Seeds Storage

List of ideas I'd like to expand and write later

• Artwork Review

Blending Modes and Adjustment Layers are not highly compatible with Chaotic Painting Workflow

Predictability, Expandability, Editability

• predictability of a tool or process depends on the intrinsic quality of the tool and the user compatibility with it.
• anime artist with hyper controlled edge and layer
  • celshade / soft shade anime artist with separated line layer
  • game artist that use fill layer so they can easily change color
  • process is very streamlined

macro rendering

• micro rendering
  • mach band effects and color variation

giving a goal to a practice

• Commission Pricing Strategies
  • the problem: overwork and underwork relative to the price of commission
  • old pricing model was based on package: character(s) + other elements.
    • I was not confident in my general draftsmanship ability (variery of pose, form drawing, etc). and more confident of my composition ability. to do that I need more elements to include. Elements related to the character also requires me to do some research, and I really like the research step (as a chronic information hoarder). It feels fun to know random stuff and formulate an artwork idea based on it.
    • this is not true anymore and I will offer single character commission too. maybe at the same price as the old package pricing. and new package pricing will be raised to an appropriate rate.

Friction in applying new tools and workflow

• I dislike switching software
• building a level of comfort in switching context takes a long time

wakeful rest as an example for using own terms

• Isolated Practice vs Practice while doing

importance of example
abstractness of tacit knowledge

not everything should have an immediate purpose, but I should be thinking why I am doing a specific activity.

• The purpose of this garden (why write about drawing and publish it online?)
  • writing about procedural knowledge is very hard. the process of transfer from explicit to tacit is something unachievable in written form
  • but using good explicit (well written words, clever suggestion) can act as a seed to guide the reader to acquire tacit practice. (benefit for reader)
  • codify tacit to explicit can help me recall it easier, by mentioning the word, I can relate to the feeling/action (benefit for writer (me))

living in a typical east asian culture so humbleness is ingrained, so the notion of "I'm still bad" is like a default state, more cultural and less directly felt from the the bottom of my heart.
But I can realize it much more strongly now. I can feel that I'm bad, not because of seeing people better than me, but because I can more objectively see where I am versus where I want to be.

• Celebrate small win is important

  • recently I just acquired 2 skills that I thought everyone else can do but I have no aptitude for it
    • Draw lines without zooming
    • Lineart in general
  • it doesn't sound too impressive, but it doesn't need to be

• last year Kouhaku Uta Gassen (2022)

  • Vaundy best

• Frequently used Tools and Software

  • some recommendation based on what I use now and have tried before.

alternative Color behaviour

• as someone who do not have an intrinsic sense of color (self assessed), my color is always skewed towards low contrast, low saturation, muddy mess
  • improvement in value skill (value grouping, seeing subtle/strong values difference) does make it better but it's not the full answer
  • one big part of it is because the traditional RGB mixing of most digital paint software:
    • 3/4 of the color wheel is low chroma color (if you use srgb )
    • Mixed color is very biased toward grey and low saturated colors.
  • my discovery is to set preview color profile to Adobe RGB, it is very close to sRGB so I do keep the intuition built from drawing with sRGB, but with the added benefit that it is much less biased towards grey.
    • I also tested with other profiles

https://andymatuschak.org/books/
written form does imply a certain way to learn: people read, understand and absorb. Learning in general doesn't quite work like that. I generally don't just read and understand or absorb right away, that's a big leap. So there should be some kind of process to make the best out of what you consume

https://www.patreon.com/quantumcountry/posts?filters[is_public]=true
tool maker and tool user

Infohazard

• Infohazard🌱
  • I don't know if it's the right term, but I'm scared that the info I spread my cause harm to the development of an artist that accidentally read it.
  • for example, I think a lot about metalearning, more specifically how to learn art
    • is it better to have a more chaotic, learn from tutorials and fragmented knowledges from various social posts/videos that are easy to digest?
    • or is it better to have a more rigid learning path, where there are exercises to follow, lecture to plow through, etc?
    • repetition/grinding vs project based learning. Kind vs Wicked learning environment
    • I think it is a very highly debated topic, and while I personally think that the chaotic is mostly better when you alternate it with some rigid structure, it is very hard to recommend solely either to any beginners/learner because it can create strong bias in them without considering their natural tendencies and learning preferences.

related: divergent vs convergent thinking

Does knowing more about meta learning lead to better learning?

Not necessary.
One big part of the drawing journey (I would say 70-80%) is tacit/procedural knowledge rather than explicit/codified knowledge.
There are part
I think most of my art knowledges come from observing and analyzing artworks from others rather than reading about it. <- not true after I took some time to think about it, the relationship of explicit-tacit is more complicated than I thought.
I don't know how to share that process effectively without infringing on other people art. Maybe use public domain traditional art? I did learn a lot from there too.

so to effectively transmit drawing knowledge
reading Basic description of the knowledge/technique
seeing example of the techniques (people in the past learn in studio/workshop with master or people better than them)

actually try to understand and apply that knowledge inconjunction with your existing knowledge. (best)

I'm very interested in the process of learning art (meta learning) but I treat it as something separate from my own artistic development.
Purely because I want to be helpful whenever someone ask me something.

Some art resources that I've taken before that I found really useful

Ctrl+Paint
I think I will just use his terminology here for easy reference,

Anatomy and figure drawings:

• Proko figure drawing and anatomy courses
• morpho
• Loomis head
• anatomy for sculptor
• tomfoxdraws posts
• Will Weston posts
• kato_anatomy posts
• manga_materials patreon content
• sangsilnoh (kunrennokm) posts
• moderndayjames video
• Sarah Simblet
• Gottfried Bammes
• Eliot Goldfinger

I used many anatomy books and resources for cross-referencing. This is my weakest domain so I spend a lot on time on it with many resources. Other domains like color, composition, design (not graphic design) I can just improve by drawing and using Active Inspiration🌱 (looking at favorite artworks and analyze)

Schoolism:

• Deconstructed: Drawing People Instructor Viktor Kalvachev
• Painting with Light and Color Instructor Dice Tsutsumi

Alla Prima 2

James Gurney blogs and books

Devin Korwin Creative Fundamentals 1 + 2

Krenz rotate gumroad

How to Draw Scott Robertson

DrawABox but only the line training and ghosting part

Vietnamese Course:
sparta
CATUN

Solid Drawing

1 related skill is 3 views visualization
I did practice some form of this skill when I was an intern at a local toy company. I also practiced that skill when I drew the model sheet for Kisaki Tencha.
Recently I've been using this skill more and more when I study anatomy.

• example: when drawing frontal view, I struggled with the position of the pubic bone and the ASIS (if you're wondering if I remember anatomical terms, then no, I just googled it). What I did was using SketchFab to view the pelvis at different angle, mostly top and side.

Solid Drawing🌱
wireframing
foreshortening stroke

• that feeling when I draw a very short stroke representing a longer stroke foreshortened in space, and feeling like I just draw that long stroke instead of a short one.

weakness of the fine line clip studio paint
THings always break when it comes to new thing orz

Treat fanwork like personal project

My role model for fanwork is REI and NoriZC
NoriZC's Touhou fanbook and REI's Nitocris fanbook are among my favorite artbooks.

expertise in pattern matching

Info hazard

Latent space

as much as I hate the current AI ecosystem, I have to admit that there are many things to be learned by reading through the concept of generative (imitative?) AI.
One of those things is latent space
I think the "latent space" that human navigate is fundamentally different and bigger than AI. It's not just visual but other senses, and whatever emotion is.

using own words

• words and language holds power and some preconceived meaning and bias
  • while it is useful to communicate with others, it might force people to feel in a particular way
  • example: "concept" "vibe" are vague words (at least in art)
  • so in the path of finding oneself, it is better to just Using your own words and terms, doesn't need to be precise, but I myself know which implicit things I'm refer to.

Weakness of verbal communication

• I mostly work solo, and only discuss art with close ones.
• I have preconceived notion about some words, and that might be different to its meaning in a larger community, and there are difference in meaning in different communities too.

verbal vs visual communication

prestigious ideation, complex concept asking why artist should follow that, mundane exploration
related to tacit vs explicit knowledge

My preference in generative, procedural art

some preface first.
Generative or Procedural Art doesn't just mean Creative Coding, but it can simply you laid out a rule, and follow it, an example I really like is here: (TBA)
By my definition, non-generative art can be called "mark-making art". You use a tool, any tool to create a mark on a "canvas" with hand-eye coordination skill. Drawing on sand, lithography, using flame mark on a paper, etc. are all mark-making art. In popular digital art softwares, you do mark-making by using stamp-based tools (aka brushes).

Some special cases: splattering, pouring paints, or digital randomized spraying brushes. Can those be called mark-making tools? In my view, those tools has a lower "Predictability" (or Controllability) compared to traditional mark-making process, but higher Predictability than

Adjustment Layer is a way to make procedural change too:

• I like tone curve and gradient maps and used them a lot in the past, meticulously changing value relation ship and adding colors.
• I found the process boring, I like mark making, that's why I make so much Abstract Scribbles , maybe I haven't invested that much time in procedural art so I haven't reached a mastery level that I can enjoy.
  • a hybrid way of doing both procedural and mark-making is Painting by Masking out (or in) Adjustment Layer. I really enjoy this combination.

Friction vs Ease of Access

• I watched Dr. K a lot lately, while I couldn't agree with some of his advice, his videos have been really helpful for me to think about my work and personal life.
  One such thing is introducing Friction in my life.
  I was a firm believer of optimizing everything.
  ...
  There was a big problem: I couldn't start working if the task (or part of it) is not optimized beforehand.

Binary Confusion

I couldn't quickly recognize when something is split into two possible state (kinda hard to explain)

for the longest time in my childhood, I couldn't make a clear distinction between left right

kasu (lend out) and kariru (borrow)

Attention to details and observation skill

I lack both of these. I do think I kinda have weak visualization skill too, not aphantasia but close to it.

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