How the mighty have sold out.

If you have been keeping tabs on our twitter stream, we’ve recently cut the direct feed to Mashable or “MashApple” as it’s  being dubbed lately. This action was taken due to an overabundance of  poorly disguised promotional articles & fluff from obvious fans/apologists presented as stories related to Apple. Don’t get me wrong, my iHate for all things Apple isn’t so bad that I’d stomp out any & all mentions, they have some important things to provide to the tech industry so they deserve a voice. However, there needs to balance for sites like Mashable that gained fame from having attracted a group of  loyal and vocal fans with their comprehensive look at all things tech & social.  More to the point, Mashable will be manually posted like many of the other resources to better filter the plugs for boutique brands.

Now that you’ve had your potatoes, have some steak!

With that said this is a list of resources that was recently posted on the site that I feel are good enough to share with you all. If you have resources you’d like us to check out, contact us!

clipped from mashable.com

75+ Social Media Resources for Artists and Designers

Once a foreign concept, digital art can now be seen in galleries, shops, and even the cover of the New Yorker. While artists have had access to computer-based tools for years, we’ve also collected some resources for portable platforms including the iPhone () and Android () devices that have opened up a whole new suite of powerful, portable tools. This list of over 75 resources can get you up and running regardless of your artistic persuasion. From sites to inspire to portable photo editors to color manipulating web tools, these resources can help any project you might be working on – digital or otherwise.

This week I’m sharing another bit of inspiring artwork found  via Smashing Magazine.

This one is near and dear to me because over the last few years I have been teaching myself the ins and outs of Adobe Illustrator in preparation of being able to create my own clothing designs for Wear Wolf Apparel.  Needless to say it’s been a unique experience in that once you learn the tools the possibilities are endless. This article will serve to illustrate (no pun intended) this tools ability to extend your creativity.

I’ll be sure to post some of my work with illustrator as well as give a bit of insight into it’s use with general artwork and comic artwork.  Yes, tutorials & goodies will also be gathered and shared.

Read full article here »

clipped from www.smashingmagazine.com

Beautiful Illustrator Artworks By Artists Around The World

Adobe Illustrator is a powerful software for illustrating that allows users to produce beautiful artwork, technical illustrations, and even graphics for both print and the web. Adobe Illustrator is a multipurpose vector illustration tool and its versatility makes it the most preferred choice among many professional artists and designers.

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24 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed

If you’re familiar with my twitter feed, you’ll recognize that Mashable is one of my favorite resources for social media and mobile app trends and news. This is also a resource for inspiration and tips on how to market yourself an your product / company. I’ll provide a few links from time to time that I feel are essential to doing what you do as a creative individual.

clipped from mashable.com

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A social network for independent comics creators

Looking in the right places.

When I began to realize I needed help in developing my skills as a comics creator, I first turned to the resources I knew. admittedly this was limited to deviantART.Com which I have been a member for a number of years and was fairly familiar with how fickle some of its community members could be with sharing their time & talent with others on certain projects.

I was about to give up on my search after dA failed me and google turned up the same 2 or three options for how-tos on getting talent for your comics projects.  I happened to come across an article that was only related in the sense that I was seeking out a means to gain assistance via social networks. It brought up crowd sourcing and mentioned Zeros2Heroes.Com as an example of a crowd sourcing social network for comics.

I went and checked it out, a skeptic doing due diligence.

The People’s Publisher

Whoa what’s this about being a “People’s Publisher”?  The front page teases you with past winners of open contests that have received assistance in getting a property published, as well as tastes of other properties in development by the site’s membership. It’s impressive enough to overlook the fact that this site is still in beta, indicating that it can be even better. A trip to the site’s FAQ page turns up a nice and neat definition of what it is you’d be getting into.

Q:   What is Zeros 2 Heroes?

A:   Zeros 2 Heroes is an online social network that connects creators, producers

and fans of genre entertainment… particularly comics.  We hope this

creates a new online resource for the comic community that allows

people to come together around great new content by undiscovered

creators

You can use this network to find new works, buy and

sell comics, figurines and other collectibles, track down rides to

local conventions, and help entertainment studios shape their ideas.

It’s a big proposition, but we’re here for the long haul.

It’s definitely interesting enough at this point to register but the dreaded “yeeeeaaaaah, but…” rears its ugly head upon some digging. The content under Comics Creation Nation, namely the FAQ section does a little wind up before punching you in the gut.

The not so well fleshed out answers reveal that the contests for now seemed to be based in Canada for Canadians despite the site holding an international membership. It does say that this is not the permanent case, but it is a downer to discover.

Well why be there if I’m not going to get published?

Comics can be a real Pitch...

Knowledge, my friend. They’re the Canadian “People’s Publisher” for the time being but that does not remove the fact that there are members of the site that are friendly and helpful and can hip you to things you may not have known about the industry. Truthfully I had learned more about how to produce comics in my first week there than I did all of the previous months before.

When they recommend (and trust me, they will) that you take a look at the pitches of other members, do so! These are great insights int what it takes to develop your property realistically, as if you were preparing to shop it out to a publisher. Tell me if that’s not some of the coolest free information you can receive.

It gets better. You’ll discover the pitch doctor, a flash based system set up to help you develop your own story pitch to share with the community [after reading over and agreeing to the disclosure legalese which basically states, that while it's your property, any mutual feedback is open game]. The site gives you the option of keeping the pitch private or opening it up to the public , which can easily be reversed later on if necessary.

Other features

The rest admittedly is nothing to call home about, the forums are empty, the blogs while active are limited, the classifieds bare, but if youa re patient you should be able to come across the people and information you’d need to get going.

I’m there, under Inkwest.

Final verdict

Sign up, for what’s there under the beta network, it’s pretty neat and it’ll get you on your way. I promise you it’s got more push than the bloated likes of deviantART.