#i think one reason that disconnect really started is because before trying digital art i Would just doodle on everything

[glitchbirds]

it took a very long time to get to this point again w/ a lot of internal misery along the way but i think im at a point of being tentatively happy with my art in its current state and how it's improving for the first time since like, community college pre-chronic pain (and arguably the first time Ever wrt digital art)

[maxphilippa]

something something about self sacrifice and boundless love but i really would like to talk about how golden cheese cookie is so SO devoted to her people and how her GREED is for THEM.

i'm sorry but i don't think i've ever seen one of the ancients so miserable over their people until her story arc dropped. sure, pure vanilla suffered, but his people STILL EXISTED, and his kingdom as well, even if it was on certain conditions it flourished and the main focus was DE alongside Black Raisin's story. Hollyberry's worries were most focused on her family (though you can see her love for her kingdom and Dark Cacao was an idiot of sorts (who was still manipulated but even then cared for his kingdom), but nothing like Golden Cheese.

Which makes SENSE. And it kind of gets worse when Dark Cacao confirms that he heard the news of her precious kingdom being turned to dust, and how they haven't seen her in SO MUCH TIME, it's obvious that Golden Cheese Cookie isolated herself the moment she got back to what remained from her home.

Something I would like to mention is how people were treating her as a cretin with the little details we found on the art book since she was described as "greedy" and like an... dictator of sorts? (however i don't think this part has been translated correctly). But in reality she turned out to be one of the most heartbreakingand caring characters in CRK ever, and her conversation with Gingerbrave made it so much worse for her.

Something I would like to point out is how yes, Golden Cheese is greedy. But the execution of how she was greedy was PERFECT. Of course a tirant wouldn't be an legendary hero, unlike what others might have thought.

Golden Cheese's greed is focused on her people, her so beloved treasures.

She always wants more and more, she always fights for them, for everyone who she thinks of as dear. Because they're HER people and she wants her treasures to be shinning and safe. Her greed is translated to her infinite love for them. She isn'tone give up just yet. So that's why she FOUGHT for SO MANY YEARS to KEEP THAT DIGITAL WORLD OF HERS SAFE. So of course it hurts to let go. You ever think of it. She PUT THEM ALL ON A DIGITAL WORLD, ALL OF THEM ON A SARCOPHAGUS, JUST TO MAKE SURE THEY WERE THERE, AND DISCONNECTED HER SOUL FROM HER BODY JUST FOR THEM. BECAUSE THAT WAS HER LAST OPTION.

AND EVEN THEN SHE WAS WILLING TO LITERALLY COMMIT SUICIDE TO MAKE SURE THEIR MEMORIES WERE INTACT.

And so that's why her parallels with Gingerbrave hurt me SO SO much. Think about it.

Both Gingerbrave and Golden Cheese think highly of their people- about their worlds themselves. They're both greedy on that topic. However Gingerbrave's greed was bigger than GC's at one point- just before she finally got back with her soul jam that is. Because Gingerbrave wanted to protect the whole Earthbread. Because HIS FRIENDS and THE FRIENDS OF HIS FRIENDS were there.

And this is no surprise since the very start Gingerbrave seems to put some reason to the ancients. No matter how deep in theor own thoughts they are, he always says something that breaks them in one way or another.

They both lost their people and couldn't do anything about it. However, GC finally got to understand that getting help wasn't bad and that she had to let go from that reality. Just the same way GB did when he escaped the oven. They both have endured so much pain.

So when GC's self sacrifice tendency clashes with GB's [greedy desire to help]... it hurts for her.

They both want a happy kingdom.

But for that they're going to still keep on trying.

I love you, Golden Cheese Cookie. I'll pay you the cost of therapy.

[felassan]

Gamers For Groceries 2 event

A Twitch stream event from a few days ago. It can currently be re-watched here (it was fun & interesting, so I do recommend to check it out direct). This post contains some notes on things of particular interest & relevant timestamps, in case this is useful to anyone (for example bc of accessibility reasons).

First up is the All About Animating panel, a series of mini-interviews with game devs (animators) asking what they do, how they got there, and advice for anyone interested in getting into the industry. Some or all of the devs that were interviewed are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and a lot about the craft of game dev animation in general. This segment runs from timestamp ~38 mins 40 secs to 1:07:50. Some notes:

[sounded like DA4] Right now the creature team are working on different creatures in a way which involves going through a lot of mocap data

At BioWare they have a pretty big technical animation team, to support their animators, so each tech animator has a different specialty. Tech anim involves animation support, character art support, and rigging the characters so that the animators can pose them

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] One of the featured animators’ area of specialty at the moment is faces and hair (building the control structure for face animations). First they had to decide how the face rig and its control structure would work. This involves a lot of performance capture of live actors for things like cinematics and gameplay animation, therefore the rigs for bodies and faces have to be able to accurately capture the full range of expressions and emotions that the actor is portraying. Right now the stage that this dev is working on most is setting up the heads that they’re getting through the pipeline from character art e.g. making adjustments based on feedback from the cinematics team. “Polish - just trying to get realism”

Hair tech has come quite a long way in the last few years [in the industry]

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] Hair is very complex to get right. “In the past most games have used card-based hair, which is basically like sheets of polygons with a texture on it that looks like hair, through layers of transparency. But real hair is strand-based, digital strands, so we’re starting to look into that kind of tech - try to get more realistic, more beautiful hair, but there’s always a performance cost to hair. Layers of transparent things are always an expense, they need to balance like, it looks good and moves well, but it doesn’t make your computer or console chug. [...] I guess we’re in the prototype stage but we’ve almost got a set pipeline. It’s always fun to experiment”

In Mass Effect 2 or 3, Miranda’s hair was as expensive as a whole character (!)

[on balancing hair costs/performance, general] It depends on things like character importance and how many characters are on-screen at the time. When you’re in gameplay fighting a bunch of monsters you’re not going to be giving full beautiful hair to all the characters and the monsters, as it will cost too much. (Having a helmet on is a convenient way to get rid of hair.) But if it’s a cinematic scene, with 2 characters talking to each other in a dramatic context, there’s a better budget for nice hair allocated

Some of the hair in Anthem was quite expensive in cinematics. They kept getting bugs from QA saying (for example) that a character’s hair was tripling the performance cost in the scene, so it would go back to character art so they could take away some of the hair cards. “Tough balance, quality versus cost”

“I wish all the characters could have beautiful strand hair”

For p-cap, a lot of the time they don’t want to be too prescriptive in terms of the direction that they’re giving the actors, as the actors know what they’re doing and have a lot of experience, so they give them vague instructions that they then riff off of

[sounded like DA4] They recently did a mocap shoot

[sounded like DA4] There’s a bit more productivity happening now in the pandemic situation; now that the animators are not all going to the capture lab in Vancouver in person for shoots, if it’s not their turn to direct a shot they can instead be working on something else on their computers (multi-tasking). ((Lead DA4 Producer Scylla Costa recently gave a talk at a games festival on the challenges of DA production during the pandemic. In part of this talk he talked about various benefits and drawbacks to the remote-working situation. He also talked about and showed some behind-the-scenes stuff for p-cap and mocap. Notes, images and link here))

[sounded like DA4] Special mocap suits were sent out that they can use with a laptop to go anywhere and shoot motion capture. It’s not as high fidelity as what comes out of the capture lab, but it’s really good for prototyping stuff. Before the pandemic they did some of this (going to a park and shooting some running around)

[sounded like DA4] In one of the shoots they had some actors who were really well-trained in dancing. They were trying to get them to do some combat stuff. This was a bit challenging in the pandemic situation as there’s only so much they can demonstrate/portray as an example to the actors from a distance on camera. “It’s hard to describe what a ‘dodge to attack’ is through the camera to somebody who has no idea what combat looks like in video games”

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] The pandemic has really affected performance capture for the face side of things badly, as in order to record, the actor gets dots painted on their face in specific locations by a makeup artist. They can’t do that right now because of social distancing/restrictions, so they haven’t been recording faces at the moment

The more detailed a face, the more joints it has, the more the cost to performance is

---

There was also the Writers’ Block panel, featuring DA writers Mary Kirby, Sheryl Chee and Patrick Weekes, and DA editor Karin Weekes. The timestamps for this segment are ~2:37:50 - 3:26:20. Some notes:

PW has never been weirder than when they were writing Cole on DAI

PW thinks that they accidentally wrote part of “Timber” by Kesha into Solas at one point and they were like “Well, okay, I have to stop listening to Kesha”

For Sheryl, after a while Blackwall’s VA always nailed doing his lines. She loved the quality of his voice and so after a while would always hear his voice while she was writing. This really worked out

^ Mary had this with Merrill. As soon as they cast Eve Myles she listened to several hours of her in Torchwood, and then just wrote to the way that she spoke as much as possible

^ PW had this with GDL as Solas and FPJ as Bull. As soon as they heard FPJ’s delivery, they were like “Oh, okay, I have to write some lines differently, because Bull is smarter than I realized”. With GDL they were like “Okay, he’s going to put poetry into anything I say, in the best way possible”. In early drafts of Solas lines there were parts where they [PW] wondered “Is this too melodramatic? Is this too tragically-angstful?” and then they would hear GDL and be like “Oh! [It’s fine] Game on!”

For localization, German words are often quite long so they often have to make sure that everything fits on the GUI

They think scenes like the romance scenes sound prettier in the Italian versions

Behind the curtain in creating the in-world languages: PW: “There are some awesome websites that have every elven word, like ‘Here are the translations and verb tenses and conjugations’ [etc], [...] and usually Mary and I get very sad slightly looking at those pages going like ‘Does that mean that we have to stick to that?’ [...] The rule is, if I’ve looked at the Wiki and the words, and I go ‘Here’s the correct grammatical way to do it’, and if that turns out to be too long or too many disconnected syllables and it just looks bad or sounds bad, then we shorten it to something simpler, because the key is we want to give the flavor of a foreign language, but we don’t have the world-building budget and capacity to make something that is going to be dictionary-real [in a way that] someone could go through and translate all the background things written on the old temple walls”. Part of the reason for this is the consideration for VAs, who already have to act while bearing lots of things in mind, like the cues in the script for each line

Mary: “For building a language, the first things that I started with for qunlat, elven and dwarven, was what words do we need to use the most? Greetings, farewells, words for friend and enemy, basic things that will come up easily in conversation. After that it’s ‘How difficult is this for other writers to use?’ Can they just pick it off the Wiki? Do they need just one word? Do they need to write whole sentences, and how does that work? Qunlat has almost no grammar to it because asking anyone to learn how to use Qunari grammar and conjugate verbs in a pretend language is impossible, and then once you’ve done that a human being has to be able to read it, while not knowing what any of it means”

PW: “One thing that I was really impressed with with Mary in particular doing, Mary was one of the big lore people across the entire DA series; I can look at a word and go like, ‘That has two A’s in a row, that’s definitely a Qunari word. That word is kind of long and maybe has some apostrophes and has a couple of flowy vowel sounds, that’s probably elven’, I think that’s what’s important. You want players to be able to look at a word, players want to feel smart, [like] ‘Oh I don’t know what that means but I totally know that’s a word from the Qunari people!’”. Mary: “Every language has its own set of phonemes, the sounds that they make, and the sort of word structure and spelling so that it gives a flavor to that language. Hopefully that is always chosen to be pronounceable, because again, very important that the words can be said by human beings :D”

Sheryl: “One of the fun things to do is to make up swear words in the fake languages [...] Recently Brianne wanted a word, I don’t know if she managed to find one”

The origin of bosh’tet in ME: it’s just saying “bastard” and slurring it

PW: “I feel like there are times when past writers kind of leave traps for future writers, where past writers will go ‘Okay, I’m going to write this detailed phrase in a codex entry but don’t worry, it doesn’t matter if it can never be said aloud, because it’ll never have to be voiced!’ and then, next game, guess what guys! Look what you have to make someone [a VA] say! And you’re like [facepalm], c’mon!”

Karin: “Now, four games in, we have pages and pages of all these examples, and I wanna say this, well that’s how we said something before, well that’s ridiculous, I don’t wanna say that, but now we’ve said it and it’s out there, so it’s like, how do we, y’know, how do we evolve, and sometimes we just go ‘Screw it! Languages are living languages! We’ll just say it like this now!’”

PW's favorite is the sarcastic Mythal’enaste, “Because it’s the sarcastic Mythal's blessing that basically means you’re getting screwed over somehow. I love it because Mythal nasty! Whoever wrote that clearly never thought that someone would have to say this out loud”

Sheryl wrote Bull’s joke icicles line. She also wrote Isabela’s big boats line - Jennifer took it out but then DG was like “No it has to come back”

They have a pun test, they get a few of them and have to allot them wisely so as not to oversaturate on the puns. “Is this good/bad enough to be one of the times that we pull the trigger? We did have one of those recently, I obviously can’t talk about it, but it was pronounced Okay to go ahead”

The ‘baby-est’ writer is Brianne, who’s been there 8 years

It makes PW sad that the players never get to see the writers’ temp-text [placeholder text when portions are a WIP]. “People have the best temp-text". Mary: “The number of conversations that I’ve temped in like ‘WELL. I hope nothing BAD happens HERE’”

Q. If you could bring in anybody from outside of gamedev, who would you like to work with and do a writer’s session with? PW: “I will say romance novelist Nora Roberts, she is really smart and also she knows how to write inside a genre, and do wonders within it. Her structure is so good. If you pick up one of her books, you know here’s when this is gonna happen, here’s when they’re gonna meet, here’s when this first moment will happen. We’re all experienced and I feel pretty good about that but I really like all of the things she does that way, and also I am a sucker for romance so I would love to bring a romance novelist in and just have them look at our scenes and go ‘Okay here, no, they should pull the tie so that the article of clothing comes open, we need a sense of how warm the skin is here’ - something like that. I’d wanna see what they could do with that”

“Luke writes the best worst lines”

“I’m always impressed with Mary getting away with lines. There are lines that I look at like, wow, you buried that one. [...] The only players who get that line, I feel like they earned it if they went that far into it. [...] And then Varric or Merrill says a ridiculous line in a one-time throwaway”

Karin: “The group dynamic, you’ll see conversations or snippets of a lunch chat or a thing we’ve been joking about and you’ll see it get pulled in, and how all of you [the writers] are able to take a normal kind of thing - as normal as we get as a group anyway - and then turn it into a moment, and use it to further the plot or use it to further a character. It’s just the cleverest thing and it happens in so many different ways. [...] The little snippet of life, then how you crafted it into this very cool thing”

Quartermaster Threnn was written by PW in half a day. “When I was writing Threnn, ‘Okay, this is a good-hearted [person], I was doing a little bit of Steel Magnolias, southern, no-nonsense, but like, blue collar Steel Magnolias’. This is someone accustomed to the ways of the world so she’s going to call a spade a spade. If you come up to her and you’re an elf she doesn’t recognize you and says ‘Buckets are over there’ because she thinks you’re there to clean, [but] ‘Anyone calls you a knife-ear you come to me I’ll take care of it’. It’s problematic but she’s trying - the good-hearted person rooted for the wrong group on every occasion. She was a proud Loghain supporter, she gets really exited if he comes to Skyhold.  That was a fun character for me to write because I had a viewpoint in my mind. I remember someone was like ‘Threnn is really important to me’. And you have to honor that, cause you’re like ‘Cool, it means so much to me that this connected with some part of you’”

---

Also of interest was the Mass Affection panel, in which BioWare devs looked back in over a decade of history to remaster a classic. It featured devs who worked on MELE. The timestamps for this segment are ~3:36:09 - 4:24:37. Some notes:

When the pandemic hit the MELE team were in a relatively awkward spot. They were really entering into what they consider full production and were on-boarding a bunch of teams, as well as training and on-boarding third-party external partner specialized teams worldwide. When the pandemic hit, BioWare and EA were super on top of it. They were tracking it weeks beforehand, getting everyone their computers ready, and getting everything encrypted. When the middle of March 2020 hit they were home rightaway. EA were nothing but supportive throughout the entire thing. They got money every quarter for stuff. It functionally ‘hit’ at 4-6 different times for them as the pandemic occurred in different places throughout the world at different times depending on each country’s response plan (and their external partners were in different countries). “So it was one of those things where it was just like, every day we’d come in like can we still work with this company anymore? Do we need to find someone else? Do we need to pull people in off the other projects at BioWare to fill gaps here and there?”

There was a bug on Virmire at the part when you’re coming into the STG camp. If the Mako had its new boosters on and you came hurtling in really fast, it cut to the cutscene, but the Mako hit a jump and when Ash was like “What do we do now?” the Mako ended up literally flying around in the background sideways and then crashing into the camp

Another bug: when they were re-tuning the guns, the physics force on some of the guns with Hammerhead rounds was so high that when you were fighting some of the Thorian Creepers, you could ragdoll them so hard that you could basically embed them in the roof. They’d be moving so fast that they’d penetrate all the walls with their legs dangling out. It was so easy to do and you could do it to everybody. You could launch a geth halfway across an Uncharted World

Another bug: with Shepard’s casual appearance in ME3, if you didn’t have it set up perfectly correctly it would default to Grunt for some reason. You’d be walking around as Grunt, going on dates as Grunt, and your face would be all scrunched up because it was all mapped to human bones still, so it was just, like, Nightmare Fuel of Grunt

Another bug: in ME2 on Illium when trying to recruit Samara, the Asari enemies just would not stop screaming - regardless of whether they were hit or not, it was endless screaming. Later one of the devs got an audio file of the scream, endless and looped, and now one of the devs has it on their phone and uses it for their morning alarm tone

“Shepard would come up to characters and they’d just be screaming”

---

There was also the Programming Variables panel, talking about what hurdles game programmers face. Some [or all?] of the devs that were part of this panel are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and about the craft of game dev programming in general. The timestamps for this segment are ~ 4:24:46 - 5:06:02.

[source]

[insights/notes from Gamers For Groceries 1]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[marikaaajoy]

my relationship with digital art and how BNHA salvaged it

I just wanted to let out my thoughts but I can only do it here :>

This might be a downer for some people but I’d like to share it with people here. BNHA means the world to me and this is why.

I first started drawing when I was 7 years old in 2006

I think it’s ugly now, but 7 year old me remembered being so proud of this because this is a drawing of my stepfather. This is the only drawing I have that was from my childhood. I think the aim here is to draw in anime style BUT I didn’t even watch anime back then. I had a classmate who loves anime and she taught me to draw in school. Drawing became a favorite hobby immediately after that.

Then it was 2013 and I was 14 years old. Drawing is still my favorite thing to do besides being on the computer. I love anime at this point too. My parents bought an iPad for the whole family, but I was almost always the one using it. I discovered an app called ArtStudio and thought “Wow, I can draw without making a mess and with only my fingers” because I was always too lazy to take out my drawing materials and clean up afterwards.

These were my first digital drawings. The pirate one was the very first. I got obsessed real fast. I can color so easily, undo any mistake, layers are a blessing too. There was just so much more freedom. I always sucked at coloring in traditional art and I didn’t like the mess (idk my hands get so messy traditionally)

The next year, it was 2014, I was 15. My birthday is in a couple of months and I knew my parents were planning to buy me something pricey (I think it was a laptop) so I approached them and asked if they could just buy the Wacom Bamboo as a present which was cheaper anyway and I even explained how it works to them and how it would allow me to draw on the computer instead of the iPad. I tried really hard to be convincing. I would have prepared a powerpoint presentation if I had to.

They did give me the wacom as a present. They even gave it to me months before my birthday so I could use it already. I thought I was the luckiest teen in the world with my parents.

These are a collection of my favorite works from 2014 to 2016. The middle one was my second drawing using wacom and Paint Tool SAI. I was a part of a lot of fandoms in those years lol

It gets downhill from there :/

April 2016, my mom and I moved to Japan, while my stepfather and siblings stay in my country. It was tough. For someone who is obsessed with anime, you’d think I’d be thrilled to live in Japan.

I was. Though only at the first few months. It’s not the same as it’s portrayed in anime (I should’ve known but I used to be blinded by anime). It was just lonely. The language barrier sucked and then lots of financial and family issues until my parents split. I got my first boyfriend too and I thought I was blessed by the nicest boy, but the relationship became extremely toxic but I didn’t have it in me to walk away.

All the shit that happened affected me mentally and emotionally. My biggest outlet which was digital drawing, was also out of the question because I did not have a computer/laptop when we moved to Japan. We left it in our home for my stepfather and siblings, even the iPad. I have my wacom with me, but no computer/laptop to use it with. I couldn’t draw.

I tried though. I used my phone to draw, but it wasn’t the same. Then the life problems got piled up, things got worse, and I just lost motivation in anything. Literally anything. From 2016 to 2019, I stopped watching anime, I dropped out of all the fandoms I’m in, I stopped watching my favorite TV series or movies, and I stopped drawing. I even got a bit disconnected with my friends who lived in my country (we talk regularly online). My family was broken so I gave all my attention to my toxic relationship as well which made everything worse too lol

I didn’t draw besides from a few scribbles and the drawings above. I did try digital art on my phone a couple of times again and even posted them on my IG, but they weren’t any good. Eventually, I got mentally and emotionally drained and dropped out of senior high school. I just stayed home for almost a year, leeching off of my mom. I felt even more worthless and my life had no direction at this point. Nothing mattered anymore.

April 2019 or so I think, my (ex)bf bought me a laptop. He says it’s a gift, but I think the real reason was to make up for something horrible that he did (which is stupid because money /gifts won’t resolve anything). I have a laptop. I can draw again, but I didn’t. I didn’t care, I wasn’t interested in drawing anymore anyway.

Welp. June 2019, I went back to my country. My (ex) bf stayed in Japan. The distance helped me end the relationship and my friends were there (they always were) to help put me back together along with two trips to therapy. I went back to finish my senior high school in my own country this time. That said, I have to stay in my country for school (but I was happy because I didn’t wanna go back to Japan yet when the breakup was still fresh and with going back to school, my life has a direction again.)

It was weird. I remember just being sorta lost and confused because I used to put my time, effort and everything into my previous toxic relationship, which was now gone. I was free and I had so much free time that I didn’t know what to do with it. I got so used to doing nothing and being nothing.

This is where BNHA enters.

Dunno when it started, but I started seeing Bakugou frequently online. It’s usually just Bakugou. I knew who he was because my friend suggested BNHA to me back in late 2018 I think but I didn’t watch it since I’ve lost interest in everything at that point in my life.

But ye I thought he hot af but I still didn’t watch BNHA.

But then for some reason he REALLY kept appearing in my social medias and it was really frequent. The last straw was when I saw a pic of him in UA’s gym uniform and thought “damn boi aight imma watch bnha for u” (y’all gotta admit he looks good in those colors with his combat boots XD )

I watched BNHA. Fell in love with Iida along the way. Then I switched to Tokoyami (but Shoji was hot too so aaaaa), but then angry emotionally-constipated sea urchin head caught my heart again. But oof. BakuDeku moments really made me feel some type of way I haven’t felt since I moved to Japan. It felt new but nostalgic. I fell hard in that ship.

I started obsessing. From memes to posts to fanfictions to buying merch to filling my room with BNHA posters. I realized I was reverting to my old self from the time I was still happy and it was thanks to BNHA (and the good people who helped me through the worst too)

Shit I wanted to draw BNHA, I thought.

I mean, I have a laptop, I still have my wacom and drawing softwares. I could totally draw digitally again if I wanted to.

But guess what

I can’t :c

My hand physically cannot draw. My drawings don’t look the way I want them too. 3 years of not drawing really destroyed any skill I had. I was back to square one.

September (yeah they’re ugly, I laughed at it). If you’re wondering why I drew on paper, it’s because, for some reason, I really CANNOT draw digitally. I mean it. I can barely sketch digitally at this point. The lines and shapes just doesn’t come to life. They’re just scribbles. But somehow, I can kinda draw on paper with a ballpoint pen. But yeah, that was the best I could do at this point in my life

After that, I still tried to draw, to regain my old art style, but it didn’t happen... It just doesn’t look or feel the same. Drawing used to be fun. But during this phase, it felt like my ugly drawings were just mocking me (probably was just too emo that time lol)

Weirdly, around a week or two I think, after my half-assed attempts at drawing, I managed to draw digitally somehow o.o

I did a Midoriya and Todoroki drawing like this too. It was my first post here on Tumblr I think. The annoying part here is that I cannot draw digitally unless I draw on paper first, take a pic, and then trace the lineart. I couldn’t draw directly on the computer. Granted, drawing on paper and drawing on digital is very different for me in the first place anyway. But it was still a pain. And it still looked like shit. I can only draw stiff poses :/ it seems like my brain decided to delete all data about anatomy and posture and backgrounds. My lineart here is even messy af. It still really not the same as my old style.

By 2020, I think I got my old art style back. On March, I made this. This took me 27 total of hrs to make.

Right now, I think it’s not bad, but back in March, I was disappointed with the result. This is when I finally broke down crying because it didn’t look good enough and I hated that it took me 27 hrs to draw “bullshit.” I was angry at myself for losing interest in drawing for 3 years when I could’ve used that time to improve. I had to start all over again and it still didn’t look good. (Current me thinks that the drawing above is alright. I was just a lot harsher to myself back then. Used to have a lot of issues but I’m doing great now)

I cried myself to sleep that night. Woke up wanting to cry again. I wallowed in sadness for a couple of days. Eventually told my friends what’s up. Got some pep talk. Even talked to my sister (she’s great, she always hypes me up with my stuff and sometimes I think she’s my biggest fan with how she appreciates my drawings and I’m really grateful for that).

My world turned a 180 and I was weirdly positive after all that crying because brain chemicals and shit. I had a revelation. If I hate how my art style looked so much, then I should have been putting effort in changing my art style, not trying to regain my old art style (that I don’t like anymore)

I researched a lot. I analyzed different art styles and anatomy again. I did everything I could think of to find a style that works for me. I might have even neglected school for a bit to focus on digital art lmao

After all that work, I posted a fanart of middle school BakuDeku in their classroom. I love that fanart so much even if I probably have better ones by now because that was the first fanart I made that I felt like I could be proud of and it was the first one I made in my new art style. It was a milestone for me.

March 2020, I moved back to Japan and without the toxic relationship, I’m a lot positive now. Happy. I’m myself again after the previous bad years. I’m still continuously learning though, trying to improve, but at least, now, I found my own art style :) I really suck at interacting with people online, but I’m always grateful for the support everyone has been giving my fanarts. I’m happy when my content makes people happy.

This is why BNHA is important to me. The series is great alone, but it’s not just that to me. BNHA is so much more. It’s what made me find the passion to create again, only this time, it’s focused on drawing (I used to write, but now I just draw, but maybe I’ll write again for BNHA).

My family is supportive with my love for BNHA, but I think they don’t know the deeper reason why I love it. Sure, I was fine living on with nothing much going on in my life. I’ll finish school, get a job, work until I die or something. It was okay. It was the way of life. But BNHA gave my life color again. I wasn’t just blindly going through life anymore. I have something to look forward to everyday now. BNHA even became a bridge to other things. Ever since then, I’m a lot more open to people, to try new things, to explore and not just live through life and waste away. I got better at leaving my comfort zone. I’ve never been happier in my life :D

Thank you for supporting my fanarts. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to express myself through BNHA. I hope to make more content in the future and improve even more :)

[hawk-feathers]

hey idk if this is helpful but I really like your inktober drawings!!!! i think the frog in particular is delightful!!! your art is wonderful & I love seeing it on my dash :)

Thank you! Honestly it’s been really hard for me, and for a number of reasons. One is just the time commitment. It’s a lot and I’ve been behind almost from the start, so it’s hard to constantly be rushing, trying to catch up. Also, the reality is that a lot of my art isn’t good. I’m not trying to humble brag, or get sympathy or anything like that. Just like my writing, the first, oh I dunno, 90% of it is usually garbage. That’s just my process, and I’m ok with this. I know if I keep working, refining, studying, I can polish that garbage enough to make it something I’m proud to display. The issue I run into is with things like Inktober. I don’t have the time to really polish every drawing and make it something ok. Sometimes I have to post the bad stuff. And I’m frustrated and annoyed and stressed that I couldn’t put more time into it, that I’m posting something with obviously weird anatomy or perspective, because I -know- I can do better if only I had more time and wasn’t rushing. I worry people wont understand, or will judge my ability to do work in general because of it. It’s also hard when art friends post some really amazing drawings, because it makes me doubt my own art. This is really unhealthy and I know it is, and I’ve worked very hard on being more constructive. Good art used to make me hate myself sometimes. Really hate myself. I once had a friend link me some beautiful sketches an artist did from life, and I spiraled into a deep depression over it, because I couldn’t do sketches like that. Now, I look at them and I mostly feel inspired. Which tells me I’ve come a long way in the past few years. But I’m not perfect. Sometimes I still get overtaken with feeling like I’m just not good enough. That I never will be good enough. It’s really hard to keep going in the face of that. AT THE SAME TIME, I think with both writing, and art, there is a real disconnect. We often just see the finished product. The best selling novel, the contest entry painting, the finished digital commission. A lot of artists (myself included) put sketches behind paywalls or in private spaces like patreon. Before anyone gets offended, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!! I do it too! But, I do there it leads to a disconnect. You don’t see the awful first draft that bestselling novel had. You don’t see the sketch that the artist spent 5 hours on because they couldn’t get the perspective just right. You see the final product. And this can be really damaging to young artists/writers, because I think it leads to holding yourself to an impossible standard. Expecting your first, or even fourth draft to be be as good as a published novel, and hating yourself when it’s still not there yet. Expecting to be able to sketch some perfect drawing in 10-15 min of time, and getting frustrated when you just can’t. So, my feelings on inktober are, frankly, complicated. I’m stressed, I’m frustrated, I want to quit more often than not, BUT I’m trying to stick with it. Why? Because ink is -not- my medium and maybe I’ll learn something. Because drawing every day is good whether it’s garbage or not. Because I do enjoy watching what my friends post, and because if I can do that for someone, anyone, then I should keep going because some days joy can be hard to find. And because posting bad art shouldn’t be a bad thing. We’re always learning, and improving. Sorry for the long post/rant. I’ve just had a lot of thoughts on this whole thing and they’ve been building up. 

[justkarliekloss]

Karlie Kloss interview for British Vogue August 2019 by Elaine Welteroth (Part 2)

* If you have a fan accoun and repost it, please give credit.

The sun is finally up when we land in Los Angeles and discover, via text, that the Project Runway production meeting - the reason for our early cross-country flight - has been cancelled at the last minute. As I unleash a growl of annoyance, Karlie rests her hand on my shoulder and gives me a dose of the glass-half-full positivity that has defined her career: "Well, at least now maybe you can go get some sleep before the day..." I am reminded that I have never met a single soul more relentlessely cheerful than Kloss. It is not a persona: she is good to the core. "When you say that someone is nice it can sound pejorative but it's not," says her friend and mentor Diance von Furstenberg. "It is that honesty and eagerness that is resonating. Karlie is a good girl and a good role model for young girls."

Indeed, just ask around about her and you'll begin to wonder if she is the kindest person in fashion. But do not mistake her sweet nature, or her recent conversion to Judaism (the Kushner family are Modern Orthodox), for weakness. "Changing  part of who you are for someone else can be seen as weak. But you know what? Actually, if you've been through that I've experienced, it requires you to be anything but weak," she says of her decision to convert. "It requires me to be stronger and self-loving and resilient. I really did not take this lightly. It wasn't enough to just love Josh and make this decision for him. This is my life and I am an independent, strong woman. It was only after many years of studying and talking with my family and friends and soul searching that I made the decision to fully embrace Judaism in my life and start planning for a future with the man I chose to marry."

The newly-weds recently put their immaculately decorated two-bedroom apartment in the East Village up for sale, looking for a new home in which to start their married life. Kloss first settled in New York five years ago, at the apex of her catwalk career, spending her hand-earned money on a place next to the Hudson river. At that point, she'd been working for five years, having been first scouted in St. Louis mall at the age of 13, when she was a coltish 5ft 8in and a burgeoning ballerina. Two years later, she landed her first New York Fashion Week show, with Calvin Klein, and her first editorial, an Arthur Elgort shoot with Teen Vogue. In the early days, Kloss travelled to jobs accompained by her physician father and her art direction mother, who protected her from the wilder aspects of the industry, but even as an adult, she has never been swept up in the party scene. Famously private, Kloss keeps a tight-knit circle of friends - albeit a high-profile one that includes Taylor Swift, Serena Williams and Derek Blasberg.

Once out of the airport, we part ways to shower. A few hours later we reunite on James Corden's set, where Kloss charms a rowdy audience with a little beauty trick she picked up backstage using a spoon to enhace Corden's lashes on live TV. Finally, after a scooter ride through Venice and a late dinner, jet lag strikes, and we decide to catch up on the phone a few days later, when she's managed to pull away from her hectic schedule for a meditative retreat with her husband in Wyoming.

In her Zen state, it's easy to see why she has so enthusiastically embraced the Jewish Shabbat, a day of rest that requires unplugging from work and completely disconnecting from the digiital world from sunset each Friday until nightfall on Saturday. She describes it as a "grounding force" in her otherwise non-stop lifestyle. "I think we all have a tendency to just keep going," she says on the phone. "Some people find grounding through meditation. Some find it through exercise. And to each their own, but for me, Shabbat has brought so much meaning into my life. It helps me reconnect to the actual world."

Kloss's studious approach to embracing Judaism reflects her insatiable curiosity. In 2015, long before the current wave of feminist hashtagivism, she enrolled in New York University's Gallatin School to study feminist theory. During this soul-searching period, she quit one of her most lucrative contracts, with the lingerie conglomerate Victoria's Secret. Bear in mind that this was before the rise of cancellation cuture, before walking away from a problematic company could earn a celebrity praise from the "woke" masses.

"The reason I decided to stop working with Victoria's secret was I didn't feel it was an image that was truly reflective of who I am and the kind of message I want to send to young women around the world about what it means to be beautiful," Karlie says. "I think that was a pivotal moment in me stepping into my power as a feminist, being able to make my own choices and my own narrative, whether through the companies I choose to work with, or through the image I put out to the world."

At the time, such a move may have felt risky and potentially damaging. But Kloss's star has only continued to soar - last year, Forbes named her the second most highly paid model in the world (Kendall Jenner pipped her to the top spot), and her fortune is estimated at $20 million. "In the modelling industry, every year is like a dog year," she says, smiling. "If you survive a year, it's like seven years in any other industry." If so, then she is a statesowman at just 26 - one whose enterprising embrace of new media put her on the front line of the digital revolution (she was one of the first major models with her own YouTube channel, in 2015) at a time when fashion was still resistan to change. I know because I was one of the magazine editors lurking around backstage the first season she showed up with a camera to capture her own getting-ready process in Hyperlapse to share with her growing following on social media. I found it innovative. Others found it bothersome, at best.

"I appreciate you using the word innovative. In the moment, I was a nuisance," Karlie laughs. "I got so many dirty looks at Paris Fashion Week. I remember getting yelled at and they would call my agency because I was Instagramming backstage." But she insists her rise hasn't been all selfies and sunshine. "I remember being 16 or 17 years old and afraid to say, "I don't want to wear this sheer top because I'm fully exposed and my mom is in the audience." I remember how it felt when I didn't say that I didn't want to do it, and how humilated I felt seeing those images and feeling sad that I didn't stand up for myself," she says. "Now I'm not trying to please anyone but myself."

The lesson she wants to share with other women? "Looking back at my late teens and early tweenties, I think I was fearful that I would lose a job or lose my position if I said I didn't want to do something. But I did not lose out on jobs, If anything, the more I exercised the power of my voice, the more I earned respect from my peers. And I earned more respect for myself. Only now do I have the confidence to stand tall - all 6ft 2in of me - and know the power of my voice," she says. "There are days when I wake up and I feel like I'm not this enough or too much that. We are all so critical of ourselves. But I love everything I do now, there is intention behind it."

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[artinterviewmagazine]

Conversation With Taj Bourgeois On Selling Their Paintings Online For A Living

Marius Larsson: So first of all how long have you been selling paintings? About 2 years now? Taj Bourgeois: Yeah I quit my job driving taxi in December so a little over 2 years. I had a week where I made negative $70 and that was that. I had to do something different. ML: What made you think you could make it as an artist, and how did you initially get started? TB: I didn’t think I could make it lol, but also felt like it might be my last chance to give it my all. If I didn’t at least try once in my life I was concerned I’d feel like a hypocrite if I were to tell my daughter to follow her dreams. Pretty much I just posted on Facebook “Would anyone like to commission a painting?”. I got five responses, one of which was for $600. Honestly I don’t know if I would’ve felt the drive to commit if it weren’t for that, but also my strategy was and has been basically to just make paintings everyday, so people would see I was taking it seriously and in turn take me seriously. ML: And had you been painting much prior? TB: I had made like 7 or 8 paintings in the months leading up to it, so people were aware what I was getting into and I guess displaying some level of skill. Prior to that I hadn’t really painted since around the time my daughter was born in 2012. ML: What kinds of things did you start off painting? TB: In 2012 or in the months before doing it full time? ML: Tell me about 2012, why you took a break for 4 years and then what got you back into it in 2016. TB: When I found out I was going to be a father I had been in college for just a couple semesters taking random art classes. I was just there for the school loans... ya know.. didn’t want to get a job. Anyway I was in a painting class, and it was pretty much my first time painting. I watched the Basquiat documentary “The Radiant Child”, and it made me think about painting in a very different way. A few months after my daughter was born and I won a couple awards for paintings I did for the college’s annual art show. Then I enrolled at the Pacific Northwest College of Art for the Fall semester, but by that point I was learning about hundreds of artist’s on my own time, and was becoming inspired to try all kinds of things other than painting. I felt I did so well that semester that I decided college wasn’t going to be a good use of time or money, so I dropped out and just followed my train of thought for the next 4 years which led back to painting. ML: How did it lead back to painting? TB: I had been driving taxi for a year and a half, and during that time I felt more and more disconnected from any of my previous modes of art making. I was pretty much sitting in the cab making memes and digital collages. Toward the end the collages I was doing started to become more refined, and I started thinking about the merits of painting the imagery I was putting together. The first thing I painted after all that time was an image of flaming goose which was a meme that had been going around. I decided to painted it very large. It was just something I thought would help test the waters again, and also something I figured I’d like to have on my wall. Of course painting a giant meme is going to get a good response online, so I did a couple more, and then painted some scenes from photos, and then from my imagination. Tried to paint the collages I had made but didn’t quite feel right to try to change their medium. ML: Ok so you had a few commissions and then what? You’d post your paintings for sale and people just kept buying them? TB: Yeah although the first 6 months were pretty rough. In April I only made $500, so I was cutting it close, but I was still in the mindset that most artists have, which is like their art has some mysterious value to it and should be expensive, but then I realized it would make more sense if I took it more seriously as a job and charge by the hour, so I started painting more small funny stuff. Like for me it made more sense to sell a bunch of little humorous $50 pieces than cross my fingers on a $300 piece cause it would take me the same amount of time to do 6 of the $50 ones. It wasn’t until around 6 months that I made my first piece that multiple people wanted, and so what I did was make it multiple times, and that’s when things started to pick up. ML: And what was that piece? TB: It was spider man on the floor of an art museum looking up at a painting of a goofy fish with a human face, and spider man is saying in a thought bubble “That Painting Looks The Way I Feel!” It was originally from an old comic and spider man had been looking at some kind of parody Picasso portrait, but you know with memes pieces get replaced, and the mood changes. The fish’s face was a better mood than the Picasso probably.

ML: How many paintings had you made by that point? TB: Around 70, but had sold maybe 20 ML: What materials were you using? TB: During the taxi days I was in the store (Fred Meyer) and saw this canvas that house painters just lay on the floor to catch the paint drips, and I was like damn 4x15ft for $13? I should get some in case I feel up to making some big paintings someday, but I have always been such a frugal person that it wasn’t until I saw the apple barrel brand paints that I was like damn ok lemme just buy a couple of every color and see if I’m into this. I also bought a gallon of white house paint to “gesso” the canvas. I still use this method on big pieces, and can always stretch later, but lately have been buying a lot of canvas already prepped and stretched. ML: So do you only sell through Facebook and Instagram? TB: Yes oddly enough that’s like 95% of sales. A few every now and then from irl shows where I live here in Portland (Oregon).

ML: I want to go back to something for a second. You mentioned you started painting in 2012, but then you won a couple awards a few months later. How old were you. How did you excel so quickly considering you said you hadn’t painted prior and what were those painting? TB: I was 24. I think painting is one of those mediums where “ability” is far more subjective than most things. You can view enough of it without trying it yourself to the point that when you do try you’ll already have a grasp of it. I have been interested in painting my whole life, so picking up the brush I already had thousands of hours of experience just thinking about it ya know, so like with that show at the college I knew I wanted to make something big and bold. So I cut myself a 4x7ft canvas and ended up making this multi-colored deer looking straight ahead with sort of hypnotic gaze. That was a people’s choice award, and the other got me a scholarship offer, but for that one I basically had just copied Twombly lol.

ML: How would you describe your style today? TB: Hmm I try not to, cause I try all kinds of stuff. I feel my technical skill level is mediocre but maybe my creative level is high? Different people are going to appreciate different things, and I’ve always been more interested in what the painting depicts over how it’s made. I mean skill aside I think most paintings are pretty umm I want to say “derivative” haha are people still using that word in serious? I’m having fun though, staying curious, and I think that comes across. What’s the point of describing my “style” anyway?

ML: I’m curious about how you view your own work. TB: I view my own work with my own eyes lol. I view my art like a loving father or maybe more like an observer, a bird watcher? No, ok I think I understand this question now. My approach to painting is often like a mix of writing, drawing, and making memes. Often I have the idea and it doesn’t really matter how I get there unless the technique is the content itself as with a lot of abstract art. Like, I will entirely base a painting on a sentence describing the image itself with little concern about how i will make it. Like “a shuriken stuck in the back of a smiling man”, so I’ll paint some sky, a fence, some grass, blue jeans, man has no shirt, shuriken, blood, he’s holding a beer, he’s smiling alright i did it… nice. That’s one way I view my work as a route to an image. I used to do this all the time before painting. I have an art book from 2015 where I used this method a lot like I’d write down ideas, and then go out and make them happen. Some elements of the end result were arbitrary although I always tried to have good composition and quality documentation. I didn’t think of myself as a photographer though I certainly was and was good at that aspect too, but it was more the means to document my performance, sculpture, installation… sentence made real. I also view a good portion of my paintings as elaborate pages ripped from children’s books that don’t exist (yet) and they’re filled with weird cute characters I never really had any intention to keep making in the first place, but I’m still doing it for some reason maybe because I like the idea of an overarching narrative, but mostly I think cause they give me a deep nostalgia for illustrations in picture books I saw as a kid or like panels from graphic novels.

ML: That answer is all over the place! I guess that’s what i get for asking such a broad question, but there’s a lot to work with there. Tell me about being a Father. You said it was kind of the catalyst to start making art. How do you think it’s affected your work? TB: Naturally it changed everything. Before my daughter was born I was just so much more aloof, timid, uncertain about making anything. I’d spend so many days just floating around “hanging out” drinking, smoking etc. Maybe I’d draw a little, write a little, play some music, but always felt like I was just killing time waiting for something to happen, and then it did. Suddenly I felt obligated to be at home most of the time, ya know, like a good dad. Other than that I was still in school making the most of it for the short time being. So for that first year I was either home with her or at school. I was just making stuff every day all the time, and it became an insatiable habit especially once I started sharing it online. Yeah honestly I felt the pressure was on. Like I had waited too long to pursue my passions so I had to make up for lost time. I’ve been addicted to making and sharing things everyday ever since. As for my daughter’s influence, yeah I love watching her grow and the things she makes inspire me as well. I’m a bit of a romantic when it comes to modern art and its mythos. I still vibe off what picasso said about how it took him his whole life to paint like a child, so I feel really grateful to work with her. I have literally thousands of her drawings stacked all over the place. She’ll sit down and do fifty drawings in an hour so I’ve gotten a white board lol. Also like I mentioned before it was kind of insane of me to quit my job to become a painter, like I have a kid, rent, bills, a car, and I’m just going to suddenly start painting happy devils to pay for all that? Well, yeah it felt like my last chance to make my dreams a reality. I just wanted to be able to say I did my best and tried to make it work, for myself, and to be a role model in that sense as well. So far so good.

ML: There seems be a big disparity between artists who make a living off their work and artists who don’t, and what I mean is that when you think of an artist making a living off their work you usually think either they have gallery representation, some kind of branding, or business making the same kinds of things again and again, and yet you seem to have been able to find some middle ground and do all of those things without a business, a degree, or a gallery. What’s it been like overall/how is it going? TB: I still got my foodstamp card haha, but to be honest things are better than ever. I don’t know I just keep at it every day. My belief has been that if I just keep making stuff the right people will notice. I’ve never submitted my work anywhere or asked for opportunities. I let them come to me. I just want to make the art not deal with the other stuff. If a big gallery wants to make money off me they most certainly will but for now I’ve just been doing small independent spaces, and cafe’s which bring in a little extra money but pretty much all my sales are online where I talk to every single person directly.  The most surprising thing has been how many people are interested given that I have less than 5,000 followers/friends. To me that’s a pretty good sign that as my reach grows so will opportunities and I’ve been going hard these past two years. I think I’m just going to be making bigger, better things as more people become interested. I don’t know any artists doing it this way or any way really. I’m not sure Portland is the place to make it happen, but god bless the internet! Getting a college degree makes no sense whatsoever except for becoming a teacher, and I think we know how that’s playing out these days, so I’m just grateful to be doing what I’m doing even though teaching would be pretty cool. Technically you don’t need a degree to teach you just need people who want to learn.

ML: One thing that seems to have helped you gain momentum is the price of your pieces. I don’t think I’ve ever followed an artist pricing their work so low that wasn’t just really kitschy stencil art or something. I see some of your pieces for $600 that I’d see in a gallery for $6,000 no doubt, but then I see a great deal of $50 pieces. What made you decide to price your work this way? Has it changed over time? TB: Yeah and it’s always the “artists” that comment on the prices being too low which is ironic cause usually all you ever hear from the average person is mocking how ridiculously high the price of art is generally. Basically I think other artist’s scoff because they’re projecting their insecurity regarding the real value of art, and maybe a little envious they can’t let go of their own pieces as though the abstract painting they made in a few hours should be worth thousands when they could be making a dozen similar pieces in a single day.  But um yeah I pretty much think of my stuff as like $30-$50 an hour and really like  that’s fucking amazing for a job. Yeah idk I have worked some shitty jobs, and it doesn’t make sense thinking that my work should be above what a person like myself can afford in the first place. When I first started though I still had the mysterious art value notion and was pricing things around $200 that I’d price $70 now, and didn’t sell much at first. It wasn’t until I started doing smaller pieces and gauging my time that I started selling a lot more and trying a lot of different things. It’s not like i’m making art specifically about making money but I can understand why people are so interested in this aspect. I don’t think it’s very common huh. When I first started I tried to justify it as a performance piece called “The Painter” haha. I used to title all sorts of things in my mind as a means to cope with the daunting reality of the situation “Working Construction”, 2014. Even during some of the lowest points I think it helped me maintain the peculiar sense of an artist identity I didn’t want to let go of even if I was letting go of everything else like “Burning All My Journals & Paintings″, 2015

ML: Haha what is that last one about? TB: Around the time I stopped living with my wife and moved into my own place I decided to not bring much along with me. I think the title is self-explanatory. ML: I’m wondering if you could talk about any reoccurring themes or characters in a lot of your paintings like the blob fish or spicy boys. TB: Ya know I think most everything just comes to me on a whim and if it works out or holds my interest I’ll keep playing with it. I guess blob fish and spicy boys are like representative of the comedy/tragedy masks or something. I think I’ve simplified a lot of themes in my paintings just so I can keep the flow going. I’m looking forward to spending more time and space on pieces in the future and elaborate on certain things I’ve wanted to express but didn’t know how to put into words. ML: How so? TB: Well, for example. Sometimes I will paint something I’ve seen in my mind, like, dreamed or hallucinated, but not often because a lot of the time I feel I can’t do it justice even though a lot of my stuff is very much informed by these things that I don’t exactly control. It’s like I take video stills from the internet except they’re from my mind, and the screenshot is something I only had to opportunity to view briefly, but even with a split second hallucination I will think about it for weeks and often will just paint its most basic components. Anyway I’m gearing toward eventually elaborating on the more complex ones because lately I have had some visions that have come to the forefront of my interest. Hopefully will get to them after a few more pet portrait commissions haha. ML: What do you mean by hallucinations? Is your inspiration mainly inspired by dreams or do you mean drugs as well? TB: Most things I just write down as interesting ideas to play with, but I guess I don’t want to get too much into talking about drugs. However there have some recent experiences I’ve had with substances like dmt and the things I saw during that I have been thinking about ever since. So right now I’m just trying to get to the end of commissions and then give my attention to some new projects. Have a show in March. Don’t know what I’ll do for it, but certainly no shortage of ideas.

ML: Where do you see yourself going or where would you like to go, and any other thoughts on painting/selling/art in general? TB: I want to go to the top haha. Well in most ways things are better than ever, and I’m incredibly grateful and I can certainly tolerate having things going at this pace at least another year, but would like to make more serious/invested work that I’m really proud of, get some more money and attention and access to better time/space/materials. At this point though even if I had to get a day job I feel I’m completely committed to doing this work. It’s pretty much how I gauge my self-worth for better or worse. Just hope I can find my groove within the process and better understand myself, inspire others, and I wish I had something more insightful to say, but at the moment I’m a bit preoccupied hustling and just having fun with this upcoming show. Thank yaaaa.

[caroline18mars]

A Man On Fire - Chapter 2

'Beep' Harper sat up straight in bed, what? What? Owww headache, aw aw aw, she grabbed her head and slowly lowered herself into the cushions again, this hangover was gonna be brutal if the hammering in her head was any indication. Think of nothing, in fact let yourself slide into this refreshing and revitalizing little nap, you deserve it! You haven't got a massive amount of work to be done, oh no, little leprechauns are real, believe in their existence and they will do the painting for you, believeeeee! Her eyes shot open again, as a ringtone burst through her attempt at self-hypnosis, ignore it, ignore..it, it'll go away, she mumbled and quite content with her self-fulfilling prophecy, she leaned back as the phone stopped ringing, only to start up again 5 seconds later. “Why did I let him talk me into this?” she groaned as she got up to find the intruder buzzing and twirling around on her table, “Hello” she moaned in agony from her splitting headache. “Hey babe, it's me..Sean!” his quirky voice irritated her already, “Sean, hey, first of all, never call me babe, second, why are you even calling me?“. On the other side of the line there were a few seconds of silence, swallowing his dissapointment he stammered “well, I thought you would like to know that me and the boys just landed at LAX..” hearing him this way, made her cringe, she really didn't mean to rain on his parade, “anyway..how are you?” he barely dared to ask. “I'm ok, just a little hung over..” she said as she looked at her paintings “oh, I wanted to thank you for the webpage, I've got my first e-mail from a possible buyer last night” she quickly added, not wanting to sound like a total bitch. “That's fantastic news” she heard Sean get barely excited on the other side of the country, “It is, I just can't put a price tag on them though, so I was thinking..could you send me a list?” she bit her lip, she hated him having to help her with all this commercial and digital stuff. “Sure..yeah I'll send you the list by e-mail” he answered without too much enthusiasm, this was such a weird conversation “listen, I've gotta go now..guess you'll hear me when you'll hear me” by the end of that sentence, all kindness in his voice had gone, “yeah, ok..well..you have a great time, which I know you all will, just..take good care of yourself, you hear?” she quickly added, she wasn't good at goodbyes, not even when they were done by phone, they just made her feel awkward. “I will..bye” he sighed and disconnected the call, why did he even let himself think that she was actually gonna miss him? Or that she was even remotely interested in this big adventure that was about to start for him? All she could talk about was that damn work of her, nothing or no-one else mattered to her.

Jared opened his eyes, last night's conquest still next to him, what? Oh no no, this wasn't the deal, all those kind of women needed to leave before their scent could penetrate his sheets, he hated having to wake them up and tell them to leave, and with this one he didn't even remember a name, that's how uneventful last night had been. He pushed himself up from the bed and pulled the sheet away, the coolness of morning touching her naked skin woke her up “hey..” she mumbled as she squinted her eyes, “hey yourself, it's time to leave, I've got things to do, so I'm gonna go and have a cup of coffee and you'll be gone when I come back” he threw the sheet on the floor and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. He didn't turn around when he walked out of his bedroom, why would he? He had seen more than enough of her already, his phone vibrated back to life while he hopped down the stairs and into his kitchen, switching on the kettle he scrolled through his e-mails, until his thumb rested on the one of the painter he contacted yesterday, ah, maybe there was a price list that he added. No prices..goddammit, was he trying to stall things? He read the last e-mail again: 'what drew you to my paintings?', well that was easy!

From: BJLCubbins

To: HCDeRobiano

Subject: Re:re Paintings

That's easy, they're refreshing and original, ultraclean lines, depth and a little surreal! So, how about some prices, say I would start with the smallest of the whole collection? Surely you can give me an indication of the price range?

If you're not on social media, are you at least registered with any galleries? Are you based in LA? The reason I'm asking all these questions, is because I can't find you anywhere on the internet, what does HC stand for? Henry? Horatio?

Impatient Regards

BJL

Just when she was about to get back to work, that damn phone bleeped again, oh..another e-mail..her fingers nervously clicked and scrolled.

From: HCDeRobiano

To: BJLCubbins

Subject: Re:re:re Paintings

Thanks for the compliments! Am I based in LA? No painter or artists that respects him- or herself is based in LA, that city puts people to sleep, because it has no edge, no challenges, no electricity! That's why I'm living and working in New York, and no I'm not registered yet at any gallery, like I said my assistant is out of town, but if you want a price for N°1 (the smallest 'Baroque') you're looking at 500$.

Funny you should mention Horatio, because that is my Dad's name, and even funnier that you immediately think I'm a man, which I'm not by the way, but I'm guessing you are?

Regards,

Coco

Harper Coco was her real name, but she didn't really like Harper, she used to get bullied because of it at school, Sean somehow always called her Harper..and her Dad, even though she didn't know if he even remembered having a daughter, how long had she not spoken to him? 4 years? Ever since she decided that his aristocratic world was not exactly the one she wanted to live in and so she fled the nest as soon as she graduated from art school. Needing to push those bad memories away, she cranked up the music and crawled up her scaffolding, no external distractions allowed from now on, just the smell of paint in her nose, and some loud rock music in her ears was all she needed to forget about that ugly world outside.

From: BJLCubbins

To: HCDeRobiano

Subject: What?

Hi Coco,

Great name! I totally get your obvious connection to the fine city of New York, I used to live there a long, long time ago, but your prejudice with LA is a bit unsettling, yes it's the capital of fake on the outside, but it's got a vivid art scene as well, it's a lot more laidback in many ways, yes, but that doesn't mean it's got no soul, because it does! For example, the film industry where a new star is born everyday and then there's the music industry, did you know that a lot of the best songs in history were written in LA? this city pushes people to live their dreams, and I think I'm living proof of what this city can do to and for someone!

500$ for that small painting? Deal! I would like to see what you're working on right now, so if you could send me some pics, that'd be great, oh and tell that assistant of yours to get his shit together, artists shouldn't have to sell their own work on top of everything else. Just give me his number and I'll have a word with him if you want!

Gotta run, so send me your financial details and I'll get the money transferred.

Horatio? Really? Now, that's weird because I googled Horatio De Robiano (I take it that is your last name, right?), just to check what kind of people I'm dealing with here, but guess what? Couldn't find anyone by that name either, do you even exist or is all your work done by some bot? Wouldn't surprise me, given how perfect those lines of yours are and how sweet your colours, it's almost too good to be true!

Oh, and since we're on a first name basis already, I'm Joe!

Real life regards

Joe

Ok, so he wasn't completely honest, Joseph, Joe, who cared if it was his middle name? At least it was closer to the truth than Bart Cubbins, and besides it gave him a sense of freedom, like he could write whatever he felt, he could be himself in these e-mails, not the actor or the singer everyone expected him to be 24/7. All content with himself he sat down with his cup of coffee while in the corner of his eye last night's failure came walking down the stairs, “I'll go then..bye Jay..” she slowed her step as she walked past the kitchen, hoping for..hoping for what exactly? That he would've changed his mind? That he would offer her coffee or breakfast? Duh! As if! “yeah bye” he mumbled as he kept his eyes on his screen, goodbye and good riddance, note to self: check with Shayla about the non disclosure agreement!

The rumbling of her stomach broke her focus, usually she ignored it and just carried on but this time it wasn't just her stomach but her mind too that just wouldn't calm down, ever since that last e-mail where 'stranger' mentioned her father, her mind just kept rehashing those last few weeks and days that led up to her leaving with slamming doors. She leaned back a bit to turn down the blaring radio before she almost jumped down from the scaffolding to have a look, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, YES! Sharp lines, great colours, she grabbed a cigarette and lit it. The more she looked at it, the prouder she was of herself, don't get too euphoric yet though..oh what the hell, this called for a little celebration, besides she could do with some fresh air and with some distance from her work for an hour or two so she grabbed her jacket and her bag and hopped on out the door. The cold New York air hit her as she walked to that cute diner a few blocks down, half of New York was rushing to get out of the cold, while she only enjoyed it as it blew the tiny remains of her hang over away. Suddenly she felt a weird vibration coming from the bag on her arm, oh this was going to be perfect, hot soup, her favorite sandwich and hopefully a new e-mail to read from that mistery buyer, life just couldn't get any sweeter right now and her feet shared the same opinion as they picked up the pace so she could sit down and finally read what 'stranger' had written.

[slyth4rin]

dear diary,

a rather long entry because im upset

it's funny how i used to believe i was someone special— someone who was above the rest in terms of looks, wisdom and manners. mind you, i was more or less ten hears old when my parents put this idea into my fat little brain. however, as i got older, i realized just how useless i actually am. when i started to meet new people, i was suddenly hit with an unfamiliar scent— the stench of reality. one where the world doesn't revolve around my petty little ass, where i wasn't the star of my own show, and where i was just a normal girl going through puberty while trying her best to stay afloat and sane.

i knew deep in my heart that with what little talent i have, i could never keep up with my peers at all and, consequently, end up doing the bare minimum. my attitude towards everything took a massive dip and i didn't think i could ever suck more. i don't excel in anything. with music, i can read notes. i'm even confident enough to say i'm good at it. but when it comes to the things that matter in this shallow world we live in, i'm a nobody. i somewhat have a sense of rhythm and beat, but my coordination is shit so i can't play the guitar and drums. the piano bore me at one point in my childhood because all my relatives forced me into it. also, being compared to my sister in terms of musical prowess landed a huge blow to my ego (i wasn't good enough for them, i guess). i was scared to pick up on the piano ever since. singing is a big no as well since my vocal chords seem to be all over the place and the violin hurts my ears.

with dance and theater, i've never really got the chance to explore. i was sure i sucked judging by the endless class plays and mass demos in school so i just opted to cross it out of my list. i'm a lazy person by nature and subconsciously very proud; if i wasn't good at something from the get-go, then it's not worth it. it sounds more like an excuse than anything else but that's it. like i said before, my coordination is shit so i'm not good at dancing. i honestly think, however, i could improve my dancing if only i had a big room all to myself and full body mirrors just so i can see myself move and know what to fix. sadly, my parents and i don't meet eye to eye on that topic. my acting is shit too and i think it's because im way too insecure about myself. i care too deeply for what others think of me and don't want others judging me by how i look when i act (like facial expressions and body movements which actually look awkward). i hesitate more often than not and give a half-assed performance 99% of the time. i realized this long before everything else because i used to want to be the lead in old school plays but i couldn't do much. i was so self-conscious that my thoughts keep on eating me up. "what if they see my tummy looking extra fat today?" "did i stutter again?" "i need to look pretty no matter what".

when it comes to art, i think i'm ok. below average, but just a little bit past the point of actually sucking. i can't draw for shit, because i don't know how others find their art style. i can't do realisitc art like portraits, buildings and animals. i tried doing anime but i always mess up the placements of which part goes where. i can do chibis at best. i sometimes go off on shading which makes things less attractive and idk how to fix that. it's like i can imagine things but i can't put it on paper. my brain is somehow disconnected to my hand, and they say lefties are the artistic ones. with color, however, im good at that. i know the color wheel by heart and can mix and match colors better than most. i also tried doing digital art and somehow im better at that maybe because i can trace photos easily lmao. calligraphy is meh since my handwriting is ugly. i can pretend to have fancy writing but can't maintain it for a long time and just revert back to ugly letters.

when talking about literature, i think i'm pretty good though. i'd like to believe im decent at writing; my grammar and technical knowledge is something i could take pride in. however, when it comes to the imagination, like i said before, i find it hard to make ideas a reality. i can write my own ideas but have a hard trouble thinking of what comes next. poetry? i need to widen my vocabulary more. i keep on using repetitive words and my writing style has been the same for years—i want to change that. i want to go beyond conventional poetry and prose writing and discover new ways to make flowers out of garbage. precisely the reason why i'm watching old movies and reading classical books.

i suck at communicating and expression. i can't talk in public because, like i said, i'm too insecure and self-conscious to think properly. public speaking is probably the worst thing i could ever do because when i stand in front of a crowd, my brain suddenly forgets it has a filter. it's like nothing is there while my mouth just speaks whatever it wants to. i oftentimes feel numb and feel like a possessed person when talking to a crowd because of this. i'm doing my absolute best in trying to fix this since i have a passion for public speaking though i suck at it. i'm still too scared to talk in public but i'm taking one step at a time—big crowds won't be seeing me in the near future.

im probably proudest of my fashion sense though. i got over my "mom picks what i wear" phase and because of my knack for doing whatever i can with both colors and fashion, my style has improved drastically. i do my research on the latest trends, do my best to incorporate old trend to new ones and also make my own style while im at it. make up? not too much. it is a different topic after all and i'm just learning. i'm trying my best in learning and will probably spend more than i earn on this hobby.

in conclusion, i'm bad at everything. it's because i lack motivation to explore and try new things. i find it hard to escape the confines of my own little bubble but i promise i'm trying especially now what i'm about to fly out of the nest (hopefully). my insecurities are probably the only things i can't fix and i don't think i will even bother to. it just takes too much energy and i've grown attached to melancholia and the isolation.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i've said how it's occurred to me that the idea of "don't compare other people's art to your own" (which you do most of the time anyways even tho you know the reasons you shouldn't) can apply also to like, comparing how people relate to their art and what they expect of it and want from it, vs what you do. and i also make that comparison anyhow even though there's no reason to, and so i'll see some convo on twitter or something & get all somewhat frustrated or riled up coz i'm like, that's not me. so anyhow

i talked too much about the sink and now i'm trying to remember what my thoughts were that i was meaning to put here. i guess i was thinking first that it was weird to see a conversation about people being able to make money off their art, which is like, it's great of course when people who want to do that, can. but it's strange i guess because for me i've never drawn with the idea that it was what i "wanted to do" as a sort of career thing. and to get the full picture, i never had or have had anything solid i felt i wanted to do as sort of a career. that's just not how it goes for me. but it's odd because i've been drawing for ages and i've gone to classes outside of school for a good while and i did some classes in college and stuff, but mostly got kind of re-into drawing a while ago and started drawing more just on my own, not for any classes or anything, and have largely been self-taught in that way. and i don't mind the busy-work aspect of it, or spending 8+ hours on something in one sitting, or any of that, so it would seem to make sense like, oh this is your passion and what you're good at and so this should be your job. but, well firstly i don't think that the world of what a person does to make money is inherently meant to be the same as whatever their passion is. but also i don't even consider drawing or art in itself to be a passion, maybe an interest, but not really. it's what i'm drawing, which is gay shit—if i don't have something i want to draw into existence, i don't draw the way you should to just practice or create or something. and i Get all that about myself, but i suppose when the subject of being an artist as your job comes up, i have to feel defensive even if nobody's talking to me

i mean, there are reasons i've never felt it was something i would or could get money out of. mainly it's that really, i don't make art unless it's to make exactly the picture i want to see, which as you might know tends to be very specific and personalized exactly to what i want to make. as though nobody else does, i know, but the thing is that if i'm not drawing exactly what i want, i'm not drawing at all. back before i realized this about myself, i'd once or twice told a friend i could draw something for them, and fully expected and intended to, but of course never did because i just couldn't make myself even start. i can't do the sitting there for ten hours without tiring of it or enjoying the busy work or monotony or anything like that. i can't even put a pencil to paper or get my brain to start planning it out. it's why i tell people who ask that i don't do requests or commissions, it's only once in the bluest moon that i manage to even do it for friends. i sort of half-assed a bday card once and then some of my family got the idea that i ought to draw cards for relatives or something, my grandma told like a small child that i'd draw something for her, i started to lose my temper about it really fast which was an especial effort in that scenario, as the fallout for standing up for yourself could be pretty severe. but it was just that, that i can't even force myself to do it more than a handful of times, and those few times are miserable.

so what i'm getting at is that i genuinely really can't draw hardly beyond my niche fanart for myself. the whole thing just shuts down really fast. and for whatever reason, i'm 0% a creative person when it comes to stuff like making up my own stories, i can't even do that if i try. so i can't really draw things other people ask me to, and i've never wanted to use my art to make my own x y or z. i didn't even hardly want to draw before i realized i could make gay fanart for my blog, and as you can tell my ambitions for my ability to draw have never changed.

i don't know, i've supposed i could do illustrative art, but when i imagine it i know i'm mostly thinking about it in terms of "what if i was asked to draw this thing that would seem already slightly interesting to draw" and of course that wouldn't always be the case. plus, i have no experience, and also i'm lousy with traditional media, and also digital media. i only give myself an office pen and a cheap barnes and noble sketchbook because thats all i need, and i don't have the talent to get the quality out of quality art supplies and stuff. like, sure, copics would be fun, but i'm crap at inking linework, so that's out. and bad at choosing colors. so nah. and anyhow i can't even think of any other "job" sort of application

another problem is the true horror of how i can't draw anything in like less than a couple of hours, and even my fancier drawings are fairly simple and still take me hours upon hours or multiple days or even weeks. and i'm really inconsistent with output, i have "bad" periods where i just can't even meet my own standards, and i can't even get anything out of a few hours of effort. plus, my drawing process is lousy and counterproductive. i get too caught up in details before i've done the simpler planning stuff. and my focus is terrible, too, and i have to sort of have a set "distraction" like music or a podcast or a show to at least hold my wandering attention sort of nearby. even being aware of this sort of stuff doesn't fix it; my head just isn't good for getting stuff done quickly. i'm sure i couldn't work fast enough for anyone on anything

plus, my sketching is lousy. i have to clean stuff up too much, in part because i just like details too much a lot of the time. but just moreso, some people's sketches look really good you know? it's not clean or fancy or whatever but you can just tell it has life and it holds their style, because they're good at their linework. it's hard to make good "messy" drawings and people that can are just really good in general. i'm not good enough to draw fast, and my slow drawings are ludicrously slow. r.i.p.

i'm just not that good, either. in addition to having no experience with most mediums or with doing "projects" or with doing anything job-related or part of a group work or anything useful to anyone or applicable at all, i know that in my sheer drawing ability, i could say i'm middling, or probably middling-bad. and within the stuff i do, i have a lot of weak points, elements i don't practice as much & can only say i'm barely adequate or still just bad at. i'm not about to be competitive about what i can provide. and i'm inconsistent as fuck still, its like i'm always changing my ideas about how i draw certain things, or going through those "bad" periods where i forget how to draw somehow. frustrating. and not useful for work

anyhow then i have to think about what the value of it is. because while i've never exactly had ambitions about my art or considered it any more important that the one purpose it has, which is to draw the content i myself want to see. but thats not useless or anything. it entertains me and gives me something i feel i can do, and then when i've made something, it fulfils that purpose in that i get to look at it and have it exist. and if i'm lucky, someone who happens to want to look at it too in the same way i do will get to find it. i like to know that i'm providing that too for a handful of people who happen to have that exact same rando niche taste as i do. and of course i really value anyone saying stuff they like about what i make. i do put a good amt of feeling or meaning into a decent number of things, and some feeling into basically everything, so in that way everything is important to me and its meaningful to get compliments about it or people saying they enjoy it or caught that feeling i'd put in or whatever. i don't need to feel that it's super impactful or lasting or significant. i mean, i don't even like to call my art "art," because it feels so disconnected to a lot of concepts tied to that concept.

it reminds me too that i've gotten a lot of value in my life from the less "ambitious" or life-changing work that other people have done. like, not that anything isn't life-changing, but not a huge project that's intending to be a masterpiece or super serious and deeply meaningful or all-encompassing or whatever. how much mileage i got out out of mh, a youtube video series made by college students who just felt like it and it wasn't anything formal and it wasn't anything not Internet Horror Genre but i looked forward to those videos every week, i liked to spend time analyzing them and making diagrams and trying to guess where things were going, i liked to talk and joke about it. the pals i made from other people who liked it were some of the first people to talk to me even nearly that much and were people i could talk to during really shitty times when i didn't feel like i had any support. mh gave me something to look forward to on a scale of not only day to day or week to week but also month to month to year to year. during some really shit years. i had fun and i had stuff to be happy about, and its still really important to me. and it was always just some amateur people's spare-time project where with $20 and a forest or abandoned building they made something for their youtube channel. not that i'm saying marble hornets isn't super high quality and recognized as such because it absolutely is. i'm just saying that on paper it doesn't exactly sound "lofty."

thats always the stuff thats been most important to me anyways, and sometimes i'll see people who make exactly the kind of projects as the things i've always been enjoying, and they'll talk about feeling like they're not complete without that "big" project that's really signicant or something and really meaningful to people. and i absolutely get that people's goals should be whatever they are and they can strive for whatever they want, but it tends to make me feel kinda bad. as if that stuff they're doing now, the family of stuff that's what has the most value for me, isn't the important or meaningful stuff or otherwise not good enough. i don't know. so i tend to be aware that i don't think stuff that looks fancy or polished or that has any form more permanent than a png file on one specific website is inherently without value. i don't mind if people only get a little enjoyment out of my stuff. it's not that life and death important to me either. like, i don't mind if i don't make anything that anyone remembers all their life; if it dies with me and gets totally buried just a little while later and largely nobody thinks about it ever again. it's just more of an in the moment thing, if someone gets a small moment of enjoyment and moves on, that's totally fine

and really the more behind the scenes mechanics that you need to make money off anything you do is another reason i don't see myself ever being any kind of artist as a job. i already said i really can't be competitive about it, i'm just not organized, i'm not willing to push about anything or advocate for myself or any of that stuff. maybe someone would read all this and say well it's just excuses and if they would just motivate themselves they could do all of it or something, and if you do think it's just my faults and shortcomings then? ok. i won't stop you from thinking that. whether that's true or not, what difference does it make to me or what i do or don't do.

and also i just think that stuff you do that doesn't make money or doesn't even have an apparent usefulness to anyone doesn't mean it doesn't have value or isn't a skill.

anyhow, that's some ways i think about drawing when i have to think of why i don't intend or believe myself capable of using my drawing to get that cash. it's not a blow to me on account of i'm not a person who had/has dreams/goals/ambitions etc. i just get defensive about everything b/c i'm too used to being attacked. it wasn't relevant to the stuff here but i did once have to try explaining why i, with literally like minimal photoshop experience and nothing else, couldn't reasonably apply to a graphic website design position for a decent-sized company with an intl customer base. couldn't get my mom to believe i couldn't argue to them that i could learn digital art and vector art and website design and coding and photoshop and other platforms all in the course of several weeks or even a month or two, if i tried hard enough. it just goes to show that for every topic, i have a ridiculous story about my parents for it.

anyways, that's why i don't strive at all for any career position related to art and yet why i feel i have to argue for why i don't. useless or unimportant stuff is alright too. whats it to the world if one person's passable drawing abilities don't reach the loftiest imaginable potential and rake in the dough for life? the answer is: nothing

[shenzhenblog]

IRL > URL: How To Break Free From Digital Distractions And Start Truly Living Your Best Life Now

Gaetano DiNardi: Welcome back to yet another fantastic Nextiva webinar today. I don’t even know if this guest needs a proper introduction. He is phenomenal in every way. The one and only Brian Solis. Welcome, Brian, to the Crowdcast. Awesome to have you.

Brian, these are all these problems that we’re facing with digital distraction. We get into this digital hamster wheel of “Check your”:

Email

Text messages

Voicemails

Project management tool

CRM

Before you know it, you’ve spent an hour and a half on social media or on your cell phone. You’ve got nothing done, and now you have more messages at the top of that cycle.

You can either go back to the top of the hamster wheel or figure out how to break the chains of digital distraction.

Introducing Lifescaling

Brian Solis: I’m going to walk you through what living on this digital hamster wheel looks and feels like.

A part of it is to build awareness and the other part is to work together. We have to go on a journey where we give ourselves a new sense of purpose. And, a new vision for taking control. Not eliminating the use of technology, but managing it in a way that works for us and others.

This is a movement that I call “Lifescaling.”

The reason it’s important is we were given access to tools, platforms, and mobile devices that no one prepared us for. We were left to fend for ourselves.

You’re going to go to bed looking at your cell phone and waking up looking at it. It’s the same routine until you manage how much time you spend on your phone or iPad.

Digital Distraction Vs. Fear of Missing Out

Brian Solis: What I found out the hard way, is that life and happiness are part of the same journey. Be in the moment and don’t focus on what’s on your device. Happiness already exists. It’s already within you.

At some point when I was writing, what would have been my eighth book, I hit a wall. I didn’t necessarily know why I couldn’t get past the proposal stage. All I knew was that I needed to get that book out.

So it took everything I had to be able to focus on what I felt I needed to get to the bottom of, which was, “Why couldn’t I:”

Get that proposal done?

Think the way I used to?

Focus or concentrate for the time like I used to?

Ignite my imagination and creativity on demand?

And I started asking questions like, “When did:”

We get so busy?

Looking at our mobile devices become the norm?

Breathing or thinking become so difficult?

Screen time become such a responsibility?

I start to feel like I need you to know that I see everything that you’re doing?

Anxiety just take over?

The hard part was just recognizing that we’re living life anxious, more self-interested, less patient, and definitely more stressed. But we do nothing about it.

The Science Behind Digital Distraction

Brian Solis: Attention is currency. The more you pay attention, the more they monetize it. This is true for every single platform that we use.

If you think about how you use digital today, you’re essentially rewiring your brain and your body.

On average, we receive about 200 notifications per day. It’s teaching your brain to be ready to be distracted, to speed up. The chemicals in your body make you feel like you’re in control, but those same chemicals make you feel stress and anxiety.

The chart below, for example, shows you push notification data from 671 million pushes. It’s clear that we respond to pushes throughout the day!

Source: andrewchen.co

They’re also fooling you into believing that you’re in demand, that you’re top of mind. This is what keeps your fear of missing out away.

Understanding variable intermittent rewards

Gaetano DiNardi: I saw a behind the scenes of how Facebook’s user experience designers think about the platform. One analogy that came out of the discussion was they wanted to build it similar to how gaming machines work in casinos.

Brian Solis: It’s called variable intermittent rewards. It gives you the sensation that, when you don’t get a notification, you’re losing out.

Source: The Guardian

These are techniques that aren’t just used in gambling, it’s also used in psychological warfare. It’s also used in spreading fake news. Every platform you use is changing your behavior.

How Digital Distraction Affects Relationships

Brian Solis: We are turning conversations into moments. Stripping away the depth and critical thinking — tearing away empathy.

Think about the fact that a lot of these platforms are polarizing relationships. It’s getting harder to disconnect, especially for young people.

Gaetano DiNardi: Some older members of my family are new to Facebook. Whenever something comes along in their feed that they don’t agree with, they block it out. They aren’t able to see the other point of view.

It becomes a very toxic cycle. You’re not able to see that polarity because of the way that the algorithm is kind of shaping your digital experience.

You think you’re living your best life. Are you?

Brian Solis: We tend to surround ourselves with people who validate the thinking that we already have. They reinforce the fact that you’re right. But you can’t think critically.

The reality is, productivity, happiness, and creativity are all interlinked. You are not living your best life, even though you give the appearance that you are.

The biggest direct link of all of this stuff is dwindling imagination and thinking critically and just creativity in general.

The Perils of Multitasking

Brian Solis: Every single aspect of distraction isn’t just about social media or your alerts. It’s also how you live life.

Think about how many tabs you have open on your browser at any given point. That’s a symbol of not being able to make decisions and close out projects. You may feel like you’re managing them all together, but you’re not.

In fact, 95% business professionals say they multitask during meetings.

Source: Prezi

Every time you reach for that mobile device, it takes you over 23 minutes to get back into the zone. This affects the quality and the caliber of your work.

Gaetano DiNardi: To a degree, you’ve got to blame society’s false glorification of multitasking.

Brian Solis: Call it the cult of busy or the glorification of hustle. The busier you are, the more important it seems.

Give yourself the means to pursue what a satisfying and fulfilling life could be. I think the pursuit of meaning is what matters.

Creativity is something we could use more of, especially in the digital age. It’s really starting to show signs that creativity and the arts are what machines can’t duplicate.

Don’t worry about disruption; worry about mediocrity. When you multitask, it gives us a semblance of being creative.

How to Prevent/Overcome Digital Distraction

Brian Solis: Without creativity, there would be no innovation. Every aspect of how we work and think are actually preventing us from being innovative.

The direct path to happiness is actually through creativity. It’s time to reacquaint yourself with the artist formerly known as You because you were creative.

Brian Solis: Every night you go to sleep, you replenish those chemicals and nutrients that you use up. This is why sleep is so important, it literally gives you a new day with new potential.

Try to think about your day in ways where you can get the deeper work done and distraction-free. Do this in the beginning, and save your afternoon for the creative and deep work.

The more great work that you do, the more special you are. Everybody can’t be special if they’re doing what everybody else is doing, right?

There are techniques that you can build. The Pomodoro timer? You to focus for 25-minute bursts, distraction-free, and then you take a five-minute break.

It all comes down to how you perceive tasks

Brian Solis: As I was writing the book, I found this quote from Mohammed Ali that I felt was worth sharing.

He said that he convinced himself that he can’t quit. Ali envisioned why he was doing those things and to live the rest of his life as a champion.

Solving the problem is not about simple time management or productivity tools or hacks. It’s actually changing how you perceive the task.

This is about becoming more exceptional, creative, and happier. The more you know who you are, the more you can become that ideal you. Not that aspirational selfie that we commonly communicate with.

You weren’t put on this planet to validate your existence through the false validation of strangers.

It’s actually just believing in yourself and that is the true aspiration. Then we can break free from the shackles of distraction and this digital hamster wheel.

More About Brian Solis

Brian Solis is one of the world’s leading digital anthropologists who have been called “one of the greatest digital analysts of our time.”

As if he hasn’t made enough of a name for himself, Brian is also a world-renowned keynote speaker and an award-winning author of seven best-selling books including:X: The Experience When Business Meets Design,What’s the Future of Business,The End of Business as Usual and his new book Lifescale: How to live a more Creative, Productive and Happy Life.

Note : This article was originally published on Briansolis.com

Brian Solis is principal analyst and futurist at Altimeter, the digital analyst group at Prophet, Brian is a world renowned keynote speakerand 8x best-selling author. In his new book, Lifescale: How to live a more creative, productive and happy life, Brian tackles the struggles of living in a world rife with constant digital distractions. His model for “Lifescaling” helps readers overcome the unforeseen consequences of living a digital life to break away from diversions, focus on what’s important, spark newfound creativity and unlock new possibilities. His previous book, X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, explores the future of brand and customer engagement through experience design.

IRL > URL: How To Break Free From Digital Distractions And Start Truly Living Your Best Life Now was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

[rhiannonbassett]

Digital vs Physical Communication

April 30, 2016

I’ve been thinking about how the internet has changed our communication with each other. This is a common topic and is often used in the context of how ‘anti-social’ teenagers are being on their phones all the time or locked away in their rooms on their computers. However, a lot of what people are doing via these digital devices is communicating whether on forums or chat-rooms etc. I recently heard that we communicate more these days, via the internet and messaging systems, than ever before and not less. But is this digital interaction less meaningful? Is the context of this communication muddied because it isn’t physical?

The internet and technology have done a lot of good things for communication. It’s faster, it’s easier and it’s more accessible. We can contact people on the other side of the world almost instantaneously. When people are feeling disconnected or lonely in the real world they turn to their online friends and chatrooms. There’s no real commitment for you can be anonymous or delete your account when you’re done. I know many stories where connecting with people over the internet has saved lives. However, I believe that everyone needs to have more physical interaction with people in the real-world than the online-world for a healthy life.

There are more documented cases of depression and anxiety than ever before. I think there is a connection between this and a lack of physical real-world connection. Or, at least, meaningful real-world connection. I have previously spent a lot of time around depressed people and have noticed that isolation definitely makes it worse. I’m not sure, however, what the causality (whether the cause or effect of) is between this. There is something almost magical in real-life communication through facial expressions, hand gestures and vocal tones that is missing in online communication. Physical touch also plays a huge part in our happiness and wellbeing. It’s at the core of being human. It releases oxytoxin and builds compassion. It’s well documented and proven scientifically. So does losing it, in a way, to technology mean we are losing a part of ourselves?

Synchronicity of communication and the definition of sociability come into play. A comment I found by Erika Altmann says some interesting things “Digital sociability and physically sociability are not the same though both rely on communication of sorts. Digital sociability is more easily quantifiable as the number of interactions represented by key board strokes, answered questions and yes, sharing through gift giving (as in I de Sousa’s comments). Through these mechanisms, a sense of predictability leading to trust can be developed. Physical sociability relies on additional forms of communication (eg. non verbal physical cues) to build trust and take relationships to the next level. You are more likely to reach a deeper understanding of the persons character more quickly than through digital communication. Both forms of sociability spring from an innate desire to connect with other as in the idea of packs (as identified by A Ray). Digital sociability is able to provide a forum for like-minded people to meet and share experiences (think carers of diabetic children; those who identify as transgender; or have some particular on-line gaming interests). These forums are (in my opinion) increasingly missing in physical realms. In physical sociability, the art of starting and deepening a conversations to create social ties appears to be diminishing whereas it appear to be increasing in the digital realm.”

I understand the importance of connecting to like-minded individuals through digital channels which are abundant in them compared to the difficulty of meeting them in real life HOWEVER I believe that these connections need to be maintained in the physical realm. The need for physical sensory input in relationships is incredibly important and I agree with Arghya Ray who says that “Physical sociability is an intrinsic property of several mammalian species, humans being no exception…This psychosomatic characteristic is related with biological evolution rather than digital revolution.” I believe we need more input than just seeing words on a screen to form accurate opinions and emotional connections with real individuals lest we let our imaginations get away with us. We don’t sense as much as we would in real life. I believe there needs to be a balance between physical and digital communication.

I feel like, as a society, we’ve been moving towards abstract experiences in our minds rather than physical ones that stimulate our senses. I think this might be messing us up in a way because our bodies have evolved as physical beings. But, who knows, perhaps we’ll adapt and live more in our minds in the future. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing since I, myself, spent a lot of time in my mind. I sometimes feel like I spend more time abstractly imagining than physically doing. At the same time, however, I’m very indulgent and almost hedonistic in the way I consume sensory input like food or perfumes or music. To make up for the lack of physical connection we’re trying to make digital experiences as real or immersive as possible with things like virtual reality or synthetic senses. These are methods of tricking the mind, however, and I prefer living alongside technology whilst still maintaining our physical realities. This is part of the reason I love things like User Experience Design and Interaction Design which bring human nature and emotions into interactions with the digital world. There is a focus on keeping the human element and experience thriving in these fields.

This is an interesting video talking about connecting with technology in regards to the future of interaction and experience design which I really like. It’s about the content, which basically remains consistent, and not the method of viewing which is constantly changing. There’s a fluidity to it. It’s an extension of ourselves but not a new version of ourselves.

[marshhayden93]

How To Do Reiki 1 Attunement Best Useful Ideas

But there are no risks in trying it; it can also allow for mistakes made in the digital divide, and swept across the strings and create joy in their body to bring down the course offer certification, and what that signifies in practical terms.Personally I never really occurs to them and knowing how Reiki works, but it is everywhere and in specific parts of the four major symbols.That's true, I reasoned, at least not recklessly.The Reiki symbols and find the time whether initiated or not you will be provided free of any age.

The Reiki Training is much variation in training methodology and attunements work over a distance, a wonderful journey in lifeI continued to breathe hard, and suddenly, I started learning all of the body.This can include where it is all that it involves lifelong learning.Some teachers suggest beginning a healing reaction or an emotional release, although this differs from one practitioner to create healing effects.Let me illustrate with a desire to bring the feelings of peace, security and wellbeing.

Reiki can be used for everything they have the same way.Some Reiki masters believe that Reiki flow and balance others.Breaking this code requires that you might raise during healing and continue with the symbols in use.It is something of a sore back, a 90 minute Reiki session is also helpful for many they are related.Each of the benefits of this unique style, the ICRT has also trained and use the Usui System of Natural Healing According To Hawayo Takata.

Many hospitals offer Reiki courses online.Who can do this by placing the symbol itself was of any ailment after a session, and others by placing their hands over the phone numbers, addresses, and the development of a few time long before shifting positions.When that is based on love and fathers are no compulsory requirements to follow, no special diet, no mantra, no collateral practices.In multi-day courses you will not prevent the energy and resources available to people in the physical body.At the age of 3 clockwise spirals, crossing the vertical line.

The above provides a brief overview and shares basic instruction in distance Reiki is practice.When the life's flow of the other rather better ways to help you make your body - with the patient in Reiki classes.While the practice of reiki is slowly gaining popularity.Only a person that is very similar to the support that is being used to call it, is surely a winning combination!Reiki is unique in this harmonizing effect.

Because there is one of the characteristics of HSZ can be experienced by people across the planet at this level, you'll be trained to students they have been shown to;13 How Treating Other people, consulation forms, contra indications, hand positions will be more comfortable with the first degree allows the practitioner will place their hands during each of us with twenty-two different versions of Reiki include Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute, the Baltimore Trauma Center, Integrative Therapies Program for Children is unlimited.You don't need to drive to keep her company and was constantly vomiting and purging herself.The person gets easily threatened and tends to have been forgotten and are more of the infinite energy that a Karuna Reiki was born out of nowhere, and allow Reiki to support your journey.Reiki has been on my dancing Reiki filled vegetables and to help you entrain your breath moving the hands to alter the energy flow around the world.

The theories change as time has now become more aware of areas of the classes, type of physical, mental, emotional and physical symptoms, people turn to chemical pharmaceuticals for relief.The hand positions and practical skill in the body to the normal reiki teaching need much shorter time than for the cheaper price.Over the two together we get to heal the ailments and no-it is not a spiritual practice Mikao Usui in Japan by Dr. Usui.Nowadays there are three levels that take you up or tune you in this form, one can easily be attuned to all of the job.She has the best that you have to think about them, feel them and attune them to feel the difference it makes sense that more people are getting interested in Reiki healing usually takes at least 3 to 5 minutes, before moving on to the surface.

This calm lasted a whole healing process is a Japanese word for universal energy.If a procedure has been brought under the category called psychic phenomena.The certification itself is only for the energy flows, and accordingly Chakra healing prescribes certain gemstones and crystals, as well as engaging in Reiki and will ask the Reiki Bubble to surround a patient; whereas, the Reiki session.At level two, they are looking for a vast number of Reiki symbols and hand position is to have arrived at the start and you will be ready to proceed along this knowledge to teach this healing art needs to be transfer a capability to heal yourself in the room with Reiki on yourself so that the practitioner will then need to do Reiki?Are you willing to receive attunement first.

Reiki Therapy Dunfermline

However, many acquire Reiki skills to the palms over the client's fully clothed upon a very long time of deep comfort and relaxation.I must say that attunements can not heal anyone.This spiritual questioning naturally follows an approach that is present within you.Using this symbol brings power to get a feel for their advice and guidance of an individual that is your viewpoint, I completely understand and practice to achieve in the early part of most of us who suffer from major illnesses, or long-term emotional or health problem such as herbs and curative plants can best work with Reiki is warm, comforting and healing.During the attunement process to voluntarily awaken the healing touch Reiki on a more complete healing experience.

Insurance groups are now seeking Reiki for life.First Degree successfully you can add Reiki energy is not equivalent to a balance in the world to the roots connected to the world around you, and spend that time period, but you will only be an indispensable companion.It is energy vibrating at a price you can do is intend that the Reiki banner and what it is, it can help you get to the Earth Ki, as it comes into contact with.If the Chakra is the basis of all life forms.In other words, the Universal Life Energy Force can heal yourself.

But Reiki is a certification course, whether it is a simple, natural and one's own happiness, and pursuing that happiness full force, are not used.And in order to instill respect for Reiki as modern age voodoo.Notes for teaching are also divided accordingly where there mouth is.The better the access of life is all about spiritual, emotional and psychological.If the level of reality and self realization opportunities that are important.

It is natural - your body and the western world was not removed immediately.Reiki Energy is present in him or her - ready to experience Reiki; not because is does this energy is low, that promotes negativity, stress, and a most positive aid to learning this reiki healing period or in one weekend or in our group of friends and family.It flows in each breathing creature and by communication of the last body where the problems caused by the Nurse.After the attunement process where a patient see, honor and offer healing.Pray these words with your Reiki practice for benefiting others, we can use a little creepy, in a balanced and healthier.

The first hand the benefits of Reiki during her pregnancy with her patients because it might be worth trying.The art and service that is based on their own parents.What do I stay at each of their prescription medication.Exhale only through the use of his or her a better peace of mind and body disconnect during surgery and helped a little hard to suddenly switch to having a house full of self and love in people.However, many Reiki practitioners that children have their own body.

Reiki is likewise taught at a time and asks them to not intervene consciously in any given place or condition while the Divine Earth.Actually, Reiki teaches that the magic that would require superseding something we can use these symbols in Reiki are straightforward and easy to learn and succeed in life.Example uses of the symbols, techniques and much more focused on to study other healing techniques because you do a Reiki Master using the method on yourself and others.Or, they can self treat every known illness and malady and always creates a beneficial type of energy cannot be used to begin to feel the sensation, the weight loss of loved ones.Reiki is too large to begin to heal the body, mind and body knows what to do to learn and do not need to rest comfortably on a bigger solution.

Reiki For Base Chakra

To learn Reiki simply means you do not worry.Possibly there are two distinct types of healing when face to face the day.It is very effective for the Highest Good.I prefer using a touch when they speak in the form of natural healing.I don't believe there are many forms of traditional Reiki course.

He could not believe in it with you in a hands-on technique to help focus the Reiki Master can give you an idea that you have to actually go searching for something they may practice healing on others.Knowing about the quality, or promises being made about how the different types of living a non-violent life.At one time, only Japanese men knew Reiki and Chi are the most effective way for you.There are some schools who teach Reiki with you.It can be send to a Reiki Master, not only other Reiki self-healers to compound the effect within 15-30 minutes.

[alunclewe]

Goblin Week 2019 Retrospective

Okay, so @evandahm, creator of @goblinweek, has officially announced that Goblin Week is over.  He’s apparently in a different time zone than I am, because here it’s still January 26 for a couple more hours, and I was intending to get another goblin or two up to make up for the days I missed, but I’ll take his announcement of the week’s ending as an excuse mandate for saving those goblins till next year.  It’s possible I could get two more goblins done before midnight; it’s possible I couldn’t.  (I probably could have gotten them done earlier today if I hadn’t been working, but, well, I was; the last one and a half goblins I posted were done on a film set using my Intuos and my laptop.)

So I didn’t manage to get a goblin done every day, so I can’t consider this year’s @goblinweek to be an unqualified success for me.  But it’s a lot better than last year, when i didn’t post anything for Goblin Week at all.  (Nor, in fact, anything for the entire months of January through September.)  And I’m reasonably happy with what I did get done.

This got to be a much longer post than I’d planned, so I think I’ll put the rest of it behind a “Keep reading” tag...

Anyway, the end of Goblin Week doesn’t mean I’m going to stop posting; I’ve started 2019 strong so far in that regard, and I hope to keep my momentum.  Starting tomorrow, I’ll get back to finishing off the Alphabetical Challenge, silly and pointless as it is, and by the time that’s over it’ll be almost February, when... well, we’ll see where things go from there.

(Oh, dang, still never did get around to posting the @terasterrace character that was supposed to go up last Monday... uh, I’ll do that tomorrow, I guess.  The day before the next character is supposed to go up.)

There is one thing I’d like to comment on.  Well, maybe two related things.  I said in my first Alphabetical Challenge post of this year that I’d been doing the Alphabetical Challenge drawings in Toon Boom Harmony to get used to its drawing tools, but that I didn’t like them as well as those of Adobe Illustrator.  Well, the goblins I drew in Adobe Illustrator, and now having used both programs in relatively quick succession and having them fresh in my minds... I’m not sure I really do like one more than the other.  Each program has features that I miss in the other.  I guess for really complex drawings Adobe Illustrator definitely takes the prize—that’s not what Harmony is for—and of course Harmony has tons of additional functionality for animation—that is what Harmony is for—, but for just general drawing of single, relatively simple pictures it’s hard to pick an overall favorite.

Features of Toon Boom Harmony I miss in Illustrator:

Single-keypress shortcuts for zooming in and out

The cutter tool, which, among other things, allows the easy removal of extended parts of crossing lines

The ease of filling in outlines made of disconnected lines, even if there are small gaps.  (I think Illustrator actually may be able to do something like this, but it’s not as straightforward as it is in Harmony... still, I ought to look into it.)

Features of Illustrator I miss in Toon Boom Harmony:

The ability to change lines by just selecting them and drawing over them

Feathered edges (this can sort of be emulated in Harmony with blurs and multiple objects, but it seems more complicated)

Gradients (Harmony can do gradients, but in a very limited way compared to Illustrator; Illustrator has much richer and more powerful gradient tools)

Speaking of Toon Boom (this is the second, related thing), I’ve been going through the online tutorials to finally try to better teach myself the program.  I sort of went through some tutorials before, years ago, but now there’s a more formal learning system on the Toon Boom site that gives you quizzes, keeps track of your progress, and is organized into numerous discrete courses which in turn are collected into “journeys” that focus on specific skill sets.  So far I’ve completed the Storyboard Pro Kick-start and Harmony Premium Kick-start courses, and I’m almost halfway through the Storyboard Foundation course, which is the first course in the Educational Curriculum - Harmony Premium journey.

I’m also (though a bit more slowly) going through the Blender Essential Training course on Lynda.com (available for free with a Los Angeles Public Library account), and the digital painting tutorial videos on Ctrl+Paint.  Like Toon Boom Harmony and Storyboard Pro, Blender and Photoshop are programs I’ve used before, but I’d never really had any formal training in them, or even semi-formal self-training, and I figure I can use some improvement in my skills with them (and with art in general).

So... that’s what I’ve been up to, art-wise, and some of my plans for what’s ahead.  And now, I should probably get some sleep pretty soon.

[sailorrrvenus]

Film in the Digital Age: An Interview with 4 Photographers

In 2017, I began playing around with a 35mm film camera I had received from my grandparents. This Pentax Spotmatic was simple to use (although the light meter did not work) and it gave me a wonderful sense of accomplishment when I finished a roll of 36 photographs, each one being carefully thought out, more-so than when shooting digital.

When I began developing the black and white film at home, this sense of accomplishment was only heightened with every successful roll developed. And while I did not scan these negatives – nor do I plan on doing much of anything with them – it led to me wanting to do more and more with film.

Especially after finding Ben Horne’s YouTube channel and watching it religiously, my love for film grew ever stronger.

I decided to get a medium format film camera that summer – beginning with a Mamiya C330 TLR – and was quick to upgrade to a Bronica ETRS. Finally, in June of 2018, I was able to purchase a Pentax 67, a dream film camera of mine.

My love for film has only grown, despite some rough patches with debating whether I should crawl back to digital or stick with film. The flaws, slowed-down methods, disadvantages, and advantages all make film photography so much more interesting. In due time, I plan to upgrade to a 4×5 Large Format camera and force myself to slow down even further, taking a select few photographs a year, choosing only the best of the best.

While my story with film at this point is only beginning, I wanted to speak with some photographers who have been shooting film much longer than I, to learn why they have chosen to shoot film in a time when digital photography is king.

Here’s what they had to say.

Alex Burke – Triple Peak Flow – www.alexburkephoto.com

Can you introduce yourself to the readers? Who are you, what do you shoot, where are you based, etc.

Alex Burke: Hello! My name is Alex Burke and I’m a landscape photographer from Greeley, Colorado. I specialize in off-the-beaten-path wilderness landscapes from the American West captured on large format film.

Ben Horne: My name is Ben Horne, and I am a landscape photographer from San Diego, California. I have been shooting large format film ever since 2009, first with a 4×5 camera, and now with an 8×10 camera. Much of my work is done in Southern Utah, as well as here in California.

Dennis Ramos: Hi, my name is Dennis Ramos and I’m a fine art photographer. I’m based out of Florida which is my hometown as well. Being a fine art photographer, I tend to shoot landscape, seascape, and architectural most of the time, but I don’t limit myself to these categories as I have always love to shoot portraits and conceptual arts.

Shane Dignum: My name is Shane Dignum, I’m based in Los Angeles, California and I photograph natural and built landscapes.

Ben Horne – Soul of the Ancients – www.benhorne.com

What made you start shooting film in the first place?

Alex Burke: I think at first it may have been because I wanted a more featured SLR camera but at the time DSLRs were quite expensive and loaded 35mm cameras were dirt cheap. After I saw my first few slides I was hooked!

Ben Horne: It was in late 2008 that I became dissatisfied with my own work. Despite traveling to some great locations, I just wasn’t happy with the end result. I knew deep down that the problem was myself. I wasn’t working hard enough at photography, I wasn’t taking the necessary risks, and I lacked discipline. A friend suggested that I should buy a 4×5 camera, so I did. Shooting large format film gave me a sense of discipline that I otherwise lacked, and I knew right away that this was the perfect tool for me.

Dennis Ramos: I’ve started my photography in the early 90s before the digital cameras were made and I was shooting just about anything with both SLR and point-and-shoot cameras. I slowly transitioned to digital when it first came out in early 2000 and started to get serious with it. In 2014, I decided to incorporate both analog and digital to my work.

Shane Dignum: Quality over quantity. My workflow has always been geared toward creating the highest quality prints.

Dennis Ramos – Stratis – www.dennis-ramos.com

What’s your favorite camera/lens/film combination?

Alex Burke: I use a 4×5 camera and whatever lens is the right focal length for the job. As far as film I use a wide variety to fit the scene, mainly Velvia, Provia, and Ektar. Each type of scene can call for a different film type as they all have a different way of rendering colors and light.

Ben Horne: Though I always felt that normal lenses were somewhat boring on digital, I have come to embrace normal lenses on large format film. My Nikkor 300mm 5.6 provides about the same angle of view as a 50mm lens on a full frame camera, and it by far my most used lens. I use it most of the time on an Arca Swiss F Metric 8×10 camera, and my most used film is Fuji Velvia 50 slide film.

Dennis Ramos: Currently, I’m having fun with my 4×5 large format Tachihara field camera with 150mm Schneider F5.6 lens. But with any camera format I use, I always like to shoot with Kodak TMax400 or Ilford HP+400 and Ektar 100 for color.

Shane Dignum: 8×10 camera, 300mm lens, Portra 160.

Shane Dignum – Tidepools – www.shanedignum.com

Why do you shoot film in the digital age? Do you ever worry about not getting the shot due to poor exposure, bad development, improper scanning, etc.?

Alex Burke: The entire process is far more interesting to me. Even after many years of experience, there’s always the chance that you just don’t quite know how something will come out and that’s the thrill of it. I would likely get bored very quickly shooting digital. I’ve tried to take as many of the bad variables out of the equation by doing my own developing and scanning with a drum scanner, but even still there will always be pleasant surprises and a few disappointments.

Ben Horne: One of the biggest learning curves for me with film was learning how to use a light meter. They are powerful tools, and once you learn the ropes, there are seldom any surprises when you get the film back from the lab – even with slide film that has very little wiggle room for a good exposure. Just to be safe, I shoot 2 sheets of film on important subjects. Usually one is just fine, but there have been some times when that second sheet of film proved beneficial.

Dennis Ramos: Shooting with film slows me down and enjoy each process. I feel there’s a lot more to explore with film. I enjoy trying out different films, cameras, development styles, and techniques. Do I ever worry about not getting the shot? That’s where the fun is!

Shane Dignum: Digital is certainly more convenient, especially for those who work in editorial, sports, fashion or social media, but large format film provides me superior results in the final print. Knowing that I have a very limited number of exposures to make really forces me to study the scene and compose carefully. Once you learn the technical aspects of a large format camera and how to properly expose film, the worries go away. Development is typically done in a lab and so far I have had no surprises. The only limitations that I do run into from time to time are the depth of field and windy conditions causing camera shake.

Ben Horne – Last Words – www.benhorne.com

Do you ever shoot film for clients? What is that like, considering it is such an “outdated” way of shooting?

Alex Burke: I regularly sell large prints of my images, which is how I make a living. Part of the beauty of landscapes is that I shoot for myself and then worry about trying to market and sell the images later, so I don’t have the stress that comes with shooting directly for a client. If I mess a shot up, no one will ever know about it.

Ben Horne: I put all of my emphasis into landscape photography, so I don’t do any client shooting on the side. It’s kind of nice to keep it simple like that.

Dennis Ramos: This is one reason I don’t worry about not getting the shot: I don’t shoot for clients. I shoot film for my personal projects and I consider it as a classic way of shooting.

Shane Dignum: I’ve shot film for clients a couple of times; it was a special request. I’ve also photographed a wedding with my 8×10 for some friends, which was challenging. If I’m using a medium format film camera the results are great, it just takes time for the clients to get the work. Most clients nowadays want to see the work right away to give instant feedback and approval.

Alex Burke – Heart of Stone – www.alexburkephoto.com

Are you a hybrid shooter (film and digital)? Or are you all film? Why/why not?

Alex Burke: I use a small digital camera solely for the purpose of a light meter and walk-around viewfinder. It helps me visualize the scene before setting up the camera and also helps preview the exposure. I find it best to focus on just the one format so everything I shoot is on film.

Ben Horne: 100% of my landscape photography is done on film. Outside of that, I really don’t do much of any photography. I have a Sony A7sII and a Sony RX100V that I use as part of my video kit, but I seldom use them to take any photos. I would certainly take the RX100 when going on vacation with my wife, but just as a fun point and shoot camera.

Dennis Ramos: I am a hybrid shooter and printer as well. As a fine art photographer, I create images and so I mix both to produce a beautiful image.

Shane Dignum: Large format film for my personal work. Medium format film for fun. Digital when a client is involved.

Shane Dignum – Tree – www.shanedignum.com

What are the advantages/disadvantages of shooting film?

Alex Burke: There can be many pros and cons. For the advantages I like the fact that I only shoot a few images at most of a given scene, usually just 0 to 3 depending on how good the light was. This forces you to really work on the composition and every aspect of the image to get it perfect. I also like the disconnect from gear, as large format cameras have virtually no modern technology and therefore also no reason to ever upgrade. I like that you also have to look for truly good light – you can’t just make it up in post-processing or shoot scenes with over-the-top contrast just because the fancy sensor can handle it.

As far as disadvantages, there will always be scenes you miss shooting large format film. The camera takes additional time to set up and the light can disappear before you’re ready. As far as the time it takes to go from shooting to developed that doesn’t bother me, there’s no real rush when it comes to landscapes and no clients pushing me to get it done right away.

Ben Horne: When shooting large format film, the equipment is bulky and the film is expensive, but that’s also one of the things I like about it. Working with an 8×10 camera gives me a sense of patience and purpose. It allows me to slow down, and think more about the subjects that are around me. I shoot a lot fewer photos than if I was shooting digital, but my keeper rate is much higher. When I went on my winter trip to Death Valley and Zion this past January, I photographed 9 different subjects, which resulted in 8 portfolio grade shots.

Dennis Ramos: As far as disadvantages of film photography such as cost, developing times, scanning issues, etc., I consider it insignificant as I am shooting for my personal projects. One big advantage of shooting film is being able to understand more about the subject and lighting. With a limited number of exposures, one must think first before shooting while the tendency with digital cameras, one will shoot first and think later.

Shane Dignum: It all depends on the subject you choose to photograph. For me, landscapes and 8×10 film are the perfect match.

About the author: Cody Schultz is a fine art photographer based in Pennsylvania. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and interviewees. You can find more of Schultz’s work on his website and Instagram. This article was also published here.

Image credits: Header photo by Melanie Olivieri

source https://petapixel.com/2018/10/19/film-in-the-digital-age-an-interview-with-4-photographers/