Yeah I guess there’s no accounting for the power of neophobia.

Yeah I was thinking about that. Like, these companies probably have some number of government contracts and those contracts give latitude to make some interesting demands.

I don’t actually know but I imagine it’s all voluntary. It seems like kind of an endless tail chase to constantly limit anything that could feasible be used to commit a crime. Actual counterfeiting with any success requires some pretty specialized shit. Honestly if this printer could be configured to meet those specifics them more power to them. End of the day though I wouldn’t imagine this being the gateway to massive expansions in the counterfeit market.

That’s true, I’m amazed by what people are able to do with custom brushes but depending on your art app you can start with drag weight and opacity, and in some cases even textures and that was always a fun start if nothing else.

It was a little bit of a block for me but custom brushes seemed to be the next major step in digital painting.

Oh, it’s digital, I didn’t register that at first so that’s something. I like the composition and it doesn’t feel repititious or forced so you got a good result from the tedious bits.

If you have the physical means, unironically follow along with a Bob Ross video. You don’t have to crib the entirety of his techniques but it’s an incredible exercise in what kinds of strokes and adjustments can create some wild illusions of details that don’t make sense until you stop and go ‘what the fuck how did that haplen’

If not I would still try and study how painters work on things like grass and the like. Taking a lot of time on details isn’t bad, until you get tendonitis and hate grass forever. It’s okay to take shortcuts in appropriate contexts.