It was kind of bugging the hell out of me that the art folder on my laptop was so empty, so I’m happy to already be off to a better start than basically all of last year. One of the unspoken goals (unless I already spoke about it and am too lazy to check) is that I’m also trying to do interesting poses without using CSP’s pose models which feels like it leads to sketches that are simultaneously more ‘natural’ feeling but sort of wonkier proportionately. Using the models as is always makes characters look too scrawny to me, though and the perspective sliders are kind of hit or miss without repeating the pose across multiple layers with different amounts of perspective applied, rasterizing and compositing a reference image layer from all of them. I did tweak a model closer to the proportions I like to draw characters at to use in a pinch, but I need to get that freehand drawing ability back.

My other main goals are just getting back to where I can turn out stuff I’m satisfied with consistently again, and trying to keep to a cleaner inking style. A lot of my old favorites are stuff I threw together in MyPaint and are rough but have a certain liveliness I like as much as I’d also like to be able to get crisp conventional manga-type lines down. I think I’m getting a bit closer though now that I use less of the approach of ‘draw lightly with huge brush’ since it’s easier to stay consistent pressing firmly with thinner brushes.

Just got back from my first vacation trip in a couple years between covid fears and spending most of last year laid up with a torn up knee. It was a good time in spite of my kind of crap planning skills, met up with Piku while she was in the states along with some other friends from the Slayers fan discord for cheesesteak, the Hershey’s tour, and brutal in person Mario Kart. I took Greyhound for the first time and years and while it could have been *worse* (another friend doing the same in the opposite direction got stranded in Columbus while heading home) I ended up catching a bug on the way home, probably unsurprisingly. I don’t think I’d rule them out entirely if I had more time to kill but the way things shook out, flying is probably still more reliable but not all that much faster given where I’m from. Anyway, said bug is why I haven’t really done anything in the time since I came home, since I was busy alternating between burning up and freezing but I did dodge the ‘vid bullet at least.

Tonight though, I’m really just unwinding and enjoying being back to an approximately normal level of coughing and hacking that comes with seesawing between jacket weather and snowstorm within the space of a week.

Content coming soon. In the meantime, go hit up Steam and wishlist Yggdra Union! It just got announced for a PC port, and it’s both a favorite game of mine and a big inspiration. Graze Counter GM has also already finally dropped, and it’s wonderful whether or not you played the original.