gorgeous~

Thank you very much.

Matthew

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I worship at the altar of creativity.

How did you decide about the shadows on the snakes. Did you just eyeball them or is there a more educated technique I will only know about if you decide to fess up.


This is awesome, and drugged minds are more than just 's frying on a skillet. They are doorways and I can't help applaud every time someone rips one open. I'm nosey like that.

Shadow is always determined by your light source, its direction and angle of origin, and its intensity. Even in original art, like a painting, the artist imagines a light source. When I first started practicing drawing shadows, I used desk lamps and overhead lamps, shining on something like a banana, then drew the shadows I observed. Later, for practicing imagined light sources, I used string and pins. I would stretch a piece of string from somewhere around me, then pin it to my art paper. I then drew shadows I imagined cast by objects I had already drawn. Then you practice imagining multiple light sources.

Objects may have shadowed areas on their surfaces, depending on the direction and angle of the light source. Objects may also CAST a shadow, depending on the light source angle and direction. If the light source is directly head-on, you may not be able to see the cast shadow, unless the angle is such as to create a wide shadow behind the object.

Photoshop has lighting effects worth checking out sometime.

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The drug use and effects you refer to are, I am sad to say, very different from that of pain patients.

All you ever wanted to know about narcotics, but were afrain to ask (xd):

When narcotics are used for the treatment of pain, you do not get any of the euphoric effects of recreational use. If the dose is higher than needed for the pain, you can get an effect, otherwise not. I had a euphoric effect for a few weeks, and never since, some 16 years ago. That is why it is rather rare for pain patients to ever become behaviorally dependent on narcotics. We do become chemically dependent, I am technically addicted. I have had to go through withdrawal every time I have rotated drugs. You can't just switch from one narcotic to other and avoid withdrawal. We do it by titrating down on one drug and titrating up on the other, over a about a month of HELL.

Long-term narcotic use is horrible to the body and mind, and they will be the most likely cause of my death (respiratory failure). Narcotics mess with the entire body. They screw with perception, make things taste more bitter, you get decreased penile sensation (so sex is less enjoyable), you get constant constipation/diarrhea, you feel cold, it effects your ability to think and reason, your memory gets bad, depression is a given, daily nausea, reaction times are slowed way down, and to put it all in a nutshell, you loose your dignity and the very things that make you human.

For pain patients, the doses have to keep going up, and you get rotated from one narcotic to another, due to the brain's neural receptor sites becoming too tolerant of a given narcotic, so the drug is not giving pain relief anymore. I am at the end of the line with narcotics. I am using Fentanyl, which is 81 more times potent than morphine, and it is the end of thee line. Nothing better after it stops working.

Unfortunately, narcotics only take the edge out of chronic pain, and the majority of the pain NEVER goes away.

Addiction can happen in short-term pain patients. For example, you are in a car accident and have to take narcotics for a month. But when the pain goes away, the person keeps taking the narcotics, because it feels good, then they can get hooked.

In all of the history of mankind, we are not really any better at treating pain than we were thousands of years ago.

Have fun, but please be safe about it.

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I worship at the altar of creativity.

I apologize for sounding so casual about the drugs, I have always had a problem expressing my self properly in the written form. I did not mean to be so callous as to forget about your constant pain. I was mistaken when i thought you made that particular art well before your osteoarthritis. I could use a hand to get out of this hole I dug.

I have smoked my weight in Marijuana a few times over, smoked cigarettes since i was 11yrs old, and have only tasted the merest sips of withdrawal when trying to quit smoking. I definitely do not want to experience withdrawal at the narcotic level. I wish you never had to either.

You made that lighting technique sound simple, but i am sure it is not. I have used the lighting effects in Photoshop, but never with results such as yours. I hope to be able to use you advice, but with 19 cats, string is not something that stays where I put it.

No need to apologize. I should have been more clear myself. I did not mean to sound chastising. I am about the least judgmental person you will find. I simply wanted to explain how I don't get to feel good from the drugs I take, but I wish I could. I have friends who keep urging me to apply for medicinal Marijuana, but I am on so many different drugs, who knows what might happen.

This disease probably started when I was around 12 years old (puberty). My ability to do art was not much affected until about 10 years ago, with the very worst being in the last 4. I still have some steady graphic arts work I do, along with book typesetting and book covers. Original art is the hardest because I am so slow, it hurts, I get terribly frustrated, blah, blah. But if something changes and I get even 15% improvement in pain reduction, it would make a huge difference in my ability to do art.
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I actually did not use Photoshop Lighting techniques to do this piece. I id the shadows by hand, based on where the light source was.

Thats a lot of cats. You must be single. xd We have two siters who are American Shorthairs, silver with black tiger striping like this: [link]

One of them has neurological problems (she was the runt of the litter) and was going to be destroyed. When she walks, her front legs do the fox-trot and her hind legs do a tango.

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I worship at the altar of creativity.

I'm sure this would be able to be put to great use. Thank you.

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I suggest, that you have a lot to learn

Since the files are included, it might be fun to do it and make it into your own version, and feel free to post anything from it.

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I worship at the altar of creativity.

Oh, alright. I'll be sure to let you know when I get to it!

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I suggest, that you have a lot to learn