#about time i moved on from firealpaca

[sorry-soriel]

It's been a while since I've made something of this size, so please ignore anything ugly (mint wafer's face)

[factual-fantasy]

28 asks! Thank you very much!! :}} ✉️

(Referencing this post)

I was thinking that the world of welcome home and the human world both exist, but they aren't connected by a TV show. :0 The puppet world is very real to them and they are real living people. The thing is is that there's no TV show of welcome home, that's just their lives-

Eddie is from our world/the human world. Which is where his hallucinations of having 5 fingers and human skin comes from-

@candyglumboy (Referencing this post)

Midori is my Meowscarada! :0 He's friends with Grim and Sylvester :))

(Referencing this post)

XDD Just a playful NOM

@fawncr33k

Yes yes! I screenshot them :00 I then paste them into FireAlpaca and add the watermark :) 👍👍

@bellanova137 (Referencing this post)

Oh!- In my AU Eddie was one of the most recent neighbors :00 this was his first time at the yearly Christmas party because it was the first one he was around for! <XDD

Thinking he moved in sometime right after Christmas last year. Which gave him and Frank a good year to get to know each other and be on first name basis :0 Which is why Frank doesn't call him Mr. Dear in my comic! :)

(Of course present day is a few years after this comic--)

Oof, yeahhh that was a comic script that I went to edit but accidentally posted- 💀

Thank you for the name suggestions though! I still haven't decided on what it'll be <XDD

XDDDD Hurray!! (Sorry!!--) I hope you enjoy your stay in the fandom! :DD

Also thank you so much!!! :)) I'm so glad you've liked my artwork!! :DDD

It would be watching anyone that repaired it :00

There was actually an idea that back when Barnaby was going to be the second ever neighbor in the neighborhood.. he almost bought home and restored it himself. The reason why he didn't though is because Home was just too small for him. The front door was too short, he'd have to duck though every doorway and the ceilings were too low..

Why would he wanna spend all this time and money on fixing up an old house that's too small.. when he can just spend that money on buying whatever lot he wants and building a house that actually fits him? So that's what he went with..

But if Barnaby had bought home and fixed it up. it's be the same thing as Wally... weird insomnia, anxiety attacks.. feeling like you're being watched while you sleep... etc..

As for their world, I only really had the forest surrounding the neighborhood in mind. Its a HUGE forest that goes on for miles and miles. I haven't decided how far away Julies sisters/brother live but I should really work on them 💀

As for Home, so far Home is the only creature of its kind :0 none of the other houses are alive and it stands as the only strange entity around the neighborhood.

And when it comes to neighborly mysteries and secrets, so far Eddie being human and Julie's secret past is all i got <:///

Oh yeah for sure! My Barnaby is much more mellow than in canon it seems- in my AU he doesn't butt heads with Julie at all! :0 In fact she's a really good friend of his. She has some pretty flat jokes but Barnaby appreciates her attempts and they usually get a genuine laugh out of him XDD

As for Frank, its like a SpongeBob and Squidward situation. They just have different personalities and different senses of humor.. and that's okay! Barnaby likes to crack some stupid jokes to kind'a poke at Frank for the fun of it, but he never goes too far. And the jokes are never personal or insult his interests. They're just really dumb jokes that make Frank roll his eyes XDD

At the end of the day, Barnaby considers Frank to be his friend. And Frank would never admit it, but he sees Barnaby as his friend too :)

I had a very small brain moment and only realized just now that I cut out the askers name by accident 💀 my bad!

Also hey these names aren't too bad! <XDDD Abaolson sounds kind'a cool in my opinion! :00

Oh- well actually I'm only doing Pokémon from the Unova region with a handful of exceptions. So I don't have to worry about Gyarados, Milotic or Onix. At least for now :00 I might make an exception for Gyarados.. so when it comes to long snakey Pokémon I have Serperior and Eelektross to worry about..

As for Ninjask, I imagine I'll do something similar to what I did with Chandelure :00

@glitchhayden418

WHOMPST??

(In response to this post)

AAA YES YES! :DD A "I thought I lost you/I could have lost you" hug!! AAAA I'm so glad that translated well! :))

And actually- I began sketching out the comic 👀👀👀 although I got hung up on the battle scene and need to go back for some resketching 😅

(In response to this post)

Well of course! :D Angst isn't fun if there's no comfort 😌

@littlemisspostit

ESKJFOSIJFIOSJ HYUCKS??? THATS THE BEST THING EVER XDDD

Upon googling him, maybe I could! :0 Maybe he could be a friend of one of the neighbors that lives a few neighborhoods over?

@viennaarttt (The post in question)

Ohhh I see! :0 That was a joke post mostly <XD But if it did happen I can see Barnaby hanging up and calling back to try to wake up Wally 💀

Awwe <:)) This was very sweet, thank you.. I'm getting a lot of comments saying that people liked my old Gravity Falls stuff. Its helping me feel a bit better about all of it <:)

I will probably keep those posts privated for my own comfort,, but now with no worry of people finding my old artwork,, it clears the way for potential NEW Gravity Falls artwork! :0 This time with better written angst <XDDD

@danman22ful

I've watched all of Markpliers videos on it! :D And I gotta say its.. well its something that's for sure! <:D Its refreshing to see a character with both parents living and in a loving relationship ngl- I feel like I never see that nowadays <XD

I searched around for a bit and couldn't find much info on this actually <:0 I saw a Wally with red hair and a blond Frank..? Is this like an opposite personality's AU..?

@famouslysleepy

In my AU Frank and Eddie are just friends :0 mostly because I don't like writing romantic stuff for characters that aren't my own.. plus exploring platonic bonds is much more interesting to me :)

As for Eddie and Home, this comic shows a bit of Eddies problem with it- just like Wally he has the blood chilling feeling of being watched by something..

And even after the party, going near Wally's house makes Eddie feel uncomfortable and anxious.. its just all a matter of feeling you're being watched by something or someone..

XDD If I had a had a nickel for every time someone told me they were shocked to find out I'm in a fandom they love,, I'd be rich!

Also thank you!! :DD I'm glad you liked it! :DDD

aw <XD well this is bitter sweet to read since I've privated most of my Gravity Falls stuff.. but its nice to hear that you enjoyed it all <:) Thank you!

I use FireAlpaca, its in my FAQ in my pinned post! :0

I'm actually hearing bad things about it believe it or not- talks about Ford acting super out of character and what not.. My curiosity is peaked 👀

[pspkisser]

⚙️ This laptop was saved from obsolescence! [10 mins of read]

Hello!! i am making this post here to raise awareness for PC and laptop upgrades, and how it should motivate you to do that same thing to preserve yours for longer or to give it the power you need! this will feature my history with mine, as well as the steps i took to be able to make him breathe life better! this is the story of his journey, and how it went to this current day.

his name is samuel, he is an asus fx570u and i bought him back in september of 2018 after i turned 13! he was brand new during that time and priced at 800 euros, offering only 6 gb of memory and an HDD as his specs. however he does have an 8th gen core i5 as his cpu and a geforce 1050 ti for his gpu. for something marketed as a gaming pc, it's pretty low and it wouldn't allow him to run fast enough, especially for highly demanding software and causing some compatibility issues. it wasn't severe, but as i was stuck with an hdd, that meant operating systems would run pretty slow on it, also leading to long software loading times. this is made worse by the fact that its bundled system, windows 10, isn't designed to work efficiently on hdd in the first place, but at least that means i have my hands on a windows key to be able to use some windows exclusive programs..

i mainly used him to be able to use advanced video editing software and customize the games i have on it for my own taste, because back then i loved making youtube videos and it was a passion i've had for years until i've partially retired from it. i rarely bought games on it and instead opted for free-to-plays, and overall had a good time with him.

unfortunately within only 3 months, his HDD broke down and i sent him to technicians for them to replace it with another one. it was a minor accident i've had but it formatted all my data, even though it didn't matter much since i uploaded most of it to the internet. i just had to be gentle with him by trying to not moving him around too much to stop that issue from persisting... but it was still low-end in terms of system performance. i finally used him for 1 year straight before moving on to a tower pc, feeling tired about his slowness and believing i couldn't do much about it.

i used that other (unnamed) pc for almost a year, starting from 2020! they seemed to work better since it had windows 7, but embarrassingly enough that version itself stopped receiving official security updates months before i started using it, even though i was careful while accessing the internet with it. its performances were also low, but didn't really matter much since i didn't take so much advantage from the power of samuel. suddenly, i had the foolish idea of installing windows 8.1 on the latter to try to deal with the performance issues on 10, but it led to even more compatibility issues since the drivers i used were meant to be for 10 only. only by early 2021, i got win10 back on him and started using him again to get more power again.

so the low-end performance persisted for very long. back then i never knew how to upgrade pcs, so i was only used to replacing devices with others which wasn't cost-efficient. after realizing i used windows for well over 10 years, i had the idea of switching to a mac and as a result, for xmas 2021 i got myself a cute yellow silicon imac, who goes by the name of sarah! but switching to macos posed new serious challenges, such as getting used to the lack of windows compatibility and the missing features that i was used to for a long time. most of the creativity i did with her was drawings with firealpaca and krita, and cgi with blender, which wasn't really much. still, she is pretty glossy and also powerful for many of the tasks i'm performing with her. originally i also intended to sell samuel, but that never happened (i low regret that decision so much i swear).

in late 2022, samuel's performance apparently had had a big hit... he now takes approximately 20 seconds to open any program and it seemed to me like something was wrong with him. at that time i also gained interest in linux since it's a libre OS capable of much more flexibility, essentially allowing it to revive old PCs. i finally decided to get linux mint to work on him via a dual boot with win11 (what was i thinking when i "upgraded" him from 10?). the performance seemed a little better from then, but programs still took very long to open. for that reason, he had often been collecting dust as he finally became unusable.

finally we've reached 2023. this is the year i decided to take on tearing down devices to learn how to examine problems inside of them. after checking samuel's performance again, i noticed that his HDD was having extremely low writing and reading speeds compared to my tower, which made me feel disappointed. but that's when i finally decided i could be able to replace his hard disk with an ssd, a new generation which is more durable, faster, quieter and energy-efficient...

but i still had a good wait until it was possible. suddenly with my money, i found an ssd which only costed €30, and it made me happy that this would be a quick way of healing up samuel! so i rushed to get it, and finally opened him to prepare everything... unfortunately, his keyboard has to be lifted up in the process, and there are flex cables connected between it and the motherboard. but taking out the hard disk thankfully only requires a few steps; removing some screws, then inserting the SSD inside of it. after that i quickly put linux mint back into him. SO SPLENDID...

for only the price of a high budget indie game, now he can open programs very fast, close to how fast sarah can do, and just about any task works perfectly well on him with way less bugs! thanks to that fast upgrade he's become viable for daily drives again, even though i don't have other desks suitable for pcs which makes me less motivated to use him. really wish id be able to since the architecture he has (x64) means he has a lot more software he's able to handle natively...

but then, i hadn't upgraded his ram. i said before that he only had 6 gb of it, and that meant he could only work with a few programs before becoming bloated. and as i like doing power tasks on him, that obviously causes problems. so one day, i went to a pc part store out of curiosity, and became shocked when i found small ram carts that could be compatible with my laptop. after some talk with the seller, i bought 2 ddr4 carts each containing 8 gb and clocked at 2666 mhz, more than double of what i used to have. after that it was time to take on a challenge to be able to insert them myself.

when the seller asked me if i needed assistance to have the carts inserted into my laptop, i giggled internally because of my past stories with learning how to open devices and trying to troubleshoot or modify them internally. i obviously declined it which saved me money, but also meant i had to do it all myself. after an hour of painful manipulations which required me to take out the entire motherboard from samuel, while that next step was also difficult i was finally able to insert the carts into it, before placing all his components back into place. and after such a long time of waiting...

i've finally done it!

Samuel is feeling very well right now!! despite his cpu and gpu dating from over 5 years, now he can do even more tasks at a time, while also being able to read them faster, a massive improvement compared to when it was stuck with an hdd and only 6 gb of ram. i'm guessing those low specs were for the purpose of saving manufacturing costs, but until you'd find use for the components that you'd remove, they'd end up becoming waste. and with a free os like linux mint, it adds up to an even more optimized experience than windows 10, which comes with so many unwanted stuff and can't be customized very well.

have you had a similar story to mine? did that pose you challenges? i took over 40 minutes to write this entire piece of text, but it should at least be very well detailed! on the best case scenario i hope it would inspire others to do some research on upgrading PCs to preserve their lives and especially save costs. Thank you for reading the entirety of it, don't hesitate reblogging it if you think it would interest your own audience! peace for all of you 💙

[salted15]

hi i just discovered your blog and i LOVE your art. can you do a tutorial on how you do your pop rocks colors? im OBSESSED with it.

(totally cool if not, no pressure! :] )

this is generally what i do , and it's rough since i rushed it , but this is generally how it goes

this is a normal sketch

messy lineart done with a deep blue hue

colors !!! with basic shadows included . shadows aren't done with multiply or any of that , i just make the color a lil more saturated and move the hue

on an (unclipped) layer on top of the lineart layer , i just color my lineart . very loosely . this whole style is loose most of the time . i also add highlights by lightening the base color and moving the hue in the direction that feels lighter . additionally , i outline my shadows with a slightly darker hue bc it looks cool

(on the same layer as step 4) this is where i go Nuts . the lightest colors of the highlights are always pure yellow and teal , as they're naturally lighter than the other colors , and the secondary highlights are usually a bit more saturated and are blue green and yellow green . for other colors that aren't highlights , i tend to mostly go over the shadows (and the shadow outlines we added in step 4) by picking a color i'm gonna be going over and shifting the hue until it's a similar value/until it doesn't seem lighter or darker to the color i picked . i usually stick to purples , pinks , and blues for this

other things to note:

i tend to stay away from pure red and pure green

i use firealpaca's marker brush , which is like your standard pen brush but it's shaped like a rectangle

i don't think too hard about where i'm placing colors . if i pick a new color in step 5 i'll just put it wherever looks good . don't think about it too hard

unless i'm trying to be cleaner with this , my stabilizer is usually pretty low . i have it set to 10 on firealpaca- for reference , my sketching stabilizer is around 5 (side note: i should also mention that comparing to a lot of my artist friends , i just have my stabilizer really low all the time . my lineart setting is usually like 15 and firealpaca can go up to 40)

^^ i should also mention that stabilizer levels are different between programs just go with what feels right for you

my colors here are always very saturated . they're always either tints or shades , but never tones . mostly tints

^^ i do make exceptions to this if i'm going for a less saturated look (like my gumigoo drawing)

[partyhorn]

Have u ever posted your comic or animation workflow anywhere? Im super curious on how you tackle the process, especially not using a drawing tablet. I know you have a very simple (and adorable) style so that probably helps in terms of workflow -- Im just curious about the steps you take.

Thank you! With both comics and animation my key thing is to not spend too much time on any particular thing, just draw loose and fast. Honestly the only downside to drawing with a mouse is that I can tell my arm has extremely specific muscle memory regarding it- if my mouse breaks and I get a new one I have to spend a good month or so just letting my hand get used to it again lol. Same with if my setup gets readjusted too much- right now my setup is my mouse on one of those padded mousepads, on top of 2 books, with my elbow resting on my 3DS case (I'll get an actual pillow or something for it eventually lol). But luckily thanks to this I suffer very minimal wrist pain 👍

(...Okay I started to go really in depth in my process here, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking. Putting it under a readmore just to save space lol)

With MFM in particular, I start by writing out the entire script for the next story arc, which really is just all of the dialogue and vague notes about any important actions. Then I do the paneling with very loose stick-figure like sketches of where the characters are and what they're doing. I prefer having very little planning when it comes to character poses and panel shapes, coming up with those on the fly makes things much more exciting and faster to make. But it's the opposite with dialogue... it needs to be 100% FINAL before I draw a single line lol.

That's part of my script for my most recent chapter, as well as what my extremely loose goofy thumbnail sketching is like. I write the script as one big thing and don't separate it into pages until I actually start drawing- then I go and color change it just to keep track of what dialogue goes on each page

After that, I go back and do the ACTUAL sketch, as well as the lettering (I don't believe this is how it's done professionally. I used to do lettering as the very last step in the process... but then found it hard to cram speech bubbles in the right places lmao.) After that is lineart, coloring, background flat colors, then shading/rendering for all of it. I do each step in batches, as in I sketch out ALL pages of a chapter before moving to lineart, I line ALL pages before starting coloring, etc. I find it way easier to be productive when it's broken up like that, though when I first started the comic I used to draw each page to completion before starting the next (but also, the comic's style was DRASTICALLY simpler back then haha)

(Unfortunately I merged some of the shading to the background flat colors so it's not entirely accurate... oops) FireAlpaca has a sand texture feature that I only found out about last year- adding that to the backgrounds makes them look 10x better with WAY less effort.

With animation, it depends on the project. For simple 5-10 second animation I make for fun, there's very little planning lol. I skip some steps in the process- I'll sketch out the keyframes (and maybe any difficult inbetweens if necessary), line those, then go straight into making linework inbetweens. I'm not a cleanup artist and have no experience in that, so I always find trying to line my rough animation makes everything jittery and wobbly. If I do it with a clean line from the start then I can avoid that and save a lot of time 👍

For my bigger projects (such as the Parvey cartoon and the MFM Kickstarter trailer), I do the whole animatic with final audio first and foremost, with the animatic being almost like the keyframes. I split them up into individual shots, .mp4 files anywhere between 1-30 seconds usually, and animate those one at a time. I'm a huge fan of free to use programs and try to use them as much as I possibly can, here's a list of the ones I use:

FireAlpaca- for the actual drawing part itself (storyboarding/animating/etc). FireAlpaca has a feature that lets you export every frame as it's own drawing, as well as an onion skin mode

Windows Movie Maker- for compiling all of those frames into video format, creating individual shots. If you upload all of your frames and set them to around 0.08 seconds, it equals about 12fps (I usually animate at 0.10 seconds/10fps, its a bit slower but looks nice)

Onlinesequencer.net- for making music. It's the place I've made all of my songs on, like the timeloop song, hyperworkaholic, and the background music for the MFM Kickstarter trailer.

Audacity- for editing audio/music. Also great for recording things directly from your desktop

DaVinci Resolve- for editing and putting together all of the shots into one big video. Can get kind of intensive on the computer during rendering, so watch out.

YouCut (app)- also for editing and compiling shots, I used this one a lot a couple years back but I'm not sure how well it holds up. Doesn't need much phone storage to download but needs a lot to render videos.

MS Paint (yes really)- for typing up text. FireAlpaca has a text option but I don't like it as much as Paint's.

...The only thing I genuinely can't do alone is voice acting. Luckily there's a big voice acting community on Twitter and they're all amazing to work with!

This got... way more in depth than I planned for it to be, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking lol. But that's my general process when it comes to my art 👍

[brambletakato]

ok i havent drawn a lot so ill do a big artdump of some stuff i abandoned or at the very least wont finish for a long while (id in alt and story/thoughts below the image)

In a server that I'm in, we briefly talked about Descole hypothetically returning in NWOS and somebody mentioned he should bring Keats along. Inspiration struck and I drew this. I was hoping I could use Blender to make the buildings and whatnot, but I was intimidated by the task and ultimately ended up dropping the entire thing.

The building that Keats and Descole are on is… Meant to be a rough placeholder, I didn't mind redoing the entire thing but I wanted to at least have a vague idea before the entire draft slipped from my mind.

(More images in cut that are either old or kinda detached. also theres crossover stuff in there. be warned)

HAHA YOU CLICKED READ MORE NOW I CAN SHOW MY INSANITY. MWHAHAHA. MWHAHHAHAHAHAHA. ok so errm this is campaign des that i mentioned a few times and yes that is The Mario from The Paper Mario. I think about them so much and its a bit pathetic bc its like "you're overthinking a kid's mascot" ITS SO SILLY YOU DONT GET IT...

Oh right the doodle uhh so I was thinking about them and just drew a hypothetical scene for funsies, it didn't happen in roleplay (and also because I wanted to draw paper mario without a reference and see where that went). It's an ex-villain and struggling hero dynamic and i love it sm

Segments of a comic I drew for a friend in a super silly AU with dante from the limbus company hand on hip . Id get super embarrassed if i shared the details of the au because we kinda said "fuck it we ball" and made up stuff that shouldn't work at all lol. It's also why there's no text in the speech bubbles.

But the general gist of why I drew this is because we kept discussing a scenario where Descole has to fix up something in Dante's clockhead (vaguely inspired by that april fools episode) and i had a strong vision ab the comic. Also I had to make their head in blender because i was struggling with the perspective and wanted a flexible reference. First time drawing something not made out of flesh fur or fabric!! had a blast rendering the fire and the shine though. SUPER fun super recommend

I just like this little doodle,,, the expression vaguely reminds me of a ghibli villain and it scratches my brain. im expecting him to move on twos at 24 fps very subtly at any moment now.

And finally... um... yeah. "draw a character in this pose" sort of beat. sometimes I alternate using the sketchbook and marker pens in firealpaca and this is one of my rare marker doodles. Also this is pretty old afaik but i still think about it sometimes

happy sycamore sunday (even though hes not anywhere to be seen in these doodles)

[soupy-cosmos]

Clarification

I may be stupid I wasn't talking about ai I prommy. I had two versions of the final piece saved, one that was plain and one that had the cringetober prompt and my signature written on it,, since I drew these a while ago I forgot about the prompt being there and just went with the version I signed. I noticed basically the second I hit post and remade the post with the added all caps clarification in case anyone managed to catch the original withing the like minute it was up

Post this is about, I already took the reupload part out of the caption:

putting the sketches and some of the layers below the cut as receipts and also a fun little look into my process ig

the sketches were originally done in krita cuz I preferred it as a sketching program at the time, and then moved over to firealpaca for the render. There's a bunch of layers because I had the cringetober sketches and some doodles all on one file

mostly flat louyd plus the background sketch

And some of the bg process ^_^ you can see where I recolored the price tag lol

[genopaint]

Another year, another birthday! As always, every year I try to redraw an old piece of mine to celebrate! This year, I've redraw the very first thing I ever made in Firealpaca! Nidoking on a snowy mountain! I hope you're as happy with it as I am!

The original is from 2019! At this point I was moving away from mspaint for the first time in my life (a late bloomer I know lol). And I think by this point I was probably still using a mouse to draw instead of a tablet! I think I've come a long way since then!

As for me at the moment? Stuff is interesting for sure. Things has been a little tough this year, what with moving and being extremely broke all year long. It's looking like I'll be moving again soon too, but hopefully this next move will be the last for a while. And in addition to that, being 25 already is sort of getting me. I've wasted my 20's on Covid! It's frustrating! But at the same time I'm trying to make the most of things. I'm working on a LOT of projects, have tons of ideas for personal projects that I will hopefully get done soon. Once Upon An Adventure is going slow but it is going! And I'm still being asked to help on tons of different things which means the absolute world to me. And while things are tough, things are getting better. I have a car now so I'm not feeling completely stuck all the time. I'm going out to conventions and meeting new people more which has been helping me feel so much better (I NEED TO BE AROUND PEOPLE!!! I LOVE OTHERS). And I'd like to make an effort to reconnect with some people soon if I can. Like I said, it's tough, and I'm getting a little self conscious about my age. But I'm making strides to do things better and I'm gonna keep making strides to be happier. And, there's still so much time to make so many things. I feel more creative right now than I've been in a while, I want to work on SO much and have so many ideas for so many things that they're getting in the way of each other! So I thank you all so much for all the support you've given me over the years, and I hope you look forward to all the new stuff I make going forward!!

[ballcrusher74]

Genuinely, how do you work with the lc 3d models n render them so cool!? Especially the customizations, I see a ton of lc skins but I don't know what ppl work with or how they do it so well!!

SHEER WILL POWER.

But for actual answers, the short answer is a lot of fuckery. And the long answer is

Firstly all the shit I do is in Blender, and it involves a lot with the camera and the posing of whoever I'm playing around with. My rule is that if it's not gonna be seen by the camera angle in the final render, then I really don't have to give a shit about how it looks. It only has to look good for the camera. A small example of this is with Fencer, because his tailcoat is just a little jank, I have to move it around a bunch for it to look good, which results in it clipping through his ass. Yet, you're not gonna see that ever in a render now, will ya ?

Another example is something in my most recent render, in which Doc is slightly clipping through the floor just so I could get him in the right position for the camera, but I didn't have to care about this because it's only his upper half showing ! (Also from here out, I'll probs be using the render as prime example so yay)

Another thing I do (sometimes) is if there's more than 1 element in the piece, I will render them out into separate PNGs with transparency. This will include the characters, the background, foreground, etc or whatever I need.

NOW WE MOVE ONTO PAINTING OVER IT ! This is where I take everything into my main program, FireAlpaca, and touch everything up to look nice. One of the main things I do is fix up shading / texture / clipping mistakes. Here are some examples of that

Painting over everything also allows me to add small, fun details to the render ! Such as the small rim lights, glow, shine, blur- fun things that would otherwise make me want to rip my hair out doing in Blender ! I also adjust the contrast / colors to how I want them, and paint on some of the lighting if I feel like it's needed.

And then after applying overlay textures (if any) and a bunch of other small things, the render's done yayyyy !

There's probably a couple things I could do in Blender to ease up this process, but this is just how I personally enjoy doing my renders. If you look around, there's most likely tutorials or smth to get cool effects in the program itself and waste less time, it's just that I'm a little pea-brained and don't wanna bother with that LOL

Moving onto custom suits, I just use a cruddy scavenger model from sketchfab to easily texture paint on for the suits. Cosmetics (hats, visors, items, etc) are completely modeled by hand and not pre-made assets, either by friends or me. Texture painting and modeling is an even LONGER thing to explain, at least from my perspective, but there are a bunch of tutorials out there for that kind of stuff, and also tutorials on how to create your own custom LC stuff !

anyways ok this answer was LONG as FUCK um. oops !

[rmlarson]

Blog Hiatus

As of 9/13/2024, this blog will be going on an extended hiatus for an unknown length of time. I will not be posting anymore artwork.

A lot of things have been going on in my personal life regarding work, personal finances, and the dumpy place that I mistakenly moved to just because I was so eager to take my first adult steps by myself far away from my family. Since my move, I haven't exactly been in the right headspace like I was before when I posted my art to this blog. It feels...heavy. Boring. I genuinely don't like posting what I do, because it feels like I have to. Which is why a lot of my stuff is now privatized (and probably going to be deleted down the road, if I'm being honest). And I genuinely despise the downgrade in how my art looks with the shift to Procreate on the iPad. I think it all looks awful. FireAlpaca had a much higher quality to it on my old laptop.

I've put so many projects on my plate that I'm just disgusted with myself. With how I can't sit down and focus on one thing and enjoy doing it, like I used to be able to do when I was a kid. I'm disgusted because I hate working on them. They bring me no more joy. And I hate that other people like what I've done but have to wait for meager scraps. I feel like I'm letting them down, letting my followers down.

So, I leave you with this.

I will be stepping away for a while. I don't know for how long. I need to focus on trying to save my money back up so I can move back home. Maybe then will I start to feel like my normal self again.

Asks will remain closed.

Every story concept I've talked about is cancelled for now.

I'll probably check in every now and then just to see what pops up on my home page and like a couple pieces here and there.

[how-to-scug]

Hello, hope your having a great day!!

Do you have any tips regarding stylising slugcats in different ways?

HI thanks, i am indeed having a good day thanks for asking!

as for your question, im not entirely sure how to go about answering it, however i can give some tips for developing a style, just in general

do you have any artists you like? im sure a lot of you guys have heard the "take what you like about your favorite artist" speil, but i find its a little more that that.., a lot of times what i find myself doing is taking an image that i like, and well, trace it (its not just tracing work with me here lmao)

alternatively i draw against it, if that makes sense, like use a reference, which is also really helpful because im not relying on the image that much (especially because i cant focus on looking at the drawing and the picture at the same time, so usualy i just look at it and draw from memory, would suggest, sorry for the tangent tldr use reference sometimes too! dont just trace lol back to tracing though ig lmao)

for this im going to be using this image

and the program i will be using is firealpaca (its a nice free software i like using for digital art, but thats not important right now)

i start off with this generally, as you can see, the image is lower opacity, on a separate layer, and although its not rainworld, its the first thing i saw mildly interesting on pinterest lol

alright now i have the iddy biddy bits done, i traced over the general pose, and now im ready to move on.

here is where its a little more than tracing

i turn the original picture off, and lower the opacity of the traced version, and then just, draw over it i guess.

i like to try to think about how the body would, idk, fit there, like if i was there how would i look? would i be stiff? relaxed? so on and all that. the goal here is to learn from tracing it, not just trace mindlessly if you get what i mean. be mindful about what your drawing

anyway heres the next stage, as you can see i wanted to deviate from the original image, that way im not making a carbon copy of the image. i do think the image is pretty good for practice though, as its a pretty dificult pose (at least for me) and i can use the (albeit very little) knowledge i have on foreshortening on the arm, idk man its a really cool image and i like how challenging it is, i really had to struggle to make it look right.

i wont be adding any more detail to this, but its generaly how i go about learning and tracing art

side note, im sure you've heard of this before, but dont post art you traced as yours, and if you do, add the original image before your drawing, and give a disclamer

awf man i lost my point, but i put too much effort into this to delete all of it

anyway im gonna be making something else to make up for this im sorry lmao

[luckyplushy]

A look back on my old art (and other doodles on Twitter.) - December 2020

This marks the FIRST post of many I will make detailing my old work. I'm gonna start posting these weekly as to make it easy others AND for me. And what better way to start it off by the month I finally got a tablet. (and turnt 18 too I guess)

I was not a smart 18 year old, I some how barely survived the last 2 years of high school, and this and the next would become the worse it ever got. Yet I still persisted and somehow stay sane. Kinda. Keep that in mind for the bulk of 2021's art in the following weeks.

December 4

As you can see from the first image, I was using a mouse at the time (and a combination of mspaint and firealpaca) That will change soon enough. Also homestuck =:3

Original descriptions:

I saw this and I thought I can use this as an excuse to actuallly draw homestuck

have this nepeta doodle as well

December 6

At the time I was really obsessed with making homestuck sprites of stuff (and I still kinda do) so I made this at a request of a friend at the time.

Original description:

@SpringingTraps made me draw metaware homestuck

December 8

Why did I even included this post in here? Well I used to be SUPER inconsistent how I draw myself, so thought this would be a good start.

Original description:

i found that pettting gif website...

December 11

I'll be honest, I wish I didn't post this back then. IDK it's kinda weird looking back on now.

Original Description:

It's #FlatFuckFriday AND my birthday??? Fuck yeah!!! 🥞

December 18

I'll be honest. I have no idea how I did THIS with a mouse of all things. Like how did I do it. In MSPAINT no less. Also I have no idea why I drew myself like this here.

Original Description:

fucking around with faking line weight, so glad I don't have to do this shit when I get a tablet

December 20

Oh look Cave Story, one my earliest obsessions. When this drawing came out, I already have long since moved on from it, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it.

Original Description:

16 years of #CaveStory =:]

December 22

Ah here we go, I finally got a drawing tablet. I got REALLY excited with the pen pressure that I kinda gone overboard with it, but it was nice to use one. (granted I forgot how to draw with a mouse now.) Oh yeah, if you notice a black line on the VERY top of some drawings, that was a bug with firealpaca. I kinda had to live with it for a while.

Original Description:

WOW HAVING PEN PRESURE MAKES A BIG DIFFFERENCE

This was the first real piece I did after getting a tablet. I'm quite proud of it. The context behind this image is kinda funny really. A server I was in was doing a collab where we drew UCN portraits of our OCs or Sona, and I drew something for it. Yes UCN, Ultimate Custom Night. I was in my second FNAF phase at the time.

Original Description:

Let the static flow.

December 23

At the time, I used to draw myself with sideburn thingies cause I thought it look cute, but I no longer do that. Also you might be noticing a large about drawing made in a short timeframe. Well I have an explanation for that. You see, I sometimes get hit by these bursts of productivity and I can draw super fast. Sometimes these bursts happen at random, but in this case it was because I gotten a new tablet and new ideas where flowing.

Original Description:

This was supposed to be a sketch...

I HAVE LOT TO SAY ABOUT THIS. I was super obsessed with TGWeaver's FNAF comics. It was why I gotten back into FNAF around 2019. But I was fascinated with Toy Bonnie at the time, to the point I started drawing her on the daily. I started using her as an avatar for myself online. It was when I saw a post on tumblr where something made a kinsona when it clicked for me. This rabbit holds sooooo much gender. 🏳️‍⚧️ Thus ended 5 years of denial over my gender.

Original Description:

some weaver buns

December 24

I tried drawing myself with my hair down here. I didn't like it then. I got better at drawing my hair down though. I was this file was named "cel test" for some reason.

Original Description:

It's me!

December 25

Remember when I said I was inconsistent, here an example. I dislike how this turned out then, I STILL do now. The only thing I do like? This was when I started to shade in this particular way. Also at the time I was worried about being too slow, which is funny when I was posting so many things at once. But also the filename was "the crunch" which is less funny and more worrying.

Original Description:

I need to learn how to do this faster

December 28

Oh look a Commission! There's nothing special to say about this.

Original Description:

Shaded commission for @Bunnydudee of Carmen from Animal Crossing!

December 29

THAT'S RIGHT I DREW SONIC.EXE BEFORE IT WAS COOL. Jokes aside, this post was more so for Tails Doll. I loved drawing that little bugger in the most pathetic and dorky way possible.

Original Description:

Tails Doll's roommate is a wacknut

---

FINALLY we made it thru December. Goodness I posted alot more often back then huh. Kinda surprising. Anyways next week I'll post January!

[xxhanachanxx]

🥂🎊💋can we stay up all night~

Fuck a jetlag~

So, um… there’s so much that I have to say regarding what I’ve been through throughout this entire year - as I’ve said before, and making fun art aside, 2022 was a shitshow for me. What was it that made me back out with fulfilling my expectations and projects that never happened this year? I’ve had my fair share of speaking about focusing on my college classes and personal life, and trying to do better before, and I know you guys have been appreciative of me in putting that first before art, but where I had to step away from everything and being myself for a bit was taking and retaking intermediate calculus to the point I’ve never felt the same ever since the first attempt in taking it and failed. (Instead of having the post filled with a lot of text and overwhelm everybody, I encourage you to click on the “Keep reading” tab - tl;dr: there’s a happy ending, I’m my happy and normal self again (...at least for now-), and I did this drawing for the sake of my self-indulgence~)

Let the tangent begin - at that point during the pandemic and with taking online classes before going back on campus in late 2021, I was an absolute perfectionist in making sure that I can be able to pass my classes - taking a calculus I class back in spring 2021 was my first math class after taking precalculus/trigonometry back in spring 2020, and there was stress building up on me whether I would fail or succeed at it. I got a B in that class, and I would take calc II over the summer for 8 weeks afterwards; that class was even stressful with me doing classwork nonstop and no free time for me whatsoever, and as I thought that I did pretty badly with the performance I had in that class, I passed with a C! And then calc III came around that fall, and my first attempt was bad; some stuff in my personal life was eating me up and I’ve been too focused on getting things done for other classes. And when I had my second attempt in that class back in spring of this year, I made sure that I wouldn’t fail again but oh was I wrong - stress and focusing on other classes were eating me up again, and I failed again. Leading to my third and final attempt, I took everything steadily for this year’s fall semester and I truly made it clear that I will pass calc III; there were a few bumpy roads, but in the end… once my final exam for the class got graded, and went to go on Canvas to see that my overall grade for the class was a D, I was iffy for a few seconds and then I check my grades in my student services for the college I go to just to see that my final grade for calc III for that semester was a C! I’m happy that I finally passed, and I’m beyond fortunate to at least get a happy ending after a shitty year! So yeah, if you’re wondering why I haven’t been my happy and usual self, I kept retaking calc III to the point it drained me and made me question how to move forward with me majoring in mathematics (I really don't know how much I would talk about this kind of stuff, but I do need to take it easy and limit myself)! And for the time being, I’m going to celebrate passing the class with some R&R after carrying the bs on my back and self-indulgence! 😌💅🏼

Alrighty moving on from all of that, onto the drawing! Well, self-indulgence aside, I may or may not have been contemplating drawing this for a while now, and I just want to try capturing the happiness and celebration of what I’ve been feeling lately - and given the fact that last year’s New Years drawing was done on FireAlpaca and you guys enjoyed it, I figured that I should do it again, and it’s for the best anyway as I need to get end-of-the-year projects done instead of getting this (…and another drawing 👀) finalized! One thing’s for sure, I’ve at least fulfilled my promise in getting out of my comfort zone by sharing drawings done in FireAlpaca instead of doing full rendering on SAI this year - thank you for that! 💖

And most importantly, and maybe I should try getting out of my comfort zone to say ‘thank you’ more, despite everything I’ve been through, with love and gratitude I’m forever grateful for the support and appreciation you’ve given me and my content; thank you for taking your time and day in acknowledging and appreciating with what I can do - to my followers, friends, and mutuals, this one’s for you!

And that’s all I have to say - so so long 2022, you nasty fuck! Hoping that 2023 will come with and give us all greater things and happiness! Here’s to 2023, thank you so much for everything~ ♡♡♡

[blujaymi]

this might be something with pretty obvious answers, but i wanted to start doing digital art

any tips? thank you

hello anon and congrats on being my 2nd ever ask!!

I'm the absolute worst person to ask about this, but I'll try my best.

Disclaimer: Actually blending and painting digitally is a whole other topic. If you wanted me to talk about painting: I'm sorry!! But, I can make a post about that specifically if you want. For this post though I'll be talking about more easy basic stuffs since you said you were just starting out (I still do mention shading tho).

This post ended up being lengthier than I thought, so I'll leave my thoughts under the cut.

In terms of getting started hardware wise, I've only ever had one drawing tablet (its a huion, but I can't recall what specific model) so I'm not sure I can make any good recommendations but I know there are many ppl on yt who have more experience with various tablets than I do if you don't have one yet!

However, in terms of software, I currently use medibang paint simply because it's free and suits my (very) simple needs. That being said I think it's pretty decent and is definitely more than enough for just starting out. There's also firealpaca, which is essentially the same program but with a focus on animation and comics at the cost of less brushes. Both can be used for basic illustration and have pretty much the same basic brushes and functionality, so either are good starting programs imo.

Besides all that, I'm guessing you're asking more about the actual art side. I don't know if you're transferring to digital from traditional art or just starting to draw in general, but hopefully I can help regardless. There's a lot of beginner digital art tip videos by people way more qualified than me out there so I'm gonna try to give tips I feel like aren't talked about as much.

1. Canvas size is important

When setting up your canvas size, it should definitely be at least 1920x1080 pixels (standard HD size). my canvas is usually 3000x3000 or just a large square. This is mostly because I'm indecisive, draw small, and don't know exactly how I want my canvas oriented until I start drawing; however, I find it to be a good starting point in general as it's big enough to be cropped and preserve quality. Basically, just don't accidentally make your art too small (which sounds obvious but it is something I have done before and haven't really seen artists talk about for beginners. It's a really easy thing to overlook).

2. Save ALL of the time

This isn't really an art tip as much as it is a PSA to prevent disaster. I don't think I've seen an artist that HASN'T lost drawings or parts of drawings from their software crashing or forgetting to save. A lot of if not all art programs do have an autosave feature but it's definitely not meant to be relied on. Especially when you're starting out and are likely spending a LOT of time learning and experimenting with your drawings, just make sure to hit CTRL+S often and make it a habit.

And as a side note, save your art in dated folders of each year/month. It makes the process of backing up your art or uploading it to a drive a lot easier. Safe art is good :]

3. Take advantage of EVERYTHING

Okay, moving on from that sort of off topic PSA, If you're used to traditional art, or just not familiar with your art program, it's easy to forget how many tools you actually have at your disposal to make the drawing process easier and/or faster. So I have compiled a list of essential tools that are in every art program that you might want to experiment and become familiar with before just diving into the deep end and making a drawing (which is fine too, but it can be a little overwhelming).

Layers and clipping

Generally, you want a layer for each unique element of the drawing, such as:

Sketch

Lineart

Color

Shadows

Lighting

I typically divide the color layer into a layer for each color so I can shade them individually (not doing so makes your colors susceptible to getting in each other's way and is just kind of a pain). For example, I'd probably split the color layer of a portrait of a person into a skin, hair, and eye layer. I know when it comes to painting specifically having 39178319 layers is usually criticized, but I think it provides good organization and a bit of a safety net, especially if you're new to digital art and will likely be indecisive in the beginning about things like color.

Speaking of being indecisive about color, one of the most important features of an art program is clipping.

Essentially, whatever you draw on a clipping layer will only show up within the layer that's below it (which as I'm typing this I've realized makes way more sense when you see it than through words). There's usually a checkbox to enable clipping on a layer in the layer window, and its usually called just clipping or clipping mask across software I've seen.

(Clipping off)

(Clipping on)

One of the main things you can use this for is quickly changing the color of a layer without having to be decisive about it and permanently change it. You can have multiple clipping layers over one layer and simply hide the ones you aren't using.

The more prominent thing clipping is used for, however, is shading. Basically, you add a clipping layer to your base color and color in your shadows without having to worry about "going outside the lines". I really wouldn't recommend doing shading any other way unless you're just freehand painting. Clipping is definitely the easiest approach.

Blend modes

I don't really know how to define what a blend mode exactly is, but I can tell you what the two most useful ones are. There's a lot of them depending on what program you use, but the most important (imo) and universal ones are called multiply and add.

What multiply does is intensifies the darks and completely gets rid of the lights on whatever layer you apply it to. In simpler terms, it casts itself as a shadow on the layer below it, hence it is used most often for basic shading.

Because of the nature of the blend mode it is common to choose colors like dark purple or dark red as the tone for the shadows. I honestly really love purple/cool shading, but you can experiment with various tones of shadows and find which fits the vibe of your piece. A general rule of thumb is to not just use a darker version of the color you are shading (unless that's the look you're going for), but also shift the hue on the color wheel a bit to add more v i b e s. For example, shading red with maroon/purple-toned red or green with a slightly blue-green.

Add is the opposite of multiply. It intensifies the lights and completely gets rid of the darks on whatever layer you apply it to. It casts a glowy looking highlight on whatever is below it, and is used for intense lighting or making stuff look cool and glowy (my favorite thing).

As somewhat of a side note, each layer also has an opacity (how opaque/transparent the layer is) setting. Lowering the opacity from 100% will make the layer more transparent (very useful for adjusting the intensity of the shadow or highlight layer, and to draw over your sketch).

Conclusion

There is a LOT more I can talk about regarding this but I think most of it has already been said by much more qualified artists. Also this post is hellishly long and I think any more advice would be overwhelming (if it wasn't already). Hopefully everything I mentioned above can help you start your digital art journey. I'm down to make a part 2 of more obscure tips if I can think of enough.

Best of luck anon and sorry for making you read all of this!

[thetantiger]

doing this 'cause I'm already experiencing art withdrawal from my hiatus I've forced onto myself with light encouragement from my friends so here we go

also I realize "game" likely implies some schmo is supposed to be like "please answer #69!" but fuck you I go by my own rules and have fun with it too

LMAO so this computer is only about a year old, a while ago my other computer literally shit itself and died so I used to have paint tool SAI on there but now on this one I legit only have the one I actually use which is FireAlpaca

Forward, but left is easier than right

I used to have this warriors self-insert OC when I was REAL YOUNG named Moonfeather that I still hold near and dear to my heart but haven't made art of in literal years and don't have a concrete design for. yes she was special, yes she could turn into a dragon (???) But if you mean ideas I currently use, Ray's been around since I was 10 so

EDITH LOL drawing little kid her is easy as fuck 'cause she looks almost exactly like kid-Gray but current/teen her is so aids 'cause she has all that dragon shit going on + her hair is complicated

literally I post everything online (that I can ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) because I need validation there is not a single piece of digital art that I've made that hasn't been posted on the internet (for the most part ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))

my own goddamn trauma. literally half the time I look at an arc a character just had and went "yo the way snarky like came back in a new form with blue reminds me of how my current cat acts exactly like the one I lost" and then I mental boom

gouache (spelling?), that shit's so pretty

literally just made a video about this lmao, the Animals PMV. RIP

if it's a finished piece in the form of a png I name it the piece's title, if it's a WIP art program file I name the file something like "ass" and move on

hoodies.. or scarves. belts are fun too

music or podcasts. sometimes vcs

face/expressions, I fucking LOVE drawing expressions SO MUCH

lotta them undertale/deltarune fanartists are fucking amazing but I've never been into that fandom. Also my husband is super into FNF mods and those are neat too

the little fucking ocean wiggles on fantasy maps y'know the ones

my house/desk lol

fuck idk. the shit I've trained myself to get good at is the shit I've really cared about, however my least favorite part of a piece is lineart

dear god no I HAVE to separate food from that shit, I have enough food anxiety as it is. I watch videos while I eat

not a whole lot actually, I don't distinctly remember doing so pretty much ever

literally fucking none actually. like I legit scoured my art and animation for this shit and couldn't find ANYTTHING. I adore drawing characters so much and anytime I have to draw something inanimate that's not directly clothing -on- the character or weapons it makes me want to kick a baby. broken glass is fun tho I guess???

hands. not that it's easier for me but I like how expressive I can be with em

tybaxel is so fucking amazing but that's like my only answer, not that I don't like other people's art that doesn't look like mine either but that's literally the only example I could think of because I don't keep track of this sorta thing, if it looks pretty I follow. that's my philosophy

lol

not sure what this means actually so no

only rarely for like purposes of poses or perspective. almost all the time my reference window is just a wow screenshot

nothing is coming to me off the top of my head but I have noticed characters or concepts I thought of before I found certain media crops up in said media anyway. like Detective looks very Lackadaisy and I'm not tryna say I'm salty about it I think it's neat actually

any piece with amab characters whose design includes being shirtless. like bro, tree is just chillin'

sometimes I scribble cool/dramatic expressions before drawing but only occasionally

i helped paint a mural in my hometown :D

vivzie's creations, a lot of the character designs are too spiky/thin for me but I understand the stylistic choice

LITERALLY the one I JUST posted based off the song Mama by My Chemical Romance I'm literally in love with it and I don't think anybody saw it fucking rip

anyway yeah fuck it I just felt like doing that lmfao

Weirdly Specific Artist Ask Game

Didn't see a lot of artist ask games, wanted to make a silly one.

(I wrote this while sick out of my mind last year and it's been collecting dust in my drafts, I might as well let it run free) 1. Art programs you have but don't use

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

3. What ideas come from when you were little

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

9. What are your file name conventions

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

12. Easiest part of body to draw

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing

14. Any favorite motifs

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)

16. Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what

18. An estimate of how much art supplies you've broken

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any

23. Do you use different layer modes

24. Do your references include stock images

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated

[foosybit]

Ok im probably not the best person to ask this because ive been using krita for YEARSSS. like. last time I used firealpaca was 2018 which is... 6 years ago TT_TT but i did a brief pass-over of what firealpaca looks like now and it seems like the things i personally didn't like about it from 2018 are still present. and also the only computer drawing programs ive used are firealpaca, krita, and a really old pirated version of paint tool sai that was so bad it didn't even have a circle tool. absolutely abysmal for my eddsworld phase. but ya i do really like krita a lot tho. explanation under cut cuz its long

First one's pretty minor, but firealpaca does give you a popup immediately lol. i know it's easy to get used to, but its one of those small things where i'd rather not be asked to buy something or update my fully updated software every time i open the program. Firealpaca also just opens you up to the drawing ui, and krita opens you up to a specific launch ui that i really like

it shows all your recently opened files with a thumbnail too so you don't really have to go rummaging through your files every time you wanna draw which is super convenient. and as you can see i literally just never enabled news LOL which would probably tell me about any new krita updates idfk i never enabled it.

Another one that's more major to me is that the firealpaca animation system is actually ass omfg. they say like "wowww you can do onion skin !!!" but thats literally it. and i like to animate from time to time so that's a no-go for me. firealpacas animation system is manged through YOUR LAYERS???? AND MAYBE A FOLDER???? jail. awful. and you have to wait for firealpaca to render a preview. if you ever decide to animate, krita is way better. it actually has a proper timeline and hold frames and real-time previews. it might not be the super best professional animation software cuz it does fight with me a little bit, but for someone who just makes small gifs every once in a while, it's wayyy more useful than firealpaca without being overwhelming which i like. heres what the animation workspace looks like:

the final real qualm i remember having is that the blending on firealpaca was just..... not great. I downloaded it again breifly to check how it's looking and it's still not looking too hot. For the examples I just used my mouse with no pressure sensitivity mostly because i was too lazy to set up my drawing tablet, but also it shows what one consistent opacity/pressure sensitivity looks like

the transparent bg one is firealpaca and the tan bg one is krita. it seems like the difference in opacity of the brush doesn't affect the blending strength of the brush at all in firealpaca. 1 and 2 are the flat watercolor brush and the blending on that one just looks ugly 2 me sorry. 1 is at 50% opacity and 2 is at 100%. 3 is the fluffy watercolor brush at 50% opacity and 4 is the same brush at 100% opacity. it blends to the same amount regardless of opacity, so it seems like the same brush calculations are happening, just literally at a lower opacity. For the krita one, i used the wet paint brush and 5 is 100% opacity and 6 is 50% opacity. It gives you a lot of variety and control for the amount of blending you want based on pressure sensitivity which is super handy to me; i would not have been able to do those crazy digital paintings i used to do years ago without it (pre-mysn days cuz my style has since changed, but u can find it in my pixiv).

Also idk if im stupid or what but i can't find any method to change the blending mode of your brush in firealpaca. it's a neat feature that lets you just do a few brushstrokes with a multiply blending mode (or whatever blending mode) without having to make a new layer and merge it.

But yeah I'm sure firealpaca has its pros. I saw a bunch of cool pattern brushes on their site which seem like they'd be super cool to use, it's just that for my personal tastes i remember thinking that moving to krita was a huge improvement. the only thing that takes a bit of getting used to is that krita doesn't have a clipping function, you just have to alpha-lock a layer within a folder, but you get used to it (theres a "create clipping group" option that does this for you).

Bonus for if u ever get krita:

this is my favorite drawing brush in the entire world i can't draw without it. just a basic toothy brush but it's my life blood. and you should totally download the ballpoint pen brush. just search up krita ballpoint pen brush. its not like i use it all the time or anything but it's super fun and i like it and if u use krita i think u should mess around with it at least once X3