Month: February 2015

PLEASE READ

saptrees:

It’s perfectly fine to be involved with your local anime community. It’s fine to go to cosplay gatherings and meet-ups, and it’s usually a good way to find other people who are interested in the same stuff you are. Chances are you’ll have fun and meet new friends. 

But please, please, PLEASE, listen to me when I say anyone younger than 18+, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO ARE BETWEEN 12-16!!! PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN MAKING FRIENDS.

There will be people your age, yes, of course. But there will also be people much OLDER than you. And while not all older people are bad, THERE WILL BE PEOPLE WHO WILL TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR INEXPERIENCE. 

I started hanging out with the cosplay community when I was 15: I’ve been hit on by people who were 5 to 10 to 20 years OLDER THAN I WAS— people who obviously wanted something more from me than just my friendship, and couldn’t be bothered trying to hide it. People who’ve wanted me to sit in their lap, to kiss them, to play Spin the Bottle, to FOLLOW THEM INTO THE BATHROOM. I’ve had GROWN MEN “jokingly” try to slap my butt, then wonder why I got upset. People who OBVIOUSLY KNEW I WAS UNDERAGE, AND DIDN’T CARE.

And of course, I’ve had more people than I can count say something like “I can’t wait until you’re legal”.  An hour ago, I learned that one of my closest cosplay friends— someone I considered a father figure— has actually just been waiting for me to turn 18 so I could “call him daddy in a different way”.

I’m not saying everyone who’s older is bad. I’m just asking you to take a step back before you walk to Taco Bell with the 25-year old you just met, and ask yourself if it’s really a good idea. 

If someone makes you the slightest bit uncomfortable in any way, get away from them. 

rhamphotheca:

The Steller’s Jay (Cyancitta stelleri)

… is the western counterpart to the widespread eastern Blue Jay. These two species are our only jay species with crests, and also fill similar niches; both are generalists in diet and adaptable in habitat, living in both forests and tree  filled residential areas, foraging on nuts and seeds, insects, eggs, and even small vertebrates.

They are intelligent birds and talented mimics, often imitating Red-tailed or Red-shouldered Hawks to clear out feeders for themselves.

Steller’s Jays show some variation in color and markings across their range, with different populations showing blacker (northern) or bluer (Mexican) heads, white (interior) or blue (coastal) forehead marks, or present or absent short white eyebrows. Where Steller’s and Blue Jay ranges overlap the two species may hybridize.

photo by Eugene Beckes (corvidaceous) on Flickr

(via: Peterson Field Guides)

Apparently it only took two hours to color this. Neat.

Previous image, now with colors! I’m debating if I’m going to stay with hard cell shading or if I’m going to add some soft shading in there and made it all fancy like. It’ll definitely take a lot more.

hmm. I don’t like the yellows on my laptop, although my tablet’s colors are nice. Azazel’s yellows look a bit too green, I think. 

So there’s this lengthy scene in my current manuscript (which just came back for edits) involving a goldfish.

It is awesome. I say this in all modesty. It is the Hero’s Journey with a goldfish. I had a lot of fun writing it.

One of the edits is that there’s too much going on at the end and a couple of threads that don’t resolve and it occurred to me that if I just hacked out the bit with the goldfish, it would fix some of these concerns and cut a few thousand words.

Common writing wisdom has it that I should ruthlessly slice this out, throw it to the winds, kill my darlings. Sure, it’s painful! That’s how you know it’s working! PAIN IS EDITS LEAVING THE MANUSCRIPT!

I offered to slice out the goldfish.

My agent, my editor, AND my beta reader all came back and said “NOT THE GOLDFISH!” It was like I had the goldfish in front of the firing squad and everybody threw themselves over the bowl yelling “Take me instead!”

I guess the goldfish stays.

Huh.

So, y’know, the moral is that sometimes, just occasionally, it’s painful because you shouldn’t be messing with it.

Not Always Killing Your Darlings

(via

fuckyeahursulavernon

)

Azazel: Hey baby, you wanna be the Padme to my Anakin?
Hafnium: Are you seriously trying to hit on me using the prequels?
Azazel: My power comes from a fallen angel. My uniform consists of feathery Jedi robes. I will use all Star Wars come ons available to me.

Another pair I had to redraw because they were on the same lineart layer.

I also discovered the maximum layer limit while working on these two. Whoops?

“back in 1995—”

“—No one knew why Amber wanted to date Loser Jeffrey—”

“—All he did was play video games all day long.”

oh murder documentary. If only you knew what the world would be like twenty years later.

(the best part is that this episode aired last year)

(okay. so this Jeff wound up killing his girlfriend’s mother instead of helping create a machinima phenomenon and then helping start an internet company but y’know. he wasn’t quite that forward thinking)