Oh Yay ~ I got my first job doing IPad Caricatures. And as usual, I'm not given more than I can handle. This job is for Studio work. So I don't have to be concerned about Speed.

I hope I'll have time to do it all on the IPad. Because I'm trying to get comfortable enough to put together an IPad Set-Up to use live at Events. But I'm not worried about coming through with good Artwork for this job because I can always move it into PhotoShop on my regular Computer if I get stuck. The order is only for a Digital Caricature, so PhotoShop is just as acceptable. I've done that plenty of times before. PhotoShop Caricatures.

And sure enough, before I even got started, I was hit with a complication. I always send digital Caricatures as jpegs in an email. But this client wants it sent as a pdf file. So I tried it before agreeing to the job. And I found out that ArtStudio on IPad doesn't offer pdf as an option. So I tried an experiment.

I drew a quick little picture on my IPad. I emailed that to myself as jpegs. From that email on my regular Computer, I pulled the jpeg picture into PhotoShop. In PhotoShop, I found something called PhotoShop pdf. I saved it as the PhotoShop pdf, emailed it to my client, and told her to only order the picture if this works for her.

I'm going to try to put both files onto this post. To see if it works here. The first one is the jpg picture, the way I usually put pictures onto this blog. The second one is the PhotoShop pdf picture.

Oh ick. They look the same. But when I was uploading them, I got all sorts of messages of things like the pdf picture might not be able to be edited. As always, I'm glad to be able to send my client what she wants. But I would prefer to have it as jpegs if I had a choice.

Wow ~ I love how they came out.

I finally got tired of the tedious fill-in-the-blanks style that I had been shown for digital Caricatures. I sat back, made a lot of layers on my IPad, but then just used a few of them (sometimes even just one), and I drew easily/freely ~ just going for the most important parts of the Caricature and then playing with the ArtStudio app. Comfortable. Not sure how long they took me, but I know it was less than the tedious crap I had been shown.

The Caricatures didn't end up as accurate a likeness as I'm accustomed to getting on paper, but the impact more than made up for that. I love how they look.

So I went to the next step in my studies for offering digital Caricatures. I printed them out. Looked great even on plain paper, Phenominol on Glossy Paper. I even sized them to leave a border around the prints ~ looks frame-like. Crisp. Dramatic.

Learning IPad Caricatures. I was very pleased with the first one I drew here. I tried to keep things very simple so I can do them quickly at Parties. One layer. And I was too lazy to even get a reference photo. I can see how a bit more sophistication really does make a difference. I drew the second picture on several layers and I used the ArtStudio App more aggressively. With a reference photo.

I liked drawing these pictures, but it still takes me too much time and concentration. I had to figure best how to use the IPad with my own unique skills. Relying on my oil-painting background with transparent layering and years of trying to do this stuff with a mouse in PhotoShop, I did the linework And most of the colors all on One Layer. Only started adding layers when the picture was almost finished. For things like the head-dress.

I'll let you know when I'm ready to offer them at Parties.

I'm dreaming of getting a Wacum Tablet again. That idea, always floating nearby, gets intense every once in a while. Ah, if only. But they're so expensive. And the learning curve.....

Ok. So at least I have PhotoShop. Here are some pictures that had previously been posted on my website here - but tonight I played around with them in PhotoShop. Even though using the mouse is like drawing with a block of soap, I still love to do it.