In the course of 26 hours, we made $660+ in order to fly popular bay area UMVC3 player Chrisis out to EVO in Las Vegas next month.

More money than I'll ever make with art; lol

=====================

Some highlights:

Chrisis shakes his head at the realization that IdolM@ster is sending him to Las Vegas:

[link]

Me and Worf Jostar play VF5 with GcYoshi:

Part 1: [link]

Part 2: [link]

(about 1 minute into part 2, people get a hold of the box from the Naughty Edition of Agarest War)

So, I've been playing Yakuza: Dead Souls for the last couple of days; it's pretty good and I didn't expect the game to be as fun as it was.

Here's like 8 hours of me playing the thing:

[link]

[link]

I guess the only issue I could really think about is that a lot of the content from part 4 (such as the mini-games and hostess club stuff) feels fairly recycled... but then the core game is pretty much revamped since it involves a lot of shooting and upgradable weapons now.

If I had a choice between only this and Lollipop Chainsaw, this is probably the more prudent purchase.

That said, running another 6 hour stream today; feel free to tag along and watch me hit up hostess bars or play darts in the middle of the zombie apocalypse:

[link]

(though, I may switch to Atelier Meruru in a few hours since I need to actually finish that game... but am considering starting over from Atelier Rorona again given that I bought some of the recent DLC and want to run the game back using Hanna)

Streaming the end of Lollipop Chainsaw; feel free to join in:

[link]

...

Yeah, this is what I've been doing for the last 2 weeks.

Streaming Virtua Fighter 5 training mode right now, at least until someone comes in and suggests a PS3 or Wii game:

[link]

[link]

SWAG SWAG SWAG SWAG

Went to Maury and he said that baby ain't mine.

Just for lying, I threw that dumb skank on a mine.

Now that kid is an orphan.

And I'm the best.

The best part about Accounting so far is that I read the book and shit makes sense.

THANK GOD.

Masayuki Kojima is an interesting director mainly because I think he's had the severe misfortune of being overshadowed by the works he has adapted into animation... but when you're regularly adapting stuff that was quite brilliant to begin with, it's not hard to overlook the idea that there was actually a maestro there who did more than just make the pictures from the original manga move. With Tibetan Dog, I think the world finally has a chance to see the man's vision as a director (or, in my opinion, make it easier for people to notice what they probably didn't before while watching his work: dude knows how to make good movies).

Tibetan Dog is the story of a young boy named Jiantan who has to move from the city to the country after the death of his mother in order to live with his estranged father. In his struggle to adjust to his new life away from the city, Jiantan eventually befriends a golden Mastiff.

Essentially, the movie is the story of a boy and his dog.

The creatures in question are rather majestically portrayed in the movie, I felt. Despite the animal's large stature, Kojima has his Mastiffs move with effortless grace, which becomes very apparent in the skillfully choreographed fight sequences (a mainstay of Kojima's work, actually). I also found it interesting how expressive the animals were, despite the fact that they didn't really have any dialog: you'd swear that the dogs were people.

Overall, it's a very good family movie that's very much worth seeing.

(funny that I call it a family movie given how raw some of the stuff Kojima portrays is: among many other things, there's this one sequence where the local boys come by Jiantan's place to bully him and I was taken aback by how real it was)

If anything, movie is worth watching because of these guys:

[link]

YOU KNOW YOU WANNA.

Currently cracked out.

Uh, yeah, so after some tips from , I think I have a better idea about what I wanna do...

Anyway, this is something that sort of needs to happen since I need to raise money for Accounting books next semester given how disastrous my current financial situation is.

(I'm borrowing money from my Tae Kwon Do Master in order to pay for this semester's books since financial aid is so brilliant that they give you the money you need for books AFTER the semester starts)

The only thing kinda set in stone right now is the idea that I'm primarily gonna limit this to original characters since I wouldn't feel comfortable making money off of other people's copyrights.

ANYWAY, I dunno...

My erratic appearances on DA aren't helping, but I'd at least like to see if there's any kind of interest in this.

Assuming people haven't forgotten who I was; lawlz.

(but, seriously, if I was working for pay, I would get shit done fast... that kinda happens when there's money on the line)

I BLAME JRPGS.

Just beat Kurt on Chaos difficulty and it was a load of bullshit.

GOD DAMN.

Got my student loan shit for accounting school out of the way; I now sort of have peace of mind and can come back to working (like for real this time).

Also, here's a video of me getting bodied in top 8 for Virtua Fighter at 2012 Norcal Regionals:

[link]

I am at the height of irresponsibility now.

I left law school to work on shit, but I'm not...

Working on shit.

Lawlz.

ANYWAY, yes... I've settled on a team (Xiaoyu/Hwoarang) and training mode should die down a little over the next 1 or 2 weeks given that I've practically learned how to play almost all of the Tekken cast.

(it also helps that I'm learning somewhat fast: I pretty much took a day each to learn Law and Hwoarang... I also know how to use Hugo, apparently)

I now sort of remember why I stopped playing Fighting Games so seriously, but I can't help that this one turned out so good.

SO MUCH FUCKING TECHNOLOGY. EVERYWHERE.

Because now I spend my time making combo videos:

[link]

[link]

[link]

[link]

God damn it.

Disregarding the issue with DLC (lol, it's on the disc), it's a great game, I think.

========

Just got back from San Francisco and played a lot of Street Fighter X Tekken at this week's Freedemonia meet.

The story here is that my friends have had access to a beta version of the game (Bison/Dictator is noticeably missing from the build of the game that I played) for the last month and I only got around to playing it now.

I REALLY REALLY like the game... I knew the videos of tournament play made it look cool, but actually playing it was a lot of fun.

The closest description I can make of the game is that it feels like it plays a lot like Darkstalkers or Vampire Savior or whatever the hell it is that I played a couple of months ago.

It moves faster than Street Fighter 4 and plays about as fun as King of Fighter XIII does, but without the stupid level of execution (funny that I'm saying this given that I'll be playing Virtua Fighter 5 in a few months and I'll probably be spending a lot of time in the lab with that one... to the very least, I'll be somewhat comfortable with it given that the game doesn't involve meter management, which I almost always hate doing in fighting games).

I mostly used Ryu during my time with the game because I was too lazy to try and learn new characters.

The general system is that the game primarily uses chains, meaning that I can just mash 3 or 4 buttons in a magic series and the combo will come out, as opposed to link timing in SF4 where you have to push the right buttons with tight timing... this is probably why the game feels a lot faster to me since I can just do a jump in (on that note: it feels like anything that has a hitbox that is below the character's waist will crossup; hitbox on Ryu's j. mk feels HUGE) and then just mash magic series out if I see the thing hit with minimal the probability of dropping the combo.

(note that I think magic series in general felt unsafe and the best way to maintain pressure if the opponent is blocking is to use individual attacks to fish for a hit)

I don't really know how cancelling into special attacks work, but I think after you start a magic series, you can only cancel into a special attack by doing the EX version of the move and using meter.

(with regards to cancelling a non-magic series attack into regular special moves, they for some reason allow Ryu to do something silly like cancelling his sweep into hadouken... I can't seem to do the same with Ken, however)

On the bright side, if you have enough meter (2), you can actually cancel magic series into a character's super/ultra move or whatever.

If you end a magic series with one of the Fierce buttons (ex: cr. lk, mp, hp, hp), you'll perform a character tag which brings the other character on your team into the game and they can continue the combo (note that the tag attack is very unsafe on block; you have forever to punish it).

I have no idea to what extent I can continue the juggle, but I can do stuff like cr. mp xx Flashkick with Guile or lp, lp xx EX lightning legs with Chun-li in order to end the tag combo.

I can also do stuff like lp, mp xx super move with most characters (like Ryu's Metsu Hadouken or Guile's Sonic Hurricane... thing drops if I try to do it with Chun-li).

I don't know if it is possible to continue the juggle to the extent where you tag back into the original character... I may or may not have seen someone do this in one of the tournament videos, but I can't remember.

The round ends either via timeout or if one of the members of your team runs out of health... so, when you're taking a beating there is an incentive to tag out to the other character, but getting them out is interesting given that a raw-tag is extremely punihhsable (assuming your opponent doesn't derp out).

The options for getting people out is via raw tag, using the tag attack or executing a reversal (like shoryuken) and then then mashing tag (I can't remember whether or not this cost meter, but having the opponent block the SRK seems to give enough time for you to get your partner out safely... on the other hand, it's possible to get a happy birthday in this game and tag both characters with a combo, so I'm not sure if this is actually a good idea).

And... I think that's all I really need to talk about for now.

Game is really good and I'm probably gonna get rid of Soul Caliber 5 in order to get this (as we pretty much came to the conclusion that SC5 is kinda stupid in a hilarious way (wakeup ultra in this game is AMAZING)... also, no one has even unlocked all the characters, which I found funny).

Very hard...

Must grind social links in P3.

Got a PS VITA... playing it...

Primary advise to interested parties is to wait for a price-drop since it's not really worth it, unless you never owned a PSP and have always been interested in one...

Thing lets you use PSN points to go get PSN games, which is what I'm primarily playing right now since Shinobido is kinda ass.

That said, Corpse Party is strangely erotic; is this what torture porn feels like?

I should get back to drawing tomorrow, maybe...

Might need it for comic later; I get away with it now since the newspaper in Theresa was an international publication, but I may need Italian in the production at some point.

You will be credited yo.

(but, yes, will check with watchers first before I go branch out elsewhere)

[link]

I would like US TV more if all commercials were as clever.

(gender roles is another issue for another day... I'm just saying it's a clever fucking commercial)

I think I'm at a point where I've attended too many fucking funerals in my life.

It's also pretty depressing when you show up and you don't actually know anyone other than the deceased.

That said:

-FFXIII-2 is more of the same... I like it, but I'm just saying... also, the game runs at like 10 FPS or something; this wasn't in the old game maybe because the cutscenes weren't actually rendered in real time (as in they had cutscenes using the game's graphics engine, but then spruced up in order to run smoothly)... but this is only what I hear

-I can't figure out how to play Soul Caliber V unless 8wayrun.com comes up with a system guide... ironically, it seems like SRK might be ahead in terms of organized info

-I wasted $40 playing Tekken 5 in the arcades; only dude I did play was hella free

-Larry Clark's Bully is an amazing movie; his photography has apparently inspired filmmakers like Gus Van Sant and Martin Scorsese: [link]

-I also watched a bunch of TV while I was stuck in the hotel room:

Law and Order (original one... what I've seen of SVU is kinda ass since they tack on a bunch of other shit that makes the thing less good) is really good, but suffers from inconsistent direction (symptom of being a TV series, I guess)

The Closer, which I thought would be ass, was actually pretty amusing; I like the two middle-aged detective dudes who seem to get into a lot of trouble

House is really good

-Also saw movies:

Murder at 1600 seemed like it was based on an interesting premise (FBI and DC detectives getting into a heated battle over jurisdiction of a murder case in the White House), but turns to shit when it tries to emulate an action movie

LA Confidential is as good as I remember it being... did not actually finish, but re-watched my Blu-Ray of the movie when I got home

In particular, I learned a lot from the extra on the BD that had Curtis Hanson recreating his photo pitch that he used to convince producers to fund the movie; he's very elaborate about things like what kind of imagery he was aiming for: he didn't want to simply make a "neo-noir" movie... he wanted to recreate 1950s LA in a way where everything was very modern looking; could explain why everything looked so shiny and new, despite being a period piece.

====

Okay, only thing I need to get outta the way now is my application to school and then I can get back to work on the comic (still correcting the most recent page)

[link]

A part fo me really wonders where the hell I got the drive to make something like that...

Like, the art is hella fraudulent now and I hate looking at it, but I can't help but feel like a lot of the scripting and staging is still pretty sharp (as in these would be the storyboards that I would pass off to people who actually knew how to draw).

I may actually be more suited to being a screenwriter or something than someone who actually draws shit.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

[link]
[link]

I like this sequence because Meilin just shows up at home after a long day out... she's so far up in the clouds that she forgets to use her key and, amusingly, the entire scene is rounded out when Syaoran finally asks what the hell happened to her face.

I essentially carried the joke incognito for like two pages (notice how you never actually see Meilin's face).

[link]
[link]

Then when we see Meilin again, several pages later, there's just this huge fucking bruise on her face (after a random introduction by Naoko who asks what Syaoran asked like several pages ago).

I don't wanna toot my own horn, but carrying that shit over a bunch of pages required a lot of patience; I had to PLAN that nigga: everything from how to conceal it, to how I would eventually reveal it.

[link]

Finally, aside from carrying the joke forward, I put a few little hints in there about Meilin's background as a student... don't know how far people would've read in to it, but I thought the implication that she was known to get into fights on a regular basis was an interesting one in that maybe she had a history of delinquency that developed between the end of the TV series and when my comic was set.

[link]

I liked this one too since, if people remembered the TV series, Syaoran NEVER ate Meilin's stuff willingly... this contrast amused me because, at the end of the day, maybe Syaoran was just a dick.

[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

I liked these pages since shit was just intense and intimate; the art was hella fraudulent (with the exception of the odd surprisingly good drawing that would show up every dozen of panels or so), but how I framed things was pretty cool.

[link]

And then this shit was just SMOOTH; FUCK.

[link]

Another thing about the script was that... I was just trying to point out how the fundamental relationship between the two characters changed when they "hooked up"... like, shit they did without much thought before just wouldn't be the same anymore...

And it gets even more complicated when you realize that you have all that stuff ON TOP of the fact that it's a homosexual relationship (people of the same sex sleeping over is usually like whatever... but when you have a boy and a girl, it becomes unacceptable... Tomoyo and Meilin are both girls, but they're in a relationship... what's going on here?).

Like... I wanted people to just REALLY think about a lot of the dialog in this thing, but then I also took into consideration the fact that it should be seamlessly melded into a conversational style of writing; I was asking the viewers questions, but I didn't want them to know that I was actually asking it (LOLWUT).

======

Anyway, yeah... despite being a shitty fan comic, it was actually pretty high-ambition and a lot of thought went into everything; I put my knowledge and fondness of the series on display, but then injected some storytelling stuff that I was always interested in doing to the extent that I knowingly deviated from the series hard in a lot of places (the smoking, the sex, the bathroom antics... you'd never see shit like that in most anime, much less the world of CCS).

I didn't mind the deviation, but the problem was that it all got to the point where I began to regret the fact that I based a lot of my ideas off of CCS, which explains why I came up with Gumamela, which was essentially the same story as what I laid down here, but then told with original characters and an original setting...

That project didn't quite work out because, in the end, I was beginning to feel the weight of the subject matter: here I was, some random-ass motherfucker with no art or film training, and I was trying to make stuff like Y Tu Mama Tambien... when filmmakers like Alfonso Cuaron already made the fucking movie very competently.

Shit was too heavy for me and I felt like I wasn't ready as a storyteller to do shit like that.

Anyway, there was a lot of stagnation after this one and I never quite got as far with any other project I touched... shit was like a fucking curse.

So... here we are again at the dawn of a new project [Theresa] and I'm a little scared that it won't work out (especially now that the stakes are higher: I actually left law school in order to draw this thing).

I'm gonna try my best: I have a lot of great sequences planned out in my head (we just got to one, but I need to fix that page and make it better) and I'd love nothing more than to show all of them to the world... get you guys entertained, get you guys thinking.

But I'm not sure how far my stamina will take me this time around.

I guess we'll just see what happens...

And accounting grad school should prospectively be starting in the summer (ironically, I'm ending up in the same building as the law school).

Lawlz.

That said, I think it's gonna be okay now; I was always good with numbers, plus I'll still have enough time to draw (or game... OR BOTH!).

I'm actually looking forward to it, as opposed to dreading the start of every week like I did in law school.

It's gonna be okay...

Also, all comic sans has now been purged from the comic... and, on top of several stealth corrections, the full resolution versions of the comic are now made available; feel free to download and do whatever.

THAT SAID, can someone explain Tumblr to me?

Is it like blogger.com or something?

I'm too lazy to read through the site, but can people give me impressions?