Artist Deathmatch

Last night I had the pleasure of attending my first Art Battle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept: A bunch of artists congregate stake out their space, and then have two hours to make a piece from scratch. they can work individually, or as a collaboration. After time is up, their pieces are immediately put up for live auction.

I didn't do so well, since I was the last piece of the night up for auction, so most of the more generous bidders had already gone home. But it was a good exercise in doing work under a deadline. Most of my drawings take me at least ten hours, sometimes as much as 15. But I was able to pull off something decent in only two hours. With more time, it could have been better, but I was surprised at what I could accomplish in such a short deadline.

I'm hoping this will be good for me in the long run, as I'd love to do my own art for my Light Novel, but don't always have the time for it, so I need to work under deadlines.

The location of the final showdown: Gorilla House LIVE ART

I'll probably go again next week, and hopefully have just as much of a blast and great practice.

The funnest part? My pen exploded while I was inking, and I got two huge globs of ink on my picture. so I slightly changed the picture so my character was holding a kendo stick, let the ink run down the pic, and then turned it into blood stains. Then I changed all the scenery to make it look like there was a window, so the blood was on the window. It challenged me, but I made the pic and had to improvise through some parts.

So, for ten dollars, someone bought some concept art for one of the characters in my light novel. Not bad for a last item, but would have been nice if I had made a bit more. But almost everyone who was bidding had gone home, and for something I threw together in a couple of hours I was just happy to get an opportunity to improve my skills.

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Also, I finished Sakura-no Pet na Kanojo. I quite liked it. If you get a chance: Watch it.

Currently watching: Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Also enjoying it.And squeezing it in just in time so I can watch the just announced second season when it becomes available.

Get Laid or Die Trying

Sorry, it's been a while. I was uh... *blush, mumble* playing School Days. Yes, School Days, the worst video game ever. It's like, the Plan Nine from Outer Space of video games. Yes, it is almost that awful. And the sad part is, if the game were any worse, it would probably actually be better. As it is, it's bad, but not quite "so bad it's good."

Virginity is not an option in this game. Literally. You cannot avoid it. I tried to, just to see if it could be done. Nope. You just delay the inevitable until you get fucked or get butchered.

I know that I normally do my reviews on Hubages but the nature of this game means, you'll have to deal with it here where I can still get some advertising revenue, so bear with me on this.

First, the voice acting is awful. I don't even speak Japanese, and I could tell it was awful. Secondly, I found it hard to empathize with someone as wishy-washy as Motoko, the main character. Because I try deliberately to NOT be wishy-washy, and he does it anyways. And thirdly, it just doesn't play like a visual novel. Not just because it's fully animated, but because the options are really meaningless story-wise until you get to the ending. The episodic formula doesn't work. At all. It's inconsistent. One episode, it becomes official I'm not dating Sekai, and everyone knows who Sekai's boyfriend is, next episode, everyone is fucking pissed at me because they assume I'm with Sekai. I mean, what the hell?

It just.. it fails. It fails so hard. The point of playing a visual novel is that you make moral and ethical decisions to get a desired outcome, and as one friend of mine put it, playing the game in the first place in not the ethical one. I kind of guilty. I feel bad for the girls in the game, I feel awful for the shitty voice actors who attached (what I hope were false) names to the project, I feel awful for the localization team that had to put up with the bullshit of every scenario while translating.

Also, for the record, unlike most visual novels, the fact this is fully animated ACTUALLY hurts the project. Nobody watches the same episode of a show over and over and over again. we may watch an episode frequently, or a movie often, but we don't watch the same episode daily. The fact that School Days is fully animated means there is much less replayability value.

In the end, this game misses the mark. Then again, I can safely assume that there really wasn't a "mark" they were aiming for. I think the creators just blindfolded themselves, spun themselves around and threw darts at the wall, and if they hit the lawn, or another co-creator, or their own foot, they just went with it. and that's exactly what this is: The game that shot itself in the foot.

Recommendations, Yandere Obsessions, and Random Stuffs

I'm spending my morning trying to find awesome pics of glasses girls. Check for the G+ and Twitter Hashtags #meganemonday. For #WaifuWednesday, my waifu of the day will be Gasai Yuno.

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So, if you haven't had a chance to, check out my latest Hubpages article on The Devil is a Part-Timer! It's a brand new series simulcast with subtitles by FUNimation Fridays 3.30pm EST.

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So, anyways, watched some more of Future Diaries. I love this series. And am going to try to catch a restream of Date a Live.  Saving the world by dating a girl? Man, if it were me, the world would be royally screwed.

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My Japanese lessons are coming along. Re-doing the third lesson in Kanji. It's still pretty fun though. It's still just introductory and vocabulary stuff, not enough to actually come up with my own sentences. I don't think I'll ever be able to speak it fluently, but it would nice to be able to watch new anime and not have to wait for subs to come out. Reading it is going to be the most difficult part to learn. But once I do, I plan on ordering a copy of every single light novel series I've been wanting to read. Particularly The Devil is a part-timer, and The Familiar of Zero. I'd also like to read "Another."

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If you like messed up stuff, I encourage you to read The Enigma of Amigara Fault. It is extremely "twisted" (If you read it, you'll know I mean that literally). It's supplementary material that appeared in Gyo, but has nothing to do with the story. It's just one chapter and it's a story of it's own.

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My mind is full of yandere. Nothing special about that, just saying.

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Speaking of Yandere, I'm learning Adobe Premiere CS6 and After Effects, because I want to make a new and good AMV about Elfen Lied. It'll probably use the music to Andrew WK's Get Ready to Die. Either that, Three Day's Grace's Animal. It'll take a while to finish it, so don't expect anything too soon.