Totally agree with the color limit thing... read an old interview with a game artist who said they'd plan the whole palette around a single skin tone first, because that was the hardest color to get right with so few options. Makes you work way differently. Dithering brushes are a nice cheat for that old magazine print look too.

Oh man, that's a solid tip. I read the same thing in some forum thread a while back, basically what @anna_craig said. It's wild how the simple fixes are always the best ones.

Honestly that makes total sense. I mean, my version of being stranded is when the drive-thru line is too long, so maybe I should take notes. But for real, getting stuck with a clogged filter in a blizzard sounds like a nightmare. That extra one is probably the difference between a bad story and a really, really bad night.

Call them bombs but I've lit plenty wrong and still have my eyebrows.

Man, I was the king of jagged carpet edges. My first cuts looked like a toddler with safety scissors did them. The hook blade trick is like finding out you can actually read the instructions. Total facepalm moment. I wasted so much time going back over my terrible lines. That pull motion changes everything.