CornyBones

1. identify what's making you draw so slow. can't figure out pose/anatomy? too perfectionist about inking? getting caught up in details? indecisive coloring?

2. timed gesture studies. draw a loose figure w photo reference in 10 minutes. do that a bunch of times. then 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 1 minute. train yourself to omit as much detail as possible while keeping the figure recognizable.

3. the dot/line exercise, sometimes called the "target practice" warmup. draw two dots, then a line connecting them. keep moving the dots farther apart while drawing the line as fast as you can while keeping it STRAIGHT (not wobbly!) and hitting the second dot. the line is ONE stroke. it's harder than it sounds. this should help you get an idea of how fast you can make a controlled stroke

4. look up tutorials on coloring more quickly in whatever art program you're using if you do digital art. chances are there's a tool or setting that can make it easier to fill in shapes. i almost never color by hand, i fill bucket everything

5. free yourself of "clean line art"... 9 times outta 10 people think sketchy lines are more visually appealing anyway. it's faster and they have more life. in my opinion at least

6. use lots of references. spending hours on a complicated pose from memory instead of just looking at photo/3D model reference isn't impressive it's just stupid and unnecessary

7. study with intent. if you struggle with leg anatomy for example, do lots of studies from photos (eyeballing and tracing), then try it freehand/from memory, rinse and repeat 9000 times until it's not something you get stuck on when it comes time to do an illustration/comic page

8. less detail. simplify. you can have ultra detailed art or you can draw fast. pick which is more important to you

9. bullshit it... draw ugly and bad but do it fast. done is always better than perfect

10. thumbnail. it's not just for comics. do a teeny tiny sketch of your drawing beforehand with colors. then use it as reference. helps to finish the actual piece faster when it's planned out

I had a nightmare last night.

I was a reporter.

I spent a lot of time thinking about The Rules, and wondering how things worked. Thank you for reading.

Part 3 coming soon.

People would come up to the counter and ask for a double with strawberry and cookie dough and I'd say "you might want to do a single or junior with two flavors instead of a double, a double is really big" and they wouldn't listen, and it was always a delight to watch their eyes open in mild panic as the scoops materialized in front of them.

But the *best* was when a kid would ask "dad can i have a double scoop?" And I'd say "you might want a junior scoop with two flavors, they're big scoops" and the parent would say "no, he wants a double" because i worked at that coffee shop for six years and I had a lot of time to practice and very strong arms and I could easily pack a pint and a half of ice cream on top of a sugar cone, and I did so with gleeful abandon every time someone made that mistake and the kids *loved* it when I'd pass the cone over and it would almost tip out of their hands with the weight of the ice cream.

Kids who ordered a junior cone *also* got a truly unmanageable amount of ice cream, but that was never as amusing to me as watching the parents' reactions as I was shoveling a monkey's paw worth of ice cream into a waffle cone and they couldn't change their mind mid-scoop because after all I *had* warned them and backing out after telling me to go ahead would be admitting defeat.

It was ugly and delicious and still one of the only things that I actually enjoyed about the wedding.

Anyone with a name that starts with a “Z”, ends with an “i”, and isn’t some kind of Italian pasta, IS SERIOUS

Scientist bakes sourdough bread with yeast derived from 4500 year old Egyptian pottery

is a sourdough boule

Her house in the New Forest. They had a pool and hot tub, a pool house, and I think 4 or 5 bedrooms and 2 reception rooms. I say "I think" because we weren't actually allowed to stay in the house. Our coach and 2 male members stayed in the pool house, which had a very small room, plus a bathroom which all of us were to share. The rest of us had to sleep in a big tent gazebo thing in the garden. In May in England. When none of us were prepared for camping. It was about 10°c in the night, not comfortable at all.

I very briefly saw the inside of the house when I asked her mother if there was another bathroom because we were running late and i needed to put my contact lenses in, and she shooed me into a cupboard under the stairs. The living room I caught a glimpse of had enough space for all of us to sleep there.

The next day when we got back from the competition, we were given a BBQ dinner! Which consisted of 1 chicken leg and 1 potato each.

For the privilege of staying at her house, we all had to give Nadine £5.

Her place? It was her family's home. She lived there with her parents, grandma, and two older brothers. It was a mansion with over 100 acres around it, with a big ass stable full of horses, a swimming pool, pool house, tennis court, eight bedrooms, ten full bathrooms, a section of the house was set aside for employees (two cooks, four housekeepers, two gardeners, and a couple others), two kitchens, several living rooms, and it was MASSIVE. It took two hours of her driving us to get there.

We went up to her rooms. Yes, as in plural. She had technically moved put and into the dorms so she wouldn't be driving several hours for school. Her rooms were larger than any house I had lived in growing up (military brat, two parents, two sisters, a dog, all our stiff), and she had a big ass balcony. We set things up for the portrait and got to work. It was going really well...until her grandma came in. No knocking, just came in, and immediately started tearing into the portrait.

Then she insisted I pay her for her daughter driving me out there. Her grandma insisted on $100 minimum because I was taking up so much time. We ended up hauling ass outta there, and I paid nothing.

The ride back? My classmate told me her grandma is upset about her being tainted by us low class folks. Tainted how? Generosity, kindness, and not demanding everyone pay her back every damn penny spent. This was 20 years ago, gas was significantly cheaper, and not the $100 that rich cunt assumed. She explained her grandma has never once handled money and has no idea what things actually cost, like those rich folks in comedies who think a banana is $15.

The portrait was scrapped, and I never went over to that house again. During a group project, she had suggested her place because it was large enough and we could stay over if it went on all night. I asked her what her grandma would say about that, and we ended up using the school library because it was open 24 hours a day.

are some of the worst people

I have ever met.