Live! From Sunnyvale! It's TUESDAY NIGHT!
While looking for the latest and greatest in terms of community building and getting the word out, I happened across Ustream.tv.
In watching all the youTube digital art tutorials I could find, as well as things like Leo Laporte video streaming his podcasts, I had been considering setting up a live "watch me draw" (*yawn*) video feed.
I had done it quite a few times when I lived up in Oregon before I stopped cartooning and in particular utilized it for the 24 Hour Comic Strip Marathon. However, back then, I was always limited in that I had to provide the stream from my own system and was limited by the bandwidth I could allocate. My viewership was severely limited.
But, recently, Scott Kurtz over at PVP put a shout out for streaming recommendations and along with some other programs, Ustream.tv is the system he tried out the other day. It seemed to work well, audio as well as video with a chat room attached. I didn't see any limitations on how many viewers you could have and the chat room seemed to have enough features to make it pretty useful.
Scott however works directly on the screen, so he opted for a screen capture type of system where you can see the digital process. Me? I'm still cranking out cartoons the old fashioned way and do my pencils and inks on paper, so a screen display would only cover the lettering and word balloons part of my job.
I created an account last night and did a thirty minute mini-test to get a feel for what I would need to set up a good live feed of a person drawing.
Things I learned:
1. Light - Since I pencil with non repro blue pencil, it's pretty light and I need bright, focused light on the workspace.
2. I'm a Righty - So the camera needs to be on my left. Plus I have to ensure no shadows are cast from my drawing hand. Sideways is ok, but I think some sort of "over the shoulder" set up would be best.
3. No Audio - I tend to work in the early evening or late night, I'll leave the audio off though lest the viewers be treated to the sounds of Mo howling about bedtime (she bleeds through on the podcast enough as it is).
When I had offered the streaming feeds in Oregon, I just placed the camera in front of me, pointed down. Essentially everyone could see me draw, upside down. I would occasionally turn the paper around to show off what I was working on, but ideally people could just see the drawing straight on. That seems to be how most of the online tutorials are.
Speaking of which, my method of working has changed a bit over time and I think the Ustream tools allow me to pre-record stuff. So hopefully I can make a short tutorial or two about how I work and post links to those.
If you are interested, my Ustream page is located here:
http://ustream.tv/channel/inktank-live
Feel free to bookmark it and I'll be sure to announce some sort of rough schedule when I'll be drawing. I will definitely be using Twitter to announce when I am about to broadcast, but hopefully I can get on some sort of semi-regular schedule.
In watching all the youTube digital art tutorials I could find, as well as things like Leo Laporte video streaming his podcasts, I had been considering setting up a live "watch me draw" (*yawn*) video feed.
I had done it quite a few times when I lived up in Oregon before I stopped cartooning and in particular utilized it for the 24 Hour Comic Strip Marathon. However, back then, I was always limited in that I had to provide the stream from my own system and was limited by the bandwidth I could allocate. My viewership was severely limited.
But, recently, Scott Kurtz over at PVP put a shout out for streaming recommendations and along with some other programs, Ustream.tv is the system he tried out the other day. It seemed to work well, audio as well as video with a chat room attached. I didn't see any limitations on how many viewers you could have and the chat room seemed to have enough features to make it pretty useful.
Scott however works directly on the screen, so he opted for a screen capture type of system where you can see the digital process. Me? I'm still cranking out cartoons the old fashioned way and do my pencils and inks on paper, so a screen display would only cover the lettering and word balloons part of my job.
I created an account last night and did a thirty minute mini-test to get a feel for what I would need to set up a good live feed of a person drawing.
Things I learned:
1. Light - Since I pencil with non repro blue pencil, it's pretty light and I need bright, focused light on the workspace.
2. I'm a Righty - So the camera needs to be on my left. Plus I have to ensure no shadows are cast from my drawing hand. Sideways is ok, but I think some sort of "over the shoulder" set up would be best.
3. No Audio - I tend to work in the early evening or late night, I'll leave the audio off though lest the viewers be treated to the sounds of Mo howling about bedtime (she bleeds through on the podcast enough as it is).
When I had offered the streaming feeds in Oregon, I just placed the camera in front of me, pointed down. Essentially everyone could see me draw, upside down. I would occasionally turn the paper around to show off what I was working on, but ideally people could just see the drawing straight on. That seems to be how most of the online tutorials are.
Speaking of which, my method of working has changed a bit over time and I think the Ustream tools allow me to pre-record stuff. So hopefully I can make a short tutorial or two about how I work and post links to those.
If you are interested, my Ustream page is located here:
http://ustream.tv/channel/inktank-live
Feel free to bookmark it and I'll be sure to announce some sort of rough schedule when I'll be drawing. I will definitely be using Twitter to announce when I am about to broadcast, but hopefully I can get on some sort of semi-regular schedule.
posted by InkTank at
11:04 AM
4 Comments:
I could never Ustream the podcast recording because most of the time I'm recording in my boxers. Not that you needed or wanted to know that.
I was thinking about the logistics of doing something similar to what Scott did -- but with a real-life drafting board and art supplies. I wonder if attaching my iSight to a baseball cap brim would work? Basically, it would capture whatever you're looking at -- so whatever you're working on would be in frame and out of the way.
Hi Steve!
Yea, I was thinking perhaps a tall tripod that could sit off to the left and just over my shoulder.
Or even off to the desk on my left, with a light there as well.
I like the baseball cap idea as well. My only concern with that is keeping my head still so the image isn't constantly bobbing around or making slight movements.
I believe Dave Kellett had a post about this a few months ago. Apparently, he set up two cameras to capture him drawing a Sheldon comic, only to find two hours later that his head blocked the shot once he started drawing -- so he ended up with two hours of the back and side of his head!
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