A Golden-Red Horizon

I've been quite productive artistically in recent weeks. I mentioned in a previous entry a drawing based on Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I haven't colored that yet, but I decided I might as well share the lineart online. Some people might be tired of ponies, but I find them a great source of inspiration, not to mention really fun to draw!

Additionally, I've posted my entry for BZPower's Flash Fire Character Design Contest. I've been working on coloring this drawing for a while, and finally finished earlier today. I have a drawing of Vakama which I'm still busy coloring-- if I'm lucky, I may be able to finish it in time to submit it as well, but otherwise I haven't ruled out the possibility of submitting it with just flat colors, without the same complex gradient shading.

And just this past week, I've created a Ninjago drawing that I'm quite proud of. It's a young Kai and baby Nya with the rest of their family. I know it's not especially realistic (Kai is probably three or so years older than Nya, whereas here he looks six or seven while she's an infant), but once the image popped into my head I knew I'd have to draw it. I did quite well at keeping the lineart clean on this one, which makes me happy.

Overall I am glad that I'm back to being artistically productive. Being on BZPower has been a great motivation for me, what with the many art contests. And I'd be neglectful not to mention that my BIONICLE/My Little Pony crossover drawing Swarm of the Century took the second prize in BZPower's GAC #18 Battlescapes! I'm very proud of this accomplishment, or, to quote Nathan Evo,

I'll do my best to continue drawing whenever I can and wherever I happen to find inspiration. It feels very good to be so productive during my summer vacation, and I pray that the same inspiration, motivation, and encouragement find their way to some of my best friends in the art community who are currently struggling to find these things.

Well, I already mentioned my thoughts on the Korra finale in the Avatar: The Last Airbender topic in COT. I'd rather keep them there where they can be part of an ongoing discussion than talk about them here. I mean, I'd love to jump on the bandwagon, but something else has happened since I watched the finale this morning.

That being that my family's Amazon.com order for the Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels The Lost Adventures and The Promise parts one and two came in.

My goodness. They were excellent. And pretty much everything in them felt totally in the spirit of the show itself despite having to follow up on an already-concluded narrative in a totally different medium.

Hard to say which comic in The Lost Adventures was my favorite, but "Swordbending" sticks in my mind the most. Along with Dragon Days. So much Fire Nation slang! Like the cartoon itself, the writing really starts to pick up in Book 2 and continues to improve from that point on.

Meanwhile, The Promise is shaping up to be an excellent series and I can't wait until that trilogy concludes. It's highly entertaining reading about Toph's "lily-livers", Sokka's "oogies", Fire Lord Zuko's struggle to serve his country as Fire Lord, Aang and Katara's struggles to adapt to their new life together, and of course the brewing tensions over the fate of Yu Dao. Meanwhile, Sneers was the last character I expected to see again (or would have been if I hadn't stumbled upon spoilers on the internet a few weeks ago).

Just another reason to look forward to September!

By the way, just a reminder that GAC #18 final polls are open. A couple entries are dominating, but the race is pretty tight between the rest of them, and I am praying that my entry ("Swarm of the Century") will either move ahead of the pack or fall behind enough for me to know it didn't just lose by some fluke. Links are in the entry below, and I would appreciate support for my entry, but as always give your vote to the entry you feel deserves it most!

Don't forget, the final polls in GAC #18 are up! Click here to go to the poll! My entry, Swarm of the Century, is in the running!

Now, other updates. On Monday I drew and inked a piece based on Neil Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novels, which I will be attempting to color. I haven't decided how I'm going to color it. I was able to color something very well digitally recently (and am near finishing an older drawing that has been incomplete for far too long). But digitally coloring a piece with lots of characters in it is a challenge I've never really tackled successfully. I also am not sure what style of coloring I'd prefer, so it may be a while before that is finished.

But quick edits are not quite as much of a challenge as full pieces of artwork, and I was inspired for this Avatar: The Last Airbender comic during a recent chat:

My entry, Swarm of the Century, narrowly made it through Preliminary Poll A, and as such it's now a contender in the final poll! Click here to go to the poll!

I think it goes without saying that Crunchy's two entries, which dominated the preliminary polls, will also sweep the voting in this poll. It's kind of a shame, because the rules state that each member can only have one winning entry, and I'm worried that with Crunchy's entries so likely to get most of the votes, the margin between the remaining entries will be very small indeed. I won't mind losing this contest (it's not like I have any kind of reputation to uphold), but with such a slim margin I don't want to feel like my entry won or lost by random chance.

One way this could be avoided in future contests would be to do it like how another LEGO forum I use often does MOC contest voting. On that site, voting is done through posts rather than polls, which makes it more difficult to track, but you get more than one vote (still a finite number), and can distribute those votes how you prefer (either award all of your votes to one entry, or divide the votes evenly or unevenly across multiple entries). This way, even if you have one overall favorite, you can also show support for other entries you consider deserving. And as such the runners-up will be decided by more members than just those few who didn't like the winning entry.

But I'm not going to pressure anybody to vote for my entry. Vote for the entry you think is best! All the entries in this poll got through the preliminary polls by their own merits, and the same ought to be true this time around!

Just about one week to go in the General Art Contest #18 preliminary polls! I encourage voters to show their support for my entry, Swarm of the Century, in Preliminary Poll A! It's Entry 6 in the poll.

In other art-related news, recently a friend of mine who is also an artist had a birthday, and I gave her a portrait of her I had drawn. To my delight, she really liked the drawing! Since she's also an artist (and a much better one than me, all things considered), I was thrilled to have her approval, and I hope it will motivate me to keep drawing over the course of the summer.

Even though I'm often lacking in inspiration, I have tried to keep drawing so I remain in practice. Most of my recent drawings are merely sketches, like this one which shows some human figures of varying ages to approximate scale with one another. But hopefully inspiration will strike again soon and I'll have something more meaningful and finished to show you all.

You can find my entry, Swarm of the Century, in Preliminary Poll A! Go vote for the entries you think are best!

I think a male-oriented show that focuses on slice-of-life storytelling and "friendship lessons" like MLP:FiM does would be pretty cool. Of course, there exist plenty of educational TV shows that are like this with about equal gender representation in the cast, like Arthur. In fact, just about every children's show I can think of that has slice-of-life storytelling tries to teach these kinds of basic life lessons, though friendship is often just one of many subjects. (Other common lessons include "don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today", "don't take credit for other people's work," etc.)

For some reason it just seems that there aren't many of these shows these days without many female characters in the main cast, though, perhaps because that's seen as exclusionary to girls who might enjoy the show.

On that note...

Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that the best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend. And my new friend Lloyd learned to never trust a snake.

Your faithful student,
Kai, Ninja of Fire

Source: Official My Little Pony topic

Click for full

This is still just a WIP; I'm not sure how much I like the neck, and he could really use ears and/or a mane. Inspired by my art contest entry. Speaking of which, check it out if you haven't already!

Topic

Obligatory Advertising

And a repost from the MLP topic:

So I have a question. Can anyone recommend me any fan-made songs that are a lot like the songs in the show? I'm talking...

• Good voice acting to match the characters who are supposed to be singing
• Musical-theater style, from the point of view of the characters singing
• Nothing terribly out-of-character (like over-the-top shipping)

Yeah, that's probably a bit specific. But now that we're in a hiatus between new episodes, I'd like to get into some of the fan stuff that I haven't really paid any attention to so far, like music and flash videos. But I still think I'd enjoy it best if it has those characteristics I really like in the "official" show.

Topic

Tahu is best pony.