#drew this on ipad procreate!! instead of phone for once!!

[milkbreadtoast]

Jesse....🌷

[sarasa-cat]

Positive but personal (and somewhat hilarious) fan art related things (cp2077 for what its worth) behind the cut

I skipped writing yesterday and ended up drawing instead -- after my pencil charged up.

So, luckily those apple pencils charge up to full pretty quickly. Last night I accomplished a little bit of digital drawing on an ipad (sorry, on computer now, ipad charging in another room).

And ... for reasons... reasons of 🙃oh how much I enjoyed my years at daygig 🙃

I actually haven’t drawn a single human head, realistic or stylized or just sketched or anything, in a couple of years.

And drawing digitally on glass (an ipad or many non-cintiq drawing-tablet-displays) is very different from paper (although, actually sort of similar in slipperiness to the first pass of paint when using oil paint on a very slick hard panel).

So, I had a blurry cell phone photo (lol) of my V from cp2077 (console, much lower res than fancy graphics card PC gamers are getting). 

Set the photo in front of me and did a quick gestural sketch followed by a realistically proportioned block in drawing. Realized that I need to hold my apple pencil the same way (far end away from tip for gesture, and then switch to the backwards overhand that many artists normally use with traditional media) while drawing and was very pleased that years of portrait means I can still draw (block in) the under-drawing and nail the measurements for naturalism (obviously, if I want to stylize, I need to work toward a stylized style for proportions, which I haven’t done, at least, not yet -- and for those wondering, drawing realistically is actually FAR EASIER than drawing stylized on purpose as opposed to “stylized” because you haven’t mastered proportions yet).

Once that sketch/underdrawing was done, I drew a giant blank.

How the fuck does one (meaning, myself) paint an interesting digital portrait?

Like, I really am NOT into ultra-realism or painterly realism as a style (🙃do you want to ask me why? I mean, I can most certainly do it, and upload a portfolio proving it, but you really don’t want to ask me why, trust me 🙃)

So then I started looking at other art -- lots of fanart but also other contemporary media/comics/gaming art that DEPARTS from the ultra-realism that has been the bread and butter of entertainment art in the west for 20 years (e.g. ever since consumer-oriented programmable pipeline graphics cards appeared in PCs).

And, I mean, I guess I could just mentally translate all of the steps I know for doing a realism-oriented oil painting to digital. 🙃🙃🙃🙃

🙃🙃🙃

But I really 🙃the fuck do not want 🙃to do that.

So now i have this sketch (on the ipad charging in another room)

And I ... will tackle it. Somehow.

Because FANART IS FREAKING AWESOME FOR LEARNING NEW THINGS AND PLAYING WITH NEW STYLES as zero money and zero “professional” expectations are riding on it. Fanart is like -- let’s just do shit and have fun no matter how it turns out because who cares! WHoo hoo!!! FUN IS FUN. (and learning is learning)

What I really want to do is find a GOOD watercolor brush pack for procreate.

What I will probably do instead is mess around with either a comic book inking style 

or 

A big strokes of bold colored paint (painterly mark making) style that uses “non-naturalistic” colors. (technically, there is no such thing as non-naturalistic colors because the color you see of anything is based heavily on the color of the light illuminating it).

[thedappleddragon]

Day 114 (Saturday July 4th)

I don’t remember a ton about this bay because I didn’t write these 2 entries until Monday but HERE WE GO

Also I’ve decided fuck it, y’all get to know my siblings names because referring to them as my brothers and sister is dumb. Eric is the oldest brother, Greg is the other older brother, Emily is the little sister.

Eric was already home, and he woke me up at like 1pm. I started getting ready for the day just because now I assume if someone is waking me up we’re about to do something. Greg came home sometime in the middle of the afternoon. My dad made food on the grill and we all sat around and ate and talked a lot, and eventually my sister leaves out to have a sleepover with friends. My mom gave her grief about it because she wanted to watch fireworks with the whole family. We drove to some huge church property because they were the only ones around shooting off fireworks, and I made everyone clover bracelets and we got ice cream and an elephant ear because there was a whole-ass fair situation. We all wore masks tho. It was really nice just being outside and doing something almost normal for once. They had a speaker playing music and someone made an announcement thanking local law enforcement and we all went “ACAB” and laughed. The show was nice, my dad braided my hair, and I got to sit on the roof of the car waiting for traffic to lighten up. My brothers talked about math the ENTIRE time. After the show, we went to the store for key lime pie and my brothers got alcohol and stuff for drinks. We all talked more when we got home until I got tired.

Day 115 (Sunday July 5th)

Eric woke me up again, but this time to get McAllister’s and go to the park. I got less sleep than usual and kind of tired all day. Eric and Greg also got coffe at Starbucks. We ate at the park and sat on the bench for forever, trying to decide on something to do. We talked about kayaking, but all boat rentals needed to be made a day in advance. We instead decided to go hiking!! We went home to prepare, and headed out to the Monon trail. It was hot and humid out, and there wasn’t much shade at first, but we crossed a street and turned a bend and ended up in a heavily wooded area that was super pretty. We were wondering when a good turning around point would be, and had just started going the other way when a huge thunderclap rolled overhead. We decided that was a pretty good sign to head back. It started sprinkling, and as soon as we got out of the woods the rain picked up and we had to run to the closest shelter in front on an ice cream shop. It started coming down in sheets, so we booked it to an open jimmy johns across a small street. We bought some soda and waited out the worst of the rain, but we still had to walk a little over a mile while it was still sprinkling. Eric considered paying for a 1 mile Uber lmao. I felt like I was in a Studio Ghibli movie with all the greenery on either side. The rain fully let up as soon as we got to the car, but some guy with a blunt in his hand tried to talk to us as we passed by him, saying we looked like cowboys walking through the mist. We laughed it off and went home. As soon as we got there, we changed clothes, had a quick snack, and went to our neighbor’s house. One of our neighbors had died, and his neighbor was having a little get-together to remember him. As soon as I got there I was stuck talking to the two wierd homeschool kids for an HOUR. I HATED it. I had to text emily and her friend to come rescue me. We talked on our porch for a little bit, but then they kicked me out so I went inside and waited for everybody to get back. Dad came home first, since Eric and Greg were still talking with neighbors. When they got back, we wanted to watch a movie, and I brought out Shrek on tape, but we couldn’t get the tape player to work. Eric and Greg played video games, and emily and I played Mario kart ds. It had been forever since we were able to play, but because I found my white ds, we were able to!! After a while, I went to my room for a bit and drew for artfight. I got a headache, took some medicine, and sat next to Greg on the couch watching him play rimworld until I fell asleep. I later woke up and moved to my own bed.

Day 116 (Monday July 6th)

I woke up wierdly early (10am ish), but Greg was still asleep on the couch, so I had to be quiet while getting some breakfast. I spent the morning sketching for artfight and going between the kitchen and my room. Eric didn’t show up until some time after noon, and the first thing he did was show off his new infrared thermometer by zapping my forehead. He had to work all day, so I didn’t see much of him. I went back to my room to draw until Greg’s girlfriend texted me asking if he had his phone on him. I had to wake him up at 3:30pm lmao. I went back to drawing until I got sick of it. Later I talked with Greg in the backyard about college and mental health for probably over an hour until emily came outside and asked if we were going to do anything tonight or tomorrow. We went inside and fetched Eric, then all gathered on the couches to eat dinner. Eric bought procreate on his iPad for me to play with, and it’s really fun to draw with. I drew while Eric and Greg played video games and emily watched TikTok. She eventually left, and I sat on the couch drawing until past 2 am and went to bed. My G O D procreate is so fun to draw with, it’s a shame Eric is taking his iPad when he leaves :/ ill just have to buy and iPad and pencil for myself some time