Photoshop Artwork

I want to learn to be an artist. I want to learn to use Photoshop like some use paper and pencil. Even if I have to draw a bunch of manga characters to do it.
That's what I've decided.

For my lack of creativity, that's a bold declaration.

I'm trying to learn to draw people, but I'm not sure which style I want to pursue. Manga is only one of many forms. They don't all have names; that's just one of the ones that does, and is well known. I'd like to be able to draw people I know, in time.

This is from a lesson I took on how to draw hair. yep. It's mine.
Nothing incredible, but you can recognize it as what it is, So that's a step. My real trouble is learning to draw faces. They've always been very hard for me.
It's kind of ironic, as being a true artist requires seeing thing in parts, not just as a whole. I'm not going to go nuts drawing dumb things. I want to be able to do one thing at a time. the hair I've never been good with - that's one thing down.
Next I'll do faces. It'll take some time to get good at anything. I hope to "work my way" to being more comfortable with drawing people; I've never been good at it, and Photoshop may be my ticket out of this hole.

You basically just draw it with a crude brush, smudge the edges into the desired shape, and use thin dodge / burn strokes on highlights / midtones.

Grammar Particles and Pointlessness.

I have a new pointless Japanese sentence.
何のサンドイッチが欲しい？
nan no sandoicch ga hoshii?
What kind of sandwich do you want?

何の (nanno) means "what kind".
欲しい (hoshii) is an adjective, meaning "wanted" or "desired"
欲 (yoku) as a noun means greed or desire

And now I've learned something. So it's not totally pointless.


In Japanese, they have nouns, verbs, and adjectives. To explain how these relate, they use particles.

There are several, and I'll cover just a few for now.

が (ga) identifies a subject; it's used very often. don't confuse it with は.

は (WA) identifies a topic; it's usually used at the beginning of a conversation. it's the equivalent of "speaking about ___, ......". It's the symbol "ha", but pronounced "wa" when used in this way.

と (to) is "and". 左と右 (hidari to migi) means "left and right". it is used after each list object, where in english only commas would be used.

や (ya) is "and" and "etc.". you use it in place of と, and it will denote that the list is not complete.

に (ni) shows direction. It works very much like "to" and "towards". it also can be used for "by", and is used with time.

の (no) shows ownership. it's much like " 's ". for example, 私 (watashi) is "I" or "me". 私の (watashi no) is "my".

My First Blog

So I'm new to blogging, as of like, five minutes ago, so forgive me in advance.

For starters,

I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
LDS, for short. That's the "mormons". No polygamy, no magic, no horns. Yes Christian. Yes Book of Mormon, and yes Holy Bible.
This will not be a prevalent topic here; you may discover I have moral values, though, and this is why.


I like to learn. It's part of me.

I'm teaching myself Japanese. I'll explain what I say when I feel obligated to use
漢字. That's kan+ji = the Chinese+characters they use.

I've taught myself basic computer programming. I've made applications, video games, and other useful pieces of code.

I've taught myself photoshop. I have CS2, and I hope to learn more.

I'm in college, at Brigham Young University - Idaho,(hereafter BYU-I), and I'm always busy. I'm taking nothing of particular interest. Math, English, Humanities, Psychology, and a Book of Mormon/Missionary Prep class.