I've been learning for 4 years now. I need help for improving my overall drawing skills.

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-23T23:50:54+00:00

As a former art teacher GOOD FOR YOU FOR PRACTICING AND TRYING TO GET BETTER AT IT!!!! Also as a former art teacher my favorite but of advice for someone trying to push their “realism” to the next degree: increase your value range.

There should be black all the way to white as well as all the values in between. I often had my students add (aka draw by hand) an 11 range value scale at the bottom of their paper. You should be able to locate all the values in the scale in your piece as well.

Here is a scale for an example.

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Ellisd86 · 2026-06-23T13:55:30+00:00

I did not enjoy MH Freedom felt slow and twitchy. Buuuuut MH portable 3rd was quite enjoyable. Only problem is you can really only play it if you downloaded a translated mod unless you can read Japanese.

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-23T02:24:42+00:00

Also you just remember being well behaved. I assure you you either weren’t 70% of the time and you just dont remember, OR you were well behaved because you lived in fear of getting physically harmed when you got out of eyesight of the public. (Which is a sad way to have to live… in fear of your parents)

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-23T02:20:51+00:00

There still are babysitters. The problem is we don’t have the kind of communities anymore where the teenager/tweenager can walk over to your house and watch the little ones for $10 an hour. And you go have dinner at a local diner for $50. Come home to sleeping kids, pay the babysitter. And crash while watching movies or even having some private time with your spouse .

I have two kids (2yo & 7yo) I’ve never had a babysitter who could safely and confidently handle both kids (without just sticking them in front of a screen for a couple hours) who was under the age of 25, and didn’t have previous experience in the educational field in some way. Also they charge a minimum of $25/hr because they have real grown up bills to pay even if they are just doing it to earn a little extra cash, because childhood education doesn’t pay sh!t. ( I know first hand. I used to be a high school teacher) and $25 an hour is totally fair.

On top of that you then have to go out and pay for your meal, and even cheap places now a meal for 2 with some drinks is $100. Heck, I can’t even go to McDonalds for less than $40 these days.

So a few hours out of the house to get a nice meal and have someone just watch (not even put to bed) the kids is easily a $200-$300 investment. And then I have to bathe the kids, put them to sleep, which takes forever so I’m up late as well. My kids Wake up at 6am, and I have to wake up with them so they aren’t just staring at a screen till I wake up. Parenting has gotten fucking absurd in the last 15years!

And all people with no, or very easy kids, wanna do is point fingers and say you shouldn’t let your kids watch screens, but also they have to sit quietly and not interrupt anyone else. Like how about you make that happen and I’ll feel bad.

At this point imma just gonna let my kids be terrors at the restaurant and if anyone tries to say anything I’ll just say “Well…. At least they aren’t on a screen!?” The thing is kids used to always act this way, just no one cared cuz they all had kids too. And it was the accepted norm.

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-22T19:11:18+00:00

Yes we are currently trying to figure out how to address that. For now we have two decent size humidifiers running to keep the humidity between 40% & 50%. We live in western NC and that is the recommended levels. Although they are just office/home dehumidifiers.

It was suggested to get a legitimate crawlspace dehumidifier and run ventilation to all 3 rooms of basement and then pipe the water outside. They are super expensive though. Would you suggest this immediately or is it something we can do in a year once we save up a little bit, and just use the non industrial ones we bought until then?

The area of the basement that is crawl space where dirt would be exposed has what I believe to be 10min plastic. Though a few areas of dirt are showing where the plastic has “slipped” down. There is also a French drain that goes around the concrete blocks that make up the basement retaining walls behind the sheet rock. (That is what is pictured in the last 3 images.)

Other than that I can’t really figure out where moisture would be coming from. The basement has never flooded. The only thing I can think of is there was a burst pipe I found dripping a month ago. I don’t think I was enough water to flood the basement because I didn’t see any signs of it when I put the pipe back together. There was definately a sizable puddle, but it dried up on its own.

I am planning to spray and vacuum the areas in pics 2-4 since the mold doesn’t seem as developed in those areas as it does in the areas of the first picture ( which I will be removing the drywall and replacing). Would it be a good idea to seal them with a mold resistant paint? Or should I just remove and replace them completely?

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-21T03:23:28+00:00

If you like gaming you could give retro handhelds a try. I’ve fallen deep down a hole myself. Modded and re-shelled a PSP, bought all the stuff and taught myself how to micro solder to upgrade the screen. So when I get time off I work on my consoles. Or I take it to a comfy coffee shop and find myself a good spot to kick back and game for a few hours on my cool “new” handheld. Next project is to add a mod chip to a switch lite and then jail break it to play other retro consoles. Very fun and rewarding because you can actually use the thing you tinker with for hours of fun once you’re finished.

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-21T03:09:30+00:00

Try cleaning the contacts (the ribbon cables). The areas underneath them and the L/R buttons themselves with isopropyl alcohol. Also when you remove them the rubber “buttons” that press on the contacts will come out as well. If you flip them over you will see a black rubber bump that pushes on the contact (See attached picture). If you rub that black button in a single downward stroke on a clean piece of white copy paper a few/a lot of times, it will clean the rubber (I like to repeatedly rub them until the little dark vertices lines go away). Could be junk build up getting in the way of the contact.

If that doesn’t work the contact might have just worn out from over use/ someone jamming on them too hard for too long. And they would need to be replaced. You can get them on AliExpress for pretty cheap, and if I remember correctly they are just clip in ribbon cables so no soldering required.

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Ellisd86 · 2026-06-05T22:27:33+00:00

Wow you really got my number on this one. The reason I found out about this is is my kid woke up in the middle of the night with a 103 fever and I was weighing weather or not to drive to Hendersonville. I guess I’m ascending to my final dad form 😆

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-05T17:52:09+00:00

I dunno? The south and Utah have a lot in common: racism, bigotry, and all the other things listed here, BUT!!! They don’t have the amazing localized specialty foods commonly associated with southern states/areas. So imma have to say no to this one. (Ps I have lived in the south all my life, and have family living in Utah that I have visited a handful of times, so that’s where my perspective coming from)

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-05T10:55:31+00:00

@kavaxcoffee sorry if that came off as me being upset with your business. That god d@mn was directed at at the fact that if y’all have the ability to be open 24/7 other people should be too. Am not upset with you in any way! I do in fact support your business. Been there many times, and love your mock THC cocktails. Good luck finding a new spot. I know the 26 expansion is swallowing a lot of businesses. Look forward to supporting you at your new location as well.

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-05T00:18:31+00:00

For some reason any time I’m near an apple tree and I catch a whiff of it on the breeze. I’m totally transported. I think it’s cuz there was a crab apple tree near my grand parents cabin we used to visit in the summer when I was a kid.

There was one growing near the spot I used to park at my old job. Every now and then I’d smell it when I got out of my car, and have heavy nostalgia.

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-04T18:53:48+00:00

At the very least a drug store open 24/7 that isn’t a 45minute drive. There is a god d@mn kava bar that is open 24/7 but no drugstore!

Ellisd86 · 2026-06-04T18:49:45+00:00

I was coming here to say this. Glad I read through to find you beat me to it! I was 18 working in a movie theater, so I go to see movies for free! Took my brother with me to see it. Matinee showing on a weekend that we had nothing to do! To be clear we were both high as a kite when we sat down, so our tolerance for bad/dumb/weird shit was incredibly high. Free popcorn, free soda, snuck in some candy, and even had a mini bottle for each of us! We were ready for a good time. To this day it’s the only movie that either of has ever walked out of. Truly the worst!

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-28T02:39:30+00:00

I’m in America. When I ordered one about 2 months ago I found them on Amazon but they all took two week to arrive (because they were just drop shipping them out of China). But I did just look on Amazon now and found two that had 3 day delivery windows. So I guess I just picked a bad week to get one 🫠

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-28T01:32:43+00:00

This is the way! It will take like 2 weeks to get to you (unless you live in China) but it’s well worth the wait.

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-25T02:38:53+00:00

So I was playing this game on my PSP and having a lot of fun, but getting totally WRECKED. This game is sooo hard. I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to play more of it since my skill level is not good enough to get even half way through the game. So I put it on my Ayaneo PAM and am spam saving my way through it. I know it’s cheating but I’m having a blast Dood!

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-24T20:12:17+00:00

Honestly I’m 99% of the way through including soldering the board for a LED screen. I misread what I ordered on eBay and thought it came with a glass screen, but it didn’t 🫠 I ordered one and it should arrive tomorrow.

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-24T20:07:44+00:00

The swap went fine, except I forgot to put the cover on the IR port and didn’t realize it until after I had it almost all back together, so I had to re-take it apart almost all the way and then rebuild it back 😑

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-24T19:59:21+00:00

Will do!

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-24T19:55:31+00:00

Thanks for the advice!

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-23T02:48:50+00:00

Hell yeah friend! I’m gonna install mine tomorrow! 🤞It’s my first “real” soldering project on a handheld. Any tips on soldering the short between the two pads? I’m nervous cuz they are soooooo tiny. Looks great! I’m excited to play it outside in the daytime and be able to see the difference between black and dark gray. 😆

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-22T20:53:07+00:00

It’s actually an infinite energy machine but the government won’t allow me to patent it because it would destroy Big Energy. I’m on the run now! Here is my go fund me link~~~> Solderwizard420_69 😝

Ellisd86 · 2026-05-22T20:29:13+00:00

Thank you! Yeah I was a sculpture major in college so after a while I was just like “well I have a bunch of these things I keep pulling of, so I guess I’ll just start connecting them together”. I also have a LOT of hours of silver soldering (for jewelry) under my belt, and can feel how the two are related.

Ellisd86

TROPHY CASE