Courage

The Tank Man, made famous by standing his ground against a line of tanks during the Tianamen Square Massacre in 1989. The moment I stumbled upon this clip I knew I would post it. Yes, it has nothing to do with Christmas but I hope it encourages you to be bold for the next year. If he can take a stand against a tank and, with that, the entire Chinese government, then you can take a stand for yourself too.

Merry Christmas!

Miscellanious things: Featuring the work of Apricot

troupe by *apricot8585 on deviantART
NOTE: Edited to put art in the post. Show don't tell and all, you know?

APRICOT - There are many manga artists on DA and most of them, honestly, are not very good. The ones who are good, however, are often great. However, Japanese artist Apricot (listed as Apricot8585) stands out because her work has a decidedly unique and fresh look about it. While the manga look is obvious, it does not take a well trained eye to see that her work is significantly different from that of other manga and anime influenced artists. For one, she has an obsession with the color red. Almost every piece she makes is thick with cherry red color. However, what is truly significant in her work is the influence of the forefather of manga style, Ukiyo-e, the woodblock prints known as the pictures from a floating world. Her mix of classical Japanese art, along with occasional shots of Euro-American Art Noveau influences, makes her work feel fresh and sharp. Apricot seems almost dangerous because she is doing things that other manga stylists aren't. It's as if she's breaking the rules with her work and that's why she's exciting. She's making manga style works that reach the level of high art by embracing her influences instead of mocking or criticizing them. Apricot also stands out because she's one of the few Japanese artists on an English language website. Her English is getting better all the time and I hope it gets good enough that she can realize her dream of publishing English language manga.

Read an excellent interview with her on The Anime Blog and see her work on Deviant Art.

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Christmas is fast approaching and I've got most all of my holiday shopping done. There's only one present to go and I don't know what it will be but I have some ideas.

Writing wise I feel like I might be figuring out what I need to do but I worry I might be dawdling over something that I needn't worry about. There's a new character in my head born out of my examinations of past story concepts and finding that the same elements creep in over and over again. I don't want to be redundant but I know there are things that fascinate me and those are things I want to explore. Hopefully I'll find leeway to explore them in different ways. Werewolves, for instance, always interest me but I'd like to create and explore different concepts and realities for them rather than create one universe for them and only explore them that way.

I started more than I finished today--okay, I started three or four different pieces and finished nothing--but I still feel like I was actually productive. One piece was something that's been rattling in my head now for a while: a short comic spoof of J-RPGs like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. I also wrote a wandering piece on why I don't like Superman and why the idea of writing a Supes book fascinates me anyway but it's gonna need some work. I'm also working on that new character. All I can say is that he's the result of my worries of redundancy in that I decided to put a lot of the concepts that always come into my story worlds into him and his new world. I think it will be interesting but I'm also worried it may feel too weird. I did some searches today for help with character development and found a character sketch template to work with. It's helpful but I think it's high time that I created one of my own to use.

Most of today was spend puttering around Deviant Art and here's where things get tricky. Because I have a profile there now (which you've probably already know about) I'm seriously considering removing my semi-anonymous status from this blog. I think I've learned my lessons and am careful enough now to not go around publishing things that I wouldn't want people seeing. However, I'm pretty private so I worry about people getting the wrong impression of me, even though I also worry about the opinions of others way too much--geez, I sound emo. I'm 26! That's too old for emo! Anyway, I hope you liked my feature on Apricot. I'll do more of these in the future so look forward to them!

Bob Welch featuring Stevie Nicks - Ebony Eyes

When I first heard this song I thought it was the perfect theme song for one of my movie ideas. The lyrics don't quite match the idea but the exuberance of the music and that late seventies, early eighties sound captures everything I'm going for. The song would go well with an animated adventure along the lines of Heavy Metal or Rock and Rule (A nearly lost classic I happen to own on a legitimate two-disc DVD set. I'll tell you all about it someday. -B)

The footage itself comes from a concert called Cal Jam II. It was huge but, as you may have surmised, it wasn't Woodstock.