Comiqs

If you have ever seen a comic strip and wished you could create your own, there is now a way. Excuse the spelling; it's called Comiqs. It is an online service where you upload images, or choose from their free image libraries, make text bubbles for the speech of characters, and put them together in slides. The result? Free online comics that you created by yourself. Sponsored by advertising, the site is becoming rather popular on the Internet. Some websites also use it to make a "Comic Strip of the Day" and post a link to their comic on their site. What will this mean for the future of Internet publishing? For many, it will be the freedom to express their ideas with the simple comic strip. But what else will it mean? Comiqs-devoted publishing sites may spring up and allow users to post their finished comics there. Also, graphic e-books may be published by the scores---and made with Comiqs technology. On sites like Digg and Reddit, users might post links to their creations--perhaps so many links that those sites will have seperate categories for online comics. Does anyone know what this will bring? No. However, what we know it will do is increase artistic equality. For the first time, anyone can make their own cartoon. It is now that people will hear other's artistic voices, in the form of comics.

Blender 3d

Have you ever wanted to create realistic 3d drawings, but you aren't exactly a superb drawer?  Even if your drawing skills are wonderful, you may still be interested in the Blender 3d software.  This software package is free and allows users to create 3d drawings, animations, and even games and other interactive software.  It is open source software and licensed under the GPL, and its website can be found here.  An example drawing is shown in this post.  I had seen some of the screenshots of creations, but I had thought that those could only be made by experienced users and most people, on their first few tries, wouldn't be able to produce work of such high quality.  I was proven wrong.  Although I was following a tutorial to produce the drawing, the quality was breathtaking.  The shading, colors, and shaping of the form were so distinct and beautiful it almost looked like a professional drawing.  Of course, the program is very complex, but after completing the tutorials and experimenting a bit, one will eventually become adept at using it to create architectural forms, models, scenes, and objects.  After all, who would understand the command MOD:Sphere:shade-mesh without previous knowledge of this program?  The fact that it is free is wonderful; professional programs such as Auto 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya cost from $2,000 to $7,500 for a license, and one would need to hire a professional computer artist to use it.  Before, only studios, wealthy people, and large companies could make 3d drawings of such superb quality, but now, the open source community allows any interested layman to produce these drawings.  There are also other pieces of software such as the Crystal Space game engine, which, combined with Blender, would allow users to produce games and other interactive programs of near-professional quality.  The open source spirit asks us why such abilities should only be available to the elite specialists, and really does something about it.