+Cosmoe

Art done by me on October 25th, 2019.  Art done by me in Adobe Photoshop 2018 CC with a Wacom Intuos tablet.

~ welcome to my heart's space ~

Art drawn by me on October 18, 2019.  Digital art program used is Adobe Photoshop 2018 CC - with the use of a Wacom Intuos tablet.

Beautiful. Valid. Amazing!!

Never, and I mean NEVER, be afraid to take inspiration from someone or something else.  It does NOT make you seem uncreative or unoriginal.  It does NOT make you a copycat or a thief.  It does NOT mean you are less powerful to "create your own things". It does NOT mean you won't have your own individual style - it does NOT mean that your work just will look like someone else's.  It does not mean that all of the "you" has been taken out of it.  It does not mean that that work is ANY LESS VALUABLE than the work that didn't take inspiration from something else.  No matter how much you were inspired by one specific thing to do this particular work - this particular work is STILL YOUR WORK, not someone else's, even if it reminds you or others of the thing you took inspiration from.  Not everything has to have its own complete individual style that stands alone different from everything else in the universe.  Things can just be beautiful creations.  They are valid, good, and amazing.  In truth - EVERYTHING you see all around you has been inspired by something else.  Even the things you think are original are really just things inspired by a huge culmination of different things instead of mostly being inspired by one thing.  That's the only real difference!  And don't ever worry about copyrights and not being able to take ownership of your own characters when you do a fan-fiction.  The characters and the story and the artwork is YOURS, all YOURS!  Even if in the worst case scenario you find out that you cannot post that story publicly anymore under your name because of copyright issues, you can just change out the specific copyrighted things out for something else and KEEP YOUR STORY.  Because, it is YOUR STORY.    They are your characters, it is your story, it has your heart, and NO ONE CAN TAKE THEM FROM YOU.  Your work is safe.  And plus!  Copyright issues are very unlikely to happen!  Fan-fictions are made all the time and widely respected by people of all ages!  People love fan-fictions!  Fan-fictions are not a crutch to lean on, they are your OWN INCREDIBLE WORK!  The Sheer amount of genius that you put into your fan-fiction should never be dimmed down for ANY REASON! IT IS BRILLIANT!  And of course, never forget that even if you start out completely straight-out copying someone else's work - you KNOW you're a creative genius and even when you try to copy something exactly, you end up adding your own special sparkle to it that makes it yours!!  You tend to start of with the inspiration picture, and then inspiration starts flowing like a rainbow waterfall - the picture starts growing, evolving like a metamorphosis, veering away from the original inspiration, into your Very Own Creation - and often time that results in your Very Own Original Character!!  But even if it doesn't, never forget that THAT'S OKAY!!   Even if it is exactly a picture of someone else's character, there is still that sparkle to make it YOUR picture of someone else's character - and hey guess what?  That's YOUR WORK!  CONGRATULATIONS!!  YOU'RE AMAZING!!!

Be who you are and say what you feel, 
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.  
         ~Dr Seuss

harder thing first

Here are the two latest drawings of Iris and Jasper, my original characters!  Each picture has the character on one side and on the other side their name alone with some words or phrases that describe that character.  Iris is female and Jasper is male. 

I really love these!  I think both of these drawings are some of my best digital work so far!  This is probably something I will say about every new drawing I do - but that doesn't make it any less true!  Every drawing is my personal best at that moment, and that's the truth.  I deserve to be proud of myself for that!  

Jasper was easier to draw than Iris, and that may be because I drew him off of another picture of him on the blog while I just tried to draw Iris from my mind.  Or it might be because I drew Jasper after I drew Iris and so therefore I'd, obviously, had more practice with using Photoshop.  But another thing that surprised me that definitely helped make drawing Jasper easier was the fact that for Jasper I used the pencil tool, instead of the brush tool I had used for Iris and had been using for all of my Photoshop drawings thus far.  Ever since I've started using Photoshop I've wished that the brush tool could be more pixel-y, because from experience using the Scratch Bitmap editor it really seems like a more pixel-y brushes would be easier for me to control.  Of course I am generalizing because I have only really used the Scratch Bitmap editor to make this judgment.  However, when I opened Photoshop and started drawing Jasper, I noticed how much easier it felt that time. Like I was just drawing, not straining to make the lines take the right shape.  And when I zoomed in on the picture, I saw that the lines had a firmer, more rigid edge to them than I had seen before, and I was delighted by this crisp new look.  After a few moments I realized that I'd been using the pencil tool instead of the brush tool, and that was why I was seeing such a difference. I used the pencil tool for the entire Jasper picture except for the shadowing and reflections - so that the light and shadows would look not stark and jarring but instead smooth, gentle and easy.  I'm so happy that the pencil tool is another option for me!!

Even though I am very happy to have found the pencil tool, I am also grateful that I used the brush tool first.  If I had used the pencil tool first - for one thing it wouldn't feel as easy as now because at that time, when I first stared out in Photoshop, I had less experience working with the software, and then for another thing even if the pencil tool was easier starting out than the brush tool was starting out, it would have been so much harder for me to then learn how to use the brush tool.  I would have had a simple, go-to, easier option in the form of the pencil tool - why would I bother trying to master the more difficult brush?  I would want to, but it's possible it might have been harder.  It would have taken discipline not to use the easier brush but to instead use the harder one so that I could master it.  But as it is, I learnt the harder brush first so that after that everything felt easy.  I cannot know for sure that all of this is fully true, that it would have worked out this way in an alternate turn of events, because that's not how things went.  Maybe I would have had the same experience even if I had started out with the pencil tool because in that case the pencil tool would feel harder (because of lack of photoshop experience) and the brush would have been easier after some time and some experience had been gained.  But what I do know is that generally speaking, in my life, it's always helpful to do the harder thing first and maser it, because then doing the easier thing is a breeze in comparison, and at the end of the day I know that I have both the brush tool and the pencil tool as options for me to use, because I've learnt them both.  

I love how doing art can be like little life lessons, help me understand myself and build my confidence.  

Both pictures drawn by me in Adobe Photoshop 2018 CC.  I drew the picture of Iris on September 27, 2019.  I drew the picture of Jasper on October 4, 2019.

~Ethereal~

Art done by me.  Picture drawn by me in the Scratch Bitmap editor: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tutorial=getStarted.  Picture drawn by me on September 26, 2019.

-Prism & Ethereal-

Here are two of my characters:

Prism

Ethereal

All Art done by me in Adobe Sketch on the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil.  First picture drawn by me on September 13, 2019.  Second picture drawn by me on September 19, 2019.