I FINISHED WRITING THE TUTORIAL!!!!!!!!!!
As with many things regarding icons, it was a labor of love and that just took....a lot of time.........but I'm really proud of it!!!!!! Go check it out @ killiansicons- I mean, if you're into that sort of thing ;D

It's gonna snow tomorrow night, so the household went out today to get salt for the driveway and then completely forgot about the salt. We stopped for bubble tea, swung by my favorite Chinese restaurant to pick up more of their chili oil, and got a lot of other things at Target, but we sure didn't remember what we actually went out for XD

OOPS!!!

I'm still sorting through a lot of the resources I rediscovered, but that's gonna have to be a project for another day. I realized I'm procrastinating what I actually want to do, which is make more enstars icons. I really like the art from the current Valkyrie event in jp, and tbh I meant to make some icons from it the day the event was revealed...but didn't, because instead I made a mood theme and wrote a 2k word long tutorial :T

Procrastination station, aka ADHD life!! I dunno why it's so bad this week.

At least I've wrangled it into some fun projects? Here's hoping I manage to actually what I want next XD

Remembered I could screen record my phone, so I'm capturing all the SPPs for the new Switch song with their TRIP album outfits~~~ This is mostly because I wanna make animated icons, but I'll probably splice them all together and share them on YouTube once I'm done :D

However, I never learned to use any video editing apps, so I'm doing the absolutely cursed method of using Photoshop for all my video magic needs. Liz is sitting next to me on the couch just like....whyyyyy are you doing this XD My laptop feels pretty similarly, since it's not exactly made for rendering video. BUT HERE WE ARE. USE THE TOOLS YOU'RE COMFORTABLE WITH!!!!!

I dunno if this is better or worse than when I was editing tiktoks with photoshop XD

Instead of doing homework, I'm working on a new tumblr theme, which is rich considering I don't even use tumblr super often; I'm mostly active on here. But somehow I got lost looking at themes, and now I'm most of the way through a new one.....

OOPS.

Anyway. I did fill out all the extra financial aid stuff for Hopkins, so fingers crossed that keeps trucking on!!!!!!!

....also, I'm almost certain that I've used this title (or something very similar) for an entry before, but I'm not going through 20 years of blogging to find it XD Just know that I am a creature of habit, and sometimes, I've only changed so much since I was a teenager~

seriously tho I gotta do homework

aka, I'm doing what I swore I'd never try to do again: make a mood theme. Liz told me about moodthemeinayear and I really like how they break it up into sections; it feels way more feasible. Of course, it started at the beginning of the year, so now I gotta play catch up, but I have homework + katsucon is in a couple days, which means I have plenty of time to do it XD


of course it's fucking Knives & Legato; expect nothing less from me~
I plan on coloring them later, but I'm trying to catch up...I mean, I'm also jumping ahead as I find random manga panels, but that's a me problem. I gotta make myself a reference PSD for coloring them though, since I used pretty much the same colors for all the icons I made...

ANYWAY. I made the mistake of downloading jp enstars because....I hate myself, I guess? I dunno!!!! I just wanted to play the newer songs and now I'm in hell, because the upcoming event features Mayoi and the event boost cards are fucking gorgeous and gacha games are so fucking dangerous for my impulse spending problems XD Seriously though, I've been having fun with the actual rhythm part, but I like having pretty cards (and also that dopamine hit from pulling the random box!!!).

Katsucon is fast approaching and I have to do extra homework ahead of time so I don't have to work on it at the con itself, but uhhhhhhhh focus is hard when I could be glued to Photoshop making this mood theme XD

As always, piracy wins. I've been fighting with Adobe, because I fucking pay for a subscription, but the authenticity checker stopped working for Windows 7. So even though I was using Photoshop 2020, which is compatible, it couldn't get through the "did you pay for this????" check. So, I tried running CS2, which I used for a huge chunk of time, hoping it would be enough.

IT WAS NOT.

Apparently, I'm just used to a lot of the features in newer PS that CS2 just doesn't has. I've been just dealing, but today I decided that no, I don't want to live like this anymore...mostly because I wanna make my new layout but I wanna work on my actually nice computer. My laptop has continued to have problems, and I don't wanna have to do the wipe/reinstall thing, even though it'll probably fix it.

Maybe.

Who can say???????

But yeah, I eventually just went over to r/Piracy, found links to some torrent trackers, picked one I liked, and found a cracked copy of Photoshop 2020. It was done downloading and installing in under half an hour. WHYYYYYY did I spend so long fighting with Adobe about this?????????? I'm just frustrated because I legit pay for this and I can't fucking use it on my computer. Should I maybe upgrade Windows? Probably! But I like Windows 7!!! I hate change!!! XD

Anyway. I have Photoshop now, as well as all my brushes & etc. So I guess I have no excuse...except that I have to go through the whole manga to find images I wanna use :TTTTT

I'm sick.

It's some sort of terrible death thing in my throat. I can't breathe or swallow and life hurts

ughhhhhh.

I had a very wonderful day on Sunday, but I'm too miserable to go on about it. Right now I'm drowning my sorrows and misery in Photoshop, my lover ♥ I've gone icon making crazy.

Also suffering through work at Subway when I'm this sick makes me want to just curl up and die, fyi.

OH. And my laptop randomly uninstalled half the software I just installed. wtf. I spent a good hour trying to figure out everything it had randomly deleted >_

I hate Bakura.

Well, no, actually, I don't, I think he's one of the most awesome characters ever. But he's a bitch and a half to color, seriously...

I'm working on a layout for a new graphics community (maybe this one will actually last!) and I'm coloring a panel of the memory world arc of the ygo manga for it. fucking coat. And the scans are not hugely great so I might end up scanning in my own manga...

BED TIME. I have things to do tomorrow and I'm just going to frustrate myself XD

I hate you right now Photoshop >_>

So, I haven't done graphics for heaven knows how long. I'm probably ridiculously out of practice, but I was like hey, I want to get back into it a little bit. I dug out some of my back up DVDs to find brushes, patterns, PSDs, and the like. I'm missing some of the ones I want, but I'll just have to get them when I go back to Pittsburgh.

I'm also going through things, trying to find the fonts I like. This is good. I obviously can't get my paid fonts, so I'll have to wait for those as well. Whatever, that's cool. I have some awesome fonts, some brushes, and some PSDs that I can play around with.

Then I discover...Adobe discontinued Image Ready. cries. I like IR! I use it for animation! After I had to make the switch from PSP to Photoshop in 8th grade (2003, oh snap), I have been using IR for animation. I'm comfortable with it and I like it.

Anyway, I have Photoshop CS3 right now. Image Ready no longer comes with Photoshop because it no longer exists D: wtf. So now I've downgraded to CS2 just so I can have IR, but of course I have to have a trial version because my keycode is back home on my desktop computer. WHY IS EVERYTHING IN PITTSBURGH, WHY. On the plus side, I like CS2 more than CS3, though my love for CS2 is pretty much tied with the original CS. Maybe I'm nostalgic, but I don't like when my software changes >_>

When I went to look up Image Ready on Adobe's website, it told me that CS4 was out. WTF. I just got CS3! This is ridiculous. STOP COMING OUT WITH NEW SOFTWARE PLZ.

....

I'm done ranting now XD I need to write three essays by tomorrow, so I should hop to it.