My apologies for the long delay between Line Quality, Part 1 and this post – there was much more to do in China than I’d anticipated, and then some stuff over the new year. Thanks to those who sent me reminder messages Quite a substantial number of exercises in this post to make up for the delay, so the deadline is in 2 weeks, 18 Jan.  The illustrations for this post are done digitally and are hopefully easier to see. I’m crap at drawing from scratch on the computer though, might have to look into getting a proper scanner.

So, basic shapes. These are the building blocks of pretty much everything that can be drawn, so taking some time to understand them is important. The three big shapes (2D) are the rectangle, triangle and ellipse (oval). From these you can get basic forms (3D): cuboid, prism (many kinds), cylinder, sphere and ovoid.

Why think in terms of simple solids? With basic forms we can break things down into planes, which helps immensely with shading. It’s hard to shade a horse from imagination, but it’s easier to do the same thing with ovoids and prisms. A poorly executed example:

‘Random shading’ looks sort of right, but also sort of iffy – ‘Semi-random shading’ looks a little bit more solid. The shadows cast by the nose and hair are wrong, by the way – sorry, wasn’t really thinking.

Aside:

When just starting, it’s easier to copy from pre-drawn samples, because a) they usually show ‘pure’ basic forms, and b) the artist has already translated the 3D form to a 2D image for you. Copying then helps familiarize you with the actual process of drawing those forms. Attempting to draw directly from life may result in a lot of flailing about and wasted time because you don’t know what to do. But drawing from life is also one of the best ways to progress in drawing once beginning hurdles are out of the way, and pretty much the only way beyond a certain standard. Anyway, if you have access to books or images (e.g. the ones in assignment I) , you can try doing some copies.

Exercises

I. Look at these renders of basic shapes under strong light sources: (these renders by ChristerMLB and these by Henrik Wann Jensen: 1, 2). You can draw copies of them if you have the time – should be pretty useful.

II. Find some objects that closely resemble the basic shapes, e.g. book (cuboid), computer mouse (ovoid), tall glass (cylinder). If you have a table lamp (like the kind in the Pixar logo) or a flashlight, set the objects up, dim the lights and just move the light around, watching what happens to the shadows – which sides get darker? Where does the light fall? If you want to draw them, assignment IV has instructions.

III. Now get a photo of a fairly simple subject – simple buildings, stuff on a desk etc. It can be digital or physical, doesn’t matter as long as you can see what you are doing over the photo. Try breaking the forms in the photo down into the basic forms covered above. Architecture is good for this, because you have not only blocky cuboids but also spheres/hemispheres (domes) and prisms (pediments, roofs) to work with. If you’re using more organic subjects, like a pony or a person, you’ll be working more with circle-based forms: sphere, ovoid, cylinder.

An example. This is a photo of a lovely hotel in Hangzhou, which I’ll be posting 5-star reviews of once I remember its name. First, draw in shapes that face the same direction (the right):

Breaking 3D forms down into 2D shapes isn’t enough. So add in the sides to turn the shapes into forms.

We also have to actually be able to imagine what they are like in 3D space. What would it look like from another angle? With a different lighting setup?

Here is the fun bit, which is easy to do on a computer and a bit harder if you weren’t working on tracing paper: choose a direction for light, and use just one dark tone to put in shadows. Ignore cast shadows (= shadows cast by something on another object) for now – they’re complicated and hard to do without reference. In my first image the light comes from the right; in the second it shines from the left. If you have trouble figuring out where to put the shadows, try using the objects from assignment I to construct an approximation. That provides a model for shadows, and also helps you to feel the depth and relative position of the basic forms. This is also why ‘drawers’ see improvement after trying out sculpting – it makes you think in 3 dimensions, not ’one curved line here, an ellipse there, some hatching, another line…’.

Another useful thing to remember when breaking down weird forms is that all polygons can be broken into a number of triangles.

IV. Try to draw one of the objects from assignment I…from life (dun dun dun!). If you’re up for a challenge, pick a more complex object that’s made of several basic forms joined together. Eleanor has also suggested an alternative of sorts, which you can also apply the basic form idea to:

one or more careful studies of a stuffed toy. They’re brilliant subjects for wannabe cartoonists as the proportions are made but they still have their own sense of weight. One can pose them, or, if one knows a child, scatty toy collector and/or dog one can likely find one ready posed in an hilarious ‘crime scene’ like fashion. I’ll own that there’s a possibility that not everybody in the thread has accesss to a stuffed toy but you can get some goofy ones dirt cheap or usually find somebody to lend one to you. Temporarily.

First draw in basic shapes, then build up to the basic forms underlying the object (post a photo and ask if you’re not sure), and then add details on top in a darker color. You can shade as well, but keep it simple and only shade the large masses. For instance, there was a lighter shadow on the unshaded side of the harmonica case, but it only made things look confused, so I didn’t include it.

Ellipses are my nemesis, so naturally I picked two cylinder-based forms for the demo -_-||| Also sometimes drawing a basic form container doesn’t actually help, as in the cup handle, so just use them as you see fit. Here’s another example (which ended up deviating significantly from what I saw – bad!):

By the way, construction isn’t something that comes naturally when drawing from life. For more rigid forms (buildings, manufactured objects) like in the example above, constructing the basic forms before laying on details is a great way to ensure things look more or less ‘right’ in the final drawing. But doing it for organic forms is, in my opinion, a waste of time, and isn’t going to get you anywhere. When drawing from imagination, however, construction is your best friend.

Example of what I do when drawing from life (or in this case, a photo I took):

Get rough outline – I recently started doing the enclosing-box thing, and it helps for irregular shapes.

Add details.

Sigh and hit Delete (or you can continue refining and shading).

Aside:

No seriously, one of my goals is to get accuracy to a passable level. I don’t believe in measuring obsessively (sight-size, I’m looking at you) because it generally screws things up for me and takes all the life out of a drawing. But this level of inaccuracy is really quite unacceptable, especially for someone who’s setting exercises and doling out advice.

Resources

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ is a place to find pictures to draw from, though I’ve stopped going there as it’s usually overrun by pictures of babies and/or family gatherings and/or weddings. Also try looking under Stock/Resources on deviantART, www.sxc.hu and Google Images for private practice. (If you’re going to post it publicly, make sure you credit the photographer – if you don’t know who did it, best not to post).

Whew! Long post. Have fun – I’m looking forward to doing these.

P.S. I have Skype and MSN in case anyone wants to talk about drawing.

I started a little group project. We’ll be going through exercises aimed at building our drawing (and eventually painting/vectoring/comics whatever it is that people want to accomplish) skills. Hosting my posts here because WordPress is more reliable, and this makes them easier to keep track of.

Line Quality, Part 1

Here is a drawing by Paul Gustave Doré. There are several types of lines here, serving different purposes. For instance, the thin, even and somewhat bland lines suggesting the background make the foreground figures, who are depicted with far more vigorous and bold lines, come forward.

Another example of different line quality, this time by R.O. Blechman. Squiggly, broken, fairly even lines.

Line weight (thickness), shape, etc. is known as line quality. Hopefully you can tell that having some variation in line quality generally makes things look more interesting.

Here’s a drawing – bonus points if you can identify who it is – done with three different types of line. The leftmost is an even line, an effect you can see in the way OOTS figures are outlined or if drawing digitally without pressure sensitivity turned on. Even lines can be used to great effect but they tend to make work look lifeless and coldly precise. Good if you’re a technical illustrator, less so for what we’re trying to achieve here. Even lines are usually caused by pressing down too hard (because it’s harder to maintain even lines with a lighter touch), so lighten up.

In the middle is the infamous fuzzy line. This appears a lot in expressionist art – Kathe Kollwitz, Willem de Kooning etc. – but again, should be avoided unless you are intentionally going for that look.

On the right is my attempt at drawing with variations in line weight. The way I do it is to imagine I’m physically tracing the contour of the subject with my crayon. Where it turns (e.g. the curve of the nose), I generally press harder to get a better ‘feel’ of the form.

I don’t have much more to say so let’s go on to the exercises.

Exercises

These are really just to get you familiar with your tools, and to give you some practice with controlling your hand and arm.

Get a largish piece of paper (no smaller than A4/letter size) and put it up on a wall if you can. Otherwise just draw on a flat or slightly inclined surface. You could do this with a large tablet, say Intuos4′s medium size or above, but I strongly discourage it if you have little experience controlling your lines traditionally.

I used china marker (trying to use up the stubs of my broken one) on newsprint (because it’s cheap and big). Any support (the surface you’re drawing on) will do, and you can try this exercise with pencil, charcoal/conte, pen (not technical pen/fineliner), brush, digital ink or all of the above.

These three positions apply whether you are standing or sitting. The size of the stroke you want to draw determines which part of the arm you use – keep the highlighted part relatively rigid and pivot from the joint on the other side. For large lines draw from the shoulder, using your back/waist/knees (for really big lines) etc. to help. As the lines get smaller we move to drawing from the wrist and finally the fingers.

Fill up a few pages with line exercises. That just means draw different kinds of strokes, try using different pressure, hold your pencil differently etc. Avoid the even line and fuzzy line – keep strokes as long and smooth as you can. Some examples below:

Lines can convey speed. As something gets slower or heavier the lines get weightier too.

Exercises to practice arm motion. Don’t forget to do these in all directions – left-right, up-down, corner-corner.

here, have some figures

Somewhat related to the last incomprehensible post about being crippled by uncertainty, here’s a reply from James Gurney from his blog. Yes, I quote him often and I should really look into diversification. Call me a fangirl but it’s truly a treasure trove of excellent advice and inspiration. After you finish reading the posts – I for one don’t think I’ll ever be able to finish reading everything there (goodness knows I’ve tried) – look in the comments for even more discussion from the other artists that frequent his blog.

A comment from me. I’ve really got to start putting what I say into practice more.

I need more people like Tom Hart to remind me to stop worrying and start drawing! It’s good advice. I feel like it’s too easy – especially for beginners – to read all the advice there is but not actually apply it, because after seeing the generally splendid work that comes with such advice you are paralyzed with the fear that your work will never be able to match up to that standard. Every mark you put down on canvas makes you feel like a failure. At these times it’s important to remind yourself that every mistake you make is going to help you improve on your next work.

My favorite art-related quote now is the oft-paraphrased “everyone has a hundred thousand bad drawings in them, so start drawing now and get them done with”.

A few days later I went back to save the post in Evernote. To my delight I found a reply:

Jess, what you say is so universal to everyone who wants to do art after spending time being a fan of art. The critical facility gets sharpened to a high degree, but the practical, intuitive, hand-skill side of us takes a while to catch up. I think it helps to lock the internal critic in another room for a while to let yourself play and take a few chances.

To this I add one caveat: Make sure not to lose the key.

Click here for the full post in which he answers some questions from a diligent high school student.

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

The fantastic Paul Lasaine has put up an interesting acrylic vs. digital post. The most interesting bit for me was how so little detail can suggest so much, something I just can’t get to grips with yet. I know that less is more, but it’s so very hard to avoid the temptation to use a tiny brush and start detailing one portion of the work while ignoring how everything fits together in the big picture.

Can you tell which is which?

Edit Of course you couldn’t. I uploaded the same image twice by accident. Fixed now.

I remember always going ‘hmm, this is probably Photoshop‘ whenever I saw concept art in ‘The Making Of…’ art books in the past. Then I looked more closely at the LOTR ones and realized they weren’t. I don’t quite know why, but it had a pretty profound impact on me at that moment. Maybe it’s because I was still thinking of art media as ends, not means.

Original post: PAUL LASAINE

Helpful notes on acrylic paint from Ilaekae of the ConceptArt forums. I went searching after noticing that my acrylic-painted Sculpey dinosaur was still sticky after a week.

I think what you’re questioning isn’t a “drying” problem as much as it is a natural tendency for many plastics to be “sticky” or “soft” to the touch. The copolymers used in painting don’t become “hard” the way an oil painting or varnish does, especially in heavy straight applications, but have a through-and-through softness that is normal to the medium. That’s why your fingernail mark pops back out to some degree, and why you can make a mark in the first place. This causes problems with dirt and nicotine/smoke in the air collecting on the paint surface faster than with varnished pieces and oils. It also causes MAJOR problem if acrylic paintings are stored face to face, or pushed up against each other front to back. NEVER stack paintings on canvas panels on top of each other–the weight of the pile will make them stick together enough to damage them when you try to separate them. This isn’t as big a problem when additives (sand, glass beads, dirt, etc.) are added to increase the texture/thickness of the paint since it breaks up the slick uniform surface.

tl;dr – read the blockquote

I’ve got a viva voce-type thing tomorrow, where I’m supposed to talk about (“pitch”, apparently) my art coursework for this year. Except most of the class is only in the middle of coursework, and we’re at that stage where we haven’t got enough material to present for fifteen minutes yet. They couldn’t have held it right at the start, when everyone was relaxing after the holidays, or after everything is over, when we’d have a substantial body of visual work to present. No, instead we’ll just be showing sketchbooks and somehow turning 30-odd (probably around 15, considering that my style is to move to the next page once the previous one has markings on it, no matter how few) A5 pages of sketchy pencil doodles into a 15-minute sales pitch.

…what?

Anyway, the point of this post is something I discovered only today, and far too late. I stumbled upon this revelation while desperately trying to pump out studies this evening – I’ve only done three small ones (less than 10x10cm) – in preparation for tomorrow. It seems to me as though the system here places more emphasis on blindly copying photographs in vast numbers than any form of visual study that engages you on a more practical or artistic level.

I’m not saying that photographs are bad – I don’t think I could ever bring myself around to that stand, considering how useful they have been to both amateurs like me and countless other accomplished artists. Rather, it’s how being a photocopy machine gets you grades around here that irks me.

Great, I’ve managed to add another few paragraphs between “the point of this” and the actual thing that I wanted to share. Well, I shall tarry no further; here it is:

When gathering visual reference (with an idea of the final work already growing in your mind), your studies don’t necessarily have to be a slavish copy of your model. Gather what is useful to you, and omit visual clutter. Especially when you’re on a tight deadline.

To me, “visual clutter” encompasses a variety of things:

• When gathering conceptual reference (for lack of a better term)
• For costume reference, if I can tell that the original artist didn’t use reference for the drapery, then I’ll save myself the trouble of painstakingly replicating the folds and just note down the style and kind of fabric that’s on my model. I can always do my own drapery studies later, when I know how exactly the clothes are to interact with the surrounding forms.
• If I’m trying to work out how the planes of, say, a face, should be (to help me with lighting it from imagination, for example) then my shading doesn’t have to be that photorealistic – just enough details and value separation for me to understand the way the form turns.
• Architecture obviously has to be more detailed in some regards, and it’s a pain in the ass for me to draw. When short of time, I find it useful to just take note of the general structure and make one or two detailed texture/structure studies of things like roof tiles.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel it’s silly and a massive waste of time to expect information-gathering studies (as opposed to, say, technical or figure studies) to contain every bit of detail that was in the original. The kind of visual shorthand that I prefer – sketchy and incomplete but rife with the information I need (just noting down one tile of a repeated pattern on a dress, maybe, or reducing an elaborate carved pattern to its basic lines) – is what I feel makes the most sense for time-starved students like us who just can’t afford to spend a disproportionate amount of time on art.

Perhaps if you work mad fast and draw like a man possessed it would be a different story. But this is my take.

(Or maybe I just have bad time management. I read a fairly long novel in one sitting this afternoon. Probably should have spent it drawing.)

This is what happens when you set me loose on the internet while I’m studying for my SOVA (Study of Visual Art) exam tomorrow.

I love the Winsor & Newton web site because there are a lot of good articles on both artmaking and the history of art materials. As can be expected the articles usually refer only to W&N products, but many of the basic products can be found in other manufacturers’ catalogs as well. Today’s post is a  handy diagram from their guide to acrylic mediums page:

Some other products mentioned that might be useful to you in your own work:

• Gesso. Painter Jerry Yarnell uses this in place of the usual Titanium White. I quote from his book, Paint Along with Jerry Yarnell Volume One – Painting Basics:

Due to its creamy consistency, I often use it instead of white paint because it blends so much easier…I prefer it to Titanium White…

• My hero James Gurney uses acrylic matte medium to seal his pencil drawings first before beginning to paint. As the chart shows it “decreases gloss” and “reduces consistency” if you mix it with your paint.

I’ve been trying to do a bit of impasto in the middle of a painting but the impasto effect is proving ridiculously hard to achieve. I could use some of that modeling paste about now…

From Scott McCloud‘s Making Comics, all the warring artist factions summarized:

The first category is The Classicists. Artists defined by values of “excellence, hard work, mastery of craft, the quest for enduring beauty.” “First is the devotion to beauty, craftsmanship and a tradition of excellence and mastery. The desire to create art that our descendants could dig up in a thousand years and still think: ‘Hey! This is good stuff!’ The understanding that perfection may not be attainable in this life–but that that’s no reason not to strive for it.

The second category is The Animists. Artists defined by values of “putting content first, creating life through art, trusting one’s intuition.” “Then there’s the devotion to the content of a work, putting craft entirely in service of its subject. The belief that if the power of the stories and characters come through then nothing else matters. The willingness to tell stories so seamlessly that the teller of the story all but vanishes in the telling.”

The third category is The Formalists. Artists defined by values of “understanding of, experimentation with, and loyalty to the comics form.” “The devotion to comics itself, to figuring out what the form of comics is capable of. The eagerness to turn comics inside out and upside down in an effort to understand the form’s potential more fully. The willingness to let craft and story take a back seat if necessary, in pursuit of new ideas that could change comics for the better.”

The fourth category is The Iconoclasts. Artists defined by values of “honesty, vitality, authenticity, and unpretentiousness. Putting life first.” “The desire for honesty, authenticity, and a connection to real life. The determination to hold up a mirror to life’s face–warts and all–and to resist pandering or selling out. The conviction of artists to remain true to themselves while never taking themselves too seriously. To fly no one’s flag–not even their own.

Which one are you? I’m under the first category, firmly in the “Hey! This is good stuff!” camp.

Hi. I haven’t updated this place in ages, and you should visit www.jessicayang.org instead. Or art.jessicayang.org for pictures.

Anyone remember this being on my wishlist? I have it now a friend helped me buy it from New Zealand! The original wishlist entry, for posterity’s sake:

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. This edition only please – that means a paperback, standard-sized print, with illustrations by Alan Lee. If you have spotted this book on a store shelf in Singapore, or own a near-mint copy, please get in touch!

The reason why I want it so badly is because I have searching for 3 years for this edition of The Hobbit to match my core Middle-earth book collection, which takes pride of place on my bookshelf but has a conspicuously absent member. Three years! I have even bought The Hobbit from online sellers only to find that they have sent me the wrong edition.

Not to disparage the work of the cover designers and artists, but this:

or this:

looks really silly next to this:

I’m still alive.

More to follow in December.

WordPress’ new distraction-free writing space is truly a pleasure to use. But the font in the main interface has turned into Arial for me, which feels…colder. And the spell-check button in the post editor is still in full color while everything else is grayscale, which is pretty annoying.

So I’ve been learning some C++ for slightly over a year now. I still can’t do much more than read and write from files, but hey, I know what a class is now!

• cin.ignore() is not to be used indiscriminately!
•  After closing, inf.clear() is useful //ifstream inf
• Open and close files within the loop if you need the file pointer to go back to the top with each pass
• In case of assertion failure/buffer overflow errors:
• have you initialized things that need to be initialized?
• have you tried replacing strcpy_s with strncpy? (“it just works”)
• Remember to close files after opening them
• When in doubt, add trace printouts everywhere so you know what’s going on

My logic or methods are probably totally against coding best practices. Also, you may notice that the Japanese-which-I-didn’t-know-how-to-pronounce-until-last-week (thanks for remedying that, _randName_) blog title is gone from the site, and that I finally put up a header image. It was liberating to finally get rid of those default blue leaves, but right now the header is just a rather badly balanced color-fest.

Okay, I just zoomed out. It’s just a bad picture. I’ll replace it with something better soon.

Edit: Right, I’ve changed the header image to a blurred crop of this photo.

Also did some reshuffling and renaming of the Projects and Tutorials pages. I don’t think anyone knew they existed before I switched to this layout.

Bear with me: this is a constant gripe of mine. Still, whenever I see something like this going on and get annoyed, I remind myself how much more I’m learning by not giving in to the photocopy machine ethos, and I feel a bit better (not that it will last when my result slip comes back with a ‘C’)

I have no issue with photo reference. I think photography is an amazingly liberating and helpful tool for all kinds of artists. What I do dislike is copying the photo blindly without taking into consideration the intent of the piece.

A Recipe for Instant Art

You will need:

• A camera, preferably digital
• An overhead projector (optional)
• Models (optional)
• Lights (optional, strongly encouraged)
• Pencil (2B) or thin vine charcoal
• Paint (oil is best to ensure the final work has an artsy flair)
• Support (canvas preferred)

Preparation Time: 1 day ~ 3 weeks

Procedure:

1. Come up with a concept, and shoehorn it into a contemporary context – preferably one which you have easy access to (e.g. your messy kitchen).
2. Draw three thumbnails and pick the one you like most.
3. Scout for a location and conduct a photo shoot. If you considered lighting in step 2, arrange lights as necessary prior to shoot and do not experiment with lighting once shoot has commenced. If done correctly, you should leave with precisely one sharp, well-focused image.
4. Make A4 print of image. If using a digital camera, be sure to print with an office color laser printer and ensure that a strange color shift is present before proceeding to next step.
5. Proceed to paint image onto support. A paint-by-numbers approach is especially useful. Cropping is allowed but only use if absolutely necessary (e.g. you have ordered the wrong size of canvas). Take care to copy your photograph slavishly and always draw contours, not three-dimensional forms! Remember to follow the colors of the photograph as closely as you can. Doing otherwise diminishes the verisimilitude of your final piece.
6. Allow painting to dry. In the meantime, you should write an artist’s statement about the painting. Include two or more of the following words/phrases for maximum impact: “mimetic”, “built environment”, “contemporary”, “disengagement”, “appropriation”, “question”, “social mores”.
7. Exhibit and win awards at contemporary art shows.

The following steps can be performed between steps 4 and 5. They are optional, but they will shorten the preparation time drastically, especially if you are not a skilled draughtsman.

1. Make print of image onto projector slide.
2. Project image onto canvas.
3. Using pencil or charcoal, carefully trace outline of photograph – including highlight and shadow areas – until you have something that resembles a contour map.
4. Seal line drawing to avoid accidental smudging while painting.

Common Problems

Q. I started painting, but realized that I don’t have a good ‘feel’ for my subject. Should I do some studies to familiarize myself with it?

A. Resist the temptation. Extraneous studies will only slow you down. If producing the painting for school examinations, you may be required to produce studies; in this case, avail yourself of a lightbox. Remember the Golden Rule: copy contour, don’t think about form.

Q. I’ve started analyzing the scene I’m painting! I’ve come up with ideas for lighting and edge treatment to convey the forms and concepts more clearly (I think). Should I still follow the photograph?

A. Yes. You do not want to waste all the effort you have put in so far.

Yujian and I have just finished work on EMBclient. It’s a little program that grabs announcements from our school’s online notice board system, with offline caching for messages that you’ll need to refer frequently to, and it syncs with the (horrendously ugly) web version because it can.

I didn’t actually code (I tried though!), just helped get it from this:

To this:

A substantial improvement, if you ask me. Could be better, of course, but…

Anyway, you can get EMBclient from http://bit.ly/getembclient or look for it on SourceForge.

Tested with: Windows Vista Home Premium, Photoshop CS3

I loaned a Spyder 2 express from the school, with the intention of making my monitor color more accurate because I’ll be doing a lot of digital art this year. It was pretty good to begin with, in my opinion, but I just wanted to be sure…

I’m not complaining about the Spyder itself – very easy to use, and most of my screen did look better after calibration. Except the blues in color-managed applications like Photoshop. Behold:

So how did I get my (0, 0, 255) blues to look like their normal selves again?

The Somewhat Lacking Fix

Go to View > Proof Setup then check Monitor RGB. Mine was at Working CMYK before I changed it. Basically what this does is let you quickly change the color space you are working in. I think.

Now when you press Ctrl-Y to toggle the proofing, your colors should revert to their normal sRGB selves. The problem with this is that the color picker still displays the whole stretch of pure blues as purple, which is not so much a problem for photo editing but a huge issue for digital art. Which brings me to the…

The “Dirty Hack” (as described by a friend)

This is essentially breaking the path to the calibrated color profile created by the Spyder. This probably makes color-managed apps unable to find it, and so they revert to sRGB or whatever other default Windows is set to use.

Navigate to C:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\color and look for the profile that the calibration software created. In my case it’s called Spyder2express.icm. Either a) delete, b) rename or c) move to another folder (I renamed mine). The effect was instantaneous for me. I Alt-Tabbed back into Photoshop and my blues were back.

The Ideal Solution

Haven’t found this yet. Feel free to share.

I cleaned out and painted my cubicle during Open House, in between choir performances and miscellaneous rubbish. Most of my breaks will be spent here, so I thought I might as well make it more comfortable to be in. Tingchih and Weichuan very kindly let me use their leftover paint for free, so now my cubicle is actually quite nice to be in.

Necessities: kettle, tea leaves (not shown), extension cord.

took over the cubicle that previously belonged to senior Lingxue (Animation God Sr. – her position will be taken this year by Ruofan).

It was pretty dirty when I first arrived. There was no rag handy, so I managed to clean a little bit with tissue and water. Proceeded to clear out the junk, sweep the floor (disgusting) and take the instant noodles (they expire in April). I carried her locker to the adjacent room and swapped it out for mine.

Also important: food, computer, art materials.

I also removed the dirty yellow beanbag. In hindsight I could have just put a cover on it or something…but my main uses for this computer are playing music and searching for ways to salvage watercolor spills, both of which only take at most 10 minutes at a go. I figure I can just sit in the seiza position when I need to use the computer.

I wonder how many coats of paint it will take to whitewash the purple wall at the end of the year.

There’s not much to post about today. The school holidays have started, though this year’s hols are far busier than ever before. Choir practices just ended last week, but they’re having a chalet tomorrow and I haven’t prepared the stuff I should have learnt for it. The computers are having a karaoke outing on the 18th, the prospect of which seems quite daunting. I’ve never done karaoke. If my singing sucks it will be twice as bad because I’m now a chorister. And how interesting can listening to other people sing be? It might be all right for half an hour, but hours at a go just seems strange.

In LOTRO news, my hobbit minstrel Cedia reached Level 16 today, and I finally ventured out of the Shire to Bree-land. I found a cosmetics dealer and finally changed her out of her previous outfit.

After spending 16 levels in the Shire, Bree is a big change.

The Shire:

Bree:

Cedia lives on Elendilmir, in case anyone wants to join up.

All right, I lied. I’m not releasing two versions.

Vaarsuvius Wallpaper Pack

Current version: 1.0.1

The following are wallpaper-sized versions of a simple illustration I did over the past few days. The character featured is Vaarsuvius, elven mage of unidentifiable gender from Rich Burlew’s webcomic The Order of the Stick. Available in 2 versions each for standard 1024×768, 1280×960 and widescreen 1280×800, 1600×900.

Release notes
1.0.1

• Fixed unclear collar. Thanks to Glass Mouse for pointing it out.

1.0.0

• Initial release.

Known bugs (spoilered)

• Hair
• Highlights on skin (they don’t look good – but thanks anyway, Dispozition)

Special thanks

Glass Mouse, Dispozition, Kaytara, Zanaril, EvilDMMk3, half-halfling, Mercenary Pen, Irbis, zyborg, TheArsenal (?), licoot, Discord, Veros, Kumori_Ekisu, Lira, TheSummoner, Herpestidae, Serpentine.