| Illustrator |
December 20, 2018
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| He went to an electric appliance shop and went to the computer software corner. He recently retired and was looking for something that he could do with his time. He had been using computers like other people: browsing on the internet, sending and receiving emails, using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. He could remember that he had bought two pieces of software that had some specific functions when he was young. One was an animation making software. It was called 'Green'. It was very primitive. He made a man using a circle for a head, a triangle for a body, and some rectangles for other body parts. He gave some instructions, and the man moved from one place to another. It became bigger and it made him feel like it was coming towards him. That's it. So he soon got bored and stopped using it. The other was a 3D illustration making software named 'Shade'. It was kind of expensive but he was somehow attracted by it. Maybe it was because 3D was a very new idea at that time. But the software didn't work well. Maybe his computer's specs were not suited for that type of operation.  Every time when he was going to change the angles of certain things, for example a hand, the computer would start to formulate the process and it would last more than 10 minutes. Soon he gave up using the software. As he was browsing the software corner, he recognized a box of 'Shade' in the corner. He felt nostalgic and was amazed that the software survived this competitive world. He curiously looked at the cover. There were an uncountable amount of functions and he felt dizzy. It costed about 500 dollars. Maybe he should choose a simpler software. There were some other software programs ~security software, photo management software, video editing software, data copy software, office software, tax management software, etc. There were very few pieces of software that created something, like music composing software or house planning software. He couldn't find any interesting ones. When he was about to give up, he saw a pen tablet section. Before he had bought a pen tablet to draw illustrations on his computer for New Year's greeting cards. He used 'Paint' from Microsoft Windows, which was very simple. He used his pen tablet once a year. He saw a package of a drawing software next to them. The cover read 'Why don't you draw illustrations and manga with your PC!' It was priced at only 20 dollars, although for one year of usage. Another catch copy read 'You can draw pictures with confidence'. He decided to buy it. At home, he connected to the website that the package had instructed and filled out the page with the code-number from inside the package. Soon his PC started to download the software, and it didn't take so much time. As he was accustomed to use 'Paint', he didn't feel any difficulty for the software. The tools to operate the software were very functional. There were seven types of pencils and pens, six types of markers, ten types of water paint brushes, three types of oil painting brushes, and other tools like crayons, air brushes, as well as sectional paint fill in functions. For each, the user could change the size of the brush, and could even choose the size and type of eraser. There were some references on the tool bar, so he clicked one of them for a try. On the page there were many free materials, which were offered by the software's users. He was amazed. He also looked at work pages that other users had posted. Their skills were like professionals. From the free material corner, he downloaded one rough figure of a woman sitting on the floor. He put it on the 'canvas' of the software and put a new layer on it. As the layer was transparent, he could see the original shape. He started to trace the shape of the woman with a black pen. After finishing it, he clicked another button which made part of the original woman disappear from the canvas. Next he started to draw hair on her head, then draw in eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears on the face. It only took ten minutes or so. He added another new layer. This layer was for her skin and clothes. He tested the various coloring many times. This was the software's good point: easy to redo and try again. After another ten minutes or so, he finished the woman. In his first illustration using the software, the woman was smiling at him. It was rather rough but he liked it. Looking at it, he felt good about it. He knew he needed to have more trial and errors to make her better. He had time. |
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*suited :ふさわしい
*formulate :計算する
*sectional :部分的な
*reference :参照
*redo :再実行する