Mog

Ah, Mog. I don't know why but I've always loved this little guy. I used this image for a forum avatar for years, so I knew early on I would need to paint it.

Mog

This was probably my most fun painting to date. First of all, there wasn't a readily available pixel guide online for it, so I had to hand-roll one. This lead to some fun problems to solve, including what software to use for image manipulation, how many colors do I want to use, and what's the best way to make a guide for myself? I'm really excited by what I ended up learning, and it kind of opened up a world for how I can take higher-res or even photographic images and turn them into painting guides.

The software question was interesting. Back in the day, I used to use Photoshop for image manipulation, but I just don't want to spend that kind of money on hobby software right now. I half-assedly used GIMP for a long time, but it felt clunky and I couldn't figure out half of what I wanted it to do easily, so I got frustrated. After a brief Reddit search, I decided to try Krita, which turned out to be amazing. Easy to use, polished, and - best of all - free. I highly recommend checking it out.