#its still my phone wallpaper and it Bugs Me occasionally

[velveteen-vampire]

YOUR HEADER IS REALLY CUTE

thanks!!! its from my xzero week prompts

[meruz]

📌

hi tumblr my name is meruz im a bg artist who works in animation. i do comic projects and fanart in my free time. my art tag is #meruzart

portfolio / digital store / print store / misc. links (linktr.ee)

📝 FAQ below!

Can I use your art as ______?

8Tracks and Spotify Playlists: Go ahead! please credit me either meruz.tumblr.com twitter@automeruz or ig@automeruz -  AND SEND ME THE PLAYLIST this is not a requirement really but I would love to listen to it.

Social Media Layouts/Icons/Headers: Good by me! but again PLEASE credit me somewhere VISIBLE on the layout. If it’s a twitter or insta header/icon credit my twitter/insta @automeruz and if its tumblr credit my tumblr @meruz​

Phone BGs, Desktop Wallpapers: definitely ok!! Any personal and non-commercial use of this nature, I’m cool with. If you ask me, I may even send you a hi-res version of the file but you have to promise to not scam me and sell it lol…

Instagram Reposts: A lot of artists would say no but I’m gonna say go ahead as long as you credit and tag me in the post, again my ig is @automeruz - if you don’t, and I find it, I will bug you about it in the comments and possibly even report you. Nothing personal, its just standard procedure.

Twitter/Tumblr Re-posts: Don’t?? Just RT or RB it from me?? whats wrong with you? I will report this.

Other site re-posts: I’ll probably say yes but again please credit and for this one PLEASE ask me first. It’s nothing personal really, I just want to know where my work shows up.

Video edits/fancams/comic dubs: Yes! Absolutely go ahead! Credit would be much appreciated but moreover please send me a link I especially love to see this stuff!!

I also reserve all rights to have you take it down if I do not agree with the usage or context, especially association with politics on the webpage/app/etc. 

What do you use to draw?

I have a surface pro 8 at home and I use a 22in cintiq at work. Occasionally… I do personal art at work LOL. I use Photoshop CC almost exclusively except the occasional phone drawing which I’ll do on HeavyPaint or Autodesk Sketchbook (but mostly Heavypaint). What brushes do you use? For painting I use the same horrible brushes I downloaded from deviantart like 14 years ago and I cobbled them together for download here. And for lines ive been using shiyoon kim’s brushes which you can grab here. 

What do you use for plein air paintings? If it’s digital, almost exclusively Heavypaint. Traditional, I use gouache. A mix of Holbein acryla and normal gouache either windsor newton or m. graham.

What kind of sketchbook do you use? I use moleskine cahier XXL sketchbooks! I’ve been using moleskine cahiers for probably over 10 yrs now? they come in packs of 3 for like 30USD (the price went up recently booo but $10 per book is still not bad) for the largest size. I think a lot of people associate moleskine with intimidatingly fancy covers & paper but the cahiers are rly lightweight and flexible. you can bend the xxl into a roll like a newspaper and the covers are a light cardboard so you can draw all over them. I always have trouble with spiral sketchbooks getting fucked up in my backpack because I really throw my stuff around a lot but the binding on the cahiers can take a beating and have never fallen apart on me.

Do you take commissions?

Yes, occasionally. But it changes depending on my workload - please e-mail me at isellhotdogs@gmail.com for any inquiries!

Do you have a store?

I have a itch.io here for mostly digital goods.

and I have an INPRNT store here which is print on demand so if there’s anything you’d like to see on there that isn’t just ask and I can generally put it up!

[defining-simplicity]

Nokia 6, Week 1

I took it out on Wednesday morning to film an Instagram story. It was Hurricane Hato day. Nothing special there, although the hurricane was quite something. They said the last Category 10 typhoon was in 2012. I was here too in Hong Kong, but right after the typhoon I think.

Using It to Call

So far I have only used it:

Skype video call style (see Skype section below for details)

Using earphones to take a WhatsApp call from my boss - I am not a big fan of sticking slabs on my ear, and I would like to continue with that tradition. So far nothing to report here. All went on as usual.

Skype

My wife keeps complaining about its sound quality compared to Galaxy Note 2. I guess you cannot compare it to a high-end phone, even though an old and past one. I guess with the amount of cash I am paying I really cannot expect everything I want in a phone.

On the brighter side, the Skype now uses an all-new look and all-new sound effects (of course retaining some legacy notes). Not that it really matters.

WhatsApp Web

No issues with WhatsApp and its web counterpart. I do notice that the WhatsApp Web drops out much less often now. So I think the phone has something to do with it.

The Google App and The Home Button

I find that the built-in Google app:

Takes up quite some CPU and battery power.

Is way too integrated into the OS now, more than what I am comfortable with. It has that... iOS... feel to it now.

I occasionally set alarm using the screen. It is amazingly simple to set alarm this way, but it leaves a trail of unset alarm data in the clock app. I am also not going to start saying ‘Ok Google’ and expect my phone to finish my work for me, although it is clear that this is the way future devices will work, nice and simple, no meddling with complicated UI’s.

I decided to disable it. Bye-bye left screen and long-press home button.

Now... I wanted to see if I can change the long-press home button action to open up email instead, but there is no way I could change that in the settings. Boo.

Google Wallpaper

I found this built-in app and was immediately hooked with it. It puts daily great wallpapers on an otherwise boring phone. I have had it for almost one week without changing the starry-night default wallpaper.

Of course data connection is required to download those wallpapers. You can’t have everything.

Playing Music

There is only Google Play Music app available, as opposed to Samsung Music. I suppose it is alright, but the buttons on the lock screen could be larger. There is no way I will be able to fiddle with it when I am driving now.

Colour Scheme

Actually not a big fan of the unknown-bright-blue colour scheme, but there seems to be nothing I can do about it for now. It is Nokia colour.

Sleep Time

I find the default 30 seconds sleep time is way too fast. I would change it to 1 or 2 minutes, otherwise I will be unlocking it many times more than I should. Unlocking it is a breeze with the fingerprint scanner, but even sometimes it fails to recognize my fingerprint and asks for PIN.

The Fingerprint Scanner

This is my first phone with fingerprint scanner, and I am quite amazed that the lock screen does not even activate without the correct finger. I can still bypass it by pressing the power button. Pattern/PIN/password is still a must.

Yahoo! Weather

I was looking for a multi-timezone clock app and then thought, why not do the weather too. I tried a few, almost found a good one called ‘Today Weather’ here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.lockdown.weather , but it has a bug... all the widgets display local time even after the cities are switched. I emailed the developer but have not received a reply so far. I guess the guy is too busy. Too bad.

I end up using Yahoo! Weather. It is beautiful and I can control the data usage, but I think its widgets take up too much space. They should have a 1-row widget option.

The Biggest Duds and Thumbs-Ups So Far

Here is the big list of my wish list that did not get fulfilled with this phone:

The big no. 1 is still the NFC. I wish they have done a better job at letting me know that there is no NFC for the ones they sell in this region. I did not even know there were variants!

Sound quality is mediocre when using Skype

I could not configure what I want to do when I press the buttons. The Home button defaults to Google app which I decided to disable.

The default Google Play Music app leaves much to be desired compared to Samsung’s

The blue colour scheme is OK, I do not mind it so much, but I just wish I could change it.

There could be others but I cannot remember now.

On the other hand:

Battery life continues to impress. At end of day, still on 15%, after 2 Skype sessions each 1 hour long.

Fingerprint scanner works great

That is all for today!