FRENDEN @FRENDEN@mastodon.art

I’m seeing a lot of new faces which is rad. Here’s some work to give you an idea of what I like to make.

Hint, monsters. Lots of monsters.

I actively try to make BAD things at the silhouette/thumb stage. It's freeing to say, "I'm going to sit down and purposely draw the worst I can."

It's SO anathema to how you're used to working that your brain and muscle memory for mark making kick in and will not LET you make the worst things possible. It's almost impossible to set outrageously bad drawing as a goal.

Do that a few times and you realize that by giving yourself that initial permission -- no, the dictate -- to make awful things, you actually give yourself the freedom to work at your highest level.

Sketching should never be about the quality of work (unless you're doing a study and not just ideation) but rather about making a record of ideas. And rejecting any idea outright is no bueno. Just let whatever comes out come out.

No one ever has to see it but you. Unless, like me, you show everyone your awful thumbs like an idiot.

I was talking with a pal that's down on their work. It was classic impostor syndrome and I suffer from it too.

The only people with blind faith and utmost confidence in their abilities are crazy or dumb. Just say fuck it and make stuff regardless.

You WANT your taste to outstrip your abilities. That's what's gonna motivate you to get better.

The fact you see things you don't like means you have a good eye and standards. That's a good thing! Just...

...note it, move on, and hope to apply any lessons learned to the next piece.

Look at it this way -- are you gonna fucking quit? No. So, if you aren't gonna quit, the faster you let that go the better. It's just fuel.

And I'm in no way perfect about this. I'm just telling you the things I tell myself to work through it.

One of the greatest things about art as vocation is that the skill ceiling is so high.

My taste CONSTANTLY outstrips my ability and I rush to catch up. Over. And over. And over again.

I hope I'm still learning as long as I'm breathing.

Two things I need to fix to be set:

One, there's some cursor offset and I need to see how to calibrate it -- I didn't see a multipoint calibration GUI, but I wasn't looking hard either.

Two, this screen tearing is no bueno.

Okay. So getting to manually set the report and sampling rates of the Wacom driver in KDE is fucking clutch. Love that.

It's something that can vastly change drawing feel and not accessible in Windows/OS X.

Neon, installed. Krita Lime PPA, installed. Cintiq, installed and configured. Nvidia drivers, installed -- but I'm getting tearing.

🔍 SEARCHING. 🔍

Neeeeeon installed and running. Now to setup Krita, Blender, and my Cintiq...

I was always a pretty basic Ubuntu or Mint dude on my Linux machines in the past. I think I'm going to try Neon though.

Damnit. Now I want to try and install Linux on this super ornery UEFI MSI board again.

PSST, here's that Krita brush.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nchdxulz672t8go/SCORCH.bundle?dl=0

I tend to be a bit too precious when I render form and end up with a sort of molded, plastic, overly burnished result.

Tools with texture help me stay loose and not overdo things.

I was getting a bit bored in Clip Studio, so I decided to move to Krita to kill this piece off.

I made a tool with some subtle impasto to it and I'm digging the way it helps break up solid areas of color.

Anyone else like drawing with their tablet monitor an inch from their eyes?

Just me? Burning out my retinas you say? Cool. Coolcoolcool.

So many talented folks here. The local timeline is so rad.

I slept for two hours and I had to get up and work on this. This thing is getting rest-of-the-fucking-owl'd today if it kills me, haha.