How to use this Page

Card 3 in my Spotters' guide to Alien Spaceships.
Click to enlarge.

Back in 1995 Cyberia was London's first internet cafe....probably one of the first on the planet. My studio was on the same street, and one day I saw it was unusually crowded. They were holding a special introductory event about this new thing called "the internet". This businessman started chatting to me; he couldn't understand what the internet was for and yet he was terribly anxious about being left "out of the loop". He was so worried that he didn't notice or care that I was painting him.
Watercolour 14cm x 10cm. Click to enlarge.

You don't want to lose all your hard work, so back up your data! Here's how.
http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/2010/08/guest-post-honey-i-deleted-your-novel.html

Thanks to Pat B for pointing me to the very clever Mr.Doob and in particular his Harmony drawing tools which were used in this quick bird sketch. I drew this while still under the influence of Another World which I saw at the Dean Gallery yesterday.
Click to enlarge.

The mighty Oscar Grillo sent me this screenshot of the word verification pop-up that appeared whilst he was commenting on my Pen Island post. Is this a sign? Is Grillo the hidden Qutub?
Click to enlarge.

My dentist's surgery is rather plain, so I designed this cheery wallpaper for him in exchange for a free root canal treatment.
Click to enlarge.

Made a return visit to the Van Doesburg show today. The thought arose: "I can do De Stijl." Came home and painted this. Unfortunately it looks like an IKEA rug design.
Acrylic on canvas 156cm x 112cm. Click to enlarge.

Dennis Baron is Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois. His book, A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution, looks at the evolution of communication technology, from pencils to pixels. In this post, also posted on Baron’s personal blog The Web of Language, he looks at the difference between scrolls and codexes.

The scroll, whose pages are joined end-to-end in a long roll, is older than the codex, a writing technology — known more familiarly as the book — with pages bound together at one end. Websites have always looked more like scrolls than books, a nice retro touch for the ultra-modern digital word, but as e-readers grow in popularity, texts are once again looking more like books than scrolls. While the first online books, the kind digitized by the Gutenberg Project in the 1980s, consisted of one long, scrolling file, today’s electronic book takes as its model the conventional printed book that it hopes one day to replace.

Fans of the codex insist that it’s an information delivery system superior in every way to the scroll, and whether or not they approve of ebooks, they think that all books should take the form of codices. For one thing, book pages can have writing on both sides, making them more economical than scrolls, which are typically written on one side only (this particular codex advantage turns out to be irrelevant for ebooks). For another, the codex format makes it easier to compare text on different pages, or in different books, which some scholars think fosters objective, critical, or scientific thinking. It’s also easier to locate a particular section of a codex than to roll and unroll a scroll looking for something. These may or may not be advantages for books over scrolls, but it’s not a problem online, where keyword searching makes it easy to find digitized text in a nanosecond, regardless of its format, plus it’s possible to compare any online texts or the parts thereof simply by opening each in a different window and clicking from one to another. In the world of the ebook, codex or scroll becomes a preference, not an advantage.

A few tunnel-visioned readers associate the codex with Christianity, viewing scrolls as relics of heathen religion. Not to be outdone, some people see online books as messianic, and others think they represent the ultimate heresy — but religion aside, there’s no particular advantage for page over scroll in either the analog or the digital world. Finally, although this example of codex superiority is seldom mentioned, the codex can be turned into a flip book by drawing cartoons on the pages and then fanning them so the images appear to move. But then again, a motion picture is really a scroll full of pix unwinding at 24 frames per second. None of this makes a difference if your ebook, iPad, or smartphone won’t play Flash video.

There is one advantage of the book over the scroll that may apply to the computer. According to psychologists Christopher A. Sanchez and Jennifer Wiley, poor readers have more trouble understanding scrolled text on a computer than digital text presented in a format resembling the traditional printed page. But these researchers found that better readers, those with stronger working memories, understand scrolls and pages equally well.

While Sanchez and Wiley’s experiments suggest that for some readers, paging is better for comprehension than scrolling, their results are o

A drawing of a planned sculpture in honour of "The New York Society for the Preservation of the Slant Step."
CAD drawing. Click to enlarge.

A youth mesmerised by iPhone.
Brushpen with watercolour 14cm x 9cm. Click to enlarge.

I almost lost this: It’s not quite a tragedy, since it is something I could have recovered. Granted it wouldn’t have been much fun and I would have been grumbling on the inside about the time it takes to collect and scan old photos, especially old photos I’ve already scanned. Still, it was recoverable.   Other stuff, like say [...]

For thousands of years, the Existence of God have been a hot topic for debate and discussion. Millions of arguments have been proposed by thousands philosophers, theologians and scientists. So far, no conclusive empirical evidence for the Existence of God have been found and no one has been able to come up with something capable of satisfying everyone.

The inconclusiveness of this problem is not really relevant for everyone. For some believers, God is considered the source of power, encouragement and courage. For other believers, God is considered as a kind of faithful and trust-able invisible friends with whom they could tell feelings words can never tell. These statements of faith could be seen not only in the real world, but could also be observed on-line. One only have to log in to their Facebook account to see their friends posting something that mention something related to God.

One thing from these postings that took my interest is the fact that regardless of how much postings I observe, I never observe either comment or response coming directly from God. For some people, this observation result may mean that God doesn’t exists. However, a while later I realize that it is incorrect to take such hasty conclusion from mentioned observation result.

There are events where people write something about someone known for sure to be exists in Facebook and get no direct personal response from said person. It could be either because said person have no Facebook account or he/she is not aware about the posts. Considering that God is usually depicted as knowing everything, I wonder whether God has a Facebook account or not. After a little search, I found out that God indeed have a public profile page in Facebook. This means that even if you can’t request to become God’s friend in Facebook, you can still become God’s fans.

My other article :

• Personification of Inanimate Objects and Abstract Concepts
• Funny Childhood Misconceptions
• Comments : Yet Another Source of Inspiration

For thousands of years, the Existence of God have been a hot topic for debate and discussion. Millions of arguments have been proposed by thousands philosophers, theologians and scientists. So far, no conclusive empirical evidence for the Existence of God have been found and no one has been able to come up with something capable of satisfying everyone.

The inconclusiveness of this problem is not really relevant for everyone. For some believers, God is considered the source of power, encouragement and courage. For other believers, God is considered as a kind of faithful and trust-able invisible friends with whom they could tell feelings words can never tell. These statements of faith could be seen not only in the real world, but could also be observed on-line. One only have to log in to their Facebook account to see their friends posting something that mention something related to God.

One thing from these postings that took my interest is the fact that regardless of how much postings I observe, I never observe either comment or response coming directly from God. For some people, this observation result may mean that God doesn’t exists. However, a while later I realize that it is incorrect to take such hasty conclusion from mentioned observation result.

There are events where people write something about someone known for sure to be exists in Facebook and get no direct personal response from said person. It could be either because said person have no Facebook account or he/she is not aware about the posts. Considering that God is usually depicted as knowing everything, I wonder whether God has a Facebook account or not. After a little search, I found out that God indeed have a public profile page in Facebook. This means that even if you can’t request to become God’s friend in Facebook, you can still become God’s fans.

My other article :

• Personification of Inanimate Objects and Abstract Concepts
• Funny Childhood Misconceptions
• Comments : Yet Another Source of Inspiration

For thousands of years, the Existence of God have been a hot topic for debate and discussion. Millions of arguments have been proposed by thousands philosophers, theologians and scientists. So far, no conclusive empirical evidence for the Existence of God have been found and no one has been able to come up with something capable of satisfying everyone.

The inconclusiveness of this problem is not really relevant for everyone. For some believers, God is considered the source of power, encouragement and courage. For other believers, God is considered as a kind of faithful and trust-able invisible friends with whom they could tell feelings words can never tell. These statements of faith could be seen not only in the real world, but could also be observed on-line. One only have to log in to their Facebook account to see their friends posting something that mention something related to God.

One thing from these postings that took my interest is the fact that regardless of how much postings I observe, I never observe either comment or response coming directly from God. For some people, this observation result may mean that God doesn’t exists. However, a while later I realize that it is incorrect to take such hasty conclusion from mentioned observation result.

There are events where people write something about someone known for sure to be exists in Facebook and get no direct personal response from said person. It could be either because said person have no Facebook account or he/she is not aware about the posts. Considering that God is usually depicted as knowing everything, I wonder whether God has a Facebook account or not. After a little search, I found out that God indeed have a public profile page in Facebook. This means that even if you can’t request to become God’s friend in Facebook, you can still become God’s fans.

My other article :

• Personification of Inanimate Objects and Abstract Concepts
• Funny Childhood Misconceptions
• Comments : Yet Another Source of Inspiration

For thousands of years, the Existence of God have been a hot topic for debate and discussion. Millions of arguments have been proposed by thousands philosophers, theologians and scientists. So far, no conclusive empirical evidence for the Existence of God have been found and no one has been able to come up with something capable of satisfying everyone.

The inconclusiveness of this problem is not really relevant for everyone. For some believers, God is considered the source of power, encouragement and courage. For other believers, God is considered as a kind of faithful and trust-able invisible friends with whom they could tell feelings words can never tell. These statements of faith could be seen not only in the real world, but could also be observed on-line. One only have to log in to their Facebook account to see their friends posting something that mention something related to God.

One thing from these postings that took my interest is the fact that regardless of how much postings I observe, I never observe either comment or response coming directly from God. For some people, this observation result may mean that God doesn’t exists. However, a while later I realize that it is incorrect to take such hasty conclusion from mentioned observation result.

There are events where people write something about someone known for sure to be exists in Facebook and get no direct personal response from said person. It could be either because said person have no Facebook account or he/she is not aware about the posts. Considering that God is usually depicted as knowing everything, I wonder whether God has a Facebook account or not. After a little search, I found out that God indeed have a public profile page in Facebook. This means that even if you can’t request to become God’s friend in Facebook, you can still become God’s fans.

My other article :

• Personification of Inanimate Objects and Abstract Concepts
• Funny Childhood Misconceptions
• Comments : Yet Another Source of Inspiration

These are from a game that I was working on for a very famous company that I can't mention. I did a ton of stuff for the game but it will never see the light of day unfortunately. But I have a hell of a lot of art for it since I was the only artist working on the game!!!

So you’re scared of talking to girls in person? Don’t worry, we all are. But lucky for us, a man by the name of Al Gore invented a little thing called the internet. On the internet, you can’t spend five minutes without running into a girl, or at least a racy picture of one. But when you actually have the chance to interact with a girl—in a chat room, on AIM, in a Gilmore Girls forum—what the hell are you supposed to say? Well, here are some simple tips that will make you king of the chat room, master of the message, fuehrer of the forum. Fuehrer in a good way, I mean.

Pick Your Screen Name Very Carefully

Lots of guys just slap together their name and a bunch of numbers for their screen name, and I think that’s just awful. I mean, what could be less memorable than “Rick41068”? When a girl sees a screen name like that, she thinks, “Oh, there’s another loser named Rick I won’t make out with.” You’ve got to set yourself apart from the pack.

And just adding an adjective to your name isn’t going to do it. “SlickRick41068” is no less pitiful than “Rick41068.” This is how SlickRick would fare online:

SlickRick41068:  hey whats up?  

Hotgirl25:  u r a loser

SlickRick41068:  lol wut?

Hotgirl25:  i said leave me alone!  

SlickRick41068:  is it my screen name u don’t like?

Hotgirl25:  of course its youre screen name! if not for that ud be like the perfect guy and i would totally love to date u.

Hotgirl 25 has signed off.

But she didn’t really sign off, she just blocked you. All because you didn’t have the right screen name.

And making a sexy screen name might be the worst idea of all. “BigDickRick69” isn’t going to impress any girls, trust me. Having something about how big your penis is in your screen name is like getting a tattoo on your penis that says, “This is a big penis.” It’s redundant, or, more likely, it’s false.

So pick a screen name that’s clever without being witty, obscure without being incomprehensible, and, most of all, memorable. Something like “shitman61,” in honor of the notoriously incontinent Roger Maris, or “assman61,” in honor of Cosmo Kramer. Something like “cogitoergocum,” in honor of the great Descartes, or the fiendishly post-modernist “thisisascreennamenowkissme.”

Be Enigmatic

If you let a girl know exactly what you’re thinking, then she has no reason to wonder about what’s going on in that brilliant head of yours. She’ll stop thinking about you as soon as the conversation ends. That’s why you should be as perplexing as possible, planting little mysteries in her head that will soon blossom into full-blown romantic interest.

Gilmoregirls36DD:  why do u call urself mysteryman?

mysteryman:  do i call myself mysteryman?

Gilmoregirls36DD:    its ur screen name

mysteryman:  is it?

Gilmoregirls36DD:  r u planting seeds of mystery in my brain? cuz it feels like u are

mysteryman: a man, having a mirage, sees an oasis in a desert. what does he see?

Gilmoregirls36DD:  um… an oasis?

mysteryman:  what’s ur favorite oasis album?

Gilmoregirls36DD:  definitely maybe is definitely my fav!

mysteryman: lol!

It’s good not to be too mysterious the whole time, though. Throw in the occasional “lol” or even “rofpwm”—rolling on the floor playing with myself—just to let her know you can be a normal guy, too, should the need arise. But if she ever gets close to discovering who you really are, you must bury her in thicker layers of enigma. Because once she sees the real you—the sad little man cowering behind his computer screen in his semen-stained boxer shorts—she’s gonna run for the hills. And can you blame her?

Making the Transition from Internet Relationship to Real Relationship

If you feel the desire to meet your internet girlfriend in person, you must broach the topic very delicately with her. Most importantly, you must gradually prepare her for the profound disappointment that she will experience when she finally meets you. You can accomplish this through some strategic joke-making.

enigmaboy: hey, wouldn’t it be funny if when we met up, u were like totally disappointed with me?

buxomprincess: how do u mean?

enigmaboy: like if some of the things i said about myself weren’t exactly accurate — wouldn’t that be hilarious?

buxomprincess:  haha i guess

And you should print this conversation out, so that when she doesn’t find your shortcomings so hilarious in person, you can show it to her and say, “See? This is funny! You said so yourself!”

Now this isn’t to say that I recommend going beyond a purely electronic relationship. In fact, I discourage abandoning a fulfilling online relationship for what will surely be a mutually unfulfilling physical relationship. Because online relationships are convenient—you never have to leave your living room, never have to shave, never have to wash your clothing; they involve fewer messy attachments than regular relationships—if you’re tired of a girl, you can just change your screen name, or start visiting a different Gilmore Girls forum; they’re cheaper—for example, I gave my online girlfriend six dollars through PayPal for our one-year anniversary; and they completely avoid the oppressive sexual shame and physical abuse that are such integral parts of all healthy regular relationships.

So meet a real girl if you must. But if you can handle crippling physical loneliness, then stick with online relationships. I think you’ll find them very unhumiliating! And in my opinion, that’s all a guy can ask for.

Happy typing!

So you’re scared of talking to girls in person? Don’t worry, we all are. But lucky for us, a man by the name of Al Gore invented a little thing called the internet. On the internet, you can’t spend five minutes without running into a girl, or at least a racy picture of one. But when you actually have the chance to interact with a girl—in a chat room, on AIM, in a Gilmore Girls forum—what the hell are you supposed to say? Well, here are some simple tips that will make you king of the chat room, master of the message, fuehrer of the forum. Fuehrer in a good way, I mean.

Pick Your Screen Name Very Carefully

Lots of guys just slap together their name and a bunch of numbers for their screen name, and I think that’s just awful. I mean, what could be less memorable than “Rick41068”? When a girl sees a screen name like that, she thinks, “Oh, there’s another loser named Rick I won’t make out with.” You’ve got to set yourself apart from the pack.

And just adding an adjective to your name isn’t going to do it. “SlickRick41068” is no less pitiful than “Rick41068.” This is how SlickRick would fare online:

SlickRick41068:  hey whats up?  

Hotgirl25:  u r a loser

SlickRick41068:  lol wut?

Hotgirl25:  i said leave me alone!  

SlickRick41068:  is it my screen name u don’t like?

Hotgirl25:  of course its youre screen name! if not for that ud be like the perfect guy and i would totally love to date u.

Hotgirl 25 has signed off.

But she didn’t really sign off, she just blocked you. All because you didn’t have the right screen name.

And making a sexy screen name might be the worst idea of all. “BigDickRick69” isn’t going to impress any girls, trust me. Having something about how big your penis is in your screen name is like getting a tattoo on your penis that says, “This is a big penis.” It’s redundant, or, more likely, it’s false.

So pick a screen name that’s clever without being witty, obscure without being incomprehensible, and, most of all, memorable. Something like “shitman61,” in honor of the notoriously incontinent Roger Maris, or “assman61,” in honor of Cosmo Kramer. Something like “cogitoergocum,” in honor of the great Descartes, or the fiendishly post-modernist “thisisascreennamenowkissme.”

Be Enigmatic

If you let a girl know exactly what you’re thinking, then she has no reason to wonder about what’s going on in that brilliant head of yours. She’ll stop thinking about you as soon as the conversation ends. That’s why you should be as perplexing as possible, planting little mysteries in her head that will soon blossom into full-blown romantic interest.

Gilmoregirls36DD:  why do u call urself mysteryman?

mysteryman:  do i call myself mysteryman?

Gilmoregirls36DD:    its ur screen name

mysteryman:  is it?

Gilmoregirls36DD:  r u planting seeds of mystery in my brain? cuz it feels like u are

mysteryman: a man, having a mirage, sees an oasis in a desert. what does he see?

Gilmoregirls36DD:  um… an oasis?

mysteryman:  what’s ur favorite oasis album?

Gilmoregirls36DD:  definitely maybe is definitely my fav!

mysteryman: lol!

It’s good not to be too mysterious the whole time, though. Throw in the occasional “lol” or even “rofpwm”—rolling on the floor playing with myself—just to let her know you can be a normal guy, too, should the need arise. But if she ever gets close to discovering who you really are, you must bury her in thicker layers of enigma. Because once she sees the real you—the sad little man cowering behind his computer screen in his semen-stained boxer shorts—she’s gonna run for the hills. And can you blame her?

Making the Transition from Internet Relationship to Real Relationship

If you feel the desire to meet your internet girlfriend in person, you must broach the topic very delicately with her. Most importantly, you must gradually prepare her for the profound disappointment that she will experience when she finally meets you. You can accomplish this through some strategic joke-making.

enigmaboy: hey, wouldn’t it be funny if when we met up, u were like totally disappointed with me?

buxomprincess: how do u mean?

enigmaboy: like if some of the things i said about myself weren’t exactly accurate — wouldn’t that be hilarious?

buxomprincess:  haha i guess

And you should print this conversation out, so that when she doesn’t find your shortcomings so hilarious in person, you can show it to her and say, “See? This is funny! You said so yourself!”

Now this isn’t to say that I recommend going beyond a purely electronic relationship. In fact, I discourage abandoning a fulfilling online relationship for what will surely be a mutually unfulfilling physical relationship. Because online relationships are convenient—you never have to leave your living room, never have to shave, never have to wash your clothing; they involve fewer messy attachments than regular relationships—if you’re tired of a girl, you can just change your screen name, or start visiting a different Gilmore Girls forum; they’re cheaper—for example, I gave my online girlfriend six dollars through PayPal for our one-year anniversary; and they completely avoid the oppressive sexual shame and physical abuse that are such integral parts of all healthy regular relationships.

So meet a real girl if you must. But if you can handle crippling physical loneliness, then stick with online relationships. I think you’ll find them very unhumiliating! And in my opinion, that’s all a guy can ask for.

Happy typing!

I thought I’d write this as I liked to draw in Microsoft Paint, and a lot of people seem surprised at the possibilities you can achieve with such a simple program!

First off what you do is find a picture of what you’re drawing, either use a website link…or a picture on your computer… Print Screen it (Prt Sc) and paste it into a New File in Paint, then select what part of the image you need – a person, their face, a background etc.

Next, select your tool. I prefer the little Pencil icon rather than the Paintbrush icon as it’s thinner. Drawing with a mouse is very tricky, so use the Magnifying Glass to zoom in – 2 times zoom – works for me. The picture now looks like pixels, which is what you then use to recreate with the pencil. Try and draw/copy as close to the pixels as possible for accuracy. This is really useful for drawing eyes and facial features. You may prefer to just draw in whatever style you want though, so I’ll cover effects down the page.

This is a drawing where I used the zoom. Once you draw each bit, zoom out to see if it looks fine, if not rub it out and re-draw. You can use the selection tool to move the drawing about the page also. No need to worry about keeping it in the same place. Once you’ve got you drawing completed. Save you drawing. Save as you go along (CTRL +S), as sometimes it’s possible Paint my crash. Save as a Bitmap, this won’t distort any quality (if you saved as a .jpeg, you cant open the file and fill in colours as the quality has decreased)…

It’s time to add colour, for this I like to use the Pick Colour tool, go to the original image and select the skin tone (if you’re drawing a person). This way you have their exact skin/hair/eye/clothing tone which creates a realistic effect. Then Flood-fill tool (the paint can spilling over) to paste that section that colour.

Play about different shades if you like. The background - again you can copy from a picture or create your own. There are many easy ways to achieve this, if you wanted to suggest a floor or window use Line tool to put straight lines in. I find it’s easy to just put it straight over the people then use the Eraser to wipe out any over lines.

As you can see for this drawing, I uses the Line to create the windows and a garden outside, then filled the colours of grass/walls etc in. Easy. A useful tip is, for filling a colour black, use a lighter shade of black (click the colour black, then define custom colours and go a shade lighter) because if the outside line’s are the same and you want to change it, it will fill in all adjoining black lines and effectively ruin your drawing. Save again, I’d recommend saving before making a huge change as well, as you can go close and re-open to the version you’re happy with.

Here for effects, I’ve created a glistening surface by just drawing little white stars. I’ve used the Line tool to give the perception of cupboards. This was just playing about until it looked right. Anytime you make a huge mistake just Undo it (CTRL + Z), remember you can only undo a few times. So keep saving or keep on top of it. I prefer to draw little by little – check – OK – next bit. Eraser tool is always helpful.
And likewise Free Form Select or Select tools – you can move anything about! I would then add the background, as above. There’s a kettle, a knife, glasses.

Here I have used a darker shade of brown on the door to draw cracks and added text. Adding text is fun, remember it will create a huge block of white on top of your drawing, which you can adjust to a speech bubble or fill in, if it works.

Click Link For Image

I have used some of Paint’s effective tools for this drawing. The Ellipse tool for her bum to create circular feel, the Airbrush tool to give the impression of grass. A lot of copy and pasting in the background, straight lines and colour can make all the difference! Experimenting with different shades is usually the major factor in creating an image.

Once you’re finished Save it. Because Paint is primarily using pixels, if you re-size your drawing you’ll notice a lot of distortion, so it’s probably best to avoid that. If you want to put it on-line, then open the drawing and save it as a jpeg or PNG and upload in that format as you will have less distortion!

I thought I’d write this as I liked to draw in Microsoft Paint, and a lot of people seem surprised at the possibilities you can achieve with such a simple program!

First off what you do is find a picture of what you’re drawing, either use a website link…or a picture on your computer… Print Screen it (Prt Sc) and paste it into a New File in Paint, then select what part of the image you need – a person, their face, a background etc.

Next, select your tool. I prefer the little Pencil icon rather than the Paintbrush icon as it’s thinner. Drawing with a mouse is very tricky, so use the Magnifying Glass to zoom in – 2 times zoom – works for me. The picture now looks like pixels, which is what you then use to recreate with the pencil. Try and draw/copy as close to the pixels as possible for accuracy. This is really useful for drawing eyes and facial features. You may prefer to just draw in whatever style you want though, so I’ll cover effects down the page.

This is a drawing where I used the zoom. Once you draw each bit, zoom out to see if it looks fine, if not rub it out and re-draw. You can use the selection tool to move the drawing about the page also. No need to worry about keeping it in the same place. Once you’ve got you drawing completed. Save you drawing. Save as you go along (CTRL +S), as sometimes it’s possible Paint my crash. Save as a Bitmap, this won’t distort any quality (if you saved as a .jpeg, you cant open the file and fill in colours as the quality has decreased)…

It’s time to add colour, for this I like to use the Pick Colour tool, go to the original image and select the skin tone (if you’re drawing a person). This way you have their exact skin/hair/eye/clothing tone which creates a realistic effect. Then Flood-fill tool (the paint can spilling over) to paste that section that colour.

Play about different shades if you like. The background - again you can copy from a picture or create your own. There are many easy ways to achieve this, if you wanted to suggest a floor or window use Line tool to put straight lines in. I find it’s easy to just put it straight over the people then use the Eraser to wipe out any over lines.

As you can see for this drawing, I uses the Line to create the windows and a garden outside, then filled the colours of grass/walls etc in. Easy. A useful tip is, for filling a colour black, use a lighter shade of black (click the colour black, then define custom colours and go a shade lighter) because if the outside line’s are the same and you want to change it, it will fill in all adjoining black lines and effectively ruin your drawing. Save again, I’d recommend saving before making a huge change as well, as you can go close and re-open to the version you’re happy with.

Here for effects, I’ve created a glistening surface by just drawing little white stars. I’ve used the Line tool to give the perception of cupboards. This was just playing about until it looked right. Anytime you make a huge mistake just Undo it (CTRL + Z), remember you can only undo a few times. So keep saving or keep on top of it. I prefer to draw little by little – check – OK – next bit. Eraser tool is always helpful.
And likewise Free Form Select or Select tools – you can move anything about! I would then add the background, as above. There’s a kettle, a knife, glasses.

Here I have used a darker shade of brown on the door to draw cracks and added text. Adding text is fun, remember it will create a huge block of white on top of your drawing, which you can adjust to a speech bubble or fill in, if it works.

Click Link For Image

I have used some of Paint’s effective tools for this drawing. The Ellipse tool for her bum to create circular feel, the Airbrush tool to give the impression of grass. A lot of copy and pasting in the background, straight lines and colour can make all the difference! Experimenting with different shades is usually the major factor in creating an image.

Once you’re finished Save it. Because Paint is primarily using pixels, if you re-size your drawing you’ll notice a lot of distortion, so it’s probably best to avoid that. If you want to put it on-line, then open the drawing and save it as a jpeg or PNG and upload in that format as you will have less distortion!

1. How many friends do you have? If you answered less than 5, you’re a loser.
2. Do you go to gaming/movie conventions?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
3. What sort of parties do you go to?  If you answered gaming, or computer parties, you’re a loser.
4. Do you play World of Warcraft or anything like it?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
5. Do you fish, hunt, or anything else of that sort?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
6. How many people are in your phone’s contact list?  If you answered 10 or less, you’re a loser.
7. What level are you in Call of Duty? If you answered a number, you’re a loser.
8. Have you ever pre-ordered a game?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
9. Are you only friends with people of your gender?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser. 
10. Why did you read this article?  If you answered anything besides you were bored, you’re a loser.

1. How many friends do you have? If you answered less than 5, you’re a loser.
2. Do you go to gaming/movie conventions?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
3. What sort of parties do you go to?  If you answered gaming, or computer parties, you’re a loser.
4. Do you play World of Warcraft or anything like it?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
5. Do you fish, hunt, or anything else of that sort?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
6. How many people are in your phone’s contact list?  If you answered 10 or less, you’re a loser.
7. What level are you in Call of Duty? If you answered a number, you’re a loser.
8. Have you ever pre-ordered a game?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser.
9. Are you only friends with people of your gender?  If you answered yes, you’re a loser. 
10. Why did you read this article?  If you answered anything besides you were bored, you’re a loser.

Ever since my boys were little - we have been big Jumpstart fans!! Their computer learning games are were "hits" with our boys - and I loved it that they were learning while they were playing. Now, we have Chloe, and she is enjoying them as well. We were introduced to their line of "virtual games" that you can interact and play online. Chloe just LOVES this!! It is great fun and yes, learning at the same time! But there is so much more available than just games for kids - they have wonderful resources for parents and teachers as well - I enjoy the Jumpstart Blog and the “Fun for Parents” section of the website as well.We have been so impressed by the quality of their programs. AND your kids are safe while playing online. Kids LOVE their software - all four of ours have - they are fun and educational - gotta love that!! I would encourage you to check it out.
Now - the BONUS - one lucky winner will enjoy a FREE three-month membership to Jumpstart Online compliments of Jumpstart. All you have to do is leave a comment with your email so that I can get back to you. For extra chances you can Twitter about this and/or do a blog post on it - directing people here to enter. I am thrilled to offer this! I think you will LOVE it!! All comments will end on June 13 so enter fast!!

Realistic 3D illustration with a character developed for the client. The client develops video titling software, so letters are a central part of it.

More at Sevensheaven.nl