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.

When You Only Have 20 Minutes, Take a Picture of Your Desk

Left to right: Lenovo Thinkpad W530 (2013), iMac (2017), iMac as PC monitor (2011), Cintiq 22 (2019)

On the left is the Thinkpad I’m setting up as a graphics work station. It’s slow, but fast enough for the work I do. The battery is nearly dead — it runs for about 45 minutes before it turns itself off. The old iMac makes a good 27-inch monitor for my PC, which is under the table. I have a pair of low-end Logitech speakers behind the old iMac and a pair of old Grado SR80 headphones that I’ve kept alive for 20 years with several application of glue.

The slowest CPU in the room is definitely my brain. I’ve got all of the gear I’ll ever need, and downstairs I have a lifetime supply of watercolor paint and Copic markers. Now all I need is some time to draw. As the wise man said, “Art is long; life is short.” He got that right.

The Friday That Turned into a Chore Day

My book’s files imported into my Mac via Clip Studio Cloud

My book’s files imported into my Mac via Clip Studio Cloud

Today I resumed working full-time on my second children’s book. However, as change is the only constant in life, my plans for a productive are day went up in smoke.

I started the day with a chore: fixing the bathroom window. About year the double pane window’s balance springs broke with a mighty snap. When I tried to dismantle the window to see what was going on, I was stumped and decided to prop the window open with a glass bowl until I had some time to do research on how to fix the problem. This research went on for a year, but today, with the help of some Youtube repair vloggers, I dismantled the window and replaced the coil springs. It was an easy job, I thought, but it took me more than two hours. Now that I know how it all works, I could probably do it in 15 minutes.

The next chore was getting my Cintiq hooked up to my iMac, which I thought would be easy. My iMac is a bit faster then my old PC…not much, but it does have a nice 27-inch screen that I can use for color corredtion. Since my files were synced to Clip Studio Cloud…or so I thought…it would be easy to jump over to the iMac, sync the files, and start working. To my dismay, when I synced the book’s files to my iMac, my work for the last two weeks was missing. I had to reconnect my PC to a monitor, then figure out why the files hadn’t been synced. The Clip Studio Cloud has a baffling interface, but I think I managed to sync my most recent files…maybe. I really should read instructions before pressing The Big Red Button. I eventually succeeded in syncing my PC’s files to the Clip Studio Cloud, and then to my iMac. I’m back in business.