So I made this diagram to help me notate progressions I write on guitar into my sequencer. I haven’t seen one that shows the octave relationship before, so I made one. Any way, I eventually hope to have the fretboard memorized, and relative pitch dialed in and all that. In the meantime, a cheat sheet will suffice.

Download it HERE (right-click, save-as)

And.. NKS hits version 3 *Fan Fare!!!*
Not so much I know. But, honestly, this is a pretty exciting release for me. The goal with NKS has always been to get some of that sketch book feel in Photoshop, and this version steps it up in some really useful ways. Typically if you want to have a decent archive of your sketches, you’re either working digitally, using tools that feel, well, digital-or you’re spending a ton of time at the scanner. Sketch, sketch, sketch… scan, scan, scan. It’s not a horrible workflow, but there’s always room for improvement. While I’ll probably never give up sketching on real paper, a tool like this is a huge boon. I can get pretty close to the sketch book feel-and when I’m done, I’ve got a digital asset ready to file. One of the new features is a sketch book canvas. Not rocket science by any means, but it gets this experience a bit closer to the real deal. Tape a piece of paper to your WACOM tablet to get rid of that plastic-on-plastic feel and the tactile response is nearly right. In addition to the new canvas, I’ve added a complimentary color bar. Different from the traditional spectrum picker in that each colors’ compliment is available directly across the X axis. I’ve found this layout really fosters the consideration of other relationships as well. One-click for the canvas, one click for the color bar. Pretty straight forward. Pretty fast.

The tools themselves have undergone major revisions. With full rebuilds of the Ball Point, Ink Pen, Markers, Spray Paint, and the addition of new Stippling tools. The kit goes well beyond sketching in use and is viable for many rendering and texturing tasks. Oh yeah, and it’s free.

In addition to the new NKS panel, I suggest everyone check out Anastasiy’s custom color picker panel for Photoshop. Check out his site here.

Installation instructions included in the zip.
NKS3 is compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS4, on Mac OS or Windows machines.

>Download NKS3

(ZIP 11.6 MB) (Right-click + Save-As)

NKS3 by NKURENCE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

FP3 by nkurence
FP2 by nkurence
FP1 by nkurence

As an added bonus I’ve somewhat managed to salvage a nearly decade old rhythm experiment I did in 11’s. No longer having the source files, I’ve had to work from a flat wav file. It needs so much more, but it is at least listenable now.

On Eraser by nkurence

I’ve recently set the entire text of Miyamoto Musashi’s ‘A Book of Five Rings’ into a graphical poster. The text is divided into five sections, Earth, Water, Wind, Fire and Void, lending itself to a literal graphic structure. The full size of the poster is approx. 3′ wide by 4′ tall. Set with varying weights of Univers at 11 points on an 11 point baseline. The print is perfectly legible when reproduced at a smaller size of 27″ x 36″, which is a bit easier to accommodate on my walls. Printing is done on a 192 gsm matte finish paper @ 1440 dpi. I don’t have a proper shop set up at the moment, but if you happen to be interested in one of these I’ll run them on-demand, signed & numbered by request for $30 shipped. If you’re interested, contact me for further details or send a paypal payment to nreeves@tracewerks.com, subject ‘Five Rings’.

A higher-res version of the poster can be seen here.

Christopher Barnes – Five Song EP
Deru – Genus
Kettel – Myam James Part 2
Luke Vibert – We Hear You
Lusine – A Certain Distance
Ochre – Like Dust of the Balance
Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms
Philip Glass – A Madrigal Opera
Proswell – Konami 2009 Remaster
Shugo Tokumaru – Rum Hee
Yagya – Rigning

The greatest opportunity to increase speed in anything is by approaching the most common/repeated tasks and looking for ways to reduce the amount of steps involved/energy expended. I’ve decided to start creating some brief screencasts to document some of my own approaches to these types of process enhancements, starting with Adobe Illustrator. I’m going to start with very simple procedures. I should start with my implementation of keyboard shortcuts, but that’s quite bland, so we’ll begin some actions mapped to hotkeys (just slightly less bland).

These actions are certainly not flashy. At the same time, please consider their implications. Due to the frequency with which these processes are implemented (often in sequence), their capacity for speed enhancement is great. Procedures covered are aligning, pathfinding, and mirroring.

View Alignment Screencast

1:01 / 2.4mb
The primary action, X and Y centering, is by far the most universal. The individual axis commands are quite useful, however, and mapping them as an F-key variant (shift/cmnd) allows them to be implemented quite naturally.

View Mirroring Screencast

1:42 / 4.1mb
If it’s not completely obvious, two actions are created to allow for a mirror with welded or unwelded anchors as needed. In addition to the MirrorY actions covered here, I also use a MirrorX action (mirroring across the horizontal axis). I still do the lions share of mirroring manually, using the reflect tool, as it’s commonly necessary to select an arbitrary axis.

View Pathfinding Screencast

2:32 / 6.1mb
Extremely basic, but that’s what makes them simply indispensable.

In the end it’s prudent for everyone to keep a channel of observation open to what tasks are performed with the most frequency, and to scrutinize all practical measures by which those processes can be optimized.

After quite a long slumber I’ve started fiddling with noise again. Got a new track up on SoundCloud, East on a Golden Wind, mastered by the savvy & sublime Christopher Leary @ Melograf Mastering. Super pleased with the results and speed, prices are extremely reasonable as well.

In other news I’ve come across what looks like an amazing book, America’s Film Legacy by Daniel Eagan, a guide to the 500-odd films in America’s National Film Registry via. the Library of Congress. From what I understand, it’s the first such attempt of it’s sort and is garnering some high-level acclaim from the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and Leonard Maltin. If you’re a film buff, it’s likely worth a look. According to the publisher it’s being slated for a November release, and is currently available for pre-order. More information here.

There’s a good chance this could be a case of new to me, old to you as often happens with web content, especially with things that are years old. But this was so cool I couldn’t resist…

Jake Mandell, proprietor of Love Songs For Machines (an IDM legacy in it’s own right) has made 3 full length albums and 3 eps available for free on his site, including Parallel Processes and Quondam Current. If you’ve never heard of him, which I suppose is vaguely possible, check it out, it’s free–how can you go wrong with free??? If you like it, make sure you pick up Love Songs For Machines (just writing this is making me feel all kinds of nostalgic).

Some really interesting info in his bio too–definitely a guy who’s passionate about his work, and it really shows. Would love to hear him releasing again. I think he and James Horner could have done an insane collab on the new Tron score :-\

Otherwise noteworthy I discovered Kashiwa Daisuke last week. He’s got a really interesting style going- for example on his album 5 Dec. I hear influences including Steve Reich, Juno Reactor, Venetian Snares and Proswell to name a couple – all sort of riveted together with a bubbling acid jazz vibe. Definitely worth a listen, 5 Dec. is his most recent release, but in my current state it’s somewhat jolting (I’ve been digging into Program Music I mostly, which is a gorgeous album–far more melodic than his newer works).

Ochre’s new album arrived today–I already knew it was amazing, Acrid Avid Jam Shred is a staple of my life, Clarence Park is still my favorite Clark album, and between Gridlock’s Formless and Speedy J’s A Shocking Hobby I think there’s enough static energy to spark some sort of small fusion reaction.

http://ochre.spreadshirt.com

That being said we’re less than a week away from the release of his new album Like Dust of the Balance. You can preview the entire album on his site, or at last.fm. Preorder it here. This is an awesome release and should not be missed! If you’re not familiar with his work, there’s no better time to get acquainted.

*edit*
Like Dust of the Balance is now available for download from Bleep and Amazon. Also, there are new logo hoodies available at the shop.

IdN 10th Anniversary

A 10-ton anvil of design ga-ga. IdN held nothing back with this one-we’re talking varnishes, metallics, stickers, vinyl, even an injection molded hard plastic carrying case (and a couple CDs in typical IdN fashion). The book explodes in aesthetic value, and does not let up when it comes to content. Huge variety of designers, medias- and taste aside, you’re gonna find something you like (very likely a great many). If you’re into graphic art and you buy only 1 book…

Amano

I know we’ve crossed over into the realm of fine art with this one, but I’m not much into categorizing any way-the principals of color, value and composition are relevant across all visual art disciplines. fine art, graphic art, still, or motion. That being said this book is one I turn to pretty consistently, as Amano has a control and style that seems quite unreal at times. Imaginative, highly stylized, ornate, gritty in places and polished in others. If you like the image on the cover even a little bit, the rest will not disappoint.

Sketching

Product design is rad. It’s not a field I frequent, but it’s one I would like too. This book is a candid look at the ideation approaches of a number of product design studios and internal corporate design groups. Products are all over the place, which keeps it interesting. Sketching walks through the entire creative process, and offers up some great tips along the way. A great book if you’re into that kind of stuff.

The Skillful Huntsman

is to entertainment design what Sketching is to commercial concept design. TSH documents the concept design of a Brothers Grimm by 3 Art Center students, in parallel. In a way this book picks up where Sketching left off, and walks you through the development of an entire world- characters, props, vehicles, buildings, environment. All while discussing the considerations involved in each case. Being able to see it done in parallel by multiple people is really enlightening as well. I wish they’d continue with it, releasing future installments with different artists working on different stories. Another must if you’re at all interested in product or concept design.

Other notables:
Narita Inspected (hard to find, but excellent graphic design book)
The Art of Darkwatch (game concept design process)
Los Logos (should go without mentioning)
Fusion (another IdN release, like a mini-me of 10)
FontBook (the best font reference ever, browsing online is ok but nothing beats printed samples)
StyleFile Blackbook Sessions (any of them, graf)
10×10 2 (architecture, #3 looks hot)

and some publishers to watch:
IdN
Design Studio Press
Rotovision
Phaidon

Since I’m rambling about it this is probably a good time to throw a nod to some of my favorite artists at zbc (well worth checking out if you like this stuff):
Simon Blanc, Renaud Galand, Cedric Seaut, David Giraud, Greg Callahan, Ralf Stumpf, and T.S.Whittelsbach

Click to enlarge:

Natural Media Tool Palette for Photoshop CS4

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the last week rebuilding some of the tools from the first NKS panel and refining the overall tool selection to be more efficient and more dynamic. I wont be having much time available to retrofit this kit anytime soon, so wanted to make sure this version was well thought out and worthy of the effort.

The tools are somewhat personalized around my workflow in the sense that I use pencils, markers, ball pens and ink quite frequently. However the selection remains wide enough that I feel many concept artists, graphic designers and product designers could utilize them effectively- in any capacity from ideation to rendering. I’ve attempted to keep the tools true to their name and real life functionality, so lead should look and act like lead, and so on. If you experience any shortcomings in their effect it’s due either to a fault of my observation or the extent to which brushes can currently be modulated in Photoshop, which is probably somewhat true of all of the tools to some degree.

I’ve made a short screencast showing the install procedure and a quick overview of the tools in action to give you a sense of their effect without committing to a download.

View NKS2 Screencast

Please note that about 50 seconds into the video (where I first start using the tools) that they’re only putting down dots. This is due to a setting at the bottom of the Tool Preset window [Current Tools Only] being checked – this needs to be unchecked for the palette to function properly. Aside from just putting down dots, you could get an error message like ‘Cannot execute the ‘Select’ command’, or other nonsense. So make sure you ‘uncheck’ that if you haven’t already.

One of the cool features of this kit, aside from centralization, is the fact that you can reset the initial state of any of these tools to better suit your personal taste. Say for instance that you like a darker lead, or would like the grease pencil to start out with a circular tip and a lighter tone. All you need to do is create a new tool preset (with your settings) and rename it identically to the existing tool preset (i.e. ‘Grease’, etc) which can all be done in Photoshops ‘Tool Preset’ palette.

Another nice feature about having tool presets triggered by actions is that you can assign hotkeys to them in the Actions Palette. For example if you primarily use markers and pencils you could set the Dull Lead to F1, Sharp Lead to Shift-F1, Lt Marker to F2.. and so on, you get the idea. I hope eventually that Photoshop will support hotkey addressing of custom actions with regular keys (non-function). I think Autodesk Maya is terrific example for Adobe to emulate in this regard.

This custom tool panel, like the first version, is only compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS4 and newer. It was created with the Adobe Configurator utility, and should be used with the most current version of Adobe Extension Manager (2.1 or newer). So make sure you get that installed before giving it a go. You can grab the newest version here.

Enjoy!

p.s. if anyone feels they’re able to improve the natural effect or feel of any one of these tools – please send me the updated preset and I’ll evaluate it for inclusion in the next version. I’m more than happy to give credit (and a high-five) to anyone who does so – however I cannot offer any monetary compensation as this is a freeware effort.

>Download NKS2

(right-click and save)

NKS2 by NKURENCE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Music is a huge source of inspiration to me as an artist. So I thought it’d be fun to throw together a short list of some of my more recent and cherished mixes from around the web (which in some cases are actually live sets or albums, for those of you with literalitis). I’ve spent the last week baking the list and I’m pretty happy with the selection. I hope that some of you out there take a moment to become acquainted with something new (if you’re not already familiar with these). If you dig any of them, be sure to further check out and support the artists. Nothing says thank you (or, ‘please make more’) like a little monetary support on top of which, it will make the music more meaningful to you. No investment means no real ownership (or real personal value)- it’s not a legal principle, it’s a human one. Enjoy!

Ochre (Discogs)

Live @ Prototype / 2007 / 72m / Stream

IDM

Deceptively complex, elegant, alive, ethereal, and while it feels immediately personal it’s mysterious and new. There’s something very special about Ochre. Of all the music I’ve heard, Christopher Leary’s is some of the most beautiful and fascinating. His last ep ‘Death of an Aura’ was one of my favorite releases of 2008, and I’m hugely anticipating his new LP ‘Like Dust of the Balance‘ tbr July/09.
Recommended Album: Death of an Aura, Lemodie
Download (external site)

DJ Merck (Discogs)

Xmas Mix 2006 / 38m / 60mb

HipHop

If you have any appreciation for old school hiphop, you owe it to yourself to check this out. Mercks hiphop mixes are my all time favorite hiphop mixes ever, hands down – this one in particular is THE BEST. Make sure to check out the other mixes and downloads at his site, good times.
Recommended Albums: Anything released on Merck or Narita Records is quite good- if you’re not familiar with the material, dig in!
Download (external site)

Kettel (Discogs)

Live @ Eclectro / 081115 / 1h46m / 71mb

IDM

I’ve never seen Kettel live, but if I did I could only hope the set was this good. Jazzy, melodic, fresh, a little bit of cool kid attitude – what more could you ask for. I’ve been following him since my friend Ben bummed me his album ‘Smiling Little Cow’. Awesome stuff here.
Recommended Album: Whisper Me Wishes
Download (right-click + save-as)

Anders Ilar (Discogs)

Live@electronique.it / 1h08m / 94mb

Downtempo Electronic

A journey into time and space. Like just about everything Anders, this mix is beautiful. Just download it.
Recommended Albums: Nightwidth, Sworn
Download (right-click + save-as)

Amon Tobin (Discogs)

Foley Room Recorded Live in Brussels / 1h17m / 166mb

Electronic / HipHip

Clever and insanely listenable. The funny thing is, this mix is my favorite thing he’s ever done.  Please don’t interpret that as his albums are in some way lacking – to the contrary. I can’t say how many times I’ve listened to this.. it doesn’t really matter – I’ll probably never get tired of it.
Recommended Album: Supermodified, Foley Room
Download (click the white box that says ‘MP3′)

Disasterpeace (Discogs)

NEUTRALITE / 20m / 30mb

Chiptune

If you grew up in the Nintendo generation and liked the in-game music, you will probably love this. The format is limited, but the result is incredibly dynamic and listenable. To succeed here requires extremely distilled and effective lines – which Rich completely nails. While you’re grabbing this, be sure to check out ‘Norrin Radd – Melodia di InfinitÑ (also a free dl), epic.
Recommended Album: Atebite and the Warring Nations
Download (external site)

Rob Hall (Discogs)

12 Month Mix Series / 15h (yes, hours) / 1.16gb (yes, gigabytes)

IDM / Electronic / HipHop

Over 15 hours of IDM, electronica and hiphop-bent, twisted and pumped into your ears. Listening to this is like trying to shove a brick through a piece of macaroni, but instead of getting smooshed, the macaroni turns into a semi-truck tire.
Recommended Album: Key Nell
Download: Month 1 / Month 2 / Month 3 / Month 4 / Month 5 / Month 6 / Month 7 / Month 8 / Month 9 / Month 10 / Month 11 / Month 12 (right-click + save-as)

Dieselboy (Discogs)

Live on 3 Tables / 041224 / 58m / 53mb

Drum n’ Bass

Ahh.. DSL. One day, a long time ago, browsing the selection at Tower Records I came across the 6ixth Session, fell in love with the album art, then went home and fell in love with the music. Since then, I’ve had a really hard time listening to drum n’ bass by anyone else. His albums resemble audio espresso shots. Paired with real espresso you’ll either become the most productive person on the planet or suffer a cardiac event. I listen to his albums far more than this set, but as much as I do I have to include some form of his fury here.
Recommended Album: The Dungeonmaster’s Guide, Human Resource
Download (right-click + save-as)

Lattice

Night Driving / 080905 / 59m / 135mb

Downtempo Electronic / IDM / HipHop

If I didn’t listen to this quite frequently (which I do) it wouldn’t be here. A mix I made for late night drives to chill out and think. Works equally well as background music for writing posts.
Download (right-click + save-as)

Ever since I saw the 7 Laserdeck Skate Show I’ve wanted to produce my own decks. Today, the first shipment arrived.. and I’m stoked. Each of these was laser engraved front and back with my artwork. I had 3 made for the initial run. The first is a logo design for Ochre, next one is for Terminal (the final release on Narita Records), the third is titled 2808-a design cooked up just for burning. I’ve got a number of other designs in queue for production, which can be seen in the engraving section of the gallery. Here’s some detail pics of the finals:

PLEASE NOTE! VERSION 2 IS NOW AVAILABLE HERE

I know it’s customary to write an introductory post on your blog. At the same time, there’s nothing I’d like to do more than get to some meat. That being said, please excuse my brevity.

Hello world. My name is nkurence, I’m a blog.
*fanfare*

Thank you.

Now I’m going to get down to practical blog business, ranting. I love Photoshop. I haven’t been using it since version one like some people I know, but it’s been my friend for quite a few years (yes, we hang out). My introduction was at version 2. A time which I now fondly think back to as the ‘filter years’. I was 11, and I think that’s about how many floppy disks were required for the install.

Another app I love is Painter. There’s debate between the two, but that seems somewhat unproductive- as personal preference is, well, personal – and you’re better off trying them both to decide what you like more than listening to me. More relevant, Painters biggest strength has always been it’s natural media tools.  Something about scribbling on a Wacom and having it look like pencil or ball point just gets the pendulum swinging, and taping some paper over the tablet clinches the ‘real feel’ deal. Now I’m all for supporting good tools. As a professional you just can’t skimp on them. But, if all I’m firing up Painter for is sketching (which is <5% of my workflow), is it really worth paying another license, mastery of another environment, and further fracturing of my workflow? For less than 5%.. maybe when my kids get out of school.

So for a few years now I’ve dropped the ball on Painter. Enter Photoshop CS4. I’m almost a fan boy. I know it’s a tool, but this was a killer upgrade. The canvas rotation and interactive brush resizing are cheddar (thank you) features I’ve longed to have from the Painter camp. It’s just that brush system (while I know and love it) is feeling somewhat dated and, still lacks some of the cool modulations you can achieve in Painter. Now, with enough patience and use of your observation muscles, many of these tools can be rebuilt in Photoshop. In my experience, to yield the same ease of use, they typically require more than a Brush preset though. Thankfully we have more than Brush presets, we have TOOL presets. If you’re not familiar with Tool presets, you have to dig into them – they’re extremely powerful and if you do anything repetitively with tools – they can speed your workflow big time. Tool presets store the tool and it’s associated settings.. such as nozzle shape, size, color, blending mode, opacity etc.. and are not limited to brushes – they work with any tool in the app. The only problem with tool presets is they get buried in a text list (which gets quite long). In Painter, you’ve got tricked little icons and can build your own palettes.

Now, with CS4 we get Adobe Configurator. Configurator is a Flex environment for building custom Panels (palettes) for Photoshop, it’s available at Adobe Labs. So I got to thinking.. ‘I’ve already been trying to recreate a number of basic analog tools I use, lead holder, ball point pen, gray copic.. wouldn’t it be great if I could assemble all of those into a custom panel and get some of that Painter feel back in the box’… hence the origins of NK Standard, and I’m sure, many other little beasts out there.

The process of building the panel was a little roundabout. In Configurator you don’t have the ability to call Tool presets directly- in fact it seems it’s primarily geared for building panels from the canned tools (so why not use hotkeys?). But, thankfully, you can call Actions. So for each custom tool preset there’s an action that selects it. The creation required no coding. Short of refreshing on C and jumping into the API this was the easiest (and only) way I know of implementing it. Although, I WILL eventually get into the API.

For designers, workflows are like attitudes. Everyone has their own- and their generally foundational. I don’t expect this kit to be filling in many voids out there, but some might find it useful and fun. Most importantly- it’s value is as an eye-opener at the kind of customization that can be had with a minimal development effort these days. Many of these tools were made on the fly or in short sessions, the panel itself was created in under two hours and that includes having to figure out the action workaround for selecting tools.

As it’s titled, these are the tools I use most frequently in PS. Since the creation of this panel, I’ve started using these presets for most things – either as-is or with slight modification, on everything from sketching to rendering. I’m not going to spend much time explaining these as most are somewhat self-explanatory – and what’s not expressed in the name can be quickly grasped through use.

So please, download it, tool through it, pick it apart, and use it if you suits you. Installation instructions are included in the archive. Also, please note: If  you want to modify any of the tool settings, just overwrite the particular preset (for example, if you want the brush size to be different, color, shape tip etc. by default).

If you get inspired and build out your own panels, I’d love to see them!

NK_STANDARD.zip (6.3mb)

Compatible with both Mac + Win, Photoshop CS4 or later.