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!
I think you can save the image from Sketchbook Pro to your Photos on the iPad. (You may want to create a new folder for Sketchbook Pro though). There’s a WordPress app you can sync to your account to and upload your creation to WordPress directly on the iPad. No laptop needed.
I’ve done that when I’ve used Sketchbook Pro to upload to the BlogPress App.