Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

[Ganymede]

@pandora said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Assholes will be assholes, people have to be stronger. My daughter got physically hit in school today and tells me 'I didn't hit him back because I'm a pacifist' so I'm pretty sure I've completely fucked up something, somewhere along the way.

Your daughter sounds pretty fucking strong to me.

[Derp]

@ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@rnmissionrun

I was once a victim of a scam. The caller left a message and claimed to be an officer from the IRS. So, I called them back because, well, that's what I do.

Them: Our records show that you owe over $5,000 in back taxes. A lawsuit has been filed against you.
Me: Really? When was the complaint served? I haven't received my certified mail.
Them: pause The complaint was mailed to you.
Me: Was it certified mail? Because, if not, the complaint does not comply with Rule 4.
Them: You have been served, sir.
Me: No, I haven't.
Them: You still owe the money.
Me: Let me speak to Jim Keegan.
Them: What?
Me: Jim Keegan? He's your regional chief compliance officer.
Them: No, he's not.
Me: Yes, he is. I spoke with them four days ago in a separate case, where I represent a receivership.
Them: What?
Me: A receivership. May I speak to Agent Keegan?
Them: There's no Jim Keegan here.
Me: Then you're not the IRS, I have your phone number, and I am a prosecutor. What's your name?
Them: click

Someone tried something similar with me once. I had just moved, though, and they said I had a default judgment in a civil suit. Which is a thing which really might have happened, because our service of process allows for people to just literally leave shit at your listed address basically wherever without ever speaking to a live human.

So, naturally, I was like 'Well, fuck me. When did this happen?' Followed by my knee-jerk reaction of 'Can I have the cause number?' Because I have Odyssey, and can see more than just the shitty public record version of stuff. Yay!

So they provide the ridiculous Indiana cause number, complete with the right county and court identifiers. No such cause number, though.

People here get crazy detailed with that shit.

[Auspice]

If I ask for advice and say: 'I've already tried X and it didn't work for me'

MAYBE DON'T SAY 'JUST TRY X'

[Pandora]

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

If I ask for advice and say: 'I've already tried X and it didn't work for me'

MAYBE DON'T SAY 'JUST TRY X'

If I had a dollar for every time someone said 'I've already tried X' but there was either a typo, a syntax error, an inclusion or exclusion of brackets, etc... I'd have a lot of dollars.

[Auspice]

@pandora said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

If I ask for advice and say: 'I've already tried X and it didn't work for me'

MAYBE DON'T SAY 'JUST TRY X'

If I had a dollar for every time someone said 'I've already tried X' but there was either a typo, a syntax error, an inclusion or exclusion of brackets, etc... I'd have a lot of dollars.

Well, that's more a matter of 'You have a code error going on there.'

This was me in a FB group for journaling going: 'Hey, some of you are great at sketching. I've been trying to get back into it, but every time I try to 'just draw,' I freeze up and can't get anything going. How did some of you get started, improve, etc.? Did any books, YouTube videos, sites, particularly inspire or help you out? And please don't suggest 'just draw' because I have been trying that for over a year now and it hasn't worked for me.'

and the first person: 'Just draw. It's the only thing that ever works.'

Thanks.

[Derp]

@auspice

So, would you say that it's more 'you want to do it and lack the motivation' or 'every time you try to do it stuff just flies right out of your head so you have no idea what to draw'?

[Auspice]

@derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice

So, would you say that it's more 'you want to do it and lack the motivation' or 'every time you try to do it stuff just flies right out of your head so you have no idea what to draw'?

The latter. Like if I just open my journal / grab a sheet of paper and a pen, I end up freezing up and have no idea what to do with it. I might draw a few squiggles or a shitty zentangle-ish thing and that's it.

I used to draw a ton when I was younger. I even did a semester of art school after high school and that's really what destroyed me. Turning it from hobby/fun/joy into work was soul crushing (which is why I warn a lot of the 'I love to write!' crowd not to trick themselves into thinking they can be an author; I am driven to write).

I miss drawing for the joy of it. But now when I go to do so, I just draw a blank. But if I have something to draw from, as an inspiration (or a step-by-step), I do all right! But I want to find a path to get back to where I can just doodle and sketch again without needing to have some sort of reference or similar on hand.

I'm going to try joining a doodle challenge group. I'm hoping between, a) a simple daily prompt, and b) a group of people doing the same thing at the same time, it'll help.

[Roz]

@auspice I remember this going through my Tumblr dash years ago and thinking it looked neat even if I don't really draw.

[Derp]

@auspice

I can't draw worth a damn. I probably could if I put some practice into it, because I used to do okay in high school. But I haven't for so long now that I don't know that I'd be able to do what I used to do.

BUT. That said, one of the things that I used to do, when I got tired of drawing off of references, was draw off of references -- but add something, or change something.

At first it was little things. Find a picture, maybe change the way their hair looked a bit. Draw some fruit, but draw a defect on it, or add a branch. A bowl. A sticker. Whatever.

Over time, you can start to draw less of the reference and more of what you see in your mind's eye. Eventually, you'll be able to just sort of draw whatever from whatever.

I know that it sounds like it could be tedious. It probably would be, honestly. But it would also be rewarding, in that you would be consistently drawing, and at least engaging your imagination a little bit.

So find a person you think looks nice, and draw them. Maybe with wings. Or a sword.

Draw a car, but give it human eyes instead of headlights. Make it look angry. Or sexy.

It's another version of 'just draw', yes. I don't think there's any getting around that. But at least it's just draw with both a -purpose- and a -plan-. Which is what is really gonna make this whole thing work for you, if it goes the same for you as it does for me.

[Lithium]

@auspice I used to draw a lot, I was really good too, but yeah turning it into work is... not a shift everyone can do. Same with writing. For me when I want to draw I've just lost so much skill and am so out of practice that I am to hard on myself. What I would suggest doing is finding an image you like and trying to reproduce it for fun. Not trace, but as a reference picture. Get yourself back in practice and have fun with it. That way there is a clear goal in front of you.

[Auspice]

Yeah, making it work just killed it. And that's also part of why getting back in is so hard.

I can look back at what I once could do and now I can't and it's just even more soul crushing. Like 'ffs I was once halfway decent. I once had my instructor holding up my work in figure drawing class as what everyone else should be aspiring to. WHAT HAPPENED.'

And now I can't even fucking doodle.

[Lithium]

Reference pictures can get you back into it though, it may work for you to just give it a shot because you're A) Not expecting perfection to begin with, B) Have a reference to go off of, and C) It will get you back into remembering your old style.

[surreality]

I look at my old sketches and just have that dumb look for a while of 'I don't know whether to laugh or cry', 'cause it's been so long. So I feel y'all on this one.

I could never transition to a tablet to save my life, and I do everything digitally these days, and... mouse, trackball, bwahahahahaha hells no. (And let's be real, the odds of me getting my hands on one of the new Cintiqs are equivalent to winning the lottery, 'cause I'd have to.)

[Lithium]

@surreality It was /hard/ learning how to use my drawing tablet, but now I can't draw on regular paper to save my life. The ability to correct mistakes so easily using tablet and photoshop or mangastudio is just... It's amazing.

[Tinuviel]

@lithium I'm the same when it comes to writing. I can type up essays like nobody's business, but put a piece of paper and a pencil in front of me and my brain can't fathom the idea of a word.

[Auspice]

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@lithium I'm the same when it comes to writing. I can type up essays like nobody's business, but put a piece of paper and a pencil in front of me and my brain can't fathom the idea of a word.

Goes back to my above when I mentioned why I warn people about not trying to turn 'ya I love to RP!' into writing as a career. I wish someone had given me that warning before I began applying to art schools.

...or that I'd just focused on photography while there. I took it as an elective and it's the only thing I haven't 'lost.' I desperately wish I could afford a good DSLR kit so I could take it more seriously even as a hobby.

Art is one of those things where either it's something you enjoy and you need to keep it in the realm of enjoyment or you are driven to do it. I am driven to write. I can't shut it off... which has actually led to me needing to put up more boundaries. People tend to take advantage of that and it's starting to wear me down even more. I work full-time. I'm in school full-time. I'm a person with chronic health issues who lives on her own (which is not easy!). And I have my own projects I wanna do.

I can't always be a creative faucet for people. Constantly filling in details for stories, characters, projects. Helping edit stuff. Provide feedback. Years ago I wondered why some professionals (in various fields) I knew began going: 'No, I will not 'go out for coffee' with you unless you're a close friend.'

I totally understand now. That 'going out for coffee' was just a ploy for 'I want to pick your brain for two hours.'

Please don't do this to people. We feel used. And the thing is, for someone like me, my brain will often flip its switch into 'creative work mode' before I even realize what's going on. Before I can even say 'Hey, no, I can't do this right now, I have too much else on my plate.'

So before you launch into 'So I have this character Foo and they're doing Blah but I'm hung up on Flippity and I need to get to Floppity' ... try to go 'Hey, do you have fifteen minutes to discuss some writing stuff?'

[surreality]

@lithium I always joke -- and it isn't entirely a joke -- that I just didn't play enough video games as a kid. My hand-eye coordination is insanely precise. My hand-eye-screen coordination is complete garbage, though, which is a huge disconnect. A lot of folks (even in my generation, I'm in my mid-40s) grew up playing video games to develop the hand-eye-screen coordination skills needed, so it's way easier for them to adapt. I still don't play them (and was always super bad at them -- partly for this same reason -- going all the way back so I never developed the interest even if I like watching the graphics and will watch others play) so that's one of my major weakness areas.

I'm one of those doodlers that will curl up around my sketchbook like Golum all 'my precccciousssssssss' with a pencil or rapidograph pinched between my fingers and whatnot being all hyper-specific. (I always had problems 'working big' for this reason in school, too, but being super short and having stupid boobs that always hit the canvas/paper when I'd have to lean/reach super high didn't help either.)

It's like all the physical mechanics just conspire against me. I had a nice intuos for a while and it did help -- but I still had huge problems with it because of the way I had always done stuff for years. Like, it was better than a mouse or a trackball, but not so much better that it made enough difference to get me back into doing what I wanted to be doing with it when I bought it.

Weirdly... my husband happened to read the previous post over my shoulder when I was showing him something else in here, and he was like, "Well... you are getting a new computer... you're not M*ing any more... maybe you should finally get one, because it pisses me off you gave up drawing. It's not like you haven't wanted one and gushed about getting one since the day they first became a thing." The 16 they have out now is a little too small... so apparently we're going to look at the possibility of the 24 whenever they release them (the 32 is gawgeous-omg, but has that 'nope, too big for my body mechanics' problem even if it wasn't destined to be way outside our budget), depending on how sales go this year and what the price point on those is when they're released (barring any major bullshit life changes between now and then or another unexpected hospitalization...).

I'm kinda in 'you could knock me over with a feather' land on that one, since he said he'd try to cover up to half if it wasn't over $2k. o.o He is really, really pissed at me that I stopped drawing... he wanted to be an artist and it didn't work out for him, and it makes him endlessly frustrated with me that I was 'better at it'• and left it behind for digital stuff years ago.

• (I don't think so at all, we just have different styles -- he is one of the old school anime folk who was into it before it became popular and his stint at Kubert tried to beat the style out of him as 'not marketable in the US' in the early 90s when he went, which discouraged him permanently and goddamn that's worthy of irk-posting unto itself.)

[Lithium]

@surreality For me it was just learning to not look at the tablet, at all. I have a Wacom Intuos 3 that I have used /forever/ and will use until it somehow dies on me. You just look at the screen, and let your fingers and hand do the driving.

I won't lie, at first it was hard as hell, everything was weird, but I got used to it to the point that now when I look at my hand when I try to draw, so I can see what I am drawing, my hand is in the frikken way and it seems so /slow/ now.

It's not about hand eye screen coordination in that respect, it's just learning how to view the screen as the paper, and not care what your hand is doing so long as what is going on on the screen is right.

[surreality]

@lithium Yeah, that's the bridge I can't cross. I tried pretty solidly and consistently for about six years, and it just never stuck.

I am very much a direct manipulation person on some weirdly hard-wired level. I tried lampwork glass for instance, and just couldn't, because you can't touch the piece (because fire and molten glass) but I have no issue doing similar things with clay (which I can directly handle, even if it involves tools) very intuitively.

ETA: I also shift my paper around a lot to different angles to get a better 'hold' on things due to body mechanics when drawing in a sketchbook (t-rex arms and boobs in the way again) when I draw, and I can account for that much better with something I'm directly working on, than working through, since it's a huge angle shift issue to compensate and mentally rewire for each time I waggle around to some new position.

[Auspice]

So in my comic class, I had to learn how to letter comics. It's not easy, but I found I enjoyed it.

And I recently posted on FB because I know comic artists and I know people who know artists... to say hey, if you or anyone you know ever needs a letterer, lemme know.

And a chick replied to be like: 'if you don't do it all by hand, you're just a graphics editor.'

Me: 'Uh. They haven't done lettering by hand in the industry since the early/mid industry.'

Her: 'Well us indie artists do it by hand and I know mainstream artists who do it by hand.'

I told her if she wants to look down her nose at me, she can. I'll survive.

But still, ffs. And you know why you're indie artists and generally stay that way? Because hand lettering usually looks like shit because none of you put the time, effort, or thought into it that the letterers back in the day did. You just slap some letters down without thought for important things like kerning. I know a shit. ton. about hand lettering. I love the hell out of calligraphy. And you dicks put the least thought into lettering out of all of your art.

So sit there and sneer about 'letterers' all you want. Your 'indie comics' are zines you print out at Kinkos, staple, and sell for $2 at punk shows. They aren't even the official indie comic industry, WHICH BY THE WAY USES LETTERERS WHO USE ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR.

ETA: And yes I know that's what her comics are because I've seen and never bought them. Why? Because you couldn't read shit. BECAUSE THE INK BLED INTO ALL THE WORDS. Go figure that paying attention to spacing, having wide enough openings on your a's, e's, etc was important. But what do I know. I don't 'actually' letter.