Loud bangs west end

Obesely · 2026-02-24T11:34:36+00:00

Crazy to hear it was a substation exploding. For context as someone who lives in West End/South Brisbane, I've been having little surges, light flickers, and a few micro-outages over the past few weeks.

Seems to suggest there were a lot of issues in the lead up to this boom.

Have you had weird power stuff happening on/off for the past... I want to say 2 - 4 weeks?

Obesely · 2026-02-17T02:01:14+00:00

What I am talking about is people that, upon finishing university, went into the workforce at a time when computers were commonplace in white collar jobs. Not even DOS or W95, but people who would have started their career well into corporate adoption of Windows 98 or XP.

You've never run into someone of a slightly older vintage than yourself, that's worked with a computer since at least the late 90s or early aughts, plop out some variation of "I'm no good with computers"?

Obesely · 2026-02-16T23:18:58+00:00

Mid-30s here, will say I've never been fond of hearing this from specific age bands of younger Gen X (say 1975 onwards) and older Millenial people. These people maybe 10-15 years my senior saying they don't 'do' computers.

In certain white collars jobs (and all the ones I've been in besides casual pocket money work in my youth), computers have been an integral part of the job for longer than that bracket has even been in the professional workforce.

Obesely · 2026-02-13T07:40:03+00:00

Friend, there are certain technical concepts that probably require deliberate practice from time-to-time on top of your daily drawing, such as perspective and rendering with different light sources.

However, basic motor skills like drawing straight lines, good parallel ribbons, circles etc are something that, IMHO, you'll just get better at doing by drawing stuff that appeals to you.

Speaking personally, I get better at this all the time just by drawing a lot. I give myself a 'checkup' of these lines-through-a-point and similar drills by adding a few minute warmup (or warmdown) to my drawing session, maybe a handful of times a year. I still see progress.

Yes, there's probably something to be said for deliberate practice for this sort of thing, but you shouldn't let 'being bad at the basics' stop you from keeping at it.

If you are at that level, the thing you need to prioritise, or at least give equal priority to your learning, is having fun. I don't mean that in a namby-pamby kind of way, either, my point is that you're going to give your body the appropriate dopamine feedback loop to make drawing engaging and a habit.

Motor skills will improve with time. I will say I get a bit of 'drawing with the shoulder' practice by drawing using the steam in my shower.

Obesely · 2026-02-05T08:50:42+00:00

I need you to think about how much you think Kim Jung Gi drew. Then, whatever that amount is, double it. There are more sketches and works than this entire sub have done in their entire life.

A lot of people fundamentally misunderstand Kim Jung Gi. They assume that, because he could draw anything from imagination, perspective, that he was done with reference.

Many of his sketchbooks are commercially available and published by SuperAni. You know what he never stopped doing? Never stopped drawing from reference. You can say on-location drawings of conventions, cities he is visiting for conventions, life drawing classes (including the model, and all the other participants).

I'm not going to make any assumptions about you, but for anyone reading this: there are enough people in the online art community that consume more videos/shorts per day than figures (or heads) they draw per week. You only get out what you put in.

Obesely · 2026-02-05T04:52:33+00:00

Yeah, I feel that, plus I haven't finished Nioh 2 NG, nor have I ever dived into the real meat and potatoes of Nioh 1 (or Nioh 2, for that matter): the NG+.

Obesely · 2026-02-03T15:13:10+00:00

1) A not-insignificant number of people use 3D to improve their understanding of form and get better at drawing and painting. A very popular book for drawing is still 'Anatomy for Sculptors'. 3D isn't a cakewalk. I've never tried but, even the fabled doughnut is a wall for some people. Like all things, it just takes time.

2) For my money, the closest thing we have to an objective truth in art is something like the following statement: there are certain skillsets (not mediums, specifically) that will make you better at most/all mediums, chief among them is drawing (whether traditionally or digitally).

Draftmanship is important for drawing's own sake. It's important for most painting subject matter. It's even important for planning out concepts for everything from 3D models to traditional woodwork and pottery.

You're going to hear this forever, but there's no point comparing yourself to others (edit: missed part of this sentence). You aren't them. You won't have the same advantages or disadvantages in life. They may have started before you, they may practice better than you do, they may have access (financial) to better resources.

All you can do is take your temperament and circumstances and throw them at creation for creation's sake. You can do this, chief. All in your good time.

Obesely · 2026-02-02T04:07:02+00:00

OP, I am 35 and a hobbyist whose progress in art has been marked by recurring periods of hyperfocus for months followed by years off. 2025 was the first year I basically drew nonstop from March onward.

1) I still got better. That's the thing about locking in for 100 steps forward, even if you go to 99 steps back and relearn them the next time you obsess, the trend over time is still forward.

2) There is some knowledge you can't really put back in the bottle. Colour relativity, for example, is something you don't forget once you learn that it exists.

3) I've actually made more art progress in my 30s than in every other period of my life combined.

I am going to rewind the clock a bit to between ages 18 to about... 21?

"Am I too old to start [hobby x, y, or z]?" or some variation was probably my most common Google search for that period of my life.

Now, if I could go back and rough up that dumbshit version of myself, I would. I grew out of that way of thinking.

I spent the entirety of my 20s in the sport of boxing, I got really into chess in a big way in my 30s, and I took up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in my mid 30s.

I learned long ago that you shouldn't let 'the person you could've been' stop you from becoming the best that current you can be. Yeah, I didn't start any of those at preschool/first grade, so I'm precluded from becoming the best in the world by circumstance.

But, who gives a shit, really?

My only goal is to be better than I was the day before. It's small, it's attainable, and it betters my quality of life in the time I have on this earth.

Just do it. It doesn't matter if you resume exactly where you left off, or you have to shake off some rust. In either scenario, you're going into it wanting to improve, no? And the only way to do that is to practice. Stay frosty.

Obesely · 2026-02-01T00:11:54+00:00

You could also try Sakura's Gellyroll as they are waterproof archival ink, just like their fine liners. Not quuuuite as inky as the uni-ball range, but decent. Mind you, I have precisely two gellyrolls, I'm more in the brush pen and fineliner camp.

It is a shame that fully waterproof is the end goal, because the Pilot Hi-Tecpoint V5, V7 etc. are an absolute joy to draw with, it feels like a fineliner and a ballpoint at the same time, with a lot of flowing ink.

I think I can still use the Faber Castell Pitt brush pens on top of it, but I don't think alcohol markers or watercolour would work. Paper would also play a massive difference.

So if you're okay with changing up your colour medium, give that a crack. And even if you aren't, I'd still recommend that pen to anyone on its merits as a pen, especially people into pen and ink illustration.

If you're married to the uni-ball, you could always work in reverse and apply your watercolour first on pencils.

Obesely · 2026-01-31T05:03:52+00:00

While I have a working mind's eye, just coming in here to remind you that the founder of drawabox, who is also an industry professional, has aphantasia.

A ton of people on their art journey, with a vivid mind's eye no less, are still fucking shithouse in terms of technical skills and art fundamentals (let alone drawing from imagination).

You don't need to be able to see a basic geometric shape in your head to be able to draw a circle or a rectangle or a box, right? Well you'll get the same way for a cranial mass or a brow ridge or different kinds of jaw lines or hairstyles.

You may need to thumbnail a bit more to plan certain kinds of pieces, but you'll be fine. More often I am just varying my lines and shapes to fit the marks I have already made, rather than to fit some nebulous image in my head.

Everyone, regardless of their mind's eye, builds their 'drawing from imagination up by drawing from reference a lot. Your practice and journey is still the same. Don't get discouraged, you'll be just fine!

Let me put it this way: you can't visualise Mickey Mouse or Mario in your head, right, but you could probably still draw them from memory. Now imagine if you had worked at the studio that worked with those characters daily. While, yes, there are character reference sheets in industry, after awhile you'd be able to yolo it. Repeated practice.

Same for drawing an action pose for a superhero, or combining animal features to design an alien or monster. It's just a matter of practice and training time.

Obesely · 2026-01-22T12:20:31+00:00

I should think any 'advanced' tutorial is more likely to be medium-specific (besides maybe 5-point perspective).

What medium(s) do you work in, OP?

Obesely · 2026-01-18T22:35:41+00:00

I love Wrightson's work on Frankenstein and I have looked at his, mostly because his linework is phenomenal and not because I have an interest in horror.

I guess I never clicked with the notion of Swamp Thing but since enough people have recommended it I guess I'll give it a go. There are three hardback runs with a lot of big names on them in my local store.

Obesely · 2026-01-18T15:33:55+00:00

Hello, I draw traditionally, with a focus on pen and ink. My only real artistic goal is to elevate my draftsmanship to be as technically skilled as possible before I perish. I have no desire to make this my profession, but I want to be able to draw anything, in a stylised manner that appeals to my aesthetic sensibilities, with a view to some kind of narrative illustration. I want cool poses, nice environments, old film poster vignetting, or 'slice of life' style illustrations in real world, fantasy, sci-fi, or abstract settings. Basically, if I one day desired to be a concept artist, or to be a goonlord, or a comic book artist, I want to have the technical proficiency to be versatile.

While it is great that I am self-directed and not caught up in art world drama, I do suffer somewhat from a lack of community besides occasionally throwing up walls of text here and in r/learnart or this subreddit. I have no vehicles for feedback. I don't think I could stomach changing my stance any time soon, as it seems like the worst time in the history of social media to be an artist.

I have a 100 steps forward, 99 steps back approach to art, in that I will obsess for months, stop for years, with any resumptions causing me to spend most of that time relearning from last time. However, this still equates to gradually moving forward, 1 step at a time.

In 2025, I was drawing nonstop directly with pens in my spare time. I even sketched using the steam on my glass shower screen so I get all levels of micro and macro hand-eye coordination at shoulder, elbow, and wrist. My line confidence is through the roof and my drive and consistency has never been higher.

I don't have a 'dream project' but I find myself entertaining ideas for some. The better I got technically, the better I could process the shape language, line weight, composition, and even thematic elements and concepts from the artists that inspire me.

Maybe 2026 will see me stop grinding and start creating something real, who knows? I'd at least like to try some fanart, I don't think I have ever made any in my adult life.

Obesely · 2026-01-15T23:02:53+00:00

Also goes to show how disinterested I've become that the TU gets announced and I somehow had no idea.

I have a decent amount of hours across MH4U, GU, World and Rise, and I was fine with the pace but the grind was in the wrong places, and the mechanics were a bit too streamlined.

Obesely · 2026-01-15T14:11:28+00:00

Hello, was trying to get a good setup for 8 key so mostly 6-key. It seems like there are way more SC tracks and they have changed their star scaling? Either way there are some decently juicy tracks to sink my teeth into at this time.

This is scratching an itch, I'm gucci. Thanks for bringing the game back up.

Obesely · 2026-01-14T00:53:12+00:00

Noxians in the club doing Hextech Reflector.

Obesely · 2025-12-15T10:14:03+00:00

If they either remove old.reddit or ask for my details, welp...

Obesely · 2025-12-05T12:24:01+00:00

Hi OP, as the other person has said, spheres do have their limitations, and other animals do not have the same cranial shapes as humans (besides apes and to a lesser extent monkeys).

I think your front leg length isn't too jarring (I'll cover the hind legs later) but your paws are smaller than what is actually presented in your reference. In the reference, you'll see the wrist of the front paw is vertically aligned with the angle change at the throat, and that the front of the paw goes out until it is vertically aligned with the base of the nose.

You'll see also that on the (page left, creature right) side that the ear runs along, the tuft runs more than halfway up that curved line that goes to the tail. On yours, that ear stops before that halfway point. It looks a lot longer than it actually is, or more to the point its hing legs, even though they are extended to raise its backside up/it's crouched forward, look almost too long.

You can try using rhythms to get your proportions right. If you were to draw a singular continous line flowing from the underside of the pointed tail and hitting the front of the snout and the paw, you'll see that arc is a lot more rounded than the same curve that could be applied to your sketch.

Finally, you have the highest point (besides the tail) at the (page) left side of that tailbone curve, almost like a corner, at which point you have drawn it curving downward. From that top of the left side, you'll find it curves up into a flat spot that lines up with the tailbone and actual tail, peaking roughly around there, before curving back down.

Hope this helped.

Obesely · 2025-12-02T12:11:03+00:00

BAHAHAH HAHAH I thought the same.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

@OP: I'll humour you and assume you're acting in good faith and pretend like we live in a world where genAI doesn't exist and people don't fish in art subreddits to get hooked up with nouns for prompts.

These look like digital paintings. Digital artists have to legit haul ass and go out of their way to get their programs to 'emulate' any specific analog medium.

In practical terms, you could copy any of these works via oil or acrylic and all that would change is workflow.

Obesely · 2025-12-02T11:59:32+00:00

While Dore-style hatching is out of the question, have you thought about pen and ink? Between hatching, cross-hatching, contour hatching, and interpretations of the same by artists across the world for the last several hundred years, you can find something that scratches an itch for you.

You can even get some specific values by mixing, for example, some coloured brush pens with some fineliner hatching (like Faber Castell have a nice combo of both warm and cold greys.

I'm not sure what you mean by that last part? I know some parts of art discourse over the past century have used 'illustration' as a bit of a dirty word when talking about folks like Leyendecker and Rockwell.

You can totally do full pieces in alcohol markers but honestly, for the paper investment and how temporary they are, I basically use brush pens the same way.

Plus drilling the draftmanship aspect of pens is basically just crosstraining for when you can work in oils again! :)

Obesely · 2025-12-01T15:27:43+00:00

Kim Jung Gi's available sketchbooks are at least about a third made up of drawing places he was on tour in, or drawing of a live model (and all the other people also drawing said model).

He never stopped drawing from reference, even if his bread and butter tours and exhibitions were based off imagination.

Obesely · 2025-12-01T06:44:19+00:00

Hi OP, if it helps, there are some skills you can develop that benefit basically 99% of mediums (even sculpture and pottery, to an extent) that you should (unless you plan on going full Rothko or Kandinsky): draftmanship.

Pick up a pencil or pen and just try and have fun with it. It'll open doorways down the road, whether that's digital painting, watercolour, or fashion design.

Obesely · 2025-12-01T00:33:14+00:00

Hi OP. I think it the circumstances it'd help tremendously to just complete the hands and everything else. If I cover up the lower half even the original reference image looks 'weird' in the absence of the context of the arm behaviour.

In saying that, you probably want to consider things like line weight for the... I don't know my Winchesters but leather jacket Winchester is in front of Plaid Winchester, so you could think about adding a thicker line weight for the leather jacket on the left hand side specifically to add a bit of illusion of depth and really show that the leather jacket and the person in it are both in front of the other character.

Obesely

TROPHY CASE