no one else is the same

just beat Fable 3...kinda obsessed with it for a bit, but not so much the gameplay itself, it sucks much worse than Fable 2 in a lot of ways, but i do really like a lot of the characters and character designs.

i love that in this game they made Reaver all Oscar Wilde-fabulous with his top hat and fur coat and cane. they even gave him a tiny heart tattoo on his cheek over his beauty mark so he's the ultimate fop now, haha.<3 a lot of girls/players seem to REALLY hate Elliot for some reason (your character's childhood sweetheart if you play a female character/the character you're "supposed" to marry), i guess because he's not a bad boy/pretty boy like Reaver and Ben Finn, but i think he's sweet. i love his Justin Beber hair, haha. a lot of their ire seems to come from the fact that the programming prohibits gender-specific interactions with him--like when you're a female hero, you pretty much can't help but be taller than all the guys in the game, and when you do interactions like kissing, you dip Elliot in your arms. XD i kinda love it though. i like that when i come home from adventuring he's always cleaning or in the kitchen, mwahaha. and i like that when you become queen he doesn't become your king or anything, he's just your consort or concubine or whatever, haha.

okay, i'm done geeking out. about that dumb game, anyway.

i finally got my fakey Blythe in the mail!! she's really cool, but i hate her hair so i tried to cut it and dye it, but i think it's hopeless. her hair won't take the dye at all, so i'm thinking i'm going to have to resort to rerooting her scalp, which i really didn't want to have to do. i'm also terrified of trying to get her eyechips out, Basaaks are notorious, but i'll worry about that when the time comes. i've made her a couple of cool pieces of clothes, though. and i dyed my fingers pink trying to dye her hair!

it fades fast, but it looked really cool and vibrant when i first did it. it made me start thinking about doing it on purpose all the time, like Henna, heheh.

i'm getting a Jem doll, too! i'm excited. i'm still kinda mad at my mom for selling all my Jem dolls in a garage sale without asking me. i really wanna get the Misfits, they're the best, but they're so expensive/hard to find!

the bite

after 20 pages, i feel like i'm finally beginning to get a feel for these characters and how i should be drawing them. it's decidedly looser, more cartoony, way more expressive, i think. most people probably won't like it, but i think it feels right. i feel like i tend to over complicate things, especially in art, like i'm trying to compensate or something. but sometimes less is more. not usually, but rarely.

ugh, the going is still so slow though, because of being drained from work so much. but i will prevail!

snow is ruining my life this week.

neige

France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg

hehe XD i love how many pictures there are of France with weird/creepy fake animals.

don'tcha know me?

finally watched Dead Ringer the other day. i'm a huge Bette Davis fan, and i liked the idea of her doing a horror/thriller-ish type of movie. well, actually, it turned out to be more like a thriller/mystery sort of thing.

Bette Davis plays twin sisters Edith and Margaret. Margaret married Edith's one true love under false pretenses twenty years ago, which obviously kinda pissed Edy off, so the two never speak again until Edith's former lover and Margaret's husband passes away and they meet up at his funeral. Edith discovers her sister is and has been living the high life all these years, living in a big Hollywood mansion, hob-knobbing and wearing glamorous clothes while she's barely been able to afford to eat, and her little dive bar that she runs is about to be shut down because she's three months behind on rent. what unfolds is an expertly laid-out and suspenseful plot for Edith to kill her rich twin and assume her identity.

as far as suspense goes, this one was a real nail-biter for me. maybe it's just because i like Bette so much, but once she kills her sister, it's a non-stop roller coaster of "will she get caught??" it's hard to believe she was considered washed-up at the time she made this movie. she turns in such a great performance as both sisters, and manages to play them both with very distinct personalities, and while they're both deeply flawed characters, they're also sympathetic. it couldn't have been easy to portray twins. it's like an adult, homicidal Patty Duke show!

at first when Edith murders Margaret and it becomes obvious that she's switching places with her, i was like "pffffffft, this'll never work! so stupid." but even if it is a pretty unbelievable scenario, even in an era before forensics and ballistics and all that stuff, this movie does a pretty great job of covering itself. because Margaret's husband died only the day before, and then her sister supposedly commits suicide the next day, any strange behavior her servants and friends will of course notice can be blamed on this. there's this one great scene in which it's Edth's first full day in her sister's gigantic mansion, and her butler tells her the police are waiting to speak to her in the living room (about her sister's suicide), and once she gets to the bottom of the stairs, she freaks out because she doesn't know where the room is obviously. so she tells the butler to bring them to her, watches which way he starts walking, then says she changed her mind and goes into the correct room. XD i just love characters like this, that are kinda bad and you really shouldn't be rooting for, but they're so clever and dedicated and resourceful that you have to admire them.

another thing i like about the movie is the sense of loneliness and isolation that developes, perhaps a side effect of her assuming a new life that Edith didn't anticipate. not being able to truly be herself to a single person in the world quickly becomes stifling, and maddening. she also discovers, as the layers of her sister's sordid affairs peel back, that she also inherits a whole host of unforseen problems from her sister. it's really, really interesting stuff. i thought the ending kinda sucked; i mean, i guess i knew it could only end one way, but i felt like it would've been better if it had ended about ten minutes earlier and left just a couple things hanging, though definitely pointing in a certain direction. or maybe had gone somewhere more over-the-top and dramatic, since the rest of the movie was kind of like that, but it was just kind of depressingly low-key. but i guess that was kind of the style of the time or whatever. overall it was a blast, one of Bette's best movies i think, just kind of an eh ending that doesn't really do the rest of the movie justice. this really makes me want to see more Bette movies, especially Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.

also started watching this new Avengers cartoon the other night before bed; they had this marathon or something of it on. it was pretty good. i think Wasp Girl or whoever is pretty annoying though, and i wish they'd gotten a better female character to be on the team, but then i realized that Marvel kinda doesn't have any good female heores that aren't a part of some other team, haha. but yeah, the animation's pretty good, the stories are okay. i'm not sure if Captain America is really as crazy as they depict him. and i'm disappointed because i fell asleep right as they were introducing Black Panther. :/

get off my case

all my tears

i just realized for some reason i forgot to post my submissions to my friend Nick's Project Basement here. for vol. 1 i just did a kind of redesign of Dazzler, because i like her.

and for vol. 2 i did Cyclops and Jean Grey because they're some of my least favorites.



never missed my water till my well went dry

i'm out of green tea D:
really into blues and like story telling music right now...i think because i heard "Isis" by Bob Dylan on the radio the other day. I'm mostly really inspired or moved by visuals anymore, but sometimes words are so perfect they really grip something in me like nothing else.
White Stripes cover of "One More Cup of Coffee" - YouTube
Bob Dylan is a fucking poet.
Son House - "Death Letter Blues" - YouTube
Robert Johnson - "Hellhound on My Trail" - YouTube

Robert Johnson is so infinitely fascinating to me. i'm kind of glad not more is known about him, because all the mythos is so mystifying and romantic. XD only two known pictures of him exist, no one's sure exactly where he came from or when he was born, or other minute details of his life. even disappeared for years at a time with no one knowing where he'd been. his recordings are his legacy, along with legends about his personality and a Faustian origin story for his talents. i love that he had a reputation for being surley, dour and gloomy. maybe depressed people can be great artists.

dying from memory

my sketch for Project Basement vol. 2 is up on audioshocker.com! the theme this time is least favorite characters, heheh.

going through a pretty bad depression lately, but i think (hope?) i'm pulling out of it. i hate how my depression leads to me stagnating, which leads to even more depression. such a vicious cycle. stagnation is my biggest problem. i think maybe the best (only?) way to get through it is to work myself through it. the stuff i produce might suck, but at least i'm producing.

Bette Davis

lightning strike scars!

i kind of like this idea

body language

hope everyone had a good Halloween! mine was pretty good. i was a skanky Snow White, haha!

XD

Disney's The Little Mermaid - "Poor Unfortunate Souls" -YouTube

damn, i love Ursula! best Disney villain ever? y/y? i wish i was one of those super ambitious people who make really bad-ass Halloween costumes every year, because i'd love to be Ursula sometime. but i don't really like going to parties and crap, so it'd be kinda pointless putting that much effort into something no one else would really see. but yeah, she's so cool. her expressions are the best, so over-the-top. and i looove how they animated her jiggling boobs, and her back fat. XD

i've always been real into mermaids; they're probably my favorite mythical thing, tied with unicorns. i think maybe i'd like to do a mermaid comic.

esta noche

feeling very lazy and uninspired lately. :| same old crap. "do i really have what it takes??" blah blah blah.

gave my parents a copy of Sugar Ninjas. they seemed really proud and happy, but like they really didn't get it. they were horrified by the other comics with sex and swear words in them. what will they think if i ever publish Dinogeddon? heh.

my trip to Alabama kinda sucked. probably the worst trip i ever took. i usually defend the south as not being as bad as a lot of people stereotype it as being, and i guess there are some cool people and places, but this trip kinda made me sad because i think maybe it is just as horrible as i was always afraid it was. it makes me feel a little ashamed of everything about where and who i come from. does that make me bad? like if anybody met my family, they'd probably be really scared/horrified, haha. i used to find a sad, desperate kind of comedy in sitting in a Kentucky Waffle House next to the freeway by a Motel 6, listening to a toothless grandpa proudly talk about dressing himself and his grandkids up as cowboys for their christmas photos, and a poodle-permed, bleach-blonde former beauty queen mom with a twangy accent and caked-on make up inquire about a job for the "loser" that knocked-up her daughter. but now it just makes me feel a little sick to my stomach inside when i see/hear these things, like i'm not just a chortling outsider looking down my nose at "simple folk" and rednecks; these people are a part of my DNA, this bible-thumping, racist, homophobic, child briding, hateful culture is inextricably woven into the fabric of who i am. and sometimes it scares me.

really into taking pictures lately. fall just seems so right for it. i think fall would be my favorite season if it weren't proceeded by winter. fall's got the best visuals.
i've been getting paid to do some modeling. yeah, i don't get it either, but i ain't gonna argue.

these are just some pics from when i went to the cider mill to get donuts and cider and pumpkins. the pumpkins were so bright and vivid. and i fed a donut to a goat and some pigs. i still hate ostriches, though. it was trying to peck at me through the wire fence! fuck ostriches.

 

i kind of wish october could go on forever. 

fleshy walls

haven't updated in a while because i haven't really been drawing. haven't been drawing because honestly i haven't been too interested in comics and stuff lately. and i've been working every single day for the past two weeks, and working a lot pretty much kills my creative impulses. i wish i didn't let it do that to me, but it does. plus i'm having issues with my tablet working on my computer AGAIN. sigh. Rob's trying to fix it for me, but i don't know.  i wish i knew what caused my constant stream of computer/tablet problems with three different tablets. sometimes i wonder if i should bite the bullet and just start doing comics the traditional way again.

mainly just watching bad movies and stuff lately. finally finished watching Fear, it was so funny. i think i'll have to do a whole post dedicated to it later. also started watching Swim Fan which is looking pretty awesome too, but i'll have to finish it later.

going down to alabama this weekend to visit family and sort of get away i guess.

lately i'm really interested in photography and maybe getting into it more. i've never taken classes or read books on it or anything, but i've always enjoyed experimenting with it and lately i'm thinking about maybe investing in a decent camera. hmm. here's a self portrait i took today that i liked.

red death

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burning out my sky

finally finished this. it started as a warm-up exercise to get the hang of the new tablet, but became a monster. combined with my general exhaustion/hectic work schedule lately, it took way longer than it was supposed to. -_____-  i wonder if i will ever be able to get fast and more productive.

i'm wanting to knit and make plushies and shit again lately, but with how slow i'm getting at producing my comic i don't think i can afford having other hobbies. :\

listened to a lot of Kanye West while working on it, haha. i can't help it, i really like his music.

Kanye West - Love Lockdown - Youtube

Kanye West - Heartless - YouTube yesssssssss rotoscope! lol @ the Jetsons paintings XD

all dirty

 

i want those boots.

the Unicorns - Emasculate the Masculine -YouTube

This could be the sound of me tearing
into your flesh from a distance
opening fresh wounds
for a peek

And this could be the sound of me breaking
into your room late at night
slitting your throat
and cutting off your dick

'Cause everyone I know
is too comfortable with thier lives
to ever be a part of change

And everyone I know
is leaving for the weekend
with tickets to the game
everybody sounds the same

hunger pangs

amazing 15-year-old girl’s slam poetry to a Kimberly Henry ad for plastic surgery, on a menu, across from the salad options.  

Dear Kimberly Henry, I saw your ad last night.
The menu at the cheesecake factory-
your smile so bright on the page next to the page
with the weight management salads.
So people have to know the calories of every order,
or they might accidentally indulge themselves in flavour,
and that’s not right?
Because your ad says I should indulge myself under the knife. Because something about me is so broken and wrong? That I have to listen to every line of your song? And follow every rule of your game?
Go on a diet? Change my name? Or go insane at my own reflection, or the scale? Start calling myself an ugly pig, cow, whale?
Or remember I’m human, that’s all I can be. And my humanity is more beautiful than any sad plastic dream.
No, cause if I let myself get happy, I might get fat.
Which I guess is even worse than being empty and needing?
Or on a table cut open and bleeding?
Or obsessing over numbers, or hiding behind clothes?
Or really believing there’s no way I’ll glow~
unless I change this, lose this, cut this, change that? You know what?
I’d rather be fat.
I’d rather be really fat, not just a pinch of some skin.
I’d rather remember that food isn’t sin, because fat’s just a word like blonde-haired, or brown eyed. And when’s the last time somebody starved themselves until they died, because their eyes weren’t blue, even though they tried? And you know what?
The things you tell yourself are lies.
And they aren’t your lies.
You aren’t that creative.
You aren’t the first one infatuated with self hatred.
You’re just part of the chain on a dusty old bike,
and you’ve been pushed into the ground all of your life. Because it’s so accepted? So wide spread and celebrated, that skinny is happy and fat is wrong?
It’s written all over magazines and billboards and love songs and in me and in everybody, so I wonder, Kimberly.
What happened to you?
That you risked your own life attempting to be beautiful? And you tell other girls that’s what they should do?
And you reap love and peace like the grimmest reality,
and when I’m trying to eat you’re all over my menu?
How dare you tell girls that plastic surgery is fun?
That they have to char their skin under a fake sun, and put plastic in their chest to be any fun, to laugh and to tease and weigh and reweigh
and spend day after day
spreading more lies and causing more pain?
For the sake of their makeup, staying out of the rain?
More terrified to gain a pound than their health and dreams hitting the ground,
shattered by this cloud of despair
that’s infecting people everywhere,
so you can find little girls who only care
about skipping lunch, and they don’t even know, that in some reality, this isn’t acceptable.
To scream at women all day and all night, how is it any better than when women didn’t have any rights? Because yeah I can vote, and get a job, but I have to shave my legs, get a tan, go on a fast, get a man, lose the weight as fast as I can, boast, compare, cry, lie, and die?
So sure I can vote, but I can also fly away from this whole place of toxic air.
Because I don’t really care what you say, and if you think I should have a problem with that?
No thanks, I’d rather be fat.

i wish i could have been anywhere near this enlightened when i was 15.

i think anybody that really knows me knows i have body-related issues, and even though i've made huge strides this past year towards accepting myself and realizing i'm more than my body, that my body is just fine and is strong and capable of doing everything i need it to do so therefore i shouldn't be so hard on it, and even if i did have a "perfect" body it still wouldn't fix all of my problems, i still have my dark moments, and i probably always will.  but every little oasis in my desert helps. this one really helped me out today. as a person with anxiety issues in dealing with other people and feelings of constantly being judged, it's easy to get caught up in perceived expectations of me and let it distort what i know to be true, to let myself become complacent to my own oppression. it's not cool. i realize i need to work harder on not giving a fuck.

also i think the majority of it is rubbish, but i liked this one excerpt from The Witches of Eastwick:

She recognized as she labored in her kitchen the something sadly menstrual in all this, the bloodlike sauce to be ladled upon the white spaghetti. The fat white strings would become her own white fat. This female struggle of hers against her own weight: at the age of thirty-eight she found it increasingly unnatural. In order to attract love must she deny her own body, like a neurotic saint of old? Nature is the index and context of all health and if we have an appetite it is there to be satisfied, satisfying thereby the cosmic order...

Detroit Lives

kind of as a follow-up to my Requiem for Detroit? post, here's a similar documentary but more on the positive outlook of things.

Detroit Lives - Palladium Boots

i'm really happy that they took a look at Detroit through an artistic lens, and delve into its potential and unique qualities instead of its problems. this is the kind of thing i think about when people seem so horrified by me living near Detroit.

also, i love Buster Keaton.

they'll rot your brain

i love cartoons, but particularly ones that push the envelope and go a little above and beyond typical wacky cartoon hi-jinks. i'm really not into those older merrie melody/warner bros. shorts where 99% of the comedy comes from parodying and spoofing famous people and movies of the day. i understand why it was popular and humorous at the time, but honestly i don't get a majority of the references, and secondly i prefer for any kind of media, really, to have a timeless appeal. for these reasons, i much prefer the later Looney Tunes, especially those directed by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett.

Bob Clampett might be my favorite animater/director ever. silliness and weirdness are cartoon staples, but he knew how to push it above and beyond, making a joke or gag that was merely funny and weird into something really laughably outrageous.

one of the things that first got me about his stuff is how far he was willing to stretch the very physical limitations of reality for the sake of ridiculousness. walls, doors, props, whatever, became the consistency of rubber. and his expressions and poses! look how great and elastic they are!

what an awesome wild take on Daffy! Clampett knew how to use Daffy to his full potential, and made probably my favorite Daffy cartoons, even better than the Chuck Jones duck season/rabbit season ones. though it doesn't ever fail to amuse me the endless and creative array of ways Daffy's face gets rearranged every time he gets blasted. but i digress.

in this cartoon, i love how giddy Daffy is as he bastes himself with gravy at the end. XD it's so funny, and dirty at the same time!

apparently it's impossible to find a video of, but this is one of my favorite Looney Tunes ever, "Old Grey Hare" from 1944. The dialogue is just so snappy and right, and Clampett milks every bit of comedy out of an aged Bugs and Elmer Fudd, taking the expressions and actions to a new extreme with their gummy mouths, furrowed brows and rubbery wrinkles. i also really love the facial hair choices of Elmer with a cookie-duster mustache and Bugs with a cottony Red Fox beard.

but my absolute favorite subject to explore in animation is malice, rage, mental breakdown, violence and craziness. while there were probably other animators technically better in other ways, to me, Clampett was one of the first animators to really master exploring the darker side of human emotions in cartoons, and exploiting them for comedic effect.

(i particularly love the cartoon with this dog. he's probably supposed to be a parody of someone with his weird, floppy hair and accent, but he stands alone as a funny character. i love that the majority of the cartoon takes place underwater and he and Bugs Bunny can inexplicably exist without breathing just fine.)

the only other animators i can think of that come close to Clampett's brilliance at capturing rage and insanity are Tex Avery and John Kricfalusi. it's hard to find Tex Avery's stuff online for some reason, and while he mainly stuck with more traditional cartoon idioms, he won my heart with how far he was willing to go to keep topping a gag. i have in mind one scene in particular that practically changed my life when i saw it, but again, i can't find it.

while Clampett and Avery were both extremely talented in their portrayals of  intense inner turmoil, it was almost always from a place of slap-stick and good-naturedness, whereas John K. took his influences in a directly darker place. the cartoonishness of his characters and ridiculousness of the situations softened the blows just enough to make them funny, but what i love about John K.'s animated sequences of Ren losing it is that often times you're unsure whether you should be laughing or not.

Ren: "i'm So Angry" - YouTube
this is probably the scariest and most threatening Ren's ever been, so much so that Nickelodeon forced edits to portions of his descriptions of what he plans to do to Stimpy and Sven. i love the juxtaposition of teetering between funny and flat-out disturbing.

Happy Happy Joy Joy - Dailymotion
probably everyone is acquainted with this episode or at least this song, but it amazes me that some 10-15 years later, it's still hysterical to me, particularly the seemingly crazy, non sequitur ramblings of Stinky Wizzleteats in the middle of his song (which apparently are all quotes from children's songs and a Western movie by Burl Ives, who Wizzleteats is a parody of). the whole episode is really good, particularly the parts where Ren fights the power of the happy helmet and loses, and the preceding scenes in which he is constantly insane with happiness.

Ren: "THESE HANDS" - Youtube
this is probably my favorite insanity sequence from Ren and Stimpy. to me, the threats of Ren's violence and his maniacal ramblings were much more disturbing than any of the actual cartoon violence he inflicted on Stimpy. i love how it actually goes there, with Ren contemplating breaking Stimpy's neck in his sleep. XD

edit: oh yeah, how could i forget Space Madness?? i think Ren's first great insanity sequence. it contains two of my favorite quotes: "it is not i who am crazy. it is i who am MAD!" and "we're not hitch-hiking anymore! we're RIDING!" XD

besides the dialogue and exaggerated body language and expressions of the characters, John K. is a genius when it comes to creating a mood through background and music. i love when the backgrounds go from being normal settings to surreal, splotchy spaces, indicating a character has snapped or is about to become unhinged. sometimes the music choices are ham-fisted and obvious, further adding to the comedy, but oftentimes they're beautifully in contrast to everything that is happening, such as his liberal use of relaxing classical music to scenes of disgusting things, or just plain absurdity.

i feel like he really dropped the ball with Adult Party Cartoon, but the classic Ren and Stimpy will never cease to amaze me. they just don't make cartoons like that anymore.

chemicals between us

omg i got my new tablet FINALLY and it rocksss YESSSSSSSSS so excited!!! it's the best tablet ever (or the best one i've ever had, anyway!)! super excited to draw shit and work on my comic again!! though i do want to keep drawing in my sketchbook; it's fun.

 

i hate thinking someone is genuinely interested in me and my hobbies and interests, but really they're only interested in my orifices. i'm so bad at figuring it out sometimes. 

i'm thinking about getting a vaginal piercing, heheh.

shit a brick

not sure about all her other features, but this is the first time i'm happy with this character's mouth scar.

i have looked into the maw of the abyss

back from FanExpo! it was quite an experience. the first day was an absolute nightmare; i had gotten next to no sleep on my bus, and my one friend who was driving us to Toronto had gotten like no sleep, and our other two friends who drove in from Pittsburgh had to leave at like 5 am so of course everybody was super tired. then we got held up at the border getting in and that freaked me out. then we got lost forever in Toronto trying to find our hotel and a place to park the car, and when we finally did make it to the convention center it was really late, and i got like the worst migraine i ever had.  so painful. i ended up getting sick right in the doorway as we were rushing to make it into the room, which was really embarrassing at the time, but now that i look back on it it was pretty funny. it's really humbling to have your mentor/one of your favorite people that you just met for the first time helping you clean up your vomit, heh.

but the rest of the night went good. after i threw up and took some headache medicine, i felt sooo much better, and everyone else ordered room service, and we watched mixed martial arts fighting on tv, then sat up watching Fear as late as i could with Ross, and it was such a funny movie, wow. gotta rent it. anyway, the rest of the trip was pretty good too. i think we all felt like champs for having made it through that first day. XD

i had a really good time hanging out with Nick and Justique at the Audioshocker table, i'm glad they let me invade their space like that. i finally started trying to come out of my shell a bit and mix it up and talk with people at the con and  stuff, and i met so many incredibly talented and nice people! it really touched me. it might sound sappy or whatever, but as much crap as it is to struggle and get to cons and you may have to put up with some bad stuff, it was totally worth it to me to just be around these kinds of people, to feel their energy and know that they get it. that we all have similar goals in creativity and self expression and being passionate about something other people might not understand. again, i probably sound totally gooey, but for maybe the first time in my life i was sure i was on the right track and doing the right thing by me. i was sure this is where i belong. it was definitely a significant experience for me, and i'm really grateful to my friends who made it possible, and whose friendship has inspired me to put my all into my projects the way that they do.

also my mom called me today and i told her all about the con and how it went and how it made me feel, and i was surprised because she was actually really pleased and happy for me and supportive. i kinda wasn't expecting that reaction at all, so it was nice.

but yeah. back to drawing!

leaving for FanExpo Canada tonight!

doldrums

digging up bones

i just recently saw Labyrinth, and i really liked it, but i'm glad i didn't see it as a kid. it probably would have freaked me out as much as the Dark Crystal, heh. of course i really liked Jareth the best.

watching Predator 2!