#oneaday Day 614: Can you hear us, sketching on your telephone

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my smartphone recently. The USB-C port in my trusty Samsung Galaxy S-something was being rather unreliable, and I was getting fed up with it. I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about upgrading, though, because every single phone on offer appeared to be festooned with unwanted "AI" features.

I plumped for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, because my provider had a good offer on it, and I thought I might as well take advantage of it. It's an absolute beast of a phone size and weight-wise, which I rather like — but one thing I didn't know about it before I got hold of it was the fact it comes with an "S-pen" stylus.

This makes me quite happy, because I have fond memories of using Palm personal organisers with a stylus and resistive touchscreen, and I've always felt using your sweaty, greasy fingers is suboptimal compared to the precision one can get from a stylus.

One mild annoyance I have discovered with the stylus is that MagSafe accessories interfere with it, so if you have something like a magnetic PopSocket on the back, it fucks with the stylus. This is irritating, but not an insurmountable obstacle; the thing with a MagSafe PopSocket is that it's a lot easier to remove and put back on again compared to an adhesive one, so it's relatively little hassle to just remove the PopSocket when I want to use the pen, then stick it back on afterwards. But I digress.

I thought today I'd experiment with using the pen to draw something using the mobile version of Clip Studio Paint. And the results are… well, a bit cack-handed, as you can see above, but I can definitely see potential there. I've learned something from this brief little doodle, which is that if you're sketching on a phone, for heaven's sake zoom in and do a little bit at a time rather than trying to do the whole thing at once.

Imprecisions aside, though, I was actually quite pleased with the S-pen's performance for doodling, and the mobile version of Clip Studio Paint seems quite good. It's an annoying subscription-based app, because of course it is, but you can use it for up to 30 hours a month for free without ads. I strongly suspect I won't hit that limit, but I guess we'll see! I will continue to experiment with both the S-pen and the tablet I got for Christmas, and see where things go from there.

The phone in general seems pretty good for the most part. The screen is lovely, the speakers are surprisingly good and the cameras are excellent. I just wish it didn't bug you to "do more with AI!" when attempting to do something simple like make a note. No, black rectangle of doom, I do not need you to "summarise" my notes. The very point of making notes is already a summary of what to think about later. Nor do I need you to turn a doodle into something that is not a doodle. Fuck off and leave me alone and we'll get along just fine.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 580: Make Bad Art (But With References)

A recurring refrain I hear online among creative types is "Make Bad Art". The sentiment behind this is that one shouldn't be afraid to do something that, by the standards of the day, is Not Very Good. Because it is only through being Not Very Good for quite some time that you have any possibility of ever graduating to Vaguely Good, and beyond.

Today, with that in mind, I decided to do a little experiment. Rather than drawing completely freehand as I usually do, I today decided to experiment with Clip Studio Paint's reference features. This allows you to do things like import 3D models of objects and people, then draw over them to produce your own finished works.

After a little tinkering with the 3D models to get the exaggerated proportions used by the characters I've previously drawn, I then traced over the outlines for a basic bit of line art, then added some features such as their faces, clothes and hair. Then I coloured using the basic method I have been using up until now.

The result… isn't amazing, I will freely admit, and I think at this point my freehand sketches are probably "better". But I did find the experiment valuable, and there are things I have already learned from doing this for just one session.

Firstly, even if using exaggerated big head proportions like I did here, it's tricky to get the balancing of a face right, particularly if you're using stylised eyes (and no noses) as I have been up until this point. But one thing that is very helpful when using reference models is the "centre line" on the head, which gives you an idea of where the eyes are supposed to go. It's easy to forget that our eyes are actually a good halfway down the front of our head, since the top part of many people's heads is covered by hair. But if you can get the eyes in the right place, that's a good start.

Some experimentation with adding additional detail to Alex's hair taught me an important lesson: if you're going to do dangly fringy front bits, draw them first. You will likely want the back to look at least a little bit like it is attached to the front bits, which is not something I have succeeded with in the above image. And with the way I composed that image — drawing the head and the "back hair" together as one layer — this is something that would have been difficult to correct without completely redoing the head. Lesson learned for future reference.

It's also clear that the simple, abstract hair I have been using for "me" doesn't quite work when using marginally more realistic proportions, or at least a reference model. I've been left with a huge forehead, which is not something I actually have. Hell, the stringy hair I have been using for a while now is supposed to represent a shaved head, which is not actually accurate to how my hair is right now. So I will have to rethink that a bit if I want to continue on like this.

However, difficulties aside, I also found using the reference models enormously helpful to get vaguely convincing human shapes. Simple things like getting the length of arms right, or having legs positioned in a convincing manner, or where a lady's boobs actually are — all of those things can be learned by tinkering around with a reference model.

Now, part of me feels like drawing over a 3D model like I've done today is sort of "cheating". But in reality, it's a valid method that I'm pretty sure many people use — and my Not Very Good efforts today show that there is still plenty of skill involved in making a trace of a reference model into something that looks Actually Good. And, as previously noted, it is only through Making Bad Art that one learns to get better — particularly if you are trying something new to see what techniques it teaches you.

I don't know if I will stick with using the reference models long-term — to me, someone who is "good at drawing" is someone who can work without things like this; the correct proportions, shapes and suchlike just come naturally — but I think it's a worthwhile experiment for at least a few more attempts. I know some things to try and concentrate on now, so let's just see what happens with a bit more tinkering!

Most importantly, though, I'm having fun. I'm glad I decided to give this a go with a proper tablet, as I'm enjoying myself. Even if I never get anywhere close to being Actually Good, it's always nice to have various ways to express yourself.

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#oneaday Day 574: Characters, remastered

For today's doodle, I thought I would reimagine the "characters" that occasionally appear on this blog in a new style, courtesy of my new drawing tablet and the capabilities of Clip Studio Paint. I think they all probably need some refinement, but I enjoyed making this initial sketch, and each new thing I draw gives me some ideas on what I might need to focus on when developing my skills. I don't have any grand designs on becoming an illustrator or anything, but it would be fun to develop if not "technique" then at least "a distinctive style".

Honestly one of the biggest challenges is fundamentals! Drawing a circle is surprisingly hard! Drawing a circle with roughly equal pen pressure all the way around is even harder! (And, as you can see, I have consistently failed in this regard across the entire image.) Part of me wants to figure out a way to refine that somewhat, but another part of me feels like those individual quirks and "brush strokes" (of a sort) give a piece some individuality and a sense of identity — and that's where a distinctive personal style stems from.

I'm not 100% sure where all the characters came from, to be honest, other than "my own brain". Obviously there's the version of me, which is a little bit less fat than me and a lot cooler than me.

Phillipe (the one who is 80% mouth, and who will almost certainly get his cock out at some point) was primarily introduced to the blog as an homage to a fellow blogger and Twitter enthusiast first time around the #oneaday train — and I was pleased to note recently that he appears to have made something of a name for himself as a voice actor. The character wasn't intended to resemble him in any way, either looks- or personality-wise; he was just named after him, which I recall us all finding quite amusing, given that in stickman form, Phillipe was always the most wilfully offensive of all of them.

Alex, the redhead, has changed her style a bit from her stickman form, sporting some '80s frizzy hair instead of the straight bob she previously had. I primarily created her because I like redheads. She was often designed to be something of a "foil" or "straight man" to me, tending to be something of a voice of reason and rationality even when things were taking a turn for the bizarre. She has canonically slept with Phillipe on more than one occasion, however, much to her disgust.

Lucy, the blonde, I believe first came about in this post, albeit as a brunette. She was initially intended as an embodiment of mindlessly chipper retail workers who stick rigidly to a script even when it's abundantly clear that all you want is a cup of normal coffee and minimal interaction with other human beings. Over time, she developed into what I freely admit is a blonde stereotype of being a ditzy dumbass who is painfully naive about pretty much everything, but she's actually one of my favourite characters to draw because her overly exuberant personality encourages me to make her as expressive as possible. For her new look, I gave her a bit more detail in the bow that ties up her ponytail, her key identifying visual feature.

Other characters that have put in more occasional guest appearances, and who are not pictured above, tended to be more explicitly based on people I actually know. These four, though, I think have always subconsciously represented parts of myself.

The "me" character is, obviously, partly represented by my own self-image, with a little more generosity than I would usually provide myself with. Humour in past images and comics I've used "me" in tends to be at my expense, but I have also used "me" to express my thoughts, worries and feelings about things.

Alex, I think, represents part of me that wants to be cool and popular and liked. I'm not especially desperate for this or anything (although to be perfectly honest, some more friends who live nearby and actually care about me would be nice) but there is part of me that thinks "if I wasn't so fat, ugly, stupid, socially awkward, cripplingly self-conscious and generally inept at living on this planet, I'm sure I could be a riot at parties". Or, you know, something to that effect.

Lucy, then, represents the part of myself that acknowledges that I, myself, am indeed fairly dumb and naive about things one probably should know better about by the time one is 44 years old.

So that's that. You will be seeing a lot more of all of them, particularly once I figure out how to do full-body shots of each of them without them looking weird. That's something to figure out another day, though!

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#oneaday Day 568: Doodling is fun

I'm going to make no attempt to convince you that my doodlings are in any way "good", because I know that I have precisely zero technique and don't do things "properly", but man, doodling is fun! I just spent a little while fiddling around with Clip Studio Paint (which I bought a copy of, because if I've got a tablet I might as well use some good software with it) and that resulted in the above nonsense. There wasn't any real thought behind it other than an experiment with how to bring the cartoonish representation of me into a slightly more "detailed" space than the stickmen I've been drawing up until now.

Don't get me wrong, I love stickmen and I doubt I will be abandoning them completely, but when one has better drawing tools at one's disposal, one inevitably feels like one should be doing a little "more" with them. And so we have the above.

With the above images, I was channelling some of my past cartoon-drawing experience — specifically that of my time in secondary school, doodling with my friend Ed in our "rough books". The styles I've experimented with over the years have a few influences, but one I keep coming back to is inspired to a certain degree by Jim Davis' work on Garfield — particularly in the area of the eyes. I've always liked Garfield-style eyes as two slightly "protruding" spheres on a character's face; it's not at all realistic, but it can be immensely expressive, which is why I think I've always been rather fond of it as a style.

The uncoloured top-right doodle in the above is somewhat akin to how Ed and I drew our shared "Edlock Holmes and Watson" cartoon strips when we weren't doing them as stickmen (which, eventually, we adopted as the "primary" style) — big noses, eyes inspired a bit by Sonic the Hedgehog's big "mono-eye with a perpetual frown. Fiddling around with that style today, I feel a bit less fond of it than the other approaches: the aforementioned "Garfield-style", and an adaptation of what I was doing with the stickmen, with simple lines for eyes.

One thing I've discovered with Clip Studio Paint that I'm quite fond of is colouring the images in! Using layers, you can leave your line art "on top" and paint behind it, and that, it turns out, is immensely satisfying to do. All of the above are coloured by hand using a paintbrush tool rather than a flood fill, and I really enjoyed doing that for some reason. Given the output of the tool is rather "solid" you probably can't see much in the way of "brush strokes", but I feel that colouring things in that way introduces just enough in the way of human imperfections to give it a bit more of a personal touch.

One thing I really like about drawing with a tablet on the computer is the smoothness of the lines it produces. There's still some "humanity" in there due to things like variances in pen pressure and suchlike, but there's a pleasing smoothness to lines drawn as one continuous motion that is hard to recreate even using real materials. You can't do that with a mouse, either — not even a fancy-pants high-DPI model — and, for me, it's one of the ways that computer art strikes a nice balance between the physical and digital spaces; a real way that the medium makes itself stand out as something unique, rather than an attempt to recreate something that already exists.

I'm looking forward to experimenting a bit more with this drawing tablet, and I'm going to try and scribble something as a companion piece to each post each day, just like I've been doing up until now with the stickmen. As I say, I can't promise that some days won't still have stickmen — I know they have their fans, and I still like them myself — but I also want to experiment with pushing myself a little more, and perhaps developing a bit of a style that I can absolutely call "my own".

Also the sassy gal in the bottom left is cute, no? She will definitely be making more appearances.

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#oneaday Day 567: I got a tablet

I got a drawing tablet for Christmas. It's something I've always wanted to experiment with a bit, but the price on previous occasions I've looked always felt a bit prohibitive for something I don't know if I'll stick with — but in more recent years, these things seem to have become quite a bit more affordable, so I didn't feel too bad sticking one on my wishlist.

As such, you can expect the stupid drawings on this blog to take on a certain… different quality from what they have been in the past. I am making no promises whatsoever that they will be better, but at least now they will be drawn by hand with a pen rather than scrawled using a mouse that isn't really fit for the job.

Drawing is something I used to love doing when I was a kid. I have particularly fond memories of being at my Nan and Grandad's house, armed with nothing but a pad of paper and some pencils, and that would keep me occupied for hours at a time. Sometimes I would draw things from my own imagination; at others I would attempt to recreate things I had seen myself elsewhere. I recall one of my best pieces of work being a recreation of Asterix from the famous comic book series; that was in full colour and everything and, of course, my grandparents were good enough to proudly display it on their fridge.

Doodling was a big part of my time at school also. I've talked on numerous occasions about the "Rough Books" my friend Ed and I had, and these were inevitably filled with silly cartoon strips, fake adverts and doodles of our favourite characters that we had created. On more than one occasion our predilection for doodling got us into a bit of trouble, but I think most teachers knew that it was ultimately fairly harmless compared to what some of the other kids got up to.

A tablet is half of the equation when you're talking about digital art. The other half is the software you use. Up until now, the free and excellent Paint.net has always been my tool of choice, but I feel like if I want to do a bit more with this thing, it might be worth looking at some other tools. I know Clip Studio Paint is quite well-regarded, so I may have to give the free trial version of that a bit of a go and see how I get on. I also have access to Photoshop via work, but modern Photoshop has so much shit going on in its interface that I find it borderline indecipherable compared to the CS2 and CS3 versions I'm mostly accustomed to, so I'd rather not get too involved in that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to having a play around. And you will hopefully excuse the inevitably variable quality of the illustrations you will see on these pages as I get to grips with my new toy!

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