ScottEwenArt.com

Me and Cristina

2009-07-03T19:33:00.003-04:00

Me and my girlfriend went out for breakfast. Photographs courtesy of her brother Joe.

Two new Strip Jam panels

2009-06-22T22:09:00.003-04:00

Two new panels for the Never-Ending Strip Jam.

New Anchorbird page

2009-06-20T11:47:00.002-04:00

New Anchorbird page

2009-06-09T11:43:00.002-04:00

This is page six of my new webcomic, Anchorbird, which is a collaboration with a ton of other Kubert School students and Penciljack members. Read it here: http://anchorbird.blogspot.com.

iPod: Smart Playlists

2009-06-08T16:15:00.002-04:00

I have around 50 gigabytes of music, podcasts, comedy albums, audiobooks, and videos in my iTunes library, and my iPod is an 8 GB nano. This means I can't fit nearly my entire collection on my iPod. For a couple years I simply went through my albums and manually dragged the ones I liked over to my iPod, but with that system I got sick of hearing the same stuff over and over. I figured there had to be a way to make it seem as if I could take my entire library with me, without actually doing it. And there is, provided you listen to your iPod on "shuffle" a lot. This system works with any size iPod, and depending on how many podcasts you listen to you can probably use a 2 GB iPod and never have any need of a larger one. I have my iPod synced to several Smart Playlists, and when I plug it into my computer it deletes music I've listened to and puts new stuff on, automatically. Here's what I do:

First, this system is dependent upon rating your songs. If you don't rate your songs, this is not going to work. Until I figured this stuff out I didn't rate my songs, but now I do for every single one of them. A lot of them I did in bulk: I would select all Belle and Sebastian songs and rate them "4 stars," for instance, then I could go back through as I listen to them and give them 5 stars or 3 stars as needed.

The way my ratings work is this: 1 star is for songs I absolutely hate... this is for tracks I want to delete out of my iTunes library ASAP. 2 stars is for filler tracks: skits and noise that are part of an album (so I don't want to delete them), but I'd rather they not come up in a shuffle. Tool and Pink Floyd tend to have a lot of these in their albums. 3 stars is for songs I don't really like but I don't hate them. 4 stars is for songs I like, and 5 stars is for songs I love: songs I get excited for when they come on.

I have a manual playlist dedicated just for podcasts, audiobooks, video, and comedy albums. This is 1 gigabyte, and is generally enough space that I have a lot left over.

I have another manual playlist called "New Stuff." This is 3 GB and is for new albums I've added to my iTunes library in the last few months. When I get a new album I add it to the end of this playlist and remove the first album in the list to make room. I try to listen to all albums at least 5 times and rate all the songs before I remove them from the list.

Now for the smart playlists. I have a playlist called "Play This!: 4 GB" which is essentially the "shuffle" playlist. Playing it is like hitting "shuffle songs," but it shuffles through my entire iTunes library. It is dependent upon a few other smart playlists, and takes all the songs from them and puts them in a random order.

5 Stars: 1.25 GB. This playlist is for 5 star tracks only, and only for songs I have not played in the last 2 months.

4 Stars: 1 GB. This playlist is for 4 star tracks only, and only for songs I have not played in the last 4 months.

0/3 Stars: 768 MB This playlist is for songs that either have not been rated, or songs that are rated 3 stars. The songs also have not been played in the last 30 weeks, so it's a good sample of songs I'm not that crazy about but haven't heard in a while.

New Stuff Shuffle: 1 GB This is a 1 GB sample of songs from my "New Stuff" playlist that haven't been played in the last two weeks, but nothing that has 1 or 2 stars.

I also have a manual playlist called "Classic - 205 MB" which is just in case there's an album I haven't listened to in a long time that I get the hankering to listen to again. It stays empty most of the time.

What all this means is that when I'm driving around in my car I hit the "Play This!" playlist. When I'm done, I plug my iPod into my computer and the stuff I've listened to gets taken off and new stuff is put on. It is, in essence, like shuffling through my entire iTunes library, but only for songs I like and haven't heard in a while, so it actually works a lot better than the "shuffle" feature.

All of this takes up 7.2 GB on my 8 GB iPod, and it could work for a smaller iPod as well. Just reduce the amount of GBs each of the smart playlists take up, although it's smart to have a higher ratio of 5 star tracks and lower ratio of 0/3 star tracks. This ensures that most of what comes up is going to be songs you like, love, or have just added to your library. If you don't listen to many podcasts, you can reduce the size of that playlist as well. You can also reduce the size of the "New Stuff" playlist or make a smart playlist to replace it that adds random songs that have been added to your library in the last few months. If you don't listen to podcasts at all, you can make this work with an iPod as small as 1 GB.

Annoucing Anchorbird

2009-06-03T13:38:00.004-04:00

Anchorbird is the new webcomic by myself and several other people. The idea is we all take turns adding a page to the story, and nothing is planned out beforehand. Check it out at http://anchorbird.blogspot.com.

Fables for draw-off

2009-05-30T22:10:00.002-04:00

This is for a Fables draw-off at Penciljack. It went up a couple days ago but I'm just now uploading it. It was essentially a sketch because it was all I had time for and I got my ass kicked in the draw-off. Serves me right.

This is Snow White and Bigby Wolf from DC/Vertigo's "Fables." They have five "cubs" in the story, but I only drew three because I finished the third one about 50 minutes before the deadline, which I'd already asked for a two-day extension on.

By the way, while we're on the subject, if you're not reading Fables, I highly recommend it. It's an epic story about a war between fairy tale characters in the present day, and is (in my humble opinion) one of the very best comics to come around in the last decade. Incredibly entertaining, with gorgeous artwork from Mark Buckingham that evokes early Bachalo. Read it!!

Webcomic Jam: It Begins

2009-05-22T10:27:00.003-04:00

The webcomic jam is a new project on Penciljack being organized by myself, Oscar Padilla (Spidey), and Karl Savage (Wild&Uncouth). There's a rotating group of artists, along with a few guest artists here and there, and we'll all take turns doing installments of the comic. Here's the first installment, which you can click to make bigger.

We're going to have a website set up for the comic eventually, but we don't know what the comic is going to be called yet. Here's the thread on Penciljack where we organize the thing, though.

Even More Album Covers

2009-05-17T20:27:00.003-04:00

More album covers made by combining a random article on Wikipedia, a random quote, and a random photo on Flikr. Photos are attributed to the original photographer where I remembered to do so, and here are more of these if you want to see them.

Photo by Felix M. Cobos

Photo by chrisfriel

Photo by sigma-zeta

Photo by Jan Durina

Photo by beldyga.com

Mary Marvel meets Thorn

2009-05-12T09:28:00.004-04:00

This is for the P.U.M.M.E.L. tournament at Penciljack. Round one (against Bathill8) was to team up a character from Justice League International (or "Formerly Known as the Justice League" or "I Can't Believe it's Not the Justice League") with a character from Bone. Bathill went with Phoney Bone and Booster Gold, I went with Mary Marvel and Thorn.

Strip Jam: Ghost Yoda

2009-05-05T12:54:00.002-04:00

My nineteenth panel and... I dunno, a hundred and something panel overall for the Never-Ending Strip Jam on Penciljack.

Penciljack's down at the moment so I can't post this yet there, but I'll post it as soon as PJ comes back.

The Beatles album that never was...

2009-05-04T19:01:00.000-04:00

Please excuse me while I become a complete Beatles nerd for a minute.

I've been a big fan of The Beatles for a few years, but until recently I wasn't familiar with any of the individual members' post-breakup music. I decided a few months ago to start listening to their solo albums and to my delight there's a lot of great music there for people who love The Beatles' music. I've listened to almost all their 1970s stuff now and I can tell you that if you're a fan of The Beatles and never heard their solo stuff, here's the stuff you should get.

JOHN LENNON - The best album is 1971's "Imagine," without a doubt. Lennon's a bit too political for me generally, but if you like his stuff you might also seek out 1970's "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" and 1972's "Some Time in New York City." That last one is a double album and is credited to John Lennon AND Yoko Ono, so there's some weird stuff in it, but I feel like Yoko gets more shit than she deserves sometimes. "Sisters, O Sisters" and "We're All Water" are pretty good even though Yoko's singing.

PAUL McCARTNEY - After The Beatles broke up, McCartney released one pretty good solo album, called "McCartney," then released an amazing album co-credited to his wife Linda called "Ram," then the two of them formed a band called Wings with whom he released several albums in the 1970s. 1971's "Ram" is definitely worth getting, as is 1970's "McCartney," but as far as Wings albums go, I'd recommend 1973's "Band on the Run" and 1975's "Venus and Mars." The others are good too, but those are the best.

GEORGE HARRISON - A huge surprise, George Harrison's music wound up being my favorite of the Beatles' solo releases. If you are at all a fan of The Beatles, run out and get 1970's "All Things Must Pass." An AMAZING album. 1973's "Living in the Material World" is also fantastic, but I can't stress enough how great "All Things Must Pass" is.

RINGO - Don't bother. Most of his stuff is blah, and his best stuff is written by Lennon or Harrison. Get 1973's "Ringo!" if you must, don't bother with anything else.

Okay, now the real purpose of this journal is to talk about my new project, which I got the idea for a few weeks ago. My idea was to create an album of post-breakup Beatles songs, as a way of seeing what the next album after "Let it Be" might have been like if they stayed together. I had a few rules for selecting my songs, for instance the songs had to be released in either 1970 or 1971, since that's when the next album probably would have come out. Two Harrison songs, one per side, since that had been the pattern for several albums. I wanted one Ringo song, but nothing that came out in 1970-1971 fit the tone of a Beatles album. In 1970 he released two albums, one was an album of old standards, and the other was a country album. The closest song was "It Don't Come Easy," released as a single in 1971, but it doesn't sound exactly like a Beatles song, despite being co-written by Ringo and George Harrison. Similarly, I didn't put "My Sweet Lord" on there because despite being Harrison's biggest hit from "All Things Must Pass," it's not very Beatles-like.

I tried to choose songs that were released as singles, and songs that sounded like Beatles songs to me. I chose a time limit of 50 minutes. Then I put them together in an order that sounded good to me. Linda McCartney's backing vocals are featured on a couple tracks, but that's okay. Yoko's voice is on the White Album.

I'm calling it "Another Day," after the first song on the album. I've included the track listing below and the albums you can find these songs if you want to try this out for yourself. Listen to it and tell me this doesn't sound like a "Let it Be"/"Abbey Road"-era Beatles album.

ANOTHER DAY - 47:24
Side A
1. "Another Day" (1970 Paul McCartney single, bonus track on the "Ram" CD)
2. "Hold On" (John Lennon, "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band")
3. "Teddy Boy" (Paul McCartney, "McCartney")
4. "Oh My Love" (John Lennon, "Imagine")
5. "Wah-Wah" (George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass")
6. "Oh Yoko!" (John Lennon, "Imagine")

Side B
1. "Maybe I'm Amazed" (Paul McCarney, "McCartney")
2. "Imagine" (John Lennon, "Imagine")
3. "Too Many People" (Paul and Linda McCartney, "Ram")
4. "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" (Paul and Linda McCartney, "Ram")
5. "What is Life" (George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass")
6. "Heart of the Country" (Paul and Linda McCartney, "Ram")
7. "Crippled Inside" (John Lennon, "Imagine")

Hulk faces

2009-04-26T19:13:00.000-04:00

After doing this Hulk pin-up, I got quite a few comments saying it didn't quite look like the Hulk. I'm not that familiar with the character, so I guess I gave him too human of a face. I'm going to redo the face on my initial pin-up at some point, but here's some practice sketches I did today of the Hulk to try to get his facial structure down:

Hulk!!

2009-04-23T20:40:00.001-04:00

I did this for a two-man Hulk draw-off on Penciljack. Click to make big.

Strip Jam: Me and the Major

2009-04-21T16:14:00.001-04:00

My eighteenth panel (and 119th panel overall) for the Neverending Strip Jam at Penciljack.

25 Million Years after our story begins, Master Yoda and R2D2 have found the Ministry's suitcase, and opened it to find the souls of Sam, Sammy, Joker-Snake, The Major, and Yoshi. Just then the rotting, soulless body of the Major showed up, grabbed his own soul, and popped it in his mouth.

And before anyone asks, "Me and the Major" is a Belle & Sebastian song.

2009-04-21T11:49:00.001-04:00

Texting this from my phone. Just want to make sure it works.

Character Sketches - April 21

2009-04-21T11:19:00.002-04:00

Karl Savage asked where the Sayid drawing I did was, so here it is, along with a Wolverine sketch. Both of these are from months ago, but I never scanned them in for whatever reason.

And here's today's sketch. Over the past few weeks I've been making my way through Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series on Hulu, which is a science program from the early 80s made to introduce and explain complicated science ideas to laypeople in a way they can understand. I'm a big fan of Sagan, going back to the first time I saw the movie "Contact" in high school, and then went back and read his novel it was based on. I loved the movie but the book is a hundred times better. I then started reading his other books like "Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" and "Billions and Billions," the former of which started me on my journey into skepticism. I consider Carl Sagan a personal hero of mine, and it's a shame he's no longer with us.

More of these album covers

2009-04-08T19:22:00.002-04:00

More of these and these. Done by taking a random article on Wikipedia for the band name, a random quote for the album title, and a random Flikr image for the album artwork. The original photographer is credited where I remembered to save the link.

I tried to do some aging on this one. If you look at the original photo, it's in color and looks new, but I looked up some tutorials on aging photos.
Photo by margolove

If I ever start a rock band, I'm going to call them The Virtuality Continuum.
Photo by Fort Photo

Photo by Tuffer (belgian edition)

Tried my best at doing a logo. Turtle Soup is Florida ska.

I tried doing a hip-hop album. Cheated because it was "Nebuchadnezzar II" but I dropped the "II" and the "r."
Photo by maurizio carucci

Photo by Diddis

Another pass at doing a hip-hop album.
Photo by PHOTOcLiiCK

More album covers

2009-03-31T12:51:00.003-04:00

More fake album covers, done by combining a random Wikipedia article for the band name, the last four words of a random quote for the title, and a random Flikr image for the art. Here are the last ones I did, and here are some more.

Photo by Cinnamon

Sri Yerramilli Narayanamurthy is an American-born Indian man who does folk-country.

Photo by jurvetson

Reston Manitoba is an alternative band from Knoxville.

Photo by froodmat

Pseudofeces is a late '90s hard rock band.

Al Watan is actually Al-Watan, a newspaper in Saudi Arabia. But I dropped the hyphen and made it some dude's name. I think he does smooth jazz.

Photo by Olivier Maurin

Carlos Salazar is an 80s new wave band.

Photo by Atilla1000

Photo by Jaki Good

Churchill is 90s Britpop.

Wasting time

2009-03-30T15:10:00.007-04:00

There's a fun game on Penciljack where you come up with a CD cover, band name, and album title. You just go to a random page on Wikipedia to get your band name, the last four words of the last quote on a page of random quotations, and the third picture on a page of random Flickr images. But recently someone had the bright idea to actually go into Photoshop and design the CD covers. Here are my attempts.

Tuzki is a European instrumental folk group.

John Marshall High School is a late 90's alt-pop band. I also used another quote on the same page for a song title.

I cheated a bit here because the Wikipedia page was for Ohs, a cereal, but I made them The Oh!s, who I've decided are a 2000s garage rock band.

Phalcoboenus is a folky alt-rock band.

Smarty is a Scottish girl who does pop music.

Leaf Blower is a Damon Albarn side project.

Kvíslavatn is an Icelandic pop group that sings in English and clearly loves Wes Anderson movies.

Cheated a bit, but "Plays - Cynical But Hopeful" didn't sound as good. Jonathan Webster Cornett is a one-hit wonder from the 80s.

COCONUT98 is a 90s pop-punk band.

I could go the obvious route and say Plaxton is an emo band, but I'm going to say they're a house electronica band.
And here's the last one, because I really don't think I could do one funnier than this:

EDIT: I've done some more.

Strip Jam: MF Doom

2009-03-24T14:14:00.001-04:00

This is my fifteenth panel (and 102nd panel overall) for the Never-ending Penciljack Strip Jam.

Character Sketches - March 19

2009-03-19T14:24:00.003-04:00

So these Daily Character Sketches aren't exactly daily anymore. I underestimated the amount of time it would take to do a sketch like this every day. So I'm going to try for two or three sketches a week now, and do Loomis sketches the rest of the week.

In honor of this week's final episode of what is, in my opinion, the best science fiction show of all time, I've drawn Kara "Starbuck" Thrace of Battlestar Galactica.

Titus Colored

2009-03-17T20:41:00.001-04:00

Color version of the Bruce Timm-style Titus sketch I did.

Bruce Timm-style Titus

2009-03-17T17:54:00.001-04:00

This is Titus, the main character of the comic I'm doing right now. I decided to do this in a Bruce Timm/animated DCU style. After finishing it I realized it's not really that different from my normal style.

Loomis Sketches - March 13

2009-03-13T15:04:00.001-04:00