F.A.Q. / Art Tips

After being asked whether if I had an FAQ or not, I realized that I didn't have one, and it would probably be helpful if I did have one. (I'll probably just add this to my signature or something, LOL.) Anyways, I will separate the questions into Technical, Personal, and Artist Tips , since those are the kinds of questions I'm frequently asked anyways.

Technical

What programs / tools do you use ?
- Adobe Photoshop cs4 (For drawing AND animating)
- Flash cs4 (For animating)
- iMovie (I USED to use this to put videos / animations together)
- Final Cut Express (Current video editor to put videos and animations together)
- I have an iMac computer
- I use a Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet

How long does it take you to do ______ ?
Depending on how much effort I put into something it's obviously going to take longer; so a fully colored thing would be a few hours and a little doodle or sketch would just take me a few minutes (Meaning YES they can sometimes take up to 59 minutes LOL)

How do you add music to your drawing?
You will need Flash to do this (I suggest you know the basics to flash as well...), but all you do is
1. Import your drawing to the library (in Flash)
2. Import your song to the library (in Flash)
3. FIRST- import your song from the library to the stage. THEN - You will need to know how to add frames, but basically, click F5 on your keyboard to a random area in your timeline, and it will add "frames" to the song. You can see the sound wave because of the blue marks on the song frames, but keep clicking F5 in random areas further down the timeline until it becomes either a) a straight blue line or b) there's absolutely no longer any blue sound wave marking there.
4. Click F6 to create a KEYframe to end the song there.
5. For however long the song is on your timeline, import your drawing from the library, to the stage on a new layer. Go to the last frame of the song, but in your new layer for the drawing, click F6 and it will make a keyframe for your drawing. That is how long your drawing will last, throughout the duration of the song.
6. Go to Control > Test movie because that is where you can test it to see if it works or not. If it does, awesome, you can go save it now and export it.
7. Go to File > Export movie > And save it as a SWF file. When uploading it to deviantart, you will need a preview image to represent the SWF file, so just use the same image you used to create the flash file LOL.

How do you make clean, smooth lineart?
The trick... is to be quick LOL. The quicker you are, you decrease your chances of unsteadiness because you're not holding your pen in a certain area for so long. When you hold your pen in a certain area for a long time, your hand will begin to shake and therefore, leading to unsteady lines that won't be smooth and will probably be bumpy.

How do you animate?
I can't really explain the entire process of animation in one FAQ and I admit myself that I'm not even that great at animation so I don't even know why I get asked this question. But HOW I animate: I just use photoshop cs4 most of the time. Flash cs4 is probably more appropriate, but I like photoshop more because I can add more things like effects, different brushes etc. Photoshop basically has a larger variety of tools to make an animation look "prettier", and Flash has tools to make your animation look more  well put together (since it's purpose is commonly used for animations anyways).

But basically, in photoshop, here is how I animate:
1. Create a new layer.
2. Go to Window > Animation and in the animation window that opened , click the bottom right button with squares on it, because it will show you the frames and the timing of each frame.
3. Draw something on Layer 1. Go to the animation timeline, to the frame, and select the timing of it.
4. Create a new frame by clicking the page button on the bottom of the animation timeline. This is your second frame.
5. On your second frame, hide Layer 1 and create a new layer, which will be layer 2. You see, basically every frame in the animation timeline corresponds respectively with whichever layers are visible. So if you want Layer 2 to be visible in Frame 2, you will need to hide layer 1, but keep layer 2 visible, so you can only see layer 2 as your second frame.
6. You just continue this process for every frame you do.
7. When you're done, go to File > Export > Render video and select whatever options you want, and your animation will be exported.

Where can I get -insert program name- ?
I honestly can't really answer this question because I was lucky enough to basically get everything from my god father. Without him, I would probably have never gotten this computer, photoshop, final cut, flash, and everything. I, myself, did not go out into the internet in search of a photoshop torrent or anything like that, so I'm sorry if I can't tell you where you can get your programs.

Personal

Do you take commissions, requests, or art trades?
Commissions: Right now, no.
Requests: I usually take small, little requests in my livestreams, usually when playing games or when I feel like it. If you ever want a requested drawing or doodle, you'll need to be at my livestream at the right time because I really only take them when I play games with my viewers or if I ask people to request something for me to draw.
Art Trades : You'll need to privately ask me, and I can say yes or no to that.

How old are you? And what kind of Asian are you? And where are you from?(LOL)
I am a 16 year old Chirese girl living in the US LOL

Can we be friends ?  Can I have your Skype?
I know a lot of people discuss this, I might not become your bestest friend in all of the world, but I don't mind talking to you if you message me a small hello or something. I, myself won't consider you a friend either, but there's really nothing wrong if you want to have a small chat with me or something. I mean, that's kinda how friends become friends anyways; Not saying I'll automatically become your friend, but it's nice to get to know others. Just please don't bother me about not talking to you all the time or not doing this or that because that will probably make me not want to talk to you anymore LOL.

My Skype is: mewDoubled I don't really go on it a lot because people don't really talk to me there anyways.

How come you don't respond to my comments ?
Like almost everyone else on dA says : "Just because I don't respond to them, doesn't mean I don't read them." Usually, when someone just comments on a drawing or something of mine, saying "This is pretty," then I normally won't respond to those. NOT that I don't appreciate the compliment; it's not that at all, but on artwork, I get more comments that I do personally, so I can't sit there the entire day, thanking everyone. Otherwise, if I were to miss one person, they might take it personally, but you all know that I am truly thankful to receive nice compliments / critiques / …insults? and I won't really respond to a lot of them unless if I feel like it or if it's a question that I can answer. Otherwise, you can send me a note, or comment on my profile instead, because I respond to those more often.

When do you livestream?
I just LS whenever I feel like it, I don't really set up a schedule for myself. If I do something I want to do in particular like a tutorial or movie night (which barely happens anymore), I will tell you all in advance.

What inspires you to do ____ / How do you find inspiration?
Anything can serve as an inspiration.. Whether if it's music, another person's work, fashion, that random tree sitting outside of your house, your family, your friends, ANYTHING. It's just YOU that has to let that one thing or things become your inspiration. If today is not the right day for you to do art, take a break and don't force yourself to create something that you didn't find enjoyment in.

This has to be like the #1 question I'm asked but I saved it last because it's funny: ARE YOU AND DATING / GOING OUT?
no.

Artist Tips

Creating the ordinary into the unordinary
Have you ever wondered how to make things more unique and creative? Well then, you gotta think of BORING things 8D I would suggest is to choose the most boring thing you can ever find in your house, and make it your job to be interesting. Why? It will build up creativity because you're creating something boring to becoming interesting. It will stand out from -insert portrait of regular person-.

Here's an example:
1. You have a headshot of your OC. Ok, but who's going to really care about it, it's just a headshot.
2. Think of small things people might usually forget, like LIGHTSOURCE (lol), EXPRESSIVE COLOR, VALUE / DEPTH, COMPOSITION;; Things you learn in art class can sometimes be helpful I guess. LOL. It is not wrong to not use any of these at all, but I'm just listing things you can use because it can help you enhance your image to make it look more interesting. As an example, we'll use expressive color.
3. When you're about to shade in the skin of the headshot, try to use a different hue (like purple for example) , instead of just.. a darker version of that skin color. You can still use that darker skin color, but if you have a favorite color or something in mind, why not put it into use and learn a new way to color skin?
4. When you're done with shading it as just purple, throw in something like red or a cyan color to make a "pop" color. Because basically, you're popping in random colors, and that will make your shading a little more interesting.
5. Not only did you learn to express yourself through colors today, but you can now use this technique with ANYTHING else you do in the future basically. And as you apply it to more things, it gives you more options on how you want to color things. I feel like I'm advertising expressive colors now LOL.

If you don't feel comfortable drawing something, you're doing the right thing
NO I don't mean, "yes kids, go out and you can all draw porn now, go on and do inappropriate things." I mean like, do you have a weakness? Do you… dislike drawing guys, do you hate realism, do you not understand perspective or anatomy? Well, you will have to draw them sooner or later, so it's better to face your fears and if you fail, you try again, duh :U I'm gonna give you guys all reasons to why you should all go out of your comfort zones  once in a while.

Okay, let's say, I hate drawing guys and I hate drawing buildings.

1. If I want a job in animation in the future, chances of me needing to know how to draw guys and buildings will be VERY likely.
2. If I never learn to draw guys or buildings, then I never will know how.
3. If you post your work in public, people will think you're not well rounded. I know, "but why should I care about what others think? It's MY art," That is true, but at the same time, where will you if you stick to drawing one thing all the time?
4. If I start drawing more guys and buildings, people will know that I am trying to be more well rounded.
5. If I learn to draw guys and buildings, that I won't have to worry about not having to draw them next time.
6. If I want a job in animation in the future, I will have a higher chance of being hired because I know how to do more things than just -insert one thing-.

I feel like my art sucks , is not good enough , I'm never going to get anywhere in life lalalal
Okay… if you're going to think that way… then you will never get anywhere in life LOL. Even if you think your art sucks, you HAVE to keep going if this is something you want to do. Don't give up because, if you do, then you'll NEVER be good enough. I will be .. kinda mean about this, but if art .. is something you want to do, and if you claim you love it, I don't see why not being good enough is a reason you should just totally give up on it. For people who have told me they love to do art, and at the same time tell me how they're going to give up, I lose a lot of respect for them, because if art is not for you, it shouldn't be bothering you so much. If it bothers you that you can't do something in particular in art, you obviously CARE about it, but you give up because you're just letting your emotions on how terrible you are get to you. The key is to KEEP. GOING. :U Even if you lose your right arm, draw with your left, if you have no arms, then draw with your feet. If you care about something that much, you will have to do something about it.

That's all I will say for now, but if I ever update this, I shall tell you all. Thank you for reading and I hope some of your questions were answered.