Page 15, The Kids Mysteriously Wash Up On A Remote Beach

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jimmy_betty_washed_up.blog.png, Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, children's picture book

After I created this page I realized I that need to create a prior page to explain how the kids go from getting ejected from their boat to ending up exhausted on a beach. When I change the plot a little, I sometimes have to backtrack and add pages to explain what’s going on.

I sketched the original in Photoshop and did the coloring in Clip Studio Paint.

Big news! After months of doing research, I’ve ordered the components I need to update my 7-year old PC. I order a Ryzen 7 5600X cpu, an ASUS TUF B550 motherboard, 32GB of ram, and a 1TB M.2 drive. I chose the 5600x because of it’s high single-core speed, which is what I need for Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. I didn’t upgrade my GPU, an old GTX 750 ti.

Chore Day, Jan 16, with Feng Zhu Brush

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chore_day_jan_16_feng_zhu_brush.blog.jpg, Victor Staris, Feng Zhu brush, landscape, concept art, Photoshop

Today was a simple chore day. There was only vacuuming and laundry on my TODO list. Next week I’ll be pruning trees, and vacuuming, and doing laundry. I like the groove I’m in.

I’ve been thinking about my work flow a lot. I want to simplify it. Should I do everything in Clip Studio Paint EX, or should I just go directly to InDesign and Photoshop, the eventual destination of all of my work? I’ll decide in the coming months.

Last year Youtube was buzzing with artists who were outraged that Adobe would raise the monthly rental of Photoshop from $10 to $20. They were going to switch to Krita, or Gimp, or Affinity Photo, or some other software. I bought Affinity Photo to interview it as a replacement and all I got was a profound appreciation for the many virtues of Photoshop. Many programs have some features that may be slicker than those in PS, but the fact is that PS is good enough at more things than all of the competition combined. It works.

Housekeeping With Computers

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Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California, 2010

Yesterday I tried to open a file with Photoshop and got the message: Photoshop could not complete your request because of a program error. After a little digging in the Adobe Dumpster, I learned that the latest version of Photoshop won’t work with my antique 2014 graphics card. The solution, I read, was buy a better graphics card. Hummph!

Instead of spending $300 for a new GPU for my 2014 computer that’s worth about $100, I moved my 2017 iMac from the sidelines into the production line. It took all afternoon to transfer files and set up my Wacom Expresskeys and CIntiq, and then update Clip Studio Paint EX and Rebelle 4 to the latest versions.

The iMac is definitely has a faster GPU than my antique PC, but overall, my old PC is just about as fast as my iMac. Besides being a a little newer and an iota faster than my old rig, the iMac has a sweet 27-inch 5K monitor. My only reservation about switching from Windows to macOS is that I really like the Windows file manager more than the Mac Finder.

The Plot Thickens

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For some reason I imagined a butterfly staring down a bulldozer

Now that I’ve put my mind to writing and drawing my third book in the Jimmy Jay series, I started imagining how the series will end. I’m looking several years into the future, but I can envision all of my animal friends in their biggest adventure of all — dealing with the deadliest animals on the planet. That thought made me think of bulldozers and butterflies.

Today I got the Epson P600 printer working. This printer works great — when it works — and it sucks when it doesn’t. It gobbles down $60 ink cartridges in the blink of an eye. Then it prints gorgeous prints and stickers. It’s a conundrum. I really don’t know how I got it to go from not working to working. I expected the printhead test to show that every cartridge (there are 8) was plugged. I imagined buying a new set of ink cartridges, which runs about $400. I was expecting the worst. But when I simply turned it on, for the first time in a year, it just worked as if nothing had every been wrong. Maybe there’s nothing strange about it at all … maybe it’s me not knowing what I’m doing … again.

Once the printer check out, I got my X-Rite i1Studio color calibrator out of the closet and created a new ICC profile for the sticker paper I use…and the stickers looked great. I’m just lucky, I guess.

Resources

Sales Report and Commission Junction

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I feel like I’m getting some traction! :)

I usually check my Ingramspark account once a month expecting to see that I’ve had zero sales. Today I checked and, to my surprise, I saw that I had sold 16 copies of my second book, The Butterfly Who Airlifted His Friends Over The Wall. It was a Wow moment for me even though four of those sales were the copies that I bought to send to friends. Still, a dozen copies are in real reader’s hands. Dear Readers, whoever you are and wherever you are, I thank you!

When I logged in to Clip Studio today I saw a news item announcing Clip Studio’s new affiliate program. So far I’ve only used a few Amazon affiliate links, but I really do believe that CSP is an awesome tool for creating comics that wouldn’t mind promoting to other illustrators. I’m a genuine fan — CSP has saved me hundreds of hours over the last year. So, I signed up with Commission Junction so that I can add affiliate links to this blog.

After I publish this post, I’m going to update my affiliate disclaimer on my About page.

Here’s what the link will look like when I add it to a blog post:

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Resources:
I used Clip Studio Paint EX to draw the picture in this post.

Laying Out A Picture Book In Clip Studio Paint EX

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Clip Studio Paint EX’s super power is managing projects that contain many pages of text and images. That power is the reason it’s worth the extra money over Clip Studio Paint Pro. Both versions have the same graphics tools, but CSP EX makes life easier by organizing the many files that a multiple page picture book contains.

The image above shows that I’ve created a book with 48 pages. If I want to insert or remove pages, or reorganize them, it’s easy to do. CSP EX can display the pages as single pages or as sets of two facing pages. If I want to create an image that covers two full pages, I can easily view the overall picture without having to stitch two separate files together. With the facing pages side by side, it’s easier to manage the flow of text bubbles, to coordinate color schemes, and manage the story flow.

I often use other graphics software to create images — Rebelle 4, Corel Painter, Photoshop, Procreate — and all them can can export PSD files that I can open in Clip Studio Paint.

Most importantly, CSP EX saves me time and pain.

Chore Day, Dec. 19, 2020 And The Horns Of A Dilemma

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Intuos 4, Clip Studio Paint

Today was chore day. I did the laundry, cooked, and vacuumed. Afterwards I went down to the basement and dug my Intuos 4 out of the closet. Poor Intuos! When I got my Cintiq I turned my back on her. But, now that I’m using my Cintiq 22 solely as a drawing tablet, not a display, I thought it would worth trying my Intuos again. I’m totally comfortable with a tablet now — it took several months to get to the point that I draw as well on the tablet as on the Cintiq. The worst thing about the Cintiq is my poor posture as I hunch over the screen. Using the Intuos I can sit up properly and draw on my 27-inch iMac.

On the animal front, the bears are back. This morning a bear dragged a bag of garbage into the and disemboweled it. Sigh! The bears…there’s not much you can do about 600-lb vandals.

Al Fresco Art Club Challenge, Nov 29, 2020 -- Painting with Artrage

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Painting with Artrage iOs. Resource from New Masters Academy

Today’s Al Fresco Art Club challenge was to paint digitally and get a traditional look in one hour. I used my iPad and Artrage to paint this picture of Rajiv, one of the male models featured by the New Masters Academy. I used Artrage because it has convincing oil brushes.

I also updated to Artrage 6 on my desktop and then spent the afternoon trying to figure out why the Epson printer has been acting funky. To my dismay, the printer seemed to work flawlessly. However, I won’t know for sure until I create a printer color profile for the sticker paper we use for sticker products. I’ll create the profile with the X-Rite Color Munki. While I’m at it, I’ll create color profiles for my Cintiq and for my iMac. I’m using the iMac as a second monitor for my Windows 10 PC. iMacs from 2009 and 2010 will work as second monitors using a displayport connection.

Chore Day, Nov 28, 2020: Laundry, Yard Work, and Rebelle 3

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The Corel Painter mixer palette

Today’s chores were standard fare: laundry, vacuuming the house, and doing yard work. The yard work was raking up the leaves that the neighbor’s walnut tree drops into our yard every fall.

The rest of the day I spent testing Rebelle 3, a digital painting app that does a great job of mimicking water color paint. I liked it enough to consider buying it, but my computer, going on seven years old, couldn’t hack it — all 8 threads were pegged at 100% CPU usage. To run Rebelle 3 on my system, I would have to do an upgrade of motherboard, CPU, GPU, and ram. Besides, learning another software system is a distraction. At this point, I’m married to Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop, and Corel Painter.

Title Page, One More Time

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Title page nearing completion…

Today I got may attitude straight and decided to just go for fun. The foreshortened hands I’ve been fretting over are good enough. THe next time, I’ll draw them a little better. My greatest concern is getting the book published by Sep 30 — that’s only nine days away. I still have to draw the cover image and tweak the back matter, then put everything into InDesign, get the ISBN number installed (I still have eight numbers remaining from my set of ten), and push the publish button. One inch at a time works, sometimes slowly, but it always works.