As promised, here's the second round of Inktober art!

Today's picture is a stranded starfish trying to make its way home. As with the previous one, this was drawn in pen while my sister and I were driving to a family reunion.
 
It was inspired partly by the ongoing analogy in My Fugitive, whose protagonist based her mindset and values heavily on the story of a man who, upon finding thousands of starfish stranded on the beach, started throwing them into the sea.
 
Another man saw him doing this and commented, "You know, it doesn't matter how many you throw; you'll never be able to save them all."
 
The first man smiled at him, picked up another starfish, and tossed it into the ocean. "It mattered to that one."

Today's Inktober drawing was inspired by the Willow Maid in this gorgeous song, and is brought to you by the HUGE FREAKING KUDOS I give to people who can draw in marker and not end up with a bunch of unwanted lines and colors overlapping in the wrong places.

Sadly, I didn't have time to add a background before I had to run out the door - the whole thing was kind of a rush job - but when/if the mood strikes me, I might make a better version of this, probably digitally. ​

​I was planning to draw something dramatic, complex and touching for today's Inktober theme, but then I got let down twice in just a few hours, so here's this silly piece of TMI-ish vent art instead.

I'll draw my other idea another day, when I have time to do it justice instead of having to rush out the door like I did after drawing this.

​The clock keeps turning backward, and Sans just wants it to stop. But the power to stop it will always be in someone else's hands.

​Today's Inktober is a quickly-drawn ode to my weak time management, the lack of an "undo" button on markers, the fact that I have a steadier hand while drawing digitally than traditionally, and my apparent capacity to forget the presence of collarbones and thus put the neck tendons in the wrong place when I'm distracted by my minor cheekbone disaster. :P

On the upside, drawing traditionally DOES force me to tone down on the nitpicking, adapt to my mistakes instead of simply undoing them (the striped shirt hides the fact that one shoulder's line was in the wrong place), and finish the picture in a more reasonable amount of time than I would if I had an undo button to enable the perfectionism I'm working to overcome.

It also gives me this chance to internally chuckle at the fact that the panel with the difficult perspective turned out better than the one in an easy pose, haha. Granted, I did the latter without a sketch, because I was deliberately trying to get this one done quickly so I'd have time to work on Just Cause.

I'm participating in Inktober this month! Here are my first seven entries:

This is a scene from my novel, Catgirl Roommate, in which Nyla the catgirl was not allowed to steal Sam's mint because she'd already had hers, so she decided to take her mint-acquiring needs into her own hands... by chewing the lid off of Sam's mouthwash.

It did not end well.

For that matter, neither did drawing this picture; it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to. I guess that's what I get for trying to hand-draw something at print resolution.

​Photoshop hardcore SUCKS at drawing long, smooth lines without a pen tool, and I had to zoom in so far just to get a smooth line that I couldn't properly see what it would look like zoomed-out while I was drawing. I used the pen tool for some of the lines, but having to use it for almost ALL the lines really kills the fun, at least for me.

I tried a couple of my other art programs, but they kept on failing at basic tasks until I got heartily sick of working on this picture, haha.

At least day 2 turned out better; I drew that one at a more reasonable size.

Inktober's kind of been holding up the production of the next page of Just Cause, so I decided it was time to kill two birds with one stone and use today's entry to do the lineart for one of the panels.

Today's theme is "spell", so... Undyne's magic energy spears count as a spell, right?

​The monster towers over her, ready to impale her on its icy claws... and Wigfrid is already drooling over the small butcher's shop worth of meat she's about to carve out of this thing.

This piece was very experimental in several ways:

1. Drawing in white on a black background.

2. Using the same color for both the outlines and the highlights, and trying not to give Wigfrid a mustache and beard in the process.

3. Using a 1 pixel brush for most of the picture, as opposed to my usual 2 or 3 pixels. Photoshop doesn't have very good anti-aliasing (the thing that stops lines from looking jagged) for 1 pixel brushes, so the lines were rougher than usual as a result.

4. Foregoing some of my usual artistic crutches, such as the Zoom In tool and the Pen tool. Once again, this resulted in rougher lines, but it was also more fun and hands-on, and it forced me to give myself some leeway not to make all the lines perfectly smooth. I think I'm going to do this more often in my side projects, though I'll stick with smooth lines for Just Cause.

5. Using widely-spaced lines for weaker shading as opposed to low-opacity brushes. This is an area where I definitely have room for improvement, since I have next to no experience with it, but it was interesting to stretch myself that way for this picture.

There are more Inktober entries coming, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you want to be the first to see my completed art, and to get exclusive access to works in progress, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
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If you want me to draw something specific for you, visit this page to get the pricing and details for my commissions.

And if you want to get my art on your pillows, mugs, blankets, clothing and more, go here to see my physical merch.

 
To support me as an artist, and to get exclusive access to WIPs and advance viewing of completed chapters, please consider becoming a Patron on Patreon!

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I recently saw a picture in which the artist was trying to use glow effects, but ran into a problem because the shining soul that was casting the light was darker than the shirt it was casting that light on.

I gave them a couple tips, and decided to share those tips here, too.

1. When a dark-colored light source is casting light on a non-black object, especially one with a lighter shade than the light source, make the color of the glow slightly lighter than the color of its source.
 
​When the light source's color is darker than the object on which it's casting light (like the soul compared to the shirt), it makes it look like the soul is casting pure color or even darkness on the object it's glowing on.

2. Add a lighter shade of the base color to the center of the soul, so it looks more like a light source.

Here's a quick demo of what the abovementioned glow effects look like in total darkness and on clothing the color of the shirt they drew, so you can see the difference.
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The two souls on the top are both casting light the same shade as their base color, albeit not at full opacity. Notice how the shirt seems darkened.
 
The souls on the bottom are glowing their base color in the dark, but on the shirt, the glow is lighter than the base color, so they aren't darkening the shirt. 
 
I hope that quick art tip helps!

As you could probably guess, there's a story behind this one.

A few days ago, my dear friend, Mica Kole, sent me two pieces of great news:

One was that her short story had won second place in the Sapiens Plurum contest.

The other was that her boyfriend had proposed to her, and she'd enthusiastically said "yes" - by throwing him in the lake and then jumping in after him.

As the icing on the cake, all this happened just in time for her birthday. And what better way to celebrate her birthday, her engagement, and her literary victory than with a piece of fan art that includes an in-joke from her proposal story?

To my delight, she enjoyed the picture, and gave me permission to share her birthday gift and her great news with my readers.

Here's a version without the dialogue, in case you prefer that:
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If you want to get the context behind this picture, you can read the 3,000-word short story for free here: http://sapiensplurum.org/2018-2nd-place-winner.html

It's about a man whose inability to make basic day-to-day decisions wreaks havoc on his personal life, until he buys a flying robot named Tempest to make those decisions for him. The robot's good at her job, but even she can't do everything for him. Eventually, he's going to face choices that he has to make on his own.

How much of this picture is based on the story and how much is based on the proposal, I won't say right now, because SPOILERS. Just go read the story. Go do it. Shoo.

And if you want to get early access to stories like that, as well as useful writing tips, don't forget to support Mica on Patreon!

    
​Commissions       ​Physical merch

Hello, all you awesome people!

I've you've been following my blog for a while, you might have noticed that my update schedule's been a bit weird lately. Mostly because I want to update you on new stuff I make when I make it, but there's only a one in seven chance that I'm going to finish any given project on a Tuesday.

After thinking about it for a while, I've decided that I'm no longer going to stick with a weekly blogging schedule. Instead, I'm just going to update this blog whenever I have something new to share, regardless of what day of the week it is.

That way, you get to hear about my newest creations as soon as they're done instead of having to wait for the next Tuesday to come around, and I don't feel pressured to come up with a piece of content in time for Tuesday when I want to be working on something that will be finished on Wednesday.

(Which, incidentally, the next page of my Undertale fan comic, Just Cause, will be.)

Sometimes it might be a little over a week between updates, other times there might be multiple updates in one week.

If you want to get notifications via social media when I publish a new story, article, piece of art, or other creation, you can see a list of my social media channels here. Go ahead and pick your favorite one!

And if you want to get early access to completed creations, and exclusive access to works in progress, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

Thanks for taking this journey with me. I look forward to continuing to share little pieces of my weird inner world with you!

For those of you who've been reading my Undertale webcomic, Just Cause, or who are thinking of getting into it in the near future, I have some exciting news:

I've gotten enough of the prose version written that I think I've filled in most or all of the possible plot holes, so starting in May, I plan to start releasing parts of the fanfiction to patrons pledging $3 and up on my Patreon.

That means after each comic update, my patrons will get to see a sneak peek of the next scene, weeks before the corresponding comic page comes out.

The whole prose version of the story will be released to the general public once it's complete. I'd do it earlier, but this tale's gotten so intricate that I want to get the whole thing written before I set it loose on the open web, just in case there's still something I've missed.

I've also decided to make the work-in-progress previews of the comic available to ALL my patrons, not just the $10 tier and up.

​I wanted to make my most popular story more accessible to people with tighter budgets, so hopefully this helps.

I've seen a few people doing open collaborations, and I thought it would be fun to do one of my own.
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For those who don't know, and open collab is where one artist creates part of a picture - usually the lineart - and invites others to do the rest and share the results. This could include color, shading, backgrounds, or all of the above.

I deliberately left the face off of this one, because I like how ambiguous the pose is. Is Mettaton jumping? Fighting? Posing for the camera? Inviting a dance partner to come join him? Sleeping? Dead? You decide!

If you choose to participate, please:

1. Add your name or URL to the credits on the image

2. Don't remove my URL from the credits

3. Send me a link to the completed picture, so I can show your work to my watchers and followers!

If you want to have the color, background and lineart in separate layers, you can use the .psd file I've attached below.

I look forward to seeing what you create. :)

If you're an artist who uses Photoshop 7.0, and you want the size of your brush stroke to exactly match the size of your brush, you probably know the struggle.

You carefully glide the brush or eraser in the exact place where you want it to take effect, grazing the edge of the patch of color that you want to enlarge or shave down... and nothing happens.

The outer edge of your brush has no effect, Captain, and your perfect brushstroke was wasted.

If you've been finding that only the very center of your brush will draw, there's a good chance that a feature called "Shape Dynamics" is activated.

Shape Dynamics is supposed to allow you to control the shape of your brush by the way you angle and press down with your pen, and it actually has a positive effect on some brushes.

But when you're trying to do precision work by barely grazing something with the edge of your brush, and you just want your brush to stay predictably at the same size, it becomes a huge hindrance.

To make matters worse, there's no simple way to permanently turn it off in Photoshop 7.0. No matter how many times you turn it off, every time you switch to a brush that has it active by default, it will turn back on.

I've heard tell of some legendary button that looks like a pen inside a circle, and supposedly it's supposed to solve this problem, but if it's lurking somewhere in my interface, I haven't been able to find it.

If you don't have this button in your Photoshop, you have three options:

1. Resign yourself to using brushes with Shape Dynamics active.

2. Turn off Shape Dynamics every time you switch to a brush whose default settings include that feature being turned on.

3. The solution I found: create a new set of brushes with Shape Dynamics inactive. It's a bit tedious, but it's easier than you probably think it will be, and it permanently solves the problem of Shape Dynamics turning itself back on.

NOTE: If you like Shape Dynamics in some scenarios, you can always turn it back on, or keep/create brush presets that include it. This process simply stops it from turning on by itself after you've turned it off.

How to create new brushes without shape dynamics:

Step 1: Select the brush you want to use without shape dynamics.

For best results, start with the brush you want to have displayed at the beginning of your brush menu.

Photoshop 7.0 doesn't allow you to change the order in which your brushes are displayed after they're created, so I suggest creating the brushes in the order in which you want them to appear.

The new brushes will appear at the bottom of the selection, so if you want them to be at the front of the list, you'll have to create copies of ALL the brushes you want to keep in the order in which you want them to appear, and then delete the originals.

This is the main reason why the process is so tedious, but it also gives you the chance to explore, modify and create some brushes that you might never have noticed or discovered otherwise.

Step 2: Open the "brushes" tab.

This tab is in the top navigation bar, just to the right of "File Browser".
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Step 3: Deselect "Shape Dynamics".

As you'll see in the picture below, deactivating this feature means the brushstroke is always the same size as the brush, rather than shrinking at the ends or in response to brush pressure.

As noted above, you can turn it back on anytime you want, but the next step will prevent it from turning back on spontaneously after you turn it off.
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Step 4: While "Shape Dynamics" is inactive, create a new brush.

At the bottom right of the "brushes" tab menu, click the icon that looks like a box with a smaller, bisected box inside it. You can see it circled in the image below.

Once you've clicked this, a pop-up will appear, prompting you to name your new brush. After you click "OK", this new Shape Dynamics-free brush will be added at the bottom of your list of brushes.
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Repeat this process for every brush for which you want to have a version that has Shape Dynamics turned off by default.

As previously noted, you should create the brushes in the order in which you want them to appear, since you can't rearrange existing brushes.

If you want your new brushes to be displayed at the top of the brush list, you'll have to use this method to create copies of all the brushes you want to keep, then delete the originals.

While you're doing this, you might as well arrange the brushes in the order in which you use them most, put ones you frequently use together close to each other, or otherwise organize your brushes in a way that suits you.

I also encourage you to play around with the other brush effects while you're deactivating Shape Dynamics. You might find a new appearance for a brush that you didn't realize was available.

Here are some examples of how brush effects change a leaf brush's stroke:

I ended up saving several different versions of some of the brushes, each with a different effect or set of effects active.

​While you're changing the Shape Dynamics and otherwise altering the brush before saving your new version of it, you should also set each brush to the size at which you're most likely to use it.

Congratulations! You're now free from unwanted self-reactivating Shape Dynamics.

I hope you found this article helpful. If you did, please share it with anyone else you know who's been cussing at Photoshop and unhelpful how-to articles for this issue, and check out my other art advice articles.

And if you want to support me as an artist, storyteller, and provider of art and writing tips, please consider becoming a patron on my Patreon:
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