#i'm having a real time getting photoshop onto my new computer and working

[pearlcaddy]

#the most valid way to eat cheese

Only Murders in the Building 2.02

[alkalinefrog]

hey, so, I had an art related question... if all of this is too much, feel free to ignore it.

the backstory is that I've had the same laptop since early high school but recently I had a birthday (I'm 28 now). my parents got me an HP laptop, and my friend got me a tablet, which she bought off of an online friend for $30. the problem is that I haven't had new technology like... ever? none that was actually mine anyway, and certainly nothing that could handle me using it for art.

and this is especially a problem when it comes to the tablet. my friend helped me get firealpaca onto the laptop, and get the tablet set up with the right drivers, aaaaand... I cannot make one line that looks good using it. I've been using pen and paper for so long and I have a really light touch, and it feels like I have to jam the pen down to get it to register, at which point I might as well have not set the pen sensitivity to anything at all because the thickest line is the only kind I can make?? any lighter and it won't show up on the screen at all. like I can ctrl+z and it doesn't even go back a step, the line didn't get drawn. there's like a 20% chance that any line I try to put down won't actually register. and tbh this isn't really what I had wanted... it's a huion tablet, which is the brand I wanted, but I was gonna buy myself one where you can see what you're drawing on the screen of the tablet itself. not just due to coordination issues, I think I could get used to that part, but because I feel like I wouldn't be having this specific problem with getting things to register. every single line I make looks like crap with this tablet, it makes me feel like I might as well be drawing with my feet, and I've been fidgeting with settings, and it doesn't seem like anything helps. I also still don't have a mouse for the laptop yet, so I can't click and drag anything very well because it has a trackpad, so messing with sliders is already aggravating.

I feel so lost and overwhelmed, and like if I buy anything else, I'm just going to end up with more unusable stuff because *I'm* probably the problem. I just don't know anything, and trying is mentally fatiguing me so quickly... my brain knows what I want my art to look like, and my hands can do it with a real pen. I just have absolutely no clue how to make this machine produce anything.

so I guess my questions are stuff like, what equipment do you use? are there tablets that will register a light touch or am I really going to have to be this heavy handed in order to work with one? what resolution/canvas size do you usually work on? any recommendations for what program to use?

overall, I'd really like to get myself something that feels more intuitive than the tablet... honestly, I was finding some success drawing with just my finger on the touch screen of my phone at one point. there were still a lot of problems with that, but the nail in the coffin was that my phone's memory space filled up and I had to get rid of the drawing app to make it functional again (it's an iphone, which is why). maybe I should just get an ipad or something...? though, one more thing on the mountain of potential options is the last thing my crumbling ADHD brain needs. I've been taking a break from art in general because I've still maintained my 40-hours-a-week work schedule through the whole pandemic... I do 10 hour shifts and work overnight, so I technically have free time since I only work 4 days a week, but the type of work I do leaves me with no energy at all. so I've been in an art slump and I've been wanting to get out of it, but this is just making art feel impossible, even though the whole reason why I've always wished I could draw digitally is so that I can color digitally. I had been drawing things in pen and scanning them to color in photoshop, but cleanup takes so long that I literally can't produce finished work anymore. I'm out of options that aren't prohibitively labor intensive and frustrating.

this was probably way too much information, but if you have any advice I'd be really grateful.

Huh, well first off HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE!! Congrats on the sweet new tech (even if it's been a bit frustrating) and well-deserved celebration!

From the sounds of it I think the main issue is probably your tablet (this is pure speculation on my end though, so you know, grain of salt and all). You're right in that you shouldn't have to fight against your equipment. I have a really light touch too and I've never had the same issue. I personally don't have any experience with huion tablets, but if you're having trouble getting your lines to register then it might have been worn down by the previous user. It's not so much about buying a monitor (the screen one) vs. tablet so much as getting working equipment.

An iPad is a great alternative!! I've played around with the apple pencil and procreate and it's a super intuitive program with (obviously) super easy set up! You get the drawing on the screen AND really nice pen pressure. I'm really happy seeing it opening up new doors for more people to get into digital art!

In terms of your current laptop/tablet situation:

My set up rn is pretty pricey ngl; I have a PC desktop computer with a 16 inch Wacom Cintiq. Getting started in digital art doesn't mean you have to drop a bag on a ton of equipment right from the get go though! If you're looking for a safe small investment, I'd recommend getting a Wacom Bamboo pen tablet!

This lil' baby right here is what I started with!! I think cost-wise it floats around 70ish bucks, but that's exponentially more affordable than buying a huge monitor. One of my friends who's also a pro artist uses a similar small tablet because it works great! That's an alternative that might be worth looking into.

You can also get free trials on other drawing programs (clip studio paint is a great one!) To test and see if it's a software issue with firealpaca.

You could also try checking online forums to see if anyone else is running into similar issues, or watch some YouTube videos of people reviewing different tablets. I know this might be even more overwhelming, so I'd try and narrow the scope to focus on one thing at a time.

My best advice right now would actually be to get a mouse, or any other accessories you need. I've also been in your shoes where I was completely overwhelmed, and I can say that checking off all the small easy things makes a HUGE difference! It makes you feel more in control of the situation, and even if you're still having trouble with digital art you can at least get more comfortable using your laptop in the mean time.

You got this dude!! I believe in you!!

EDIT:

Thanks @wooliebirds!

[emilyloudwellfmp2]

Colourful patterns of the 50s- Project Proposal

Producing artwork in a lockdown has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand I have felt like I have managed to really understand myself as a designer and what my work means to me in the concept of communicating with an audience. Producing the Final Major Project in year one during the first lockdown really strengthened the way I work and adapt to challenging situations. I was hoping this Final Major Project wouldn't have the same challenges, however, I am now able to conduct myself enthusiastically into this project. I aim to utilise my surroundings the best I can, whether that's at home or at college, to achieve the most successful project I can. Whilst on-site I will make use of facilities and equipment as well as my lecturers, and whilst off site I will spend time refining my experimentation and research.

In the second year I decided to specialise in Graphic Communication because I found the process of creating artwork to a specific brief, purpose or audience appealing. Whilst Fine Art allows for more hand based techniques and celebrates art in a more historical way, I admire the modern approach to art through digital based creations. I plan on integrating some hand based techniques and processes with my digital skills.

Above are two pieces of work from previous projects that I really enjoyed making. I enjoyed making these pieces especially because of how it made me analytical and experimental with colour layout, colour identification and composition particularly. I was able to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to manipulate and trial different colour combinations and the composition in which I placed each shape to make it look as effective as I could.

The piece on the left is a mixture of photographs I took and edited on Photoshop, as well as an outline of a building I had drawn on Adobe Illustrator. The piece on the right was an outcome for my year one Final Major Project and combines many processes including hand based carbon drawings scanned in and edited on Photoshop, as well as Photoshop digital drawing and Adobe Illustrator logo designing.

I work best in a structured methodological way where my outcomes are neat and refined. This especially appeared in my previous project ‘Page to Screen’ where I professionally mocked up my posters and book designs, by using Photoshop skills, onto books and real life scenes. I was able to wrap up my project into a few pristine outcomes that showcased my art in real life situations. In addition, I always contemplate the way I approach my projects through the order that I produce my practical work, I utilise all materials available to me and continue to use and experiment with previous bits of work. For example, I might photocopy a piece invertedly to produce more outcomes, or use a surface pattern previously made for underneath another piece of work. I approach the pieces in the colour, design and subject I have chosen whilst continuing to broaden my experimentation to produce the most professional outcome I can. This process of working will be beneficial for this Final Major Project because I will be able to organise my practical time in the studio so I can get the most out of experimental processes like screen printing and photocopying.

Colourful patterns of the 50s will be a journey focusing on advertising from the 1950s. The theme I have selected is colour palettes and patterns inspired by a certain genre of art. After doing some pinterest research I have found many different products being advertised, all in a similar way. I aim to take inspiration from these adverts and create promotional material in the form of an animation (or tv advert) and newspaper adverts, like how most items would have been advertised in the 50s.

Walt Disney began to really develop his animation business in the 40s and 50s, creating many of his movies like Cinderella, Alice in wonderland and Peter Pan (taken from https://d23.com/list-of-disney-films/). Due to my admiration of Disney animations, I want to focus on producing a short animation advertising a product from the 50s as my main outcome which i will then be able to make newspaper adverts from some of the key frames.

Here are some images off Pinterest that show what I’ve been researching and what ideas I have for the experimentation and outcomes of my project.

I have chosen the 50s because their use of pastel colours and distinctive funky patterns really invites all of my attention. I'm eager to spend time researching and working with the 50s aesthetic through different processes such as printing and digital illustrating, as well as exploring real life products that I could use for primary research. Some ideas for research sources would be going out and buying typical 50s food items, or going to an already 50s themed restaurant like Ed’s Diner, or buying 50s products online. I'd also look into buying some 1950s newspapers that I could include on my blog or even use them within my art work.

The 50s is notably a time where society is massively different from today, with adverts being incredibly misogynistic (as seen in these examples taken from https://roundpeg.biz/2017/03/advertising-1950s/ ), being lgbtq+ was heavily frowned upon, and the integration of “black and white” caused an uproar. Whilst it would be the perfect opportunity to stand up and bring attention to an unacceptable event that occurred in the 50s, with the Coronavirus happening I wanted to stay clear of political matters. My intention is not to glorify or ignore the different ways of the past but to give my audience something light hearted and fun.

For this project I will be producing outcomes that showcase my decision making and experimentation. It is important to have a refined end product of this project because it will tie together the whole journey of finding what works best for this concept. I visualise my concept outcome to be exploding with colour and traditional 50s patterns, whilst continuing to have a professionally refined structure. To do this I aim to mock up my artwork onto real life scenes, like in a newspaper or on an old tv for example. I have decided to take a contemporary approach to my outcome compared to a traditional process because I want to celebrate how much artwork has progressed in terms of expressionism and technology. In the 50s the television was only just becoming a statement in every working class home, whereas before it was just for the rich, so advertisers would have relied on newspapers to display their ads. Huge advancements have been made since the 50s and we now have access to countless programs and tools on a computer. My strengths lie in digitally generated artwork because of how I am able to manipulate and change each piece I work on through skills I continue to learn. I would like this project to mainly become a root for the animation pathway, and to gain as much experience as I can from this project which would help me take this further in the future. I hope this project is to be viewed as a fun new style which has been adapted from and heavily inspired by the 50s colour and patterns aesthetic.

Due to not being on campus my evaluation processes have changed from previous projects. To evaluate this project I will be receiving peer and lecturer feedback in our weekly study groups where we discuss our projects, with written feedback from Sophie. My own analysis and evaluation will come in the form of weekly evaluations typed up on my blog, this proposal, my final overall evaluation and research.

To document the journey of my project I will upload all my research, experimentation, processes and analysis to my blog. This is an effective way of keeping all of my projects in one place and for ease of viewing.

Evaluating my project is such an important part to my development within this project, concept, artwork, and myself as an artist. By evaluating everything I research, experiment with, every process and technique, as well as my mistakes or things that don't go so well I am able to create a clear journey of ideas and improvements from a concept word to a professionally completed outcome. Evaluating my experimental pieces of artwork will allow me to also understand what I should be working towards or doing next.

[todokori-kun]

The fix was quicker than I expected! Dad’s bringing it (the computer) home today :D

someone needs to photoshop smiling cherubs and flowers around them

OH whoops, sorry about the misunderstanding ^^;; Idk what I even want to happen to the Touken baby, I just don’t want it to die in the womb.

Uta/Touka child might also be pretty attractive, now that I think about it ;)

(Uta/Rize or Uta/Itori child would look even better though)

I was in a nice, fluffy mood when I wrote that. Unfortunately, as I’m going to get my computer back and will be able to start working on the Heathers AU again tonight, this will probably be the last you’ll see of Cinnamon Roll Evans for a while :) 

YES I read the new Kuro chapter! Honestly I disliked the 2CT for various reasons  but now that it’s actually become canon I think I feel a little better about it (also, is it just me or does ‘real’ Ciel look a bit different from 'our’ Ciel on the last page? His face looks too…perfect, if that makes sense). I’m excited to see what this means for Lizzy’s relationship with both Ciels and Undertaker’s connection to the Phantomhives!

Oh, actually I agree with you there? What I meant by 'op’ is more of a really strong character, not an overpowered one ^^;; sorry, I’ll try to explain myself better:

Super strong characters like Levi, Mikasa, the Titan Trio, Kaneki, Eto, Arima, Sebastian…they are all technically 'op’ (especially Sebastian, dude has literally no weaknesses so far). However, they work because they also have traits that interest us beyond just their strength. Kaneki is a lonely child, a selfish person with a fear of being left behind, drifting and unable to find a reason to live. Levi is an orphan who was raised by a serial killer- he clawed his way up to where he is now. Annie is a sixteen-year-old trained into a killing machine from childhood, she went through life believing that the only person she could trust was her father, and she was desperate to return to him.

(It’s also difficult because everyone seems to have a different definition of 'op’; I personally just use it to jokingly refer to powerful characters or when I talk about strong characters whose power levels are inconsistent with canon to the point where it gets ridiculous (example: we know titan shifters take some time to heal, so if a titan shifter came along who could be behaded then have their head instantly stick back onto their neck like some sort of AoT version of Noro, I’d consider them OP).)

I guess what I was trying to say was that it’s fine to have strong characters, just make sure that they have an actual personality (readers need a reason to care about the characters, after all!) and that their powers make sense? ^^;;

(Also, I think I might have sounded a bit passive-aggressive or rude during this convo about op characters, I'm really sorry if I did OTL I didn’t mean to, but when I reread my comments I realized they could come off that way)

I agree with you about the AoT OCs though. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of good ones…actually, most OCs I see for popular fandoms aren’t very interesting. Other than the powers or character designs the thing that bothers me is the lack of proper personality (why do so many people think 'happy’ is a personality trait???).

And definitely agree 100% on the angsty backstory. Like, that’s just overkill. There’s a difference between tragedy and being edgy. (It also sort of depends on how good the writer is at conveying emotion and handling the angst, but for the most part stuff like that is

That’s a great way to do things! :D I’m really, really disorganized when it comes to making characters…usually a concept pops into my head and I run with it, adding in details along the way. Tatsuo was created when I wanted to make a male TG OC and suddenly this image of a smug-looking guy with a long black ponytail popped into my head, Naomi started from the idea of making a character with the themes of 'self-discovery’ 'identity’ and 'lies’ woven into their arc. Louisa was literally born from an outfit- I randomly thought of an outfit that looked really pretty and traditionally feminine, yet was actually very practical when you looked closer. Then I tried to imagine what kind of person would wear these clothes and that was Louisa…

idk, I’m bad at explaining stuff haha

(also: Tatsuo was also inspired by various vampire characters I saw in anime/manga, books and TV shows. He’d be so offended if he knew LOL in fact, he just might serve me for dinner at the restaurant or something ;-;)

TYSM! I’m really glad you’ve liked all three of my OCs so far, thank you for listening to me ramble about my babies (actually only Naomi is my baby, Tatsuo and I disowned each other and Louisa moved out) <33333

As for Lou, I’ll send you some more info about her after I develop her a bit more if you like? :) For now, a few random things:

-rarely shows emotions like anger or sorrow

-not because she’s bottling them up, but because she’s learned how to handle them in a healthy way

-always smells like mint for some reason

-maybe because she’s addicted to mint tea

-her bodyguard suspects she doesn’t drink water at all and lives on the stuff

-she also likes strong flavors

-has the kind of bright, pretty smile that makes you want to trust her

-so you do

-and you (probably) get killed

-had a girlfriend named Iris once, a nice, sensible girl who managed to keep her from getting too buried in her work and various plans for her family and took care of her in ways that her bodyguard couldn’t (AKA somehow got her to realize that mint tea does not equal a proper meal)

-unfortunately Iris did not know that Lou can be a bit terrible

-she walked in on Lou casually wiping the blood off of her knife with the dead body of a certain businessman on the floor in front of her

-“Oh, Iris. What are you doing here, darling? I thought I asked the servants to keep you upstairs, my private meetings can be a bit messy… Iris? Love, are you quite alright? You look a little pale…”

-Well, that was the end of that relationship

XD the titan designs are one of the best things about AoT, in my opinion. You could make a gallery out of all the pictures of them that that have appeared in the anime and the manga so far lol

Oh, really? Hope you enjoy/ed the list then :D was it ok??? (Part 2 was intended to smash feels)

Sweet! That wasn’t so long ^^

I know you meant Voldy and Draco by the flower statement but...

I’m this close to finding a physical copy of the manga and throwing it in the fire while yelling ‘Lighten the fuck up’.

Gimme the Uta/Itori love child now, pretty please. Damn, that would be one attractive baby. 

And now I fear for my life. Great. Well, more for my hear than for my life, but whatever.

Well, I never really had a formed opinion on the 2CT theory, but I did read a few things about it. I didn’t expect it to be true, though. Welp, now we can assume it is true, and I am SHOOK Here’s an accurate description of me during the chapter.

I think that might be since he’s a tiny bit more similar to Vincent, while Our Ciel is more similar to Rachel. I mean, we know that there are physical differences between the two (if we assume that Real Ciel is the one who was previously Lizzy’s fiancé), because Real Ciel is taller than Our Ciel.

Yep, I definitely can’t wait to see where it’ll go from now. I remember seeing a post that said ‘This is the biggest shock to the fandom since we found out Undertaker was fuckable’

Also: Our!Ciel: three years ago I lost my dear twin brother to some cultists and a demon. Real!Ciel: Quit telling everyone I'm dead! Our!Ciel: Sometimes I can still hear his voice...

Oh, I see! I always think of OP as OverPowered, that’s why I got a bit defensive ^^;;;;;

Well, like you said, everyone has their own definition of OP.  Sometimes, I’ll even think of OCs who have trait that’s already specific to another character as OP, like Titan-Shifter OCs, or OCs with a plot basically the same to a canon character (not OP but very irritating) And don’t get me started on Demon-Contracted OCs in the Kuro fandom. Those make me want to defenestrate myself.

Yup, I have no problems with strong characters as long as they’re not ridiculously strong and aren’t there purely because of that power, but they also have personality.

Don’t worry, I reread my original statement about OP characters and was like ‘man this sounds so bitchy and high and might hnnnngh’ but couldn’t find a way to rephrase it properly ^^;; So, no worries, I know how you feel ^^

Well, for some reason, it seems that the people who make believable OCs are either lazy or scared to post theirs. Or they simply don’t care. The ones with Mary Sues like to holler at people with ‘LOOK AT MY BAE CHARACTER AREN’T THEY PERFECT???’

There’s this blog I follow (it’s gone inactive, unfortunately) that takes Mary Sues and breaks them down (well, the correct term would be make fun of, but they do offer some advice on how to improve them), and you wouldn’t believe the shit I found there.  Here’s the link if you want.

For some reason, people seem to think that the edgier the backstory, the ‘more original’ the character, which (of course) isn’t true, because that means everyone will have a super tragic backstory that no longer makes sense.  Another thing I’ve noticed is that they sometimes avoid some pretty important details like ‘Character was born into a healthy, happy family. One thing led to another and the family was killed, while character was molested (a very common backstory theme) and taken in by a cult’ and I’m like ???

My character usually start out like this: *luna is watching a show*  OK BUT WHAT IF THERE WAS A CHARACTER WHO-

And so a new character is born. 

But your ways of starting a character are also quite interesting ^^ Especially by looking at an outfit!  I ALWAYS WANNA LISTEN TO YOU RAMBLE ABOUT CHARACTERS! 

Titans make me laugh, honestly. Like, these are supposed to be the main bad creatures? Steampunk zombies (kabaneri) look scarier than that.

It was the hulk smash of feels :-))))