I’ve posted my final cartoon from BlogWorld 2010. It was my most ambitious toonblogging session yet: three straight days of wall-to-wall coverage. (You can check out the results here.)

Nearly all of it was on the iPad, using a Griffin stylus and Autodesk‘s SketchBook Pro. It’s a powerful combination, and the turnaround time can be incredibly short: once I’ve drawn the cartoon, I export it to iTunes on the iPad, sync it to my laptop, drop it into a Photoshop template, play with the text, export it to a PNG file, and post it via WordPress. That’s maybe 15 minutes from putting down my stylus to posting the finished image.

Could it be faster and better? Yes, actually:

  • The process of exporting to iTunes and syncing to my MacBook Pro is unusually convoluted for Apple. I’m hoping iOS 4.2 will finally bring a more streamlined, rational file management system to the iPad.
  • SketchBook Pro is wonderful, but adding a text tool would make it painfully cool. Add in a template feature and the ability to import fonts from my MBP, and I could circumvent Photoshop completely.
  • While we’re on the topic of SketchBook Pro, two or three more features that would make a huge difference:
    • Scrollbars or something similar when you’re zoomed in, so you have some idea of where you’re drawing, and how much room you have left
    • A larger canvas, so I could actually start creating something that approaches print resolution
    • Palm exclusion, so I can rest my hand on the surface when I’m drawing with a stylus
  • If I could figure out a way to upload the image to WordPress from my iPad (for the time being, hosting it elsewhere doesn’t really work), along with these other steps, I could skip the laptop completely. Some kind of “upload from DropBox” plugin for WordPress, perhaps?

But set aside that wishlist for now. I had a great time, I cartooned like a madman, and I met some terrific people as a result. Thanks for having me, BlogWorld!

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