Tuca as a teenager

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Today I had cataract surgery. The ophthalmologist removed the cloudy lens in my right lens and replaced it with an acrylic lens. I had been dreading this surgery for years. The thought of someone cutting my eye with a razor-sharp diamond scalpel was more than I could deal with.

Afraid as I was of surgery, I was also afraid of not being able to drive at night. Night driving had become a frightening ordeal .When you have a full blown cataract, the glare of oncoming headlines turns the darkness into a wall of white light, which is not fun when you’re driving on a two-lane highway.. I scoured youtube for cataract surgery videos. As my ignorance of cataracts diminished, I was able to schedule surgery for my eye.

Changing contrast, brightness, and saturation with Clip Studio Paint EX

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The painting on the left is my original image. On the right I’ve applied two correction laygers: hue, brightness, and saturation, and contrast. The image on the right looks dreary because there are no highlight. I’ll add them tomorrow.

Learning how to use the Clip Studio Paint bezier curve tool

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I spent an hour trying to get this guy’s hands looking right, and didn’t succeed. Working with Bezier curves is a challenge, but I figure if I keep hammering away at it, I will prevail. To quote myself, “If they can do it, I can do it.” Of course, I know that I can’t sing like Pavarotti or dance like Baryshnikov. But just maybe I can learn to trace over my drawings using the pen tool if I practice every day.

Page 64, with sketchy background and Kitty Kat riding high

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The volcano demon, also known as a magical tabby cat, is celebrating her victory. There’s a lot going on in this picture and I’m still learning how to use bezier curves. It’s fun and I plan to practice hard and get good at using the pen tool. When I say good, I really mean okay, competent.

Jimmy Jay Drawn with vectors in Clip Studio Paint

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This my first vector drawing. I had many before before I could complete this simple drawing. I’ve been practicing using the vector pen tool with Illustrator and Affinity Design, and now with Clip Studio Paint EX. CSP’s bezier curves have some useful features that I haven’t seen in Illustrator of Affinity Design. Jeez! That statement doesn’t mean anything. I know almost nothing about those two programs, I may be insanely wrong.

When I’m learning something new, I really have to push myself to keep going. It’s all too easy for me to say, “Bezier curves are stupid and I’m so talented I don’t need”, and then quit. That’s the way I operated for most of my life. I got enthusiastic, tried and little, and gave up with things got tough. I’m glad I got over that kind of thinking. Even though it took me 50 years, it’s never to late get out of the ditch and get back on track.

macOS vs the Intuos Tablet

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Beside doing chores today (vacuuming and laundry), I spent hours trying to get my Wacom Intuos tablet working on my Mac. Here’s how it went.

I go to the Wacom site, find the instructions for fixing the Intuos/macOS problem. I follow the instructions. I restart the computer, and the tablet works. I turn off the computer, try the tablet, and it doesn’t work.

I figure I must have done something wrong. I do everything over, but I go even further — I search the entire file system for anything named “wacom” and delete everything I find. I restart the computer, reinstall the Wacom software, restart the computer, and it works. When I log out and restart the computer, nothing works.

This Intuos tablet simply isn’t going to work on macOS unless, perhaps, I revert to a previous version of macOS. But, I’m not going to do that. Instead I’m going to stop banging my head against the wall. When I want to work in ArtStudio Pro on my Mac, I’ll use my Cintiq.

The Too Many Hands Problem

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too many hands in the picture, children's picture book, Clip Studio Paint EX

With this picture I realize I’m banging my head against the limit of my composition skills. My characters are static and I don’t know what to do with their hands. I’m going to do some research and then redraw this picture.

This is the kind of problem that makes me feel like I don’t know dick about drawing from imagination. I dive into a drawing thinking I know what I’m doing and end up concluding that I always start with a good reference. I’m impatient, and that impatience makes me a slow learner.

Experiment with Clip Studio Paint Automatic Colorization

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Clip Studio Paint EX has a colorization tool. You draw the line art, then set a color layer beneath it and paint “hints” of color. When you push the colorize button, Clip Studio Paint pushes the line art and color hints to the Cloud, processes them and sends back the colored image. Unfortunately, the AI doesn’t really do a good job if there are any details in the picture. It seems to work okay with simple geometric shapes.

I’d say that this “tool” isn’t worth using at this time, unless you like to fiddle around trying to transform a clod into a diamond.

Krita has a similar tool and it seems to work. At least David Revoy can make it work. Check out his Youtube video about the Krita colorize mask.

Page 65 -- Going to a Party in Acapulco!

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cute animals, burro, jay bird, dolphin,Clip Studio Paint EX, Children's Picture Book

Moving on to page 65. The kids are getting back on track — now they’re heading back to their original destination, Acapulco, where they had planned to go to a birthday party.