Well, sketching took a full 3 hours yesterday -- not helped by GIMP crashing after finishing the thumbnails. Must remember to save every 15 minutes!

So tonight, I begin the marathon of inking the whole comic page, hopefully (but no guarantees) in less than 3 hours! I'll try my luck tonight at 6:30 PM Eastern, at the usual https://picarto.tv/Rimme .

See you then!

Tonight I sketch page #49 of AFCAH, at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern. Coming in closer to finishing #50 by the end of the year!

I've had to rewrite the script for this next page a few times to tone down the verbosity, redundancy, and number of panels to draw. My one concern is the number of background characters to draw (and when I say that I dislike drawing outdoor scenes, it's really the aesthetically nice but story-irrelevant crowds of people or vehicles I dislike drawing). It's fun to give out cameos of recurring characters, and to continue their stories at the same time as the main story. But even though they're less detailed than the in-focus characters, they require their own posing and sketching and inking and coloring like everything else.

I only managed to sneak in three little cameos on page #48 (in part from lack of time, in part due to the staging the script demanded). I'm hoping to get a few more cameos in, but I'll have to plan it out carefully. Just as the main story gets pared down for efficiency, so do the cameos. And that's on top of making a pleasing layout.

Hey everyone! Normally I have breaks from drawing on Thursdays and Sundays, but... well last week was such a drought in terms of drawing, that I'm going to do two drawing streams today to get me back on schedule. There's going to be another gap on Friday due to a final exam, I'll make up for that later at some point.

First stream today will be at 3 PM Eastern until 5:30.

Second stream will be at 6:30 PM Eastern until around 9.

Both streams will be on https://picarto.tv/Rimme

Hopefully I see some people there! It's a very nice page that I'm finishing up today, and I can't wait to share it tonight!

I will be coloring tonight at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern... possibly give or take a few minutes.

Some of you might know that I don't actually live in an Eastern time zone, I just say that for the benefit of the 2 people who consistently appear in my streams who both live in the East. I'm actually on-campus in Chicago, and just an hour's ride away from MFF. I was unsure for a while if I could find time to go this weekend... but everything has worked itself out nicely, and I think I have time to go do it.

Mostly I'll just be wandering around. I'll be around long enough to make the $45 worth it. Last thing I'll be doing is attending the TF meet and greet. Then I'll have to amscray back here to draw. Whether I get here or not depends how considerate the Blue Line will be.

So... hopefully I might see some of you in a bit!

I will be inking the next Sceptile comic page tonight at 6:30 PM Eastern, at https://picarto.tv/Rimme

Today was the last lecture of the semester. It still doesn't feel real. It's not really the end of the semester, not until the last of the papers are written, and the tests have been studied for and taken, and the one microcomputer project I've been building has been finished. Of course, even if I don't write the papers, or I don't take the tests, or I don't finish the project, the semester will be over regardless next week. I'll just have a worse grade then. The march of time won't wait for me to be ready to study. It won't wait for me to get a job either, or keep coding, or keep drawing.

I can't spend my time thinking about lost time, of course. When I work, I have to separate that part of me that dwells on such things, and just live in the moment: focus on this drawing, focus on this project. Don't focus on the clock, or on the deadline, even if you know it's coming, even if it would be a wiser idea to budget your time. Time management is best done at the start of the day, when there's plenty to go around. Sometimes it's hard to accept that each morning is the start of a new day, and every evening is the end of one. Sometimes I want to stretch more time out by staying up late and robbing myself of tomorrow.

I know I'm not alone in these thoughts, but these are things we keep to ourselves, like the joke everyone has heard a thousand times. Still, even old keepsake thoughts are worth taking out and examining cautiously before putting them back in the box where they belong.

Ahem. So come and join the stream as I try to make my inks worth of the sketch I made last night! See you there!

What a week it's been. Sketching for the next picture begins tonight at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern.

The last 5 days have been very exhausting ones, working full-time in the evenings on 5 different projects for 4 different classes, not including time spent on job applications and career. They haven't been fun. At times, I didn't know how I was going to get through it.

Now that I'm at the other side of the proverbial tunnel, I feel like I finally have space to draw again. Of course, it's right when a lot of furries will be at MFF and not up for watching streams. But maybe I'll get more people, since all the streamers will be gone...

I'm not totally out of the clear, semester-wise, with a few last papers and projects to finish up (plus class evaluations), but it's enough that I can devote 2.5 hours to non-school-work. See you all tonight!

Tonight I finish shading the AFCAH page and will post it later tonight. Come join me at https://picarto.tv/Rimme at 6:30 EST.

Sorry for making these journals so short, for those who enjoy reading them. Thanksgiving "break" has been anything but, in terms of schoolwork.

Page #43 was the one that broke me for a reason. Pretty much anything involving outdoor scenes has a tendency to consume my time, especially with extra vehicles and people roaming around; and that was on top of all the little details to add for each vignette. It looks awesome (well, relatively speaking), but even from the half-finished state where it languished for years, it took 4 more days to finish it.

#48 is exhausting for similar reasons. Yesterday I hastily added in some vehicles for the backgrounds. There's a lot of little issues with the comic right now, and I'm hoping to fix all of them tonight. Shading, honestly, will probably be a hasty affair too. The added dimension is nice, but solid posing and line art is a higher priority. I had high hopes for this page. I don't have an art portfolio anymore, but if I had one, this was to be a page to add to it. I'm not sure anymore... but no matter what happens, it will be a page worthy of AFCAH.

Let's hope for the best!

Coloring for AFCAH #48 is tonight at 6:30 PM EST, at https://picarto.tv/Rimme . Hooray for comic stuff!

Hello. Normally I take Thursday nights off for game night, but since it's a holiday, there is no game night tonight. So I'm doing something a bit different today.

At 3:00 PM EST, I'll be starting a single-stage TF from start to finish, with a goal of finishing by 5:30 EST. If I succeed, then I'll do another one at 6:30 EST until 9:00 EST. If I don't succeed, then I'll take a break and resume at 6:30, and spend the remaining time trying again with smaller sketches and ideas.

I know it's traditional on Thanksgiving for all TFs to be turkeys, but no, I have an idea for drawing a different kind of feasting... <3

So stop by at 3:00 PM EST to see my attempt to do one drawing in one sitting, at https://picarto.tv/rimme . See you there!

Inking AFCAH #48 tonight at https://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 EST.

This is an interesting page, to be honest. Not only are there no non-humans to draw, but there are only two Aeolus employees here, neither of whom has been seen in over a dozen pages. In fact, this is the first time one of them even speaks. It's also different in that it's almost all comedy; no short-term plot advancement, no drama, no deep character-building. After 7 years, and after putting it down on paper, I still can't stop from laughing, which probably means it actually is funny. I hope so, at least.

For Thanksgiving tomorrow, I won't be drawing the comic, but I will be doing drawing a special one-off. Stay tuned.

Tonight I'm sketching the next AFCAH page, at https://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM EST. I've been looking to this page for a while. No TFs, but it's got a gag I've been sitting on for years.

I'm doing some coloring tonight at https://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM EST.

Coloring went pretty well last Saturday, didn't it? Judge the results for yourself. Admittedly, much of it is darker than I would've liked; I suppose setting up palettes takes a while to get used to. Tonight I'll get more practice in that.

Hey, so you might have missed the announcement yesterday, and I'm a little late in saying so, but... streaming for the next hour and half or so, coloring the Sceptile comic! https://picarto.tv/rimme

After two long evenings of programming and tinkering, I am back to drawing tonight, inking the next page of the Sceptile comic. Catch me at http://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM.

In addition, there will be two drawing streams tomorrow to make up for my absence Wednesday night, which will put me back on schedule. First I will have a morning stream from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM; then my usual evening stream from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM. All times Eastern.

I am glad, so glad, that this was a temporary delay. Can't wait to see you all tonight and tomorrow!

Sketching a new page of the Sceptile comic at https://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern.

Tonight I will be inking a splash page at http://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern. It's a bit of a spoiler to say what it is, but feel free to join and watch if you like me making line art, or enjoy my kind of music.

Shading and finishing page #47 at https://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM. There will be no streaming on Friday or Saturday.

It was a bit insightful to do a different technique with coloring last night. After coloring the backgrounds and masking the background lineart, it's a 2-step process for coloring the characters. About 1.5 hours goes into setting up the layers for each region, coloring them with garish temporary colors in order to focus solely on what areas go in which part of the line art. The remaining .5 hours goes into color picking the character palette and filling them in. It goes quickly, thanks to the freeze transparency setting.

I guess the big question for shading that I have is: what's the best way to add shadows? A color burn, multiply, or overlay layer? Or modifying the original layer? The former choices are easier for layers with multiple base colors touching each other, which can happen when you have a textured base to shade. The other alternative is to do the coloring and shading at the same time, adding rough blocks of shading . But this works best when there is no concern about coloring outside the lines, or where there are no hard edges to begin with.

Well, everyone has their own technique for coloring and shading, and there isn't really a right or wrong way. In fact, shading goes a long way to determining what someone's "style" is. Muted colors? Limited color palette? Bright glowing colors? Hard-edged shadows or soft spongy shadows? It's all a matter of taste.

I wonder if I put a bit too much thought into these journals. I'm always running out of time to talk to people, and a lot of it comes down to trying to figure out my main point. These journals lack any sort of filter like that. But that's fine. I already put the important stream announcement at the top. None of you are missing anything if you skip over the text.

Hope to see some new faces in stream tonight!

Coloring my crazy corporate comic commences at http://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern.

I wonder if there are other art programs that make coloring super easy... or at least, where you don't have to worry so much about gaps or anti-aliased borders. Or for that matter, where it automatically detects between different background elements and separates them into different layers to keep different colors from touching, and where you can switch between character and prop and background folders to divvy these layers into. And where you can store entire characters as palettes, and those palettes can be quickly organized and dropped into the program, maybe with some machine learning to detect different parts of the inked drawing and their orientation... and while we're at it, make some subtle adjustments towards warmer or cooler palettes for characters based on whatever new background they're in, or just to make the overall picture more balanced colorwise...

Not that any of that matters, because in a TF picture, you still have to get the color transitions down. The areas of fur growth rarely have thick borders surrounding them. At least coloring those areas has room for improvisation.

I hope to see people watching me instead of the election results tonight. I promise to be a much less stressful source of entertainment!

Inking tonight at the usual place, http://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern. I will be inking the next comic page. There's a lot of figures to draw, which means more time to take to draw it, but there's not that much detail to the backgrounds, so it should go faster. Plus, every night is a chance to push myself a little more, to get more confident with the inking, and to go a little bit faster.

You know that memetic chart that shows confidence as an M-shaped curve over time? It's true. It's an ongoing process of getting confident enough in your own art to fall into a rhythm, to have a style you fall into; then you look at other people's art with fresh eyes, and for the first time you understand what they do differently than you; and you have that moment of crisis where you're not sure your style can stand up to theirs, and wonder in doubt if you should mimic that special technique that makes their art resonate with you, or if your own art somehow has that magic appeal you're craving.

There are so many techniques to learn and practice. Consistency, personality, realism, proportion, anatomy, spatial rotation, framing, character design, graphic design, color theory. and more. Each day, each stage, there's always something to practice. It's one of the things that's held me back from opening commissions until now (which are still open, btw, 1 SLOT LEFT).

Inking is one of those areas, thankfully, where I am feeling somewhat confident in at the moment. I may not have the careful draftsmanship that stickmanwww or ivanfromafar have, or the lively personality that sky3 or gillpanda have, but I do have some control and sense over the line weights, and I think my sketch holds up pretty well on its own, which is always good for inking.

So this turned out to be a long journal. Guess it's one of those days. Feel free to watch tonight, gonna be reliving some oldies~!

Starting AFCAH page #47 tonight at https://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern. I should end up finishing it by Wednesday, just before my mini-vacation with my boyfriend.

It won't be a direct continuation of #46, but there will be TF. Specifically, Bill's TF that's been basically in freeze-frame since page #33. Amazing how comic-book time works, huh? This will be the first time in years I've drawn most of these characters (plus a mara); I'm excited to see how they turn out.

Shading at http://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern.

I've been very stressed the last few days, so I'm hoping for a nice relaxing stream tonight. Coloring a nice relaxing field to bask in...

Making good progress on the Sceptile comic, which you can watch at http://picarto.tv/rimme at 6:30 PM Eastern.

Coloring is the one stage that I'm surprised takes me as long as it does to get through. There really isn't much to it; it's just adding layers and layers of flat colors down. It's just a tedious process of going through the assembly line, closing off ink gaps or fixing weird ink curves, and then filling them in one by one.

I'm hoping this time I get far enough along to unify the palette and add some atmosphere. Not actually shading, though... that will come on Friday.

See you there!

Finally out of quarantine. There's a dorm-wide meeting I have to attend tonight (unrelated to COVID, just coincidence), so because of that, and because I missed drawing and brought dinner with me, I'll be starting much earlier tonight.

5:00 PM Eastern, at https://picarto.tv/rimme

I'll be inking the next page of the Sceptile comic and listening to TFTuesday, so feel free to come in for a bit to watch me draw! It's good to be back!

So, that bad cold I got wasn't a cold at all... it was COVID.

I just notified my teachers, and I'm waiting for instructions on how to go into isolation. But basically, I won't be drawing for a while. I'll be focusing on resting and keeping up with schoolwork instead.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and I hope to get well soon!

I got a bad cold over the weekend, which made me unable to stream yesterday. I managed to recover enough this morning so I could finish the AFCAH page and post it. This way, my schedule doesn't get disrupted too much, and I'll be able to finish the next page, for jackthelizard 's Sceptile comic, on the same day as originally planned.

If you enjoy my output, and have money to spend, consider taking a commission! 2 slots are still available

Streaming will continue tonight at the usual time, 6:30 PM Eastern at https://picarto.tv/rimme . It will involve lots of sketching. If I get too sick to continue, I may cut it short, finish tomorrow, and extend everything on my schedule by an extra day. Hopefully it won't come to that, but we'll see.