Hunter and Bard

Peggy
September 13, 2015

Nick came over and visited yesterday. He’d just gotten back from a visit home, so things were pretty low-key. We went for a walk in Ballard, then came back and sat in front of the projector all evening. An attempt at legally watching the latest episode of Steven Universe was thwarted by the joys of DRM (thanks for not buffering worth a shit, Amazon Instant Play!), so we ended up just hanging around while I played Bloodborne. I repeatedly failed to kill The One Reborn while Nick acted as my bard, playing gleefully inappropriate music and making the occasional comment on tactics, or on errors I was about to make.

I did not manage to succeed at killing this boss last night. But I drew this. Then when I got up this morning I turned on the PS4 again and killed it on the third try. Hooray for training montages!

(The characters are, of course, one of the OTPs of our various typesex characters. Kalinda the former-cobra-now-archaeopteryx is the ~~foolhardy~~brave Hunter, and Noelle the unicorn is her bard.)

an alternate history, suddenly realized

Peggy
September 10, 2015

In 1976, my parents and I took a trip to Washington, DC. We did the Smithsonian, we saw 4th of July fireworks from the Capitol grounds. It was a pretty cool thing to do for my fifth birthday.

What I only found out much later was that this trip had another purpose: my father had been offered a job at NPR, building out their network, after doing a great job getting the New Orleans classical/NPR station going around the same time my mother was pregnant.

Ultimately they decided against it, preferring to stay in New Orleans.

The thing I just realized: One of the things I often suspect may have been a contributor to my being trans? Drinking New Orleans tapwater. Sure, they filtered out the poop. The stuff they knew was bad. But we are talking about water that comes at least partially from the Mississippi. Which I lovingly refer to as “the cloaca of the nation”. Rivers in more than half of America flow into it. And everyone dumps their effluvia into their rivers. I grew up drinking a crazy soup of all of the industrial runoff of most of the country.

I mean, from what I hear the Potomac isn’t that clean either. But it’s only draining from four of those tiny little Northeastern states. There are less opportunities for someone to pour industrial runoff into it.

So in the alternate world where they decided to move to DC… did five years of not drinking all the stuff in the Mississippi result in me not needing to transition? (I started to get the first rumblings of it around eleven.)

I’ll never know, of course. And I don’t blame my parents for deciding to stay put; they made the decision they felt was best for themselves and me with the data they had. Still. That’s a heck of a question to suddenly ask myself.

Boot Quest 2015: The finalists.

Peggy
September 10, 2015

Winter’s coming. And I’ve been needing some new ankle boots to replace my beloved but dead ones. So I went hunting around. In the end it came down to two pairs of boots I found on shoes.com. I ordered them; they came over a couple of days as two separate packages.

TWO BOOTS ENTER. ONE BOOTS LEAVES

On the left, we have the Josef Seibel Tina 42 in black. On the right is the Rieker Peggy 98 in dark blue.

The Tina is comfortable. The Peggy is a little big; I’d have to return it and size down if I was going to go with it. It’s also got this incredibly comfy soft fabric interior that makes me feel really happy to put them on.

Shape-wise, I think I like the Tina a lot more. The small heel and the pointy toe make a great silhouette. I would really like them both a bit more if the top was a little higher; my old boots go up a couple of inches higher. Leggings plus boots looks a lot better when there isn’t a gap of naked ankle flesh on display, in my opinion.

I’m not ecstatic with either pair, to be honest. But fall is sporadically happening and I need boots.

Alternatively I could make another attempt at having my beloved Steve Madden boots resoled. They are ludicrous things covered in spurious belts with excess bling and I just love them. I tried getting them resoled but they quickly began separating at the heel.

I mean really. Look at that monstrosity next to these other two. It says FUCK YOU I’M A WITCH. Not that the little black Tina doesn’t have witch cred either.

I dunno. Today it’s sandal weather. I can let the back of my head mull this over a while longer.

mopes that I have

Peggy
September 10, 2015

When sorting through the pile of clothes I washed yesterday so I can get dressed for the day starts to feel like a huge, unsurmountable challenge, I am probably kind of depressed.

I’m pretty sure this is coming largely from still dealing with my mother’s death. Both emotionally and otherwise – I still have a bunch of bureaucratic stuff that needs doing. A lot of it got put off for a while because the funeral home took forever to get the death certificates to me, and the stuff that needs those has just been… sitting… in a circle on the floor near my work desk, reminding me that it needs doing. And just looking at each of those piles and figuring out what to do next feels like a huge, overwhelming task every time I look at them.

Having Rita stalled out about four pages from the end isn’t helping my mood, either. I can’t really commit to any new projects until I finish it. But I don’t want to just sit down and finish it. In part because – and is this a surprise? – I want to fill in one of the last few empty timelines in the climactic spread with something relating to my mom. So again it’s something that involves confronting this big void of misery and loss head-on before I can deal with it.
Blah. I guess I’m going to try and make myself sort through this stupid pile of Bureaucratic Mail and at least label everything with the next action to take, so I can pick them off one at a time and deal with them. Or something like that.

Oh yeah. And I’m probably also at a low energy level this morning because of burning my hand while trying to make a steak by myself last night. Some drippings splashed while I was turning it over. I got it cooled down fast, it’s not a Serious Burn or anything, but it’s definitely an injury that my body is going to want some time to heal.

Illustrator tip: Symmetric drawing.

Peggy
September 9, 2015

2026 addendum: I wrote this in 2015, six years before Adobe added “repeat groups” to Illustrator in 2021. Repeat groups handle a lot of this stuff for you but are a bit less flexible, and also want to operate on groups, not layers, which doesn’t mesh well with the way I think about these things. Like MirrorMe, they let you do this with on-canvas controls instead of playing around with the Transform effect. If I want on-canvas controls, these days I’m most likely to use Astute’s Stylism tool to add a transform effect and play with its settings.

Here’s a way to quickly do repetitive designs with Illustrator. The examples and directions are for a kaleidoscopic effect; you could also use it for a simple vertical or horizontal mirror.

Make a big rectangle. No fill, no stroke. Like, really big, bigger than you intend to ever let your design get and then some. Put its center wherever you want the center of your design to be.
Click on the circle beside the layer’s name in the layers palette.
Effect->distort and transform->transform. Choose a rotation value (something like “360/5” will work if you don’t want to bother doing the math), type a number in the ‘copies’ box (say, “4”).
(optional) Lock the rectangle you drew.
Deselect all, appearance palette->flyout menu->clear appearance.
Draw some shapes, watch them be automatically duplicated. You can make something super complicated very quickly this way!

Step 1 is the key to this; if you don’t draw the giant rectangle, the center of everything on your layer may shift every time you draw a new path.

You could do this on multiple layers with different repetition settings. You could also do this on a layer with sub-layers inside it, to make working on different parts of a complex design easier.

You can edit the repetition settings by repeating step 2, and visiting the Appearance palette.

If you want to define this more interactively, you might enjoy Astute Graphics’ Mirror Me plugin. I have and never use it, though.

Adobe’s added “Repeat Groups” that provide on-canvas control for symmetry since I wrote this but 2026 me still works this way. Why? Habit, partially – I know how to set this up quickly, and it gives me a lot of precise control over some fiddly details that MirrorMe and Repeat Groups only let you do one way. If I drew a ton of super-symmetric designs regularly I would have had a serious look at both Astute’s MirrorMe and Adobe’s Repeat Groups and would really have an opinion on what the strengths and weaknesses of each method are. As I said in the note at the beginning of this, I’m highly likely to use Astute’s Stylism tool if I want some on-canvas controls for this method.

considering the iPad Pro as a drawing tool.

Peggy
September 9, 2015

iPad Pro vs. Cintiq Companion 2. This is the main reason I want one – ever since I got AstroPad and a decent stylus, I’ve been waiting for the day I could get a device that would act like the other tablets I use, and as a drawing screen for when I’m on the plane/bus/etc and want to use Illustrator. The iPad Air almost works for this, but not quite – I just like to have too damn many palettes open at all times. I need the space of my computer’s screen.

I’m going to compare the two shittiest models. iPad Pro data comes first, followed by Cintiq Companion 2.

Price: $800 / $1300 ($500 more)
Pen: Apple Pencil, $100. Jot Touch, $100. Adobe Ink, $70. / Comes with
Mac drawing functionality: Astropad is $20 / Comes with
Total cost: $920/1300 ($380 more)

Storage: 32gb / 64gb
RAM: Unknown. Air 2 has 2gb so at least that / 4gb
Display: 12.9” / 13.3” (My Air’s screen is 13.3”)
Resolution: 1366×768 / 2560 1440 (Air: 1440×900)
Weight: 1.57lb / 3.75lb (a hardback sketchbook is ~2lb, my Air is ~3lb, and my travel Wacom is 1.54lb)
Battery life: 9h / 4.5h

The iPad Pro is only $150 more for a 128GB model. That’d be $950. Or $1070 (or less depending on stylus choice) for iPro, stylus, and software. The 128gb Cintiq Companion 2 is $1600, $530 more than that.

It’s not a big difference, but it’s a definite difference. The weight is a big thing for me, too – computer + iPro is about 4.6lb, my current travel setup is 4.5lb, but computer + Companion would be 6.75lb, which feels like a ton given I like to carry this on my shoulder pretty much everywhere. It adds up in the long run.

I think iPro + Pencil + AstroPad may well have the Cintiq Companion beat. It costs less across the board. If you’ve been jonesing for a travel Cintiq but feel like it’s about $4-500 too expensive, this may be a fine choice. Unless you are an all-Android house. I’m an all Apple house, so the OS is a major plus for me.

Storage might feel be super tight on the 32gb Pro. My Mini is the same size, and it’s feeling cramped – and that’s with much smaller graphics assets in all the apps.

Am I going to buy one when they’re available? I dunno. Depends on how my finances are in a couple of months. I’ll want to wander down to an Apple Store and see if I can persuade them to let me try AstroPad on it.

I drew a comic about some music.

Peggy
September 9, 2015

So one of my comics idols, Matt Howarth, did this thing where he’d draw these little comic strips about music he was listening to, and stuck them in the back of his comics. He called them “Sonic Curiosity”, and these things got me to try out a lot of music I wouldn’t have ever heard of otherwise. (He’s still doing this now and then online, as a matter of fact.)

This is me sitting down with the latest album by one of those musicians and doing my take on the idea.

Dead Planet is the second side of a double album. The first side is “Human Upgrade”, in which the alien wants you to have an awesome high-energy dance party. The whole package is ten pounds – about sixteen bucks American – on Bandcamp. I liked it enough to draw this while listening to the second half.

it has a new name now and everything

Peggy
September 8, 2015

I think I like how this cartoon pitch is shaping up. I shouldn’t have any problems filling out the rest of the blank spaces in time to pitch it to Nickelodeon at SPX. And to Cartoon Network while I’m at it.

Needs a page with a loose map of the galaxy this takes place in, and something about what I’m trying to do with this show. I’ve probably already written a decent explanation of how it should be fun space adventure, with an undercurrent of your enemy is never a villain in their own mind, so stop caricaturing them already. Also a note that ideally this would all be 3D, with super-designey flat color rendering. But probably a wider palette than I’m using here.

soon

Peggy
September 6, 2015

Soon. Soon I will be able to do this iRL. Soon.

Or at least I hope so. I tried a couple of pole crunches at the end of strength class today and they were pretty damn good, which means I’m pretty close to doing this. Just in time to start running around and getting less exercise as I do four cons in as many weekends, but hey, I’ll have them again in a month afterwards at worst.

I know the featured image I’m referring to won’t show up when this is crossposted to LJ. I wonder if it’ll vanish for Tumblr as well? Let’s find out.

the dream of too much travel stress

Peggy
September 6, 2015

Well that was a stress dream.

I was supposed to be traveling. But I hadn't packed. So I had to do it at the last minute. And then I missed my flight. And kinda blew that off and went on a quest through an unfamiliar city for a restaurant with my phone failing to give me useful maps. And people failing to give me helpful directions. Then I ended up in a little weirdly-laid-out ramshackle house renting a room for the night. And started dropping bags and having stuff go everywhere. And then my iPad was chock full of malware and wasn't even turning off properly when I tried to reset it because ads were popping up instead. Oh and also there was a barely understandable phone call from an Australian person I was apparently supposed to be sharing a hotel room with who I was of course not there to pay for what with missing my plane.

I crawled onto the bed with Nick to try and destress by hugging him and he poked me in the forehead with a mechanical pencil when we tried. Put that away and I cuddled him and bawled like a baby.

And then I woke up.

I wonder if this is related to the fact that I have four weekends in a row coming up with some kind of convention stuff happening on each of them. I'm not looking forwards to flying to DC, coming back and visiting the airport for a couple panels, flying out to SF, then doing a con here in the city. Quite possibly. I'm not looking forwards to those weeks and will be pretty wiped out after them. Need to plan my cons better next year.

There may be other factors, too. It's getting colder at night which always means bad dreams for me until I adjust the temperature of the bedroom. And of course my mom is still dead. I had a moment not too long before going to bed last night where that thought sprawled across my mind and I just kinda sighed.