Comfortable Shoes Studio

Q&A on Youtube

Every now and then I get a series of questions on Youtube and Facebook that warrant longer explanations via video. Here are the latest batch. Feel free to ask more art and art journal related questions in the comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My YouTube Channel Name

Since it comes up pretty often, here is the offical story of my youtube channel's name.

I intended for it to be ComfortableShoesStudio just like this website. Seems easy right? Except YouTube only allows 20 characters in a name... I Typed in the full name and didn't look to see that it was right. Bad move. CSS is 22 characters long. YouTube dropped the I and O off the end. After signing up I stayed logged in and loaded my first few videos. Then I loaded a few more. 

6 months later I ended up signed out and couldn't log in. I requested my password to be sent to my email on file. It was then that I realized that I was signed up as ComfortableShoesStud. *Headdesk* At this point I'd already loaded up a bunch of videos and had a bunch of views, so I figured, screw it, leave it as is.

Lesson learned though, ANY time I sign up for something I check to make sure that everything is spelled correctly before hitting "Agree" or "Continue!"

observations on making videos

I’ve been messing around with my video camera, my iPoo, and the boom mic stands that I use to hold them. I picked up a couple of official iPoo* tripod holders and for less than $5 each they are a little better than my clamp method, and cheaper, but don’t have that kludge** factor. They are a little less strong/ sturdy than my holder, but I can see how they can easily be made a lot stronger, so should I need to, I can adapt them.

I took an evening and a 1 minute clip and decided to figure out the RIGHT settings to manage quality, speed of render, speed of upload(aka file size) for videos I plan on uploading to YouTube with my software. At one point I got super frustrated with the included help and the official online help and delved into google. Go figure, I should have done that in the beginning. I found a helpful YouTube channel explaining which settings to use to get rid of the letterboxing (don’t use the obvious settings, duh!) Rendering is still not at the speed of my iPoo but it does do a much higher quality video AND I can do longer videos plus I can use a variety of different music, do a voice over if I want, and add effects.

I found some music to use with my videos as well, stuff I haven’t heard a million times before and fits my style. I’m really happy with that. I need to put it on my iPoo so I can use it consistently across the board. I am trying to stay away from stuff that has copyright or isn't made for use.

I’m trying to keep my videos to particular lengths- sketching or drawing videos with no instructional content are under 3 minutes, Q&A videos are under 5, instructional videos can go as long as they need to go. i’m considering some review videos on favorite products.

Wordy Weekender: Circle the Wagons

As many of you may know my blog was trolled last night due to a blog post I wrote about trollz. My point was immediately made and I really feel I don’t have a lot more to add to the conversation. Read it and you’ll understand what today is about.

Today it’s time for the art journaling community (and anyone else) to circle the wagons around the campfire, put on some good eats, and a pot of coffee and talk about love, forgiveness and community.

If you would like to contribute a design to the cause, let me know and I’ll load the image up to zazzle and you’ll be able to buy a shirt with your design on it. I’m going to play around with some sketches and upload some images. The consensus seems to be that we should go with pink butterflies on chocolate brown.

There will be a stream-a-thon as well. If you are planning on streaming today; post a link and time in the comments so everyone knows when you’ll be streaming. I’m flexible in when I stream but I’ll stream after 2pm.

 (For peolpe interested in zazzle, the image needs to be 150ppi, and for a small image 600x600pixels wide, if interested in other sizes, or a full image on a shirt message me and I'll get you the zazzle info.)

Out of Range

Sorry for the lack of updates this week. My head has been other places and I could have sworn that some of the updates that I've scheduled for NEXT week were in fact scheduled for this week. Sigh.Additionally I'm very lucky in that Christie has had this week off from school and work. We've been relishing the unusual time together and really enjoying just relaxing after I get home from work. Tonight I was greeted with a nice bottle of red wine and homemade Italian meatballs with sauce made using her Grandmother's recipe. Yum. Right about now I'm read for sleep.

Product reviews start next Thursday and Flickr Finds start Friday. The rest of the week is up in the air in terms of plans. I think that I'll start Technique Tuesday up again. Then I'll try and get the wordy stuff to Wednesday and the weekends. Then If I feel like posting within the week I can continue to do so.

Starting this coming Monday, Jan 10th I'll start up my UStream show again. I'll be working on the Midori Traveler notebook cover knock off. I'll post a supplies list sometime soon.

Updates this weekend might be spotty as it's Christie's last before she heads back to school and I really want to enjoy this time before we're knee deep in stress again. Seriously, this week has been amazing.