Ni No Kuni was a game I heard was absolutely incredible in 2013 if you were a fan of traditional RPGs. Now I’ve probably only played from start to finish a handful of RPGs, most of them being Konami’s cult favorite Suikoden series. I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game other then the first two on Gameboy Advane, so I know nothing about Cloud, Aerith, or any of those other spikey haired characters. Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Remix was the last RPG I had played before Ni No Kuni and I had a mixed reaction to that, so I wasn’t already with a good attitude when it came to RPGs when I started Ni No Kuni. And low and behold when I started Ni No Kuni, it was slow, boring, and slightly frustrating which threw me off the first 10 hours or so when I was so swamped during the school year. But when summer started I sucked it up and tried another go at it when I had more time. 40 hours later, my mind had completely shifted and Ni No Kuni is definitely one of the greatest RPGs I’ve ever played and I’m the best part is I’m not even close to being done with it.
Even further from mainstream then the string of Robins, Batgirls, and other obscure Bat villains is the recherché Batwoman. When people hear Batwoman’s name, they think that maybe she’s a Batman copycat who is a possible love interest for the Dark Knight. What they don’t know is that Katherine Kane aka Batwoman might be comic books’ most popular LGBT superhero, who kicks ass and doesn’t take questions from anyone, including Batman. After hearing how awesome Batwoman is on the internets, I took it upon myself to look into Batwoman and her comic series. After reading her first New 52 volume, Hydrology, I became instantly hooked and may have a new contender for favorite superheroine, [sorry Diana]. I took time out of my not so busy day to draw a new wallpaper as tribute to one of my new favorite characters and write a small review on Batwoman New 52 Vol. 1: Hydrology. I really hoped to catch her edgy, gorgeous, but ‘don’t f*ck with me’ attitude.
Drew some more concept art of my flagship characters for my original series, The Black Carnival. I’m edging towards another reboot/revamp given my newfound time during the summer.
For those interested, here’s a little summary of the starting monologue I plan on using for the series to introduce the premise.
My name is Gillian Akers and this is my Uncle Flynt. Well he’s not really my uncle, he’s a supernatural ‘Guardian Angel’, charged with protecting me from those who intend to hurt me. You see, 3 years ago most of my family was massacred in an attempt to seize the family’s prized possession, ownership of The Black Carnival. I was one of the few survivors and the heavens literally sent help from above to keep me safe from those who want to take my right to one day own it. The Black Carnival is a controlled ‘haven’ for all things dangerous, discarded, and devious. Ownership provides you access to some of the most powerful and dangerous people and beings around. But my whole life I never really cared about that, at least until my family paid the price for it. To help me survive, my Uncle Flynt has trained me as a part of his protection initiative. I intend to use my newfound skills to return to the Black Carnival to find the people who murdered my family. My uncle and I now work as a part of the Black Carnival Sheriff’s Office, occasionally taking out the Carnival’s trash and simultaneously investigating those who tried to take everything away from me. I will work day and night to find them and return the favor.
So how’s the reboot going to work?
We’ll dive into it below. This will include two pieces of concept art about the two flagship characters, the first strip, and a summary of the structure of how the story will be told.
So The Flash pilot leaked and the internet is exploding with all sorts of hype and freak outs. I was able to watch it and I have to say that I was absolutely floored with how good it was. Yes, it’s true that pilots are normally a lot stronger than the rest of the season due to it’s sole purpose of getting the series picked up and yes, one could worry about the drop in investment on quality writing and special effects in the rest of the episodes, and yes…yadda yadda yadda yadda. As I watched the Flash, I realized that despite even considering about worrying about all of these potential drop offs, this episode had so much fun, action, comedy, and set up all in one episode, it legitimately gives me hope that the creators of the Flash will be taking smart notes from Arrow’s book in continuing to create a full season’s worth of quality episodes. So here’s a break down of what I thought about the Flash pilot below.
This review contains no major plot spoilers, but does contain images from the leaded episode that can contain sensitive information.
It’s no surprise that I’m a huge DC fanatic, and I enjoy soaking up just about any and all things DC related, whether they be their comics, video games, movies, and television shows. I have dedicated today’s post to their much beloved animated series that they’ve been pumping out since 1992 (maybe even earlier, I’m note entirely sure). They continue to produce quality television shows and animated movies to this day, although some for the wrong [but necessary] reasons. My recent finishing of the television series Young Justice has prompted me to write this post and kind of cover all the great things about DC’s [or I guess Warner Bros.] animated divisions. It’s very clear that a lot of these great shows and movies were created by comic book lovers who enjoy introducing legendary and fantastic characters in the DC universe as well as dropping hints, easter eggs, and callbacks to those who are engaged and already familiar with the DC Universe.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the recent and personally significant series and movies I’ve had the pleasure of viewing.
Got a chance to play on the Public Beta Environment for League of Legends to test out the new Summoner’s Rift. I chose to be a yet to be released Hazmat Heimerdinger skin in anticipation! I cut together some of the game highlights and you can view them above.
Edge of Tomorrow may be one of my favorite surprise good movies I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this year. Edge of Tomorrow has comedy, action, a thought provoking story, incredible visuals, and a damn charming Tom Cruise. Based on the novel, All You Need is Kill, the story follows military propaganda specialist Cage (Cruise). When Cage resists a direct order being of joining the battle, he’s put on the front line where he dies almost instantly. But something happens to Cage where he wakes up after death only to relive the same battle over and over again. With the help of the army’s most badass marine, Rita (Emily Blunt), Cage uses this ability to his advantage to turn the tide of the war. Basically this movie is Groundhog Day with space marines and Tom Cruise.
Orange is the New Black aired on Netflix this past weekend and what a rush it has been binge watching the up and down roller coaster that the second season was. Following a similar structure as the first season, but mixing new elements such as new characters, an all-affecting conflict, and a different direction that shows that Litchfield has more problems than what Piper is directly dealing with. The flashbacks return, showing welcome light on some of the older and lesser used character in the first season and we even get development on characters we really despised in the first season. Orange is the New Black season 2 confirms that even the worst/best people have a shade of gray which makes us re-question our loyalty. I know several times over my live-tweet marathon of the show that some of my tweets can be easily reversed based on some of the dynamic changes my favorite characters went through.
Anyways, today’s post is a further breakdown of what I thought of the season.
I got a pang to draw more DC heroes after my Zatanna drawing and I decided to redraw Wonder Woman after my derpy interpretation in the past. I admit, this is still a little derpy, but I’m definitely trying to a weird medium between pure cartoon and semi-realism. Anyways, it came out kind of okay, and I’m getting more and more surprised with how quickly I finish these with this particular piece being clocked in at about a little over 2 hours. Does that mean if I focus more time I can get more quality results? I dunno. I’ve never had a project that has taken over 5 or 6 hours max on my Cintiq, maybe it’s time I try.
Anyways, let me know if you guys have any comments or questions.
I have Black Carnival stuff also, but I’m just waiting for the opportune time to share it.
X-Men: Days of Future Past opened this last weekend, outdoing in my opinion every X-Men in sheer awesomeness [a very technical term]. For good reason too. Everything in Days of Future Past was enjoyable and the movie had it all. There was an engaging story with very real themes. There were incredible and unforgettable actions sequences. And it did something that very few franchises have done, which is successfully link a previous franchise with its reboot without feeling overly convoluted.
So we’re gonna get down to the meat here and discuss a lot of the awesome [and a few of the not as awesome] things with X-Men Days of Future Past.
Spoilers to Follow. If you haven’t watched, please do!
Jason Todd was found by Batman breaking into the Batmobile as a kid. When Bruce saw potential in the young boy, he made him his second Robin. Jason was fueled by rage and revenge, which led to his painful death at the hands of the Joker, leaving Bruce distraught. After he was resurrected [because comics logic], he returned to Gotham as the masked vigilante Red Hood, where he takes an ultraviolent approach to dealing with Gotham’s criminals. Red Hood and the Dark Knight have butted heads ever since, debating on whose justice system is working for Gotham better.
If interested, read or watch the DC story arc: “Under the Red Hood”. It’s really good.
Taking a small break from the Robins to do some original content. It’ll be up in a couple of days.
Really happy with the shading I’ve done here. I’ve got 3 more Robins down the pipe.
Decided to throw in a little background to those who don’t know who this is and kind of care. If you don’t, meh, move on to the next thing in your newsfeed.
Tim Drake was Batman’s third Robin after Dick Grayson [the first Robin] became Nightwing and Jason Todd [the second Robin] died, resurrected and became Red Hood [because comics]. Blessed with a detectives mind that rivals Batman’s, Tim Drake earned the right to be Batman’s next Robin by persuading the stubborn Dark Knight into believing he needed a Robin after he couldn’t get over the death of his former protege. Tim eventually outgrew the mantle and became Red Robin and serves on Teen Titans.
Hope that was a fun read. Tim’s probably my least favorite Robin, but he’s still pretty neat.
Boy has it been an incredible past couple of weeks for DC Comics in the mainstream. Of course, there are always news when it comes to what’s new in the comic book world, but for everyone else, television and movies are often the only outlets to some of the comic book properties. 2014-2015 television shows are being picked up and their initial trailers are being released and movie news for 2016 and beyond. Among these, it appeared that NBC, CW, Fox, and Warner Bros got together and said, “the month of May is when we’re gonna release all the awesome DC-related news”. Of course they didn’t actually do that, but damn it, it sure looked that way. In today’s post, we’re gonna take a look at all the related news that was released that are DC Comics related.
Here’s a quick one-day sketch of Diana Prince who is also known as Wonder Woman. I’m a bit on a DC bend right now. Expect more DC heroes, particularly the Bat family. I got Batgirl in the works. Might go towards the 3 remaining Robins I haven’t done. Might go towards some villains. And of course the B-man himself. Any who, I’m still trying to find my ‘style’ so to speak, so expect some variations.
As for Black Carnival stuff, I’m not entirely sure where I want to go with it. With summer here, I have the time to return to a strip a week, but I’ve considered heavy rewrites and of course more concept art changes. When I have something more solid, I’ll update everyone.
Since starting my comic book collection nearly two years ago, I’ve been slowly building to this respectable size. Comic books can be a very personalized [and expensive] hobby, allowing individual readers to select and choose which stories to read in a pool of nearly infinite stories. In many ways, I like to think a comic book reader can be deeply characterized by their choices in their favorite comic books. After buying a range of comics from Batman to Fables to Y: The Last Man, I’ve learned that different stories are tailored to different peoples or even different moods. Violence lovers will enjoy Kick-Ass and Wanted, love story romantics will adore Saga, and EVERYONE will enjoy Batman stories.
Anyways, today’s post marks the beginning of summer’s make up posts for the first quarter of the year lacking updates and content. In today’s post, I share with you all my comic book collection as well as some things I’ve learned about being in the addictive comic book purchasing business. As usual, feel free to drop me recommendations and let me know what you guys think!
Finals week is here and it means that I’m very busy and very stressed. I can safely say that this is the last sh*tty semester of my college career, taking an awful 14 hours (which at Georgia Tech engineering = a sh*t ton). There’s no fluff here: senior design, polymer fibers, quantum chemistry, chemical safety, and process control. So now that I have 3/5 of the finals down, I decided to give myself a break and sit in a stiff chair for 2-3 hours and draw. My back hurts and I’m even more tired. I have a weird sense of taking a break.
This comic is about me ‘beating’ the first 3 finals and the last 2 taunting me as I struggle to the finish line. Wish me luck. I’m going in.
That being said: summer is right around the corner and that means more things Banana Scoop.
Jinx and Vi have a staring contest. But Jinx looks like she’s got the upper hand…
One of the more time consuming and experimental projects I’ve done. I learned two new techniques drawing this: the transparency lock tool to color my line art and the multiplication blending tool to shade/light my drawing.
Anyways, I’m very excited to continue drawing and practicing. I’m think of doing some serious Bat Family or Wonder Woman stuff…Or some Saga stuff…Or some more League stuff.
These are the best kinds of problems.
Hardware: Wacom Cintiq 13HD
Software: Manga Studio 5
Saga is currently one of my favorite comic books out there. Due to a lack of super original wallpapers for it, I decided to take it upon myself to draw one. I chose Lying Cat because she’s definitely one of my favorite characters from it so far. But truth be told I like all of them. Anyways, just wanted to share with you guys something I did so you knew I wasn’t completely gone.
Banana Scoop 