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Doing Digital Art When You Can't Use Your Hand?
Sludge writes "A good friend of mine who is a digital artist was recently involved in a house fire in which he suffered third degree burns to his 'art hand' which have made him unable to handle a mouse or a stylus for the coming months. If you or anyone near you has lost the ability to do something you love due to a physical injury, you know how painful and frustrating it can be. I need help discovering alternative software and input devices he can use while he recovers the ability to use his hand. The programs he uses most are 3dsmax, Z-Brush and Photoshop and he is used to working with a Wacom stylus. What expressive art tools are available that deemphasize precision work with your coordinated hand?"
Is his other hand functional? It would be cheaper to work on being ambidextrous, and that may pay off in the future sometime as well. But if he's not worried about price, then finding a techy solution is definitely the way to go.
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His other hand?
Once he gets that trained and is used to using it, won't it probably be better than trying to use his normal hand with lack of precision? That's what I did anyway when I injured my right hand; I just switched to my left.
Plug in two mice, castrate a ball mouse to use for clicking with one hand while moving the second mouse with whatever part of his "art arm" still works.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
penis. what? your's isn't prehensile?
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I had a similar issue. I never thought I could switch hands, but I was desperate. It was awkward for a long time, but it worked. The bonus is that a couple of years later, when my "art hand" had fully recovered, I found that I had two art hands, which has been wonderful
My art teacher in high school had only partially formed limbs, ie. nothing past the elbow or knees. He used prosthetic legs, but did a variety of things to produce art. When drawing or painting, he would slide the pencil or brush underneath his watch wristband. He also did ink drawings by dropping ink on a page with a straw and then blowing the ink around by forcing air through the straw. When painting things like clouds, he would dip the end of his arm into the paint and just put arm to paper. It was quite impressive to see firsthand.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
He can't use his hand, you insensitive clod!
Man, I love F/OSS and I'm grateful for it, but I have to admit that the common opinion that it can't market itself properly really does ring true sometimes. The name "GIMP" is the epitome of this. Here's how I always imagined the meeting went:
Project Coder: Good news, we're ready to ship the new F/OSS replacement for Photoshop.
Project Leader: Great! Did you decide on a name?
Project Coder: We're calling it "CRIP", the Computing Resource for Images and Pictures.
Project Leader: Hmm... that's pretty good; I like how it's offensive to the disabled... but do you think you could add some overtones of gay S&M?
First impressions count, people.
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
I worked with a fairly well known illustrator (concept painter) on a movie a few years ago that had an 18" tablet. I didn't even know they went past 12! I asked him why he got one so large and explained to me that his friends injured their wrists by working on fine detail, so he got the extra large tablet so he could use his whole arm to draw. He said it took some getting used to but that his wrists have held up just fine.
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