dubiouslog

I found a hi-res version of the Japanese Myuutsuu no Gyakushuu. Guess what that means?

I CAN FANSUB IT
YES YES YESSSS

and I’m at a good point with that too, but as my Japanese is not that good I don’t know what to do with some sequences. Is there someone out there who knows enough Japanese to write down some parts of the script for me? Do you know someone who could be of help? Please let me know and ask around because this is very important. Also because once I’ll be finished with the English sub I’ll fansub the whole movie in Italian and I’m sure there’s people here who don’t want me to give up with this project.

Also, I updated Dark Claws with the two Sneasel pics I posted some time ago and Blue’s devamped Sneasel sprite.

Here, have a end-of-the-year meme

I swear this is not edited.

I did write the page about Sneasel and the kamaitachi and it’s not a rip-off of the Trivia on the Angeltower Dex Sneasel page! I wrote a lot more about the kamaitachi itself and found more similarities between Sneasel and the Japanese demon.
This also makes me think that I should really make a fanlisting for weasels. weird that nobody has thought of that before, I believed they were a common favorite among people on the Internet :O

On other news, I’m at my parents’ home right now. Yesterday I had a long talk with my mom about school work and she told me a lot about how to improve (in case you didn’t know, she’s an artist, so she does know). I was also doing a drawing of some eggs on a cloth as a school assignment and she joined me, and it was very interesting to compare the results; hers was based on clean lineart, mine on masses and shading. Even the way we held the pencils was completely different - she kept the pencil from the top and moved it at a 60° angle from the sheet, I kept it from the tip and moved it so that the left side of the hand would constantly touch the paper and get dirty. Too bad I had to paint over mine as part of the assignment, I’d very much have liked to post both drawings here.

Now I’m going to the optician. I think my sight has gotten worse recently. :|

So you all know about how much I’m concerned with artists’ rights and you know how much I get mad when I see artworks re-used without the author’s permission. On this matter, I just found a short yet precise page about copyright issues. A quick read, but a good one for sure.

Now to the artwork!

HI THERE SAMUS, HOPE YOU DON’T MIND BEING OBSESSED OVER
in case you were wondering yes, this was made with a tablet at school. This makes also me think of how much I have recently improved. I mean, look at my first attempt in drawing her in armor, and that was made about two months ago! :O

faceless Samus is faceless

KAREN, MY OTHER LOVE
This was made without reference, so I may have gotten some details wrong. I like her face though.

there has been a shortage of Sneasels, I hear. Let me fix that.

Yesterday I was writing a page for Dark Claws about Sneasel and its relation to the kamaitachi, the Japanese weasel demon. I couldn’t find any good image to put in the page, so I made one myself; I’ll show you the finished page later. Anyway, I really like how this one turned out. KAMAITACHI GO GO GO

Also, as for Clear Bell I went back and added a revamped Suicune sprite to the codes page. :) Again, scroll to the bottom of the page to view it.
Talking about fanlistings, I’ve actually chosen the name of my next collective. It will be called “Hall of Changes”, as a reference to a zone of my favorite dungeon in Oblivion. Sure a step forward from Yuki no Namida as a name, isn’t it? I’m planning to make the first layout dark crimson and purple, reminiscent of the deepest area of Brinstar as shown in Super Metroid.

You may have noticed that I’m feeling better. I guess I’m recovering from my failure.
By the way, in the end a classmate of mine found my pencils. :)

isn’t this just one of the best engrish out there? it makes me crack up every time. lol thundercrap.

On website-related news, I updated two of my fanlistings. Now Clear Bell has got some sprites for linking back, as I noticed other webmasters like to link to their affiliates using these sprites. Scroll down the page to see them. Yeah I know this makes it look like it’s a Kris fanlisting but I really don’t know what other sprite could be Pokémon Crystal’s symbol, aside from the silhouette of Suicune running. Maybe those Suicune sprites from the opening?
I AM² got a big update, as I added some screenshots and made The Birth of Mewtwo available for downloading in both Japanese and English. I also wanted to upload a subbed Japanese version but couldn’t find the translated script anywhere. Anyway, the point is that while I was looking for that on the Internet I found a great piece of writing about Mewtwo and his connections to Frankenstein’s monster. Apparently, this was a university school project from 2007. Good stuff, really. Any Mewtwo fan should take a good read at this.

This also makes me think that I could write about the Pokémon phenomenon for my next exam. after all, the exam is about pop culture, and there’s nothing I know better than Pokémon in pop culture. yeah, I could really do that.

As for that anatomy exam, I didn’t pass it, and I’m still feeling shit for that. This may sound as making up an excuse but really, I didn’t deserve that. The teacher said my work was too theoretical and then that it was too complex and too simple and…yes, he’s been a total asshole. I made some stuff which looked exactly like on the anatomy book I used as a reference. What can I say, I’ll have to repeat that exam all over again just because of his inability of judgement. So I’m not really in the best mood lately. Not the worst but by any means not the best either.
Other than this, there were two more things that really pissed me off. First, the whole absence deal. See, attending classes in my school is obligatory, and if you miss too many lessons your marks will decrease no matter of how good you are. This is how it works in theory. Then this girl makes some awesome work for the exam and, though she had more absences than everyone else, she still got the maximum. I don’t want to question her ability because she fully deserved that mark; I’m questioning the teacher’s judgement, because some other people actually had their marks decreased for much less. Not fair at all. Also, it looked like the teacher already knew what marks he was going to give. I mean, he didn’t even look at one girl’s work. Is this some sort of a sick joke?
I really hope he’s the only teacher like that because if that’s not the case I may have to reconsider my school choices.

As you can imagine, the rest of the day utterly sucked for me as I couldn’t stop thinking about my failure and about what my parents would have said (though in the end they were a lot more supportive than what I would have expected). Also, on the same day I apparently forgot my favorite pencils while leaving the class. Nice.
I wouldn’t want to completely forget that day though.

On a brighter note, I was thinking about what to do with Blind Dreaming. I decided that the main site is going to have all the artwork and stuff; the collective is going to be linked in the main site but will also have its own name and layout, a bit like Plushies’ Rainbow for Angeltower Page. Good thing is that I may have some nice ideas for the name.

Anyway, my last post is still there for you to comment. You don’t have to comment on the latest post about the older ones, as Wordpress alerts me of any new comment in any post. What I’m really waiting for is Ellemme’s post, but I know you’re very busy lately, isn’t it? Take your time. :)

Artwork post later and sorry for writing too much.

Yeah, I know I should have posted this some days ago, but then some other stuff came up and meh. Anyway.

So, about this big beast. I’ve been fiddling with this project since some months now; the script you’re going to see is already a beta version on its own, and I don’t plan to change it if not for some details.
Please note that I’m not going to finish this anywhere in the near future; my idea was to set the ideas first and keep the actual work for later, when I’ll be having animation class, so that I will be able to present the finished piece as a final exam. One thing I know for sure is that I’d like to draw everything by hand with only a pencil, having each frame be slighly different from the next so that the lineart will look flickering and will set the appropriate tone for the song.

And while we’re at it, some notes about the song. Monochromatic Stains by Dark Tranquillity is about a man trying to cope with the pressure of being blamed for murder. Regardless of whether he was the actual murderer or not, in the end he goes insane and takes the blame on him. I chose this song because it was short enough for a first work (only 3′38”), is very story-driven, has an interesting theme and is Ellemme’s very favorite song. :)
The lyrics suggest the man killed someone while unconscious, because he mentions about not remembering and in the end he says that he won’t claim his innocence but he wasn’t there. He also says “for the untrained eye a secret, I bled away the last of you” which helps this point, but that may as well referring to what the prosecutor said of him and he may be ironizing. Either way, my script spawns from the idea he’s really the murderer, just to settle this down.

For your convenience, the script is backupped by song lyrics and timing in which the events happen. In case you don’t already have this song, just search it on Youtube and listen while reading the script, it will make everything easier to understand.

To shut me up, click here

THOUGH YOU MAY THINK IT AFTER READING THIS ENTRY. AND I WOULDN’T BLAME YOU.

Tonight I had the weirdest dream in history. I was in a place which looked a lot like the town where I used to live, except that the city plan was all messed up so that I could recognize most of the buildings, but the zones they were placed in were different from the real ones. Whatever.

So I apparently had to go in a certain place I can’t remember, and I resolved that the quickest way to reach it was by climbing the buildings and jumping on the balconies. I wasn’t very good at that too and I had to climb the same building several times before I could move on. This specific building looked a lot like the one where a childhood friend of mine used to live; even in the dream I knew I had to climb on her balcony, though it was no more on the eleventh floor but on the first, and that made it also look like the building I used to live in. also, now that I think of it, this friend of mine looked a lot like the girl who lived at the first floor in my apartment. wtf.
ANYWAY, I was jumping on another balcony when I looked down and saw a policeman staring at me, along with some people who lived there and wanted to know what the hell was going on. The policeman shouted that if I had to rob someone I could at least care to not do that while everyone was looking (it was 7 pm by that time). I quickly threw one of my spiked bracelets on the street and then went to talk with the policeman, saying something on the lines of “no really I can explain everything, it’s that my bracelet fell down and I was getting it back”. NO PROBLEM AT ALL, SAID THE POLICEMAN. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

After a while I got to a weird wrestling arena which actually did look more like Oblivion’s arena, with blood splattered everywhere. How could I get out of there? Obviously running towards the wrestlers rushing to the arena and getting through the locker room! LOL
The locker room looked like a kindergarten with walls painted in yellow, blue and pink and huge windows from which it entered a lot of sunlight (yes, actually it was somewhere around 8 pm, but I said this was going to be weird). There was a room with a huge door but I chose to get into a children tent and get out crawling through the exit in a garden which actually looked like my sister’s kindergarten’s one. Somewhere in the middle of the process I remembered that I already upset a policeman and didn’t want to get more attention on me, so I got out through that other large door and I found myself in a road from my town which now looked like a Japanese mafia district with all the flashing ads and skyscrapers. Then I decided not to go wherever I was going and to reach the hospital instead.

lol, subconscious. good job.

more about that animation project in next post
also, it actually snowed a lot :O I would have liked to get you some pictures at 6 am when nobody was around but I was too stupid to do that at the right time. I would have taken some great pics. :(

anatomy. D:
though I’m actually at a good point with that exam

ON OTHER NEWS, ART POST!

Let’s start with a certain bounty hunter

These may be two of my very favorite Samus renditions to date. I also forgot to put that reference sheet back in my block after scanning it so if I got wrong some details you know why. I’m stupid. :B
also, I was making another fine artwork of her with the tablet at school, but then Photoshop froze. on a mac. either macs are not as stable as they say or I’m ridiculously full of failure.

Some hand studies for school. the model was my left hand, thus explaining why fingers look so stubby. I’M UGLY AND I’VE GOT UGLY HANDS, K? XD

Last Friday there was a three-hour gap between one class and the other and I was feeling bold enough to spend those hours in the park even though it was freezing cold. These two drawings are among what I did that day. The first one is apparently a male black redstart. man. he couldn’t stay still for more than five seconds. he liked to get as near to me as possible and then fly away when I started drawing him, hence the title of this entry. >(

School assignment. so cute it’s depressing. if you can’t tell, Ai is actually a figment of Mewtwo’s imagination here.
the worst part about this is, it took about one hour and looks WAY better than any Frozen Truth artwork. this is both awesome and frustrating.
also: Denise, this is what I was talking about before! :D you can post it in Copycat’s gallery, if you want.

I already said it before, but I’m also working on the very early stages of an animation project. The finished work will be a hand-drawn music video of Monochromatic Stains by Dark Tranquillity. yes Ellemme you’ve heard me. I’ll post the script in my next entry. :)

ALSO, IT COULD SNOW AGAIN TONIGHT

Service information: Majo, I’ve added your blog down here. :) Remember that though I don’t comment that much (if at all), I always read what you write. Go you!

Also, as for Blind Dreaming I just added a joined fanlistings directory. Now every time I spot a new fanlisting I won’t have to wait until I’ve finished working with the whole site (which by the way will take a lot longer than previously though, but meh).

But this wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. See the pencil submit button? While I was developing it I did a thorough search in the web for tutorials, just to see how other people dealed with the issue of working with 3D in a mainly 2D editor. I didn’t find anything especially useful for my case and I ended up developing my own technique from scratch, but I can’t pass on this great tutorial about how to create a mechanical pencil with Photoshop. It’s impressive to see how the pencil comes to life in a very plastic way; it can really be seen taking shape as more effects are added. Also read the ending comments, they summarize in a few words a very important idea in graphic designing.

Now my main idea was to end my post here but another issue came up while writing. It’s been less than a week since I’ve started working with Wordpress and I’m liking it as a publishing platform, it has everything for my needs, a neat coding and a neat concept, but let me say one thing.

Categories and tags. Aren’t they quite the same?
From what I’ve learned, categories should be used for filing the posts, while tags should be used to make a visual map of what your weblog is about increasing in size as you have more posts under a specific tag. Still, if you set the category list to display the number of posts each category has, they both give the exact same information - except categories can have a hierarchy and tags can’t. And while I’m at it, I wonder if someone has thought of an interlinked hierarchy system.
For example, let’s say I want to post about the making of a certain video game: I’d want to file it under “development”, and have the “development” category have a sub-category called “videogames” with another sub-category with the name of said game, so that if I later want to write about the making of another video game I can just add a new sub-category under “videogames”. This works with the current hierarchy model, but let’s say that some months have passed, the video game has been released and I want to review it. Where should I put the “review” category? Under “videogames”? Under the name of the game? They both have as parent “development”, but I’m not talking about development! If I reverse the structure and have “videogames” at the top, the name of the game as a sub-category and then “development” and “review” as third-level sub-categories? Yeah, and then if I want to review more than one game? Do I have to create as many “review” sub-categories as games I want to review? that’s just plain insane.
The only way this would work would be to have every game category linked both to “development” and “review”, which are single categories and not duplicates like in the last case. The whole system wouldn’t work like a tree spreading into branches, but more like a city plan where roads cross each other and all that matters is the distance from one place to another. This also leads to another issue, the idea of having a distance between categories that can show the relation between the subjects. In this example, “development” and “review” could have a medium distance from the name of the game, but two games from the same producer could be very near the one to the other.

Really, I’ll have to see if someone has already thought of all of that and how to put this into code.