I don't understand, people who can actually draw with Etch-a-Sketch? Are they cheating? Is it photoshop? Etch-A-Sketch is impossible to use - or at least, it was when I was six.
This guy is very, very good.
(Found over at bits bytes pixels & sprites)
Not to mention it's on a Travel Etch-a-Sketch, which I can't imagine wouldn't make it that much harder.
Posted by: Trolley Dodger | September 18, 2007 at 07:34
I had a roommate in college who could work an Etch-A-Sketch like it was pencil on paper. It was kind of freaky to watch her going at it. I think your brain needs to be wired a certain way to twiddle the knobs properly.
More etchy-sketchy on flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/etchasketch/
Posted by: joshlee | September 18, 2007 at 16:32
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/06/james_lebron_etchasketch.html
^Computers rock at this kind of thing. One could import a piece of promotional art into Photoshop or a CAD program, and sketch a set of vectors over it for a CNC machine to draw out via the etch-a-sketch.
Posted by: Michael Vroegop | September 18, 2007 at 18:52
That link also contains a time lapse video of a guy doing that kind of quality work for real, not using a CNC machine.
That's one strange talent though.
Posted by: Tom | September 18, 2007 at 19:45
Wow, that's impressive. I used to take apart Etch-A-Sketches as a kid to see if I could get them to work better. Never succeeded. I bow to that guy's mad skillz.
Posted by: inkgrrl | September 18, 2007 at 20:07
To answer your questions: No I don't cheat, no it's not photoshop. I used to photoshop a little just to get the contrast better for the digital pics, but now I got my lighting and camera settings just right so I go straight from the camera to flickr. It's really not that hard if you just put in a little time and get ambitious. Don't worry about "messing up", just learn to work your mistakes into the piece. If anybody wants tips or tricks, they can email me at etchasketchist (at) gmail (dot) com. I also do free portraits if you want to sumbit something.
Posted by: Etchasketchist | September 18, 2007 at 22:17
Wow, this is a happy day indeed! Wonderland picked up a story from my blog!
Thanks Alice, I've been a fan for quite some time.
Posted by: Dan Zuccarelli | September 19, 2007 at 06:07
Lawl, you're welcome! :D
Posted by: Alice | September 19, 2007 at 09:26
For me, the really fabulous thing about this picture is the faint-looking background stuff on the left hand side. Looks to me like he's drawn that bit first, half-shaken it to make it fade, then drawn the foreground picture. Amazing.
Posted by: beenabadbunny | September 19, 2007 at 13:02
Doing that kind of work is really hard using the small EAS. Trust me, I know. And yes, the work you see is real. If you'd like to see more I have about a dozen pieces completed. you can see them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/etcha/ (at least until my 'real' site is done. Which will be etcha.net)
Suggestion? Comments?
Posted by: Etcha' | September 20, 2007 at 17:36