Exciting New Development...

Things continue to move forward on several fronts but the most exciting development is that I just signed a contract to give a TEDx Talk at the TEDxFoggyBottom Conference on April 23rd. Still working on what exactly I will be talking about, but am leaning towards Artificial Creativity. I have been asked not to share this information on social media as the conference organizers would like to control the publicity, but they were ok with me sharing it with the backers of the Kickstarter that made all of this possible.  

Thanks again everyone.

On a more practical front, all the Christmas portraits look like they will be finished in time and sent out by this weekend. I will be talking a couple week break after that, then writing up another schedule for the next batch of portraits.

Happy Holidays,

Photo Submission Guidelines and Quick Update

So about half of you backers have responded to the questionnaire and sent in photos. Some followed the guidelines I gave in earlier post, but most of you just ignored them. So then I realized that you all don't want me telling you what to submit.

Send in whatever you want. I was convinced that some of the submission below wouldn't work, but then they came out great! So what do I know. If you do send in a non-standard image, just have patients with my robots early attempts.   If my existing algorithms have  a hard time with the image, we will just try painting a second one. It will be up to you.

Schedule wise, I have already begun painting some portraits that are needed for Christmas presents. Will have a schedule of when you can expect your paintings as soon as some more questionnaires come back.  If you have not filled out the questionnaire I sent out, please do.  If you need portrait as a Christmas present, please tell me as soon as possible.  The slots are just about full but if its really important to you, its really important to me and I will see what I can do.

Inside Scoop on Press Coverage

The following is a behind the scenes picture of a CBS piece that will be airing in early December.  Sorry for quality, at least it was not vertical.  It is first time I have gotten national coverage, so I am really excited about it. The reporter is Weijia Jiang.  Mo is holding camera and the the back of the head you see is producer Jane Chick. Off screen is Jess. All awesome people.

Besides this piece, the other 2 video segments will be on Great Day Washington and Daily Planet of the Discovery Channel.  Still no dates as to when any will air, but I will post here as soon as I know.

Thanks Again Everyone. The Kickstarter Just Ended in Success

The Kickstarter just ended in success.  I will be sending out questionnaires shortly to get your addresses and a little feedback on how you want paintings made.  I will then begin painting portraits and finishing up the robot.

Pindar

Crowdsourced Einstein

This crowdsourced portrait of Einstein turned out to be a lot more popular than I was expecting.  Got written up here which resulted in all sorts of attention.  Though I am of course a big fan, I didn't realize that Einstein was such a popular media figure.

Thanks to Everyone the Kickstarter is Fully Funded and I can Enjoy this Final Week

I am so relieved that heading into this last week that everything is completely funded. People can still make more pledges, but they are no longer needed for success.  

Now I am just enjoying reading people reaction to this project in the various write ups online. Also, I just finished two interviews, one for the local CBS affiliate WUSA9, and a second for CBS's national affiliates.

CBS Interview

To recap on status of all the television interviews, Daily Planet of Discovery Channel told me their piece would air soon.  WUSA9 tells me that they may be able to air their interview with me as early as Wednesday, the last day of the Kickstarter.  And the film crew for CBS's national affiliates thinks they will air in next couple of weeks.  It is so cool to be able to relax and just look forward to these events and how my art comes across on screen.

Thanks again for all your interest and help with this.  It has really brought my work into focus.  I will give updates here on the air dates as soon as they are announced.

bitPaintr is 100% Funded! Thank You!

Hi everyone. 

The project is fully funded and will go on!

I am really humbled by this whole Kickstarter experience. I wasn't actually expecting so much support for this idea and I really appreciate all the attention it is getting.  The publicity has been great and I have had a chance to meet a bunch of new people as well as reconnect with old friends and patrons.  It's been so much fun.

As a thank you for funding this so early, I have decided that once the new robot is 100% complete, the first thing it will paint is a limited edition postcard for each and every backer that has gotten it this far. Not sure what it will paint yet but each will be signed and numbered. When you get this postcard, you will know the robot is complete and that you played an important part in making it happen.

Thanks again. And wow,  this has been so cool.

Publicity Update and International Press

So we are at 80%. Almost there. 

This is quick update on interviews and international publicity.  Daily Planet of Discovery Channel should be telling me sometime soon about the air date.  Will keep you all in loop. Also have another interview this coming Thursday for a local lifestyle program that runs from 9-10 on WUSA 9.  I am told that this segment and interview is scheduled to air on the final day of the Kickstarter.  So that rocks. - 

Oh yeah I promised international press.  Well here is a Latin American, Indonesian, and Russian write up.  Google will translate them for you.

http://www.lacelosia.com/el-robot-ya-puede-pintar-retratos/

http://news.babe.co.id/4464637

http://www.lookatme.ru/mag/live/experience-news/217969-robopainter

Lets keep on pushing to 90% of funding.  

Wow!!! More Pledges have come in in last 24 hours than first 2 Weeks!

Thanks everyone and keep doing what you are doing.  Like I said, more pledges have come in last 24 hours than first 2 weeks of Kickstarter.  Lots of other cool stuff going on that I will give full report on tonight.  Just super excited cause it is beginning to look like this will get funded.

Until next update here is a really cool photo taken for one of my recent interviews:

Photo Courtesy of Craig Hudson of the GW Hatchet

Thanks,

Pindar

Discovery Channel Just Interviewed Me

So the big interview I wasn't going to announce until it actually happened just happened yesterday.

The Daily Planet of Discovery Channel spent the day with me at my Tysons Studio.

Discovery Channel Interview

At the same time a second camera crew was in Toronto filming one of my first patrons using the robot to paint a portrait.  It was an international painting event as we worked back and forth on what I am told will be a five minute segment.  I can not wait to see it and will tell everyone when the air date will be.

So thanks again for everyone's support.  We are almost at 40% of funding with two weeks to go.  If you know anyone that might want to join in this journey, feel free to tell them about this Kickstarter and what a great Christmas Present these paintings would be. I can do the next 30 or so in time before Christmas!

Think word of mouth. I am relying on it.

We Just Hit the Significant Milestone of 30% Funding!

By some accounts, 30% of funding is a magic number that once reached means a 90% success rate for the Kickstarter effort.  Upon reading about this magical milestone, I was intrigued and started looking at funding percentages of other recently completed Kickstarters. And after this scrutiny I have concluded that someone probably made that stat up.  A large proportion of projects die between 30% and 99%.

But that doesn't matter.  It is still a really respectable number going into the final two weeks of the campaign.  Furthermore, at this point the press, publicity, and support from all of you has been great.  So thanks.

Oh. One more bit of news.  I have an interesting day tomorrow with the biggest interview to date.  A film crew with The Daily Planet of the Discovery Channel Canada will be visiting me in my studio.  I will try to get pictures of the event to share with you all.

Talk to you later,

Just Got First Couple of Press Shout Outs

Exciting Day.  

Just got a couple new backers and some mentions in the press.  Welcome all.

One of the press write ups was by PJ Pangburn for Vice's Creator Project and its one of my favorite write ups ever.  Pangburn makes me sound so cool.  I didn't even realize my project was as cool as the article made it sound. A link is right here

This Robot Wants to Paint Your Portrait

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/this-robot-wants-to-paint-your-portrait

Also landed 3 interviews in next week.  All this as I am only starting the press part of my campaign.

So thanks to everyone that has supported me to date.  And remember that if you email or send me the photo that you want made into a portrait, I can start them now. Even better I can have them ready to show as samples during my upcoming interviews.  I don't want to jinx any of them, but one is by a cool big international media company that you are probably a fan of.  I actually had a hard time believing they were interested but I think they are, well at least interested enough to come ask me more about it.  As soon as I have more details on each of the upcoming 3 interviews, I will let you know.  In the meantime, get your portraits in so I can be seen working on them during the interviews.

Thanks again for everything and continue spreading the word, I am depending on it.

Pindar

Just Finished First Press Release

Thanks to all the early backers.  I just finished the press release and will start sending it out today.  As soon as I get the first response I will update everyone here.  This is proving to be an interesting experience.

Never promoted myself before and am having fun with it.

Cyber Raid on Crowdsourced Portrait?

These are possibly the most interesting painting to date. The video of their creation contains a detailed description of our experience with several recent crowdsourced paintings, vandalism of them, a hack of our robot communications, and an attempt to log into and steal control of our servers.  This attack was actually featured in a TechTimes article that you can find in the press section.

My favorite painting to come out of all these raids asked the profound question...

Is it Art?

Also, here is a graphics dump of one of the painting's stroke queue. Amazing Stuff.

Crowdsourced Musicians

This triptych was painted by hundreds of people over 6 weeks. The time lapse video shows the final two weeks when the third canvas was being worked on. It is of three Washington D.C. Street Performers that calmed my crying daughter with a soothing rendition of Killing Me Softly.