#csp is ps but sexy

[erinptah]

Annotated Halloween Showcase 1

A seasonal inter-chapter bonus: the first few years’ worth of pumpkin-spice-flavored BICP art.

Above: 2011 Sailor Moon cosplay bonus art!

Bianca is Moon, of course, with Sparrow as her Mars and Patrick as her Luna.

Camellia is Venus, because Reseda makes a perfect Artemis.

Jany (who hadn’t even debuted when I posted this) is Jupiter, and Miranda is Mercury. I thought about swapping those two — Miranda’s more analytic than Jany, but Jany’s arc will have some other parallels to Mercury’s, and besides, she’s awfully short for a Jupiter. Could go either way.

Cybele doesn’t quite fit the theme of the picture, as she’s the only nonhuman playing a human. Still, her color scheme was too close to Chibi-Moon‘s to pass up.

2012 Halloween special:

Witchy flying Cybele, with black cat Reseda in her lap and black raven Poe winging along at her side.

I submitted this to a Halloween art contest, where the contest-runner’s aspirations were, shall we say, out-of-proportion to their results. There were 3 entries, total. The winner was chosen by viewer polling, but on a site with no security or authentication at all — the only limit to “how many duplicate votes can I cast for myself?” was “how much free time do I have?”

I cast a bunch of votes. My housemate at the time even pitched in. My reward for this not-at-all-artistic achievement was $50…and a custom-engraved reward plaque. Like, a physical chunk of acrylic, emblazoned with my name and shipped in the mail. Useless to me, impossible to repurpose for anything else, pointless to give away, and probably cost at least another $50 to produce.

I wish they’d kept the money. (Or added it to the cash reward. But even keeping it for themselves and using it for pizza would’ve added more good to the world.)

…but, uh, setting that whole long tangent aside, at least the art is pretty cute.

2013 Halloween special:

Tiny Miranda and Poe on a table with Halloween cupcakes and candy. The gravestone-decorated cookie is the most on-the-nose in terms of Miranda’s arc…but I also really the appreciate the idea of “she dressed up as a sexy Pokéball.”

I still like the shading on this one. It was done in Paint Shop Pro, which has a pauper’s brush selection compared to PS or CSP, and now most of those drawings make me think “ugh, could’ve done that so much better.” But here, I got weird/experimental with the colors and hues, and I think the limitations of the brushes work with the results instead of hampering them.

  (Originally posted here on But I'm A Cat Person.)

[shelzie]

What are your current art tools of choice? :0 (Art program/pen brands/tablet/etc.) SHOW US YOUR WEAPONS!

I bounce between Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop a lot depending on how I feel! I’ve been using PS for a longer time but CSP is just wonderful for inking in particular. Creative Cloud lured me back with its stupid sexy brush presets though, and I still prefer PS for digital painting.

hardware-wise, I have a fancy cintiq i was given as a gift a few years ago, but I’d probably be just as happy with a smaller one.