Jithra

Beautiful work! I did get a feeling of foreboding from the clouds, (which I'm glad, having just read that that was your intent) and they do make Takua look small and vulnerable. They are, however, distracting in the sense that my eye kept on wandering away from Takua's smallness and towards "Makuta." If you wanted us to focus on Makuta, than perfect! If we're suppose to focus on Takua, then something has to happen to bring the viewer's eye back down. What, I'm not exactly sure, because I absolutely love the textures you've created in the clouds and the almost-silhouette of Takua.Perhaps playing with the distance between cloud/Makuta and Takua? My thought being so that they're not as separated from each other and also so that the blue sky doesn't act quite as much as a severing of the two but as a bridge instead. (I'm not sure if that would help lead to Takua or not, but it's the only thing I can think of at the moment.)Again, beautiful work! I enjoyed it very much.

Happy Birthday, Timoteo! I hope you have a fantastic day today!

Man, I was a bit worried when I first started reading these posts and was only seeing a week or two...I'm glad I'm not the only one who took a really long hiatus.For me, it's been about...*counts* ...Darn, about 8 months now. Initially it was because I was in the middle of a out-of-state move/college transfer/jobless and just under a lot of change and stress when the forums were made available again. After things settled down I kinda just...Forgot. (The long hiatus didn't help.) I'm hoping to be on here more frequently and participating again, but it depends on what life decides to throw at me next.

I'd be all for that! I love looking at art books and seeing where a concept started and how it progressed to the final design and product. Like other's have mentioned, it would be neat to see how each year was planned and the work that went into it. Being an illustration/concept design major, I'd personally love to see tons of the earliest drafts for different characters and settings, and even "scrapped" ideas as well that never made the final cut. The one concern I'd have is the price-to-content ratio. I don't mind paying a bit more for an art book so long as there is an adequate amount of content to justify the price. (Which is saying a lot coming from me. I tend to buy my books second hand & used, but I'd buy this new if I felt the content was worth the price,)

XD Man, now I want to see that in either a short story or comic...Anyway, I'm not going to repeat what everyone is saying, but another thing to keep in mind is that there's a difference between book-learning, and experience learning. I read how to drive a car, and studied, and even drove similar vehicles that worked roughly the same way. However, it was a whole other thing the first time I had to drive surrounded by strangers going 40+ MPH and had to put that book know-how to use instantly. I knew what to do, but I wasn't particularly graceful at it the first time and had a "learning curve" to conquer. And I didn't even have a riotous, rebelling group of passengers behind me doing everything they could to make me crash while I was driving for the first time. (Brief edit: To get back to the point, Makuta Teridax may have had the "book knowledge" to run the robot, but he still had to gain the experience and deal with factors he wasn't suppose to deal with before he could operate it efficiently) There's my thoughts on it.

I know I'm late to the party, but whatever. I'm so excited that the forums are back! I'll admit I was getting a bit worried there for a while, but I'm glad that my worries didn't pan out. The forums look great, by the by!

Ditto. While red may be more "correct," I'd sure like the black one! ^.^

So long as your not going to Phoenix or one of the valley cities, you should have some nice weather. Before I left to visit my family, we were hitting the 80 degree F mark. (Although, we were also hitting an unusual hot snap, so hopefully it's nice and normal again.)

I'm in and have been doing a count-down as well! I just need to figure out what story I'm going to write...I got to 50k last year and still managed to have an incomplete story. (Though I could probably shave at least 10K off due to lengthy expositions made out of desperation to finish when I was blanking out...) but I doubt it would carry me through to another 50k, and I don't want to be stuck mid-wrimo. *sigh* I'll figure something out... Edit: My nano account name is writers_block

I know, I can't wait! ^.^ (I might have to switch to Saturday morning instead of Friday, because Friday has slowly become more and more complicated as this month has gone, but I will be there at least one of those days!)

Brilliant! I read this story in my Lit. class last year, and out of all the short stories we read this was my favorite...However, it was my professor's least favorite and the one he used to show "poor...comercial" writing...

I think this is very beautiful. It's very soft, yet detailed and expressive. I really don't know what to say as far as what improvments might be needed, because as soon as I start to type something I look at the picture again and say "No, that's fine, any different and it would change the feel/look of the piece." Perhaps a little more contrast in value on the face, but that's more me fishing for something because I'm honestly having trouble finding anything. I applaud you for doing commisions and I can completely relate with you on never fully being satisfied with a piece. There are precious few pieces that I sat back and said, "Yeah, this is DONE!" and even those I ended up wanting to come back to and add more details. Most of mine I have a hard time making peace with and usually burn myself out because I try to hard and keep on adding stuff when most of my friends say it was done days ago. I just wanted to let you know that I love seeing your art work and am always shocked to see no one else commenting on them. Hopefully that will change as it really does deserve more recognition.

You know what the hardest part about your questions are? It's that there really is no one answer. Home schooling is, in essence, a customizable educational system from the parent to their child. Because of this, it's hard to give anything but a general answer to most questions regarding it because each family has their own unique way doing it. I've been home schooled up through high school and am now in college, and in those years I saw everything from the very relaxed and laid-back styles to the incredibly busy. Some of my friends had only 3-4 hour school days while others were literally going from right after breakfast until dinner with every other weekend filled with extracurricular activities. So yes and no. Depending on the family, you could have more free time or less than the traditional schools. (My experience had it more in between the two extremes with 5-6 hour school day while getting a little longer in high school because of group/community college classes) As for socializing...That hasn't been a problem for the most part. Yes, there are families who I believe shelter their kids too much through home schooling. It's unfortunate, but every system--Whether it's home schooling, public, private, charter, etc--Is going to have it's freak incidents that are not considered normal to any degree. Most home schoolers have opportunities to be with people on just about any given day. Sometimes it's through group studies for a given subject, sometimes its through extracurricular activities, sometimes even through public school systems! In high school I was seeing a group of friends every day during the school week. So yes, while it's a valid concern, there's plenty of opportunities out there to get out and meet/socialize with others. As for who teaches, again, that's really up the individual families to decide. Most of the teaching comes from either one or both parents. For me, my mom taught me my core subjects, and then in high school I would get together with other home schoolers for a group class. In these classes, the mom or dad who had a major in the specific subject (like mathematics for example) would teach us in a traditional class setting...Just in their living room instead of a classroom. I also took community college classes for some subjects like Spanish and science. And yeah, it does sound like it would be a really weak education coming just from our parents, but remember, they went to school too! Also, it's not like they're teaching from scratch. There are hundreds of programs, curriculum and text written specifically for home schoolers that provides the framework for each and every subject the parent needs to teach. Most of them include parent/teacher guides, student textbooks, and even supplementary activities. So it's pretty well covered. Sorry for the lengthy post, but I wanted to give my two-bits worth as well as mention that all we can do is give general answers to your specific questions because it's different and unique for every family.

*gasp!* Despite your marvelous skills of observation, Turakii, you didn't catch the most important question of all! If the prince, who is obviously an adult in the stained glass intro, only had until his 21st year to break the spell, how on earth did the village where Belle's from forget they had a PRINCE in a huge CASTLE within a half days ride from their home? That's what, 3 or 4 years since the curse and they've forgotten who their ruling monarch is and where he lives? Talk about short-term memories... At least, that's the question that always bugs me when I watch this movie... (But BatB is still my favorite Disney. ^.^)