#despite having a CSP FULL of brushes of all sorts

[crypticscarecrow]

How do you make your lineart look so epic!!!

something along the lines of

BUT FOR REAL TY!!! For real its so nice to hear that it looks pleasing!! ;;w;;

If it's any help, I do think then pen brushes and style goes hand in hand a lot especially depending on the vibe you are going for,, Lately I've only been able to use the real g-pen

my usual 'cleaner' brush definitely looks better but I get so hooked up into the details/pressure settings that I can only use it IF I have the patience to not focus on that some days

There is a 3rd brush I also use, but I only use it for friend doodles for shitposts when I don't want any pressure/detail NOTHIN but scratchy style and tiny canvas

[sdyuteiaok]

Found a new cat meowing up a storm today--he followed me back to my room over Mariupol's vehement protests--he had no fear of her, as she just hisses and stuff, but seems interested in having a pal, since she would still sniff and eagerly watch him. He happily explored around/despite her, and even took a spell on her favorite hangout, perched in the window and she was aghast at this. Now he's sleeping next my chair on the ground, while Mariupol camps out on the bed. She actually, after all these months, finally took a nap on me, just like our old Boston Terrier used to do. From being abandoned and sleeping outside in rain and heat, to snoozing on my lap. What a world. But curiously absent was our ailing cat. And indeed, it seems what I suspected has finally happened. At least she no longer has to suffer, as she was just incapable of eating and drinking, despite her desire to do so, it was just too much for her. It's like when you're sick and are super hungry, but the thought of eating makes you want to hurl. She seemed to be like that for a while. And after gaining some weight back, she recently took a severe nose dive backwards and was getting frighteningly thin again--you could almost feel her bones through her skin. But she was just unwell and not responding to the medicines, and she let out a stream of strained meows towards the end--the last time I saw her, she was meowing a sound I'd never heard before, and so I guess that was the telltale sign that she was ready to move on. One of the last things I recall is her curiously sleeping under the table rather than her usual spots. She always scurried over to me when I'd show up and I'd give her another full plate of food and some cuddles, but she was absent last night, so that must have been when it happened. She was almost an entirely different cat once she got sick--way more affectionate and relaxed, as opposed to prior, where she was pretty feisty, and not too willing to let you pet her for long.

So at least in her last days, for the physical pain she was in, at least we got to show her more love than we could have before. The best thing is that she no longer has to suffer. The new story I wrote was inspired by her, seeing her totally uninterested in catching the mouse running around, so I must get this comic made for her. I'm doing these studies digitally (though I'll add in a traditional version so I can log the day in this journal of sorts) so I can get used to using this brush and sketching digitally in general because I want to do this comic totally on CSP, and now the motivation is only greater to see the project through, since it was inspired by dear Olivia.

[chariflare]

2019-2020 end of year art summaries!!! a hard 2 years (template source ‘19 | template source ‘20 | 2018′s)

(covid & life talk section)

before i go into my usual spiel i want to mention that the reason i can’t remember why i didn’t make an art summary in 2019. i suspect it was because mostly bc i forgot to take time off over the holidays (i... did not know how to full time work), but also bc i was just really upset about my decreased art output. tbh it’s still a bit painful to look back over my pre-2019 art. if you’ve gone through some major life changes that have changed the way you approach a hobby, i recommend this video (”a rebuilding year”), which really helped me. 

(most of my stuff over these years was digital bc it was easier for me to edit, to avoid feeling upset by things being unfixable. though i end up spending too much time fine-tuning my drawings instead...)

i think it’s... been more than one rebuilding year. covid has been an entire new readjustment, and my city being in lockdown for much of the year (unlike most of australia) gave me the chance to have more free time (for stuff like art), despite the negative consequences to other parts of my life. i don’t really have a conclusion to this but it’s necessary bg to understanding how i drew. i hope this year things can settle down and i can finally find a schedule that works for me!

(the stuff i usually talk about in one of these posts)

i tried a couple of things in 2019 & 2020! unlike last time i wrote one of these, though, i think it’s clear how i improved from 2018, even if the pieces on my summary are all over the place. (some of the pieces included in 2020 are studies or wips!)

summary of these years’ improvements:

things i achieved: doing anything creative b/w starting a job and the events of 2020, a TON of digital work, ACTUALLY learning how to paint digitally (2018 me DID NOT KNOW ANYTHING)

things i improved on: overall digital work (e.g. use of features provided by csp - materials, textures, masking, adjustments, gradients, brushes), painting (mainly via marco bucci’s video tutorials), colour & value

etc: tried more watercolour (with pencils - found it much easier), got irl inking supplies (but haven’t done it as much as i’d like), did a lot of shitty trackpad art in ms paint (at work). it’s not shown off much in the summaries but i started to get into fonts and calligraphy after i took a handlettering class in ~april 2019! 

insps of 2020: heikala, choodraws, ggdg. i think my faves (besides ggdg) didn’t influence what i draw as much as usual, so i won’t list more

big goals for 2021: composition, more bgs, find my own painting style, rendering with inks (like shirahama or tsulala or the artist of my broken mariko!). maybe make a tiny comic...?

on the topic of painting! a lot of the stuff i did this year is from a boring angle or more static or less detailed than i’d like. (i was focusing on learning other skills, but) i think this is partly bc of my approach to digital work. i find it way easier to do smth with realistic proportions, flowy lines, or w/ a lot of linework, irl (even if it ends up looking jank). i think this is mostly a mental thing and i’d like to fix it!

on a related note i’m happy with my recent art but the sort of direction i want to go is a lot more like... ouhie or jaydenvargen or elibaum or casper. and looks closer to my irl art. like cartoon-y realistic proportions but with a really bold/complex use of colour (and maybe some softer textural elements) to form a composition that’s an absolute banger. (i don’t think i’m skilled enough in Shapes to keep going w/ simplified stuff either). we’ll see

most of my improvements & achievements happened in 2020 but i think w/o the work (and mistakes?) i made in 2019 i wouldn’t have gotten there. i want to be thankful for that. and i did improve at some of the stuff i’d wanted to in 2018!

good luck this year y’all