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Technology Shopping During the Holidays

 Hello. C J here. I might have to go shopping this holiday season for technology. Maybe I’ll get a good Boxing Day sale. I’m not looking forward to the crowds, lines, or fatigue though. I rarely ever buy new technology. I know, I know, I’m a business owner. By the way I actually do own Infinity Game Studio as a sole proprietorship. Like it’s mine. A business owner is expected to have six phones and buy a new laptop, ipad, phone, suit and set of bow ties every year. I don’t. I’m busy actually making things, thank you.

I own one smartphone. I mostly use it for drawing because I don’t have a public phone number. It’s an Android because I like the software I can get for it for free. I own an ipad, a large one that I have a copy of Procreate for. I’ve gone through three Apple Pencils. They last me about an hour each and then they die. I hate the thing. I’ve done one painting on it and then it stopped charging properly. I’ve used it and Procreate for like three hours total. I’m not happy that I spent almost $1000 on it and the case and the three pencils. But I learned. I now draw using Android on Sketchbook. Sketchbook uses non-electric analog rubber tipped styluses. They’re $2 each.

I also have one laptop. One. Only one. I treat it like royalty and I think it’s sick of me taking such good care of it. It’s the best laptop money can buy. I need it to run the Unreal Engine and it’s the only thing I’ve ever found with the specs to run the Unreal Engine smoothly for hours in a go. I have owned four laptops in my entire life. I buy only Intel i7 or better and I have a dedicated graphics card on the one I currently have. I expect it to outlive the Sphinx considering how gentle I am with it. I also use it to do the editing on my art in Krita. Here is where this gets interesting. Krita also works on a Microsoft Surface.

I might need to add one more thing to this list of technology I use. I want a portable version of my art style. Krita doesn’t run on a phone no matter what. I’ve tried phone collage software and it sucks and is a blatant money grab. Who makes this stuff? Why are there ten thousand identical applications for every job when they all have the same logo and none work? Is this what people think code is? No, code is an art form. It’s a profession that requires both talent and skill. It’s harder than calculus and trust me I can do calculus as well.

I’ve tried to make my digital art portable for a while now. I originally wanted to do it all on a tablet. I can’t yet. This was like eight years ago and technology wasn’t then what it is now. I can draw things on my phone, this is good. But I draw them as individual heads, arms, bodies and clothing elements. I need Krita to collage them together safely without burning out my phone. I use Krita to put the arms and clothing and heads and then the backgrounds together and actually make art. Before I do that they’re just individual pieces.

The conclusion is that I can run Krita on a Microsoft Surface. Okay, good. What are those? Why do they have AI? I just want a computer with a touch screen. I know what specs Krita needs and its documentation states that it runs find on a tablet computer. Good. Amazing. Dear god, no. I need to go to a store and buy a piece of technology don’t I? I haven't’ done that in eight years. And it’s almost Christmas. Christmas technology shopping? I’m like so done for aren’t I?

C J Mcpherson

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