kradeelav

becoming an unfortunate pervert who likes drawing backgrounds. the horror.

( funnily enough, i did have a painted version of this but i am finding out i am not a painting girlie. saw a cool talk by a master concept artist a decade ago who basically said there's shape/painting people and there's line people. think ironically after my shitty eyes got fixed i'm finding i'm a line person all along??? wack.)
#fefates

copypastin' a bsky thread of mine:

i've already shown this to the doujin circle, but seeing the final shop visits for the latest comic campaign per incoming domain is *fascinating*. here's the breakdown:

    bsky --------- 830
    itchio -------- 155
    kradeelav.com 115
    tumblr ------- 90
    google ------ 25
    dreamwidth - 9
    other -------- 4

a few notes:

*there was roughly equal marketing on bsky/kradeelav.com/tumblr/(mastodon!baraag).

*kradeelav.com being above tumblr (solidly no3!) shows you the power of personal websites, doesnt it?

*itchio's visits started slow but then ramped up when the comic hit the front page for a few tags.

this whole campaign was not profit focused in the least (the slim $$ after shipping/printing is mentally sorted as "seed money" for future doujin), but broad data like this is still useful for estimating where to focus for pre-orders to save on mental energy. work smarter, not harder.

why the transparency?

indie doujin/comics is horrifically niche and opaque money-wise with a lot of headwinds (to use a corporatism) right now. i don't believe in competition with your peers. i really don't. the more mental pain i can erase for somebody through knowledge sharing is a net benefit.

nailah, #fetellius

excited for the twenty year anniversary ~

been experimenting with some coloring/finishing techniques and i'm so impressed with krita's modulo layer effect ...

it's really fun studying  the mathematics behind this class of layer effects and surmising why it works so well in the above screenshot (on top of "flat" cell-shade drawing to add just enough of randomness.) i think it has to do with the logic of gradients but then the abrupt switch to the next gradient, versus one samey blob of color.

"painting" that layer effect on with a watercolor brush (introducing another level of randomness) has some serious mileage! especially if you can still eyeball the general intensity/hue.

one problem i've always had with digital drawings is how stiff and lifeless it can feel without the randomness inherent in physical paints. a lot of effort behind digital brushes is the creators deliberately re-introducing artificial randomness - but sometimes it still feels odd or not enough. wet paints and ink separate, markers fade over time, entropy is its own artisan, in a way.

#zihark #fetellius