Chapter Four Pencils, Hello Bluesky, and Procreate's "Dreams" App.

[ Images contain possible spoilers! Just FYI. ]

The exciting thing I have to tell you this week is that drawing is still very hard, but is also — occasionally — very rewarding. I love how that yelly face turned out. And I'm so excited to share pirates with you all, but simultaneously I do not want to spoil them?

Two pieces of drawing wisdom that I ignored this week:

Subtle poses are sometimes the most difficult, especially if you have to get human anatomy right. In these situations, it's helpful to prop up your phone, take a photo of yourself in the required pose, and return to the drawing board with your new reference photo. This may not seem faster than experimenting with key words on Getty Images and scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, but Tony, I am here to tell you it always is.

When placing figures in perspective, follow these steps:
1) Roughly compose your figures where you need them.
2) Figure out where the horizon needs to be, then draw it in there.
3) Adjust your figures as needed to fit the rules of perspective.
Avoid drawing the horizon line in first, then perspective lines, then plopping your figures in like chess pieces. Yes, I'm still talking to you, Tony.

Always nice to re-learn these important ideas. And re-learn them. And again. And again.

Bluesky (eyeroll).

I joined the new thing. But I also… sigh… don't have the energy, or enthusiasm for funnelling my time into another of the platforms the same way I used to. But! If you're on there and you want to connect, or it's your preferred way to keep on top of things, get at me!

I still like Mastodon, but I have a feeling I'm on the Betamax side of this modern VHS/Betamax war.

Procreate Dreams.

The other day Procreate (the company that makes the drawing app of the same name) announced a new app called "Dreams." It's for animation! I LOVE ANIMATING!

I mention it only because I think the whole scenario is hilarious — they had a big marketing build-up with lots of suspense. Meanwhile I'm over here thinking, "Why are you hyping this up? I don't care what this app is. As long as it's not subscription software, I'll buy it. Especially if it is as inexpensive as the original Procreate was."

And it's not subscription software. And it is stupidly cheap. Apparently it'll be USD $20 when it comes out for a perpetual license. This seems like a bad business move on their part — I wouldn't even blink at buying it for 5x the price — so I hope they know what they're doing.

I don't even love Procreate, but I recognize that it is extremely well-made, and I do love that I can dip into it whenever it's the best tool for the job. For example, I drew all the test images for HOW TO GET THERE using Procreate. Until that point, though, I'd used it maybe once or twice in the preceding year. That's why I appreciate that it's not subscription software.

I have no time to do animation. But I absolutely do want an animation tool if it's going to be made with Procreate's level of polish and UI expertise. I want that very much. Assuming it works on my iPad, I'll buy this new app day one. When will I get around to using it? I don't even really care. It will cost less than the modest lunch I bought for me and my toddler yesterday afternoon.

- - - - -

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD! Next week I should have pencils for that fight sequence that I thumbnailed way back when.

Until next week,
I remain,
scrolling, scrolling, scrolling,

TC