Off on Vacation, Etc.

The Lovely Anna and I are off today on our annual week away from kids, work and the Minnesota winter. We have a timeshare on Maui, and spend one very relaxing week sleeping in, reading books, sitting by the pool or the sea and eating at some excellent restaurants. This is our time to charge our parental and professional batteries, and take a little selfish me time in order that we do not go crazy and beat our kids, the neighbors or a few art directors I know.

Fear not, gentle reader… through the magic of pre-posting and wifi The MAD Blog will continue it’s daily updates. Today rather than a full “Surf’s Up Dept.” I just have a few quick links to some MAD and cartoon related stuff…

Will Draw for Diploma Dept.

This is my final, final reminder that the deadline for applying for the Jay Kennedy Cartooning Scholarship via the National Cartoonist Society Foundation is in 12 short days.

Artist in the Machine Dept.-

We caricaturists are in trouble now!

The computer is about to usurp our jobs. Now there is a piece of software that will draw caricatures straight from photographs… no artist needed!

Caricature Software bills itself as the “Software that draws for you”, and claims to produce work “often indistinguishable from an artist’s work”. Their website hypes their software product thusly:

Have you ever thought of what would you draw if you were an artist? Your house, your dog, the mountains on the horizon? A caricature of your friend? With our software you can draw anything you see. You need to try to believe.

They have several programs including “PhotoS”, which produces a line drawing from a photograph and “Photo to Cartoon” which creates a “cartoon” from any photo with a click of a button. Their site goes on to say:

Just load a photo and the program will do the rest. Use the result cartoons to sign emails and letters, make greeting cards and party announcements, or create a unique art gift for your friend. A caricature makes an original and amusing present that even that person who has everything would be happy to get.

I know what you are thinking… Tom, just pack up your drawing stuff and go get that greeting job at Wal-Mart while it’s still available. Maybe that’s not a bad idea, but here is what we are up against…

The photo to be cartooned:

And the resulting caricature:

Uhhhhh…. ooooookay. Here are some example people drawings from their “PhotoS” gallery as well:

To be fair, PhotoS did a passable job with more mechanical objects, and despite their ‘suggestions” I do not think these folks really believe their software creates anything but filtered photo tracings.

Besides… I’ve seen a few live caricaturists in my time who’s work isn’t much better than that, so maybe they are on to something.