[x]

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

Fandoms, Criticism Vlog, and Journals On Fandoms
Like most people, I'm a fan of a lot of things. However I don't often wade deep into fandoms themselves. For example, I like MLP:FiM, but I wouldn't call myself a hardcore Brony by any stretch of the imagination, as is evident by my continued botches of cutie mark colors (something no hardcore fan would EVER screw up).
Part of the reason I don't delve too far into fandoms is because fans can get very... emotional... about their given fandom. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can sometimes be a crutch. I like a variety of series, but I'm not gonna throw a tantrum because of an episode name, or an animation mistake, like some people do. I don't like how angry or defensive fandoms can get sometimes, and for the most part I think people need to just calm down and relax and not be so standoffish.
Fans are, for the most part, good people who are just enthusiastic about a show or series. Just try to keep that enthusiasm from dipping into the negative side of thing

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

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

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

Ode to the WiiMy last journal seems to have gone over pretty well. So since the Wii is slowly starting to come to a close before Nintendo's next big console release (The Wii U), I thought it would be fun to talk about games which are for the Wii and which might've been overlooked for one reason or another.
It should be noted that not ALL of these are the most AMAZING and BEST GAMES EVER! But I do think that at least 90% of these games should at least be looked at. If you have a Wii and complain that it doesn't have any games that interest you, I strongly recommend you go through this list. If you see a game you haven't heard about or played, rent it and try it out for yourself. There are a lot of gems which didn't get any press or were generally overlooked because of excessive amounts of "shovel-ware" titles clouding up retail stores.
The general perception of the Wii is that there aren't any good games for it. Prove the naysayers wrong and check these titles out. The best part? Most of these titles

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

Super Mario 3D Land ReviewI've been waiting for this game for such a long time, and it really is a breath of fresh air on the 3DS's currently limited gaming library.
The basic gameplay will be familiar to anyone who's played Mario before. You proceed though various levels, stomping enemies, collecting star coins, and working your way to the flagpole goal. There are occasional castles, haunted houses, airships and the like to break up the level structures, and every level introduces some new gameplay mechanic and is uniquely styled.
Even though this is a 3-D mario game, there are a lot of 2-D elements to it. I kinda liken it to Super Mario Galaxy 2 in that there are these big open worlds you explore, but from time to time the camera zooms to a 2-D perspective. It's really a nice mesh of the old and the new.
The controls take a little getting used to, though. Both the A and B buttons jump while the X and Y buttons control running, tail whips, fireballs, etc. There's also a "super jump" ripped from Supe

Sonic Generations RantThis is kinda gonna sound bitter because it's an issue with the video game industry that i've been frustrated with for the past decade now, and it's only become supercharged since the Wii came out. So I apologize but this journal is gonna be a bit of a rant.
The Importance of Optimization
I really think 3rd party developers are being lazy. When the Wii first came out a lot of 3rd party developers slapped some half-assed party games together and then proceeded to complain that they weren't selling (Gee, I wonder why?). 3 years later when they finally made "hardcore" Wii titles, they didn't advertise the games and then complained that they weren't selling. Frequently they even skip games for the Wii because they can't seem to figure out that HD only refers to screen resolution not graphical limitations.
Case in point, Sonic Generations. I was actually really looking forward to this game. From all reports, Sega finally took what we've been telling them to do for the past 15 years and did

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

Browse More Like This

more ▶

Featured in Groups:

Not currently featured in any groups.

Details

Submitted: September 26, 2012

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 122
Favourites: 39 [who?]
Views: 13,855 (1 today)

[x]

Wii U Launch Titles

by *TomPreston, Sep 26, 2012, 9:55:12 PM
Journals / Personal

Remember when the Wii launched in 2006 with just a gamecube port of Zelda, a horribly broken Red Steel, and a handful of party games? That's not gonna happen with the Wii U. Along with the recent announcement of Bayonetta 2 being a Wii U exclusive title, Nintendo has just announced that there will be a staggering 23 games available on launch day. While many of the titles are ports of other games, there are still a huge selection of titles that I, a gamer who doesn't have access to a Ps3 or 360, would really enjoy being able to play finally.

Below is the current list of 23 titles, with the promise of 9 more games being released before December, and 20 more between December and April 2013.

Call of Duty®: Black Ops II
Skylanders Giants™
TRANSFORMERS PRIME™
Wipeout 3
Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
EA SPORTS™ FIFA Soccer 13
TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT™ 2 Wii U Edition
New Super Mario Bros. U
NINJA GAIDEN 3: Razor's Edge
Nintendo Land
SiNG PARTY
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed™
WARRIORS OROCHI® 3 Hyper
Darksiders® II
Assassin's Creed® III
ESPN Sports Connection™
Just Dance® 4
Rabbids® Land
Your Shape®: Fitness Evolved 2013
ZombiU™
Scribblenauts™ Unlimited
Game Party Champions
Batman: Arkham City™ Armored Edition

Content Source: [link]

In addition to these titles, the Wii U will also be able to transfer all your WiiWare and Virtual Console games from your Wii for free. And it can play all your previous Wii titles, with the eShop being available on day 1 as well.

I gotta say. That's pretty damn impressive Nintendo. You really do seem to be trying very hard to push the hardcore gaming angle as well as the family friendly angle. Off the top of my head I would like to play Assassin's Creed 3, Batman, Nintendo Land, NSMBWii2, and Epic Mickey 2. For a launch window for a brand new system, I think this is really amazing. I don't think I've ever seen a console release with this much content right off the bat.

122 Comments

Listening to: Yogscast Tekkit Series
Reading: tumblr
Watching: Doctor Who
Playing: Minecraft: Tekkit
Eating: Jaffa Cakes
Drinking: English Breakfast Tea

Wii U Launch Titlesby *TomPreston

Journals / Personal

~~love 0 0~~

joy 1 1

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

neutral 1 1

~Prowls-little-angle2 Sep 29, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

...
my day...has just been made.

*RiciusKing Sep 28, 2012 Artist

TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT™ 2 Wii U Edition
New Super Mario Bros. U
Nintendo Land
Darksiders® II
Assassin's Creed® III
ZombiU™
Batman: Arkham City™ Armored Edition

These are just the games I want the most right now. There is a lot coming that I want coming as well.

*RiciusKing Sep 28, 2012 Artist

lol messed up my grammar there. Cruse you DA for not letting me withdraw my comments.

~320master Sep 28, 2012 Student Photographer

no pikimin now thats un called for

~Mickymouse55 Sep 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Epic Mickey two. Even Nintendo recognizes my epicness. TWICE! Still, I prefer X-box and PS3 over Wii.

=AnzuAi Sep 28, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

No Zelda?

Booooo.....

=MaciaPaladin Sep 29, 2012

In fairness, Skyward Sword only came out less than a year ago. Look how long it was between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. What? 5 years? Patience. Epicness requires skillful craftsmanship. And that takes time.

=AnzuAi Sep 29, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

I DON'T LIKE PATIENCE.

Of course, I shouldn't really be bothered anyway, I'm not planning to get a wii U! But I can't wait until the next LOZ 3DS comes out...

_{Wow... I didn't know it was 5 years... that means it will come out like... 5 YEARS from now!}

=MaciaPaladin Sep 29, 2012

Well, in that time we had two (arguably) awesome portable titles within around 2 years of each other. So there may still be hope for a 3DS release or two in the interim to my way of thinking.

*PokeLuigi Sep 28, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Will you be able to transfer data and save files from the memory stored on the hard drive from the usual physical Disk games?

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

Wii U Launch Titles

Wii U Launch Titlesby *TomPreston

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style