I've got "Hal" back on his feet, but I still have some stuff left to tweak and install, like my tablet drivers, Photoshop, printer drivers, and the like.  But at least I can work on catching up on email and stuff.  Today is also being spent (in part), fixing my husband's computer, which has gotten a bit "crashy" lately.

Before I get around to bringing NEW art to the table, here is an article that just might make the Kagome fans rethink how they do their costumes.  This girl has come up with a way to look like an anime character more effectively than most I've seen.  I can't say I advocate starving yourself (don't wreck your health over anime, for heaven's sake!) but one could do the contact lenses and the makeup like she's done.  The first pic even reminds me of Kagome a bit...

Here's the link!

[link]

Sigh.  Here I am, typing on my husband's laptop because my main machine, "Hal" is legs-in-the-air dead.  Argh!!!  It won't boot, even in safe mode.  

(Insert all kinds of cuss words here.)

I don't need this at all, but then, it's always that way, so railing about it is fruitless.  Trust that I will be banging on this problem until I get my Frankensteinian beast up and running again.  Until then, I may be absent a little longer than I had hoped.

I WILL be back soon!  I swear!

In the meantime, my leg is gradually getting better and I have been working to strengthen the muscles so that it won't happen again.  Still aches a little at the knee joint, but much of the functionality hasreturned.  Thank you to those who sent their well wishes!!!

Now I'm off to make a shopping list of parts I will need to effect a speedy machine recovery....

Hot Jets!

Sooooo, where have I been lately?

Well, I just did the Chicago Worldcon, and that was a big time sink.  For one thing, I messed up my knee really bad two days before the convention, which was entirely unexpected and a major hassle.  I had gone down the stairs to get the mail, and on the way back up something in my left knee went "bang" and suddenly I couldn't walk anymore on that leg.  It felt like a tendon had snapped and I was in loads and loads of pain.  Two days before a five day event....Argh!

I spent the first two days drugged up and in the hotel room, playing games on my Nintendo DS and sleeping.  By the third day, four plus days since I'd injured my leg, I was able to finally hobble around the con and participate.  It still hurt, but at least I was AT the con.

After the con was over, I got sucked into the Sims 3 with the Ambitions add-on.  I have a pretty good Jesse (my OC) analog, and the guy in the pic above is "Kiriya Taisho", a level 10 scientist.  Yes, he has yellow eyes and silver hair.  It's his InuYasha heritage showing...XD.  In the game, these two are married and have a huge house.

Yesterday, when I showed my husband the snapshot of them together, he made a crack about it, which I've added in the word balloons.  Since he's a scientist himself, I found it pretty hilarious and laughed quite a lot.  I had visions of lurid romance novels with scientists in a clinch with scantily-clad women.  It still makes me giggle.

My leg is gradually getting better too.  Yesterday I also was able to really walk comfortably for the first time since I hurt it.  It's still sore, but if I exercise it a bit, that should ease too.  In the meantime, I've been drawing, writing and getting all the con stuff properly stored away and the books balanced.  I'll try to post some more fun stuff soon and hope you all have been coping well with life, school, and everything else.

More to come....

As most people know, I've been busting my butt trying to get better at drawing faces and features.  A dear friend of mine, Dirk Tiede, once recommended that I look into the Andrew Loomis books, since they are universally respected by comic artists.  Trouble is, they are long out of print.  

Some of the books have been reprinted, and better still, there's a new series of videos that use the books as a basis for tutorials!  I've seen one of them, and I must say, they are easy to understand and have the potential to make it much easier to draw heads and faces!  Here's the link:  [link] for some reason the link doesn't work, just Google "Proko" and you will find it early in the listings.  As of today, he's got two vids up, with many more planned.  I'm going to be subscribing to his site for sure!

In other cool news, there will finally be a real Tesla museum in the US!  A group effort was made to buy Tesla's old Wardenclyffe lab with the plan to turn it into a museum.  This is MARVELOUS!!!  Tesla is a real amazing scientist and inventor that got marginalized by Edison and it was a horrid injustice to the man who invented radio, tesla coils, AC house current, and the precursor technology for television.  I could only donate $100 to the cause, and wish I could have donated much more.  It really seriously needed to be done to right an injustice that's stood way too long.  Tesla lives!

Someday, I REALLY want to do a painting of him.....

Statement from the Family of Neil A. Armstrong

Saturday, August 25, 2012

"We are heartbroken to share the news that Neil Armstrong has passed away following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures.

Neil was our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend.

Neil Armstrong was also a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job. He served his Nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. He also found success back home in his native Ohio in business and academia, and became a community leader in Cincinnati.

He remained an advocate of aviation and exploration throughout his life and never lost his boyhood wonder of these pursuits.

As much as Neil cherished his privacy, he always appreciated the expressions of good will from people around the world and from all walks of life.

While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

**********************

A true Human hero.  He was a hero of ALL of us, not just those of us lucky enough to live in the same country.  When he set his foot on the moon, he represented man's ascension to goals above and beyond.  Given our recent political crapfest, I hope we don't lose sight of the trails he and other blazed into the unknown.

I was surfing Ebay for antique photos today and stumbled across a seller who has a load of vintage Japanese photographs that could easily be used for inspiration.  They show turn of the century Japanese people in a variety of situations that would be perfect for InuYasha characters.  You might have to ignore the more modern ones, including those that show Kabuki, since Kabuki didn't come along until after the end of the Sengoku Jidai.  There are lovely images of women writing, walking in gardens, playing musical instruments, and serving tea.  Since these are vintage, they are perfect for use as references.  I myself have cached a large number of them for use myself.  Go check them out at this link:  [link]

I haven't looked at them all in detail yet, but there are several that I can see will be useful for characters like Izayoi or for villagers going about their daily lives.  Enjoy!!

I need to vent....

I have spent far too long writing back and forth with a Kagome fan who was one of the annoying ilk "everybody knows they did"....  It must be a trait of tender years, but this abject nonsense of INSISTING that everyone has to see it the (very limited) way they do is nothing short of teeth-grindingly irritating.  I want soooooo badly to expose this person to rightfully earned public humiliation, but, I am a grownup, and it's required that I try to be more tolerant.  So, I won't name names.  But, I do hope that they see this and know themselves to be the nitwit they are.

Yes, nitwit.  When you take the "my way or nothing" point of view, you alienate people.  Not everyone is going to agree with you, and they are not required to.  It's time to move on, grow up, and take a more worldly and mature perspective.

What's really telling in this is that the ONLY fans that have EVER come to me with a chip on their shoulder are the Kagome fanatics.  Why, pray tell, do they feel this compunction to try to ruin someone else's fun?  No one appointed them custodian of public opinion, nor have they been given any sort of reason to approach people and act the fool, yet here they are.

I gotta say, I'm finding it harder and harder to be nice to them as time goes on.  There is a difference between being an idiot and being ignorant.  An ignorant person simply doesn't yet know the facts and is therefore less guilty of willful transgression, whereas the idiot knows the facts (having been told them) and willfully ignores them, proving to everyone the lack of judgement and reason.

Sigh.  Ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the people who write to me are lovely, intelligent, mature individuals who just love the heck out of InuYasha.  It's that .1% that just sometimes gets my teeth to grinding.....

Oh well.  In a day or so, I will have entirely forgotten the incident, and I will continue happily doing what I do, which is more art with a large percentage of IY sprinkled in for good measure.

Thank you for allowing me to get this out of my head.

I need to vent....

I have spent far too long writing back and forth with a Kagome fan who was one of the annoying ilk "everybody knows they did"....  It must be a trait of tender years, but this abject nonsense of INSISTING that everyone has to see it the (very limited) way they do is nothing short of teeth-grindingly irritating.  I want soooooo badly to expose this person to rightfully earned public humiliation, but, I am a grownup, and it's required that I try to be more tolerant.  So, I won't name names.  But, I do hope that they see this and know themselves to be the nitwits they are.

Yes, nitwit.  When you take the "my way or nothing" point of view, you alienate people.  Not everyone is going to agree with you, and they are not required to.  It's time to move on, grow up, and take a more worldly and mature perspective.

What's really telling in this is that the ONLY fans that have EVER come to me with a chip on their shoulder are the Kagome fanatics.  Why, pray tell, do they feel this compunction to try to ruin someone else's fun?  No one appointed them custodian of public opinion, nor have they been given any sort of reason to approach people and act the fool, yet here they are.

I gotta say, I'm finding it harder and harder to be nice to them as time goes on.  There is a difference between being an idiot and being ignorant.  An ignorant person simply doesn't yet know the facts and is therefore less guilty of willful transgression, whereas the idiot knows the facts (having been told them) and willfully ignores them, proving to everyone the lack of judgement and reason.

Sigh.  Ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the people who write to me are lovely, intelligent, mature individuals who just love the heck out of InuYasha.  It's that .1% that just sometimes gets my teeth to grinding.....

Oh well.  In a day or so, I will have entirely forgotten the incident, and I will continue happily doing what I do, which is more art with a large percentage of IY sprinkled in for good measure.

Thank you for allowing me to get this out of my head.

I have a pretty good collection of InuYasha stuff, but there is one item that has ALWAYS managed to elude me.  Here is a couple of pictures of the InuYasha twin bed set that I would very much like to add to my stash:


and


The one German place I found that carried these would not ship to the US for some reason.  Argh!

Now I know that this set is probably well into being rare, but I'm putting out a request.  If anyone can help me get one of these, that would be completely awesome!  I will pay costs, shipping, etc. to the US.  So please, please let me know if you know of a place I can go for one!  And I do plan to reward the person who gives me the info that leads to a purchase.

Many thanks!!

I'm handing them out to anyone who faves one of my works.  Any one, pick one.

And I'll give them for free.  No points necessary.  If you have friends who want them, tell them to come here.  They'll get a llama too.

Llamas for everybody!!

Why?  Because I said so. XDXDXD

Today, I finally finished watching a Japanese drama series called "Jin", about a brain surgeon who is thrown back into Edo of the 1800's before the Restoration.  It is a WONDERFUL story, and several times, throughout the 11 episodes, I had tears rolling down in sympathy for one character or another.

All the characters are well written and extremely well-played, and I was especially taken with the ronin Sakamoto.  He's brash, impulsive, and full of life and I came to enjoy him quite a lot.  There were moments where despite his bravado and boisterousness, he shows great thought and sensitivity.  At those times, I just wanted to crush him in a hug.

Other aspects I found enthralling were the sets and costumes, most of which could easily be used as reference in InuYasha era fanart.

One thing I found especially striking was the similarity to the InuYasha storyline.  It's a time travel story wherein one character is thrust into the past and asked to help save lives.  There's a romantic triangle centered on the young man, who has a past love he's trying to save in whatever way he can.  Meanwhile, there is a young girl who comes to love him in secret and goes to the mat for him time and again, and is unable to catch his eye or his heart.  Despite being a third wheel, the young girl still stays by his side and defends him.  Things get complicated when the doctor finds a prostitute who bears a striking resemblance to his past love thus igniting even more situations where the young girl gets her feelings hurt.

And the ending......  If you didn't understand the ending of the InuYasha manga, you may be in trouble.  The ending, as Takahashi wrote it, is one that is well understood in Japan and it's not the first time that very same kind of ambiguous ending has been seen.  This series' ending is so much like how InuYasha ended that it's clear that Western expectations are really what's out of place.  I've just waded through yet another conversation with a young fan who was completely unable to understand that the story of InuYasha and Kagome was not "Westernized" with all the questions answered.  I have written many times before about how many questions are left at the end of the manga, and the ending of "Jin" is exactly the same.

I know this qualifies as spoilers, and I'm sorry for that, but let me say this:  I loved the drama series, and I loved all the characters.  It's only 11 episodes long, but I can highly recommend it.  And even though I've blown some of the ending, you will likely still really enjoy the series and will at least be prepared for how it comes out.

My point in reviewing it was mainly to give yet another example of a Japanese story that fits the same mold that InuYasha does.  It's better if we, as fans resolve to try to understand why an author or artist finishes a work the way they do, rather than trying to cram it into some preconceived pigeonhole we've come up with.  As artists, we get this.  I know I would not want someone telling me that I can't draw a gryphon with lion paws on the front because "everybody knows" that "griffons" have eagle legs in front.  It's all based on our individual frame of reference.  And to understand the InuYasha ending, it is necessary to try to see it from a much more neutral position; something that a lot of fans are as yet unable or unwilling to do.

"Jin" brought that into focus for me, and I'm very very glad I watched the series.  Now I'm going to read the manga and see how that compares to the drama.

That's the release date for the BluRay and DVD (English edition) of the InuYasha Final Act Disk One.  

Looks like this one will have six or possibly seven episodes, based on the run time.  Here's the data as posted on Amazon:

Format: Animated, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Number of discs: 1
Rated: Unrated
Studio: Viz Media
DVD Release Date: November 20, 2012
Run Time: 325 minutes

At this time, the BluRay version is pricing out at:

List Price: $54.98
Price: $38.85 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $16.13 (29%)

The DVD version is priced significantly lower at:

List Price: $44.98
Price: $28.83 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $16.15 (36%)

These are probably pre-order prices, and the DVD set has two disks in the box.

I'm hoping the prices come down a bit from these early estimates.  As it stands, they want to get about $5 per half hour episode for DVD (at seven episodes).  About $8 per half hour episode on the BlueRay.  Hmmm.  I expect that once it's released, a bit of shopping some of the sources will turn up a tolerably better price.

So November....warm up your disk players.....

"The North American manga and anime distributor Viz Media confirmed at its Sakura-Con panel on Saturday that it will release the Inuyasha: The Final Act television anime series on Blu-Ray Disc and DVD in North America this fall. Voice Actress Kelly Sheridan (Escaflowne's Hitomi, InuYasha's Sango) confirmed in May 2010 that the anime was being dubbed into English. Viz announced last October that it would release Inuyasha: The Final Act on Blu-ray Disc and DVD this year.

Inuyasha: The Final Act had originally been simulcast on ShonenSunday.com and on Hulu. The full subtitled 26-episodes series is currently available on Viz Media's anime streaming website, VizAnime.com." (quote by [link])

We really do.  Here's an example:  [link]

For those of you who are inclined musically, this website allows you to play with a sophisticated online replica of an analog sythesizer.  That's just mind-blowing, and it's free!

Or, how about this one:  [link]

It's an online CAD program (free!) that lets you get your feet wet in a similar way to what Google SketchUP is doing.

More and more, it's possible for artists and creatives to find the software they need right online and that's simply amazing!  Couple the CAD site with a homebuilt 3-D printer, and you get some stunningly amazing things!  There's a whole website [link] chock full of stuff you can download and print for yourself if you've built a 3-D printer or know someone who has.  They are all the rage and I've lost track of how many of my friends are busily trying to get theirs to work better and better.  Tiny Dr. Who Tardises are all the rage right now....

In other news....

As you might tell, I've been popping in and out for short visits of late.  This is because I'm working like a dog to get some work done and everything seems to keep getting in my way.  I had a convention, wrecked my left knee, did a Tesla coil show, a storm came through and sucked a window off my house and smashed it in the driveway, (not too bad, mostly inconvenient), another convention, some shipping, some cleaning, and today, I did a load of business paperwork in addition to field stripping a laptop to repair the DC charging jack, then put the machine all together again.  Bleah.

And my list isn't much shorter....  I do have more pretty art to put up if time will ever let me get to it, not to mention I have some I need to finish ASAP.
I'm also trying to bang out the last installment of my short fic "One Thousand Times" as well.  Sigh.  So much to do.  This is always the busiest time of year for me, but I do find little snippets of time here and there....

I do want to apologize to the Twilight fans if I was a bit snarky.  Even if I don't like the series, I don't have to be snide.  But I do have a problem with the whole mythos, as well as Bella....  Still, that's no excuse for rubbing salt in the wounds of some fans of the series.  They are no doubt hurting enough at the hands of the actess and don't need my help.

The difficult thing about idolizing your TV or movie heroes is that if you meet them, there is some chance that the hero/actor will actually be a real jerk or ass.  I've met quite a few celebrities in my life, and there is a certain percentage of them that play heroes on screen but are really unlikeable off screen.  An example of one I like both on and off screen is Nichelle Nichols of classic Star Trek fame.  She was sweet, and warm and a pleasure to meet.  Same with Leonard Nimoy and especially George Takei.  Trace Beaulieu of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame is also fun to be around.  Most of the people who worked on that show were fun to talk to and still are.  

(BTW, a NEW version of "Manos, Hands of Fate" was found, and is being simulcast in movie theaters in many places with a RiffTrax soundtrack added!  Awesome!  Check the Fandango website for times and locations near you.  I think they are showing it for the first time this Thursday.  Sadly, I will have to miss it.  Boo hiss.)

Other actors who have been pleasant to fans are the Babylon 5 actors and actresses.  I met them by accident when I was collared to work security at a con some years ago.

As for those who behave badly, I hesitate to mention them by name, but they do exist.  Some were in a couple of famous rock bands, and at least one was an actor who I thought would be more respectable than he turned out to be.  Some authors have fallen into that category as well.

What this means is, if you fall head over heels for a screen star, put aside a little protection in case they slip up and do something stupid.  Fame puts an awful strain on actors and they stray far more often than we know.  The behavior of the Twilight actress is stupid by normal standards, but she doesn't live a normal life, and thanks to how rabid the Twilight fans are, she never will.  Think about Daniel Radcliff and how much his life has to have changed.  He will forever be Harry Potter to most all of us.  Some years ago, Jackie Chan had a young female fan in China who heard that he was getting married.  The fan was so crushed that she committed suicide, unable to imagine him with anyone else.

Leondard Nimoy, who played the original (and best!) Mr. Spock, struggled mightily to keep his own identity separate from the onscreen character he'd become famous for.  He even wrote a book called "I Am Not Spock" to make the matter clear.  But in time, he realized that he and Spock were, in fact, inseparable, and so he wrote a followup book many years later entitled "I Am Spock", and showed that he had made his peace with his "other self".  Some actors never do, and spend their whole lives fighting back against how the fans see them, so they do things that fly in the face of the fan's expectations.

Prepare yourself for it in advance and maybe, just maybe, you might get lucky and fall for an actor who will pleasantly surprise you.

Okay, it's late, and I must fly off and get more done!

Miss you guys!  I'll try to write replies when I can!  I read ALL messages!

(Snicker...)  I just heard today that the actress who played "Bella" in the regrettable Twilight series has betrayed her relationship with Robert Pattenson (Edward) by having an illicit affair with one of her directors.

Soooo, the mushy dishrag character Bella is now discolored even more by betraying the man she fought so hard to get.  What a nitwit.

I don't feel much sympathy toward Edward either.  I could have warned him that she was bad news from the get go.....

Bella's going to lose a lot of fans today....

I want to do a "thing" about Visual Tropes.  They are the "same-old, same-old" techniques that many artists use that get WAAAAY overused and are usually poorly done.  Visual Tropes don't make good art and they wear out really quick.

Here are the ones I want to beat on:

Red nose syndrome.  Some artists like to give their characters red noses.  I have no idea where the technique comes from, but it makes the character look like they are either very drunk, or they have a really bad cold.  Or perhaps they got punched in the nose.  This particular trope REALLY bugs me because it just looks so wrong.  A nose will be slightly red on the sides, but unless it's badly sunburnt, it won't be out and out red.  If done right, a nose can be normally colored without having to resort to a trope.

Flounder mouth.  This is the egregious method of drawing a mouth that anime artists use to save money.  By drawing the mouth on the side of the face when in profile, rather than actually animating the jaw moving up and down, the studio saves a buttload of money on time.  However, it is a technique for animation only, not for 2-D or computer paintings and drawings.  Flounder mouth (or fish mouth) robs the character of dimensionality.  Animation studios don't worry about that since they get to show their character in a gajillion poses in one half hour show.  Thus, flounder mouth isn't onscreen too long.  But if you use the technique on your static drawing or painting, you've frozen the awkward lip configuration and made it too visible.  Use it rarely, use it sparingly.  It's not a proper technique for drawing mouths.

Sparkle dots.  Some artists sprinkle white dots all over their characters I guess to imitate sparkles or water droplets or something but it's not clear what.  They don't just do it in a few places as accents, they do them all over the place with little rhyme or reason as to why they are using them at all.  It's one thing if they are carefully placed, logical highlights.  It's quite another if all they are doing is getting the artist out of doing real highlights.

Single line hair highlight.  This one doesn't get me near as much as red nose does, but it does get overused.  It's the single thin line used as a hair highlight, usually on anime characters.  Generally speaking, it's fine if you're doing cel-shaded anime characters, but there is the real danger it will bleed over into your more traditional works and just cause trouble.  It's cloying to rely on such a minimalist technique unless your art is specifically drawn in the same way.

Do you know of any other Visual Tropes that need to be added to this list?  I welcome opinions (be nice!) and comments.

As for the first few comments, this journal was about something else entirely before I decided to change it so don't mind them....

The British have put together an AMAZING extravaganza of art, music, scupture and performance that utterly blows me away!!!  My hat is off to the Brits for doing it so very right!!!!

The audience LED display is mind blowing!!  

Wow!

There are many changes coming.  I've known for some time that I need to split my fannish art away from my own works and that time has finally come.  For those who want to follow my own creations, you can find me here: [link]

As for this site, it will eventually contain only my fannish works with a strong emphasis on my love for InuYasha.

Thanks in advance for bearing with me, and hopefully, I'll have things settled down soon!

Now I have to get back to work!!!

Lately, I've been watching Ao no Exorcist in the subtitled Japanese version, and having just completed the tenth episode, I was struck by something very important that American TV animators have all but forgotten.

They have no clue whatsoever as to how to write a truly good story.  The one exception to this rule is the Legend of Korra, which of course, stands head and shoulders above the riffraff.

I watch a LOT of cartoons and anime as I work, and I have this to say to the lack-wits who are trashing on anime a lot:

Get your head out of your ass!

I'm sick of the sanctimonious, self-aggrandizing that goes on in the American industry.  Oooooh, we're so great, because we're American and we worship the Almighty Dollar!  Bullshit.  I'm gonna hold them to a much higher standard than what I have thus far.

Why?  Because in all my many long years of being a kid at heart, and loving animation like I do, ONLY anime has ever made me shed tears.  I grieve with them, worry with them, laugh with them, and today, I cried, once again.  American cartoons just don't do that.  It's all so fakey and lame, and worse still, it's hackneyed.  Why do we settle for this nonsense?

I love anime because when I find a good one, I know I'm in for a really good engaging ride that will make me CARE about the characters as if I knew them personally.  In just ten episodes of Ao no Exorcist, I've achieved that state.  Now I can really enjoy the anticipation of each new episode with pleasure and satisfaction that American cartoons just can't bring to me.

I had that supreme feeling with InuYasha too.  I had it with the manga first, when I cried for Kagome.  That had NEVER happened to be before and I was not prepared for such a strong reaction.  Here's how it went down:

I was at a convention party and I was feeling a bit bored since none of the conversations interested me, so I took out my latest issue of InuYasha, and began reading.  When I got to the chapter where Kagome realized for the first time that she was, in fact, a third wheel to the relationship between InuYasha and Kikyou, I cried for her.  Here I was, in the middle of a loud, boisterous party, and tears were streaming down my face.  I felt for her and what she would have to endure.  I've been there, so I knew all too well what it felt like to be in love with someone who was totally in love with someone else.  It's very, very hard, and I felt bad for her and sympathized deeply.  Since that day, I've cried for Kikyou many times as well.

And yet, I have never, ever done this for any American cartoon character except for the movie Bambi.  We all know what scene I'm talking about.

We have, over the years, let the thinnest skinned among us dictate the quality of our entertainment.  Weak, watered down pap, is what we feed the young kids, and then we wonder why they CRAVE the violent video games when they become teens!  It's in our nature, as humans, to endure challenge and hardship both physical and emotional, from the day we are born, and while it may seem beneficial to protect kids from the harsh realities of life, the truth is, we're robbing them of some the richness of life as well.  After all, we use these experiences, and these emotions to create the guages and measures that guide our lives.  The original versions of the real old "fairy tales" were harsh and filled with lessons parents wanted to teach their children about the ways of the real world.  Sadly, because the thin-skinned among us thought those old tales would somehow scare or harm the delicate sensibilities of our children, they've stripped out all the scarey and sad bits and replaced it with pap and artificial sugar.  It makes me sick.

The original Little Mermaid didn't win the heart of the prince.  She had to watch as he married another, and then she flung herself into the waves to become seafoam.  In the original Red Riding Hood, the wolf ate both the grandmother AND Red Riding Hood, and the Woodsman rescued them only after cutting open the wolf!  How is that different from cutting open the taun-taun after Han Solo ran it to death?  Who mourns the taun-taun??  I do!  Movies do get it right sometimes, but other times they get on that slippery money slope and make movies that are obvious 1 1/2 hour (or longer!) commercials.  Worse still, they "write-down" to their audience, creating weak stories and even weaker characters.  It's beneath us, and yet, we allow them to do it.  Well not me.  I'm going to review the movies I see, and I will tell them in no uncertain terms what worked and what failed, and I'm going to tell them whether I or not I would spend any of my hard earned cash to see or own their works.  "All Dogs Go To Heaven" was the first travesty that deserved a good three page rip, and it has the distinction of being the first animation that I ever took back and demanded a refund for.  Many have come along since, but I refuse to pay for crap anymore.  My first commandment:  Thou shalt not suffer Family Guy on the air!  Not ever.  Followed by everything in their franchise.  

Have standards.  Maintain them.  And if someone rags on you for liking anime, then you stick a finger in their face and ask them this:

"Anime?!?  Then tell me, what animation currently being produced can even hold a candle to the depth of writing in anime???  Tell me what animation looks as good when it comes to character design?  What animation is there that can make me CARE about the characters and even shed tears for them?"

Chances are, they'll throw the Legend of Korra at you, but that one doesn't count.  If they toss out Family Guy, they deserve a dope slap upside the head.

I love a story that challenges me to FEEL something, other than the urge to buy something.  Anime can sometimes bring me to tears, and I'm GLAD it does!  Those are the cartoons I'll cherish, and those are the cartoons I'm a fan of.  

We desperately need better standards and thicker skins.

That's my rant for today.  Thanks for reading to the end!  

Okay!  Done for this evening!  Got pretty far on the sketch though there's plenty refining to do yet!  I might get a chance to bonk on it a bit more tomorrow.  

Caveat:  I have a HUGE project looming, so my time here on DA and LiveStream will be quite limited for about two weeks.  BUT, I promise that there will me new eyecandy at the end of it all!

Thanks for watching!!  

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Had this image in my head of Inu no Taisho playing the part of Dumbledore....  So I'll try sketching it.....

For reference, I do this with no sound since I'm not set up for it....

[link]

For a little while at least....