Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Passing The Tablet from Art Master to Apprentice


Lots of stuff makes you sneeze, pollen, black pepper, and dust. Well today I discovered that pencil shavings ALSO make you sneeze. Mum and my sister have been digging out and organizing a bunch of colored pencils and at the same time sharpening them. Now these aren't just a couple of pencils I'm talking HUNDREDS of different colored pencils, so pencil shaving were everywhere and the smell definitely wafted through the air and made Mum sneeze a couple of times. I actually had no idea pencil shavings smelled… Go figure.

We've been pretty artsy for most of the day and I received something new, well new to me and quite unexpected. Annie received her new XP-Pen tablet not that long ago and has been adjusting to it quite well. She's really enjoying it and you can see her most recent art piece using this pen right here on her Deviantart. Annie because of this has retired her old Wacom Intous 5 tablet as it doesn't work on her new Windows 10 computer. That doesn't mean it's broken though apparently it works as good as new on my computer, which is a Windows 8.1 computer. (Yeah I haven't upgraded to a new computer, that'll be something for the future.) So with myself getting into art and drawing lately the Artist Master aka my sister has passed her tablet down to the apprentice in a most unexpected fashion. (I'm a pro now, prepare the galleries.) 


I never thought she would consider giving me it, actually I wasn't sure if it would work on my computer but apparently it just doesn't work on her Windows 10 computer for some reason. Normally it's the big brother or sister handing down items but today is a big twist on that. Anyway she's quite happy with her new tablet so she's happy with me taking over her old tablet. This tablet has a lot of years put into it and a lot of her amazing artwork came out of this tablet and while it may look worn it actually works as good as new.

This tablet has served Annie for years and she became the great artist she is today by practicing and drawing on this tablet so I'm sure it'll do me just as great of a service and I'll grow and become a better artist just like she has over the years. Of course before I become a great artist I have to get used to a tablet. Here I am thinking it'll be just like pen to paper but in reality it feels quite different from traditional methods. It feels even more different then a mouse and mousepad. Though some hours work on it I'm starting to come around to how things work. I decided to place the tablet in front of myself and my computer which has made operating this tablet easier then having it to the side of the computer.


My first project on this tablet is Aeris once again, It's not a new art piece but I'm working on a digital coloring of my sketch I worked on last week. First off before I color it I've been making the line art, which has proven to be good tablet use practice despite a bit of frustration which was solved by Krita's stabilizer and me making myself be patient. I’ll get better and hopefully steadier at this, I’m also watching some tutorials and other videos relating to drawing and painting using Krita and a tablet. This Wacom Intous 5 has 2048 pressure levels so I got full functionality (Sis wouldn't have it any other way.) Krita seems to have become my go to program for this sort of thing; I also have Paint Tool Sai which I used to use quite a bit for Vector Art. Yeah I’m not NEW NEW to vector art but I don’t think anyone wants to see how bad my old stuff used to be, haha. 

This tablet pen isn’t just good for art though it actually makes navigating certain parts of my computer a lot smoother and easier. See you got this frame on the tablet, this signifies your computer screen. Place the pen in the corner of the frame on your tablet and BAM it’ll turn up in the same corner of your computer. So when using this tablet I must make sure I remember that when moving my cursor I have to actually move my pen as if I’m using a touch screen computer or iPad. (Funny enough my computer IS a touchscreen computer.)

Another major use I’ve found for this new tablet friend of mine… VIDEO EDITING! Yes I might be getting into art but filmmaking and editing is still my main talent and passion and this pen actually makes editing a lot easier. I can move my clips around, resize them, edit them and so forth so much easier using this pen. This pen also makes masking actually DOABLE in my Hitfilm 4 program. Okay I could do it before but it was so tedious and took a long time. This pen allows me to accurately select and make masks of people, animals and objects in my videos. I might start utilizing masking more in my videos because of how much easier it is now. Being able to edit videos easier makes this tablet completely worth it and I’m eternally grateful for my sister for letting me have her old partner, it was better then it sitting in a bag not being used. Even better I have a full set of nibs for this pen (She got a whole brand new set not that long ago.). Yeah after a while you’re going to have to replace the nibs on this pen after a while as they wear down with use, I have a full set of standard replacement nibs, these soft tip nibs and what sis calls a hard tip nib. I don’t know what the use of these soft tip nibs are… but it’s nice to have them.

I’ve not given up my good ol mouse; actually I’ve been able to alternate between pen and mouse with ease. Got my mouse to the side of my computer and my tablet in front of me, it’s a pretty good set up for me.

As payment for this tablet I made cookies! Again. Yes there’s no stopping me when it comes to baking Chocolate Chip cookies, I think I should open up a cookie shop, anyone know how to send them over the internet?


Thing is… there’s only three left, whoops, I should of taken a photo a lot sooner.


We had some delicious beef with our dinner yesterday, to be more precise it was a beef pot roast with some cabbage, mash potato and swede with some chunky carrots and the ever lovable gravy. It was really filling surprisingly, I guess it was the beef.

After dinner Barklay (Aka Zach's Best Friend) my Basset Hound rested upon his throne like usual and I got this silly and unusual photo of him.


Yeah it looks like he's having a conversation with someone. (Which he can do quite successfully when he wants to.) He was actually sleeping like this before I woke him up with my camera, sometimes this dog is so silly he's almost human. Thought it would be worth putting that up here for you guys to see.

So that’s about it, got my first art tablet thanks to my awesome Sister and I’m starting to get used to it. Thank you so much Annie I mean it. Go check her out at her blog http://ladyannavintage.blogspot.com/ and her Deviantart account. She does some amazing artwork and photography so go give her some love.

Oh yeah! Nobody seems to be talking about this much but on Pokemon Sun and Moon another global link mission is happening! This time we gotta earn as many Battle Points in the Battle Tree as possible. The goal is 250,000 points total so it shouldn’t be too hard. We completely destroyed that last global mission so let’s get battling trainers! It lasts until March the 14th (Whoops I’ve not been paying attention…) and the rewards include 5 rare candies and if everyone gets 500,000 BP we all get a Heavy Ball… Wait what’s that? Hold on I think I got an update coming in…

Are you kidding me? We ALREADY hit over 500,000? WOW!

Well then… I guess anyone who makes earns at least 3 BP will be winning all the rewards anyway…. We already won… Remind me to keep track of this more often I feel embarrassed now.

That’s a wrap folks!

PS: Friday is March the 10th aka Mario (MAR10) Day... See you then.


Let’s-a-go!

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