Friends and Homies! I know its been a while, its been busy, busy around the shop and home. I've been teaching online art classes, prepping and finishing an entry for a picture book class, de facto 5th grade teacher, participating in Drawlloween and general chauffeur / tiny human wrangler. I wanted to some updates on my Drawlloween progress but I also didn't want to give too much away of the final project. I also haven't done a live stream or youtube video in a while cause I wasn't super stoked on the quality of the last ones I did. SOO...
Two birds, one stone. I think I can do a much better job with videos and teaching now. I won't have to rely on slideshows and clip videos of work I can do real life, real time demonstrations.
The overhead camera rig is all PVC, reinforced to combat table shake, lighting from Lowes with daylight bulbs and webcam from the eternity of zoom meetings and classes. So far, I'm super stoked. I haven't hit my head on the rig and hopefully the last adaptor I need for my Yeti mic comes tomorrow and the setup will be complete. The webcam and the video camera are set up slightly different. I won't need the drop down rig (the part protruding from the top in the picture) since i can zoom in on the work I'm doing.
Assuming you already have a webcam / video camera this is a really cheap project. I had most of the PVC fittings, the tubes were only a couple dollars, the floor flanges (part that screws into the table) were the most expensive at $16 for all four. The only think I had to order were the camera clamps. I picked two of the up for $8 on Amazon and they are really solid.
I'm ready to roll, I think the only thing I really need to do it sew my green screen and hang it. The green screen is SUPER simple, it just takes a trip to the fabric store. Its not a specific fabric, rather a color and even then you can find a "close enough" shade that works perfectly. Just make sure its opaque, otherwise it will be harder to filter out in the video software.
That's all the updates I have for now, keep an eye out for some incoming streams, the Drawlloween finale, and hopefully some more good news :)
Hugs and High-Fives (still socially distanced of course)
-Mr. Tom