*It has been a long time, blogging world, since I stumbled into this place last. I will not go into details now, only know that the near future is going to hold some interesting secrets.
Expect some big things after the 31st. I'll leave it at that for now.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
'Tis the Season for sketches
Outside of my time getting ready for fall semester and doing research for KAS and my own kaijuverse, alongside AT's and old requests, I have recently been going a little more than nuts with sketching out kaiju ideas and size comparisons.
I have spent many a long night typing out a timeline for DH. Seeing as how my 'verse spans thousands of years and covers major events in history in a new and unique way, I find the more and more I fill in, the more I can. Just when I think 'I have all that I need' I find a new animal source and think 'snap! I didn't think of that.' Thus, the list is ongoing. I am eliminating old I ideas at the same time, though, so it pays off. Most of what I've been doing lately are side monsters that pay little more importance than an homage. That, and I've filled in a few classic archetypes I didn't have before. Suffice to say, filling in millions of years worth of events is hard.
But, I believe I am approximately halfway done with the thing, to be positive.
In the meantime, I have been sketching out many of my designs over the past couple of days. Unlike many of my sketches, these have been on computer paper. And you know what THAT means. . .
In order to get a feel for the scope and timeframe of my 'verse, I will be uploading sketches of the many creatures and people, at times just to show a difference in designs and sizes, but also to ask for some help in some of my more troublesome designs.
To give a preview, one is a praying mantis, which I have more than eleven different mantis species saved as concepts. That's the big one, the others will mostly be for opinion gathering.
My digital art will be taking a slight dip over the next few weeks, though there is a big reason involving photoshop, which I have acquired and need to learn how to use. I'll get the ATs and requests and the rest of the DH files done on Corel like I've been using, but I feel its time to move up in the world to a program I can use with greater effect.
Now what does that mean for you bloggers? Well, in order to actually establish a niche on Blogger, I have decided to upload these sketches on here as well as on my DA. If you haven't commented up to this point, for whatever reason, I'll be needing help and opinions, so please consider what I have to show you all.
Signing off for now.
I have spent many a long night typing out a timeline for DH. Seeing as how my 'verse spans thousands of years and covers major events in history in a new and unique way, I find the more and more I fill in, the more I can. Just when I think 'I have all that I need' I find a new animal source and think 'snap! I didn't think of that.' Thus, the list is ongoing. I am eliminating old I ideas at the same time, though, so it pays off. Most of what I've been doing lately are side monsters that pay little more importance than an homage. That, and I've filled in a few classic archetypes I didn't have before. Suffice to say, filling in millions of years worth of events is hard.
But, I believe I am approximately halfway done with the thing, to be positive.
In the meantime, I have been sketching out many of my designs over the past couple of days. Unlike many of my sketches, these have been on computer paper. And you know what THAT means. . .
In order to get a feel for the scope and timeframe of my 'verse, I will be uploading sketches of the many creatures and people, at times just to show a difference in designs and sizes, but also to ask for some help in some of my more troublesome designs.
To give a preview, one is a praying mantis, which I have more than eleven different mantis species saved as concepts. That's the big one, the others will mostly be for opinion gathering.
My digital art will be taking a slight dip over the next few weeks, though there is a big reason involving photoshop, which I have acquired and need to learn how to use. I'll get the ATs and requests and the rest of the DH files done on Corel like I've been using, but I feel its time to move up in the world to a program I can use with greater effect.
Now what does that mean for you bloggers? Well, in order to actually establish a niche on Blogger, I have decided to upload these sketches on here as well as on my DA. If you haven't commented up to this point, for whatever reason, I'll be needing help and opinions, so please consider what I have to show you all.
Signing off for now.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Building Monsters, the basics
(note: After consideration, I decided to not send out the Think-tank to anyone, and would rather simply continue with what I am doing in revealing to you all little by little. I pray you understand.)
Over the past few days I have been intensively enjoying a piece of my 'teenagerdom', the nintendo strategy game series Fire Emblem, namely the gamecube classic Path of Radiance and the subsequent Wii sequel Radiant Dawn. I see, very easily, why I enjoyed them so much, the storyline is pretty classical, nothing too new, but the strategic elements, the different styles of speech depending on region, some of the more interesting characters, and so forth, it all works well to the way I think.
When I beat Path of Radiance recently, the epilogue mostly has the main character talking to each of the various people that he interacted with and fought alongside. It wasn't much to see overall, but I noticed something interesting, just how alike many of the characters are. Some of the guys, such as one archer and one beast man in the form of a raven, had near exact personalities. I thought 'how can they get away with that? Won't everyone notice and be all like, 'that's cheap' and such?' But I realized they had their differences, different motivations, and whatnot, and I've owned the game for 5 years and I still don't care about the fact that they're alike.
Now you may be asking where I'm going with this, but after a sort of writer's epiphany I had, I realized something. Dark Hours, my kaiju universe (or kaijuverse to the ones on my blog unaware of the lingo) was built with, unintentionally, the same formula as the Fire Emblem games. Depending on the time period, the faces change but the roles don't, I still have:
A. A main character, going about doing his business. As Fire Emblem has shown me, this isn't always heroic world saving business.
B. New faces at every turn. One of my favorite aspects of Fire Emblem is the 'recruitment' feature, where your army grows frequently, usually from people on the enemy's side or from random interlopers that stumble upon the scene. In my verse, namely Ragido's time to shine, that is EXACTLY what I did without thinking. There's always a new monster he 'brands' under his service wherever he goes, much like most FE stages.
C. Enemies, big and small: Not much need to explain that one, most 'verses have it.
And many, many more. Best part is, I had no idea I was doing it.
This also helped me realize I can have two monsters of similar archetypes in the same 'verse without it looking crowded, it really just all depends on role and placement.
If anyone feels they wish to build a monster universe, it doesn't take terribly much work as one might think, depending on how much originality you wish to implement. I've seen many cases and approaches, some doing a bang up job without much any drawings, and some going into such insane detail it was enough to make your head spin.
For those new to monster universes (this mostly goes to my blog readers, my DA friends are the experts on this topic.
) there are a few things to expect, both from established, movie/tv monster universes and fan made ones. I researched across the board for these, so don't be surprised if you're featured, friends.
1. A main monster
This type could have a entry completely devoted to itself. The main monster of a 'verse is really as varied as the tastes of the people making them. Even in the movies, which are the prototypical 'verses, you can have heroic saviors of mankind like Gamera, anti-heroic 'do my own thang' types like Godzilla, and so forth. In the fan 'verses, the variety is sheer insanity there are so many.
They cover forms and personalities innumerable, from giant antimatter ravens to undead grim reaper snakes to alien mutations to random creatures of happenstance. Their roles are just as varied, from ancient god like guardians to mutations of mankind's doing to beings from space. I technically don't have a 'main monster' that is constantly at the forefront at all times, but I have some that fit many of these categories. There's Ragido, a crocodile warrior that is a fragment of a greater whole once broken, in search of himself while still trying to do his job in the first place despite lack of power and memory. There's Unum, a techno organic scorpion that fights for mankind, born of man's cleverness and lots of innovative technology. Lona, a skinwalker that tries to win a war he doesn't know how to, and Paul Gregory, a human caught up in a lot of different struggles while in need of solving his own.
I'll go into more details on building a main monster in a future entry.
2. A 'big baddie.' Everyone loves a good villain, and typically these can be found in any 'verse. They take different forms, such as King Ghidorah the three headed golden space dragon, to the Legion queen in Gamera 2, and even more obscure, Bagan, a mutated Chinese dragon found only in a Super Nintendo Godzilla game. Usually they pose a threat to the entire world. In 'verses of fan making, they differ greatly, from giant eagles from ancient civilizations to zombie giants spawned of the main monster's dna. I use the dragon motif myself, in the form of the ancient destroyer Megidda, and another even more powerful than that that I won't reveal just yet. Big baddies usually take entire swarms of monsters to bring down, the classic case being the immortalized Godzilla film Destroy all monsters, where almost all the monsters in the Toho line up gang up on King Ghidorah and beat him into the ground with little resistance.
3. A supporting cast. There are a million ways to go with this, but since I'm short on time I'll simply go into a little detail and cover it later. As a friend of mine once said, 'main characters are great, but its the supporting cast that separates the good from the great.' As in any tale, a story with good, memorable side characters is the one we remember the most fondly, and this applies here in this genre as well. They can be tough and gruff, humorous, benevolent, good or bad, but they need to be memorable. In my case, I have pretty widespread supporting cast, meant to cover all aspects of where a brawl might be, another Fire Emblem homage I didn't realize I had.
This aspect is where the true measure of your creativity will be.
A helpful tip to leave you with is that a good, no, great monster universe has a fair share of human interaction in it. This isn't easy, the creatures are often too big to really interact with small humans, but trust me, there are ways. One friend of mine makes it where the creatures have human avatars so to speak, people they bond with and give a small measure of their power too, that communicate and do battle alongside them in a manner not far from Digimon sometimes
Another simply has humans as researchers and/or mad scientists that give reports. Typically this is needed no matter what your monsters do. I myself have it all over the board, from monster chasers to mecha pilots to entrepreneurs in the monster making business.
I will go into more detail in future posts about the individual kaiju archetypes, but right now I have work to go do, so until next time, blog and DA readers.
Over the past few days I have been intensively enjoying a piece of my 'teenagerdom', the nintendo strategy game series Fire Emblem, namely the gamecube classic Path of Radiance and the subsequent Wii sequel Radiant Dawn. I see, very easily, why I enjoyed them so much, the storyline is pretty classical, nothing too new, but the strategic elements, the different styles of speech depending on region, some of the more interesting characters, and so forth, it all works well to the way I think.
When I beat Path of Radiance recently, the epilogue mostly has the main character talking to each of the various people that he interacted with and fought alongside. It wasn't much to see overall, but I noticed something interesting, just how alike many of the characters are. Some of the guys, such as one archer and one beast man in the form of a raven, had near exact personalities. I thought 'how can they get away with that? Won't everyone notice and be all like, 'that's cheap' and such?' But I realized they had their differences, different motivations, and whatnot, and I've owned the game for 5 years and I still don't care about the fact that they're alike.
Now you may be asking where I'm going with this, but after a sort of writer's epiphany I had, I realized something. Dark Hours, my kaiju universe (or kaijuverse to the ones on my blog unaware of the lingo) was built with, unintentionally, the same formula as the Fire Emblem games. Depending on the time period, the faces change but the roles don't, I still have:
A. A main character, going about doing his business. As Fire Emblem has shown me, this isn't always heroic world saving business.
B. New faces at every turn. One of my favorite aspects of Fire Emblem is the 'recruitment' feature, where your army grows frequently, usually from people on the enemy's side or from random interlopers that stumble upon the scene. In my verse, namely Ragido's time to shine, that is EXACTLY what I did without thinking. There's always a new monster he 'brands' under his service wherever he goes, much like most FE stages.
C. Enemies, big and small: Not much need to explain that one, most 'verses have it.
And many, many more. Best part is, I had no idea I was doing it.
This also helped me realize I can have two monsters of similar archetypes in the same 'verse without it looking crowded, it really just all depends on role and placement.
If anyone feels they wish to build a monster universe, it doesn't take terribly much work as one might think, depending on how much originality you wish to implement. I've seen many cases and approaches, some doing a bang up job without much any drawings, and some going into such insane detail it was enough to make your head spin.
For those new to monster universes (this mostly goes to my blog readers, my DA friends are the experts on this topic.
) there are a few things to expect, both from established, movie/tv monster universes and fan made ones. I researched across the board for these, so don't be surprised if you're featured, friends. 1. A main monster
This type could have a entry completely devoted to itself. The main monster of a 'verse is really as varied as the tastes of the people making them. Even in the movies, which are the prototypical 'verses, you can have heroic saviors of mankind like Gamera, anti-heroic 'do my own thang' types like Godzilla, and so forth. In the fan 'verses, the variety is sheer insanity there are so many.
They cover forms and personalities innumerable, from giant antimatter ravens to undead grim reaper snakes to alien mutations to random creatures of happenstance. Their roles are just as varied, from ancient god like guardians to mutations of mankind's doing to beings from space. I technically don't have a 'main monster' that is constantly at the forefront at all times, but I have some that fit many of these categories. There's Ragido, a crocodile warrior that is a fragment of a greater whole once broken, in search of himself while still trying to do his job in the first place despite lack of power and memory. There's Unum, a techno organic scorpion that fights for mankind, born of man's cleverness and lots of innovative technology. Lona, a skinwalker that tries to win a war he doesn't know how to, and Paul Gregory, a human caught up in a lot of different struggles while in need of solving his own.
I'll go into more details on building a main monster in a future entry.
2. A 'big baddie.' Everyone loves a good villain, and typically these can be found in any 'verse. They take different forms, such as King Ghidorah the three headed golden space dragon, to the Legion queen in Gamera 2, and even more obscure, Bagan, a mutated Chinese dragon found only in a Super Nintendo Godzilla game. Usually they pose a threat to the entire world. In 'verses of fan making, they differ greatly, from giant eagles from ancient civilizations to zombie giants spawned of the main monster's dna. I use the dragon motif myself, in the form of the ancient destroyer Megidda, and another even more powerful than that that I won't reveal just yet. Big baddies usually take entire swarms of monsters to bring down, the classic case being the immortalized Godzilla film Destroy all monsters, where almost all the monsters in the Toho line up gang up on King Ghidorah and beat him into the ground with little resistance.
3. A supporting cast. There are a million ways to go with this, but since I'm short on time I'll simply go into a little detail and cover it later. As a friend of mine once said, 'main characters are great, but its the supporting cast that separates the good from the great.' As in any tale, a story with good, memorable side characters is the one we remember the most fondly, and this applies here in this genre as well. They can be tough and gruff, humorous, benevolent, good or bad, but they need to be memorable. In my case, I have pretty widespread supporting cast, meant to cover all aspects of where a brawl might be, another Fire Emblem homage I didn't realize I had.
This aspect is where the true measure of your creativity will be.A helpful tip to leave you with is that a good, no, great monster universe has a fair share of human interaction in it. This isn't easy, the creatures are often too big to really interact with small humans, but trust me, there are ways. One friend of mine makes it where the creatures have human avatars so to speak, people they bond with and give a small measure of their power too, that communicate and do battle alongside them in a manner not far from Digimon sometimes
Another simply has humans as researchers and/or mad scientists that give reports. Typically this is needed no matter what your monsters do. I myself have it all over the board, from monster chasers to mecha pilots to entrepreneurs in the monster making business. I will go into more detail in future posts about the individual kaiju archetypes, but right now I have work to go do, so until next time, blog and DA readers.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
I am Back
Though that's pretty obvious, I would think.
This past week I have spent my nerdy time in the mountains of North Carolina with both sets of my grandparents, and let me say, I had an excellent time. There was a lot of fun to be had, lots of odd experiences, and, most relevantly, a lot of new ideas.
A week ago this fine Tuesday of a today, I drove myself and my 13 year old brother up to the mountains, about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Charlotte where I live. It wasn't terribly eventful, my brother and I mostly just talked about up and coming movies, truth be told, something about Megan Fox and Transformers 3 if I recall.
Arrival was interesting, I got to see my two young adopted cousins when we got there. (My uncle adopted two girls from China years ago, named them Kylie and Lacie. They both talk with staunch mountain accents, (which is taking your typical southern accent and slurring your 'er's' and drawling out in different places. Watch Andy Griffith, Don Knotts' voice should tell you plenty. ) which makes for some rather odd image-sound contrast. They are more than 10 years younger than I (the oldest, Kylie, is 7 at my last count) and thus, I intimidate them a bit. I have to force smiles and I have big, ringed eyes, so I can see why, but my brother is quite simply the object of their affection. Saves me the trouble of enduring their jeering and teasing, at least.
We humored them by going out and playing mini-golf, I came in second place because my brother got a hole in one when I got a hole in. . . three. Yeeeeaaaaahhh, let's just say three and not, say, nine. . .
I always enjoyed mini-golf as a kid, so it was pretty nostalgic. The course had a jungle theme going, complete with large plastic megafauna, fish ponds, and a volcano hole, one of the many mini-golf novelties. That was day one, in a nutshell, unless you count me watching some of the extended bonus features of Peter Jackson's Kong until my brother got a little sick/bored and we switched to Pirates of the Caribean. Day 1, done.
I decided the next day to get some drawing/typing done. My grandparents, or Mamaw and Papaw as we say in the mountains decided we would go to the rather interesting Grandfather mountain, a sort of nature preserve/national landmark. I figured I'd just take my sketchbook along and do what I could, but I figured out quickly that I wouldn't have the time. I got to see some very neat stuff, Golden Eagles, River Otters, three black bears with a knack for entertainment. In the past, up until a couple of months ago, that is, the bears would be fed by the guests as a novelty, and so the bears would all line up at the enclosure's edge and 'perform' little cute tricks for treats. The tricks, they still happened, a little, but otherwise it was nice to see bears acting more like bears and not circus bears like the other guests seemed to think they were. There were three of them, and they were very different inside and out. One was the entertainer, who still had it in his head the people would feed him if he did something. He even, at one point, grabbed a stick in his paw and put it under his bulk, giving the illusion that the stick was holding him up. The people loved that. Another was lazy, napping off to the side in a small corner, being rather surprised at how loud the people who discovered his spot. Another was, well, a lot like me. He wasn't black, per se, more of a dark brown, much like the controversy that is my curly mane. He would look at the people to humor them from time to time, but when he was done with them, he was DONE, often simply walking off away from a good vantage point. I applauded him for still having some pride. Yeah, I think I was the only non-payroll person in the park that respected the animals for what they were, and not what they seemed.
Another neat feature of the place was the gemstone and other curio's collection. These included:
-A copy of a wood carving found on the mountainside, which said, in somewhat poor english, that Daniel Boone, the famous American frontiersman, had killed a bear at that spot. Pretty cool, really.
-The largest amethyst stone in the country, maybe the continent. Impressive, to say the least.
-A tree tumor, carved out and turned into an art piece. Neat, but did I mention that 4 full grown men could stand in it? Yeah, thought not.
-Insect collections. Scorpions, walking sticks, and all the related awesomeness.
I spent some money in the gift shop, mainly souvineers for my girlfriend that missed the trip. She loved them, which is good. We then, the four of us, climbed across the swinging bridge. 5280 feet above sea level, the highest swinging bridge in North America. It was neat, had a nice view. My brother took some dental wax and threw it off the edge. A dentist just rolled over in his grave. I'm not terrible with heights, at least not solid heights, so the cliffs didn't bother me until I got to the ledge itself. We then got food at a steakhouse and headed home, another fun day closing with my brother playing, and subsequently losing, at Medal of Honor in the basement.
Animals were the name of the game this past week, it seems, for we went to the Asheville nature center, an official zoo of small stature. I hadn't been there in several years, so it was a neat bit of nostalgia. I got to see:
-Great horned owls, always one of my favorite parts of a zoo. They were sleeping, which gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
-A pair of sleeping bobcats less than two feet from my face, with glass in between of course. I have good luck with nocturnal species, it seems.
-A coyote with no fear sniffing at us from the fence. I have long been aware of Coyotes being gutsy things, but it was nice seeing it in person.
-Red wolves. They are almost extinct in the wild, and this zoo is one of the handful that is rebreeding them. They look like the gray's of literature fame, only lankier and with longer legs, with rust colored of fur. The pups have the BIGGEST ears, its adorable, simply adorable.
-A signed poster of the Crocodile Hunter. He had been there some time before his death, so it was neat seeing a tangible part of his legacy. RIP Steve-O, you are dearly missed by the world.
-In the gift shop, a pair of boxer shorts with the words 'nice cheeks' on them alongside a picture of a squirrel.
After that, we went to the mall. I looked about, found some good deals, mainly in a Gamestop. I found two games of note, one being a Wii exclusive RPG called Arc Rise Fantasia. It is really well done visually, colorful and not quite your typical anime style of design. One complaint, though, is that the voice syncing just sucks. . . the voices fit, the timing matches the lip movements, but it sounds way too awkward in English to keep me from laughing at times. Other than that I am very impressed.
The other game was one I had been looking for, one that I've intensively enjoyed playing, Rampage Total Destruction. Why did I not get this game before? Why???!?
After that, we went to my other set of grandparents, who live a few minutes away in a small mountain home. Its much quieter there, but after the constant sight-seeing it was pretty nice.
Napping, Wii-ing, and eating were the names of the games for a couple of days. We then went to visit my girlfriend, we watched Osmosis jones, which I picked out. I forgot how much fun that movie was.
Also, we watched Alice in Wonderland, Edward Scissorhands, School of Rock, and Hellboy II, all of which did their job of entertaining. We swam a bit, and the general fun, but we had to head back and enjoy the next couple of days in the mountains again.
The days after that were not as eventful, but still fun in their own right, and we arrived back in town this morning. My parents had just returned from a trip to Brazil, which they loved, so we all had some stories to tell.
Now, while on my own this week, I spent a lot of time drawing, and getting Dark Hours synthesized. I opened a document in Word, title: Dark Hours Thinktank, which is now over 15 pages long. I have almost every kaiju I want to do synthesized and put together, a good portion of them sized up and armed properly with role, placement, and activities. A lot of the human work is done too. Also, I am getting the timeline for the 'verse's entirety resolved, though I'm still getting the details of the era of creation resolved.
I worked on Art trades, and managed to secure a net connection long enough to answer a few comments and post my Shark week celebration pic.
Now, I have told you all of the week as well as my drowsy self can, so enjoy the read, and expect some uploads over the next couple of days.
If anyone wants to see the thinktank displayed, I can get it together and posted, or in an email if you note me the address, I don't mind.
Now, I am also posting this entire description on my DA page, which can be found here http://crimson-vagrant.deviantart.com/
(sorry, no pictures, my folks took the camera with them to Brazil. And sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes, I'm tired.)
This past week I have spent my nerdy time in the mountains of North Carolina with both sets of my grandparents, and let me say, I had an excellent time. There was a lot of fun to be had, lots of odd experiences, and, most relevantly, a lot of new ideas.
A week ago this fine Tuesday of a today, I drove myself and my 13 year old brother up to the mountains, about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Charlotte where I live. It wasn't terribly eventful, my brother and I mostly just talked about up and coming movies, truth be told, something about Megan Fox and Transformers 3 if I recall.
Arrival was interesting, I got to see my two young adopted cousins when we got there. (My uncle adopted two girls from China years ago, named them Kylie and Lacie. They both talk with staunch mountain accents, (which is taking your typical southern accent and slurring your 'er's' and drawling out in different places. Watch Andy Griffith, Don Knotts' voice should tell you plenty.
) which makes for some rather odd image-sound contrast. They are more than 10 years younger than I (the oldest, Kylie, is 7 at my last count) and thus, I intimidate them a bit. I have to force smiles and I have big, ringed eyes, so I can see why, but my brother is quite simply the object of their affection. Saves me the trouble of enduring their jeering and teasing, at least. We humored them by going out and playing mini-golf, I came in second place because my brother got a hole in one when I got a hole in. . . three. Yeeeeaaaaahhh, let's just say three and not, say, nine. . .
I always enjoyed mini-golf as a kid, so it was pretty nostalgic. The course had a jungle theme going, complete with large plastic megafauna, fish ponds, and a volcano hole, one of the many mini-golf novelties. That was day one, in a nutshell, unless you count me watching some of the extended bonus features of Peter Jackson's Kong until my brother got a little sick/bored and we switched to Pirates of the Caribean. Day 1, done.
I decided the next day to get some drawing/typing done. My grandparents, or Mamaw and Papaw as we say in the mountains
decided we would go to the rather interesting Grandfather mountain, a sort of nature preserve/national landmark. I figured I'd just take my sketchbook along and do what I could, but I figured out quickly that I wouldn't have the time. I got to see some very neat stuff, Golden Eagles, River Otters, three black bears with a knack for entertainment. In the past, up until a couple of months ago, that is, the bears would be fed by the guests as a novelty, and so the bears would all line up at the enclosure's edge and 'perform' little cute tricks for treats. The tricks, they still happened, a little, but otherwise it was nice to see bears acting more like bears and not circus bears like the other guests seemed to think they were. There were three of them, and they were very different inside and out. One was the entertainer, who still had it in his head the people would feed him if he did something. He even, at one point, grabbed a stick in his paw and put it under his bulk, giving the illusion that the stick was holding him up. The people loved that. Another was lazy, napping off to the side in a small corner, being rather surprised at how loud the people who discovered his spot. Another was, well, a lot like me. He wasn't black, per se, more of a dark brown, much like the controversy that is my curly mane. He would look at the people to humor them from time to time, but when he was done with them, he was DONE, often simply walking off away from a good vantage point. I applauded him for still having some pride. Yeah, I think I was the only non-payroll person in the park that respected the animals for what they were, and not what they seemed.Another neat feature of the place was the gemstone and other curio's collection. These included:
-A copy of a wood carving found on the mountainside, which said, in somewhat poor english, that Daniel Boone, the famous American frontiersman, had killed a bear at that spot. Pretty cool, really.
-The largest amethyst stone in the country, maybe the continent. Impressive, to say the least.
-A tree tumor, carved out and turned into an art piece. Neat, but did I mention that 4 full grown men could stand in it? Yeah, thought not.
-Insect collections. Scorpions, walking sticks, and all the related awesomeness.
I spent some money in the gift shop, mainly souvineers for my girlfriend that missed the trip. She loved them, which is good. We then, the four of us, climbed across the swinging bridge. 5280 feet above sea level, the highest swinging bridge in North America. It was neat, had a nice view. My brother took some dental wax and threw it off the edge. A dentist just rolled over in his grave. I'm not terrible with heights, at least not solid heights, so the cliffs didn't bother me until I got to the ledge itself. We then got food at a steakhouse and headed home, another fun day closing with my brother playing, and subsequently losing, at Medal of Honor in the basement.
Animals were the name of the game this past week, it seems, for we went to the Asheville nature center, an official zoo of small stature. I hadn't been there in several years, so it was a neat bit of nostalgia. I got to see:
-Great horned owls, always one of my favorite parts of a zoo. They were sleeping, which gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
-A pair of sleeping bobcats less than two feet from my face, with glass in between of course. I have good luck with nocturnal species, it seems.
-A coyote with no fear sniffing at us from the fence. I have long been aware of Coyotes being gutsy things, but it was nice seeing it in person.
-Red wolves. They are almost extinct in the wild, and this zoo is one of the handful that is rebreeding them. They look like the gray's of literature fame, only lankier and with longer legs, with rust colored of fur. The pups have the BIGGEST ears, its adorable, simply adorable.
-A signed poster of the Crocodile Hunter. He had been there some time before his death, so it was neat seeing a tangible part of his legacy. RIP Steve-O, you are dearly missed by the world.
-In the gift shop, a pair of boxer shorts with the words 'nice cheeks' on them alongside a picture of a squirrel.
After that, we went to the mall. I looked about, found some good deals, mainly in a Gamestop. I found two games of note, one being a Wii exclusive RPG called Arc Rise Fantasia. It is really well done visually, colorful and not quite your typical anime style of design. One complaint, though, is that the voice syncing just sucks. . . the voices fit, the timing matches the lip movements, but it sounds way too awkward in English to keep me from laughing at times. Other than that I am very impressed.
The other game was one I had been looking for, one that I've intensively enjoyed playing, Rampage Total Destruction. Why did I not get this game before? Why???!?
After that, we went to my other set of grandparents, who live a few minutes away in a small mountain home. Its much quieter there, but after the constant sight-seeing it was pretty nice.
Napping, Wii-ing, and eating were the names of the games for a couple of days. We then went to visit my girlfriend, we watched Osmosis jones, which I picked out. I forgot how much fun that movie was.
Also, we watched Alice in Wonderland, Edward Scissorhands, School of Rock, and Hellboy II, all of which did their job of entertaining. We swam a bit, and the general fun, but we had to head back and enjoy the next couple of days in the mountains again.The days after that were not as eventful, but still fun in their own right, and we arrived back in town this morning. My parents had just returned from a trip to Brazil, which they loved, so we all had some stories to tell.
Now, while on my own this week, I spent a lot of time drawing, and getting Dark Hours synthesized. I opened a document in Word, title: Dark Hours Thinktank, which is now over 15 pages long. I have almost every kaiju I want to do synthesized and put together, a good portion of them sized up and armed properly with role, placement, and activities. A lot of the human work is done too. Also, I am getting the timeline for the 'verse's entirety resolved, though I'm still getting the details of the era of creation resolved.
I worked on Art trades, and managed to secure a net connection long enough to answer a few comments and post my Shark week celebration pic.
Now, I have told you all of the week as well as my drowsy self can, so enjoy the read, and expect some uploads over the next couple of days.
If anyone wants to see the thinktank displayed, I can get it together and posted, or in an email if you note me the address, I don't mind.
Now, I am also posting this entire description on my DA page, which can be found here http://crimson-vagrant.deviantart.com/
(sorry, no pictures, my folks took the camera with them to Brazil. And sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes, I'm tired.)
Monday, July 19, 2010
Kaiju All Stars
In light of my most recent entry on the monster, specifically kaiju (Japanese for monster, typically used to describe city destroyers like Godzilla) genre, I thought I would go ahead and announce the newest project I have come across on DA for the genre. DA has a rather healthy, active fanbase for giant monsters with regular contributors, and one day someone came up with the idea of making an All Stars mega monster universe that we all could contribute to. It has rules, regulations, and templates to work with, but the result can be so entertaining when people come together and simply tell a good story.
Currently, it is in the founding stages, with only 3 canon monsters as the time flies. The art differs by person and their resources, but we can make do with that by sheer idea power, which many of the people in the genre have.
I will include a link to the homepage here, in which you can read the many ideas pooled together. (disclaimer: not everyone in this genre holds the same moral standards as I or I'm sure you do, so keep a grain of salt in check. We're trying to keep it PG-13 rated, but everyone thinks differently. Don't say I didn't warn you when you go on there and see the use of words you wouldn't use.)
Anywho, the page is found here. http://da-kaiju-all-stars.deviantart.com/
Enjoy, and give the group a read. :-)
Currently, it is in the founding stages, with only 3 canon monsters as the time flies. The art differs by person and their resources, but we can make do with that by sheer idea power, which many of the people in the genre have.
I will include a link to the homepage here, in which you can read the many ideas pooled together. (disclaimer: not everyone in this genre holds the same moral standards as I or I'm sure you do, so keep a grain of salt in check. We're trying to keep it PG-13 rated, but everyone thinks differently. Don't say I didn't warn you when you go on there and see the use of words you wouldn't use.)
Anywho, the page is found here. http://da-kaiju-all-stars.deviantart.com/
Enjoy, and give the group a read. :-)
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Beginners guide to the Monster Genre, part 1: What is a monster?
I recently finished my run at Community College everybody! It's been 2.5 years since I got out of High School and moved towards my adult life. It's been an odd ride, with teachers as interesting as the classes, but I prevailed. It's really advantageous for me to have done this, it means I'll be able to actively pursue my English Major full time when I enroll in University this Fall. All right, personal update, check.
For those who follow me on here, you must have deduced that I don't post on here all that often, though there is a reason. Blogger is a neat place, to be sure, but I must say it is not my main haunt of 'teh intanet.' That goes to my Deviantart page, where I am something of a contributor to a genre that has been rather dry for. . . 30, 35 years? That genre happens to be one of the oldest in the movies, the monster movie.
I love it myself, though many question why one would have fascination for obviously fake films with bad acting, poor to par special effects, and a tendency to repeat itself? I'll deal with those issues later, but let's just say that the genre isn't as dead as you think. DA (what I say in place of DeviantArt, and will use from now on) is home to many fans that are in fact quite devoted and quite contributory to the genre that no one really pays any attention to these days. I myself have made several contributions, in fact I've been writing in the genre for nearly a year now, with no shortage of ideas. As such, I thought I would give a little introduction to the genre itself.
Monsters have existed since human sentiency, and they have always held a special in the human mind, the place where fear goes, right next to the imagination. Different cultures embraced different monsters, but at the root they were the same, beings that existed outside our realm of sense that embodied what we should be afraid of. Some monsters were given form to embody dangerous elements of life. Remembering this is key when you work in the genre, for the creature needs to show itself as a visual metaphor for whatever it is you are going for. You can be direct or indirect with this, and you can be as fun as you want, but it helps to remember this.
Now, the idea of putting them in the movies is quite diverse, with numerous ideas and the like. You can have a good monster, a bad one, an anti-heroic one, and anything in between. I'll list a famous example for major types.
Villainous Monster:
Example: The Blob
The Blob doesn't look like much, but he is one of the most frightening icons in monster history. It is cold, it is unfeeling, and it will digest you regardless if you are a serial killer or a 4 year old looking for his pet dog in a hallway. This is several human fears in one body, an alien protoplasm that gets bigger the more it eats, and is deemed to be indestructible by man. A picture doesn't do much justice, so see the film, or even scarier, the 1980's remake.
Heroic Monster:
Examples: Gamera
This guy is one of the more obscure names to American audiences, but in Japan, at the height of the monster genre, this guy was the second biggest name in the genre after Godzilla. He's been a hero since movie two, and he's been saving people, namely children for some reason, for over forty years.
The company that made his movies went bankrupt in the seventies, (times were tough, and they overused him in too short a time) the name was bought by one of the biggest movie studios in Japan, and in the nineties, the Gamera Trilogy was made. Best Monster Movies EVER! The premise is that the ancient Atlantean empire created a monster known as Gyaos, a giant bat like creature that ate anything, designed to clean up waste. They just happened to be TOO good at their job, reproducing and killing the society itself. In their dying times, they created the Gamera, giant guardians meant to kill the Gyaos, but it was too late for Atlantis, and the empire sank into the sea, or something like that. You can figure out the plot from there. ;)
Gamera has never really blurred the line of hero, except in one case where he was tainted with by some evil dude, or something, I'm not sure it's been a while.
Anti-Heroic Monster:
Example(s): Godzilla and King Kong
These two are the most iconic giant monsters of all time, with entire books written on the study of the blokes.
They are considered anti-heroes simply because they ride both lines. Kong is viewed as the more heroic, but that's only because he's a mammal, a giant gorilla at that, and we see his tender side towards whatever hollywood hotty he has his eyes on. Godzilla, he destroys cities and that's almost all we see.
Godzilla was originally made as an icon of fear. That fear was the lingering effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the end of WWII, which left a once proud nation forever scarred. However, his character changed over time, from a villain to loving father to a villain again, to. . .no one's entirely sure anymore. He's saved the world and destroyed it in different movies, making his role very strange and thus, very unique. Kong, while heroic to the girl, is a terrifying villain to everyone else, killing without discretion. Thus, the two really can't be labeled on good or evil.
I plan on covering various other aspects of the genre in future entries, including some of my own work and the work of others. Any suggestions or questions will be addressed.
Until next I write.
For those who follow me on here, you must have deduced that I don't post on here all that often, though there is a reason. Blogger is a neat place, to be sure, but I must say it is not my main haunt of 'teh intanet.' That goes to my Deviantart page, where I am something of a contributor to a genre that has been rather dry for. . . 30, 35 years? That genre happens to be one of the oldest in the movies, the monster movie.
I love it myself, though many question why one would have fascination for obviously fake films with bad acting, poor to par special effects, and a tendency to repeat itself? I'll deal with those issues later, but let's just say that the genre isn't as dead as you think. DA (what I say in place of DeviantArt, and will use from now on) is home to many fans that are in fact quite devoted and quite contributory to the genre that no one really pays any attention to these days. I myself have made several contributions, in fact I've been writing in the genre for nearly a year now, with no shortage of ideas. As such, I thought I would give a little introduction to the genre itself.
Monsters have existed since human sentiency, and they have always held a special in the human mind, the place where fear goes, right next to the imagination. Different cultures embraced different monsters, but at the root they were the same, beings that existed outside our realm of sense that embodied what we should be afraid of. Some monsters were given form to embody dangerous elements of life. Remembering this is key when you work in the genre, for the creature needs to show itself as a visual metaphor for whatever it is you are going for. You can be direct or indirect with this, and you can be as fun as you want, but it helps to remember this.
Now, the idea of putting them in the movies is quite diverse, with numerous ideas and the like. You can have a good monster, a bad one, an anti-heroic one, and anything in between. I'll list a famous example for major types.
Villainous Monster:
Example: The Blob
The Blob doesn't look like much, but he is one of the most frightening icons in monster history. It is cold, it is unfeeling, and it will digest you regardless if you are a serial killer or a 4 year old looking for his pet dog in a hallway. This is several human fears in one body, an alien protoplasm that gets bigger the more it eats, and is deemed to be indestructible by man. A picture doesn't do much justice, so see the film, or even scarier, the 1980's remake.
Heroic Monster:
Examples: Gamera
This guy is one of the more obscure names to American audiences, but in Japan, at the height of the monster genre, this guy was the second biggest name in the genre after Godzilla. He's been a hero since movie two, and he's been saving people, namely children for some reason, for over forty years.
The company that made his movies went bankrupt in the seventies, (times were tough, and they overused him in too short a time) the name was bought by one of the biggest movie studios in Japan, and in the nineties, the Gamera Trilogy was made. Best Monster Movies EVER! The premise is that the ancient Atlantean empire created a monster known as Gyaos, a giant bat like creature that ate anything, designed to clean up waste. They just happened to be TOO good at their job, reproducing and killing the society itself. In their dying times, they created the Gamera, giant guardians meant to kill the Gyaos, but it was too late for Atlantis, and the empire sank into the sea, or something like that. You can figure out the plot from there. ;)
Gamera has never really blurred the line of hero, except in one case where he was tainted with by some evil dude, or something, I'm not sure it's been a while.
Anti-Heroic Monster:
Example(s): Godzilla and King Kong
These two are the most iconic giant monsters of all time, with entire books written on the study of the blokes.
They are considered anti-heroes simply because they ride both lines. Kong is viewed as the more heroic, but that's only because he's a mammal, a giant gorilla at that, and we see his tender side towards whatever hollywood hotty he has his eyes on. Godzilla, he destroys cities and that's almost all we see.
Godzilla was originally made as an icon of fear. That fear was the lingering effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the end of WWII, which left a once proud nation forever scarred. However, his character changed over time, from a villain to loving father to a villain again, to. . .no one's entirely sure anymore. He's saved the world and destroyed it in different movies, making his role very strange and thus, very unique. Kong, while heroic to the girl, is a terrifying villain to everyone else, killing without discretion. Thus, the two really can't be labeled on good or evil.
I plan on covering various other aspects of the genre in future entries, including some of my own work and the work of others. Any suggestions or questions will be addressed.
Until next I write.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
But when the World needed him most. . .
This past weekend was a blast to end all blasts for me, with a lot of fun, swimming, fireworks, and general funzies.
One particularly interesting part of the whole thing was when I took my girlfriend out to see a movie I had been looking forward to for many, many months, based on a show I loved a good deal and watched at any chance I could get. It is the recent film release The Last Airbender, directed by the unfairly criticized Shyamalan.
First of all, I was worried walking into it for one thing and one thing only. I had heard the movie was less than two hours long, which really worried me when I heard that it was all about season one, which is twenty episode's long. Cramming twenty twenty-two minute episode's of pure gold (I kid you not, not a single episode disappoints) into the time for only three episode's, it means either a lot is going to get left out, or that it's going to be gloriously rushed and almost spammed. But, I walked in pleasantly surprised.
Avatar, the last airbender is a modern epic with the same class of storytelling as film classics like Star Wars. It played for 3 years, with three seasons, and it was all perfect. Many criticized it because it was a. drawn like anime even though it was all american (which is a great thing, it breaks a lot of barriers. And in Japan, everything animated, no matter where from, is anime. They even consider the show South Park an anime) and b. because like anything anime, there are a bunch of aryan 'fan-gurls' that ruin the seriousness of the show, when in reality you could spend hours just studying the character dynamics, plot lines, and symbolic real world references. The movie. . .well. . .
Truth be told, my opinion is , 'not bad, wanted a lot more.' It was obviously written by a fan, for the fans, but it suffers a bit from a bit too much of that, truth be told. It left a little too much unexplained to someone who knew nothing, but it wasn't as bad as many Shama-lama haters would say. Most critics I think are a little bitter with him because he kinda slapped them in the faces in Lady in the Water when he slammed archetype study and plot commonality by a critic getting killed by a monster. Shyamalan writes his films in a very real world way, which is a strength and a weakness in film.
I didn't hate it, compared to the film for Eragon a few years back it was pure gold. The martial arts were very legit, the acting was a tad stiff, but several of the characters were acting on film for the first time so I can forgive it, I know full well acting isn't easy the first time. The characters were well portrayed, the racial angst for the film is complete bullhonky, and the sets were near flawless. Plus, Appa and Momo. 'Nuff said.
From what I know there are two more films in the making, based on season's two and three. This should prove to be better, the first season is very 'all over the place' while the other two are much more plot driven, so the next ones should be a lot better. Plus, the best characters in the entire series, Toph and Azula, come about in season two, so please give it a chance.
Being a pretty passionate fan of the show, I would say to watch the cartoon over the movie, though. The show is much better in every way. Here's where I watch it: http://www.animeultima.tv/watch-anime.html if you're interested. Just pick the seasons and watch the episode you choose, they've got them all and I know because I watched them all recently.
That's all for now, I don't feel like giving a lengthy review and you all really just need to see it for yourselves before you can judge because not doing that makes you a hypocrite. 'Till next time.
One particularly interesting part of the whole thing was when I took my girlfriend out to see a movie I had been looking forward to for many, many months, based on a show I loved a good deal and watched at any chance I could get. It is the recent film release The Last Airbender, directed by the unfairly criticized Shyamalan.
First of all, I was worried walking into it for one thing and one thing only. I had heard the movie was less than two hours long, which really worried me when I heard that it was all about season one, which is twenty episode's long. Cramming twenty twenty-two minute episode's of pure gold (I kid you not, not a single episode disappoints) into the time for only three episode's, it means either a lot is going to get left out, or that it's going to be gloriously rushed and almost spammed. But, I walked in pleasantly surprised.
Avatar, the last airbender is a modern epic with the same class of storytelling as film classics like Star Wars. It played for 3 years, with three seasons, and it was all perfect. Many criticized it because it was a. drawn like anime even though it was all american (which is a great thing, it breaks a lot of barriers. And in Japan, everything animated, no matter where from, is anime. They even consider the show South Park an anime) and b. because like anything anime, there are a bunch of aryan 'fan-gurls' that ruin the seriousness of the show, when in reality you could spend hours just studying the character dynamics, plot lines, and symbolic real world references. The movie. . .well. . .
Truth be told, my opinion is , 'not bad, wanted a lot more.' It was obviously written by a fan, for the fans, but it suffers a bit from a bit too much of that, truth be told. It left a little too much unexplained to someone who knew nothing, but it wasn't as bad as many Shama-lama haters would say. Most critics I think are a little bitter with him because he kinda slapped them in the faces in Lady in the Water when he slammed archetype study and plot commonality by a critic getting killed by a monster. Shyamalan writes his films in a very real world way, which is a strength and a weakness in film.
I didn't hate it, compared to the film for Eragon a few years back it was pure gold. The martial arts were very legit, the acting was a tad stiff, but several of the characters were acting on film for the first time so I can forgive it, I know full well acting isn't easy the first time. The characters were well portrayed, the racial angst for the film is complete bullhonky, and the sets were near flawless. Plus, Appa and Momo. 'Nuff said.
From what I know there are two more films in the making, based on season's two and three. This should prove to be better, the first season is very 'all over the place' while the other two are much more plot driven, so the next ones should be a lot better. Plus, the best characters in the entire series, Toph and Azula, come about in season two, so please give it a chance.
Being a pretty passionate fan of the show, I would say to watch the cartoon over the movie, though. The show is much better in every way. Here's where I watch it: http://www.animeultima.tv/watch-anime.html if you're interested. Just pick the seasons and watch the episode you choose, they've got them all and I know because I watched them all recently.
That's all for now, I don't feel like giving a lengthy review and you all really just need to see it for yourselves before you can judge because not doing that makes you a hypocrite. 'Till next time.
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