I'm starting to think this guy really is the next Freddy Mercury.



Now let's see him grow a mustache and write a rock opera.

( Futurama? )

I'm usually not big on the whole "lol, further stylization of Matt Groening's characters" thing, but what the hell, this was fun. Especially Zapp.

Can't wait for them new Futuramas. For a minute there, it looked as though there would be RAEG because Fox was being a bunch of dicks and not wanting to pay the original cast enough money to come back for season 6, but I hear that's all worked out now. GOOD FOR YOU, my dear underrated cartoon. The world wasn't ready for your awesomeness the first time around.

I temporarily fixed the computer situation (it was the motherboard), but my internet is still shit. Ah, well, have some draw.

( It's supposed to be Lucifer, but if you wanna look at it as garish bondage torture porn, that's fine, too. )

I've never been able to make sense of Christianity. I wish I could, but all I'm getting is a well-meaning message tainted by massive historical and social bias of the period the Bible was written in. Which would be fine, if the church didn't expect me to take everything written therein literally. The Last Temptation of Christ, although a work of fiction ferociously pelted by every Bible-toting bigot at the time did a heck of a lot more to make me understand just why Jesus' sacrifice was something to be revered, than Mel Gibson's shitty snuff movie (which I deeply regret paying to see) ever could.

I am going to take a fucking sledge hammer and beat the shit out of it if it doesn't stop freezing every 5 seconds or so. Surf the web? Freeze. Play music? Freeze. Play video files? Freeze. Work in Photoshop? Freeze and lose everything since the last save, sometimes even corrupting the damn file in the process. Any kind of chat? FREEZE FREEZE FREEZE how dare you have a social life on the interwebz?!

I hate troubleshooting. I fucking hate it with every fiber in my body.

drivers
codecs
system temperature
virus/malware scans
uninstalling everything but the bare minimum of programs needed to run a machine
system restore

I have tried everything I could think of and quite a few things I never would have thought of, all for nothing. And this is practically a new computer, I probably put more money into this shit annually than I do into anything else and it still always, without fail finds a way to fuck with me and ask for MOAR. With my luck with machines and technology, if I ever buy a car, I'll probably be completely broke within a month.

And to top it off, my internet has been acting up for quite a while, too, randomly disconnecting almost as frequently as my computer freezes. HA.

Installing Windows 7 as a last ditch effort. Wish me luck.

In other not so bad news, I passed an exam I was completely sure I was gonna fail, so I guess I can view this perpetual computer angst as a form of payment for that and other little shreds of happiness in my RL life. Mustn't upset the natural balance and have it all work out well for once B|.

Watched Wall-E last night. I'm a Disney classics nostalgic and not a huge fan of CGI, but damn if this movie wasn't a masterpiece in the visual department, and with a gorgeous story to boot. The fact that I have a hard on for robots probably helped, too, but I really did find that rusty little box with arms a lot more sympathetic than most of the cutesy furry characters in recent animated films (at least the ones I've seen). And I've gotta admit, making a movie with no real dialogue in the first 3/4 of it while your target demographic is primarily kids was a pretty ballsy move by Pixar. I'm glad it did as well as it did, both financially and critically.

God, it would be so incredibly awesome to make a Transformers movie with visuals and animation of this quality. Ah, to dream...

In other news, here's a couple more comic-related pics that don't constitute a real update in any way:

http://i28.tinypic.com/288tf10.jpg
http://i35.tinypic.com/2cpvr5w.jpg

The second one was lots of fun to draw. Especially all that hair.

"God, will I ever get a date?"

"NO!"



Japan makes the best toys. Why am I always the last to find out about shit like this?

is here.

?
page 01
page 02
page 03

Criticism gratefully accepted below. Feel free to be harsh where necessary. I can take a pounding just as well as the next guy :V.

Off to the seaside. Brb in 10 days.

Stay well, y'all.

My otherwise boring day just got over 9000 times better.



Not quite as EPIC as The Rude Awakening and Shockwave's Burden, but hey.

I've discovered a new love for tegaki. Amazing how much you can do with so little <3.








First portrait I've drawn that actually turned out right.

drawing animu fanart while you're in the process of trying to learn how to draw properly is a terrible fucking idea. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Also, this tablet is going to kill whatever minor skillz I had with the good ol' pencil.

Anyway, I got a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain a while ago. I don't deny that it must have some merit, seeing as how it's used as a textbook in art colleges throughout the world, but after reading it, I can safely say that the only useful thing I got out of it was the 'draw what you see, not what you think you see' mantra. The rest was just regurgitating that one sentence on 200+ pages. Andrew Loomis, on the other hand, is still da man and his books provide me with hours of quality learning on a daily bases.

nekkid lady
the fact that the guy whose photo I referenced for this is apparently also a weaboo is a coincidence, I swear.
mini hand study
and this, back on my weaboo-filled DA

In other news, I've started listening to a lot of swing and I think it's becoming a heavy influence on the ideas I have for a comic. If that shit could have a soundtrack, Cherry Poppin Daddies would be it. Now I just need to figure out minor things, like where the hell I wanna go with it, aside from the usual getting pissed/getting into bar fights/getting laid/getting the bad guys cliche. brb in 20 years.

So apparently, I share my birthday with Dante, George Lucas and Tim Roth. Not bad :V.

I turned 25 today. I think that's officially way too old to hold an LJ account filled with stupid shit that screams ronery loser geek louder than a Naruto headband. Sadly, I don't give a shit, so don't expect the spamming to stop anytime soon.

Now excuse me whilst I celebrate the silver jubilee of my life by studying for an exam.

(can you tell I'm feeling really festive today?)

I just watched the 5th episode of Cowboy Bebop. It was so brain-wreckingly EPIC that, had I not known it was only the 5th episode, I would totally have expected it the be the show's finale. And a completely awesome finale at that. It was like Godfather 1 meets Janis Joplin meets Guy Ritchie. EPIC.

WHY HAVE I NOT WATCHED THIS SHOW 376 TIMES BY NOW? AND WHY DO I CURRENTLY NOT HAVE THE TIME TO WATCH IT ALL IN ONE SITTING? AGH.

Ryusaki, srsly, you have to watch this nao. Don't you know too much EVA is bad for you ?

Saw this on arynis's journal and asked her to tag me with a character of her choice. Because all everyone ever seems to do on LJ is memes, and I want to be like all the cool kids 8U. The tag was Lelouch.

1. Do you like this character?

Damn skippy. Everyone is gay for Lelouch.

2. What name/names do you call this character?

Lulu, Failouche, LeDouche

3. What image-color do you associate with this character?

Purple and pink, because of all the FABULOUS~.

4. What image-song do you associate with this character?

Colors. Somehow I associate Colors with everything Code Geass-related.

5. What blood-type do you think this character is?

No idea. I fail to see how someone's blood type can be deduced from their character traits o.0.

6. Of all of the titles that this character appears in, which characters do you like to put this character with?

Shirley, probably. Wouldn't have minded if he ended up with CC, either. Anyone but Kallen, basically.

7. What would you want to say to this character?

Your mom is a bitch. Seriously, dude, stop trying to avenge her.

8. Which do you want to do with this character: Shake hands, hug or kiss?

Go shopping. Or have him do my nails, apparently, he's good at that 8U.

Well, that was fun.

In other news, here's some Lockon, because I totally haven't been fangirling enough over him lately. God, I'm such a pathetic loser.

Red Letter Day ( Lyle. Neil. Setsuna. A quiet moment at the cemetery. )

I'd like to say I finished watching Witch Hunter Robin in the space of 3 days because it was so damn interesting that it glued me to the screen, but the truth of the matter is, I caught a cold and spend most of the last 3 days in bed with a fever and nothing better to do (not that I usually have a world of better things to do). Still, there's no denying that this show is made of awesome and I can't help but wonder why it isn't more popular. Perhaps it has something to do with the slow pace in the first half of the show, or the absence of shipper fodder, or the blatant lack of fanservice, especially for a Sunrise production.

The series kicks off with the introduction of a ragtag group of (le shock!) witch hunters working for an international secret agency responsible for the control and concealment of the witch population. A new hunter, Robin, is relocated from Italy and partnered with the resident stoic hardass Amon, much to his dismay, both because of her young age, and the fact that she's, in essence, a which - something he has issues with via Tragic Past and an Oedipus complex. Now, right off the bat, the show's opening strongly suggests that Robin has something of an unhealthy obsession with Amon, and I was wary at first that her character would mostly come down to that single overdone-to-death trait, but, fortunately, Robin quickly turns out to be an awesome and strong lead in her own quiet way, to the point that she actually makes Amon look like quite a sissy in comparison. The rest of the hunters mostly come across as relatively interesting people, as well, even if some of them did deserve more character development that they got. A computer hacker who one day hacked himself into virtual imprisonment at STN-J's headquarters, an adorably cheeky girl who turns out to be a lot more formidable than her casual attitude would have you believe, a grumpy boss with a heart of gold and... some other people who weren't quite as memorable. But the supporting cast is where the show really shines, especially with the ambiguously camp bar owner Harry and the fuck-awesome lawyer Nagira, who are probably the best things that ever came out of this show. Adversaries vary from just-your-run-of-the-mill nutjobs to misguided people with genuinely good intentions, with the show's Big Bad being a rather fine example of something in-between.

I've mentioned that WHR doesn't have much by way of obvious romantic pairings, but somehow, it still manages to be incredibly romantic in a very subtle, unusual way. The friendship and trust that develops between Robin and Amon during the course of the story is reminiscent of Nikita and Michael (if you disregard the large amounts fail that otherwise consumed La Femme Nikita) or Mulder and Scully (before Chris Carter went nuts and turned the X-Files into a Latin-American soap opera). Come to think of it, Witch Hunter Robin can be compared to American shows like the X-Files in more than one way, and a lot more than it can be compared to the usual anime cliches. At least those that I'm aware of.

The grim art style fits the atmosphere of the show rather nicely, though I must admit something about the character designs seemed rather strange to me at first. Still, there's no arguing with the fluid and natural movements; the animation is consistently good, but I guess that's only to be expected from a 26 episode show. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is nothing short of brilliant and the opening theme has quickly shot up to my anime top 10.

Another positive point worth mentioning is that the English dub is pretty much equally enjoyable as the original audio, and this is not something I often say. Then again, how can anything that has Orengi-kun's VA in it be bad? :V Funny thing, one of the characters shares both a seiyuu and a VA with Lelouch.

All in all, I'd give Witch Hunter Robin an 8/10 on my personal scale. Granted, it's not revolutionary or anything, but then again, I tend to enjoy un-revolutionary things with plain old interesting stories more often than I enjoy stuff that sets up landmarks.

1) Finished with the exams for now. Whoohoo.

2) Finally in a position to part with some 50-100 euro and get a tablet. Found Bamboo and Bamboo Fun, still trying to decide which one to get, although I'll likely settle for Fun.

3) Got a couple of Andrew Loomis books and started drawing boring stuff that actually teaches you how to become a decent artist. I'll have to try and cut down on drawing weaboo crap, but it's, oh, so much fun.

4) Gundam 00 ended last Sunday. This show. It was boring, it was exciting, it was clever, it was contrived, but in the end, I can safely say the good outweighs the bad. Can't wait for the movie.

5) Started watching Witch Hunter Robin. I'm normally not into the whole witchcraft/vampirism bullshit, but I gotta say I'm liking this show very much so far, especially in the characters department.

Now have a doodle dump.

( crappy fanart and even crappier attempts at character design ahoy )