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Setting Up an Account With Lightning Source

Part 4B of So You Want to Self-Publish?
I just recently got my LSI account approved, and thought it would be useful to share all the "little things you need to know" while they were fresh in my mind. We all know those "little things" add up quickly!

It doesn't take much Googling to uncover the two popular options for POD printers/distributors. Comparisons between Lightning Source (LSI) and CreateSpace (CS) are a dime a dozen. In fact, I even had a thread in the Literature Forum about the topic not too long ago.
If you're currently in the decision process, I'll leave a few readings to help you out.
http://forum.deviantart.com/art/literature/1828361/ - Lit forum thread
http://write2publish.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-create-space-is-better-than.html - Financial comparison. Useful!
http://www.thebookconsultant.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=306 - Another financia

No Excuses: ExamplesHey Everyone! We're breaking format a little this week so I can tell you about a new segment I'll be doing for my "No Excuses" blog.
So as you followers know every Thursday I take an excuse someone has given me as to why they can't make comics and I tell you why it's lame. The whole idea of it is to help many of you out there realize that you can make comics if you want to. You just have to stop lying to yourself and actually do it.
I've been reaching a point however where alot of the excuses are the same. "I'm not good enough." "I don't have the right software." "I'm scared of what people will say." I still get some new ones here and there, but many stem from the same base. I don't want to start repeating myself on this blog. Though it might help some people, it'll bore other readers who've seen it time and time again. So I have to keep on finding new ways to encourage you without becoming stagnant and boring.
Then I realized, that maybe many of you might not take what I'm sayi

CluelessEveryday I wake,
Is only for your sake,
Though I am sure what I desire,
Is not what you admire,

There's too much pain,
And not enough gain,
I don't have enough sight,
To continue my might,

I'm just a boy,
Who's constantly used as a toy,
My only fear,
Is to lose the few I hold dear,

I attempted a few,
But admit I couldn't follow through,
I think I have a reason,
For she has shown me no treason,

She has no clue,
Of the things she can do,
Her smile is so bright,
Always my light,

I have stood my ground,
Just to hear her sound,
I will get up again,
To fight against this sin.

No Excuses: Being a ProfessionalToday's "No Excuses" Is a little different. It's less about an excuse that I've been told and more of a misconception people have.
Last week I did a "Tutorial Tuesday" on becoming a professional. You can read the post yourself, but in a nutshell it's about getting paid for the artwork you create for other people. After I posted it I received several questions and I realized many of you have a terrible misconception as to what it means to be a professional. So I figured I'd use today to clear this stuff up.
First and foremost, I'm a very strong believer that you should always be compensated for the work you do. In your career, especially early in your career, you'll be asked to do alot of work for free. They'll be alot of excuses as to why you don't deserve to be paid: "You don't have enough experience," "You're too expensive," "Artists are a dime a dozen, if you won't

Madam XI gotta warn my watchers. This is going to be a very inappropriate journal.
But it's 1:46 AM and it's on my mind, I just gotta get it off my chest.
An acquaintance of mine set me up on a blind date with...Well, she'll be called Madam X. Crazy rich orthodontist in her late 30s. I dreaded the date but reluctantly agreed. She had a nice house, ok, I need reference pictures of nice houses for my comics. I've been a hermit so long, a date couldn't hurt.
So.Damn.Wrong. FML
I arrived by the large arches of her mansion. Two fountains by the side, breath taking beautiful arches bathing in golden light. ( It was night) She greeted me at the door in her night gown and glasses, dark brown hair and an Indian accent. I don't mean to sound like a shallow asshole but she wasn't as bad as I expected her to look. ( Ok, sorry, I'm a human after all. I judge sometimes.)
Madam X: Can I offer you something to drink? ( As we entered her large ass kitchen)
Me ( Aidan): -smiles-Water would suffice.
Madam

Tutorial Tuesday: How to become a pro artistStep 1: Be payed for the work you do.
Being a professional literally means you are paid for the work you do. So to be a professional artist, all you have to do is be paid to create art. It's simple as that.
It doesn't have to be alot. But if people want your artwork, they should pay you for it. And if they pay you for your art, you are a professional artist.
Step 2. DO NOT work for free
I think Stephen Silver, the character Designer for Kim Possible and Danny Phantom puts it best.
Source: Cartoon Brew
Simple as that.
Don't let anyone bullshit you and convince you that you don't deserve to be paid, or that "this is just a trial" they'll fool you and make you think they'll pay you if you like what you did. Even if they tell you that "you'll get lo

help me pleaseif you have the full version of "paint tool sai" would you mind telling me where you got it?

PerspectivesHello dear deviants!
You might wonder why I'm less active in uploading in the last time.
There're lots of reasons. It's a stressful period at the school, so I have to learn more in this time. After experimenting and after shots after shots I find myslef in a new perspective. For months and months I "urge" in myself to show my other perspective of photography. I was working at it alot and I will show it soon. But I will keep my old style.
Things evolve, in a good and a bad way. And I'm happy about this. I hate the things to stay in the same place if you know what I mean. I was very happy to accomplish all my 2012 goals and now I'm setting myself for even more in 2013. Already alot of stuff happened and I'm excited about the near future, especially in my personal life, which is taking another shape.
I'm going to another perspective and I'm genuinely anxious about it.
Soon.
I really apreciate all the feedback in the last time and I'm feeling morally forced to put out new things.
Till then

A Strange Longing for a CelebrationThe passage of time was something that Alister could track without the aid of a clock or calendar; probably from spending days, weeks even, underground. Locked away in his dark room, pouring over photos, newspaper clippings, anything he could get his hands on, and then some.
No matter how long he spent down there, Alister always knew.
So he wasn't surprised when he woke up that morning, and instantly knew what most normal people referred to as a special event; it was his birthday. Pushing himself up, Alister wandered over to the window in his room on the sixth floor of the KaibaCorp building, watching the streets below.
He couldn't remember the last time he had celebrated his birthday; he had been a young child, then. But once the war broke out, things like cake and toys and wrapping paper became frivolous; survival was all that mattered. Even after being rescued from that waking nightmare, Alister never celebrated after that; he never told Raphael or Valon the day he was born,

Financing a Self-Published Title

So we come to "Part 5" of So You Want to Self-Publish?. Not that the parts are posted in order - but with tax season upon the U.S, it's time for me to look through the receipts I've collected in 2012. This puts costs on my mind.
Q. How much should I look to spend producing a self-published title?
The answer, it turns out, varies. It is true, you can spend as little as zero. You could also spend tens of thousands of dollars just on the book alone - say, by hiring a ghostwriter.
$0 to $50,000 is not a good answer for anyone genuinely curious, so let's try to nail down a more specific range.
First, ask yourself this. What are you in this for? If you're talking about self-publishing, you're basically starting a publishing business. You need to stop looking at your manuscript as only just that. It's also a product, and an investment. You also need to spend money

Tutorial Tuesday: ProcessHey everyone. I'm really swamped this week. So I hope you don't mind that for this week I just show you some of my art process instead of a "how to draw" tutorial. I guess this is more of a "How to plan out your art" tutorial. If you like seeing my process you can see more when I talked about "How to make a Comic", "Process", and "Tones".
Today I'm going to show you the process of the page I just posted yesterday. Page 16 of Shadows of Oblivion #2
So believe it or not this page was conceived about 7-8 years ago... (wow, this comic has been a long time coming). I didn't know where I wanted this to happen in my story, but I knew I wanted it to happen.

Let's Talk Writing: Issue 14Let's Talk Writing: Issue 14
Let's Talk Writing is my news article featuring five different writers that I've discovered here on deviantArt. It will be published every Friday. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to note me. I will take them into consideration. Now, Let's Talk Writing!
Sorry this issue is a day late, but I was having major internet problems. They're fixed now, obviously XD
Writer #1: :iconwinterkate: ~winterkate

What inspired you to start writing?
I was actually a teen angst poet. I wrote about the tiny little horrid things that happened to me when I was fourteen and just kept going from there.
How much do you feel you've improved in the last few years?
Past few years…well, I am sixteen to the thirteen or fourteen I was when I started. But I think that in the past few years I

How to get yourself noticedAnyway, I'll give you tips since I don't want you make the same mistakes as I did.
1- Commenting- Commenting on things will help you earn watchers and page-views ( though page views are sorta useless). Why ? When you comment on something someone would see your icon or comment and visit your gallery .
2- Submitting art monthly- When you have watchers you need to submit some art so they know your alive and still drawing.
3- Groups- DA offers a huge amount of groups and thousands of them have a lot of members. Now, when you submit in a group you're most likely to earn watchers from it. But make sure you submit your art into the right group. Be careful of which group you join because you're reaching into unknown crowd of amazing artists.
4- Friends- Making friends will help you in the long run with things like needing tips or things to improve on. Always make sure you treat them well and don't ignore them.
5- Staying with one style so when you art appears into someone stash of people

I got a wake-up callTumblr http://asktheretardedstrawhats.tumblr.com/ | Gallery http://blueskiies.deviantart.com/gallery/ | Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/_Blueskiies
I just watched the video linked in Yuumei's journal, most of you probably saw it too, but if not, here http://yuumei.deviantart.com/journal/Respect-Yourself-351677123
A little over a year ago I drew some fanart for PewDiePie, which he found, and asked to use on his t-shirts.
I thought that considering he had not commissioned me and because it was fanart of him, I shouldn't ask him for money (which, as I've been yelled at thousands of times for by my family and friends, was a stupid thing to do). I didn't want to cause any hassle for him, to which my sister said "Well then, at least ask for a free t-shirt of your own! Don't BUY one of your own shirts!" which I thought was completely valid.
So I messaged him asking if I was able to have a free one since he wasn't paying me for these...to which I got no reply.
Now, I was 16 at that point,

Wry?Bleh, is it a bit depressing that my day is being ruined by dA's server issue with their comments? I mean, I go to leave a comment only for it to pop up with an error saying "No valid response received." I mean, what does that even mean? Because after about 5 minutes, the posts appear... times three. So, instead of one comment, there are frackin' three!

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo~
I guess I'll be playing GW2 or MineCraft till this annoyance is done. Watch that when I hit to publish this... I get an error. orz

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Photoshop Video Coloring Tutorial!

by =suzuran, Jan 19, 2013, 10:43:35 AM
Journals / Personal

Ahh! With much pain and craziness, I finally finished my video coloring tutorial! It's only on Youtube at the moment, but I'm hoping I can post it as a deviation soon too

Warning! If you don't like cute things, this isn't the video for you!

STUFF IN PROGRESS:
Flash Tutorial (Non Video)
Sakura(Convergence) Poster
One Piece Poster
Optimus Prime Generation One

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN (SORT OF)
I'm only doing Chibis/Meowvel and Chi's Sweet Home style kitties: $5 per character, +$3 for each additional, full color digital file.

8 Comments

Playing: Project X Zone (Clear2)

Photoshop Video Coloring Tutorial!by =suzuran

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~narutokunobessed Jan 21, 2013 Student General Artist

Oh my goodness now your talking. Teal always says you have a sqeaky voice XD.

You were so scared in the LS to talk XD.

*digitallyfanged Jan 19, 2013 Professional General Artist

Is...is that your real voice? Or did you make it cuter for the video? If that's your real voice, I might not be able to meet you without exploding from the adorableness.

=suzuran Jan 19, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

y... yes it's my real voice;;;

we should meet someday!!

I'm hoping to go to otakon cause i think you go there? XD and red? and a lot of other megaman peoples!?

*digitallyfanged Jan 19, 2013 Professional General Artist

OH GOD YOU ARE ADORABLE THEN. I WILL HUG/SQUEEZE YOU TO DEATH.
Yup, me n' Red still both go to Otakons.

The MM crowd varies year to year. Some years it's small, sometimes a little bigger.

~Dhaxisthewarrior Jan 19, 2013

On another note, the video is helpful for somebody like me who's totally bad at coloring. Thanks!

=SpeedyDVV Jan 19, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

.....That was.. too adorable.

I don't even color things, as I don't draw, but.. the way the whole thing was set up.. just.. great watch nonetheless, haha..

~Dhaxisthewarrior Jan 19, 2013

Holy crap your voice, I can't handle it... if that's your normal voice it's way too adorable >_<.

~MyonaPierce Jan 19, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Nice! Thanks for helping us noobs with your great photoshop knowledge lol

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