It’s been a year since I decided to invest in myself in art. Started with buying a PC connected tablet (pictured) and within a month or so getting a phone that comes with a pen. The phone has made a world of difference as it eliminated the barriers between my busy life and art. Join a conference call early, draw. Waiting at the doctor’s office, draw. Watching something with my wife that she enjoys but I’m not excited about, draw.

Totally worth it and the art I’ve made on this little phone sometimes gets close to artists I admire and have wish I could be like.

If you’re thinking you want to get better at art maybe eliminate barriers and do your art daily.

If you’re a reader, the book Atomic Habits has a ton of great ideas. It’s what inspired me to get the tablet and then the phone.

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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    2 days ago

    I do love your art and your dedication! Atomic Habits is on my reading list. Maybe I’ll bump it up.

    And you’re using GIMP, too. I love seeing people use libre software for their everyday. It gives me hope that we can, one day, escape the clutches of corpo software.

    • BallShapedMan@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 days ago

      I don’t use gimp much these days. Moved to Sketchbook by Autodesk so I could have the same software on my phone and PC. Phys gimp is way over my head.

      And thank you!

            • BallShapedMan@lemmy.worldOP
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              17 hours ago

              Yes and no. Drives me nuts when it crashes or doesn’t save the last 5+ minutes of work or refuses to save anything until I kill and restart it.

              But it’s cool that my art is complex enough to make this software cry!

              I have considered I need to use my desktop PC instead of my laptop or my phone. But then I’ll never do my art. But if I did a commission (if that ever happens) and needed it to be high resolution then I’d probably figure it out.

              A Samsung phone vs a laptop with an RTX3050 (mobile) vs a desktop with an RTX4090 are all very different grades of performance.

              • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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                17 hours ago

                The not saving / crashing thing would make me drop that faster than than anything. I’ll accept lags and such, but to crash or not save, that’s too much. If the program can’t properly save or be stable, I would lose all trust in it, and will never use it again. That said, it’s very hard to find the same software that works on mobile and desktop, so, maybe I’d stick it out…

                I hope commission work starts soon. Just don’t let it destroy your love for the art or the process itself. My friend gave up on her long love of photography, because of commission work. She said that it lost that “spark” and she started hating it. Just don’t let that happen to you. I absolutely love your style, and would love to see it get big.

                • BallShapedMan@lemmy.worldOP
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                  15 hours ago

                  Fantastic advice and I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sure at first I would be so excited that someone asked that I’d say yes no matter what but that’s probably a mistake.

                  Thank you for that! I don’t want to hate this.