#Facedesk.

Also lurking.

Blahblah, starting the new year with a slump. I need to ramp up my F-list character but I'm not sure what to play anymore.

I am one of those assholes that plays budget priest and I love it.

<3 you peeps.

I need to make a f-list account named "Hello" or "Hi".

I've been stuck running around and doing things.

One of them pertains to a current side-job fiasco involving Manga Studio 5 and the new English release of Clip Studio Paint.

Basically, Celsys is a Japanese company that developed Clip Studio Paint, Illustudio, etc. Up until recently, they contracted with SmithMicro to publish their software in the west. SmithMicro repackaged Clip Studio Paint as Manga Studio 5 and released it as such.

I think only six months have passed between the release of MS5 and now, and in that time, SmithMicro did a really good job of getting resources together, getting exposure and highlighting artists for the sake of MS5. What happens? Celsys cuts out the middle-man and takes digital publishing by themselves. For a new customer, this is great, because Celsys is selling ClipStudioPaint Pro (or Manga Studio 5 vanilla) for 50 dollars. 20 bucks off, basically.

For me, not so good. Besides the whole uncertain future of MS5 as a supported product, I've been spending most of my time promoting MS5 in person. I literally just sold a guy on the program two days ago before I knew about the price cut. I feel freaking stupid. To top it all off, I have to switch from promoting MS5 to CSP simply because the price difference is so vast between identical programs. I have to restart what I've been working on for the last couple months.

That and as far as beginning digital artists go, MS5/CSP is so much more economical and enjoyable than Photoshop. Heck, at this point, it's actually cheaper than PaintToolSAI. Celsys made the giant killer, but there's a lot of community fragmentation because of different names and whatnot. I mean, think of it from a tag perspective: Photoshop has one tag, SAI has one tag, MS5/CSP has two. When you're roaming through tumblr, you have a 50% smaller chance of running into something relevant based on how diligent content producers are with tagging.

I met with the SmithMicro team and they tried really freaking hard to make their presence known. Setting up shop at conventions is not cheap and it does make a difference. I really feel bad for the people behind the English side of it all, because they got undercut by their own developer and, well, I'm sure their job certainty is everything but certain at this point.

Either way, good news for people on the fence about MS5/CSP! You got a price cut and it's deep as hell. I mean, I'm just moody, but I'm far from buttmad because I can just buy CSP and be done with it, haha.

Anyway, still busy as shit though. Lots of non-art related website jobs are soaking my time and I blow my relaxing moments on the antithesis of relaxing, LoL ranked 5s at 2AM.

I've been pretty anti-social as of late. Let's fix this.

Oglaf appeals to me on so many levels, but this is something that probably resonates as cleverly funny for us in particular.

http://oglaf.com/fully-fleshed/

I'm trying to close the gap between my weakest skill, inking, and my not weakest skill, painting.

I'm going to try to post things, but it's really frustrating because I'm such a noob at all of this stuff, lol. Whatever, I might be on F-list or SL, diddling people as an excuse.

-Insert bad justification for not posting here-

Actually, it's the weather. Too hot in my room to really be creative. Might just post scrappy shit and not even bother with finished pieces because I have a limit before I start sticking to the back of my chair.

Eventually.

On a side note, Manga Studio 5 has captured my heart. I actually bought it.

You have to figure that I've been pirating shit forever, but no more!

But seriously, my sleep schedule is so fucked it's painful.

I also learned how to use this tag today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ta9i3YQAzM

My theory is that the red/yellow haired douchecunt is actually a fanfiction writer's self-Mary Sue injection. Twilight Sparkle comes into this godawful highschool universe and uses the power of friendship, the ONLY form of usable magic in the post-fanocalypse universe, to fix the fucked-to-death genre and return it to its former glory as a realm where we can jack off in peace.

So, I forgot my password and the appropriate email for about 2 months.

I suddenly remembered what it was today.

Anyway, will be drawing. Everything I know has atrophied significantly however, partially due to acquiring an i5 medium and struggling with returning to the ol' grip pen.

Okay, so I'm jumping to that.

But it's okay, my inking technique is SO SHITTY that it doesn't even matter. =_=

I've decided to start using my laptop as my art station. Actually, that reason is primarily due to my desire to clean my desk for once. My tablet was lurking nearby so I went "what the hell".

I think I'm just chronicling this moment because it feels like I've improved in comfort across program platforms, which is more of a tell-tale sign that I'm improving in general.

At worst, I think I'll be drawing while roleplaying more often now that it's easier to churn out ideas. It helps shrink the gap in between posts too.

Lookin' for vague inspirations and reason to doodle terrible things.

I feel like a has-been though. I'm used to being lavished with lusty posts and pursued like a hound, but I have a feeling my shift towards brevity has cost me a substantial amount of tail.

Not that I mind too much. I still maintain a modicum of celebrity in Second Life and F-list traffic goes at a reasonable pace, but it's interesting to moonlight over what was.

(Actually, I know, my profile is boring as dirt and I rely too heavily on relatively normal-size openers for bait.)

 TehSean watched me about 6 months ago. Many of you understand the gravity of the situation, but I'll illustrate for the uninitiated:

Imagine you're a ten year old girl and Justin Beiber adds you as a friend on Facebook. You either experience cardiac arrest from the sheer level of ladyboners you're having per second or you curl up into a little ball of mortified self-criticism because the gaze of your primary deity fixed itself upon you.

So yeah, now you know the truth. TehSean is my Beebs and I've been having a fangasm that has endured 6 months.

I am going to find a figure, I am going to draw that figure to the best of my ability, and then I'm going to draw over it with sexy bits to make it so that I don't feel guilty every night about not posting.

I will try to do this once per day.

I'm currently 100% bankrupt on things to draw. I keep working on things halfway, but then stop because it lacks any theme or strong purpose.

HELP.

By finishing, I mean not throwing away. My stuff is still pretty scrappy though, but it feels a lot more fluid and intuitive now that I have a cheesy way to quickly carve out hard edges. I'm not really going to pretend that I make finished pieces because I generally don't, but I think I'll start throwing up stuff again.

I've been prowling F-list for RP on occasion. Late nights cuddled up with my laptop and keyboard, enjoying the strange and alien company of compatible folk. Of course, I don't really take it all too seriously and I find it weird that people are so demanding about certain things, or they need a lot of things set up before they can properly play.

I guess it comes with a difference in style. I personally don't care about reading profiles because the time you spend actually sexing is sometimes fairly short and monotonous. Why not integrate the slow unveiling of a perfect stranger into posts? Seems like a good way to extend an otherwise brief interlude of grunting, moaning and gushing. Actually, I take that back, I have a penchant towards enjoying the slow penis-unwrapping process and relying on profiles generally takes that away from me. (I love 8=D a little too much sometimes. o_o)

Actually, in the scope of things, I really like the casual aspects of RP more so than the structured parts and the unspoken-but-often-implied rules of engagement, like having a character description imputing that you're not a lazy person. I know people are afraid of having a bad time, but that loss of fluidity, flexibility and comfort dampers my ability to express well, y'know?

Not that anybody at FA has treated me poorly or that this has happened in excess. It happens fairly infrequently, actually, but I do know a lot of RPers that, frankly, take what they write and what they do a bit too seriously outside of the passion context. Overall, I would prefer to express the notion that RPers that are casual aren't necessarily lazy. Sometimes that casualness can be attributed to a certain structure they like.

For me, I prefer to dispense my energy in the actual playing process rather than the preparatory phase of profile writing, that's all!

Why am I even going on about this? BAH. Anyway, just some food for thought.

I wanted to become an p(art)ner again so I'm drawing.

Don't worry, I haven't stopped fapping to hyper and all that jazz, but I do need to crap out an OC so I can randomly inject myself into stuff if need be.

Edit: Okay, no commies XD. Kinda' swamped with practice D: XD

I just got done with a talky-talk about commissions. I don't do them.

It's not because I'm some sort of emo-artist who thinks his stuff isn't good enough for sale. Trust me. I want your money. I would LOVE to spend money on buying new stuff to feed my monstrous audiophile vice. In fact, if I took commissions, I would be doing the very thing I desired the most to do when I started learning this gig. I'm good enough for your money. I've seen some of the commissions here and I do have something pretty weird to offer your collection. However, I am a person that has self-deluded sense of integrity as well as a very real understanding of my basic limitations. Here's a list of food-for-thought.

1. I have a bad skillset - I have a knack for picking up rendering techniques, but beyond that, I have a lot of essentials missing from my repertoire. Don't get me wrong. I can look at a replay file on OC and probably figure out WHY something works, and I enjoy that sense of superiority. I'm not all bad, but I am bad in the place that matters with commissions specifically. Lack of the essentials make the formulation of ideas difficult, and given the nature of commissions, failure to communicate a good idea or mood makes a commission bad because, well, it will appear as if I am not listening to your instructions. Trust me on this.

2. I do this for fun - As odd as it may seem, I really like learning how to paint in OC/Photoshop. I did not have any talent when I started and I don't have any now. Everything from my first awful animu drawing to my less-bad animu drawings came from me just screwing around with the medium I was working with. That process is fun, but it also is very open. It also doesn't have perceptible deadlines. If I suck for a month, I am not objectively frustrating someone else. Subjectively, sure, but otherwise, you and I have a nice, friendly relationship. I would like that to stay that way. Art is not my job; it remains my hobby. Crossing that threshold is actually fairly difficult, especially given that I can't even do that with something I love to death, like Starcraft 2. Why? It's work, really. It may seem fun to be artistic, but when you have deadlines to meet and expectations to fulfill, most, not all, of the sparkly fun diminishes into serious application of character.

3. . . . I don't even have my own OC. - If you look through my gallery, I actually don't have my own character (sheet). Some artists don't need one and, frankly, probably think I'm being silly, but being like you guys, I like having my own persona. I don't have it yet. I'm still, believe it or not, working on it. That should be telling of how absolutely irresponsible I will be with your commission deadline.

That being said, I may do gifts. I just need to find a comfort zone before I consider making people all excited about relying upon my fickle nature. I appreciate the few of you who asked for commies, but as it stands, pool's closed.

+PROWLS.+

Stop sucking at drawing anthro faces. Thanks.

Seriously, I'm so goddamn awful at them. I don't do commies because of this shit.

Get ready for an onslaught of shitty scraps.