Jan 11 2011
I’ve noticed a lot of artists announcing they’ll “be streaming” as they work on a piece of art or something similar. How does this work? Do people dig it? Should I get into it? Would anyone actually be interested in watching Gneeches at work, and if so, why?
Inform me, Oh Internet Brain!
-The Gneech
Ustream is designed around letting users have their own “channels” which other users can subscribe to. You download at least one of their clients, set up your account and channels, and “broadcast” whatever video you wish. Lots of webcartoonists are streaming their drawing sessions as a way to interact with fans, many of whom are webcartoonists themselves and who are looking to learn new techniques.
I’ve been experimenting with it, but not publicly. I’ve been doing a few trials but keep running into technical difficulties, most likely because my image editor of choice (an ancient copy of Paint Shop Pro) doesn’t seem to like sharing its output. (Ustream Producer, which has a free version, lets you mix inputs from your microphone, webcam, and desktop in a pretty slick fashion.) If I ever get a successful test, I might try streaming a session or three to see if any fans are interested. My problem is that working on GPF is always done during stolen moments that are not very predictable, so it’s hard to publicize ahead of time that I’ll be streaming at any given time unless I know I have a day off coming up. Fortunately, you can record shows and store them in your channel’s lineup so people can watch them later if they can’t catch them live.
Tiffany Ross of Alien Dice seems to do a lot of Ustreaming. You might want to ping her for her experience.
Cool, thanks for the info!
-TG
Gneech: I left you some info about Lar DeSouza and his ustream on the other page.