FanArt_1000Semesters

This was one of my first, full illustrations since making the switch to Clip Studio Paint, after about a decade or so with Photoshop.  Sadly, I had to leave the old program behind--and it was old, it mighta been v2; it was already pretty old at the time, but it served me well--though I've certainly fallen in love with Clip Studio Paint.  It's such a great program, and it's pretty much everything you could want.  Again, I'm operating on an older version at this point, but yet again, it's got pretty much everything you'd want, no need for additional bells and whistles.   

That isn't to say there can't be improvements.  I certainly wish we had an easier chromatic aberration method, rather than the workarounds you gotta do, but I hear the new version, 5, does have this now.  The other thing that's so annoying is that when you're transforming something, if you ever release whatever you're moving, it'll then pick up stuff outside of your initial selection rather than shrink-wrapping your selection...so annoying, especially if you've already rotated something and now you gotta re-do that so you don't mess up neighboring elements.

It'd also be so much more convenient if you could draw straight lines vertically and horizontally, justified to the canvas, from the get-go without having to make a guide.  But there are so many things it does perhaps better than PS.  Like, I love the asset shop, where you can find all kinds of cool stuff, including textures, models, and quick actions, on top of the brushes, of course.  And then there's the annual Clippy event where you can earn points to get some of the paid assets.    

I love that unlike PS, when you go to a different layer then undo, you don't get reverted back to the original layer--so annoying.  I also love how customizable things are, and you can tag your materials, which I believe they improved even more in newer versions.  I love using the Quick Action menu to navigate, that's gigantic; couldn't imagine CSP without it.  The little panel of options that pops up when you select something takes a little getting used to, but it's also quite convenient, though I do wish it'd position itself a little further away from the action.

Anyway, really kicking the tires with this illustration, I was inspired by my incredulousness at how I can never quite manage to translate my focus from MTGinktober into illustrations for myself.  How hard can that be?  After super getting in the zone by the end of October, I feel like all that know-how and flow just fade away, so I wanted to try to harness that momentum into a 100% digital illustration, just using that honed process in this new medium.  

It's unclear why I went with King Bob from Recess, of all characters.  I detest royalty, and wasn't even too big of a fan of Bob himself, for that matter.  But it came off a series of quick-ish (for me) illustrations meant to test out CSP's digital G-pen, after my regular, intensive months I'd jam with the real thing.  Although, looking at the file properties, it looks like this series was done in August, leading up to 2023's Inktober...musta wanted to get in the zone, or to see if I could rekindle that flow before actually getting there in real life.

Not normal,

Reuxben