are you looking to create some fun new ASCII art? Have you spent HOURS pouring over your keyboard to find JUST the right key to demonstrate a particular shade of gray? Frustrated? Tired? Fingers Bloody?

Go HERE!

...

Ok I'm back, I didn't know how to start this post, so apparently I needed to be a jackass for a moment...

I have to say that this site is pretty GREAT! The key to getting some good results with this Ascii Art generator is to follow 3 basic points...



1) Pick simple images with clear backgrounds. Portraits work best.

2) Black and White or duotone images work very well, so you may consider removing colour information before using this l'il generator.

3) Try to use as much contrast as possible in your imagery and remove as much grey as you can from the spectrum (use the levels tool to remove those unwanted shades).

Simply upload your image at 60 pixels wide by 50 pixels long to find out what your picture looks like matrix style.

I cropped various pieces of my work to see how they would translate...







If you missed the site, here's the full URL:
www.typorganism.com/asciiomatic/

29th Annual Genie Nomination for "Mr.Hollow"

The nominees for the 29th Annual Genie Awards were announced today by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and I am very happy to report that it includes THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF MISTER HOLLOW in the category of Animated Short. The 2009 Genie Awards will take place Saturday April 4 at the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa, Ontario and will be broadcast on Global Television. Check local listings or visit http://genieawards.ca/Genie29/main.cfm

In other news, THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF MISTER HOLLOW was awarded the Public First Prize in Bologna, Italy's Future Film Festival.

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF MISTER HOLLOW screens at this year's Boston Underground Film Festival (March 19-26 http://bostonundergroundfilmfestival.com) and at the Ashland Independent Film Festival (April 2-6 http://www.ashlandfilm.org).

Take a look at the trailer:

Doodle Art

A twisty little doodle that crawled it's way from a dilapidated neuron path that was birthed, heaved and pushed out by my cerebral cortex. I take no responsibility for the opinions it expresses. I'm just a vessel.

Thank you for the words Eric, they suit my twisty doodle quite nicely.

A Digital Artist Is a Collector of Small Details...

Frost has been the bane of my existence lately. Every morning when I get into my car, the interior windows are skinned with a thin layer of ice. I start my day grasping frantically for abandoned cd cases that find refuge amongst the slush soaked floor mats beneath the seats of my car. They hide from me because they know that I have a nasty habit of cracking their delicate plastic spines to attack the ice.

If there is a hell, it will be ruled by giant empty jewel cases who will use my face to scrape away icy debris of all types...

The point... the point... the point... the point of this blog.... ah yes... the patterns in the frost...

As I was microplowing the ice away from the windows, I noticed some amazing patterns. Here's one that caught my eye:



My first thought... 'it would take HOURS to hand paint these swirls!' I dropped the jewel case and quickly reached into my pocket to take some high res snaps of the frosty textures in front of me. The closer that I went into them, the more impressed I was with their form and structure:



I'm very excited about the prospects of how I can use these images in photoshop. My personal image library is the foundation of my work as a digital artist. It keeps my work original and fresh. I suppose this post is less of a tutorial and more of a word of advice. Always keep your camera in your pocket, and your eyes open wide...



...there are beautiful details to be captured right in front of your face.



(note * I used the "overlay" layer adjustment in photoshop over a quick snap shot on my webcam to create this image)