2023-03-26🌱

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I wrote a lot this week!

Work and Art

Commission

Sketch

Posting Art

this week I posted my commission for Rene and the Suisei fanart on SNS

• Twitter engagement now is the worst.
• if it is the past me, I would be very depressed.
• Now, it's a bit sad that my art didn't do well engagement wise, but I'm really satisfied with this artwork and that's more important! I will write some self-review in the coming weeks

Drawing Study Review

• I don't need to learn everything in 1 go. It's actually more beneficial to learn, forget a bit and review.
  • the cool thing about drawing review, at least for anatomy, is that I know when I have lapses in my knowledge
    • I practiced head a lot in the past and have a usable structure model for common (easy) pose and camera angle, but as I practice drawing the body more from various other angle, I can immediately recognize that I don't know how to fit the existing head model to those poses. So I guess it's time to review and update!
• Currently alternating between figure drawing, anatomy study and actual art output

Clip Studio Paint 2.0 Review

• My most awaited function, the intuitive color blending is ok, not too ground breaking
  • it's a relief because it means I don't have to update my color intuition too much
  • it's not as good as Rebelle's Mixbox but very serviceable, especially when combined with wider gamut color profile (more on this in the coming weeks)
• However there are a lot of other game changing in this update!
  • save in BG is seriously game changer, I can set auto save more frequently now!
  • the most useful for me is search layer by name. In my case, since I only name my folder so I just filter it to folder only. thousand time easier to manage my folder now!
  • liquify multiple layer
  • wrap text and align are finally here, so for simple layout I don't really need Illustrator anymore
• there are also some useful update for the object tool, I might consider using it more
  • toggle selected state
  • move all selected layers (faster than transform and move)

Drawing Meta

Prioritization

• Prioritization
  • from my process video of Rene Elric Commission🌱 , I can see that I don't know when to stop rendering something and just keep fixing. If I want to increase my output I need to address this soon.
  • should work on the less rendered parts and keep the quality of every part roughly equal

Simplify and Streamline the process

• I don't like how over-rendered (Micro rendering wise) my art looks right now
• I kinda use glazing and opacity layering a lot. should reduce it and replace with thick blending.
• need to build a style/workflow that is less rendered but still me, this requires more introspection and self-analysis.

Art Knowledge

Since the start of this blog, I made a lot of observations and thoughts on art, but they are kinda scattered and insignificant to warrant a separate atomic page, so I will collect them in this page before planting the seeds: Uncategorized Art Pondering

In the future, when some pages are a bit more polished, I intend to publish them in post form, either twt thread or fb post

Pressure Sensitivity and Fine Line

thanks to tamomoko, I discover that SAI brushes have the ability to go down to very fine line, almost single pixel size. Krita and Photoshop also have this ability but apparently the default CSP setting doesn't.

I tested a lot of pressure settings in the brush engine for the longest time but couldn't reproduce it in CSP. For your information, I'm using Wacom Intuos 5 with a 2048-level pressure sensitivity. I think this is less of a problem for pens with higher level of pressure sensitivity.

Just the other day I found out that it is achievable by ignoring the lower end (10-15%) of the pen pressure curve.

Here it is in Clip Studio Paint (File -> Pen Pressure Settings)

Or in the Wacom tablet settings

The result is something like this, notice how big the brush circle is and compare it with the smallest hairline stroke.

In hindsight, the reason why this wasn't available with default CSP setting is obvious: when we put our pen down, because of gravity and the minimum strength of our muscle, we always apply a non-zero downward force that is bigger than 5-10% of the pressure curve. So without ignoring the first few percentages, we can't physically go down to 0 or 0.5 or 1 or 2%. (except by lifting the pen, which is an upward force and not a downward force)
(^ if someone know how to phrase this better please tell me orz)

This may not be desirable to some artists, as it affects not just size, but also opacity and other properties too.

For me, having greater control on the lower end of pressure sensitivity open up so much possibility. Readjusting for me it's not that big of a problem.

Fine Line in Clip Studio Paint 👈 putting this in a page for easy access

Tapering vs non-Tapering

thinking about non-tapering vs tapering brushes

• tapering brush's biggest advantage is, well, the taper. Tapered stroke is a naturally beautiful stroke, they can connect with each other pretty easily
• however, tapering is controlled by pressure sensitivity, so if I also enable pressure sensitivity for opacity/density, I have to control 2 properties at the same time, which can be tricky and not flexible in many cases (had to manually change brush size for the right mix of taper and opacity)
• this is where non-tapering brushes shine, I can wholly focus on controlling the color mixing/ opacity/density

Blending Modes

• when I was going through SAI settings, I discovered something in Photoshop called Transparency Shapes Layer (TSL).
  • context: Photoshop layer has another slider called "Fill" that is separate from Opacity
    • Fill affects 8 Special Blending Modes where they reduce the intensity of the effects applied, rather than just decreasing the transparency of the effects.
    • video about Fill here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsk4bh4j3WQ
  • the thing is, layer with TSL turned off brings that behaviour to the transparency of brushes
    • for example, let's take a airbrush with a 100% opacity in the center and fade to 0%
      • the 100% part will look like 100% Fill
      • the 50% part will look like 50% fill
      • and so on
      • video with timestamp here, but it's best to watch from the beginning: https://youtu.be/Yo5m-vMXfvw?t=250
  • Shade, Shine, Shade/Shine in SAI is Linear Burn, Linear Dodge and Linear Light in Photoshop with TSL turned off. (Other special blend modes like Difference and Hard Mix in SAI work similarly)
    • that's why it maintains a beautiful gradient as you paint on it.
  • Add (Glow) and Glow Dodge in CSP are the only ones with this behaviour.
    • Add (glow) might be Linear Light with TSL turned off
    • Glow Dodge might be Linear Dodge/Color Dodge with TSL turned off
    • now it would be nice if we have linear burn with TSL turned off too
• Garden/Blending Modes 👈 there are enough material for a page so I'll create it here

Website Update

Main Website

I switched to blot.im for my main website even though the Notion + super.so is so powerful, customizable and easy to update.

• since I use Obsidian to manage my notes and knowledge in markdown files which I think are more future proof than Notion, might as well use it to update my website too.
• it does take more upfront effort than super.so but I feel safe when my data is on local drive, I also back them up to many place.

Digital Garden (this site)

• change theme to Prism and change the styling for internal uncreated link so it is easier to identify.

Other

• I'm wondering if I should even post on pixiv anymore because of their stance on AI, I know there are still many art enthusiasts there, and it is still very useful to gain an audience.

Artists that disappeared for a while

• This week, ozyako returned to Twitter after 2-3 years, their art is even better now! I feel sad when I visit an artist I like and see no update since more than 1 year.
• on top of my head there is uenozousui the character design for Tsukinogi in Arknights (I absolutely adore her maid skin), last time I saw them creating an account on Weibo.
• I'm also worried for Shindou Masaoki, author of Ruri Dragon. Hope he recovers soon.

Inspirations

Suisei 5th Anniversary Live - Shining Memory

• I felt very moved when I listened to I remember you
• ku ru ku ru cruller dance is good wonder who is the choreographer?
• the outfit really complements the dance.
• backup dancers this time don't look ridiculous anymore

@obihironn (on twitter)

• this artist https://twitter.com/obihironn/status/1620113762463383553/photo/1
• I find their use of angle and foreshortening really appealing. even if most of their art is unrefined but the message is very clear. I need to learn this.

EOW

• lead singer is one of the singer in Sawano nZk project
• nothing much to say, I like the vocal and the vibe.
• https://open.spotify.com/artist/3hufeT9qrBonKU5iZxAeHI?si=KcKA_JGKSLGoRE1d6K_FOg

Favorite Art of the Week

loundraw x BUMP OF CHICKEN - TOHO animation Music Film

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lygiL4Y3kU
  • this series of Music Film by TOHO animation is really great, full of experimentation in art style and techniques.
  • My favorite is loundraw's.
    • the compositing is great as always, cel-shaded characters blend very well into the painted background, lighting and color scheme have a photographic quality to them.
    • I wish we could have more animation that experiment with compositing and unique look and color script like that.
      • like JDGE and hamukukka
    • I like how the hair is drawn, simple hair that has clear silhouette and looks solid. If I have to draw the main girl's hairstyle I would just draw a flat curve at the top
      • this quality is similar to QQjnr art, and I'm looking to add this sharpness to my shape design too.

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