rkemy

Making this post before I forget.

1. In chapter five of Blank Slate I'll talk about something called "seal script". I admit that it has no purpose to be there other than that I want it to be there. It's also only mentioned in one sentence, but if you're curious, here is a visualization:
文楽 ->

Now you know. (If you can read this or if you look it up, you'll probably get confused. That's okay.)


2. AO3 did something and now I don't have to wait all that long for an account anymore. If it stays like this, I'll have no problems whatsoever. So yay for AO3.


3. It would have been better if it had been a round number, but this is as glorious as it gets:



So yay for that as well.

Now excuse me, RL stuff needs to be done, and I'm cranky because it's way too early on a Sunday.

Have a little sketch.

( I meant to draw Lelouch, tooCollapse )

I'm still fighting with chapter 5. I made some headway in the last few days, but it seems I always stray back to a later chapter. One chapter in particular (atm the second to last one) seems to practically write itself, and I love it for that. Once we get to that point in the story, I'll probably have little to write. Though, knowing me, I'll have a ton to edit.

I've played with the thought of drawing a cover for Blank Slate now that I'm not going DDD: over that particular change to ffnet anymore. (But damnit, ffnet, you keep doing things that make want to leave you.) Hmmm, maybe when chapter 6 rolls around. If I try and fail, I won't even mention it again.

Jan: 10.190

Feb: 4.520

Mar: 3.350

Apr: 5.160

May: 4.810

June: 6.700

It's a bit funny because those are numbers that some people can crank out daily rather than monthly. But oh well, if it takes me one hour to write a hundred words, then I'll just have to live with that.

Hi, LJ. Long time no see. I guess this will be my apology for not coming here more often?

I’m pretty busy at the moment, and coming here only reminds me that I’m behind on a lot of things. Blank Slate is taking longer than it should for two reasons: my general lack of time, and the fact that my prime time for writing (late evening) is gone because I have to get up at 6:30 am the next day. I am still writing, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not about to stop, but blargh.

Lately I’ve mostly been drawing in a quiet little corner on tumblr. There’s actually nothing worth showing over there, so that will be all I’m saying in that regard.

When my choices come down to whether I’d rather draw or write in my spare time, I’ll always choose the former. I’m an artist more than I ever will be a writer. (I’m dissatisfied with both, but that’s a different matter.)

So, how have you been? I have 500+ notes in my inbox that I haven’t checked, friends that I’m unable to keep, violent mood swings, and a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with anything I do.

How are you?

Today I decided to clean my desk.*

That's kind of an endeavor seeing as I'm really not the most orderly person in the world, and I tend to build towers rather than move anything aside. There's a tower for vocabulary I want to learn, notes from tutorials I watched or read, doodles, lists, and things that are somehow-- yet undeniably-- important. I have a system. I never lose anything even if it plays hide-and-seek sometimes.

But things get dusty and there's always the hazard of flying poop here, so yeah. Gotta put on your grownup pants and clean up your mess.

This is not what this post is about. No one needs to hear about my unexciting cleaning adventures. The reason I made this post is that I found a note. A note I wrote to myself more than six months ago:

"All this will be worth it one day."

I had all but forgotten about that note. It’s funny that I found it when it actually became true. I don’t know if that’s irony, if you can call it karma, but it’s one of these reminders that it can get better. It made me pause and think for a bit. Made the day a bit warmer.

One of these little moments in life.


*I distinctly remember that I whined about that somewhere before. It might not have been on LJ, though. Whining about having to clean up my desk seems to have its place in my life.

Yesterday and most of today was a lot of fun. By which I mean there was a blackout, which must be the funnest of all occurrences to happen in midwinter. It has gotten unusually cold in the last few days, so the power lines where I live probably couldn’t handle it anymore. Germany’s power lines are underground which makes them less liable to malfunction (at least I think so; I haven’t been in a blackout that lasted longer than half an hour for almost 15 years*), but if something goes wrong, it really goes wrong, and you have to dig in the ground and hope you’re not hitting the gas pipes.

So yes, fun. I didn’t have any internet either, so those two days were spent sitting around candles, calling people, and trying not to feel cold.

So in short, I'm having troubles with Blank Slate. I had troubles with it before, but this is like the cherry on top. At least I spent some time away from the computer; I had some eyestrain that has gotten better since then.


*To be fair, Germany doesn’t have any extreme weather conditions apart from storms and the occasional flood.

I debated with myself for quite some time whether I should make a post like this or not, because 2011 really wasn’t a good year for me, and I’m not particularly inclined to talk about it much. So let’s just look at it from an artistic perspective, and leave most of RL details out of it.

For a bit longer than a year now I keep a list of my daily artistic accomplishments. I make a stroke whenever I complete a page in my sketchbook or draw something digitally, note how much I write that day, and mark it on the list whenever I compose a piece of music (don’t ask; I suck at it).

I keep this list primarily to motivate myself to draw more, which is a very euphemistic way of putting it. I have a daily quota that I make myself meet every day. It’s strict and unyielding, and perfectly matches my disposition on art with regards to myself.

Sad thing is that I’m currently behind on that daily quota. But I’m behind on a lot of things, so that’s just one more thing to keep the other ones company.

Though, the way I set that list up, it’s a poor indicator of how much I actually drew in total, so there is no use in sharing that tidbit of data. I have an approximate and that’s enough for me. What I will share is how much I wrote this year. I don’t have a daily quota for writing, so that actually fluctuates, and is a lot more interesting in my opinion.

So, words written in 2011:

Jan:       2.600

Feb:       2.950

Mar:       2.850

Apr:       8.110

Mai:     14.700

Jun:     11.000

Jul:        7.110

Aug:      6.280

Sep:      2.490

Oct:      1.540

Nov:      4.340

Dec:     3.720

April was when I decided that I wanted to post Blank Slate online. One of my birds died in Mai, and I spent a lot time writing in escapism land to get through it, hence why it’s my most prolific month. From Mai to August I wrote every day, and it really shows. September and October sucked hardcore. In December I slept through Christmas.

So much for that. Have a nice New Year’s Eve/Silvester or whatever you’re celebrating and a good New Year.

Brave fanart sketch. This is probably way too early, but I wanted to test out a new brush and consecutively get over myself. (Partial success.)

I saw the latest trailer for it, and I don’t really have a positive opinion on it. For one, I’m getting a lot of HTTYD vibes, which isn’t a bad thing per se, bien au contraire actually, but it’s giving me this “I’ve seen this movie before” feeling. My biggest gripe with this trailer is that it just makes Brave look like your run-of-the-mill animation feature and not like a Pixar movie that manages to wow you in some way or another. With the first trailer I got the feeling that Pixar really aimed for a darker movie, but the latest trailer gives me the impression that we only get a darker color palette than usual from Pixar.

Or maybe I’m just overly harsh with it because I’m pretty tired of this “you are a girl; adventures and some such things are only for boys, and we will continue to think this throughout the movie up until the end where we’ll be proven otherwise” plot device.

With that said, it’s just a trailer— a formulaic one at that— and maybe the guys who made it just wanted to cram in all the slapstick moments to appeal to a broader audience. I certainly can’t and won’t judge the whole movie for it, but it has curbed some of the excitement I feel for it.

_{I apologize for the self-esteem meltdown the other day. I’m mostly fine now.}

The second and final part of this series. I decided to ditch posting example sketches, so you basically only get my opinion on them.

Inkscape
What is it: A vector-based drawing program. Unlike with alchemy, with this one it really feels like you’re drawing with vectors.
Do I use it: No. I’m way too used to Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape feels like a downgrade from it. (That’s a euphemism. I get very, very angry when I use it for too long. If I didn’t have Illustrator, though, then I would use it.)
Pro: Vectors, yay!
Con: Layers can only ever be set to normal, no multiply, overlay, etc.
If you’re used to Illustrator, a few things might trip you up

Google Sketchup
What is it: A 3D program that takes a more unusual approach to modelling. It feels very hobby-esque, and isn’t really what you’d call a powerhouse.
Do I use it: Not really.
Pro: It’s fast
Pretty easy to learn
Con: It’s very difficult to get organic shapes with it. Well, you can; nothing is stopping you, but I’d argue that this is really not the best program to model humans or animals
You need to have a Google account to be able to download it

Blender
What is it: A very powerful 3D program. It lets you model, rig, sculpt, animate and render to your heart’s content.
Do I use it: Yes. Still feel like a novice at it, though.
Pro: you can do a ton of stuff with it
Con: If you have no experience with 3D programs, you will be so freaking lost. I don’t recommend trying this one here out if you don’t want to wade through a few turorials before you can do anything.

Graphicsgale
What is it: That’s the program I’ll recommend to you if you want to create sprites and draw and/or animate pixel art.
Do I use it: Yes, it’s really neat for what it does.
Pro: Pretty easy to navigate
Con: I can’t think of anything

Sculptris
What is it: It’s a 3D sculpting and painting program. It’s simple and bare bones in that regard, but if you ever wanted to know what it feels like to sculpt in 3D without needing to know anything about 3D, then this is the program for you.
Do I use it: Every now and then.
Pro: Very easy to navigate
You get results in no time
Con: It’s pretty taxing on my computer, but that might just be me

Easytoon (you have to google it. I can only find sites from third parties I’m not inclined to link to)
What is it: Pixelly animation program. Ever seen an animation that was purely black and looked like it came straight out of MS Paint? That was most likely animated in Easytoon then.
Do I use it: Not really.
Pro: Easy to navigate
Con: Black and white only
Regardless of what you do, it’ll retain its MS Paint look

Odosketch
What is it: A very simple in-browser drawing program. I don’t like it much, but don’t let that stop you.
Do I use it: No.
Pro: It can’t get easier than this
Con: I feel a tiny bit of lag when I draw

What the title says, basically. I meant to post this way sooner and I meant to post it in one big chunk, but that ain’t happening. Doggone it, it ain’t happening.
These are all sketches in various states of completion. I'm pretty tired, and I still owe a bunch of people replies, so I'll keep it short and to the point.

Gimp
What is it: It’s basically the downgraded facsimile of Photoshop for people who don’t have Photoshop. As one might expect, it’s pixel-based.
Do I use it: Not really. I don’t need it, and there are a few things in it that make me angry.
Pro: I like how the brushes blend
I like this smudge tool much more than the one in Photoshop
Con: Much slower than photoshop
If you’re like me and draw at a high resolution, you need to create bigger brushes
Examples:

( More examples and programsCollapse )