So today I planned to go on PilotEdge, studying my lines, studying what ATC will say to me, doing practice runs around an airfield offline. I’m nervous as hell. I want to use this service, heck even the monthly fee doesn’t bother me. I just don’t know if I can.

It’s not that I feel like I’m going to fail. I’m sure I’ll do real well and I’ll only get better. The problem is the environment around me at home. I have two dogs vying for my attention. I’m studying charts, spending time preparing for my first flight, learning what a pattern is or how to fly one…and I suddenly have a chore or responsibility to take care of…gotta take the dog out to poo…or she suddenly vomits on the floor.

Then I look outside and hear the planes flying. I want to fly around home, it’s a beautiful day out, a Cascade flight sounds like fun. PilotEdge takes place only in SoCal, and even flying in that area can be a scary experience…fly through Bravo airspace by accident because I didn’t study my charts and just be prepared to be yelled at.

I want realism, but it’s more of a weekend thing, and even that may not be feasible. I want to play other games as well…and I’m not sure if I can fully devote myself to real world ATC just yet.

The positive side is that I’m more confident in flying around VATSIM. It’s not realistic and it’s more of a hobbyist thing. But the casual environment can only help me make the first steps into a real world application.

I still have some time on my trial, and I still want to find some way to start a few flights. It’s not easy though…

I did a few practice flights in both FSX and X-Plane to get my bearings on PilotEdge. I decided to finally dump FSX after all. The framerates were terrible even on minimal settings, where I was getting fantastic visuals and a good framerate on X-Plane. When your trying to fly an approach and struggling with the rudder because there’s a delay due to the framerate dipping. It’s not fun at all…it’s damn near unplayable.

Took a few screenshots to show what I’m talking about:

That’s it for now. I’m probably going to do a VATSIM flight once I take the dogs out. I need to rest my brain for a bit.

Looks like this blog is turning into a flight simming blog, but that’s really all I’m doing now.

Is it productive? Sure! The same way learning Japanese was productive. The most important thing is I’m having fun doing something I’ve enjoyed doing for years now…except I can finally afford to get the hardware I need, and possibly expand the possibilities into a real-world applications. In other words, I’m going to save up as much as I can to go into flight school!

I’ve been playing around with VATSIM, which is a fantastic service. It’s a good way to explore the possibilities of a multiplayer real-world environment utilizing real-world Air Traffic Control that’s not AI controlled. In fact, X-Plane has no real ATC to work with (other than a poorly written IFR ATC…that’s not even worth using).

There’s no flying around the Space Needle, or landing a small Cessna 172 at Sea-Tac just because I feel like it. Nope…this is filing a real-world flight plan, knowing the limitations of my aicraft, knowing how to fly (I’m using a very accurate C-172), and knowing the proper terminology of Air Traffic Control.

I’ve been tinkering the idea of going on PilotEdge. It is a training service for both beginners and real-world pilots on proper ATC communications and real-world scenarios. That way f I do decide to go to flight school, I won’t freeze up when someone says “Taxi via taxiway D4, D, B, B1. Hold short of Runway 16R”.

It takes time, obviously it doesn’t take 5 minutes to go through a session. For example, I’m doing a 10 minute offline flight for a beginner PilotEdge session. I’m devoting time preparing for the flight by picking up the local charts, studying the charts (taxi diagrams, frequencies, procedures), watching demonstration videos, learning the proper terminology (base, downwind, etc…) setting up the radios, and doing the proper checklist procedure before I even move the plane. I fly, I don’t even have time to look at the scenery because I’m keeping a constant eye on my altitude, direction, and speed.

Yet that moment I make my landing, not even as much as a hard bump on the ground…it’s that moment where I realize that I can do this. That maybe if I do fly in the real world, I’ll have a grasp on what to do, and how to do it. How much time did it take me for preparation for that 10 minute flight? About an hour and a half…yet it was so worth it.

I haven’t signed up for PilotEdge yet. There’s a lot of studying…and I don’t want to waste a free trial before I can even get the courage to fly. I’m determined though…I haven’t read this much in years, I haven’t studied this much…I’m enjoying it all the way through.

Anyways, I do have a few pictures to share since my last post. All of these aircraft are payware, yet they are certainly worth every penny. For $20 I’m flying a real-world aircraft doing real-world procedures. It beats downloading a DLC for a game I may play over a weekend.

I have a week off (and my new nephew was just born! I want to see him, my sister, and my brother in law this week if I can!). I’ll study in the meantime and perhaps make my first

As ridiculous $20/month sounds for an ATC service…I could think of worse things to spend my money on. Lootcrate? Crunchyroll? An MMO? Please…

Anyways, here are some new pictures. Hope you all don’t mind the GUI…I don’t feel like cropping them out.

This week’s had its ups and downs with gaming, but it’s ended up on a high note.

First off, I’ve been trying to manage my FSX addons to little success. After adding a few new aircraft and scenery, I found the sim simply bogged down. Last week I mentioned load times were pretty long, and I was starting to get fed up with it.

While I’ve been planning on upgrading my prebuilt PC to modern standards, FSX and X-Plane gave me the final push to upgrade. I ended up getting another 8GB of RAM, a 480GB SSD Hard Disk, and a GeForce GTX 960.

Unfortunatly, it didn’t help with FSX at all. The 32-bit architecture will always keep it held back. I was looking forward to a nice day flight from Payne Field (Everett) to Hoquiam (Near Ocean Shores). I had planned on flying the A2A Piper Cherokee using online ATC, and filed a flight plan on VATSIM (a simulated air control network). It was a disaster, I had three crashes (at 15 minutes each, that’s 45 minutes of loading) because I simply tried to Alt-Tab so I can set up the ATC program. After tweaking, I was able to get the sim running in windowed mode.

Then the aircraft selection. The Cherokee was in some sort of “damaged” state, saying the prop was damaged and it wouldn’t let me repair it. I tried copying over config files, looking at the forums, and reinstalling stuff…yet it wouldn’t fix the problem.

I planned to fly around 11 AM, when it was 4PM and I still wasn’t able to fly, I gave up…

Then I switched to X-Plane just because I was sick of dealing with FSX. Last week I got a new haze addon, cloud and weather addon, and a new high-detail C-172. Mew hardware was able to run some intense detailed scenery addons (freely available!) and I figured out how to render satellite imagery over an area using a donation-ware program (still waiting on the software download, but the programmer is pretty legit). Lastly, I got a VATSIM plug-in for X-Plane to speak to ATC, which something missing in the sim.

The result was far above anything I experienced with FSX. The initial load only took about 5 minutes, no crashes, the frame rate was constant, and it genuinly felt like I was flying a real aircraft. The ATC at Seattle Center picked up my flight plan and was very patient as I learned some new terminology. Some of my Navy training helped out too as I was able to provide precise detail over the radio over what I needed. Hearing chatter from other simmers (flying big airliners and GA aircraft) simply passing Seattle through was a huge element. It really felt like the real deal.

The entire time I ran the sim at about 30-40 FPS, which is very good for most sims given the amount of taxing detail they process…the new PC upgrade was well worth it. While the scenery detail (i.e. the trees, houses, landmarks) is not as good as FSX’s Orbx Pacific Northwest stuff, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I spent the entire flight looking at sectional charts, talking to ATC, and reading up on stuff. I didn’t have time to look down and say “Hey they didn’t properly render some buildings in Bremerton…” The sunset and flying over the Olympics was simply stunning.

 

It was a fantastic flight and a smooth landing. I stepped away satisfied (the same way I am satisfied when I finish a Gundam model) and it’s a feeling I rarely feel playing normal video games. Simply put, it was the best way to end what could have been a pretty shitty day.

Not sure what my plan is for tomorrow. I’m kinda burned out with simming today, but I have a bunch of other games I want to get back into. I reinstalled Train Simulator and picked up a new route for it. Also have some MMORPGs I want to get back into: Black Desert Online and Elder Scrolls Online. I also have Diablo III to play, Warthunder, IL-2 Sturmovik, and a few others.

But I feel at least at this point I can take it easy and not worry so much about spending hours loading up my download queue for essential addons or tweaking performance settings in FSX. I’m just going to stick with X-Plane for a bit and simply enjoy simming the way it’s meant to be.

It’s nice to be back into a good hobby. I’ve felt jaded the past few months due to sheer boredom. While I do love to work on my model kits, that’s not the only thing I like to do.

Games is something else…a way to pass time. Yet it just doesn’t always do it for me. Sometimes I just want to enjoy something without a story or grinding mechanics holding me back.

That’s perhaps why I’m so drawn to sims. Euro/American Truck Sim, Train Sim, and Flight Sim. It’s a way to enjoy different aspects of life without the expenses and costs of the actual professions.

With Flight Simulator X, I’ve been doing flights with a very detailed Piper Cherokee model. I did some comparisons between that aircraft and the Cessna 172, and despite a more user-friendly avionics system in the Cessna, I just kinda prefer how the Piper looks and feels. In fact, after practice, it’s hard to adjust back to a Cessna given the familiarity I’ve gained from the Piper.

 

There’s differences in sounds, how you turn it on, how you control the plane, how you land the plane. As a beginner, it’s not as simple as jumping from car to car in a normal video game…it can be quite daunting to figure out some of this stuff, let alone move on to a 737.

With that said, there are some issues I have with Flight Simulator X. The sim is 10 years old and no longer supported. The game is still in 32 bit and does not take advantage of newer technologies. So my fast system will not improve frame rates or load times due to the design of the sim.

The next issue is that addons are a must. FSX out-of-the-box looks very bland, especially compared to newer games like X-Plane 10. Addons such as Orbx FSX Global and region packs, Rex skies, and Active Next weather generator are necessary to improve the general look and feel of the game. Then with those addons…expect to wait 5-10 minutes of load time before you even jump into a plane.

Planes are also necessary. FSX has a good selection, but the textures look flat on many of the aircraft, and flying the default aircraft feels a bit…easy? Basically, I can hop into a Cessna 172, take off, fly over the Cascades and land without ever having to worry about leaning the mixture or fouling the spark plugs. I can take off and land a 737 without ever touching the auto pilot…IFR be damned.

Buying new aircraft, such as the fantastic selection from A2A for GA Aircraft (General Aviation) is necessary if you want the real experience of pre-flight inspections, realistic engine dynamics, and flight physics…except it comes at a price of $50 an aircraft. It’s worth the cost though, and just spending half an hour of pre-flight stuff before even taking off adds to the feel and realism. I feel like I can legit take off and land a trainer Cessna or a Piper.

Then there’s the actual hardware…forget about running it using a keyboard and mouse. The HOTAS that I bought for Elite works great for FSX…but even now I think about upgrading to a more mid-range Saitek X52 for the extra buttons, precision, and aesthetics. Then there’s TrackIR which I recently bought, it enhances sims by replicating head movement, so you don’t have to fiddle with the mouse or the joystick hat switch just to look left/right.

It’s an expensive hobby that I’ve been jumping in and out for years. Only now I’m finally able to afford getting back into it.

Yet when all is said and done, the game looks gorgeous. Flying VFR in an expensive aircraft and keeping aware of airspaces using real-world sectional charts and vectors is something I would never have the time or money to do in the real world.

The additional benefit (at least compared to Truck or Train sims) is that I have the entire world within reach that’s accurately represented. I don’t have to buy a $40 addon to ride back and fourth in a 10 mile stretch in Train Sim…or play through a condensed California in Truck Sim while waiting months for a possible Pacific Northwest DLC. Even though Flight Sim addons are expensive, they mostly enhance an already complete game…not simply add bits and pieces like other smaller scale games do.

I do have to draw comparisons to another game, X-Plane 10. I started playing X-Plane a few days before FSX went on sale on Steam (surprising coincidence) I was excited with the demo Seattle scenery and expected more of the same with the rest of the world…except there was nothing there. No Hollywood sign in LA, no Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, no hotels in Las Vegas…it was barren and felt incomplete.

The positive side is that there are many great addons that enhance the game greatly. There’s World2XP which adds additional autogen scenery, and HD Mesh Scenery which enhances the details of forests, lakes, towns, and mountains. On top of that, there are a lot of free airport addons coming out from talented people each week.

The game plays great and the load times are minimal given the 64 bit modern architecture. With addons the scenery looks very, very much like the real thing, especially flying at night when the roads and ground vehicles light up…it’s amazing.

With that said, even with all the addons, there is still a lot missing. ATC and air traffic is disappointing, and the aircraft selection despite feeling much more realistic compared to FSX, is quite lacking in aircraft that I personally like (what I’d do for a good Piper Cherokee). It’s not a bad game per say, and out of the box it looks fantastic despite the missing landmarks. It’s just not quite there compared to FSX.

So that’s what I’ve been up to the last week. Tomorrow I’ll be out with family going through the same area I flew over today. Here’s some screens I took using real world weather and aircraft realism in FSX. I flew from Skagit Regional to Renton Municipal via Whidbey Island down to Bremerton and back up from Tacoma.

Spent the day playing MMOs. I feel like I got much of it out of my system. Here’s my thoughts so far.

First off, after playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, I feel it’s a great game. The fact that they got rid of the grind and made it more accessible is a great point. The only thing I don’t like is the forced Pay-to-Play measures.

One of the things that bothers me about paying a monthly fee is that there’s a mental barrier, a push “If I don’t play this every day, I have wasted my money into this”. There is usually no end-game, and a push towards large scale raids, queuing for long dungeons, and so forth. Then there’s crafting and other side activities that feel like such a grind.

While I enjoy MMOs for the story, I seem to be the minority. And that’s why the pay-to-play concept isn’t really something I can devote to. MMO’s are huge commitments and that’s not something I can do at the moment.

Right now, I want to focus on quick session games and start on some new model kits. I have been itching to work on the Gundam MG Sazabi ver Ka. I got my work area all cleared out now, and hopefully I can start on it soon.

I’ve been also dying to read some good books. I’m currently reading Leviathan’s Wake and plan on picking up Mistborn soon. My tastes between Sci-Fi and Fantasy tend to alternate, so I may just bounce between both books.

 

So what games do I want to focus on next week?

I’ve been playing a bit of Diablo III. ARPGs seem to be my fallback. They are quick, not much story, and fulfill my need for instant-gratification. Instead of spending hours grinding to get that new piece of gear or to hit the next level, it takes me about 20 minutes.

I might play some Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online. Neither have monthly fees or outrageous pay schemes. I played both this morning, and might stick with them for a few weeks.

Guild Wars 2 is good, I’m a huge fan of the combat, the cooperative questing, and the exploration-based gameplay. I’m playing as a Norn Hunter and have been enjoying it so far.

With ESO, it took a while to warm up to. I wasn’t too crazy about the non-traditional Skyrim style roleplay, but after a couple hours, it’s certainly a nice deviation from the tab-targetting 12-key rotation MMO gameplay. Also, being able to outfit my character as I see fit is a huge plus. Do I want to attack enemies with knives? Or go with a bow and arrow? How about a Great Sword? It’s all about how I feel most comfortable playing, and not about imposing certain restrictions. The biggest bummer is that I’m playing the Aldmeri Dominion (Elves and cat-people) and it looks like if I want to see Daggerfall, Skyrim, or even parts of Morrowind (no Vvardenfell unfortunatly), I’m going to have to hit max level or start a new character on those locations.

I’ve also been itching to use my HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle and Stick) on a Flight Sim. I’ve been using a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X for Elite Dangerous, and it’s a very good joystick for it’s price (I got it for $40). Compared to the higher-end Saitek X52, which looks like an amazing stick…$150 is just way too much to play just one or two games.

Before I start talking about sims let me share a short story, I used to be a Flight Sim junkie since I was 13 or so. There was some sort of fascination I had over traveling the country, the world…and retracing some of the steps I travelled and flew over as a kid. I played nearly every iteration of Microsoft Flight Simulator since 1997, and in the process learned how to fly planes when I was a kid.

I wanted to be a pilot, but having glasses disqualified me from going into the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Still, I simmed on/off as a hobby so it occupied a lot of free time until I started doing art and other stuff.

I’d like to get MS Flight Sim X, they have the Steam edition for $25…but the last iteration was released in 2006, so there’s been many real-world change in the last 10 years (Sea-Tac having a new runway for instance). That would mean I’d have to spend hours looking for addons upon addons (many of which are paid addons)…something I don’t really have the time or patience for nowadays. Perhaps if there’s a Steam sale I’ll get it for $5 or so.

Then there’s X-Plane 10. I tried the demo yesterday and it looks like it’s up to date so far. What’s great is that the demo takes place in Seattle (amazing coincidence), so I can gauge the accuracy. They have the new runway, included the new light-rail, and have really detailed scenery (I-5 looks like…I-5, and not just some flat texture on the road.)

My worry is that the detail wouldn’t translate to the other airports. Some of the reviews read that other locations are quite empty…yet I’m confused because the latest patches in the last 3 months show that they are adding community-added 3D airports each update. So it might actually be worth it! It’s hard to tell though, most of the videos and screens I’ve seen are usually with expensive add-on packs that I have no interest in buying.

So yeah, tomorrow is the start of a new week. I’m going to try to take it easy and not get too overwhelmed. I’ll try to post some gameplay pics later this week if I’m not too busy.

It’s sad that the PS4 has barely been getting any playtime this month. Perhaps a good thing (less money to spend on games). I do want to finish playing The Witcher 3 sometime,  perhaps catch up on Xenoblade Chronicles X. Then there’s the games that I haven’t picked up yet: Fire Emblem Fates, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, Senran Kagura Estival Versus, Hyperdimension Neptunia VII, and a few others. But I can wait for sales…

Much of my free time has been catching up to games for the PC. I’ve fallen for MMOs mostly, but I still put a chunk of time into games such as Elite Dangerous and American/European Trucking Simulators.

For the most part, I’ve been hooked to Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s a pretty good story so far, and the grindy portions have been removed for a more streamlined story progression. Also, for an older game, the graphics look fantastic.

It’s also nice to have eight different stories to play through, so whether I play an evil Sith dude or some noble Jedi…there’s a lot of gameplay to be had.

Here’s some screens I took this month of various games I’ve been playing:

 

Other than that, just kinda bored really. There’s a few model kits I want to start on, a story I’d like to write, some pictures I’d like to draw, and languages I’d like to study. It’s just a matter of devoting at least an hour of my day to do it. With only 3-4 hours of “free time” a day, it’s not always easy to cram everything all at once, but with the newness of the PC and some of these new MMOs now fading away, I should be able to get

It doesn’t help that my dog has been particularly lonely, especially since my Grandmother had to fly back down to Panama for a funeral and will be there for about a month…and nobody to keep him company for 8+ hours a day. It’s especially hard to focus on stuff when my dog is staring at me with a toy in his mouth trying to get me to play with him, so I typically have to force myself away from whatever I’m doing to spend some time with him.

Work has been okay. I’m doing some hardcore R&D style work on some difficult repairs and making progress. I’m officially a lead tech now, which brings about a few responsibilities, but nothing too drastic that I can’t handle. Hardest part of the job I think is just dealing with people who are plain negative or like to spread gossip about others. Not cool.

I’ve been putting some serious thought into programming again. On one hand, I don’t necessarily *plan* on being a programmer (nor do I plan on being a writer, artist, or whatever mood I’m in), so to me, programming just for fun seems no different than playing a game or watching a movie. Just something to waste the time.

On the other hand it’s job security and valuable skills. Having those skills to put on a resume could potentially help if I want to move on to a different career path. Heck I may even go freelance and start my own business…who knows :/. You can put “programming” on a resume, you can’t put “watched Netflix” on one.

It’s been about two years since I last played games on the PC. At the time, I was overwhelmed with the amount of Steam games I had sitting there unplayed, yet at the same time I felt hindered by a gaming setup that I couldn’t upgrade. I also had issues with the “portability” of the machine, which actually amounted to heating issues and a 2 hour battery life.

I’m back. I caved in and purchased a new machine for the sake of simple gaming, something to take me away from the couch and the $60/month investment on console games. After one week, I gotta say…it’s working out so far.

So much to catch up on, but I’ve actually been able to contain my excitement and keep things to a minimum.

First off, I reactivated my old WoW subscription and playing through the content with co-workers. I’m not allowing it to overwhelm my life…which is good. It’s a nice distraction from FFXIV, which is a really good game…but there is the social aspect with people I know who actually play the game.

I’m mixed on WoW so far. I have always loved the story and the art style. Yet it seems like much of the earlier content that I was familiar with is now put aside, forcing the player to rush through those early-level stages.

This is both good and bad…I don’t see the same old stuff from 5 years ago, nor do I have to deal with so much “Kill 6 Rapters, Find 12 boarskins” quests. Yet at the same time I’m skipping through areas that used to be very populated. I’ll play for an hour or two in Ashenvale or something and not see a single person as they all hang out in Stormwind or other areas.

I played a bit of Elite Dangerous. That game is great…except I feel a bit let down by the mission quality. It seems like the primary means of advancing in the game is just hanging out by a navpoint in front of a star and waiting for something to happen. There’s other elements such as exploration and trade…but for a beginner sitting in a newbie Sidewinder I feel a bit underwhelmed?

Also picked up American Truck Simulator and having a huge blast with the game. I’m excited about the possibilities of DLC (a plus for once?). The game starts off with California and a free Nevada DLC, Arizona will be coming out soon and will also be free. Rumor has it that Utah and the Pacific Northwest is next. This is awesome, and hopefully in a couple of years from now I can do a cross-country trip, or re-enact trips I made a few years ago (like the fantastic North Carolina to Seattle trip).

If there’s a bright light to PC gaming is that I can actually cut back on gaming costs. Steam sales are frequent, and with MMO’s (both free to play and monthly fees), I can enjoy a wealth of content for a small fraction of the price. If I want to upgrade, it’s simply swapping one part for another.

This weekend I hope to do a bit more gaming. I’ll stick with a few of the ones I like for now…play a round of World of Tanks…play a couple dungeons on WoW or FFXIV. That sorta thing…

A lot to talk about this week. I’ve been getting back into art in a big way.

There’s been some hesitance in how I approach this. I’ve tried many times in the past to get “back” into art, but I often get discouraged and sidetracked. After all, I’m not doing art for profit.

I think that’s been a huge barrier in the past. There’s the idea that if I enjoy something, it must be something I need to make a career out of. That’s great if you start at a young age…like 12 years old. But if your 20 or 30 years old, it really doesn’t make sense. I would look at my sketches, think “It’s a waste of time, I need to focus on my Navy career”, and simply give up.

I’m not in that particular predicament anymore. I’m in a career I enjoy, and while I’m constantly challenged and learning new things with my new job…I feel there’s always room for growth. The question is more along the lines of how do I want to grow? I’ve considered several approaches, programming, computer sciences, music, but I’ve always had a passion for art. I just never could financially justify getting into it as you can only do so much with some pencils and a sketchbook, and a digital setup is very expensive.

So last week I came up with a plan. I was already halfway there with the computer setup. I have a great computer, Photoshop (trial edition), and an art tablet. I just needed to expand. I picked up the cheapest 27-inch monitor I could find and tweaked my workspace so I could work and not feel so cramped. Then last night I picked up a Wacom Intuos Pro Medium tablet; because as I soon found out, it’s hard to draw on a 27-inch screen on a tiny tablet.

Drawing digitally isn’t easy, I found out last week that drawing manga is very difficult. Not impossible by any means, but getting lines look right and not sketchy on Photoshop/Manga Studio is an exercise of tedium and constantly hitting Ctrl-Z. While watching various live-streamers and instructional videos on YouTube, I have worked on tweaking my line-work to look less sloppy. As a result, I’ve found I’m better at digital painting more than I am doing line-work, so I’ll continue to tweak over the next few weeks on the right style.

But art isn’t all about drawing digitally. You have to start from the foundations. I’ve been doing a lot of offline sketches and drills as a part of some instructional videos I found via ctrlpaint.com. Much of it is review from my art classes in high school, but other stuff is like “Ah hah! So that’s why we draw in this way!!!”. It’s an excellent resource and I recommend anyone who is even considering digital art take a look at the site.

Other than that, it’s been a slow week. I’ve played a bit of Fallout 4 (which is a fantastic game), but been mostly in design-mode so I haven’t devoted that much time to it. The stuff that happened in Paris yesterday sucks, but I posted my thoughts about it on Facebook.

That’s about it. Not going to be posting any art examples. I’m not a big fan of showing my sketches since my scribbles, random ovals, eyeballs, or whatever I decide to draw in the spur of the moment isn’t really something I can publish just yet.

The last two days have been a hodge-podge of junk art. I *know* I am not as good as I was six years ago, and it’s a bummer.

But it’s like trying to go back to stick shift after years of driving automatic. It takes a while to get back into the rhythm.

Today at work, I spent time trying to come up with a plan on my digital art setup. What software to use, what hardware to use, etc. I’m not at the level where I need expensive equipment, so I will make ado with what I have…an insurance policy in case I get “bored” and convince myself out of this hobby.

It’s tough; you have so-called “experts” insist x software is better than y software, drawing on a tablet is better than on a computer, PC vs Mac, etc. There are so many variables you can spend hours on trying to figure out what is the best “tool” yet go nowhere with actually creating art. It’s frustrating.

Then on top of that, there’s the question of what to create. Manga? Comic Characters? Scenery? Dragons? Of course, everyone has their opinions, and looking at different ideas and designs from people who have been doing this for years is massivly discouraging.

So for that, I’m setting on what I have, and what I am used to.

Here is my setup:
Late 2013 Macbook Pro 13”
Wacom Intuos Manga Tablet
iPad (for a secondary screen).

I may consider a larger monitor this weekend, as 13” is very, very small for my eyes…but at the same time I’m limited on desk space, so we’ll see…

The software is a difficult choice. I absolutly love the vector tools in Manga Studio 5 (Clip Studio Paint), but for some reason it’s really laggy, and the GUI is not at all optimized for Retina displays. There’s other great software for OS X, but it’s hard to follow along other artists when I’m using software completly different than theirs.

So I’m left with Photoshop. I’m extremly familiar with the interface, shortcuts, and workflow…industry standard and all that stuff. My biggest concern is that it’s primarily a photo manipulation tool that utilizes raster illustration…and of course, the price. I’m done with pirating stuff…so downloading a pirated version is out of the question. Yet I can’t outright buy the software. Adobe has this subscription model, $10/month for one year…which isn’t bad, and much better than say…$500 from where it was a few years ago. It feels strange though because I am making a financial commitment, and if I change my mind on this hobby…well I’m out $120 for a piece of software I won’t use.

Yet in the end, perhaps that’s what I really need…to make a commitment and say “Fuck it, I’m going to draw again and nobody is going to stop me.”

Next, what should I draw? I’ve done it all through the years: realism, pin-up, cartoon, comic style, manga. Yet during my initial drawing experiments yesterday, I couldn’t really do shit. I felt like I was 12 drawing Spider-Man for the first time…it was embarrassing. I was discouraged in my teens from drawing manga (long story) and I since loathed the though of ever doing anime stuff again…until last year when my interests resurged (I blame great stuff like Fairy Tale, Gundam, Kill la Kill, etc…)

Looking through my artbooks a majority of them are manga related…and not only that, I still have my copy of Pop Manga signed by Camilla d’Errico. So why not get back into something I already am familiar with?

With that said, here’s a quick 5-minute sketch in Photoshop I drew out from my head to convince myself that I should go back to the manga style. It’s not great…but it’s a start I guess?