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Animation techniques and more Ghibli thoughtsIn my last journal I mentioned the strange effect of seeing super cartoony flat characters moving around in a hyper realistic world. There's actually a name for this, it's call the "masking effect" and it was quite elaborately detailed by Scott McCloud in his book "understanding comics."
In comics, frequently the main characters are portrayed as cartoony and simple, while backgrounds often get very detailed. The basic concept is pretty simple. The more cartoony a character is drawn, the more appealing and relatable it is to us as we can more easily imagine ourselves in the role. The more realistic something is, the less of a personal connection you have to it. This is why villains tend to be drawn more realistically, and heros more cartoony. But it goes beyond just the characters... the environment also is affected.
If a person in a cartoon picks up a sword and starts swinging it around, the sword becomes an extension of their body and since it's animated, it becomes a drawn thing whic

Artist Intent vs Fan CriticismsThis has been a subject I've been interested in for years, and one which I personally struggle with on a near constant basis: Artist's intent versus fan criticisms. Before we begin I just want to make this clear that this journal is NOT about "ignoring criticisms" or any sort of endorsement of such an action. I'm gonna be accused of it, of course, but I just wanted to get that out of the way right now.
...
As I've been observing fan interactions over the years I've noticed a severe increase in a sense of entitlement: IE: that if you love something enough you have a "right" to force the creators to change their content to suit your personal preferences. We saw this play out to the extremes this past summer with the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle, and we see it play out to a much lesser extent here on DA quite a bit.
Artists need feedback and criticisms to grow and improve their work, but at what point does it move beyond offering suggestions to help an artist improve to outright de

Censoring the InternetA few weeks ago I made mention of feminist Anita Sarkeesian who started a kickstarter for a web series called "Tropes Vs Women" specifically centered around how women are portrayed in video games.
Despite the fact that kickstarters are payed for by people who've made the decision they want to contribute their money to the project, Anita came under attack from gamers for "scamming" audiences when her fund far exceeded the target goal. Just this past week it's come out that a 25 year old man from Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Canada, created a video game where the object is to punch the crap out of Anita. Wounds, bruises, and blood gush out the more you beat her up in this virtual game, and it's drawn some widespread attention.
Whether you agree with her viewpoint is not the issue, it's the fact that this retaliation is just "wrong" on so many levels. Do these people realize that what they're doing is shooting themselves in the foot? Making a video game where you beat up someone who's making

History Repeats ItselfLast week a Connecticut action group going by the name of SouthingtonSOS held a video game burning event where local citizens were encouraged to bring various forms of violent media to be burned in a dumpster, no doubt a reaction to the recent Connecticut shooting.
I wish I could say I am surprised about this, but sadly the whole media frenzy surrounding violence in video games and movies reminds me of something that already happened once and profoundly affected the media it was accusing: Comic books.
During the early days of comic books, things occasionally got a little risqué. EC Horror comics in particular delighted in rendering extremely gruesome images and disturbing themes in their comics, which were being sold to children unbeknownst to their parents (because naive parents at the time had no reason to suspect comics might contain "inappropriate" material). However all that changed in 1954.
German-American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham was upset about how disturbing some of those

Controversial OpinionsYou know, sometimes having opinions can make you feel like no one else shares your views, especially if your views aren't being widely vocalized around you. Case in point: It's just been announced that J.J.Abrams will be directing Star Wars 7, and the internet is raging with butthurt about how shitty Abrams is, making over abundant lens flare jokes, and bemoaning the reboot of Star Trek in the process.
Thing is... I like J.J.Abrams. I liked LOST (despite it's shitty/rushed ending). I liked Super 8. I liked Cloverfield. I even enjoyed the recent Star Trek reboot and am looking forward to the sequel. I never had a problem with lens flares or noticed them being over used. And I think overall Abrams has made a fairly consistent batch of quality movies, which is a amazing considering how many directors flip flop between great and shitty.
But I can't often come right out and say that sort of thing because when I do I get attacked for having an opinion that runs counter to the vast majority o

Internet BullyingFor many kids growing up in the 80's, if you were bullied in school you were able to "tough it out" because you knew your social interaction with said bully was isolated only to when you were in close proximity of them. When the bell range and you went home, you could dismiss the bully's taunting and physical abuse and be reminded of friends and family who supported you and kept your spirits up.
But in today's day and age of seemingly constant online connectivity, the "victims" of bullying have a harder time escaping. Once the bell rings, they're still potentially subject to be bullied via verbal assaults online, which often goes completely unnoticed by parents and friends. The worse part of this is that we're often told that because it happens "on the internet" there's no real consequences of trolling or bullying, which is far from true.
I've never accepted the excuse that just because "it happens on the internet" means it can't personally harm you in real life. Part of that is from m

Derpy Hooves vs HasbroSo it has come to my attention that recently Hasbro has (possibly?) ordered a cease and desist letter to WeLoveFine.com for selling Derpy Hooves related T-shirts. This, coupled with the mysterious disappearance of the episode "The Last Roundup" (which is the one where Derpy talks) from iTunes has gotten fans freaked out and panicky. The general belief is that Hasbro wants to stop the cannoning of internet named Derpy from the MLP series due to the backlash of people getting angry for them for doing so in the first place. Petitions are going up ( http://www.change.org/petitions/hasbro-studiosthe-hub-do-not-change-derpys-name ) and blogs are being posted and everyone's going nuts over this.
Here's my two cents:
From browsing around WeLoveFine.com I could see a number of deviantart images being used for T-shirts. Specifically My Little Pony related. Now It's very unlikely that the artists or the website got permission to sell these T-shirts, and whether you like it or not, selling merchan

FlatteredI should be flattered.
There are people who literally spend hours of their life every day following me. People who obsessively save every work of art I post online. People who comment and hypothesize about everything I do, even when I am not doing anything. People who make their own comics, websites, and blogs because of me. People who meticulously sift through my stats, my comments, and near-decade old journals. People who obsessively screen-capture everything I say or do anywhere online. People who seemingly have no life other than to talk about every aspect of my own. People who, day in and day out, never tire of talking about me to their friends online.
These people are amazing and I am continually astounded by them and the things they come up with... over a worthless and unimportant cartoonist.
Not even a good cartoonist either. Just an average, slightly stubborn, mediocrely popular on a dubious website... cartoonist. Not a politician with real influence in the world. Not a famous

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Luigi, Slavery, and Adventure Time Progress Video

by *TomPreston, Feb 19, 2013, 1:18:36 PM
Journals / Personal

Year of Luigi
Nintendo announced recently that Luigi will be getting quite a bit of due attention this year, declaring 2013 to be "the year of Luigi." First he'll be staring in the Luigi's Mansion sequel for the 3DS, then he will be a big component of the next Mario and Luigi RPG on the 3DS. In the RPG game, Mario will enter Luigi's dreams where Luigi can be as awesome, if not better than, his overshadowing brother. Poking and prodding Luigi's face on the touch screen will also alter the dream world, allowing Mario to proceed through obstacles. And if that wasn't enough, there is a new DLC package planned for New Super Mario Bros U which basically adds an entire game's worth of new levels exclusively to be played by Luigi. Pretty solid stuff, Nintendo. Now say that 2014 is the year of the Peach!

Slavery Abolished!
Mississippi has finally ratified their 13th amendment, a motion to abolish slavery written back in 1865. The discovery that the amendment hadn't been passed came about when 2 academics decided to look into the status of the amendment after watching Stephen Spielberg's Lincoln. When it was discovered that the amendment had never been ratified, they contacted Mississippi's secretary of state, who arranged the passage of the bill on Feb 7th. Better late than never, right Mississippi?

Equestria Daily
My picture of Flutteryshy as a Crystal Kingdom Knight was featured on Equestria Daily yesterday. Thanks to whomever submitted it there, I was quite surprised to hear it was featured at all.

Adventure Time Progress Movie!
Sorry it took so long to complete, but here you go! You can see the progress of the Adventure Time illustration from start to finish now. Yay! Obviously to not bore anyone to death with the 8+ hours of drawing that I livestreamed, I flipped the video upside down (to be right side up for the viewer), sped it up, adjusted the clarity, and edited it much much shorter so you at least get an idea of what it was like. If you're masochistic enough to want to watch the full unaltered 8 hours you can do so on my Ustream account here: [link]

In the meantime, enjoy the edited for time and entertainment youtube video!

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Listening to: Yogscast
Reading: The Gashlycrumb Tinies
Watching: Mythbusters
Playing: Minecraft
Eating: Jaffa Cakes
Drinking: Water

Luigi, Slavery, and Adventure Time Progress Videoby *TomPreston

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~DTJB Feb 26, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Muwah-ha-ha-ha. Now who's in who's shadow?

And JEEZ-LOUISE MAN! Way to go on the Adventure Time art!

~connie1995 Feb 21, 2013

Wow that video was amazing!

~Naga-Hunter Feb 21, 2013

Woff! That's awesome!

~Omis-11 Feb 20, 2013

yay luigi

~Shadowdew6 Feb 20, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

wow, watching the progression of the picture was really cool

~BuzzingNeon Feb 20, 2013

It's about time! I liked using Luigi in Super Mario 2.

~81Scorp Feb 20, 2013 Hobbyist

Hooray! The Mississippians are free at last!

~Shippuden23 Feb 20, 2013

It’s nice to finally see Luigi getting some love. Hopefully, he will be the main star of more games in the future. It’s not fair that he’s mostly used as a spin-off character or that he gets stuck playing second banana to Mario .It would also be cool to see a game featuring the Wicked Bros. or Daisy even if that very unlikely to happen.

Wow…took ya long enough Mississippi XD

Congrats on the Fluttershy feature and cool video

~Mnjooschji Feb 20, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Heck yeah! It's aboot time. Mario's not the ONLY fancy moustache in the Mushroom kingdom!
and good job, Mississippi.

~Wyvern-1 Feb 19, 2013

All good news and laughs. If only all news worked out like this. (And why I dislike getting into politics.) Thanks a bunch.

"The Year of Luigi" has a nice ring to it.

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