A lot of artists I follow are now streaming video of their artwork creation via Ustream. It’s a fascinating and educational vehicle for not only fans, but other artists looking to hone their craft. I’ve already learned so much from watching how others approach various challenges. There’s even the new Artcast Network site that serves to aggregate streaming artists under one roof.

I’ve started to do a few Ustream sessions myself, and have found them simultaneously a lot of fun and supremely terrifying. Maybe it’s just my built-in artist neurosis, but I’ve often “chickened out” of doing a streaming session. Usually it’s just the fear that others are watching what I still don’t believe to be anything great. But we’ll save my mental hangups for another post

One of the biggest hurdles to Ustreaming is the technical setup, as evidenced just last night with Legend of Bill artist David Reddick having to bail on an artcast due to technical difficulties. At some point I may post a really in-depth tutorial on getting started with Ustream, but for now, I’m going to focus on this one aspect.

As a Ustreamer and artist with not much of a following (yet), there are periods where I’m all alone with nobody watching or in the chatroom. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives me some time to relax, but it does get a bit boring. I normally have to have music or something playing while I work. I’d tried several things to try to play music over my stream and still have my voice audible when I speak. Nothing seemed to work right. One night I tried to just play the music over my external speakers and created a weird echo loop that I was sure would rip a hole in the fabric of space-time. Luckily, it did not, but it was more than a little annoying to the viewers.

So the other night I decided to really dig in and try to figure this thing out. What follows is my solution that worked for me, but I’m sure there are many others. Feel free to pass any other good tips along.

First, I have to say, unfortunately for now, this is a Mac-only tip. I don’t use a PC and with Windows complexities, I would not even try to guess at a comparable solution.

Next, here are the tools you’ll need to have:

1. Ustream Producer: This is the new-ish desktop software that Ustream has released. At some point I’ll amend this tutorial to include Ustream’s Flash-based tool, in conjunction with Camtwist. Right now I just want to reduce the number of moving parts.
2. Audio Hijack Pro: This is the amazing software from Rogue Amoeba that lets you capture and record from ANY audio source on your computer. Unfortunately, this is a $32 app, but worth every penny. There’s a free trial, but it starts to add static after 10 minutes of “hijacking”. It’d still be good for determining if this setup will work for you.
3. Soundflower: This is a little piece of software that allows applications to send audio to other applications. This’ll make more sense further on.
4. Input source: This would typically be a USB microphone or headset
5. Music source: For purposes of this tutorial, we’ll use iTunes

First, get everything installed and running. It’s beyond the scope of this tutorial to explain how to do all that, but if you’re already Ustreaming, chances are you’ll figure it out.

Next, fire up Ustream Producer, Audio Hijack Pro, Soundflower and your music source (ie, iTunes). Tip: it may not be obvious that Soundflower is “running”, but you should see the little flower icon in your upper menu bar:

Make sure your microphone is set up correctly by going to System Preferences -> Sound and making sure the input device (2) is set to your microphone. In my case, it’s “unknown USB audio device” (stupid cheap headset). And test the levels of your input by tapping the mic and watching the meter (3).

Now open Audio Hijack Pro. In the lower left corner (1), click the plus sign to add a new audio source for hijacking. Name it Ustream. In its input tab, make the Input Device (3) your microphone, and for Output Device(4), select Soundflower (2ch). Note that Soundflower will only be a selectable option if Soundflower is already running.

Now click on the Effects tab. Right click within any of the blocks labelled ‘click here to insert effect’ and select: 4FX Effect -> Application Mixer. This will place the mixer controls in one of the open effects blocks.

Now, click the Editor button on the effect controller(1) and the Application Mixer will pop open. In this dialog, click ’select’ to pick the source of your music, in this case it’s iTunes. The Crossfade slider(3) controls the mix between your source (your microphone) and the Application (iTunes). In most cases you’ll want your mic to be louder so people can hear you. In the position in the diagram, the music volume is lowered in favor of the microphone volume. You’ll probably need to play with this to suit your own preferences. Your viewers will be able to give you feedback on what works best.

Now, start playing a track from iTunes and click the Hijack button(4). This effectively starts capturing the audio from iTunes. But wait, we just lost our music! Not to worry, just check the ‘Monitor Output’ box(5) and you’ll be able to hear the audio through your headset again. Feel free to close the ‘Application Mixer’ popup.

Now, click the main ‘Hijack’ button at the top of the Audio Hijack Pro window. You should see your audio meters start to move.

To summarize, what we’re doing here is using Audio Hijack Pro to capture BOTH your microphone audio and your music source in a way that you can mix them together. We’re outputting the merged Hijacked audio to the Soundflower virtual device, which we’ll be using as our audio source in Ustream Producer.

On to the next steps!

Open Ustream Producer. It’s beyond the scope of this tutorial to go too deep into setting up your video sources, etc. In my case, I have two video sources, my built-in camera and my desktop. To set up Ustream Producer to use your Hijacked audio stream, click Live Input(1) and choose Soundflower(2ch) as your audio source. Next, click on the Sound button(2) and select Live Input Microphone. At this point, your video sources should say Soundflower below them(3).

At this point, you should see your audio levels in Ustream Producer moving. Tap your microphone or clear your throat and you should see your microphone levels as well.

And that’s it! Hopefully these instructions all worked for you, but let me know if there are any problems with these steps. Also, for some reason I occasionally hear myself echo back to me a little bit, but my viewers don’t seem to notice. If anyone has any insight into why that might happen, shoot me a note or leave a comment.

Thanks, and let me know if this tutorial has been helpful to you.

Way back in October (I think), I entered a contest sponsored by Chuck Jones Galleries. You know, Chuck Jones, the creator of Bugs Bunny and genius behind Looney Tunes cartoons, the animated Grinch special and more.

The idea behind the contest was to “show your memories with your favorite Chuck Jones characters”. Meaning, post a photo and say something about Chuck and your favorite character, whether it be Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, etc. Grand prize was $1,000 cash, $5,000 to spend on Chuck Jones art and a trip to a VIP event at the gallery in San Diego.

Brickfish, the site managing the contest, provided a bunch of stock backgrounds and character art for people to mix and match and make their own creations. I saw this as an opportunity to create something original. Thinking about Looney Tunes takes me back to days of getting up on a Saturday morning and sitting in front of cartoons with a bowl of cereal. At least until the crap cartoons came on around noon, anyway.

I created a scene of me and a long-eared friend sitting in front of the tube, watching “What’s Opera, Doc?” as the sun comes up. I have to say I was pretty proud of it. I’d never drawn Bugs before (that I can remember), even if it was from behind.

I posted the art, along with a blurb about what Chuck’s work has meant to me. To my delight, Craig Kausen (Chuck’s grandson, who also runs the gallery) liked my entry and actually retweeted it several times over the length of the contest. He said I was the only one, as far as he knew, that had created a 100% original piece of artwork.

The contest actually ran quite a long time, so the suspense was a killer. It finally ended in early December, and the judging seemed to drag on equally long. Then on December 18th, I got an email from Brickfish that I’d been selected as Runner Up! Of course, I’d have preferred grand prize, but to be second out of over 1,300 entries is nothing to sneeze at either. I still get $250 cash and $2,500 to spend on artwork. I’m hoping I can get at least one good piece worthy of passing down to my daughter.

Not sure when I’ll actually receive the prize, but I’m thinking of using the money to get an Amazon Kindle. Then again, part of me feels I owe it to Chuck to buy something art-related with it. Still debating.

At any rate, big thanks to the gallery and Craig for the opportunity and for helping keep Chuck’s legacy alive. Hopefully someday I can repay the favor.

Thanks, Chuck.

So Day Two of my experiment could possibly be considered a “cheat”, as I just inked and colored yesterday’s sketch. But it took probably 3-4 times as long as the original drawing, so I think that counts.

I almost quit on this early on, as I just can’t seem to draw a smooth line on my Wacom tablet to save my life. In fact, some of the lines on his coat were actually done with the pen tool. I just had to give in.

All said and done, I think I’m pretty happy with this, being my first real artwork since I did our Christmas Card.

I’ve been inspired lately to try something to keep my creative juices going and not get so rusty with my artwork. Frankly, I have doubts about how long I’ll keep it up, but I’m going to try to draw and post a “Drawing A Day”.

Below is the first entry, Hellboy. Just pencil and my sketchpad, nothing fancy. Had to actually photograph it, as my scanner isn’t cooperating. Hope to get that rectified soon.

First, if you don’t watch The Totally Rad Show, probably none of this will make sense. For the uninitiated, it’s a video podcast featuring three dudes that stand around and talk about all things rad: movies, comics, video games, television, etc. It’s actually a lot more entertaining than it sounds.

At any rate, the artwork that’s behind them is submitted by viewers and changes every week. I’ve had an idea for doing one since episode one and finally got around to doing one. It’s entitled “Young Radenstein”, and is based on the movie poster for “Young Frankenstein”. Being so close to Halloween, I thought it appropriate to submit it now.

Click to view larger version

I had a ton of fun doing it, and hopefully the Totally Rad guys will like it enough to use it on an upcoming show.

The riverboat artwork is finally done. I could probably keep messing with it, but there has to come a time when you have to call it finished and walk away. For the first real piece of artwork I’ve done in years, I’m pretty happy with it.

Also, here are some wallpapers in different sizes:
800 x 600 | 1024 x 768 | 1280 x 1024

Not much done tonight, but managed to get the moon and some clouds in. I think I’m just going to add some shading and lighting effects next and call it done.

Tonight I got the bulk of the ground cover in, plus some sky and water. Ended up scrapping the first bit of weeds I’d added, opting for doing them as natural brush strokes. Dang, that’s tedious.

Invariably whenever I buy a new Penny Arcade book, I get the bug to start drawing again. Even though my comic book stint began and ended at Thundermutt #1, I’d still like to get into doing some sort of cartooning on a regular basis. Even if it’s just mindless fan art, it’s keeping my skills up, which I’ve recently learned are horribly out of practice.

So today I picked up a new Wacom pen tablet and dug up a sketch I’d made a few years ago for an ill-fated website called Haunted Marietta. I’ve only done a few inks and am coloring as I go. I’m not thrilled with it, but going to finish it no matter what. After all, you don’t get to good stuff without a ton of miserable failures…

…right?

So here is the progress so far: