#only one drawing on this canvas and minimal flashing lights

[redfirefox-55]

I haven’t drawn anything in like three days, but you guys can have the speedpaint for this drawing I did because I feel like the process was kind of interesting

[mistyresolve]

| Wayward Behaviour - Simon “Ghost” Riley x F!Reader

Word Count - 1.7 k

Summary - Every time Simon comes back home to you after a mission, the two of you spend the first couple of hours catching up for the lost time. Here is an example of the first hour. 

Tags/Warnings - 18+ ONLY, Handjob, Road head, Premature ejaculation, Begging (yes, it's Simon), Mentions of edging     

A/N - here is something short and sweet in celebration of me passing my pharm final the bane of my existence, and there may or may not have a brief homage to “Talking to the Void”

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It was dark out by the time his charter landed, and the street lights had already turned on. His profile became outlined by those same lights in swells as his truck passed underneath them. Going a little faster than the limit because he was lost in the ecstasy that your touch always brought him. His mind went momentarily blank and looked down at you, his brown eyes curious. He had already changed into his civics, blue jeans, a black sweater, a canvas bomber jacket and that same old ball cap. You once offered to buy him a new cap so you could throw this one out and he simply said, “This one is lucky.”. You never would have taken someone like him to be so superstitious, but he was.  

“Eyes on the road, Riley, “ it was a sickly sweet command. Simon never normally liked to follow the orders of someone who wasn’t his superior, but when they came from your lips he didn’t dare disobey. Not when your hands were drawing lines up and down his thigh. Your pace was unhurried and alluring. With promises of more. 

“They are,” he muttered quietly, his throat tightening as your hand travelled a little more medial. He motivated the gesture by spreading his legs further apart, allowing you better access.       

Simon knew very well that when he came home from particularly long missions he was almost always welcomed with tantalizing ensembles or sensual promises. The sex was sometimes better when the missions stretched over weeks and there was minimal contact. Every moment with you was made all the more exhilarating and frenzied. The heat between you two the moment you got any semblance of privacy burned into his very soul. A burn he wished left corporeal marks in their wake, all so he could return to them later and reminisce. When he was on missions and he had the rare moment alone he would palm himself just for some relief. He never came but it was better than needing to constantly adjust his pants when the mere thought of you made him hard. He’s also yet to decide whether the edging was torture or if it made being you all the better. This time, he was gone for a total of 16 days. 16 days where he went without your touch and he was only able to make one phone call this time. 

One thing he did know was that nothing he did you himself held a torch to what you made him feel. He swore you knew his body even better than he did. 

When you picked him up from the airport and immediately hopped over the center console so he would be behind the wheel, he knew what your plans were. He wasn’t going to be the fool to stop you, not when your hand reached over to his thigh. Between the growing hardness between his legs. 

Simon rolled his hips into the palm of your hand, eliciting a groan at the touch. A pained expression flashed across his bare face, “Bloody ‘ell, baby.”

That seemingly harmless reaction was more than enough to let you know that he wouldn’t be lasting long. He was already on the edge. You’d still try to find a way to draw it out as much as you could though. “Do you want me to stop?” you questioned, pulling your hand away. 

He caught you by the wrist, his head whipping from the road to you and back to the road, his eyes feverish, “I’ll pull over right here.”   

“No need,” you smiled up at him, your tongue darting out to wet your lips, “As you were.”

He let out a deep, breathy laugh, “Yes ma’am,” and he guided your hand back to his erection. You traced the outline of it, adding a little more pressure around the head before flattening your palm over him and making long, leisurely strokes. 

His lips parted as a sigh escaped his chest. The smoke of his tattoo, came to life as the muscle in his arm flexed as his hand tightened around the steering wheel. His other hand worked to undo his belt and jeans, his fingers were nimble and calculated. You bit down on your lip as you watched, knowing exactly how it felt when those same long fingers were inside you. How he would curl them at just the right moment, each and every stroke. His thumb would be rubbing circles into your sensitive clit. 

“Touch me,” he was practically begging as he pulled his hard cock free from his jeans, and began jerking himself, “Please.”

It was rare to hear him out of control, and even rarer to hear him beg. It was a real delight when you’d get him to this point. The last time he was like this he was on his knees before you, kissing up the length of your thigh till he met your center and he begged for you to let him taste you. He licked and sucked and kissed your pussy until you were nothing but a shaking whimpering mess. 

Without hesitation, you obliged him. You spit into your hand before reaching for him again, wrapping around his base and squeezing. You stroked up and down. Up and down. His hips lazily followed the rhythm. When your thumb brushed over the head and he had to lean his head back against the seat to keep from driving the both of you into the ditch. His eyes were on the road, yes, but they were glassy, unfocused. Luckily, since it was already so late the highway was light on traffic. 

You unlocked your seatbelt and the sound snapped him out of whatever trance he was in. He glanced over with a cocky smile, “Wanting more?” He was so conceited. You liked it, but you also wanted to humble him. With your knees on your seat, you leaned yourself over the center console and to his side. You spit down onto him, a string of saliva connecting you two. It slid down the side of his shaft, mixing with the pre-cum that had already started to drip down. 

“Okay,” his voice was tight like he was trying to prepare himself. 

“You’re not going to last very long are you, Simon?” you flattened your tongue and licked a stripe up his length. 

“No,” he admitted, “No, I’m not.”   

You grinned to yourself before taking him fully into your mouth. You could feel him shudder beneath you, fighting back the urge to buck further into your throat. What you couldn’t fit into your mouth you grasped with a free hand, twisting a little every time you pulled back. It evoked a combination of nervous laughter and moans from the man. Something that seemed so at odds with his exterior and usual aloof personality but somehow it suited him. 

You hollowed out your cheeks, your tongue circling around the head, sliding along the slit. You felt one of his hands delve into your hair, balling up a fist full. It wasn’t to push you down or pull you off him but to support himself. Ground himself so he didn’t float out the window and into the night sky beyond. 

“I gotta—” he choked out, and you heard him as he flicked on the turn signal, missing the thing entirely the first time in his frantic state. The force of him turning off the highway was almost enough to throw you into the dashboard. You pulled back, barely catching yourself from falling onto the floor. 

“Jesus, Simon,” you snapped, shooting a glare in his direction. 

“Don’t stop,” he panted, “Please, don’t stop.”     

With his hand still tangled in your hair, you fell back down into him. A bubble of excitement rises in your throat at the sound of his desperation. Wet, gagging sounds echoed through the small enclosed space, and each time he hit the back of your throat it tightened catching him on his withdrawal. You braced your hand on the open space between his legs, your other hand reaching down to press two fingers to your clit through your pants, needing any sort of relief. You rolled your hips side to side, giving him a little show of your ass. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, as he felt his ending. It was coming in hot and fast, and he panted at the pressure of it. He usually prided himself on his stamina and control, but there was nothing he could do to slow it. Nothing he wanted to do. 

“Atta girl, just like that,” he pulled your hair away from your face. It was for two reasons, the first being that you didn’t have the mind to put up and out of your face before going down on him, and the second was so he could see his cock disappear and reappear. The sight was all it took to push him over the edge. The vein beneath his cock throbbed and pulsated against your tongue as he came. His hot seed coated the back of your throat, some of it escaped and dribbled down his base. You swallowed around him, milking him, before finally seating back on your knees. You opened your mouth to him, showing him that you swallowed. A mix of saliva and cum hung from your chin, a lewd presentation of what you just did to him. He reached out and wiped it away for you, a wicked look in his eyes. 

“I might have to go on missions more often,” he half-joked as he reached into the glove compartment and handed you a tissue, keeping another to help clean himself up. 

“Or just never leave,” you countered, using the tissue you cleaned what you could. You looked out the window. He had actually pulled off onto a gravel side road, he almost didn’t make it too. When you looked back at him he had already straightened himself, save the still unbuckled belt. His expression was unreadable. 

“We better hurry home before I ask you to fuck me right here,” you feigned naïveté as you back down onto your seat. All you managed to do was whet his appetite for you because when he pulled into the driveway of the house you weren’t sure you were going to make it through the front door. He wrapped his arms around your waist, ducking down to attach his mouth to your neck as you try to unlock the door. His hands snaked south until they disappeared underneath the front of your pants, finding nothing but slick heat.  

“You’re insatiable,” you gasped, leaning your head back into his shoulder, fumbling to open the door. 

“Wait until we get inside,” he challenged.     

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A/N - im going to try and write a couple of short fics to post for the month of May bc i won’t have time to write, but if anyone has any ideas on what i should write lemme know. 

Tag List - @thychuvaluswife ❤︎  @shuttlelauncher81  (sorry, the first thing i tag you guys happens to be smut 😀)

[andatsea]

XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 Review

I drew this with an XP-Pen Artist Pro 24, which the team at XP-Pen kindly sent to me for review. I’ve had to opportunity to use this tablet on-and-off over the course of the past several weeks, and while there were a few issues my overall impression is positive.

Unboxing / Contents

Apart from the 24” display tablet itself, the package comes with the usual cabling peripherals, plus some bonus extras. If your machine supports a USB-C connection for display, you’ll only need the one cable (plus the power connection). Otherwise, there’s a HDMI and a USB-C to USB converter included as well.

The extras include: an additional stylus, a one-size-fits-all artist’s glove, and a microfiber cloth.

The container for the stylus twists open to reveal 8 extra stylus nibs. Its cap can also be removed to use as a stylus holder.

Driver (Installation & General Use)

There were a few issues with installation, mostly tied to interactions between the driver, Windows 10 and Windows Ink.

Initially, brush strokes were offset from the stylus’ point of contact with the screen by about 3-4 centimetres when attempting to draw in Photoshop CS6. Random straight strokes also occurred frequently. This same problem did not occur in MS Paint or Photoshop CC 2019. This was fixed by changing the UI scaling setting for the monitor in Windows settings from 125% (which was apparently the default) to 100%.

Initially, brush strokes had no pen pressure in Photoshop CC 2019. Photoshop CS6, on the other hand, did (but suffered from the previous offset problem). This was fixed by turning on the Windows Ink setting in the XP-Pen driver menu. So in other words: CC 2019 needs Windows Ink on to recognise pen pressure, while CS6 didn’t, but was affected by UI scaling.

Interestingly, if Windows Task Manager was in focus and Windows Ink was not enabled in driver settings, stylus input was not recognised at all. There may be other programs that have this issue, but this was the only one I encountered so far.

I will say that I’ve had many problems with Wacom drivers interacting badly with Windows Ink and other things in the past before, so these types of issues are not exclusive to the XP-Pen drivers.

I’m currently using driver version 3.0.5, a beta build that has a lovely UI; it’s clear and laid out well. I did also try version 1.6.4 initially, which was fine — the UI for that version was similar to the layout you find with Wacom drivers.

Apart from the issues during installation that required troubleshooting, I haven’t had many major complaints with the driver in day-to-day use, I do think that there are a few areas for improvement, however.

The driver stops working correctly each time the computer is set to sleep and woken up again. To fix this the driver must be exited from the system tray and then relaunched.

There also doesn’t seem to be a way to bind WIN+SHIFT+ARROW to any of the express keys. WIN+SHIFT+ARROW (left or right arrow) is the Windows shortcut to quickly move a focused window to another monitor, so it’s something I use a lot if I’m on a multi-monitor setup. Unfortunately, attempting to set this shortcut in the express keys menu will simply move the actual driver window over to the other monitor while the custom input is not properly recognised in the text field.

The driver does offer a “switch monitor” option for the express keys that when clicked will transfer your stylus input to another monitor, which is extremely useful.

Screen

At 24” with a 2560x1440p QHD resolution, images are sharp and crisp even when viewed from a close range while drawing. Genuinely, it feels great to paint on based off this aspect alone.

The colour temperature is set to 6500K by default in the the driver settings. I think initially it felt just a touch too saturated, but overall I’m fairly happy with the colour display.

The monitor has touch-sensitive inputs on the top right corner: a -/+ for quickly adjusting the brightness, a menu for further settings, and power. I found myself using these to adjust the brightness throughout the day frequently. The power input requires a few seconds of continued contact from your finger to react, which prevents you from accidentally brushing it and turning the monitor on/off.

The monitor comes with a built-in stand. I found it easy to adjust to different viewing angles and also incredibly sturdy. I had no problems leaning on the monitor while drawing.

The monitor also comes with a pre-applied anti-glare screen protector. I wasn’t bothered by it and it seems to be holding out well after several weeks of use. I think the screen itself definitely needs the additional anti-glare, as being a display tablet means that it’s significantly more reflective than my main display.

Stylus

My first impression of the stylus was that it’s lighter in comparison to the Wacom styluses that I’m used to — there is very little to no weighting on the back end of the stylus, which makes it feel noticeably different when gripped. To be honest, though, I forgot about it when I was actually painting. Still, I would prefer a bit more weighting because I do think it makes the stylus more comfortable to hold overall for long periods of time.

There’s also no eraser nib, but I’ve personally never used those on Wacom tablets (I always use shortcuts to switch between brush and eraser instead) so this was a non-issue for me.

The two shortcut buttons on the side of the stylus sit quite flat to the surface, so I think they would be less likely to bother people who don’t use them. I use them a lot, however, and found that they were still easy to click despite being quite flat.

Unfortunately however I ran into a curious issue with using one of the stylus buttons to activate the eyedropper tool. When the “alt” key is mapped to one of the triggers on the stylus, activation of the eyedropper function in Photoshop (tested in both CS6 and CC 2019) is somewhat unreliable. That is, when the “alt” key is held down, the expected result is that once you tap the stylus on the canvas, a “mouse-click” will be triggered and the eyedropper will activate. While this works perfectly fine if you hold down “alt” from the keyboard (or hold down an “alt” that’s bound to one of the 20 express keys), when you hold “alt” from a stylus trigger I found that tapping quickly with the stylus only seemed to activate the eyedropper about 50% of the time. In order to activate it more reliably, I had to press harder and longer with the stylus, which can become tiring and slowed down my painting process. I also found that frequently, pressing down longer would lock me into the eyedropping function until I clicked the trigger key again.

After submitting feedback about this XP-Pen’s R&D department, I was informed that this issue occurs because the stylus is only able to send one message to the tablet at a time. Pressing “alt” on the stylus and trying to “click” at the same time counts as two messages, which may interact with each other unexpectedly. This is why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

The buttons seem to otherwise work completely fine for any other functions that don’t require the stylus to send two simultaneous messages, so unless you’re like me and like to bind “alt” to a stylus trigger, this won’t affect you.

Pen Pressure & Activation Force

Most current-gen tablets flash a big number for the pen pressure levels as a selling point. Having used tablets with 512, 2k, 4k and 8k levels of pressure sensitivity, I’d say I noticed the biggest difference when switching from 512 to 2k, but in my opinion beyond 2k the change is minimal and has no real impact on the way I draw. The XP-Pen Artist Pro 24 comes with 8192 levels of sensitivty, which is a very big number, but in practical application all I can say is that it works the way I expect it to and I don’t have any complaints regarding the transition between pressure levels on the default linear pressure curve.

More importantly I did notice that the IAF (initial activation force) was not as low as I would have liked. Very light input is not recognised, or only partially recognised before dropping off and on again. In a practical sense this doesn’t actually impact me through most of (perhaps 97%) of the painting process, but it did give me pause once in a while when I wanted to make a really light stroke and had to adjust my method. The drivers for this tablet do come with a pressure curve you can adjust to your preferences, so this can help a little, although after some tests I preferred to leave mine on the default setting.

Summary of Drawing Experience (tl;dr)

I think the mark of a good tool or piece of hardware is that it does not draw attention to itself during the course of its use. An ideal drawing experience allows me to be fully immersed in the act of drawing without having my focus shifted to dealing with the tool. With this in mind the XP-Pen Artist Pro performed very well for the most part, but was held back by a couple of issues.

Pros:

The monitor resolution honestly feels great to look at; the pixel density means that I can basically forget about pixels even with my face positioned closer to the screen.

The parallax between the tip of the stylus and the actual position of input was very minimal and basically not noticeable for me, especially after the simple calibration process offered by the driver.

At normal room temperature (say up to about mid-20’s celsius) the monitor screen stays impressively cool to the touch and I was never bothered by resting my drawing hand on its surface even when painting for long sessions.

The 20 express keys and 2 roller rings are extremely helpful and I actually found myself using all of them, despite initially thinking that I’d only need half of them. The keys are also comfortable and responsive to click (which sounds like it should obviously be so, but having used some Intuos iterations in the past which had some very annoying-to-click express keys, I don’t take this feature for granted anymore).

Cons:

The driver needs to be restarted everytime the computer wakes from sleep in order to work.

Higher IAF was noticeable when very light strokes were desirable. Also, the input will on rare occasions glitch by performing a completely straight max opacity + max brush size stroke. This seemed to happen primarily when I was trying to get light strokes to register. (It didn’t happen often enough to bother me much since it’s just a quick undo, but it did happen enough times that I noticed it.)

The issue with eyedropping using “alt” mapped to a stylus trigger as detailed above. Quite unlucky for someone like me who has over a decade of muscle memory for this particular mapping.

Overall, as I said at the beginning, my impression of the tablet is positive. While I think it has room for improvement when it comes to driver performance and the initial activation force especially, it also has a lot to offer at a highly competitive price point ($900USD at retail), and it would’ve been amazing if something like this had been available to me back when I first started digital painting. As I do enjoy using it for the most part I’ll probably continue to use it on-and-off in future.

[musictrash0426]

Killing Stalking

 My name is Elizabeth Stevens, I’m 17 and it is one month until my senior year of highschool. Most of my friends are going crazy trying to plan out their futures. However, unlike my peers, I've known what I've wanted to be since I was 13. I want to be an artist, my parents fully support my decision which is nice. They have bought me plenty of professional quality supplies since my 14th birthday when they saw all the hard work I put into my art. I've even started selling prints of my work on Redbubble. I also have quite the following 

Overall I live in a pretty good neighbourhood. It has great people, including my best friend Kai who lives a few streets over. My family and I live in a pretty large house. It has three floors which is a little big if you ask me. There are only the three of us living here, me, mom and dad. But with that being said my parents gave me the entire basement on my 13th birthday. They also helped me set up every room down here the way I want. Not much has changed, even after being down here for four years..

When you come down the stairs you are greeted with my lounge area. Where  we have a couch, tv, game system, large bookshelf and some other things. Next we have my room where I have a fairly minimal look. I have a large bed, large dresser, a walk in closet, and my vanity where I do my makeup. The next room is probably my favourite; it's my art studio. Like I said my parents have supported me over the years so I have a lot of supplies. Honestly I couldn't be more grateful for them and everything they’ve given me. I have a full easel, desk, and a lot of supplies, markers, colour pencils, paint (water, acrylic, oils), alongside my new drawing tablet.

This morning when I got up, I went to my art room and started sketching. I've gotten into this habit as it helps me get into a creative mindset, along with getting into drawing for the day. Once I stop doodling I start to make a list of the things of supplies I had recently run out of. 

As I was about to leave, I asked my parents if they needed anything. My mom told me to get her a drink from Starbucks on my way home as she knows I’m planning on going there anyways. 

I get into my car and drive to the art store. Luckily this store is only 10 minutes from my house. I walk into the store and look for the supplies on my list. While going through the store, grabbing the things I needed, I decided I also wanted to try out a new paint while I was here. I got some winsor and newton acrylics in red, blue,yellow, sienna, black and white along with some mixing pallets. I also got a canvas as I want to make a large painting later. 

My mom texted me asking if I could pick up milk and eggs. So I ran into the supermarket and picked up the few things she wanted. I then went to starbucks, got both my parents, and myself a few drinks, and went home. 

I got out of my car balancing shopping bags on my arm,the drinks in my hand and I went inside. I put the milk and eggs in the fridge, gave my parents their drinks and made my way down to my art room to put my supplies away. I started brainstorming ideas of what I want to paint and I finally came up with a concept I liked. I open my sketchbook and I start to draw the rough copy of the picture before blowing it up on the canvas and painting it. While I am drawing out the picture I'm watching lavendertowne’s creepypastas series as it's one of my favourites on youtube. 

In my concentration, I lose track of time, and before I know it it’s 4:30 pm. My mom walks to my art room saying her and dad are going on a trip for the next week. So I get the house to myself, which is cool. I've been home alone before. “Elle, you can have Kai over to stay for the week if you want.” mom said. “Also I transferred some money into your account so you and Kai can just order some food if you guys get hungry.” 

“Thanks mom,” I say “ I love you.”

“Love you too sweetie.” 

I walk upstairs with mom as her and dad are about to leave. I hug them goodbye and tell them to have a safe trip. 

I decide to take mom up with her offer and invite Kai over for the week. Lately I haven't been wanting to be home alone. So I called him and he said he’d be over in 10 minutes. 

I grab a glass of water and wait, before I knew it there was a knock on my door and it was Kai. I give him a hug and he smiles. 

“It’s like we haven't seen each other in a while.” Kai teases me. We saw each other yesterday and I called him late last night because I just wanted to talk to someone. 

Kai has literally been my best friend since we were both in diapers. Our moms grew up together so it was bound to happen that we would too. He’s my biggest support system, he’s one of the only people who know how I got into art. I watched a lot of anime growing up, I still do, and the art style is what got me into wanting to be an artist. 

“Have you started a new piece yet?” Kai asked 

“Yeah I have! And I just finished the rough copy” I say.

“Can I watch you work on it?” 

“Of course you can silly,” I say with a grin. I show Kai the canvas to let him gauge what I’ve been working on. 

“It looks really good!” But his face saddens a little bit. “Are you doing alright?” I give him a confused look. “You tend to draw horror pieces when you're trying to get yourself into a better place.” 

Horror pieces are my favourite to draw. I don't have an explanation for it, but I've always liked them. Maybe it's because I loved horror shows growing up but who knows. I look back at all my works and Kai’s right. I tend to do these pictures more when I'm not the best headspace. 

“You really know me, at this point it's mostly subconscious” I laugh “I was also watching creepypasta videos so the idea could have come from that. Anyways, what do you think about it so far?” 

“I love it of course!” Kai says

I work on transferring it onto the canvas and after about 2 hours the pencil sketch is laid out. Once that's done we decide to go to the movies. We went and saw whatever Kai wanted to see. He picked some rom com which I wasn't mad at as I enjoy these types of movies. 

After the movie we went to a sushi place for dinner. I wasn't that hungry so I got the rest of mine to go. Then we went to the supermarket to get some candy and pop for tonight. We decided that we were going to stay up quite a bit of the night so I can work on my artwork and we can just talk about life and stuff. We pull into the parking lot and head inside. This store is open 24/7 so we have plenty of time to get our stuff, but still it is 11:30pm and something makes the air feel very eerie tonight. 

After walking around the store Kai and I look at eachother and we both feel like something is off because this uneasy feeling Kai and I hurry up and grab what we wanted. Kai and I decided to pick up Sour Patch Kids, gummy bears and some chips. We then went into the drink aisle where I picked out Dr. Pepper, and ginger ale. Kai picked out diet Pepsi and cream soda. We picked out the four flavours that we both love. We then decided to get a tub of cotton candy ice cream. As we were turning there was this lady who crashed her cart into ours as we were on our way to check out. I looked up and noticed that it was the same lady that had been in each aisle with us, which honestly didn’t make any sense as we just went to the isles we needed. 

We check out of the store and head back to the car. After putting everything in the trunk of the car, I look up and see the same woman still there. What the fuck?

“Hey Kai, can you take the cart back please?” He nods and I get into the car and lock it. 

I hear a knock that startles me and I look up. It was just Kai. I unlocked the door and he got in. “Wanna tell me why you had the door locked Elle?”

I look over and the woman gets into the car next to us oh great my horror brain made something out of nothing. She was also probably having a movie night with some of her friends.

“It’s nothing Kai, I think I’m just psyching myself out.”

“Okay.” With that we drove back to my place right in the nic of time too as it just started to rain. We shut off all the lights and lock the doors and windows upstairs. We head back down to my studio and I set up everything to begin painting.

I wanted something in the background while I was working so I put on Another. Kai and I have already watched it a few times but we didn’t want to start something new since I wouldn't be able to give it my full attention. Also it's a horror anime so it will put me in the mood for my painting.

I looked down at the outline I drew; it was a girl who had gone psychotic and had a knife in her hand. My plan is to add blood to her once the painting is completely dry, but first I start by painting the eyes. When they are finished they look very dead and already mentally gone inside. I take a break and lay my head on Kai’s shoulder.

“Tired?” he asks me.

“No, I just wanted a break.” We continue watching the anime after two more episodes. There was a bang of thunder and a flash of lightning, I looked out the small window and saw what looked to be a figure of a woman. I looked back to get a better look but she's gone. I must just be seeing things.

I brush it off then get back to my painting. About an hour later I finish painting the skin and I see another flash out of the corner of my eye. I think to myself how odd that is  because there was no thunder. I brushed it off as the volume of the show probably just covered the sound. I decided to be done with painting for the night, so we moved out into the lounge area and continued watching Another. There was another flash and in the window we saw her. The woman from the supermarket was in my window.We were going to call the cops then with another flash she's gone.

We decided we couldn't take anymore horror tonight so we put on Ouran Highschool Host Club a few hours later we were on the episode where a character named Tamaki was trying to figure out his friend Haruhi’s biggest fear. When we see a flash of lightning in the episode, it also flashes here, and we see her silhouette again and she vanishes with the lightning once more. 

Creeped out we went to my room and lay in bed, I cuddled into Kai because honestly I was shaking and needed comfort.

In the morning Kai and I woke up to banging on the door. I checked the time and it was 8:30 am. We got up and checked no one was there, but there was an envelope that said Elizabeth Steevens and Kai Kalua I brought it inside.

“Ummmm Kai?”

“Yeah?”

I turn the envelope to show him. We were both scared and didn't know what to do. We opened it and there were at least 40 photos of us, starting from when we were coming out of the movie. There were photos of us at the sushi restaurant, the grocery store, and the worst ones of all the ones that were taken looking into my house. Ones of us in my art room, in the lounge, and ones of us asleep in my bed.

Panicked, I call the police and they tell us to come down to the station. Since neither of us knew the woman's name they said there was nothing they could really do for us except to have us tell them if something else happens. Some help they were, I thought.

Kai and I went back to my studio and I continued working on the piece. This time our show of choice was Miria Nikki. As I was painting the hair I saw another flash and considering what happened last night we decided to go to my parents office and check the security cameras and lo and behold she's there on the property.

“Kai whats that in her hand?”

“I don’t know,”

I looked closer and saw that it was a knife. We once again called the police and this time they came, but hearing a car must have scared her. They came inside and asked to watch the cameras with us. Only this time she was at the back door that's connected to the kitchen and of course I happened to leave it unlocked…

“Oh Elizabeth, Kai, come out come out wherever you are..” The woman sang out menacingly. Her voice rang through the house loudly causing me to look to one of the officers for advice

He nods for Kai and I walk out.

“There you two are,”

“Do we know you?” I ask, genuinely confused as to who this woman is.

“Yeah I don't know who you are either.” Kai said just as confused.

“I'm Chloe. I am in your art class.” She says.

We were both confused; we don’t remember having ever seen her before. Our art class had six people in it, us two, three other of our friends and some weird girl who doesn't talk to anybody.

“... you’re the weird girl in our class aren’t you?” Kai questions.

“What did you call me?” She asked with a defensive tone.

“What did you expect him to say, you literally refuse to talk to us. Then whenever the teacher praises my work, you get angry. Besides who goes around taking pictures of people in their own house! That is fucking creepy.” I say

“I get angry because you always get the spotlight! Give someone else a turn.”

“Elle gets the attention because she actually shows her artwork, you just sit in the back of the class and do nothing. If you want attention why ignore us when we try talking to you? What is your problem? And why do you have a knife?” You can tell Kai is starting to lose patience with the situation, as his questions get increasingly aggressive.

“So I can get rid of my competition,” she smiles sweetly.

“What competition? There is no competition Chloe” I ask 

“What competition? I have liked Kai forever!” Chloe says frustrated, slightly getting closer to the two of them with the knife.

Kai puts one hand out towards her, while using the other to pull me back with him a couple steps, creating distance between her and I before he speaks again.“I will never like you. Besides there is only one person I like, and hate to break it to sweetheart but it's not you.” This makes me curious who Kai was referring to.

“Then who is it then?” she asks angrily

That's when Kai kissed me. I kissed him back, albeit slightly flustered. This caused Chloe to become enraged, she came towards us with the knife and that's when the cops came out and told her to put the knife down. She complied and dropped the knife as she didn’t realize that the police were here. 

One of the two cops took her away as the other came and told us they were going to hold her and do a mental assessment on her. He also checked to see if Kai and I were okay. After we tell him we are he also leaves, leaving Kai and I alone to deal with this new revelation.

“Do you actually like me? Or were you just saying that to get her to stop…” anxious about the answer since I have liked Kai for a while, but didn't want to make things awkward with him.

“Elle I have liked you for a while but I didn't want to lose you.” Kai says as he pulls me closer to him.

I don't know how to respond, all my mind was telling me was ‘kiss him’. I pull him in by his shoulders to another kiss, quickly dispelling doubts either of us had. Kai placed his hands on my waist and melted into it. He pulls away and leans his forehead against mine, just holding me. For the first time in a few days I felt safe.

“Kai?” I ask in a quiet tone almost a whisper.

“Yeah sweetheart?” 

“Can you stay while my parents are gone?” I don’t feel safe enough to be home alone, and you wanted to stay in the comfort that he gave you.

“Of course I can angel.”

[fangirl--writes]

Art at its Finest. Penguin x Reader

The weather in Gotham was always the same: Dark, Cloudy, somewhat muggy, and on an occasion rainy, it varied between light breezy drizzles and massive downpours that chilled a person to the bone, soaking them from head to toe, umbrella or not. Being a native Gothamite, you accustomed yourself to the dreary weather of the fair city. But- Some days on very rare occasions the sun would break free of its cloud prison and the skies would be rinsed clean of their gloomy, dark makeup and return to their natural, fluffy, cotton like states.  The city would be bathed in the golden light of the sun and things would seem at peace, the grass seemed greener and the people seemed happier on those rare sunny Gotham days, and today happened to just be one of those very days. The warm lights of the morning sun streamed through the curtains that covered your bedroom balcony window. A gracious smile graced your face as you turned in bed to face the heated rays. These rare days were your favorite. Arms threw themselves in the air as you stretched out under your sheets, your eyes fluttering open, your vision blurry, as they try to adjust to the bright lights that bathed your bedroom walls in a soft glow. With a quick yawn you rolled yourself out of bed, smile still on your lips as you slipped into the bathroom of your small apartment. It was an old building like its hundreds of twins that lined the streets; few houses were actually free of the title “old,” but they were nestled in the private districts home to the big wigs, and politicians of Gotham. You brushed out your tangled locks, before returning to your bedroom slipping on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, slipping on your trusty sneakers you headed to the living room. Pens, paintbrushes and canvas were scattered across the coffee and side tables, your eyes scanned the space for a particular item.   Your sketchbook. It was elusive, especially on days like this. With a gleeful grin you snatched it from under a pile of crumpled papers grabbing your shoulder bag you tucked it inside and headed out into the sunshine. The streets were not too crowded this morning as you headed to the little coffee shop down the street, a quaint little café with yummy pastries and a lovely spot to sit and draw the passerby. The quiet bell dinged over head as you entered the shop, ordered your favorite drink and took it to the patio. Silently you began to sketch the unsuspecting people, anything that stayed still longer than a minute you attempted to put down in your small book. They’d move eventually and you’d start on a new one. People walking their dog, lovers who swooned over each other, the little robins and jays that hopped at your feet, anyone could fall victim to your sketching.  It was a mixture of things, young and old, large and small some remained with minimal detail as they sped past you in a hurry. However; there were few of them who lingered giving birth to full bodied, cross hatch, shadowed pictures with willow like limbs. You smiled at the graphite drawings continuing your work on a little boy who stood with his mother at the cross walk across the street. A darkly dressed figure darted into the corner of your eye causing the little boy to be pulled close, silently you cursed at the change in position. You looked up to watch the man who dared ruin your sketching; he stood tall as he strutted across the sidewalk,  immediately your pencil set to work tracing his thin outline on the paper, you quickly noted his left leg slightly dragged behind him, but not enough to be noticeable. Silently you watched him from behind your strands as he stepped up the concrete stairs carefully, mindful of his leg, your eyes absorbed in his facial features as he passed you, his nose was somewhat crooked like that of a bird beak, his cheeks were high and his face was sharp, leaving his eyes to be hidden behind a pair of midnight colored glasses. You tensed as he paused before opening the door; you were staring, too caught up in the mysteries that may lie behind those circular shaped spectacles. He only waited a mere second before opening the door and heading inside, quietly muttering about the midday heat.

You sat frozen as the door closed behind the man, too afraid to look anywhere but ahead until he was inside. You set the pencil down admiring the sketches you’d managed of him. His face was scattered across the new page, dapper attire sticking out among the modern clothing of your other models. They weren’t enough… He was different, even on one of Gotham’s brightest days, he seemed to be brooding, you didn’t fail to notice the way people moved out of his way, the looks they gave him as he passed were a mix of sympathy, and fear. You stole a look over your shoulder, the little shop had become quite busy of the course of half an hour, he stood in line patiently waiting his turn to order; you placed your sketchbook in your bag and pencil behind your ear as you snatched up your drink before taking a deep breath and heading inside. You took up a seat by the front window so you could still watch the passerby, and you could see the mysterious man through the reflection in glass, placing your sketchbook on the table your pencil set to work taking in the way his figure leaned on the umbrella held like a cane, the position of his feet and how his sunglasses were now placed neatly on the top of his spiked puff of hair, the grip on your pencil tightened as you strained to see the color of his eyes through the glass. Blue, clear as the midday skies overhead, bright with thought and intellect; a shade that would put all the colored pencils in your arsenal to shame; how you wished you’d brought them today. He strode up to the counter confidently, placing his order before handing over payment; he nodded gratefully and headed your direction to take a seat, your head swiveled to watch the passerby outside, hand supporting your chin as you watched. There was something about him as you took peeks in the window; he was unlike anyone you’d ever seen. Unlike the mafia goons that ran around in packs, guns hidden in every crevice, or wanna be criminals that flooded the streets lurking in alleys. Certainly he wasn’t your average Joe Gotham Citizen, a certain aura washed over him, something you’d tried to mimic in your second sketches, but it would never compare to the real thing. That spark, a hidden asset that you couldn’t name, he oozed it, even as he sat in the cushioned booth seat it radiated off his perched form. His shoulders, square, chin high, you could see the wheels turning as his eyes slowly slithered about the store- Planning. Scheming. Dreaming. What you’d give to know which one. You went rigid as your eyes met in the glass- His chilled gaze locked on yours, drinking in your form like a hawk with unsuspecting prey. Your knuckles white, hand trembling as you gripped the pencil for dear life, drowning in his deep whirlpools that seemed to pull you down under further with each passing second. Those eyes seemed to swirl right to your inner most thoughts, the corner of his lips up turned to a smirk as he continued to stare through you, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, all suddenly visible to this stranger, “Kaupleput!”   He blinked, eyes darting up at the counter, a pale lipped grin grazing his face. Just like that, spell was broken, heart ringing in your ears as your chest heaved a sigh of relief   as he stood to retrieve his order, seconds later a sharp snap caused your hand to stiffen. The pencil which you’d gripped for dear life, laid in pieces on the plastic coated table; silently you cursed as you brushed the wooden fragments into your hand before snatching up your empty cup and tossing your bag over your shoulder hurriedly getting up from your seat, head down as you scurried out, the bell ringing over head signaling your hasty retreat. Those icy blue eyes plagued in your mind as you walked, the sun that bathed the streets in a warm glow only hours ago was gone, hidden behind a barricade of dark storm clouds. How could someone make you feel so vulnerable, and yet so wonderful at the same time? It was like his eyes peered into your very being, exposed and open for him to read a favorite book. His name bobbed in your conscious Kaupleput. Where had you heard that name? Your bag bounced against your hip as you neared your building, keys swinging on your finger. In passing perhaps? It could very well be a common name; Gotham was a melting pot after all, a family name maybe. Yes, a family name. There were plenty of elitist families living within the city; he certainly looked the part, you hadn’t a doubt in your mind he could certainly act the part. The familiar click in the door set your mind at ease as you headed up the stairs to your apartment. Not a moment too soon; your eyes caught sight of the heavy downpour outside, pounding against the window as you headed down the hall. You slid your keys in the door and headed inside tossing your bag on a nearby chair, before crashing on the couch the bright light of your small television illuminating the room as you flipped through the channels.

“Robbery at local businessman’s restaurant turned deadly yesterday afternoon- You paused on the breaking news report half interested, “a breaking development in the Bamonte’s shooting- Scenes of downtown Gotham flashed across the screen as a reporter’s flat voice filled your living room. “The four men that ascended on the restaurant owned by esteemed business man Salvatore Maroni, gunned down patrons and staff alike before making off with  thousands of dollars in cash,  have been found dead in an abandoned building on Gotham’s east side. Images of the restaurant rolled across the screen, yellow caution tape blocking off the door, and glimpses of the blood soaked interior with G.C.P.D. officers surrounding the area. Your eyes glued to a figure in the window as she continued to speak. “The G.C.P.D. is currently investigating the cause of the deaths, the money has sense been returned Salvatore Maroni who is grateful this horrific event is finally over” It couldn’t be…  A lanky figure trying to avoid the cameras stood hunched behind the man who you assumed was Maroni, his face was pale and blue eyes alert and observant to his surroundings. His sharp suit was replaced with a white staff uniform, it was him. Kaupleput. You jumped hearing a rasping knock at the door. You weren’t expecting anyone; no one had asked to come over, carefully you crept to the door your hands wrapping around the aluminum slugger in the umbrella stand as you peered into the peephole. Not a soul in sight. The hallway was barren suave for a brown bag next to your door. Carefully you slid the chain on your door hand still gripping the slugger as you opened the door just enough to poke the bag. With no sign of movement you proceeded to stick your head out into the hallway peering down both sides before looking down at the bag, hooking the handle with the shaft of the bat and bringing it inside, mindful to lock the door. One could never be too careful in Gotham. You reached into the bag pulling out a note. You left this at the café and I just had to see it returned. Beautiful work; however I made one small adjustment. May our paths cross again. -Kaupleput You pulled out your sketchbook flipping to today’s work turning past the unsuspecting, lovers, birds, finally your eyes landed on the darkly shaded pages filled with his face. In one of the blank spaces next to a quick profile was the scrawl of an ink pen. A Name- Oswald.

[mikemateiweb-blog]

My TMNT Mario Paint Animation, a Retrospective – Mike Matei Blog

This is three lines drawn in Mario Paint at different speeds of strokes with the mouse.

The limitation of Mario Paint that’s probably the most regrettable is the dismal color selection.  There are only 15 solid colors, and 15 extra colors which are the basic colors combined in various ways in a pixel checkerboard pattern.

There’s a reason why you don’t see actual pixel artists use patterns like this for coloring, because the results are usually hideous.

Unfortunately, an artist working within the restrictions of Mario Paint will have to use these extra colors sometimes, for better or worse.  Outside of these 30, there’s also several pages of stuff that I rarely find a use for at all.

There’s no shortage of eye-melting color patterns to choose from, although these look better using the Spray tool.

This is due to the limitations of the hardware of the SNES.  I’m not a programmer and I wasn’t able to find any detailed information on how Mario Paint’s code works, but here’s my best guess of what’s going on:  The canvas area of Mario Paint is 248×168 pixels, which means it’s made up of 8×8 tiles, 31 horizontal and 21 vertical.  The SNES has 16 colors to work with in each 8×8 tile, which means Mario Paint is using the maximum amount of colors the console can support (I’m guessing that one color has to be left unused for transparency, possibly to allow the cursor to hover over the drawing area).  Also, the SNES can only display 34 of these tiles per horizontal row, so there’s 31 tiles for the canvas, 2 tiles for the border around the screen, and 1 left over that allows for the cursor.

Which means, as much as I lament the poor color choices, I can’t blame the creators of Mario Paint.  They squeezed as much functionality out of Mario Paint as the hardware allowed.  The checkerboard colors and blob patterns was the only way to extend the colors available.  (By the way, if you’re knowledgeable about how Mario Paint or the SNES hardware works and anything I said is incorrect, let me know and I’ll edit this article with the correct information and give you credit).

The color limitations also played a big part in why I chose the TMNT opening. Mario Paint offers two solid shades of green, which would allow me to add shadows to the Turtles’ skin.

The character design of the Turtles just happened to work really well with Mario Paint’s colors, and I could get a bit more mileage out of light and shadow.

There’s also an undo history of exactly one action, which is offered to you by the dog icon.  Saving and loading is limited and slow, the flood fill tool is slow (although it can be cancelled in the middle to partially fill things), and the animation function is limited to 4 drawable frames… I could go on and on about the limitations of Mario Paint, but I think you get the point.

So, as I just mentioned, Mario Paint has a pretty limited animation suite, so I used modern capture technology to simply capture frames when I completed them, and then edit them together later in video editing software.  This could have been done in 1992 as well. I have friends who would use their VCR to record Mario Paint onto VHS and string them together to make elaborate animation projects, as well as other Nintendo art tools such as the GameBoy Camera placed into a Super Game Boy. VCRs connected to a camcorder could also be used to do stop motion animation with clay or toys, and even film individual frames of drawings to make animations.

This process was super nerve wracking, because each completed frame had to be discarded from existence entirely once I was done grabbing them. At least data storage is easy nowadays and I didn’t have to worry about someone in the house overwriting my animation in order to record an episode of Roseanne from the TV.

So, we come back to the concessions I talked about at the beginning. The original animated sequence for the TMNT show totals up to about 1200 individual frames of animation.  So if I averaged about an hour per frame drawing in Mario Paint, and I worked 8 hours a day, that would mean I would reasonably get 8 frames done per day.  Which means it would take 150 days of nonstop work to get the animation done, which would be okay if I didn’t also have a full time job and a social life that needs to be taken care of as well.

My animation ended up with about 420 frames total, and took me 6 months. So doing 1200 frames would have taken a year and a half, and who knows how much I would slow down from fatigue after a project that long.  There were a couple times I could get a break, such as some frames just being a single solid color (such as lightning flashes), and I reused the swirling TMNT logo from the beginning for the end.

Hey, the original cartoon reused this animation, why can’t I?

I mentioned earlier that Mario Paint doesn’t offer any layer functionality, so this is a huge problem when animating moving characters over a background. As you can see in the above example, the background is constantly being destroyed by the turtles moving across the screen, and that destroyed information has to be rebulit when the portion of the background comes back into view.

  Eagle-eyed readers will probably notice that this scene had to be animated out of sequence and then reassembled, which accounts for the way the background constantly changes shape.

Surprisingly, the shots you would think would be more difficult to do, such as Donatello flying around the city and the background moving around really fast, are about the same difficulty as the shot you see above, because of the lack of background layers.  When the background is moving so quickly, redrawing the entire frame isn’t that much worse.

Oh who am I kidding, this was still painful.

Another issue came from the fact that I wasn’t going to use all 1200 frames from the original animation, so I had to pick and choose which frames to use. I was referring to a television off to the side drawing these individual frames, and I tried to pick out individual frames that would convey the most movement.  This resulted in a bit of a discontinuity in the framerate, which had to be corrected manually when it came time to edit.  This is why you see the framerate fluctuate often during the entire sequence.  This is regrettable but… I dunno.  Nobody has really complained about it, and if they did I’d just shrug and say Mario Paint isn’t the optimal tool to create animation.  I did the best I could, you know?

Recreating an animation sequence in Mario Paint is so ridiculously transformative that it easily meets the requirements for Fair Use, so in order to keep my video from getting taken down, I was going to need a cover version of the music instead of using the original audio.  Luckily I was able to get a great one by Epic Game Music that was tailored to match the timing of the video I animated.  After that was done, it just needed some editing and it was completed.

So there you have it.  How do I feel about this animation more than a year later? I’m glad I did it because it’s something nobody had ever done before. Doing something this elaborate with the drawing section of the game. Sure a lot of people have done a lot with the music portion, and there is a very small limit to what you can do with the in-game animation tool. But to animate something like this with the basic drawing tool, I’d say I did the most elaborate thing anyone ever attempted. If there’s anything else out there even close to as time consuming, I’d love to see it.

I think it was a really good personal exercise for me in diligence and determination.  I’m glad that I managed to finish it.  Starting a project like this and then abandoning it halfway would have been a gnawing regret I would have had to carry for the rest of my life.  The end result wasn’t perfect, but it’s more important to me that I finished it.

“I may lose, but it won’t be because I gave up!”

As for economics… all told, I only made a couple hundred dollars off the video.  I’d do the Pat-Math on how much my hourly wage was, but you can guess its low enough to be just about nothing.  But hey, that’s the game we play being creatives.  You never know what’s going to hit or miss, and you just have to keep consistently applying yourself until something hits.  Whenever I get negative feelings about this animation, I have to remind myself that it was more than made up for with a lot of other successes that required far less effort.  Not to mention I’m a Let’s Player and a streamer where I record myself playing art that other people made, and standing on the shoulders of giants to do so.  I’m grateful for the wonderful life I have, and I hope you guys don’t get the impression that I made this post just to whinge about making cartoons in Mario Paint.

Animation is extraordinarily difficult, but we’re in a strange time where animation is easier to make than ever before, yet independent animators aren’t making the money they probably should.  And yet… so many people still animate. There’s so much incredibly good animation being made by individuals on YouTube and all over the internet. Against overwhelming odds and minimal rewards, they still painstakingly download their imaginations into individual frames, one by one.  I believe strongly that things will get better for animators in the future.

Just like Lion-o up there, they just need to keep running. Eventually something good will happen.

Source By: https://www.mikematei.com/blog/my-tmnt-mario-paint-animation-a-retrospective-mike-matei-blog/

 Update:

Not long after I posted this article, which details my process of creating a full animated sequence in Mario Paint a year and a half ago, my animation was taken down from YouTube due to a copyright complaint.

From the very beginning, I was aware that my video could be taken down, so I purposely designed the video to be as transformative under Fair Use as I possibly could.  Everything was manually drawn by hand using a reference offscreen.  There’s no way to download images into Mario Paint, nor is there any way to trace anything, and the limitations of Mario Paint actually make it impossible to perfectly recreate the original (the article that follows will explain why in detail). And, a new cover version of the song was recorded specifically for this video.  I was under the impression that I was so far ahead of what was required that I would be completely in the clear, and then some.

If the animation I made in Mario Paint doesn’t count as transformative, then I’m not sure what even does.  What if I had recreated the intro using claymation?  What if I had used actors in costumes?  What if I just used a recording of me singing the theme song in the shower?  Where is the actual line that got crossed?

I want to know what aspects of my video supposedly don’t qualify as Fair Use. Hopefully I can manage to get that question answered at least.  I’m sure other creators could find the information useful as well.

Anyways, the video got reposted by someone already if you didn’t get a chance to watch it. It very well may get deleted again, so save it and if you want and share it on other video players and blogs so half a year of work isn’t tossed out a window forever..

See the video here:

https://www.vidlii.com/watch?v=PlV2cAO9kf1

https://www.bitchute.com/video/bfyvFFHA4Aw5/

Of all the art forms, animation seems to be the one affected by economics the most.  Film is another big one for sure, but animation is such an incredibly manual, labor-intensive process that there’s a giant disconnect between creative vision and what can actually be reasonably produced, and what can reasonably make money. Since animators are painstakingly creating moving pictures frame by frame, simple creative decisions can multiply into hours, months or even years of extra work.  Concessions always have to be made, and the work doesn’t always pay off.

In 2016, I used the Super Nintendo game Mario Paint to recreate the intro to the 80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon opening. Here is the original video that was taken down. Use the links above to see the animation.

There were a lot of candidates to choose from (Thundercats, X-Men, Ducktales were also high on my list), but I chose TMNT because it seemed to be the most likely to reach a wide audience.  I knew from the outset that this was going to be a big undertaking, and it took me roughly 6 months to complete.

 The reasons to animate using Mario Paint are probably what you’d figure. Since I’m known as a commentator on retro video games, it was appropriate to use an art tool from a retro games console.  There aren’t really many other choices that fit the bill, and there’s no way I could have used the LJN Video Art console to do it, being the completely useless art tool that it is that’s not even suitable for use by children.  Also, there’s the element of the masochistic spectacle of one man going through the grueling process animating a full sequence working within such strange limitations.  I thought people would be into it, and thankfully a good amount of people were.

Mario Paint was a wonderful toy for its time, and Nintendo was smart enough to add game elements, humor, and quirky flair to the experience instead of just making it a basic electronic art program.  But as an art tool, the limitations are numerous.  It’s very strange in that it’s essentially a tool to create pixel art, but offers extremely limited pixel precision (save for the pixel art stamps you can define, which weren’t suitable for my project).

The game came bundled with a mouse, but laser mouse technology didn’t exist in 1992.  The Super Nintendo mouse used a rubber ball that rolled along the mousepad to manipulate rollers inside the unit to move the cursor onscreen.   Everything grinds to a halt with this mouse if anything gets dirty, and the mouse is in a constant hurry to get as dirty as it possibly can.  People reading this who grew up with Mario Paint will remember the cursor snagging over and over and the constant struggle to keep it clean.  This was my life for 6 months.

As for other limitations, lines need to be drawn extremely slowly in Mario Paint, because moving the cursor too fast will result in dotted lines streaking across the screen.  Not to mention every pen stroke overwrites the color underneath, as there is no layering functionality, so trying to build colored shapes with an outline requires a bit of planning in advance.  In Mario Paint, I typically lay down color blobs and then add black outlines around them as the very last step, which is backwards from the way most people draw.

This is three lines drawn in Mario Paint at different speeds of strokes with the mouse.

The limitation of Mario Paint that’s probably the most regrettable is the dismal color selection.  There are only 15 solid colors, and 15 extra colors which are the basic colors combined in various ways in a pixel checkerboard pattern.

There’s a reason why you don’t see actual pixel artists use patterns like this for coloring because the results are usually hideous.

Unfortunately, an artist working within the restrictions of Mario Paint will have to use these extra colors sometimes, for better or worse.  Outside of these 30, there’s also several pages of stuff that I rarely find a use for at all.

There’s no shortage of eye-melting color patterns to choose from, although these look better using the Spray tool.

This is due to the limitations of the hardware of the SNES.  I’m not a programmer and I wasn’t able to find any detailed information on how Mario Paint’s code works, but here’s my best guess of what’s going on:  The canvas area of Mario Paint is 248×168 pixels, which means it’s made up of 8×8 tiles, 31 horizontal and 21 vertical.  The SNES has 16 colors to work within each 8×8 tile, which means Mario Paint is using the maximum amount of colors the console can support (I’m guessing that one color has to be left unused for transparency, possibly to allow the cursor to hover over the drawing area).  Also, the SNES can only display 34 of these tiles per horizontal row, so there are 31 tiles for the canvas, 2 tiles for the border around the screen, and 1 left over that allows for the cursor.

Which means, as much as I lament the poor color choices, I can’t blame the creators of Mario Paint.  They squeezed as much functionality out of Mario Paint as the hardware allowed.  The checkerboard colors and blob patterns were the only way to extend the colors available.  (By the way, if you’re knowledgeable about how Mario Paint or the SNES hardware works and anything I said is incorrect, let me know and I’ll edit this article with the correct information and give you credit).

The color limitations also played a big part in why I chose the TMNT opening. Mario Paint offers two solid shades of green, which would allow me to add shadows to the Turtles’ skin.

The character design of the Turtles just happened to work really well with Mario Paint’s colors, and I could get a bit more mileage out of light and shadow.

There’s also an undo history of exactly one action, which is offered to you by the dog icon.  Saving and loading are limited and slow, the flood fill tool is slow (although it can be canceled in the middle to partially fill things), and the animation function is limited to 4 drawable frames… I could go on and on about the limitations of Mario Paint, but I think you get the point.

So, as I just mentioned, Mario Paint has a pretty limited animation suite, so I used modern capture technology to simply capture frames when I completed them, and then edit them together later in video editing software.  This could have been done in 1992 as well. I have friends who would use their VCR to record Mario Paint onto VHS and string them together to make elaborate animation projects, as well as other Nintendo art tools such as the GameBoy Camera placed into a Super Game Boy. VCRs connected to a camcorder could also be used to do stop motion animation with clay or toys, and even film individual frames of drawings to make animations.

This process was super nerve-wracking because each completed frame had to be discarded from existence entirely once I was done grabbing them. At least data storage is easy nowadays and I didn’t have to worry about someone in the house overwriting my animation in order to record an episode of Roseanne from the TV.

So, we come back to the concessions I talked about at the beginning. The original animated sequence for the TMNT show totals up to about 1200 individual frames of animation.  So if I averaged about an hour per frame drawing in Mario Paint, and I worked 8 hours a day, that would mean I would reasonably get 8 frames done per day.  Which means it would take 150 days of nonstop work to get the animation done, which would be okay if I didn’t also have a full-time job and a social life that needs to be taken care of as well.

My animation ended up with about 420 frames total and took me 6 months. So doing 1200 frames would have taken a year and a half, and who knows how much I would slow down from fatigue after a project that long.  There were a couple times I could get a break, such as some frames just being a single solid color (such as lightning flashes), and I reused the swirling TMNT logo from the beginning for the end.

Hey, the original cartoon reused this animation, why can’t I?

I mentioned earlier that Mario Paint doesn’t offer any layer functionality, so this is a huge problem when animating moving characters over a background. As you can see in the above example, the background is constantly being destroyed by the turtles moving across the screen, and that destroyed information has to be rebuilt when the portion of the background comes back into view.

Eagle-eyed readers will probably notice that this scene had to be animated out of sequence and then reassembled, which accounts for the way the background constantly changes shape.

Surprisingly, the shots you would think would be more difficult to do, such as Donatello flying around the city and the background moving around really fast, are about the same difficulty as the shot you see above, because of the lack of background layers.  When the background is moving so quickly, redrawing the entire frame isn’t that much worse Mike Matei.

Continue Reading: https://www.mikematei.com/blog/my-tmnt-mario-paint-animation-a-retrospective-mike-matei-blog/

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Hyperallergic: The Contradictory Al Taylor

Al Taylor, “Untitled” (1971), alkyd and oil on canvas, 60 x 84 inches (all images © 2017 The Estate of Al Taylor, courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London)

Al Taylor, an artist who died of lung cancer in 1999 at the age of 51, was much better known in Europe during his lifetime than in the US, where he was born in Springfield, Missouri, in 1948. His relative obscurity on this side of the Atlantic seems, in hindsight, to be just one of those things: a confluence of circumstances that led to more opportunities in Switzerland and Germany than were available here.

But Taylor was far from an unknown quantity in the New York art scene, where he mingled with a powerhouse gang of up-and-coming painters (Stanley Whitney, Brice and Helen Marden, Harriet Korman, and Billy Sullivan, among others) in the early 1970s and worked as a longtime studio assistant to none other than Robert Rauschenberg.

That Taylor continued to identify himself as a painter until the end of his life is one contradiction among many. While he concentrated on painting at the Kansas City Art Institute, graduating in 1970 after stints at the Yale Summer School (where he studied with Mel Bochner, Robert Mangold, and Robert Moskowitz) and the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Studio Program, his reputation rests on an oeuvre consisting almost entirely of drawings and found-object sculptures.

As my Hyperallergic Weekend colleague John Yau writes in the catalogue essay for the current exhibition, Al Taylor: Early Paintings at David Zwirner, this work “incorporat[ed] a wide range of inexpensive materials: broomsticks; foam fishing floats; coffee cans; Plexiglas; bamboo garden stakes; aluminum and steel bicycle wheels; paint; electrical tape; wire.”

Al Taylor, “Vendor” (1979), oil on canvas, 67 5/8 x 31 inches

Taylor’s constructions are more open and malleable than the painting/sculpture hybrids, or “Combines,” of his mentor Rauschenberg, and more pared-down and single-minded than the often scruffy objects of his near-contemporary, Richard Tuttle. A key to understanding these assemblages, and Taylor’s insistence that they were in fact paintings, is that color (unaltered from the found element’s original pigmentation), line (in the form of metal wire), and the graphic counterpoint of shadows on the wall remained his chief concerns.

The recognition that Taylor received relatively late in life (he didn’t have a solo show in New York, at the Alfred Kren Gallery, until 1986), coupled with his insistence, like most artists, on allowing only his latest work to leave the studio, consigned the paintings on canvas from his first decade in the city to cold storage.

These Post-Minimal canvases, some of which flirt with hard-edged abstraction while others are almost Motherwell-ish in their painterly elegance, seem to serve more as incubator than backstory to the artist’s subsequent explorations.

Taylor continued to work in this mode until he and his wife Debbie took a five-week trip to Uganda, Kenya, and Senegal, a journey that became a turning point for the artist — but like most turning points, it was more likely a moment of recognition in which long-simmering obsessions suddenly flash to the fore.

In a 1992 interview with then-Kunsthalle Bern director Ulrich Loock, reprinted in the catalogue for the 2008 Zwirner & Wirth exhibition Al Taylor: Early Work, the artist discusses the importance of the “African idea […] of self-reliance: using available materials, like cutting the roof off of an old bus and turning it into a motorboat.”

The use of available materials, the basis of Taylor’s later practice, also has a bearing on what he did on canvas prior to his breakthrough into three dimensions. Earlier in the same interview, he recounts his process less as painting in the traditional sense and more as a matter of measurement and discovery:

I have a blank canvas in front of me. What am I going to paint? I don’t know. […] So I started buying cans of paint, very cheap discount paint. Stick a discount brush in it and see how long the paint travels. And then I’d take another can of paint with a different color. Maybe that’ll go a little farther, depending on the oil mixture and the cheapness of the pigment. […] I screwed up, though, by trying to make those paintings look like art. The few I kept, the best ones, are what they really were — a measurement of a history. It took me a long time to get rid of the art parts. I’m still trying.

Taylor went out and bought whatever paint he could afford to engage in a process of determining the limits of its physical properties, an undertaking whose success was tied to its degree of artlessness — a practice that seems to court, if not the “death of painting,” then a refutation of the traditional hierarchy that places painting at the top of the heap, an inherent critique of the medium’s formal qualities and historical concerns.

But how does that square with this passage near the start of Taylor’s interview with Loock, in which he discusses his three-dimensional constructions in these terms:

My formal training is in painting. I think of painting as the highest art form. I am trying to find a way to paint; all of this activity is leading towards painting. I don’t want my work to be called sculpture. It seems like a lack of respect for sculpture to call this sculpture — sculpture has a proud tradition of its own. I’m not interested in that.

The reconciliation of “painting as the highest art form” and “I screwed up, though, by trying to make those paintings look like art,” may seem remote unless you consider the openness and originality of Taylor’s thought while taking a very hard look at how he made his work.

In many ways, Taylor adopted Rauschenberg’s aesthetic of inclusiveness even as he entertained the now-quaint-sounding presumption of “painting as the highest art form.” The crucial difference is the definition of painting, which would seem, for Taylor, to be up for grabs.

Al Taylor, “Marriage” (1975), latex on two linen panels, 30 x 30 1/4 inches

The one commonality among the artist’s diverse output was color, which is not necessarily equated with paint, but rather inherent pigmentation — of broomsticks, wire, or raw wood.

In the David Zwirner show, color is both subtle and brash. It is communicated via acrylic, oil, alkyd, and latex paint, as well as untouched canvas. A painting like “Vendor” (1979) is telling on two counts, a work of captivating colorism that walks a thin line between flatness and three-dimensional illusion.

The composition is divided into two vertical bands, with a narrower strip on the left — a rich, earthy Mars red — and a medium-toned, gray-violet field on the right. This neat division is interrupted by three irregular trapezoids (which look more like seal fins than geometric shapes) in dark maroon, scarlet red, and muted violet. A fourth shape is a quasi-rectangle painted in solid ivory white. These smaller entities are where the drama of the work takes place.

All four are attached perpendicularly to the dividing line between the vertical bands. The red and maroon fins sit near the top of the canvas on either side of the division, while the ivory white overlaps the muted violet near the bottom, with both shapes embedded in the gray-violet field.

The violet of the field (actually a dirty gray glaze over a coppery red) and the violet of the trapezoid are so close that it is possible not to notice the difference between them at first glance, only for the trapezoid to emerge out of the ether as you train your eyes on the surface. The effect is mesmerizing, and the patch of ivory white on the violet fin glows like a lantern in fog.

Meanwhile, something very different is going on at the top of the painting. The red and maroon shapes on opposite sides of the dividing line can be read as a solid form and its shadow. In this regard, it is instructive to rotate the canvas in your mind’s eye and imagine it as a landscape, with the red fin backlit against the horizon as its shadow falls in front, or perhaps a red sail on a red sea with its darker reflection underneath.

Al Taylor, “Helen” (1976), acrylic on two canvas panels, 54 1/4 x 72 1/4 inches

I’m not suggesting that these elements should be read as avatars for actual objects, which would be a wrongheaded way of looking at abstract art. My point is that Taylor is taking liberties with form and space, lending them an ambiguity that ran counter to the materialism and flatness pursued by much advanced painting at the time.

If Taylor relied on found objects in his later work, it could be argued, in light of the studio process described above, that he approached paint and canvas as found objects, particularly when he bolted two supports together or left portions of the surface untouched — or both, as in “Marriage” (1975, the year he married Debbie) and “Helen” (1976, presumably after Helen Marden), two of the most minimal and striking works in the show.

Each consists of two abutted but unmatched supports, with one hanging down or rising above the other, with hard-edged rectangles consisting of a single color painted between empty expanses of canvas.

Al Taylor, “Egyptian Painting” (1978), acrylic and oil on canvas, 72 x 36 inches

Here the canvas is as much of a solid presence as the paint itself, while retaining its own identity as unpainted fabric (abetted, in “Marriage,” by the glistening stains of rabbit skin glue used as sizing), while in the remarkable “Egyptian Painting” (1978), the creaminess of the raw canvas adjoining the white and red blocks of color conveys the illusion that it is also a coat of paint, until you step forward and study it up close.

The tension between abstraction and illusion can be felt throughout the works in this show, starting with the earliest canvas, “Untitled” (1971), a series of overlapping and interlocking brushstrokes that create a twisting, wiry design uncannily resembling the kind of open-frame, three-dimensional objects he would construct later on, and ending with the last, “Thinking About It” (1980), in which an irregular grid climbing up the right half of the canvas seems struck by raking light from a fiery sunset.

Was Taylor, in “Thinking About It,” thinking about trading the high art of painting for materials that had no “art” in them? Whatever the decision-making process, his move was a radical step toward personal freedom, a breaking-apart of self-imposed norms. If he never quite shook the orthodoxy of these norms from his pronouncements, what he did in his work was a far different story.

These paintings exist in a state of tension between the foundational and the transitional: what Taylor started with and what he was to become. Through underpainting, glazes, and solid topcoats, he is experimenting with texture, touch, and pigment while balancing — or you could say, holding in check — his attraction toward real objects in the real world.

Al Taylor, “Thinking About It” (1980), acrylic on canvas, 90 x 40 inches

However much of a departure these canvases were from the AbEx and Minimal paintings that preceded him, they continued to nudge him farther and farther along a path that ultimately presented him with a choice between two realities — one in space and one on canvas — and he chose the one he could grasp in his hands.

Al Taylor: Early Paintings continues at David Zwirner (537 West 20th Street, 2nd Floor, Chelsea, Manhattan) through April 15.

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