sarahbduck

[sarahbduck]

Subscription for a Paintbrush

A painter might feel like a paintbrush is an extension of themselves, developing muscle memory and skill to create beauty. But what happens when that tool is owned by someone else, and they charge rent? What if they've decided to take it away from you? What if they've decided your art isn't yours?

As a 3D artist, I was professionally trained in using Autodesk Maya, a 3D modelling and animation application. I became really good with it, and grew to love it! I used it at work and at home for my own projects. It became muscle memory, an extension of myself, an organ for expression.

The full version of Maya is ludicrously expensive at CA$2,500 a year! So I had to settle for a cheaper version called Maya LT. It was missing some features, but I wasn't using them at the time so it worked out. I paid CA$360 a year for 3 years.

COVID struck, and I lost my job. I had to use savings to continue paying my license for an additional 2 years, yet in that time they provided no updates. I was just paying for access.

In 2022, Autodesk announced that Maya LT was being discontinued, replaced by a new version called Maya Creative. Instead of a subscription, you'd buy "tokens", spending one token for 24 hours of use. You could only buy tokens in bulk, the cheapest being 100 tokens for CA$405, and they expire after one year.

I've never seen such a predatory, disgusting pricing model for a piece of software. It's like an arcade machine! I thought subscriptions were bad enough! I refused to participate.

Despite spending nearly two grand, the tool I love is going to deactivate itself soon, and I don't have any say in it. It's bytes will still be on my computer, but it'll refuse to launch. Maya LT had a proprietary file format, so all of my projects will be unusable.

It feels like I'm losing a part of myself.

I feel like a fool for even letting this happen in the first place. I let myself become attached to a tool I didn't even own, run by a faceless corporation! My own art is being held hostage! How unfair! Should it even be called a tool, or a service?

I've been avoiding 3D art lately, focusing on programming and game development. My friends and I started working on a game in the Unity Game Engine. A couple months in, Unity's owners were saying and doing some unsavoury things, so we swapped to the Godot Engine. I feel incredibly lucky that we did because of the Unity drama that followed.

Unity wanted to start charging a fee for every user that installed your game. They wanted this to apply to every Unity game retroactively. This is obviously a stupid idea, and they walked it back, but it begs the question: Do you even own the game you developed? It seems like you don't.

I don't want to let myself fall into this trap again. I feel like we as artists form a personal relationship with our tools, and it shouldn't have to be an abusive one! I want to own my art and tools! That shouldn't be difficult as a digital artist! I've been recommended some proprietary subscription based "tools" by friends recently, and I refuse to use them. I won't let this happen to me again.

I'm going to use as much open source software as I can. Open source software is the only software you can truly "own". You have access to the code, and you can do with it as you please! It's often democratically run by the community! You can distribute it to your friends, and it's not piracy! There's a ton of excellent open source art software out there, and I encourage you to check it out!

Autodesk broke my heart. When I get back into 3D art, I'm going to be learning Blender.

#digital art #open source #maya #autodesk maya #autodesk #unity3d #software #philosophy #blender #gamedev #thank you for coming to my ted talk #for the love of god ableton please don't switch to a subscription oh god please don't i need you... #technology #3d art #essay

[sarahbduck]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Our child, Blahaj. 🦈

I believe this is my most complicated drawn piece yet.. 😳

This is a recreation of @sarahbduck 's room completely from memory. Here, we're depicted in an instance when I first began making a silly voice for her stuffed shark. Oh, she loved how I puppetted them.. Sarah's room has become the most important place on the planet to me. There have been such fond memories between us over the past two years. So while it's no suprise to me that I can remember the area in such detail, I may have a more difficult time doing so for any other place.

This is the first piece that I started using Filter Layers in Krita. Sarah taught me how to use them as I was doing the line work. I, unfortunately, lost some work due to my old habit of merging down the line layers and erasing what's on top. But going forward, I had separated nearly each segment into different Group Layers to have an easier time editing them in the future. Non-linear editing..? It seemed so obvious!!!

I've also been doing a bunch of paintings lately, so I was able to take what I learned from those and apply it to the "colour layer" as a selection mask.

The atmosphere I attempted here was inspired by @sleeprealms 's illustrations. They're quite something to behold!

✨🐈🦈🐒✨

[sarahbduck]

Toxic Invaders Floppies 💾✨

It's now been two years since @sarahbduck and I completed our first game, Toxic Invaders. It's a co-op bullet hell made with the Pico-8!

To celebrate our first big project together, I made these physical copies of the game shortly after the release. The coloured ones are a very limited set while the monochrome have had over 60 made.

Each floppy has multiple builds of the game, the soundtrack, and a tiny HTML page. It was a challenge to fit it all on a 1.44MB disk, but Sarah did some cool compression on nearly all of the files.

[sarahbduck]

undeserving

I've been trying to express this "dark place" that I have, as Sarah calls it. I've tried portraying it as something that I personally deal with, yet I wasn't having much success in doing so. It wasn't until I heard @cartercaudio's sorry song recently did I realize that I was looking at it from the wrong perspective..

@sleeprealms's emotional pieces also gave me a new perspective on how to visually portray disassociation and hurt.

@sarahbduck does so much for me. She tries so hard. I'm so grateful.

[sarahbduck]

♥

I finally made a song with lyrics!!!

I'm embarrassed to share, but I'm also really proud of myself. ☺️

--

When I'm with you, I can be myself. When I'm with you, I will be fine.

When I'm with you, I feel like I can be the person that I want to be 'cause we talk through it all.

When I'm with you, I- I can be myself. I will be fine. Oh, I will be fine. When I'm with you, I feel like I'm myself. I will be fine. Oh, I am okay now.

[sarahbduck]

Hello, World! ✨

Heya! 👋

I'm Ribbon 🎀, a 2D/3D artist and aspiring musician.

My portfolio can be viewed at www.ribboncable.net.

[sarahbduck]

We've added a Venus Fly Trap! It tries to eat you, but if you bring it food it'll stop (for a bit)!

#gamedev #made with godot #cozy games #indie game #venus fly trap #bugs #frogs

[sarahbduck]

You can play multiple notes on your instrument now! Harder to implement than you'd think!

#bugs #gamedev #cozy games #made with godot #indie game #frogs #ukelele

[sarahbduck]

Hope everyone had a nice pride :]

[sarahbduck]

groovin

[sarahbduck]

Live at Strummer's Pond has Steam page!

Wishlist it! Our code name was Beepin' Buggers, but we've finally got a proper title!

#gamedev #cozy games #indie game #made with godot #bugs #frogs #long time coming! very happy to finally have a store page :)

[sarahbduck]

Beepin' Buggers is making great progress! We've got new particles, new day night cycle, all sorts of stuff.

Wishlist it on Steam!

#gamedev #game development #cozy games #indie game #made with godot #bugs #frogs

[sarahbduck]

Hi!!!

#gamedev #made with godot #cozy games

[sarahbduck]

Me, my partner ribboncable, and my pal @shutupsergeant have been working on a comfy 3D platformer! Code named: Beepin' Buggers.

It takes place in a big pond, you ride a frog from level to level and play music! It's also fully multiplayer! I hope to devblog more over time.

EDIT: We're on Steam!

#made with godot #gamedev #game development #bugs #3d platformer #cozy games #godot engine #we've been working on this for a while now #i'm really excited to show it off finally! #we're very proud of it :) #indie game #3DPlatformer

[sarahbduck]

Toxic Invaders - A PICO-8 Bullet Hell

A few months ago, me and my partner made a really awesome PICO-8 game! Ribbon did the artwork and SFX, and I did the coding and music. We're both super proud of it! We really deepened our bond working on it, it was so much fun.

It's free, and runs in a browser. You can play it on Itch, Newgrounds, or on the Lexaloffle BBS!

#gamedev #pico 8 #pico8 #bullet hell #sometimes i boot up the game and fight the final boss over and over #i think we knocked it outta the park! #showcase

[sarahbduck]

Hello again!

After many years I think I'm gunna start using tumblr again! I've changed a lot since I've been gone. I'm a lady now (woah), and I've done some cool projects!

I'm currently best known for the Udon Bird Sanctuary, a VRChat map where you can feed ducks. Right now I'm doing some programming work and developing a cool game with my partner!

#gamedev #game development #trans artist #even before when i used tumblr i never put this sorta stuff in the hashtags #but why not? seems fun #furry #vrchat

[sarahbduck]

Woah, it’s sure been a while!!!

I haven’t even visited this site in so long!!! I’m looking around at different places.