Meta

Meta: … and now for a short intermission …

| Cornelius G.

FYI, this blog will go on a short break while I take care of (sigh) some important admin stuff (doublesigh).

I’ll be back on Halloween (hopefully/dreadfully) with a few witches and warlocks and some unfamiliar familiars in tow.

After that there’ll be something of a “soft reboot” for this blog. I’ll tell you what I mean by that shortly after I’ve figured it out for myself. I’ll finish a couple of my projects or at least officially put them on indefinitie hiatus.

More importantly I’m embarking on a new project. Working title: “Souls/Sisters”. Schedule: TBA.

Take care,

Cornelius

No more Twitter

Aside | | Cornelius G.

Sorry to the people following me on Twitter, but I decided I’m not going to publicize there anymore. No offense to anyone on there, I just read one tweet too many to want to be associated with them until they clean up their act a bit. (I’m not advocating censorship. They are not a government organization.)

Big Time, Baby

Image | | Cornelius G.

Another schedule update! I promise this will be the last one until the next one. I’m gonna change posting times to midnight UTC for a while. Probably. Right now, I am also considering not having an official schedule at all. There’s advantages to it, but there’s also something to be said for being flexible and unpredictable. Can one be ever unpredictable yet always perfectly on time? Gotta be some kind of wizard to pull that one off… Time will tell…

True story: I own an hourglass, but I accidentally broke it, and now it’s stuck between moments. Presumably a shard of glass is blocking the sand… Yes, let’s go with that perfectly rational explanation, and not think about it any more ever again.

plz like share subscribe comment

| Cornelius G.

Hello! I’ve decided to try to promote this blog a bit. I’d really like to build a true community here, and then find a way to monetize that community. So I thought it would be a good step to ask (beg, implore, convince, stop just short of manipulating) you to help with that. Or at least to clarify that I definitely don’t mind if you spread the word, give positive feedback and/or tell me what kind of stuff you’d like to see more of.

So, you know, tell your friends (that might be interested). Tell your relatives. Tell your acquaintances. Tell your teachers/students/fellow students. Tell your enemies. Tell your frenemies. I’m not asking you to tell random strangers since that might get a bit too awkward, but in the end all of this is up to your own judgement.

Take care,

Cornelius

Secret Origins: Skedio / The Choir

| Cornelius G.

I’ve decided to make a couple of posts about how this blog got started, and various milestones and memorable moments. This time I want to talk about Skedio, which had a fairly significant role with regard to my interest in digital art. What is Skedio? Well, this description from their page is fairly accurate, I think:

“Skedio bridges the gap between classic sketching applications with limited editing tools and complex design software that targets computer graphics professionals.”

Details are fairly easy to find out for anyone who cares, so I’ll just mention what was important to me. It’s fun, pleasant to use and pretty intuitive. It has enough features so it doesn’t feel like your’re just basically drawing stuff as usual, except with more strain on the eyes, but not so many that it feels like work getting to know them. (Also, fonts are limited, but it does Chinese characters, which turned out to be relevant)

For sketching and line drawings I think it might be pretty useful even beyond a semi-professional level, though that’s a bit of a guess. Otherwise, you’ll probably run up against the limitations at some point, even as a hobbyist. That’s how it went for me at least. But it was really, really great for getting started at the very least, and I seriously consider getting back to it and just accept the limits or add gradients and whatnot via something else just because it’s fun to use.

I think the very first thing I drew with it might have been the rain character picture. I’m not quite sure. But the goofy (yet charming) choir above was… perhaps not literally the last, but the one where I concluded I’d have to try something else with more options. Please note with the appropriate amount of awe* that I drew this entirely without using layers (Now available with Skedio by paying a bit extra, but that wasn’t the case then) and it was pretty darn fiddly!

There’s a bit to of a story to the picture, mainly that it’s for an as-yet unrealized project, but I’m not going into that now. I just want to say that I really like how this one turned out. Bit of a candid quality to it, I think.

*I’m thinking something in the area of slightly raised eyebrows and a somewhat more than polite appreciative nod or two, but use our own judgement. I’m not saying no to a full-on Not Bad.

 

Beat of My Own Drum (New Schedule!)

| Cornelius G.

A while ago it seemed prudent to me to give this blog a slightly lower priority for a while. Still does, really, but there’s other considerations besides what is prudent, such as what the hell and why not. At any rate, I’m reprioritizing once more and the blog is moving up this time. Also, I feel like shaking things up a bit anyway.

So. New schedule. This blog will update every second day from now on, on every even day.

That is, there’ll be a post on the 8th, then on the tenth, then on the twelfth, and so on, regardless of what day of the week.

Not quite sure how exactly I’ll manage do that, though. I guess I’ll figure it out unless I won’t. Probably things are going to be a bit more casual around here.

Meanwhile, I’ve still got a few HSK1 flashcards in the pipeline, which I’ll post starting tomorrow, but let’s have something different right now. How about this old thing I’ve got lying around?