It’s been a year since I decided to invest in myself in art. Started with buying a PC connected tablet (pictured) and within a month or so getting a phone that comes with a pen. The phone has made a world of difference as it eliminated the barriers between my busy life and art. Join a conference call early, draw. Waiting at the doctor’s office, draw. Watching something with my wife that she enjoys but I’m not excited about, draw.
Totally worth it and the art I’ve made on this little phone sometimes gets close to artists I admire and have wish I could be like.
If you’re thinking you want to get better at art maybe eliminate barriers and do your art daily.
If you’re a reader, the book Atomic Habits has a ton of great ideas. It’s what inspired me to get the tablet and then the phone.
It’s been awesome watching your art journey so far, looking forward to see your next pieces! Also eliminating barriers and just doing art on a regular basis can’t be stressed enough, it’s what got me back into drawing as well. Habits work wonders!
🔥🔥🔥
I do love your art and your dedication! Atomic Habits is on my reading list. Maybe I’ll bump it up.
And you’re using GIMP, too. I love seeing people use libre software for their everyday. It gives me hope that we can, one day, escape the clutches of corpo software.
I don’t use gimp much these days. Moved to Sketchbook by Autodesk so I could have the same software on my phone and PC. Phys gimp is way over my head.
And thank you!
I don’t blame you. Sketchbook is pretty amazing haha
For what I do it’s great. But I think I’m already pushing the software to its limits.
Makes you feel good to be able to say that, doesn’t it? Lol I know it would make me feel good
Yes and no. Drives me nuts when it crashes or doesn’t save the last 5+ minutes of work or refuses to save anything until I kill and restart it.
But it’s cool that my art is complex enough to make this software cry!
I have considered I need to use my desktop PC instead of my laptop or my phone. But then I’ll never do my art. But if I did a commission (if that ever happens) and needed it to be high resolution then I’d probably figure it out.
A Samsung phone vs a laptop with an RTX3050 (mobile) vs a desktop with an RTX4090 are all very different grades of performance.
The not saving / crashing thing would make me drop that faster than than anything. I’ll accept lags and such, but to crash or not save, that’s too much. If the program can’t properly save or be stable, I would lose all trust in it, and will never use it again. That said, it’s very hard to find the same software that works on mobile and desktop, so, maybe I’d stick it out…
I hope commission work starts soon. Just don’t let it destroy your love for the art or the process itself. My friend gave up on her long love of photography, because of commission work. She said that it lost that “spark” and she started hating it. Just don’t let that happen to you. I absolutely love your style, and would love to see it get big.
Congratulations, Ballshapedman! That takes dedication. It’s been fun watching your progress.
Thank you! I can’t wait to see what I can do in another year!
Awesome, great job! I’ve also been thinking about picking up drawing but I have so much else going on so I haven’t really had time to prioritize it.
Totally understand that. That was my life from high school through last year. All my kids being adults helped give me just enough time I thought I’d go for it.
Though I haven’t really picked up a guitar since which I miss sometimes. But I enjoy art more.
Side note, I just noticed the Yuzu logo is visible. I own a switch and buy all my games. They just run like crap on the switch and the hardware is pretty mid overall. I mostly play switch games on my Steam Deck, but the laptop (connected to the PC tablet) and desktop also have Yuzu on it as well.
Psh. I doubt anyone here would have blamed you for playing on emulators regardless.
That’s a good point. I’m used to old people, probably not many of us here.
Looks good! Hope you keep going. Wish I could get myself to make something again :D
Maybe try the 5 minute challenge? Do something creative for just 5 minutes. I use it for chores I don’t want to do and before you know it the dishes are done.
I barely make it out of bed^^
But I put it on the pile of things to try to get out of the funk.
Seriously, I wish you all the best getting through the funk. It’s not fun being there. Hopefully you find your way out and get a lot of delightful days!
Thanks for the kind words.
🫂
