August 2008 Archives

 

So. I decided after a pretty good few sketches on Facebook that I might actually know how to color now. Tweaked and learned some Photoshop shortcuts, and gave it a shot.

I'm currently working on a neato picture of Autumn Sun, which was inspired by wushu stuff on Youtube. Though after poking through the Arelith forums, I found a thread where the players posted their stuff. So, I got the idea to try to draw Samras Vel (since I've been thinking about her for a while).

I'm getting better! I feel like I'm improving, and getting used to the tablet. Line drawing is still very awkward, having to resort to the cheat Jonji taught me, by flipping the canvas horizontally, I can trick my brain into getting a fresh look at the piece, and seeing all the deformities. I did this like, 5 times drawing the face. =( And also redrew the legs because they failed at being in perspective.

The end result is something I'm happy with! I think the coloring came out really well, too. It's not anime. But I always liked the more "realistic" looking anime stuff. Hope I can improve, and motivate myself to draw more. =)

I stayed after service today to help clean and paint the children's Sunday school room along with the rest of the English congregation. While everything was wrapping up, there was a can of enamel that had solidified at the top. Calvin was playing with it because it was slightly gelatinous. You could push it down and it'd indent, but afterwards, it would return to its original flat surface.

We were pushing it down with a spoon and watching it come back up, so I decided to try puncturing the solid layer through with the spoon, hoping that we'd be able to get at the liquid enamel underneath.

Well, we got to the liquid enamel. Or it got us. Instead of piercing through, the spoon tore the solid layer and pushed it down like a piston. The rest of the enamel came exploding out of the can, splashing all over my face, arms, and clothes. It also got into Angela's and Johnson's hair, and some on Tony's legs.

I panicked! Not wanting to get the stuff into my mouth, or swallowing any of the toxic stuff, I ran to the nearest restroom and tried to wash it off. The water rinsing only smeared it all over my hands, leaving them a pasty white. I used dry towels to try to get the stuff away from my mouth, though much of it caked my lips and face. I'm really lucky that I wear glasses - my glasses were completely covered, shielding my eyes.

After the water mostly failed (I tried to scratch some of it off to little avail), I went to the kitchen sink and used a scrubbing sponge to roughly scrape it off my arms. That worked fairly well, so I started doing the same to my face. I gave myself some minor cuts. =(

Eventually, I stopped panicking because it was out of my eyes and mostly out of my mouth. I hadn't swallowed any, but I still felt like going to the hospital because a lot of it was seeping in. When I went home, Pastor Liao was there and saw my predicament. He tried using soap and WD-40. Our can was pretty much out, so it didn't help, but he had his wife bring a fresh can.

The WD-40 removes it from skin really well. So they helped get it off my face and arms and mostly cleaned me up. There's still some in my hair, but I'm going to cut that off.

Johnson got some in his hair, so I went to go look for him to tell him about the WD-40. When I found him, his head was shaved. lol

A while later, Angela showed up at Arcadia Christian. I tried to scrub it out of her hair with WD-40 but while it broke down some, it mostly just made it flake. I heard that Johnson's dad helped him get it out by scrubbing with shampoo like, 4 times. I feel bad!

I was being completely dumb, so I deserved it, but they were just standing by. ;_;

This is the one keyboard shortcut that is my singular defining experience of computer art. It is the magic bullet; the training wheels that correct my unartistly ways and make me weak. In the knees. Because I love it so much.

Photoshop shortcuts. I'm gonna learn some more, and try to be awesome at drawing. And stuff. I'd just learned not long ago that I could adjust my brush size and opacity with shortcuts... it's such a great thing! I might hold some promise as a digital painter. Because real paints suck. Or, I suck with real paints. Whatever.