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January Journeys and Journaling
9 months ago
I feel like that's actually a really fun title for a journal, wish this one were more exciting to deserve it, but I'm not gonna wait until next January to use it, lol. Anyway, I felt December's diary was rather dour, so I wanted to make this one just to say things are good on my end and all that. Here's some things going on:
VRChat
I've been socializing a bit more on VRChat lately. I still recommend it (despite having issues with the current owners of VRChat and the direction the program has gone since it first came out), as it's a powerful tool for integrating with others, engaging in social activities, and simply expressing yourself.
Ideally, everyone would have their own avatar that fits their identity, but custom avatars aren't always available to everyone. Yet, we all change over time, so remember your avatar can just be a placeholder for now, and what really matters is how you communicate! Consider looking into VRChat if it's something you're comfortable with: you don't need a VR headset to play, and they've introduced a Chatbox feature that lets you talk without a microphone.
You can find my profile here: Beastman. I'm trying to keep my 'Status' up-to-date, so if you see something like "Open to Visitors", feel free to invite yourself over and meet me for a few! No pressure, no obligation—I'm also not holding myself to any commitment, but I am trying to opening myself up a bit to hangouts with folks (like you!) who might be interested in that sorta thing.
Art Stuff
Getting back on VRC re-motivated me to hop into Daz Studio, Blender, Photoshop, and Unity, which has sparked my artistic instincts again...until I got an e-mail from Adobe saying they were raising the price on my Photography Bundle subscription from $10 a month to $15 a month, unless I paid annually by my month's expiration date. I tried paying annually, but it said "you can't buy this, you already own this", thus breaking their own word on the issue...but isn't it worse that they can just increase their subscription cost with no legal barriers? Basically "non-response is implied consent," like, where the fuck else would that be legally justifiable?
Despising Adobe enough already, my tolerance threshold was officially crossed, and I decided to finally make the switch to something else. After testing a few applications, I've settled on training myself in Affinity Photo. It's gonna take me some time, but once I'm comfortable using it, I'll be jumping back into render and comic art. I want to finish the two comics in progress I have, and thankfully they're in early enough stages where there won't be an issue moving them from Photoshop to Affinity Photo.
If you're in a similar situation, I can recommend Affinity Photo even this early on in my own experience. The interface and shortcuts are very similar to Photoshop, and with a bit of customization, the workflow you're accustomed to will probably start to feel pretty natural pretty quickly. They have a 7-Day Trial, and the software doesn't have a subscription: pay once, and you're done. It was about $70 when I bought it. Just make sure you're getting the right product—Affinity Design is for Vector graphics, and Affinity Photo is for general photo editing. That means if you want something equivalent to Photoshop Suite, you'll probably want to pay more for the whole Affinity package...but again, it's the cost of one-time-purchase versus sneakily accumulating subscription costs.
Writing
Also on the $70 software train, I discovered Scrivener. It's like OneNote, but functional, and designed for writers! If you enjoy creative writing, but also organization, it's a really handy program. They have a month long free trial, so give it a go if you want! I'm having a lotta fun using it, and it's much easier than having Microsoft Word, Notepad, and multiple folders all open at the same time—within Scrivener, I have folders of organized resources, index cards I can use for quick reference, the main document/manuscript, notes, images and tags that all help me stay on-track, without being so overwhelming it distracts from my creative writing, or so simple that I gotta run a bunch of other applications.
Final Woop
And that's really about it. I've got other things going on, winter is in full swing so I'm often in the mountains or snowboarding. But for now, my gears are shifting this week to early spring cleaning, learning Affinity Photo, organizing my harddrive to have a fresh start for rendering, and hanging out virtually where I can.
Hope you are doing as groovy as can be, but like folks told me with my last journal, make sure to keep taking care of yourself. We can get through a lotta stuff together, but you'll often need to be able to stand on your own feet to help others up or forward. Doing what you gotta do starts with knowing that you can. Set goals you know you can reach, and you'll always be able to reach your goals. But don't be afraid to challenge yourself when it's safe and affordable to do so.
VRChat
I've been socializing a bit more on VRChat lately. I still recommend it (despite having issues with the current owners of VRChat and the direction the program has gone since it first came out), as it's a powerful tool for integrating with others, engaging in social activities, and simply expressing yourself.
Ideally, everyone would have their own avatar that fits their identity, but custom avatars aren't always available to everyone. Yet, we all change over time, so remember your avatar can just be a placeholder for now, and what really matters is how you communicate! Consider looking into VRChat if it's something you're comfortable with: you don't need a VR headset to play, and they've introduced a Chatbox feature that lets you talk without a microphone.
You can find my profile here: Beastman. I'm trying to keep my 'Status' up-to-date, so if you see something like "Open to Visitors", feel free to invite yourself over and meet me for a few! No pressure, no obligation—I'm also not holding myself to any commitment, but I am trying to opening myself up a bit to hangouts with folks (like you!) who might be interested in that sorta thing.
Art Stuff
Getting back on VRC re-motivated me to hop into Daz Studio, Blender, Photoshop, and Unity, which has sparked my artistic instincts again...until I got an e-mail from Adobe saying they were raising the price on my Photography Bundle subscription from $10 a month to $15 a month, unless I paid annually by my month's expiration date. I tried paying annually, but it said "you can't buy this, you already own this", thus breaking their own word on the issue...but isn't it worse that they can just increase their subscription cost with no legal barriers? Basically "non-response is implied consent," like, where the fuck else would that be legally justifiable?
Despising Adobe enough already, my tolerance threshold was officially crossed, and I decided to finally make the switch to something else. After testing a few applications, I've settled on training myself in Affinity Photo. It's gonna take me some time, but once I'm comfortable using it, I'll be jumping back into render and comic art. I want to finish the two comics in progress I have, and thankfully they're in early enough stages where there won't be an issue moving them from Photoshop to Affinity Photo.
If you're in a similar situation, I can recommend Affinity Photo even this early on in my own experience. The interface and shortcuts are very similar to Photoshop, and with a bit of customization, the workflow you're accustomed to will probably start to feel pretty natural pretty quickly. They have a 7-Day Trial, and the software doesn't have a subscription: pay once, and you're done. It was about $70 when I bought it. Just make sure you're getting the right product—Affinity Design is for Vector graphics, and Affinity Photo is for general photo editing. That means if you want something equivalent to Photoshop Suite, you'll probably want to pay more for the whole Affinity package...but again, it's the cost of one-time-purchase versus sneakily accumulating subscription costs.
Writing
Also on the $70 software train, I discovered Scrivener. It's like OneNote, but functional, and designed for writers! If you enjoy creative writing, but also organization, it's a really handy program. They have a month long free trial, so give it a go if you want! I'm having a lotta fun using it, and it's much easier than having Microsoft Word, Notepad, and multiple folders all open at the same time—within Scrivener, I have folders of organized resources, index cards I can use for quick reference, the main document/manuscript, notes, images and tags that all help me stay on-track, without being so overwhelming it distracts from my creative writing, or so simple that I gotta run a bunch of other applications.
Final Woop
And that's really about it. I've got other things going on, winter is in full swing so I'm often in the mountains or snowboarding. But for now, my gears are shifting this week to early spring cleaning, learning Affinity Photo, organizing my harddrive to have a fresh start for rendering, and hanging out virtually where I can.
Hope you are doing as groovy as can be, but like folks told me with my last journal, make sure to keep taking care of yourself. We can get through a lotta stuff together, but you'll often need to be able to stand on your own feet to help others up or forward. Doing what you gotta do starts with knowing that you can. Set goals you know you can reach, and you'll always be able to reach your goals. But don't be afraid to challenge yourself when it's safe and affordable to do so.
As for me, boyfriend hunting and managing mental health and self improvement, while making an effort to get big and beefy irl!
Figuring out my career goals
And hey, good goals I'd say! I certainly share them myself for the most part. Talking with others about them and finding motivation, advice, or hearing other peoples' experience is the kind of reason I mentioned VRChat. Talking with people is good, chatting online with like-minded people is great, and having in-depth conversations with virtual representations of ourselves can be fantastic (in my experience so far, at least). But I certainly wish you the best man, keep your eye on the prize, celebrate small accomplishments, and remember it's all about the journey. You'll always deserve what you can do for yourself.
I'm not in VRC much, but I have dipped my toes in. Mostly just to hang out with people I already know -- public spaces and unknown quantities are an uncomfortable affair. Kinda wish there were better orc avatars publicly available, but have yet to find anything I like, so like you mentioned I use placeholders. There's some fun games to be found in there though. Audience Anarchy can be a riot with the right group.
I hear ya’ about VRC; my perspective on it is there should never be any obligation or pressure. Fun and enjoyment, or practice and stepping out of one’s comfort zone, or a combination of both...those are kind of the values I see in VRC. But I also treat it like a coffee shop: when I hop on, I get to enjoy all the benefits of hanging out in a social place...even if I just sit in the corner and sip some tea, not talking with anyone, haha. I hear you about Orc avatars, though. After putting Brokul into VRChat, I’m a rare species, having an orc avatar. But you’re not alone: I got a lot of people talking about how they like orcs, want an orc avatar of their own, and want to see more orcs around in general.
This month, I’m focused on learning Affinity Photo to get back to speed on image/texture work. I’m enjoying VRC, and so I’m spending more time on model making and Unity importing. I’m working on a monkey, a gorilla, and re-doing Bronx and Brokul to work-in some improvements I’ve learned. If I could make a publicly sharable Orc avatar, I would, but all the customization features I’d want it to have for folks to use are beyond my skills right now. Dunno if I’ll be the pioneer in making it, but I’d do it if I could...! I want to see more hunky orcs too!!!
I get a bit of that in Second Life, folk that like the avatar I have on there (it's largely stock stuff from Dreamcrawler with adjustments for skin tone and such), wish there were more orcs, etc. Not too many that embrace their inner orc, though, alas.
I'll send you a request in VRC, maybe we'll get a chance to say hi some time. :)