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The Poor Man's Guide to Logo Design: Paint Tutorial Thread


eagle98

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Why does everyone think we are "hating" on it? No one said that from what I remember, just suggestions that other free programs may be a little easier to use for finer details such as the example used.

Like someone said before - sorry im on my phone - As a beginner, I would value the more pro designers opinions rather than other beginners. The more pro designers are suggesting to use other free programs to help designing easier and more personal while the beginners like MS Paint because they see it as a comfortable program.

Maybe thats why they are beginners for so long, because they havent adapted to a more up-to-date program to make designing more fun and enjoyable.

I couldnt imagine designing the things I did in the last year on MS Paint... It wouldnt be possible.

I was stuck on MS Paint for years and my designs barely improved. After using Paint.NET, I have noticed my designs have gotten a whole lot better AND are easy to edit due to the Layering abilities in said programs.

I - as well as others - arent gating on Paint, we are trying to help those stuck in the MS Paint era to expand their capabilities and idea by using a better program. But you guys are free to chose what you want to chose.

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Why does everyone think we are "hating" on it? No one said that from what I remember, just suggestions that other free programs may be a little easier to use for finer details such as the example used.

Like someone said before - sorry im on my phone - As a beginner, I would value the more pro designers opinions rather than other beginners. The more pro designers are suggesting to use other free programs to help designing easier and more personal while the beginners like MS Paint because they see it as a comfortable program.

Maybe thats why they are beginners for so long, because they havent adapted to a more up-to-date program to make designing more fun and enjoyable.

I couldnt imagine designing the things I did in the last year on MS Paint... It wouldnt be possible.

I was stuck on MS Paint for years and my designs barely improved. After using Paint.NET, I have noticed my designs have gotten a whole lot better AND are easy to edit due to the Layering abilities in said programs.

I - as well as others - arent gating on Paint, we are trying to help those stuck in the MS Paint era to expand their capabilities and idea by using a better program. But you guys are free to chose what you want to chose.

i'm starting to ease into inkscape. but paint rocks. it may be harder and more time consoming than inkscape but it gets the job done. For all the paint users out there that are thinking about changing programs, IMO stay with paint. put effort in to it. it will turn out great. just stay away from all the haters of paint. i've gotton so much crap over the last year for using paint. but the best thing to do is never give up on your work and keep making concepts.

For the others please respect the paint users. its hard when you put work into a great concept and you guys talk crap about it or don't say anything usefull at all. the best way for us to get better is for someone to achually be considerate for what we do. we are people too.

As a 13 year old i'm not going to buy a program. i don't have a job and right now, and i'm saving up my money for somthing usefull. this is not the only thing in my life. my brother ( hockey13ny) is using illusrator the free trail, and it looks like a great program, but we looked into buying the real thing and it was so expensive. Even when i'm old enough to get a job and get paied minimum wage. i'll want to save for college. i wouldn't make a lot having to pay for illusrtor every year or month.

So in the long run paint is a awesome tool, and can do great things if you do great things with it, and eagle98 is here to help us out a little bit, so lets not be rude to someone who only wants to help

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Let's be clear here: no one is "hating" on your tools of choice, nor are they "hating" on this tutorial. I think that's immaturity or stagnation talking more than anything. If you read the things that GFB or CAB or I had said as attacks, then I'd say you're not ready to grow. And that's fine, we're all at different stages in the growth curve. But there's no reason to vehemently stick with Paint to prove a point when your work could be improved by some simple changes to your workflow.

What I (and several others) are suggesting is to improve your skill set beyond paint. I can assure you, Paint will serve ZERO purpose in the working world if you get into any kind of design work. It works for what it's intended for (editing and creating simple raster graphics), but it is far from efficient. With efficiency comes more time to focus on detail, like presentation and cleaning up your work. Often times, this is what people take issue with, not the concept (how you react to C&C is a whole other topic).

Anyway, I hope some of the younger or more inexperienced designers make the leap as a result of this discussion. I too started in Paint, and my first concepts here were in Paint.NET. You can learn and grow if you make the effort.

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the tutorial process is not too far from what i do myself, but it has to start on paper. tracing an image will only help you get better at tracing an image. even if you have to hold a peice of paper up to your monitor and trace a rough sketch, that is a better starting point. you work details out on paper quicker and more effectively. like the ears of the tiger here, they dont really translate into illustration. yea, you traced the patterns just as they were in the photo but it ends up looking like they're turned inside out or something. even if you suck at drawing, just embrace it and enjoy the process of getting better. the goal should be improvement, not to be knocking out Fraser Davidson style logos from the start. (who by the way works primarily digitally now, but dont think he doesn't have the skills to lay down some graphite)

also, in the real world this kind of process could come back to bite you hard due to copyrights. Its basically what Sheppard Fairey did with his HOPE/Obama poster and it didnt end so well for him.

 

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Why does everyone think we are "hating" on it? No one said that from what I remember, just suggestions that other free programs may be a little easier to use for finer details such as the example used.

Like someone said before - sorry im on my phone - As a beginner, I would value the more pro designers opinions rather than other beginners. The more pro designers are suggesting to use other free programs to help designing easier and more personal while the beginners like MS Paint because they see it as a comfortable program.

Maybe thats why they are beginners for so long, because they havent adapted to a more up-to-date program to make designing more fun and enjoyable.

I couldnt imagine designing the things I did in the last year on MS Paint... It wouldnt be possible.

I was stuck on MS Paint for years and my designs barely improved. After using Paint.NET, I have noticed my designs have gotten a whole lot better AND are easy to edit due to the Layering abilities in said programs.

I - as well as others - arent gating on Paint, we are trying to help those stuck in the MS Paint era to expand their capabilities and idea by using a better program. But you guys are free to chose what you want to chose.

i'm starting to ease into inkscape. but paint rocks. it may be harder and more time consoming than inkscape but it gets the job done. For all the paint users out there that are thinking about changing programs, IMO stay with paint. put effort in to it. it will turn out great. just stay away from all the haters of paint. i've gotton so much crap over the last year for using paint. but the best thing to do is never give up on your work and keep making concepts.

For the others please respect the paint users. its hard when you put work into a great concept and you guys talk crap about it or don't say anything usefull at all. the best way for us to get better is for someone to achually be considerate for what we do. we are people too.

As a 13 year old i'm not going to buy a program. i don't have a job and right now, and i'm saving up my money for somthing usefull. this is not the only thing in my life. my brother ( hockey13ny) is using illusrator the free trail, and it looks like a great program, but we looked into buying the real thing and it was so expensive. Even when i'm old enough to get a job and get paied minimum wage. i'll want to save for college. i wouldn't make a lot having to pay for illusrtor every year or month.

So in the long run paint is a awesome tool, and can do great things if you do great things with it, and eagle98 is here to help us out a little bit, so lets not be rude to someone who only wants to help

We don't "hate" on your concepts because you use paint, but rather because you show no progress nor willingness to listen to any criticism. And no, don't just keep using paint and make concepts. You're supposed to LEARN and get better. If paint's all that's available to you that's fine. There have been plenty of members here who have done great work in paint. Sorry but you're not one of them yet. Your age and inexperience shows through, but you refuse to see it. If you actually listened to the critiques you might actually get better, but you choose to believe doing the same thing over and over means your good.

Listen paint users. If that's what you have to use, use it. If you have the opportunity to try another program, try it. You may end up preferring it over paint. And if it's free or at least affordable or sense able to purchase for YOU, then do so. But listen to these artists who have the experience. If they give you tips on how to properly design regardless of your program, listen. As was mentioned, you're not gonna learn anything from other beginners other than how to be a better beginner. And this isn't a knock on the OP. I know he's trying to help and there's help in what he's written, but you have a plethora of graphic design knowledge here at your disposal, and from what they've posted in this thread, they seem to be very willing to share that knowledge with you to help you become a better artist.

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This is a good starting point for those who are just exploring their computers. But as others have said, you're only teaching people how to trace an image.

Creating a logo is so much more than just tracing an image. While most every designer relies on reference photos, just tracing what you see won't give you a logo. It will give you an illustration. And there's a difference between a logo and an illustration.

At the end of your tutorial, you said that there's more to be done, with simplifying, stylizing, beefing up lines, etc. That's the stuff you could be emphasizing. Anyone can trace. But styling this drawing is where it transforms from illustration to a memorable logo.

This is where Fraser Davidson's tutorials are incredibly helpful. Combining basic drawing skills and theory with reference photos, they give you an idea how to divide pictures up into simpler light and dark shapes, while still retaining enough detail to make the features obvious without being excessive.

You can use this to your advantage by showing a finished logo next to a similar illustration. Study the two. Pick apart where there are similar shapes and colors. See where the designer used a little creative liberty to add balance.

Again, anyone can trace. But not everyone can design well. By studying existing artwork, and learning how and why things were constructed, and then applying these techniques to your own artwork, that's the way to learn how to be an effective designer.

Back-to-Back Fatal Forty Champion 2015 & 2016

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Why does everyone think we are "hating" on it? No one said that from what I remember, just suggestions that other free programs may be a little easier to use for finer details such as the example used.

Like someone said before - sorry im on my phone - As a beginner, I would value the more pro designers opinions rather than other beginners. The more pro designers are suggesting to use other free programs to help designing easier and more personal while the beginners like MS Paint because they see it as a comfortable program.

Maybe thats why they are beginners for so long, because they havent adapted to a more up-to-date program to make designing more fun and enjoyable.

I couldnt imagine designing the things I did in the last year on MS Paint... It wouldnt be possible.

I was stuck on MS Paint for years and my designs barely improved. After using Paint.NET, I have noticed my designs have gotten a whole lot better AND are easy to edit due to the Layering abilities in said programs.

I - as well as others - arent gating on Paint, we are trying to help those stuck in the MS Paint era to expand their capabilities and idea by using a better program. But you guys are free to chose what you want to chose.

i'm starting to ease into inkscape. but paint rocks. it may be harder and more time consoming than inkscape but it gets the job done. For all the paint users out there that are thinking about changing programs, IMO stay with paint. put effort in to it. it will turn out great. just stay away from all the haters of paint. i've gotton so much crap over the last year for using paint. but the best thing to do is never give up on your work and keep making concepts.

For the others please respect the paint users. its hard when you put work into a great concept and you guys talk crap about it or don't say anything usefull at all. the best way for us to get better is for someone to achually be considerate for what we do. we are people too.

As a 13 year old i'm not going to buy a program. i don't have a job and right now, and i'm saving up my money for somthing usefull. this is not the only thing in my life. my brother ( hockey13ny) is using illusrator the free trail, and it looks like a great program, but we looked into buying the real thing and it was so expensive. Even when i'm old enough to get a job and get paied minimum wage. i'll want to save for college. i wouldn't make a lot having to pay for illusrtor every year or month.

So in the long run paint is a awesome tool, and can do great things if you do great things with it, and eagle98 is here to help us out a little bit, so lets not be rude to someone who only wants to help

We don't "hate" on your concepts because you use paint, but rather because you show no progress nor willingness to listen to any criticism *1 . And no, don't just keep using paint and make concepts. You're supposed to LEARN and get better *2. If paint's all that's available to you that's fine. There have been plenty of members here who have done great work in paint. Sorry but you're not one of them yet. Your age and inexperience shows through, but you refuse to see it. If you actually listened to the critiques you might actually get better, but you choose to believe doing the same thing over and over means your good.

Listen paint users. If that's what you have to use, use it. If you have the opportunity to try another program, try it. You may end up preferring it over paint. And if it's free or at least affordable or sense able to purchase for YOU, then do so. But listen to these artists who have the experience. If they give you tips on how to properly design regardless of your program, listen. As was mentioned, you're not gonna learn anything from other beginners other than how to be a better beginner. And this isn't a knock on the OP. I know he's trying to help and there's help in what he's written, but you have a plethora of graphic design knowledge here at your disposal, and from what they've posted in this thread, they seem to be very willing to share that knowledge with you to help you become a better artist.

1. McCall its called learning from your mistakes, and yeah that one got me suspended for a week, and i learned from it so get over it.

2. those two sentences don't make sense. if i don't make concepts how do i learn

thats all i want to say

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Why does everyone think we are "hating" on it? No one said that from what I remember, just suggestions that other free programs may be a little easier to use for finer details such as the example used.

Like someone said before - sorry im on my phone - As a beginner, I would value the more pro designers opinions rather than other beginners. The more pro designers are suggesting to use other free programs to help designing easier and more personal while the beginners like MS Paint because they see it as a comfortable program.

Maybe thats why they are beginners for so long, because they havent adapted to a more up-to-date program to make designing more fun and enjoyable.

I couldnt imagine designing the things I did in the last year on MS Paint... It wouldnt be possible.

I was stuck on MS Paint for years and my designs barely improved. After using Paint.NET, I have noticed my designs have gotten a whole lot better AND are easy to edit due to the Layering abilities in said programs.

I - as well as others - arent gating on Paint, we are trying to help those stuck in the MS Paint era to expand their capabilities and idea by using a better program. But you guys are free to chose what you want to chose.

i'm starting to ease into inkscape. but paint rocks. it may be harder and more time consoming than inkscape but it gets the job done. For all the paint users out there that are thinking about changing programs, IMO stay with paint. put effort in to it. it will turn out great. just stay away from all the haters of paint. i've gotton so much crap over the last year for using paint. but the best thing to do is never give up on your work and keep making concepts.

For the others please respect the paint users. its hard when you put work into a great concept and you guys talk crap about it or don't say anything usefull at all. the best way for us to get better is for someone to achually be considerate for what we do. we are people too.

As a 13 year old i'm not going to buy a program. i don't have a job and right now, and i'm saving up my money for somthing usefull. this is not the only thing in my life. my brother ( hockey13ny) is using illusrator the free trail, and it looks like a great program, but we looked into buying the real thing and it was so expensive. Even when i'm old enough to get a job and get paied minimum wage. i'll want to save for college. i wouldn't make a lot having to pay for illusrtor every year or month.

So in the long run paint is a awesome tool, and can do great things if you do great things with it, and eagle98 is here to help us out a little bit, so lets not be rude to someone who only wants to help

We don't "hate" on your concepts because you use paint, but rather because you show no progress nor willingness to listen to any criticism *1 . And no, don't just keep using paint and make concepts. You're supposed to LEARN and get better *2. If paint's all that's available to you that's fine. There have been plenty of members here who have done great work in paint. Sorry but you're not one of them yet. Your age and inexperience shows through, but you refuse to see it. If you actually listened to the critiques you might actually get better, but you choose to believe doing the same thing over and over means your good.

Listen paint users. If that's what you have to use, use it. If you have the opportunity to try another program, try it. You may end up preferring it over paint. And if it's free or at least affordable or sense able to purchase for YOU, then do so. But listen to these artists who have the experience. If they give you tips on how to properly design regardless of your program, listen. As was mentioned, you're not gonna learn anything from other beginners other than how to be a better beginner. And this isn't a knock on the OP. I know he's trying to help and there's help in what he's written, but you have a plethora of graphic design knowledge here at your disposal, and from what they've posted in this thread, they seem to be very willing to share that knowledge with you to help you become a better artist.

1. McCall its called learning from your mistakes, and yeah that one got me suspended for a week, and i learned from it so get over it.

2. those two sentences don't make sense. if i don't make concepts how do i learn

thats all i want to say

You were suspended for belligerent behavior and excessive topic bumping. The harsh critiques you get are from your unwillingness to listen to critiques. You only want praises. You ignore the truth which is that you're far away from being ready to post concepts. Both you and you're @uniformwhatever concept partner. And no it's not trial and error. It's trial, get feedback, listen to feedback, study the aspects of design that you're focusing on and then implement all of this into your next design. Then you repeat this every time. It's not just make a concept, post it, make another concept, post it, and so on. All that's doing is posting concepts at the same level every time rather than improving each time. You can't learn from your own concepts if you don't know what's wrong with them. Plus you have to take time. People can tell when a concept took 5 minutes. Most of mine I've worked on for weeks even months before posting. And even then it's because I'm stuck and looking for further advice before posting my final piece. You still have a lot to learn.
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1. McCall its called learning from your mistakes, and yeah that one got me suspended for a week, and i learned from it so get over it.

2. those two sentences don't make sense. if i don't make concepts how do i learn

thats all i want to say

He's not saying to not make a concept, he's saying not to keep making concepts in paint. He's saying to keep using Inkscape or another program to help you learn that program more to better yourself. Paint can only do so much and once you hit that so much you can't do anything more.

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I normally don't post on stuff like this, but here we go...

As someone who considers himself a self-taught designer, I find that paint (as others have noted) is a great tool to have for those who are just being introduced to design in general. I know that it really helped me understand the basics of aesthetic and arrangement. For that, I do think the idea having paint as strictly a beginners resource isn't a bad idea. However, the switch to inkscape (it only takes up 77mbs!) was the best decision I could have made. Yeah, there's a learning curve, and I struggled a bit to figure it out at first. But the strides that I have made as a designer are so many times larger than I could ever have with paint. If you really want to be a good designer, then I'd absolutely suggest switching.

In regards to the numerous comments people have made about being "terrible at drawing..." There's nothing that makes me more annoyed on this site than seeing that statement. I always used to use that excuse too, and thought that being a good artist was a natural thing. As it turns out, it takes effort. I find that a lot of it has less to do with natural ability (I wouldn't say I'm an incredibly gifted artist), and more to do with a "how can I use what skills I have to make this look good," mentality. For me, it's slowing down and focusing on the details at hand. And the big thing about sketching logos, it doesn't have to look great. I don't think I have a single sketched logo that I would even consider decent, and I don't sketch all the time. But it really helps get ideas down, especially if I don't know the direction I want to go.

The past few post of this thread have also accented a point that other people are trying to make, though it may not be coming through because they are all "professionals." As someone who considers himself somewhere in the middle-level design wise on this site, you absolutely have to listen to these guys, no matter how good you think you are. Every single person who has commented in this thread has been instrumental in my own development as a designer, whether it be from C+C or from simply examining their work (especially helpful is learning to mimick elements of a design that someone else created to learn the techniques on how to make similar elements). All the bits and pieces I've gathered have made me so much better than I would've been otherwise, and I owe pretty much everything I've done to the people at the CCSLC. Simply put, listening will make you better. For those of you who don't want to do this, and just want constant praise, I'd suggest sticking to instagram.

I've got a dribbble, check it out if you like my stuff; alternatively, if you hate my stuff, send it to your enemies to punish their insolence!

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I think this topic has gone too far off-track. Let me apologize to Eagle98, it wasn't my intention to drive the thread off the rails.

This is my story. I also started in MS Paint as a very young artist. And MS Paint wasn't bad (note that this was almost 15 years ago and the program hasn't changed since) and it allowed me to get my feet wet with concepts and do some not-bad uniform concepts. But as I realized more and more that I wanted to design uniforms AND logos, it soon became painfully obvious that Paint just wasn't going to allow me to do the things I wanted to do (FYI, all vector programs like Inkscape and Coral Draw were for purchase-only at this point in history). Then, for Christmas one year (I want to think I was in 7th/8th grade), my parents purchased an old copy of Adobe Illustrator for me. And so, very excitedly, I installed it on our family computer and was ready to unleash my logo-designing-badass-self on the world. The only problem was that after two full days of trying, I HATED Illustrator. There were all these new tools and I didn't have the faintest clue what half of them did and I couldn't grasp the concept of layers no matter how hard I tried to.

So I did the only truly logical thing: I went back to Paint! For the next 3 months, I completely ignored Illustrator and pretended it wasn't there. Finally, one fateful day, I downloaded a vector football template and had to use Illustrator to open it. After spending a few hours falling on my face, I sort of figured out how to crudely work the template. Then I tried my hand with some vector logo designs, and I found it's really, really hard to do (especially without a sketch). For a while, I did this strange thing where I would "do logos" in Illustrator and then do the uniform concept in Paint... The point is that it wasn't a smooth transition from Paint to Illustrator for me at all. In total, it probably took me a full year to completely abandon Paint.

Here's my advice to anyone else reading this thread: if you are happy with messing around with concepts in Paint, by all means, continue. If you're happy with where you are and your artistic skillset, no one is implying that you must uninstall Paint today and quit using it cold-turkey based on principle alone. And as many of you have pointed out, you can still do a very nice uniform concept in Paint. However, creating a great logo using Paint is damn near impossible; believe me, I've tried. My specific issue with the tutorial was that anyone who wants to follow this tutorial and eventually make really nice logos would be much better-off by getting their feet wet in a more powerful program. I mean, I can't imagine trying to create a logo like this in Paint... I wouldn't even know where to start.

siKl5iq.png

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TL; DR EDIT: basically what GFB said.

*Disclaimer: I am not an authoritative expert on stuff...I just do a lot of reading and research and keep in close connect with a bunch of people who are authoritative experts on stuff. 😁

|| dribbble || Behance ||

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My problem is that while I upgraded to Photoshop, albeit an old version, I still use it like it's Paint.

Sure, I use layers, the select tool, and rotation regularly, things I never had in Paint, but my work is often mistaken for MS Paint stuff, and I wish I could correct that.

So if anyone wants to do a tutorial on how to use Photoshop or Gimp explained in a way that a Paint user will understand, I would most certainly be interested.

I'll respect any opinion that you can defend.

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My problem is that while I upgraded to Photoshop, albeit an old version, I still use it like it's Paint.

Sure, I use layers, the select tool, and rotation regularly, things I never had in Paint, but my work is often mistaken for MS Paint stuff, and I wish I could correct that.

So if anyone wants to do a tutorial on how to use Photoshop or Gimp explained in a way that a Paint user will understand, I would most certainly be interested.

I would suggest looking up some tutorials on how to use "Layer Masks" or "Paths," as those two things alone are super powerful tools. Or maybe just try to find a tutorial on all the buttons and windows and what they do and see if that helps you get your mind around it.

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These naysayers as you called them have far more experience and knowledge than you could ever hope for. The OP's tutorial, while in good faith, is flawed. If he wants to change it to how to trace in paint, then it'd be accurate. But it's not a proper logo tutorial. And all we've been saying is people can be better. It's attitudes like yours and these other trolls who constantly say "cool concept" and "awesome, they should use it" for the most amateurish of designs. That's not helping them. They're not gonna improve by people telling them their worst work is their best. You improve by having the flaws and mistakes pointed out and given the tools and tips on how to improve them. That's called constructive criticism.

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I think the guy that said "I dismiss you COMPLETELY" is quite a bit more of a jackass than the guy that's actually trying to help. I feel sorry for paint users that are actually trying to improve because a select few are making everyone look bad by saying "fvck you" to any advice they're offered. You have artists that are genuinely trying to help you but you choose to see it as "hate" (which is the probably the most immature term you could use in this situation). I'm not sure what else I can add, GFB's post pretty much sums it up:

Here's my advice to anyone else reading this thread: if you are happy with messing around with concepts in Paint, by all means, continue. If you're happy with where you are and your artistic skillset, no one is implying that you must uninstall Paint today and quit using it cold-turkey based on principle alone. And as many of you have pointed out, you can still do a very nice uniform concept in Paint. However, creating a great logo using Paint is damn near impossible; believe me, I've tried. My specific issue with the tutorial was that anyone who wants to follow this tutorial and eventually make really nice logos would be much better-off by getting their feet wet in a more powerful program.

14622089383_66ed2643e0_o.jpg14415375480_b33010b5ce_o.jpg14602016315_3e9fe74148_o.jpg

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