Blog

  • Deciding between Logic and Ableton

    I have been making weird little tunes on various things since the early iphones using beatmaker and garageband and before that acidpro. In the last couple of years I have been doing it a bit more and splashing out on some DAW namely, Ableton. I am super amateur,amatuer… I was initially attracted by the groovy style and design of all ableton output, a fancy and irresistable midi controller (launchkey mini mk 3) and the fact that people like Etherwood and Jon Hopkins use it. However I have been thinking recently having watched a documentary on Billie Eilish and a youtube interview with Maynard from Tool I have been thinking Logic might been the way. I have always found Garageband super intuitive to use and I just want to turn _something_ out you know? Also those fat sounds that people get on Logic? Damn!

    Ableton Pros:

    • Cool!
    • Ableton Move and note
    • Easy to add effects by piling them on
    • The loop workflow is super quick and fun
    • Freedom of OS (linux notwithstanding)

    Ableton Cons:

    • The loops is easy to start but how to finish
    • Chopping up samples is so unintuitive to me
    • the timeline type workflow is a pain for me
    • I HATE the new AI style tag menu thing, nested lists are best if you ask me

    Logic Pro Pros (ahahaha)

    • affordable £200 for the whole thing
    • Great built in samples, loops and instuments
    • used by bands I love
    • Cool sounds
    • Very intuitive
    • Like garageband

    Logic cons

    • Locked in to apple eco system
    • I have buy another DAW (sunk cost fallancy much?)
    • not as cool
    • doesn’t make the lights be pretty on the launchkey 🙁
    • no move, note or push

    In a super scientific move I thought I would try and make a tune as quick as possible in both programmes. I am not sure it helped much but here they are

    Logic


    Ableton

    (I had trouble getting a longer export when rushed)

  • Nomi neo trad tattoo style portrait

    Nomi neo trad tattoo style portrait

    this one started out as a watercolour piece. I finished in procreate because the composition was a bit out. Reference from the wonderful draw Brighton as ever. Model is the talented Nomi

  • Naomi portrait

    Naomi portrait

    This one I had in mind a particular thing, but it took a different path.

    I was trying to emulate Christian Ward but I simply didn’t achieve that but I did get a nice portrait in the end I think. I was trying also to be loose with the paint.

    I do like the state of mind I get into when painting…

    The triangles came out well I thought.

    Well proud of this one though, the largest and best non digital portrait I have done so far.

    Model is Naomi Rufina from the excellent Draw Brighton archive.

  • The Villain

    A ficional fiction! This is a concept comic book cover I made in Procreate and Affinity Designer

  • Fell on black days single cover

    I went through a period of obsessively listening to this song. You know when a song just lands with you and just stays with you and you need to listen to it everyday? No? Just me?

    Anyway, at the time I thought it would be cool if this was released as a single and what would the cover look like? (I don’t know at the time that the song actually had been released as the final single off of superunknown)

    The concept of this cover popped into my head quite quickly, referencing some of the lyrics in the song.

    I am pretty happy with it I have to say. Maybe it will be used on a re-release???

    Drawn in procreate and the finished in affinity designer on the iPad.

  • neo trad style snake

    finally got round to finishing this snake off for year of the snake. Made it flipping massive so my iPad (well procreate) got a bit crashy working on the final stages. I’ll add the process vid here on my site later.

  • lucky cat skateboard

    lucky cat skateboard

    this one was inspired by ten hundred on YouTube. Showing my japanophile tendencies. This board was sitting around spray painted cyan and blue for ages before I finally decided a design. I roughed it really rough in procreate and then free handed it on to the board in pencil. I then painted it all in with acrylics. Finally I finished it off with some polyurethane spray sealant.

  • Figure sketch : Adam

    more procreate figure drawing practice using Adam as a reference from the wonderful Draw Brighton archives.

  • Life sketch

    drawn on procreate. Gracie https://www.instagram.com/bassiegracie/ is the model. One from her insta and one from https://www.draw-brighton.co.uk archives.

    6b pencil from Gabrielle’s portrait set.

  • portrait sketch

    procreate sketch practice. This is model Gracie from her insta https://www.instagram.com/p/DA_lkb4o4RO/?img_index=4