Artblogging 1: First Lessons in Tabletting

[seventhe]

Well, as cockeyed_art begins, and I actually start to attempt to use the new tablet, I want to kind-of record some of my thoughts as I work through each piece. Mostly because I suck, but also to keep a record of things that I need to work on each week.

I'm putting it here because I put my writing rambles here too, and brokenprism is mostly for the actual work rather than the rambles. Those of you with no interest in art or drawing or its process, move along! Those of you who do draw and want to possibly just ramble about technique with me, especially on a tablet, you're welcome to go ahead and read my awesome tl;dr. These entries will come as I try new things, and will be under the tag of "artblogging".

- - -

On Me
First of all, I should probably state for the record that I am pretty much completely self-taught when it comes to art. I'm not a total idiot, no; I was very interested in art when I was younger, and studied it in school and on my own with teach-yourself books and the like, so I do have some background and foundation. But by "some" I really mean "stuff from high school" and since I'm now 25 and a completely-un-art-related chemical engineer that should tell you what kind of background I'm really talking about.

(Which of course makes me nervous to be entering the ring with rosencrantz and katmillia, who both studied art for college degrees, but, hey, whatever. XD I'm not a professional writer either, and I post that stuff too, don't I?)

I mean, I was a photography minor, so I studied things like light/shadow and composition, so - again, not a complete art-related idiot, but photography and sketching don't have a lot in common, either. XD

Anyway. I started drawing on the computer because I wanted to learn to draw anime-style, basically. OK, DON'T YELL AT ME. I know anime style is totally overdone, and everybody in FF fandom draws anime style, and OMG HOW COULD YOU? But basically, I LIKE anime-style art. I love manga. I think a lot of it is really pretty, and I like the style of drawing those types of faces and bodies, and I really like the style of hair. I always have. Maybe this is comparable to a love of, I don't know, meaningless pornfic? BECAUSE I LIKE ANIME/MANGA-STYLE ART, KTHX. HA HA.

I'd honed my (realism) skills in high school by drawing figures from magazines - practicing shading faces, drawing bodies and poses, etc. And I'll say I was pretty good at it for someone with no training whatsoever (keep in mind I was working from a reference, so I'm not going to say I was a super awesome artist, but I was decently good). So when I started trying to teach myself anime-style, I started (a) drawing from references, trying to imitate (um, hi, Sailor Moon!) and (b) reading online tutorials on how to draw in particular styles.

I got... well, pretty respectable, for only being self-taught. The things I posted online are from before about 2002-2003 and are pretty sub-par (so please do me a favor and do not go through that old folder of art; it is online to teach me specifically what NOT to do any more). However, I've got a folder of sketches - mostly original characters and stuff - that have turned out pretty well, honestly. I'm proud of that stuff. I just stopped posting things online when I started moving around (2003 - onwards; it is hard to post when your scanner is in a box; see below XD) and never really picked it back up.

Somewhere in here I picked up a pretty sub-par tablet. It worked decently, but it was never really capable of doing everything I asked it to. However, it was a big help for colouring, and eventually I decided that I wanted to learn to draw completely on the tablet.

There were a couple projects to spur this - mostly online comics, until I realized how bad I was at art and how correspondingly bad I was at sticking to projects. So I failed. XD

OKAY, THIS IS ENOUGH BACKGROUND, OH MY GOD.

Basic goals, LOL
My goals here are pretty simple. I don't necessarily want to be able to draw realistic-style; I can draw realism if I have a reference, and what interests me more is developing a comic-like style of my own that's realistic enough to not look weird, but enough of my own style to be cool. This draws on both anime/manga-type style, and typical comic-style stuff (see: RPGWorld, Megatokyo, etc etc for people who have developed fun styles).

My eventual goal is to make an online webcomic/manga out of Seven Beacons. OK, there, I said it.

In the meantime, however, I just want to hone my skills to the point where I can draw decent pictures of characters I like. That's my real goal. They'll be anime-like, and they'll probably be plain and bland, but that's pretty much where I want to go with this right now.

On Technique, and my Tablet Skills
So normally, when I draw, I begin with some light pencil sketches that are full of guidelines. Guidelines, guidelines, happy little guidelines. I start with a pose, or a general idea, or something like that, and then sketch in everything. I've got guidelines that I'm used to to help me with the face, and I've got little tricks to help me with proportioning the body to the head, and usually stuff turns out relatively okay.

I usually start with an exaggerated stick-figure in whatever pose I'm looking for, usually proportioned (using GUIDELINES XD) and hopefully posed semi-acceptably. I then move on to the face, because if I can't get the face close to right, right away, I abandon the picture. The face is pretty much everything to me - it's the center of the pic, and the most important thing, and if it doesn't come out right, I can't go back and edit it later because I fail. The picture revolves around the face, for me. So the face comes first.

Then I sketch in the body, lightly, so I've got a reference for adding clothing. I tend for long and skinny in the body, because I have a more comic/anime-like style overall, but I try to stay realistic (and, more importantly, proportioned!). I then add the clothes/outfit/whatever, and voila, I've got a sketch. Sometimes it takes a couple tries, but usually I come out with something likeable.

Here's the first problem. When I'm doing this on paper, freehand, I can do it with my guidelines and sketches and everything. When I try to do this completely on the computer, 100% tablet, my guidelines fail.

I am doing the same things, really, but the guidelines do not work. I'll draw my circles and oblongs to make the face, and then I go to draw the horizontal and vertical anchor-lines I usually use -- and they don't come out in the right place. I can't get them to line up right. I'm just drawing lines on top of other lines. And because I'm so dependent on my guidelines in my art, this means tablet-based art just comes out wrong.

Same with my body-references. I mean, you can totally see it here (Rosa, FFIV, PG) -- the head/neck are too big for the body. And yet, that was what my reference-lines told me to draw. Granted, I am not an expert artist, but on paper, I am much better than that!

Somehow, working completely on the tablet messes up my perspective somehow. I'm not sure why, but the guideline method I'm used to using doesn't seem to translate over from tablet to computer screen. Things that I do on paper that WORK -- I cannot do them on the tablet. Does anyone else have this problem?

The outline itself came out alright, I guess; better than (a) my old tablet, and (b) mouse-tracing. I still wish I'd had a better shape to outline. I can't draw details on the computer like I do free-hand, either, so outfits come out looking horribly bland rather than full of quirky Amano-like stuff like FF characters should have.

Granted, I am sure I need more practice, for one. My previous tablet-only project, an ill-fated webcomic based on Resonance, another of my original stories, was drawn in a big-head, small-body style -- and so I am probably channeling some of that from, y'know, 4 years ago. So that's also part of it - I'm used to doing things on a tablet that, well, I didn't want to do in this particular picture.

So I think one thing I need more practice on is getting the things I see in my head to show up on the computer screen when I draw them on the tablet. I don't know WHY they don't line up right, but they never seem to. I just don't have the control with the tablet that I do free-hand, I guess. I mean, that's an inherent fact that comes with tablet work. So: practice.

At the same time, I need to dig out my scanner finally, so that Enkida and Katy do not give up on my craptastic art skills!

TEAL DEER
So, in conclusion, and in retrospect, I should've spent my time digging out my scanner and made the picture in the way I'm used to -- hand-sketch, scan, trace and color on the computer -- rather than spending hours drawing and re-drawing and finally realizing things were not going to turn out like I wanted them to and "compromising" on a final picture.

I know there are proportion problems in the picture, huge ones; but the way I was going, they were not resolving themselves. I realize the point of cockeyed_art is just to get A PICTURE out every week, which is why I went forward with this one. It's a good example of the flaws in my all-tablet work, and so it's a good starting point for me to improve things. I'll never get better with the tablet unless I keep at it, really!

People who draw with tablets - do you just sketch and sketch until something looks right? Or do you use tons of guidelines in Photoshop to help you shape an image?

Comments

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

Aaarrrrtttttt.

I agree completely with the manga style– I LOVE manga and anime style drawings. I first started drawing in fourth grade when I was going through the TV guide and saw an ad for Sailor Moon and started watching it. Everything I know about drawing anime/manga related art is completely self-taught; I actually never even took a figure drawing class in college for my degree. :x I worked almost entirely from reference pictures while learning, getting angles right and getting new styles, and OMG I will post my old art sometime to ROFL at because IT IS SO BAD. I AM NOT JOKING. LIKE HORRIBLY MIND-BENDINGLY BAD.

And I haven't actually TRIED drawing on my tablet yet, but I actually don't make sketch lines when I draw. I make the oval for the head and use guidelines on where to put eyes/nose/etc, but after that, I just draw and erase and draw and erase and draw til it looks right without ANY sort of undersketch or lines. I think that MIGHT be the wrong way to go about it, haha, but I've always been a very FAST drawer (possibly from the art school...) and I think that helps.

Honestly I think you are quite good at drawing– your faces look better than mine and I'm jealous teehee. :D

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

We should totally share bad art because mine is OMG SO HORRENDOUS. I CRY AT IT. LOTS.

Your posings are SO GOOD THOUGH. I just can't get figures to look right unless I cover them with guidelines everywhere and like sketch little stick figures doing what I want them to do and and and. I FAIL. XD

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

Hahaha well I used to go through magazines as well, but you know what my real secret is? I look at myself. I WILL IN FACT STAND NAKED IN FRONT OF A MIRROR TO SKETCH A POSE. Also, I will make my sisters pose or I will take a picture of them posing for reference. BUT MOSTLY ME. A lot of times I will hold my left hand out in whatever position I need it to be and keep it there so I can see it.

But ARGH so many times I have to just erase, draw, erase, draw and then check myself to see if that's where the bend in the waist would come, and then erase and draw. AND I have some How to Draw Manga books that have some poses I gank sometimes!

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA THAT IS THE BEST MENTAL IMAGE EVER. Although I do the same thing with hands! I will TOTALLY pose my hands as guides and draw them. This made it VERY AWKWARD when I was drawing in class! XD

Maybe for a while I should try sketching out of magazines on my tablet and see if that works any better than my guidelines WHICH DO NOT WORK.

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

Hmmm that could work!! I think what's hard on the tablet is the hand/eye coordination thing, because it's different than drawing by hand, cause I keep thinking I can move my pen around and still have the same place clicked on screen which doesn't work and screws me up!!

BUT WE ARE IMPROVING TOGETHER SEE THESE TABLETS WERE GOOD INVESTMENTS!! :D

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I AM GLAD TO HEAR IT. I was seriously thrown for a while when I just couldn't get shit to line up like I wanted it to, and it took me a while to realize that, yeah, the tablet ISN'T just like a piece of paper. My strokes are all different, too. And sometimes I turn the tablet at an angle but I don't realize it because I'm staring at the screen and suddenly what I thought was a line is like OMG BIG X ACROSS ROSA'S FACE.

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

LOLOL. NO ROSA.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I totally should've saved that and posted it. HA, HA, GUYS. I DREW YOU SCRIBBLES!

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

SCRIBBLES!!!

[protect-vester.livejournal.com]

Innnnnteresting! And oh, hiya, yeah, I've been stalking this comm! No need to stare!

I should probably participate artistically before I say stuff, but who cares? I have a new, seldom-used tablet too, and started with drawing anime, so this was interesting to read.

It is quiiiite different drawing straight on the tablet, isn't it? What are you drawing into, though? Photochop? I find it way easier to sketch from far away (like 25-50% zoomed) until it looks right, and then moving in and drawing a whole other, cleaner lineart in a second layer.

I've done the naked posing and the making siblings pose thing too. Always a laugh.

I also found out just recently that using different brush tools will make the lines look different! Um, I'm gonna go draw something now, I'm all excited!

P.S. This comm is so cocktastic!

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I SAW YOU IN THE COMM AND I WAS SO HAPPY <3 <3

I am using a totally pirated copy of Photoshop. :P And I think that's a helpful plan -- usually I try to draw from far out, like the normal size of a piece of paper, but then when things go wrong I zoom in and try to fix them, so that's probably not helping me XD

[protect-vester.livejournal.com]

Where'd you get a totally pirated copy of Photoshop? I only have PS Elements, which sucks, and I'd like to look at a better version.

Ah, screw it, I'll just torrent it.

I guess we just have to use our tablets every single day before they'll let us draw like we want to. Like, that practice makes perfect thing. I HATE IT! Can't we just sacrifice goats to become incredible immediately?

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I stole it off my college network back when I was in school uh... found it. XD

AND YEAH!! Isn't there some, like, magical guide on HOW TO DRAW BETTER IMMEDIATELY? That's what I want to read. Goats are immaterial. ;)

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

You should try out Painter, if you can get your hands on it. I'm used to using Photoshop for online drawing and I nearly had an orgasm when somebody gave me a copy of Corel Painter to test out.

The only problem is it's not as stable as photoshop so if you spend a couple of hours working on a pic without regular saves, you'll start wailing if and when it crashes all of a sudden.

[flonnebonne]

Hello! Love your art, been stalking you for a while.

When I draw on paper, my characters' heads turn out too big in proportion to their bodies. It's partly because I draw on flat tabletops...at that angle, the character's head looks small because the top of the paper is far away from me, so I draw the head too big to compensate. I don't have this problem when I draw on a tablet though.

I don't suppose your tablet woes could be something like this? When you draw on paper, is it usually on a flat or angled surface? Are you switching to a different angle when you use a tablet? Or am I talking crazy talk?

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I don't really know... I know I do have problems with the angle of the tablet sometimes, but that's more in reference to me rotating it unknowingly and drawing an X across someone's face when I should've been drawing hair, or something. XD

Usually I draw best (freehand) on a clipboard, probably so that I can angle the paper whichever way I want and I can bring it closer or farther away as I need. I don't really know if it's that, or the fact that I'm looking at a (flat) screen while trying to draw on a tablet. I will start paying attention to this. XD

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

HAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA. MAN I WIN AT LIFE.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD.

OH. OH GOD

HAHAHAHHAHA

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

I really need to make an archive or something...

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

XD We need a massive icon post.

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

OMG this is so long that I will have to break my commentary into segments so I don't hit the word wall with it. So right now I've only read about half of this post, but here's some first trickle-back feedback:

1) Background in art education / major in studio art means jack shit to me. I know plenty of people who are much better artists than me who never studied at all. Having an art background is valuable, I think, mostly for the art HISTORY background that goes hand in hand with it. Also there's some basic stuff that everybody could stand to learn about proportion, composition, light and shadow, and drawing techniques, but that's all stuff that you could cover just as well in a 20-buck sunday school course as you could at college.

Really the thing that makes artists / illustrators good is a certain natural talent, an eye for observation, and then most of all regular practice and drawing like mad crazy constantly. I know this because I lack the first (I learned that while in school), but have managed to become somewhat of a respectable artist anyway because I don't lack the second two.

That's good news for you, it means just keep doing art and you WILL get better, and you WILL develop your own style, period. This path is a one-way road. That's the good news. The bad news is that there'll always be someone miles ahead of you on that road, and you'll never catch up. That's the way art goes, even for the most naturally talented of people. It's also I think the thing that stops the most of us from remembering that art is a personal journey, and it's up to us to keep walking down that road to get better. People want to get to the nonexistent "end" without ever seeing the miles and miles of painful sketches and drawings that you'd wish had never seen the light of day, and when it doesn't come immediately often they give up.

So just remember that for your own stuff, especially when you see other peoples' stuff who you think (or know) is better than your own - yeah, maybe you will never do *that*, but if you keep trying you will eventually do *something* and *somebody* who is not you is going to like it, no matter what you think about your own art.

If you happen to like your own art while you're at it, you're further along than most of us ever get to be, myself included. ^__^; My own personal moments of 'pride at a picture well drawn' tend to last 24 hours to 1 week, before I start seeing mistakes and then get unsatisfied. But, I will never stop trying, heh. :) This is also why when people ask me things like "what is the favourite picture you've ever drawn" I have no answer. I don't like anything I've ever drawn for more than a few weeks. Hehe. Artistic temperment! ^^;


OH yeah before I forget: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF COMPOSITION! Use those hard-earned photography skillz when you sketch. It's all about triangles, circles and moving your eye around the page, man. Even when you're doing single figures on a while background. :-)

I'm sure there'll be more to come but back to reading this TL;DR!

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

On making online comics:

Don't "wait until X" to make one, where X is:

- "my art is better"
- "I'm comfortable with my style"
- "I'm more experienced with pencils/paper/inking/colouring/tablets"
- "I have more time"
- "I'm better at layout and panelling"
- whatever

None of these things will ever reach a point that you find satisfactory BEFORE you start a comic. Comic art forces your art to evolve. If you want to make your own art evolution JUMPSTART, then start making your comic NOW, and go back and redraw your first chapter or two in a year or so when you've gotten better.

Serious. Don't wait with the comic thing if you're serious about it. You'll be putting it off until it's "too late."

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

addendum:

it is okay to wait to start a comic until your comic story is finished, though. that is, much like writing fiction, sorta mandatory, LOL.

Actually a ton of talented artists often forget this ONE BASIC POINT which is why on the web, there is a ton of great comics with crap art, and a tone of beautiful comics with crap stories, but only a handful of comics with beautiful art and good stories.

the good part about the crap art / good story comics is that they ALWAYS get better, while the good art / crap story comics NEVER get better until the artist signs on a scriptwriter and starts over.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

This is a very good point about webcomics, and probably the reason my first attempt failed: it was a premise, but not an actual story itself, and although I did the first chapter (and re-did, of course, in the typical way of bad artists who improve a little) I could never move on to the second because I wasn't sure what I wanted to have happen.

The comic I want to do right now is a fantasy-based, sort of action-adventure thing, and because of this I feel justified in waiting a little bit to start it since I am sure I would fail hard at things like swords and armor and MONSTERS and the like. However, the story's mostly done (my brother and I have been hitting it for like three years now, damn well HOPE it's done).

And this is why I like things like our AWESOME ART COMM. The more I draw, the closer I'll get to the point where I feel confident enough in launching Seven Beacons.

And you make a good point: I'm not waiting to be perfect and awesome; I just really want to know that I can draw more than chibis before I start out on a webcomic as big as Beacon is. XD

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

Well: re monsters and shit, here's something that I hope will bolster your confidence - I had no idea how to draw cats before I started 'Growth.' I just sort of tumbled in head first and when the first scene with Nanaki came up, I started scrambling for internet pictures of cats and made it up as I went.

Eventually I made a drawing guide, which while still sucking, shows how I go about approaching any animal I draw now. Wing mechanics are the hardest of all, because once you understand how which muscles should move what way for flight, logically, something with wings shouldn't have forearms (or legs) or it won't be able to fly. Angels as per the traditional Raphael-way to draw them ARE NOT EARTH (OR HEAVEN) LOGIC. But ... I do that anyway. ;-)

This link might help you out, look at my (crappy) animal tutorials and someone elses' much better cat tutorials for ideas. :-)

http://comictutorials.smackjeeves.com/archive/

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

...which amazes me, because your Nanakis are so good. I guess Nanaki is still a made-up creature, but he looks so realistic. I guess that's good; somewhere on the internet there has to be some nerdy kid's "Archive of Armor and Other Shit" that I can use for my girl knight because, uh, I don't want her looking like Ashe, sorry. XD

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

This will help you too:

http://home.comcast.net/~hdoan0/Knights_of_Tamriel.htm


That is how I pattern the armour for my lady knight. Thank you, morrowind and Jeremy. ;-)

Re: tablets

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

Tablets never do what you want them to because they're a completely different medium than paper.

To be honest, when I sketch on paper and then colour in photoshop, my preferred method of colouring is with my mouse and the gradient tool, and then doing a little quick and dirty shading with a really soft brush where necessary (usually with the mouse, too). I'm just more accurate with the mouse than I am with the stylus.

In my experience, if you want beautiful, smooth, curvy lines on a computer sketch, the only real successful way to do it is with path tools - which are also easier to use with a mouse than a pen (surprise surprise).

I think it's a matter of training, though. I learned on paper first before tablets were even affordable to the common man, and as a result I have an information disconnect when I try to freehand on a tablet. On the other hand people who started on tablets (generally asian - i.e. 'digital products everywhere but paper is expensive' or people significantly younger than me) can do amazing things with the stylus and I still don't know how they manage it.

But HEY THIS IS WHAT OUR COMM IS FOR TO GET OVER THIS LITTLE FINE POINT RITE?

I know a couple of basic things about the tablet. Use long, long strokes and then erase what you don't need to make your lines come out smoother (or even just "straight" in some cases). Tablets don't lend themselves to short strokes the way paper drawings do, things get all choppy and pixellated.

Also, you can see my solution to the 'my stylus don't go where I tell it to!' problem in my own sketches - I just make my finished products messy sketches, and try to cover with shading. ^^; My sketch style has always been messy anyhow so this works quite well for me.

I also do guidelines on a separate 'grey' layer for my tablet drawings - just like I do light sketches for paper drawings. Generally I don't pay attention to details like costume design, hair and fingers when I do my roughs, but one thing I do do is keep on redoing the base sketch until the proportions look right. I also used to do the big head thing (it really is a matter of angle of drawing), but I've gotten better at that from all the comic making I do, since I don't have a tiltotable and tend to draw my comic entirely on flat (necessitated by the kind of architecture pens I use to ink as well, they don't like to flow properly at angles). So the big head in the wrong place thing will go away with enough practice, just keep on sketching and looking and sketching and looking.

Hey this advice is illustrated: check it out, presketch

Notice how totally retarded it is, but it helps me see at least that the position of the body is where I want it to be.

now whether or not that is an anatomically possible position in the first place is a question I NEVER ask myself, but it does look the way I intended it to, for the most part. XD

Re: tablets

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I do basically the same thing! Although my rough pre-sketchings have a lot more lines on them than yours does XD It's the same basic idea, though -- I outline in a lighter color, then usually I trace over it with a darker color to remind myself which lines are the "right" ones, and then I do the final outline in a new layer. (AH, POINTS TO WHOMEVER INVENTED THE LAYER. IT SAVES MY ASS)

I have more problems with proportion, but I think maybe I start with too little -- I'll do a stick figure to pose, and then when I try to rough in shapes like torso, arms, etc sometimes they come out wonky. 500% more likely on the tablet, because I just don't get it. XD

I'll probably be doing a lot on the tablet for the comm, because I want to get better at it; which means you guys will have to put up with a lot of crappy art, but hopefully not for too long!

And the one thing I usually do when sketching free-hand is draw on a clipboard. Yours is the second comment talking about the proportion thing with drawing on a flat surface. I mean, I have horrible posture and when I draw I'm usually curled up in a couch somewhere with a clipboard so that I can angle it wherever I want... now I wonder whether I'm doing it right, or DOING IT WRONG :p

Re: tablets

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

There's no wrong or right way to draw, but I will admit for myself it is easier to keep things in proportion when I draw at a 45 (or slightly less) angle rather than in flats. Usually these days I catch in time the proportion disparity in the geometric shapes before I start with the fine-sketch, at least on paper, but in tablets you don't really have that option. At least I don't because my tablet is the size of a farkin' post card waah. ;-)

The other big thing though that tablets mess you up on is the hand eye coordination. You have to draw while looking at your screen, not your hand, and it's harder that a lot of people realize unless you train yourself. You can sort of 'try' to train yourself in traditional media by sketching something from life while not looking at your paper - this is an exercise a teacher would have made you do if you majored in studio art at least once in your life. And not surprisingly, when I do those, they look very similar to what comes out whn I draw with a tablet because it's the same deal - drawing without looking at your paper is effin' hard.

The correct term isn't really hand-eye coordination, but rather... how well your mind's eye can imagine what your hand is doing without seeing it. With tablet it is a bit easier because you can watch your screen make output, but it's still not the same as watching your HAND draw.

To my knowledge there's no cure for this other than draw,draw draw, though. Or start on a tablet before you hit up paper, which is too late for us anyhow. ;-)

Re: tablets

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

nerd factoid of the day, that I learned in my digital art courses:

the layer was invented by the Photoshop 4 team. Before then there were no layers. When layers first came out, the program had to be bundled on !5! 3.5" discs.

This is why photoshop costs like 900 bucks or whatnot today, though. Adobe really did invent 'the digital layer.' Respect! ;)

Re: tablets

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

GOOD GOD. I throw myself at Adobe's feet.

although I still stole my copy of photoshop

Re: tablets

[rosencrantz.livejournal.com]

Since I know you're attending classes right now, if I were you I'd buy myself a legal copy of photoshop while you have access to the claim that you are a "student", it only costs $199 I believe and is the absolute best deal you will ever get, ever, for photoshop.

AFAIK if you ever want to go into the biz (in any sense of the word) you need a legal copy of your software to work on, and upgrades to photoshop are significantly cheaper than buying the program whole. But for students, buying the program whole is pretty damn cheap. That's what I did while I was a student, and was the best investment I ever made. :-)

I forget how it goes in the US, but in Europe if you hit 31, even if you are still a student you no longer qualify for student prices on software. I think they are more lenient in the US though, so I'd flash that good ol' student ID while you have it. At least one legal copy of your basic lots-used programs is never a bad thing. ;-)

Re: tablets

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's an excellent idea. I know UAkron does it because there's this one guy at work who is always trying to bum cheap software out of the part-time students XD

Actually... I wonder if work would pay 50% on programs, like they do on books...