I'm moving my Clip Studio Paint files to iCloud

I’d like to say that Clip Studio Cloud is really great, but it’s not. The upload speed, for me, is 0.05MP/sec, which means that large files, such as my 250MB pages with 70 layers, will never sync in my lifetime.

I wanted to use the CSP cloud so I could use Clip Studio Paint Ex on my iPad up to work on my book files. It seemed like the obvious thing to do, but what’s the point of having 100GB of storage when you don’t get the bandwidth necessary to move large image files.

My solution was to give up on the Clip Studio Cloud and put my 22GB of book files into the my iCloud account. Within an hour all of my files were shareable on my iPad. Problem solved.

Dreading Page 28 -- The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost

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Every time I see page 28 I cringe and move on to another page, any page. Now that I’m almost finished repainting the many damaged pages I created a year ago, page 28 has floated like a corpse to the top of the stack. My job is to make this character, Betty Burro, cute. She also has to look like all of the other Betty Burro paintings in the book. Yikes!

We’re having weather straight from Hell. It’s 104 outside and close to 90 in the studio. The humans are sweating and the canines are panting. Our downstairs space, however, is a comfortable 72. So that I can work without sweating — and the dogs can be comfortable — I've decided to work down there. To do that, I need to move my work station downstairs…or, I need to install Clip Studio Paint on my iPad. I’ve tried it before and didn’t really take to it. I’m hoping that it works out better this time. Maybe I can overcome the bitter taste of my previous encounter. Maybe...

Sunday, June 26, 2022: A Hot Day in Southern Oregon

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We’re having one of our rare 100+ degrees days. Nacho the Pug is having a hard time dealing with it. My solution is to wet him down thoroughly. I’ll take him for a very short walk this evening.

The picture is a section from a TRI-X negative. What I love about it is the grain. This is a straight scan, with no processing.

Combining solitary pages into two-page spread with Clip Studio Paint EX

These odd-sized pages have been combined into a two-page spread

Over the 18 months I’ve been working on this book, I’ve used several painting programs besides Clip Studio Paint — Krita, Photoshop, Procreate, and Rebelle. What I didn’t think about when I used those programs was getting the page size right. It didn’t occur to me that Clip Studio Paint EX can only combine pages into two-page spreads unless the pages are exactly the same size and resolution.

I’ve accumulated twenty pages with the wrong dimensions or resolution. Some pages were A4 size and 350 dpi, when they should have been 11.40x9.00 inches at 300 dpi. I spent the day changing nonconforming pages to exactly 11.40x 9.00 inches.at 300 dpi.

Some of the pages, like the example above couldn't be scaled without loosing content. I had to resize those files by scaling them up or down, resulting is some blank areas at the top and bottom. I first scaled the image to 11.40 inches wide, then changed the canvas size to 11.40x9.00 inches.

I’ll have to rework all of the pages that were imported at the wrong size. I could have avoided that extra work if I had been diligent about adhering to the project page size set in the StoryIP) -> Page Manager.

It’s been another live and learn day.

Changing the Birthday Cake Page

Momma’s right arm is a work in progress

I’ve decided that the Ringmaster and the Clown really don’t need to be in the birthday cake scene. They’re out. Instead I’m going to show Momma Burro serving two pieces of cake. The challenge is to draw her right arm carrying the cake high, at chin level. I looked for reference pictures of waiters and waitresses carrying food, but I couldn’t find pictures taken from the angle I need. Tomorrow I’m going to photograph myself in the pose I want.

Getting back into photography, film photography, that is

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May 30, Memorial Day, 2022

I started the day by making our lunch. I made a savory sauce, roasted sweet potato cubes, smokey collard greens, and barbecued tempeh. All plants. Not a single animal product. Nobody died for my lunch.

In the afternoon my beloved partner and I walked Nacho in the hills above our house. She brought her Polaroid SX-70 camera and took a few pix using 5-year old film. Surprisingly, some of the pictures demonstrate the dreamy Polaroid glow. When you shoot Polaroid, you are sometimes blessed with happy accidents. That’s life with a 50-year old camera.

In one of the pictures, I’m wearing a new pair of glasses that I bought online, from Zenni. I’m using a temporary prescription for the next few months until my cataract surgeries heal up.

I’m going to get back into photography, in a small way this time. I’ll be putting some photos here from time to time.

Brand names I mentioned in this post just because I like the products. Relax — there’s no kickback coming my way.

• Zenni browline glasses

• Polaroid SX-70

Drawing a Circus Tent, second attempt

I used a reference to draw this picture of a fabulous Mexican circus. Clip Studio Paint EX helped me draw the yellow and red bands quickly with the Lasso Fill tool.

The more I use Clip Studio Paint, the more I appreciate the tools designed for drawing comics. Even after drawing three books with CSP, I’m aware of only 10% of CSP’s features. I enjoy fiddling with other painting programs, but when I have a deadline, I reach for CSP.

Still getting my act together --- pain, pain, pain!

I’m going through Windows withdrawal as I’m moving Clip Studio Paint over to my Mac. Pain, pain, pain...

At least I’ve got Emacs and VirtualBox working. Photoshop is okay, and Clip Studio Paint EX is here, but all of my settings didn’t make it through the migration. Pain, pain, pain…

I tried to make a screenshot using the Mac screenshot tool to show my storyboard for the final pages of book 3. Tthough I was told the image would be saved on the Desktop, it ain’t there. Pain, pain, pain!

Enough whining for one day.

My right eye doesn’t seem any better today than it was yesterday. I’ve been told it may take up to two months to heal. So be it…

Setting up Clip Studio Paint on my Mac

Testing Clip Studio Paint on my Mac.

I want to do more work on my iPad and iMac. Although I’m happy when working with Windows, just moving an image from the iPad to the Windows machine is a pain. Understand, I have a 2017 iMac with an awesome 27-inch screen to work with. It may be slightly slower than my PC, but I can airdrop images to it, which saves me the time that I would spend uploading an image to iCloud, then downloading it to my PC. In other words, the simpler workflow saves me time and lowers the aggravation level, which makes me a happier, though struggline, novice writer.

Freehand inking versus bezier curves with Clip Studio Paint EX

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After struggling for days to ink this page using Clip Studio Paint’s bezier curves, I decided to revert to freehand inking. Learning on the job can lead to massive slowdowns, even coming to a complete halt, while climbing a steep learning curve. So, back to freehand inking it is. I’m still using CSP’s vector layers and I can still use the vector tools to correct to fix wayward lines, of which there are plenty.