Aaron Allston is writing more Star Wars:

http://www.amazon.com/SW-Fate-Jedi-Star-Wars/dp/0345509064/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215020141&sr=8-1

Thanks to blood_sorbet for the heads-up!

( Jag Fel sketch )

Also, me and Kristin didn't get any love on c.com today. T.T http://www.cosplay.com/photo/1591224/

I have a question for my artists friends:

Do you ever feel like the way you draw or color something no longer satisfies you, but you're not sure which direction to take your art in? If so, how do you break out of this limbo?

Right now, I'm REALLY struggling with coloring my Star Wars stuff. Cell shading doesn't look as good on Star Wars stuff the way it does on Anime/Manga/Chibi stuff, but I'm not quite sure how I want to color it. For some reason, a more realistic rendering of color doesn't seem to mesh well with my line art, even though it looks awesome with other people's line art. I'm thinking maybe I need to change up my line art a little bit, but I've just now gotten to a point where I LIKE my line art; I don't want to change it now! T.T At what point do you allow your style to dictate how you color, vs. forcibly changing your style to fit a certain type of coloring?

Augh, sorry if that was confusing. Right now I just can't seem to color in a way that I like. I color how I usually color, and it doesn't look good. I try something else, and it looks yucky too. I don't know what to do! My Tenel Ka piece was really a fluke, because I like how I colored that one but I haven't been able to recreate that coloring since. D:

My dog snatched the last rack of ribs off the counter while I was away. He's paying for it badly right now with an upset stomach. XD What a waste of a good rack of ribs! Chance has never stolen anything off the table before... I guess an old dog can learn new tricks!

I'll have to make a photo-post when Yuriy gives me the photos of the bath we gave to Chance the other day. OMFGCUTE. Definitely making one of those into a print before I leave. :3

Me and Yuriy are back from San Jose, and we've succeeded in finding an apartment (thanks to the awesome help of kuronosho)! We'll be living at the Archstone Fremont Center! It's funny that we ended up here; it didn't meet a couple of the criteria that me and Yuriy wanted, and it's a little on the pricey side, but both of us just knew this was the place for us when we walked in. I guess the best way to describe it would be "posh"--it kind of feels like a New York high-rise! I'm way excited to move in, which will be on July 14th.

Me and Yuriy discussed a lot of things on our way up to San Jose, and we came to the unfortunate conclusion that it would be best if we skipped Dragon*Con this year. It breaks my heart to have to put D*C aside, but the logical part of me is going over the numbers in my head and thinking what a ridiculous amount of money it would cost us to attend this year, and the timing is really bad considering Yuriy's start date for his work (only a little more than a month before D*C). It's not that we can't afford it, because Yuriy has a signing bonus coming with the first check, but there's a million other things we need more than a 4-day trip to Atlanta (furniture, for one). I'm trying to justify not going by telling myself that I won't miss what I've never experienced, and that D*C will always be there next year. It really does suck to have to be a responsible adult sometimes. D:

If our non-attendance screws anyone over in terms of hotel and stuff, let us know and we'll do what we can to set things right. I'm really sorry to everyone who was looking forward to us making it out (and to our con buddies scruffyrebel and jinyo, sorry guys), but I wish everyone a great time!

What else is new... I picked up "Making Comics" by Scott McCloud; I think I meant to pick up "Understanding Comics", but "Making Comics" was extremely useful as well. I was surprised at how much he talked about was stuff that I already implemented in my own comics, but he did say writing and drawing comics was very much an intuitive process, so I'm glad to know I'm on the right track. One thing in particular that stood out was how many artists hate drawing backgrounds (myself and Scott included), and that rather than looking at it as something to fill up the space behind your characters, you should think of it as an environment for your characters to interact with. As much as I loath drawing backgrounds, Scott's suggestion actually got me more interested in devoting more effort into my backgrounds. If someone can convince ME to work on my backgrounds, he could probably convince Hitler of his wrongdoings. XD I'm definitely going to read "Understanding Comics" the next chance I get.

I also picked up Hana-Kimi on solaria's recommendation; it's been so long since any long-running manga has piqued my interest enough to collect the entire series, but the first volume was really cute, so I might continue buying it. On the one hand, I could read the whole thing on OneManga.com, which would save me an obscene amount of money and I wouldn't have to wait until I run out and buy the next volume to see what happens next, but on the other hand, I really love reading manga in book-format, and I love having a complete collection of manga on my shelf (I've got all of Kenshin, almost all of Kare Kano, and a few volumes shy of the complete Death Note collection).

I'm also plugging through Republic Commando; I haven't had much time to finish the first volume, but I love that I can go a whole week without reading it and get right back into it when I do finally pick it back up. I want to read it right now, but I've still got a lot of work to do on AX costumes, so it'll have to stay sidelined for now.

Speaking of costumes, here's a photo Consplayers took of me at Fanime: http://www.cosplay.com/photo/1587045/

Okay, back to work for me. My phone is still totally dead; I'm going to try and get a new phone tomorrow, so if you need to get a hold of me the best way is still through e-mail.

P.S. "Once" is a GREAT movie!!!! OMG SOUNDTRACK WANT.

Epic weekend was epic!! Thanks to everyone for making it so much fun! Although, I must say that I think I had the most fun doing a girls-day-out on Saturday morning with solaria and scruffyrebel... We ought to have more days like that if I didn't spend so much time hiding under a rock!

It's 4:30 am right now and me and Yuriy are heading up to San Jose to look for apartments for the next few days. We won't be back until Thursday night, and I'll have very limited internet access while I'm there, so I'll be a little hard to get a hold of. To make matters worse, my phone is on the fritz big-time, so I don't know if I'll be accessible by phone either. I've got over ten messages I need to listen to that I'm trying to figure out how to retrieve with a dead screen, so sorry if you've left me any messages and I haven't gotten back to you! ;_;

That's all for now! I'll be back in a few days. :)

HOLY CRAP INUYASHA ACTUALLY ENDED?!?! Did hell freeze over or something?!

I don't know how I feel about the ending... I guess I'm pleased, but it left like EVERYTHING unexplained. And honestly, if your manga goes on for 290842093849238409832 chapters, I don't think you can do ANYTHING that will be epic enough for the final chapter. Also, it's kind of funny to mention this in light of some of the critiques the editors gave me for my RSoM piece, but sometimes OBVIOUS is the way to go. Rumiko Takahashi needs some serious lessons in telling a good love story. D:

Me and scruffyrebel were having a gripefest discussion about Invincible this evening at my house, and one thing we both agreed on was that Jaina deserved a far more glorious cover than what she got. Not that Invincible's cover wasn't epic, but how dare her brother hork in on her limelight! >:O I had had it in my head a long time before Invincible's cover was released how I wanted to see Jaina portrayed in all her glory...

( What Invincible's cover SHOULD have been )

jinyo and scruffyrebel had to go and make me cry with their awesome going-away gifts:



Seriously, I almost wish they hadn't gotten me these things because it makes me think about how much I'm going to miss my SoCal homies!!! ;___________;

D'oh! I was late! But I wanted to wish a very happy birthday to one of the sweetest people out there, bobbarker!!! He's been such a good bud to me, and I miss him a lot! I don't have very many pictures of us together, so I'm going to be a failfriend and repost the b-day picture I posted last year:



Maybe I'll make this a running gag every year. XD

Just when I'm having a down-and-out period BAWWWING over how much I suck at art and blah blah blah, look what arrives on my doorstep!

( More... )

Wow, I really need to go to bed, but I had so much fun drawing Jim's Mando that I felt the need to draw another Mando:

( For Vic )

I used another gal's art for inspiration, so any and all credit ought to go to her piece:

http://michelle84.deviantart.com/art/Iridae-Nouveau-89109351

( My rendition )

Okay, I'm not going to become a better artist if I sit around and whine about how much I suck. Maybe I'm not the best out there, but I like to think my art makes a few people smile:

( For Jim )

Every once in a while you run across an artist that is so good, you want to throw yourself off a bridge.

http://www.raingate.net/

I found her through a piece she did on DeviantArt; the piece was actually really inspiring, and made me want to sit down and do a similar piece. But then I started browsing her website, and I found myself saying "OMG WHY IS SHE SO GOOD???" over and over again. I mean, her art style probably isn't up everyone's alley, but it's definitely up MY alley, and she's just so freaking GOOD at it. DDD:

I don't know if this makes me want to run out and spend 2934802309482348 hours practicing or just toss my tablet in the trash cause WHAT'S THE POINT!?

I have been looking for this video FOREVER!!!!! I don't have a reason to post it right this second, but many, MANY times in the past this is how I've felt when I've talked to people:

http://la.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=31141561

( BITCHBITCHBITCH )

Watched P.S. I Love You tonight with my best friend. CRIED MY FUCKING EYES OUT. (Surprise, surprise.) Augh, between the pain I'm in and Gerard Butler's TRAGIC YET AWESOME character, I wish Yuriy was here to hold me. ;______;