new year, new decade, new tablet

welcome to the doodlemancy blog. it's new as of today.

2019 was rough. i made a few pieces i was decently happy with, but this Fina one is the only thing i was really that proud of:

my single accomplishment in 2019: fan art for a semi-obscure JRPG you can't buy anywhere now

...and it felt like a fluke. not to be dramatic but for quite a while, i’ve been feeling like my goals are impossible, i’m never going to finish any project ever, and i am probably the worst artist in this universe and also all parallel universes in which i exist as some kind of artist. drawing has been A SLOG. just thinking about it made me feel tired and frustrated. lately, most of my drawing time has just been my patreon sketch requests, because at least that gets me paid and makes someone happy, cue sad violin and handkerchief honk. and then while doodling on my samsung galaxy tablet (a very fun rectangle, but small and not suitable for serious drawing) i thought, "i just want this, but bigger".

i had outgrown my tools. i got a bamboo 9 years ago and learned to draw digitally on that, then switched to an intuos 4. i’ve finally reached the point where the visual disconnect and small drawing area is causing me problems i just can’t solve. detailing feels like playing pool during an earthquake. the small drawing area strains my wrist and stiffens my drawings. my skills and needs have surpassed the capabilities of this rectangle.

this motherfucker cost me $79.99 in 2011 and had the AUDACITY to not even have a good pen. the drawing area is big enough for ants, maybe. i look on this with the same horror as we look back on medieval medicine and public executions

this one had a good pen and the LED button labels were great. the drawing area was roomy, at least by comparison to the bamboo. but. no screen. it's a problem.

i've been using non-monitor graphics tablets for as long as i've been doing digital art. 10 years ago, wacom was basically all their was, and the price of a cintiq was so astronomically high i had to convince myself i didn't want/need one so i wouldn't feel sad about it. same deal with the iPad when it started getting popular with artists-- it was out of my reach. i bought the galaxy tab last year because i wanted an iPad, but didn't want to give apple money (and didn't have enough money to give apple anyway).

the next morning, i started "casually" browsing tablets. a few competitors (namely monoprice, huion, xp-pen) have been making affordable graphics tablets for a while now. 5 hours of researching and feverish livetweeting later, i had purchased an xp-pen artist 15.6, because my roommate happens to have an xp-pen monitor tablet and let me try it for a minute. it took about 3 strokes of the pen to convince me. i was going to wait until my tax return showed up but i realized i was not going to draw until at least march if that was the case. i was in too deep. i had tasted the food of the fae and would never go back through the hedge. so i paid off my credit card and slapped the tablet purchase on it. then i thought and talked about nothing else for 3 days (i assume these 3 days were probably pretty excruciating for everyone who knows me or follows me on twitter).

my followers, probably: thank god, maybe she'll shut up and draw some boobies or something

4 days in: i'm enjoying drawing again. the thought of drawing makes me excited instead of exhausted. it's not a slog anymore. i was going to bed most nights night thinking "i didn't draw again, i'm a failure" and now i wake up excited to turn on my tablet and draw. i feel good about art for the first time in at least a year. i actually probably haven't felt this good and this optimistic about drawing since i was 13 and had just obtained a copy of How To Draw Manga: Compiling Characters from Powell's bookstore on a field trip.

listen, this is all there was for us weebs in the early 2000s

the faulty carpenter blames his tools; the wise carpenter knows when to replace a hammer. especially if the hammer is really outdated, has a terrible driver that crashes constantly and is greatly impeding his ability to draw anime girls.

here is my first finished piece in CSP. it is a little awkward, and imo it doesn't look like my usual art style. but it contains more joy than anything i have drawn for a long time.