InsaneJournal continues to be down, but should be restored today. In the meantime, here are the things getting me through the mid-week slump.

1. I made a giant batch of soup last night, using this super-easy but tasty recipe. (Just a note - I find it a little too salty, so you may want to add plain water.)

2. I made a semi-impulse buy and ordered a coffee maker and coffee grinder yesterday. I don't drink coffee on a regular basis, but I have been drinking it more lately; and this way I won't have to make a trip upstairs to the coffee stand every time.

3. Work on the Warmakers 4-koma continues. It's slow-going, because I'm so not good at humorous art ... but hey, it's a new skill to develop.

4. My BPAL order arrived! I still have to go pick it up from nekokoban, but ... my BPAL order arrived! :D Also, I'm wearing Bengal today, and while it's not my one of my favorites so far, it's still quite nice.

5. ratzeo is running game on Sunday!

I just made a Dick Blick order on impulse. Originally, I was just going to browse the website, get a feel for it, and see what I wanted to order in the future. But then I saw that they're having a holiday sale, and anyway coramegan gave me a gift certificate for Christmas, and I thought, if I want to pick up drawing again, I might as well equip myself from the get-go. So.

I've got markers, paper, pens, and pencils coming in the mail (hopefully arriving before I leave Seattle to visit my parents). And I need to tell myself to actually use them.

See, normally I'm doubly thwarted by my Type A desire to hoard things (if I get shiny things like art materials, I'm tempted to keep them rather than use them), combined with my paralyzing lack of self-confidence (the nasty voice in the back of my head says that I'd just use them poorly anyway, so why bother). I could, without exaggeration, keep the markers that shadawyn gave me, all nice and pretty in their case, and let them dry out without ever really using them.

So here's my little message for myself: Self, you are going to use these things that you just plunked down a nice chunk of change for. It doesn't matter if you might suck at using them. Because right now, you do suck. But you used to be kind of good, back in the day, or at least you had potential; and you could be kind of good again. If you try. And in order to do that, you've got to actually use the stuff. You're buying enough quantities that you can mess up, use them up, and still have leftover to try again. And it's okay if you mess up and use them up. For reals.

And now it's time for sleep.

... and ratzeo was nowhere in sight. XD

shadawyn, kyonkun and I went out to dinner last night at The Ram, and stuffed ourselves full of burgers and salad.

Afterward, shadawyn came home with us and then she and I had our drawing date. <3 I actually did more coloring than drawing, as I experimented with the Prismacolor pencils that coramegan lent me. shadawyn also graciously provided her Copic markers for me to try (as well as instruction and encouragement as I poked around with them). I actually found that I really like markers. They're a little intimidating, because of how permanent they are - especially since I've been using magically reversible digital coloring lately - but I like the look, and they felt easier to use than the colored pencils. (I think using pencils, and using them well, requires more skill than I have.)

So now I know what my next art purchase will be. 8D Though I think I'm going to hold off on Copics for now, and go with the much more affordable Prismacolor markers that miss_arel recommended to me.

... And speaking of hot dates, ratzeo and I are actually going to try to do that date thing again, for the first time in ... what, six months? ^^;; But our anniversary is next week, so now we have a reason/excuse. (It'll be three years. Part of me feels like that's a long time, part of me feels like it's no time at all. o_o)

So now that I have some starting tips on digital coloring (thank you guys a ton!) I decided to give it a shot.

Now, since this is my first try at this, EVERYTHING is a source of joy and awe for me. Down to the basic act of erasing the white background of my original scanned lineart - maho_kiwi showed me the secret by introducing me to the wonder of the Multiply function.

Me: Fine. We'll see if maho_kiwi's magical trick will work. Frankly I'm skeptical and can't believe it would be that easy. *clicks*
Computer: *works*
Me: NO. WAY. XO

Me: *fills in color* Now let's try shading ... *uses lasso tool*
Computer *works AGAIN*
Me: I AM DIVINELY TOUCHED.

And so on.

I just scanned in a bunch of my recent drawings and would like to try coloring them digitally, so I'm begging for help from the people out there who have (any) experience with digital coloring. What advice would you give to someone who has decent knowledge of pen-and-paper techniques, but is a total newbie when it comes to digital media?

I'm hoping, primarily, to find out what (Photoshop or equivalent) tools you use. I'm talking super basic - like, say, "Using Paint Bucket will not give you realistic shading" or something. :P

Anything else you can think of that I should keep in mind? "You'll tend to do ______ a lot so try _____ instead"? "Punching through your monitor out of frustration will hamper progress"? etc. Thanks!