Painting digitally as a job destroys your eyes.

 No one will tell you that staring at a computer screen for hours per day will destroy your vision, but it will. If you do what i do and you're younger then make sure you eat a lot of carrots and sweet potatoes. It will help in the long run! 

Another thing i learned the hard way is that if you take leutine as a supplement for your vision, it can lower your dopamine levels over time, which causes fatigue, because tyrosine travels to the brain on the same pathway. I had to reverse this by taking tyrosine with velvet bean extract for a few months to get my dopamine levels back to normal.

I also had my tear ducts collapse from extreme dry eye. So i have to take an expensive supplement to keep my eyes from completely drying out. All of this so i can make album covers more affordable to bands, lol. 

I have a serious question though. If bands value traditional paintings so much, why won't you purchase the originals? You want the real thing yet you only wanna pay for a file of it. That doesn't make sense.. And that's one reason why i stopped painting traditionally. I can still paint circles around most people, yet I'm not going to do it for peanuts. There's been an idea floating in my head for a while now to draw album covers with graphite on paper, then scan them and color them in Photoshop. Then split the cost between the original and the digital file to save people money. Yet it wont make sense to do this if the originals never sell. So its a catch 22. If the originals sold though then it would be a great deal for bands. I just don't know if it will work. If any of you like this idea then maybe send me a message? The same could be done with paintings. Just split the cost. Yet if i end up with a mountain of unsold paintings then its never gonna work. Especially since traditional art costs with more time and supplies.................Those who know my past know that i started off as a traditional artist. Bands never wanted to buy the originals. That's why i went digital.

I'm getting used to this software

 

Here's one i painted in about 8 hours. The paint on this one isn't too thick, yet if you zom inon it you can see some thicker areas with more paint. THis software is way more organic than Photoshop..Its getting extremely realistic. In the past versions i didn't like to use it as much because there was brush lag and it felt a bit off. I think now its getting to where it can replace other software. No buggy crashes and the brush engine is far more responsive. I just purchased some more surfaces to try on new paintings. This is a new canvas i never painted on before called "Richard"..Let me show a screenshot of it close up..

Here you can get the idea. If i put more time into the painting process i can add more variation. This is kind of a speed painting. 8 hours isn't much when you could spend weeks or months on one image, in which case i could use all sorts of brushes, paint thickness, and other things..This one was done with one filbert brush. Any time i put more pressure into a stroke, the paint went on a bit thicker. That adds a decent amount of variety when seen up close.

Another 20 hours.

This one was pretty much finished in 2 days flat. I'll post it on my website later today. I might offer prints of it. I don't know if anyone is interested in any specific type of merch. People usually always ask for something i don't have then once i add that thing, they ask for something else, and then never buy the thing they asked for. Its like playing whac-a-mole with requests. So i tend to just do what i want. I made back packs, lol...kinda goofy. I would make lunch boxes too if they were available.

Here's a regularly reoccuring thought..
I got into art because i love to draw, not because i love people. Being professional simply means you make money from what you do. It doesn't mean you take crap from bad people.  Gee, i wonder why this thought keeps coming up. There must be something to it. Hmmmm... 

 

Drawing til i go blind.

Been drawing for 15 hours, only stopping to stretch.
Almost finished with 3 more paintings.
Going to sleep.. 3:33 am.

More art on the way..

 2026 should be more productive than the last few years, not because i'm going to try harder. Simply because my attention wont be divided as much.. Back to making more art!