Thursday Art Walk 321: Hippity Hoppity I Can't Use Photoshoppity

In Which I'm Getting Better at Paint.net!

Three things:

1. I'm 31 now. I am going to try much harder this year. At everything.
2. That includes trying to figure out how to do shading in my free paint program on my computer
3. I really, really liked the Bunnicula series as a kid. What's not to love? It's a book series supposedly written by a fairly silly dog about a vampire rabbit and a theatrical cat and a sweet numpty of a Dachshund!

So now you know what I started painting today:

Bunnicula 1, digital; 2020

As you can see, I'm still not 100% confident with the use of transparencies and layers, and I haven't even begun to cover backgrounds. I'll work more on this piece in the future, I think. It's based, of course, on one of the millions of stock photos of "smol bunny" in Google, but I hope I've changed it up enough that while the pose is similar, it's its own thing.

I'm actually kinda okay with the gray shading around the eye, and I'm looking forward to brushing in the floof and highlighting the ears so you can tell where the ear starts and stops. I'll be adding more shading to the inner ear, too.

I'm really happy with that eye, though. That's a really good eye, in my opinion.

I really can't use Photoshop, though, guys. I can't afford it, first of all, and secondly, it's... super complicated to me. I don't understand 99% of the tools available, and, to be honest, it just feels like a gross cash-grab from Adobe. So no Photoshop or Lightroom for me. No thanks. I'll find free alternatives and do my best to master them.

So expect a lot of progress shots from me learning digital this year.

I'm about to go scramble an egg into some leftover Thai food from dinner last night, so I'll just leave you with this:

Whatever art you make is awesome.

Yes, even crayon doodles.

Yes, even potato faces.

Yes, even the doodled genitals in the margins of your notes (but make sure those don't end up with your teacher or boss).

Yes, even fingerpaints or random Play-Doh sculptures.

Yes, even glued-together popsicle sticks.

Your art is great and valid and I love it.

Make your weird poured-paint organs and bones.

Make your ugly monster dolls.

Make your hyper-realistic insect paintings.

Make your super-simplistic line sketches of plants.

Splash some color on some canvas or paper.

Go monochrome.

Just...

Go Enjoy Something!
FC