 Chapter II is here! I hope you all enjoy this one even more than Chapter I, because by now I've learned to use the tools available to me, and how to draw good. That doesn't mean I think I'm done learning; you'll see stuff in a week or two that I just couldn't do when I drew this cover. It's taking me a little more than a day to produce a finished ink; however, I'm using a different schedule now that ought to smooth things out a little. We'll see. I've never skipped an update, have I? (Late, sure. Missed, never!) Well, I had plenty of fun at Armageddon. Sure, it left me a quivering, exhausted wreck the next day, but most of my exercise now comes from walking between the stereo and the computer, so that's not unexpected. (However, I still can't put on any weight! I'm certain there's something wrong with me, I'm 65kg with my boots on and only about an inch shorter than Lorenzo, I mean Exile.) I met plenty of fascinating people, had a great time, and never bought a thing. Not to say I didn't get swag, and not to say I wasn't highly tempted at times, but I'll spend thirty minutes in a bookstore just staring at a book, trying to decide if it's for me, even if I know it is. If anyone I met there is reading this, I say unto thee, yo. HISTORY Did you know there are no snakes in New Zealand? It's true. Apart from Ireland, which I am told has no snakes either, and possibly Antarctica, we're the only nation without snakes. There was a period of finding dead snakes in shipping containers a few months ago, but that seems to have died down. New Zealand has been an independant land mass for many millions of years, and is highly volcanic. It split from Australia before the extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs. Thus, it's no surprise that our primary land vertebrates are birds and lizards. (The tuatara lizard is often referred to as the closest thing to a dinosaur today.) We do have some native mammals; both are small species of bat. There are some coastal seals and dolphins, but they almost never leave the beaches. Except the elephant seals, which can sometimes cause problems. Anyway, what with all the killer mountain parrots, ostrich-dwarfing moa birds, and colour coded penguins, there doesn't seem to be any room for snakes. ART Probably the quickest colour I've ever done, nevertheless I think it sets a new standard for the new chapter. I'm warning you, the next few strips are quite detailed. JPEG compression has taken the grit off the metal plating, but you still get the idea... I'd like to acknowledge the fact that some things on this page was partially inspired by other artists' work. As I'd never drawn serpents before, I took a brief look at one of Tony DiTerlizzi's illustrations, mostly for the jaw structure and some craggy bits. And the other thing used Scott Fischer's work to get the outline of some muscles right. (You can't see them, but they're there.) EXILE'S RANT Ahh, just in time to catch up on the comic itself again. But before I go on, I'd just like to say a big: HOLY FREAKIN' CRAP! to last week's guest art. I mean sorry, but that just doesn't have "fan art" written on it. It has "WHY is this guy not making comics full time?" written all over it. I mean, DAMN! Okay, I think I've about said my bit on that. I think he can safely take that as a compliment... So, moving on... Yes, I too attended Armageddon, and yes, I'm something of a Sailor Moon fan, although I can't say I've had much or anything to do with it for he last 5 years or so. At any rate, I figured seeing one of the movies would be worth a shot - lo and behold, it was. Even tho it was the toned down USA DVD that just happened to have Japanese as an option (oh no, we can't have lesbians in it - we'll have to make them SISTERS instead... needless to say they didn't do their transformations naked), some things they either managed to work around (getting put in hospital by a giant blue Bonbon Baby is still getting put in hospital, the same goes for falling a long way and razor-sharp darts) or simply left in because smaller children wouldn't understand it anyway ("Imagine that, trying to make a world where children never grow up", "Yeah, there are so many more fun things to do as an adult..." *takes a step sideways, coughs, everyone in the room cracked up in their seats*). So suffice it to say that was a satisfactory conversion. Magic Knight RayEarth, on the other hand, earned someone in what must've been Funimation a death sentence. I'd heard such great things about it, and the English version was so much worse than even the English version of Sailor Moon. Think along the same lines, but minus the humour, more undying loyalty and almost completely redundant dialogue. I forced myself to watch a whole episode to see if it got better - it didn't. So I left and watched the last half hour of Ah My Goddess in Japanese, infinitely better. Anywho, moving way (slightly) from the 'little girls' market (into what must be the 'slightly older girls' market), I also got to see some class acts. Slayers, for example, was almost as classic as Ranma, both of which I'm now somewhat hooked on. It was the first few episodes of what wasn't the first series, involving a girl with a tail, a peek up her skirt, and a very large, spikey reprisal. Let's just say the guy didn't try it again... Also, there're few things funnier than smiting evil "in the name of truth, in the name of justice and in the name of food!". Hey, what would YOU do if you were super-powered and starving? One of the heros even stayed emmaciated for almost the entire fight, looking like a living skeleton, and utterly hillarious striking a bold pose with his magic sword. We also ran across Blue Gender in the dub section, and I hasten to add that not only was it actually a good dub, but despite its name, it was NOT a dodgey H porn flick. It was actually about giant man-eating bugs, and the first ep I saw has all the hero's friends killed, whereby he escapes and makes a couple of... associates. The Chick still really didn't like him by the time the DVD finished, he'd made one friend in a Guy With Blue Hair (we're sure he's gonna die next) and the guy commanding them didn't really deal with him anyway. Speaking of dodgey tho, The Chick still walked naked thru part of the credit sequence... go figure. But in all honesty, the highlight of all that had to be Ranma Movie 2. I have not laughed that hard in months, maybe even years! It was that funny. (I concur with everything Exile has to say, and allow me to just add that damn! was that Ranma movie... bouncy. Oh, and Dragon Slave is a cool attack. -s/LaSH) Did either of us forget to mention that Armageddon actually had stuff other than dubbed and subbed anime/manga? Well, it did. It had boatloads of other stuff. But aside from a hundred bucks worth of comics (which went pretty quick, I tell ya) I didn't actually participate in too much else. There was a lot of the obligatory wandering around and drooling at things I couldn't afford, admiring swords and consoles and remembering that a sword wouldn't make it thru customs (good thing too, that saved me from a fool-hardy Xmas purchase), looking at local and international comics alike and even meeting someone I knew behind one of the counters. Of course, I didn't say anything about that, because there's nothing worse than saying "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" to a girl you hardly know (or to anyone of the opposite gender, for that matter). I only remembered afterwards where I knew her from, and by that time it was too late, so never mind. Damn, this is a long rant, and I still have Latin to study (only 3 chapters by tomorrow morning, kiddies!). Okay I'm sorry, I'll never call you "kiddies" again. So, mortals, looks like it's time for me to leg it. But I leave you all with this... charming thought: (and I can just hear s/LaSH's cries of "NO! PLEASE! GOD! THE HUMANITY!" from here) Lorenzo in a pink tutu. s/L and I often come up with much, MUCH worse (think Urghoul and move downhill from there - if you haven't seen an Urghoul yet, go to the Game section of the site). Exile, out Later addition: I've discovered an interesting side-effect of watching so much anime this weekend - consider it a 'rekindling of the spark'. My genetically male case of "being chronicly horny" has been replaced by an overwhelming urge to hug people. Y'know, I'd forgotten how good it felt. Seriously tho, I was in a hurry to get to Latin today and a cat I occasionally see came right up to me, so I petted it for a while. I made a new friend today and wondered why I felt like hugging him too (I mean it sorta begs the question...), things were finally made clear when I met a friend of mine on the way back to the car. I mean it's only been about a month since last trimester finished, but I really had to fight the urge to fling my arms around her, it was like I hadn't seen her in years. I already knew that something changed in me this weekend, it gave me a mother of a headache Saturday night and Sunday until I went back to Armageddon. It's almost like I've reset something in my head. Still, I'm glad for the change, even after the high/low you come to expect from that sorta thing. In any case, I'm feeling better all round now, and even tho I'm a little anxious about the coming weeks, I feel okay. I'm also getting more messages from my brain and fewer from my hormones, meaning I can really think straight for the first time in a while, too. God knows I need it, I need to be studying right now... Now, with that (and hopefully all other possible distractions) out of the way, I REALLY have to get back to my Latin. Test tomorrow. Exile, once again, out Extra late, additional comment: Oh yeah, before I forget, I finally got to play HALO! Woot! As expected, the kid next to me (and I call him kid without hesitation, he was either half my size or half my age) handed my arse to me on a plate. It's a shame I didn't get to play him again later. I would've liked to square off with a little practice under my belt (mind you, he owns it, so as I said, we're talking a bit of wall wiping here). Then he had to leave. So if you're out there, congrats! My last piece of news is that my test went alright - meaning I busted my arse and I'll be disappointed with anything less than an A. I'm still hopeful of an A+ Now of course my concern is for Friday's test. Exile |
| ||||||
|
Hosted by ComicGenesis |
All original site contents copyright 2006 Benjamin D. Richards. |