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Announcing a new member of Team Zipline!

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2 years ago
by Shawn Davis in

This week we added a new member to Team Zipline…Jessica Dietzen.  She’s a web developer and recent grad from Eastern Washington University.  We’re working on getting some more information about her that might help with the development of her character.  So far the interrogations are proving fruitful (vee have vays uv maakink you talk).

I don’t want to rush into making a character, just to change it later ’cause it doesn’t fit. Then again there is always a magic spell that could be cast to explain the change….

Character Study for @stemkoski

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2 years ago
by Shawn Davis in ,

ryan_study3_03

Even those characters that you think would be easy, really aren’t. Here is where I ended up on Ryan’s character.

UPDATE: Ryan came dressed in his “uniform” today so I thought I’d show how accurate his character is.

Red and Green all over

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3 years ago
by Shawn Davis in ,

bga_5_16_09_03

Had a great time with the kids yesterday on our outing.  Went fishing and then on a hike.  Dad got SPF 50 on everyone except himself!

Skat Kat

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3 years ago
by Shawn Davis in

So here’s another character for the comic, Skat Kat.  Character profiles will follow, but I have to do it in a way that won’t offend the intended victims, er I mean the folks they are loosly based on.  I think a strip featuring each one will help setup their character.

skat_kat_03

Big Green Ape – Study #1

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3 years ago
by Shawn Davis in ,

So work on the webcomic is coming right along.  People at the office have been very helpful in suggesting characters for themselves….hmmm. Anyway, here’s a first look at the main character.  Does he look familiar?  I’ll be posting more characters in the next few days as I get closer to actually doing my first strip.  Love to hear your feedback.  Thanks!

bga_study3_031

Stake Your Claim to Your Name

2
3 years ago
by Shawn Davis in

claim_rush
I know that you’ve looked yourself up on Google before.  Admit it…everyone has. And the results that come back can be surprising. When I look up Shawn Davis in Spokane, WA., I get a real mixed bag.  Everything from a Christian Avon Lady to a dog breeder came up, with me mixed in between.  Then I tried my online moniker “biggreenape” and things get a little easier. I found 6 pages and all were references to me and the posts I’ve made in various locations around the internet…except for one.

Seems as though there is a YouTube account for a biggreenape, which I did not create!  Who knew that anyone else would have that name?  I thought I was safe.  I was secure in the knowledge that my name would be available when I finally got around to posting something to YouTube…or anywhere else for that matter.  But I was wrong, terribly wrong.  To think that there is another person out there posting Willy Porter videos in my name….hmmm.

The moral of this story is that protecting your online persona is now more important than ever.  With new social networking sites cropping up every day, its almost a full time job trying to make sure you’ve got everything covered.  Take the Governor of Idaho for example. His names was used to open a Twitter account, and then “satirical” posts were made.  Now I’m all for satire, but I think you’re crossing the line when you assume someone else’s identity.  Good news did come from this though, Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter is now on Twitter himself!  (http://thecelebritycafe.com/features/27263.html)

It’s more than just protecting your domain name now.  Have you locked down your name on Twitter?  How about a Facebook account, group or page?  LinkedIn? YouTube? And the list goes on.  This goes for your business name as well as your personal name.  Imagine if there was some confusion about what or who was posting comments.

I would suggest doing a quick Google search once a month to see how your name is fairing online.  Also, I’ve found a great service that will check over 100 sites for you. Type you name in at http://namechk.com/ then start staking your claim to your name.

Formatting a DVD interface for HD

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3 years ago
by Shawn Davis in ,

On a recent DVD project we ran into a weird problem. The artwork we were creating was a 16:9 ratio (720px X 405px). Everything seemed to be in order until we brought the art into DVD Studio Pro. We were creating the DVD as HD for wide format and letterbox for standard TVs.

Once the art was in DVD Studio Pro it seemed like we lost resolution. The main logo text was jagged looking and the small text was unreadable. We tried all different file types (.AI, png, jpg). Nothing seemed to work. We talked to a number of technicials as well, even a tech from Adobe!

This should have been a pretty standard project. I didn’t think that we were doing anything ground breaking here. But as it turned out the solution to our problem seems to be a secret…until now.

Here’s what we did:

1. Make the graphics 720px X 405px
2. Export from Illustrator as a PSD file.
3. Open in Fireworks and resize to 480px high. Leaving the width at 720px.
4. Export as a JPG or PNG for use in DVD Studio Pro.

Hopefully someone in the same situation finds this helpful. Seems like this should be a part of manual or something. If anyone else has run across this situation I’d love to hear about your experience.

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