Rat's Saucy Nest

I really like the stabilizer feature in sai, plus it has most of the useful tools other programs have. I wish I could type in it tho, and I miss some filters and everything from photoshop, so I switch back between sai and Photoshop if I need to do something that Sai can’t handle.

I tried Manga Studio, too, and I liked it, it has some very interesting features but in the end I was too comfortable with sai to change. I personalized my sai a lot, pretty much all the brushes are individualized, I put a lot of time into arranging hotkeys, settings and everything. I’m very comfortable using sai, and I think that’s the most important thing about choosing the tool of your trade.

It doesn’t matter too much which program you chose, what matters is that you can make yourself feel comfortable using it. And I’m sure a lot is just getting accustomed to the program. I don’t think any program is inherently better than another. But it helps that sai has the great stabilizer and a lot of convenient features and is relatively cheap. I think that’s what makes it popular. While photoshop is amazing and does great things, most of its features won’t be needed on a daily basis by the average artist.

I hope I could help!

Hey! Thank you so much! Glad to hear you had a great 2015, me too! Here’s to an amazing 2016!

You’re welcome for all my art, thank you for liking it!

I use an Intuos 5 nowadays, I used a very cheap no name brand when I started out, and that did its job well enough. Even tho it was really small. For a beginning artist, I would recommend nothing too expensive, but get something that’s not too small, because otherwise you’ll have to re-learn how to draw on a bigger space if you upgrade. 

I heard monoprice tablets are pretty good and cheap. But make sure to research them, I heard they don’t like two monitor setups. I do like Wacom, their drivers are insane and there’s a small chance the driver will die every time you look angry at your tablet, other than that I’ve been very happy with my Intuos, it took a lot of abuse over the years and I like how it feels. I also heard good things about the Bamboo, Wacom’s beginners level tablets, too. So I would probably go with a Bamboo. But in the end if you don’t have too much income to spare for a tablet and you just want to draw, get whatever you can afford. Any tablet is better than no tablet. Any drawing is better than no drawing!

My advice for new artists: Draw. Keep drawing. Don’t stop drawing. Every day!

Haha, that bugs me too. I couldn’t believe how much holly I saw when I googled mistletoe to get some references.

Thanks! I’m glad it made you laugh!

Yeh, they only use “he” and “it” in the movie! There were a few interviews, before the movie was released, that implied and once even outright stated by one of the producer that BB-8 is a girl. A couple of news outlets picked up on that and reported it. Then the closer it came to the movie release, the more conflicting info was out there. Some staff members of the movie called BB he, others said she but the majority referred to BB as male. And I’m pretty sure it’s canon now that BB is indeed male, just like R2. I remember JJ saying that they started out with BB as a girl but the longer they worked with it, the more they saw BB as a boy.

But it became such a big thing apparently, that multiple real life and internet media outlets reported on the “issue”, asking if BB is male or female and how important it is that she’s female (actual quote from The Guardian). Reporters started asking actors what they thought BB’s gender is, it became one of those questions that they asked each one of the main characters. Oscar Isaac (Poe) replied that he likes BB but didn’t check under the chassis, haha. And there was even a reporter on the London red carpet premiere, that asked the real life model of BB directly if it’s a boy or a girl. It moved it’s head down and beeped sadly in response.

Anyways, it was funny and bizzare, so many newspapers and other outlets were suddenly concerned about the gender of a Star Wars Astromech. And that’s when I decided to pitch in on the debate, haha. It’s no secret that I adore strong female characters and that I identify stronger with female characters as well,so I chose the “she’s a girl” side.

I still like to think BB is female. She’s round and cute and shows more expression than R2 and since The Force Awakens is big on female characters (there were some unnamed female Stormtroopers, awesome!) I like thinking BB is one of them as well. But in the end it is a very silly issue that doesn’t matter too much, BB is a droid!

The only Astromechs that I know of that are canonically confirmed female are Obi Wan’s red R4 in the prequels and the pink R2-KT that makes a cameo in The Force Awakens and was built in honor of a little girl that died of cancer a long while ago.

I might love Star Wars a little bit too much

<3