SO today’s post isn’t technically a MARKer (hence no title). Its just an inside joke (seriously, I expect 2 readers to see this and laugh, and that might include me) done on what will now be my default drawing app, and a serious sales pitch for said app.
Normally when I do MARKers I do them in one of two ways: 1. I literally draw on something, usually a dry erase board but not always, and then I snap a pic with my phone and post it (I do the Title bar in MS Paint because using that program makes Sherief want to choke himself, possibly to death); 2. I sit down at my laptop and draw the WHOLE thing in paint, again because I take great joy in messing with Sherief and as a Writer, I don’t need a real art program. Me using illustrator is like putting an 90 year old lady in a Ferrari to go grocery shopping.
I had toyed with doing drawings in my sketch pad so funny things would be fresh in mind when I drew them, but I found that then I would just have to redo them on my laptop because I am clumsy with a pencil. I also played a little bit with the Bamboo app on Ipad, but it had little success.
Two days ago I discovered Paper. Studio53 (http://www.fiftythree.com/) has released an App called simply “Paper”, and for once in my life I feel like an artist. The interface is clean, intuitive, and the tools are strong, awesome, and easy to use. Best of all, its Free. Well, some of it is. I drew this comic in a notebook on Paper with the free fountain pen tool, I enjoyed it enough to buy the full app ($7) just to support the company, and that was when this strip suddenly became awesome. Its shocking how just a dash of highlight color and some background texture polishes up a design. I make no claims to be an artist, but after it effortless exported the whole thing as a pdf and I re-sized the frames into an actual strip (each frame was a full page) I sat back and literally thought this:
“Holy shit, my father in law was right, I AM artsy.”
I strongly encourage any iPad users out there, particularly those with some legitimate artistic talent (and the rest of us just for fun) to go grab this app. And when you do, I want to see what you do with it, so email your paper sketches to me at mr.pantz@twoforonecomics.com and I will totally (with your permission of course) post them as some Filler Fridays so you can become famous*.
-Mr.Pantz
*Fame only guaranteed for submitters who are well known actors or very successful athletes. Everyone else will just get a honest attempt by us.
