Anyone have any Tamaki Nami (Nami Tamaki, whatever lol) music I can leech? O.O I only have her Greeting album and am in a Nami mood at the moment. D:


As for other stoof... I have a word for all the Avatar art I keep seeing. I love it all. I really honestly do! I'm in a group and seeing all the fans contributing to it is pretty awesome. xD I just... have one thing to say. Photomanipulations are fun and all... but if all you're doing is making your face blue and giving yourself yellow eyes it's not a Na'vi. >_>; I thought the few manips I saw at first were pretty cool, and yes some of them ARE done well. Some considered the fact the Na'vi have different facial structure and ear placement than humans and tried to include this in their manips. But I'm sorry, just givin yourself a blue face isn't Na'vi. XD

I wasn't planning on making my Na'vi based off myself but I might draw one just for the hell of it. I feel it'll be pretty easy since I am used to making fursonas that actually LOOK like the person, instead of some perfectly shaped flawless face/body. I may not like some things about my face but lol... I'm not afraid to add it in there because it's actually part of why I feel I look like my fursona's animal (gazelle). It was actually my friend's idea though at first. XD I wanted to be a cat like ten billion other anthro artists but I'm happy with bein a gazelle. Fits me more.

Anyway I'm rambling.

I hope I don't offend anyone with the whole photomanip complaint. It's just gotten old to me. I admire more the drawn artwork people have done than manipulations cuz I'm just biased that way I guess. I've always liked drawn art more than photomanipulation and that includes any type of manipulation. Not just the Na'vi thing. Sometimes though, I've found manips that I've really liked. It's just rare.

SO yeah... that's all for my rambling today. Please don't hate me! D:

Not feelin the artistic flow lately DX

But I've worked out a commission schedule none the less. I plan to work pretty much like a normal work week, mon-fri. So if anything I'll be tryin to get my artistic flow back best I can today. Wish me luck. X3

Anyone have good links to scans from the Avatar art book or anything? XD I wanna make a character but I wanna be sure to do it accurately! I know... I'm too picky I guess. xD I just have always wanted to be sure that if I'm gonna create something within someone else's universe I wanna do it right. So if anyone has linkage I'd appreciate it very much!

Other than that...

Been looking up Egyptian references all day on the net, as well as researching some rainforest tribes. Along the way it really enlightened me about them... I virtually knew very very little about them before but reading what I did really opened my eyes to what their lives are like. And about their misfortunes... But yeah. Was very neat looking into the cultures. So I am gonna be starting some prelim sketches for the new Swyft Claw race. they'll still look pretty much the same, just some minor changes. I'm gonna have a lot of fun experimenting with this combination, I'm excited. XD

Gonna start on Zylphia's race next I think, then Sachiel's. Will probably add some others not long after but I don't plan on having any more than maybe... 10 or so races altogether. Maybe less, not sure.

Well anyway, I'm having fun. ^^

Also I'll be getting on top of commissions soon once I get a few of my other art programs installed and maybe a few other things as I remember what I need lol...

You know... I wasn't sure what to think of this film but after seeing it once in 3D I absolutely loved it. It is sooo inspiring. I think once I have the money again, I am going to work on buying some of the books. I really didn't like the way the Na'vi looked at first, when I saw pictures but, seeing them in action is an entirely different experience. I saw the movie a few days ago and I wanted to see it so badly again that I downloaded a bootleg lol... It totally didn't do it justice AT ALL, but the essence of the film was there, and I still got the same tear jerking experience lol. I'm such a sap. It's amazing that we can feel so connected to characters that don't even exist right? Well anyway...

It really is something. I want to see it in IMAX at some point, but I don't know if I'll be able to afford to. I'd be happy enough just seeing it in a normal theater even without 3D.

While I imagined Masurao's race having similar tribal roots and connection with nature and stuff like that I never imagined it quite like Avatar. I had wanted to take his race and his story through a similar connection with spirits and rich cultural history. Mine however was going to sort of be a blend between Egyptian in a sort of rainforest location. Hence my constant use of the Ankh symbol. Which would have an even deeper meaning but... yeah.

Avatar really has inspired me to dive into my own story again and build it from the bottom up. Many would know that my Swyft Claw race started out sort of tribal and many of them will still remain there. But there are vast cities, technology rose, and with it some of his people left their tribes to go to the cities. Masurao was one of those and all who leave are more or less outcast from the tribe forever. Returning would mean death.

Of course eventually he'll have to return there in my story during a time of desperation. Blah blah blah...

I had it all in my head for so long... and after watching Avatar, it really just makes me wanna sit down and type out what I have in mind kinda like what I did here lol. Only in more detail... and draw my original ideas I had floating in my mind years ago. Augh...

While I love the Avatar universe or world... whatever you wanna call it... when I see something so inspiring it doesn't really make me wanna draw fanart. XD I mean I would love to make a Na'vi character at some point but... what I really have a passion for is my own story.

I can't believe I was so worried about being accused of copying Avatar... lol. Even though some of my ideas I've had forever are sort of similar... I'm not at all copying. If anything, I just find it so inspiring to see someone create a story and a world with characters that are sort of humanoid or even could be considered anthro in a way. To see it become so popular and so loved by soooo many people, myself included really is inspiring.

I know there have been a few people that did not like the movie. And yes it did have a typical plot but even so... I felt so immersed in it as I'm sure a lot of people did, that that just didn't even matter. You felt for the characters in their situations. And their culture was interesting. I don't know. I think it was pretty amazing.

And when I see that... I think, "I want to make something like that, something that would really capture people". And even go beyond it! I always imagined Souls Destined as a very complex storyline involving a few characters but their world is so vast, and the situations complicated, that it would make the reader feel very immersed. And that's what I really would want. Something people could relate to or feel for the characters involved.

I actually had been considering redoing SD entirely, and making all of the characters human. Because I realized that all the movies and stories that really capture me, are those that involve a world that is tangible to us. Something that COULD exist, something involving the human world blended with something fantasy. To name a few uh... something like The Matrix, Tomb Raider, Gargoyles... and yes Avatar etc. But I will keep them all like they are. I don't know if I'll write SD to involve humans at all but maybe when I decide to begin something else I will. Besides, as much as I love Masurao's human form, I just think his Swyft Claw form is more fitting. I still love his feets too much.

But yes. I feel so inspired lately. I really have to see Avatar in the theaters again. I'd see it so many times over if I could afford it. It's just one of those rare movies that is absolutely worth the $11 or $13 whatever to see it. Absolutely. And I rarely go to the movies lol. I think the last movie I saw before Avatar in theaters was the 2nd Transformers movie lol. And that must've been a year ago or something now.

Well I gotta continue installing stuff on my comp now. I have Photoshop up and that's it lol... unfortunately some of my art files were copied badly to my external HD... but it doesn't look like anything important was lost. Only bad files I think must've been some art I'd saved from the net and stuff. So hopefully everything should be fine with commissions and original art I've done. :crosses fingers: I haven't checked all the files yet though.

Well even though I had my laptop the whole time I was gone at Colorado I only used it for a few days before it was overtaken by a trojan, and no amount of virus protection helped me because in the end, whatever it was, got into my drivers and WINDOWS files which are the most important ones... and pretty much disabled my use of anything on the computer including the operating system itself... -_-;;

The only way I could save anything was by running it in safe mode which thank god, allowed me to salvage the important stuff like commissions and what not, once I got home. So anyway... for most of my time away I was without internet or computer access lol. And I didn't really care enough to bother my parents to let me use their computer. So yeah. I might as well have not brought the laptop at all. xD

And I deserved the virus anyway... I was trying to find a subtitled version of a movie for my step mom since she is hard of hearing... and once I tried playing said movie (which I'd torrented) it said I needed to update my drivers, which took me to a phony microsoft website and I knew better than to just go clicking random links on a fake site... buut I wasn't thinking. Soooo yeah that pretty much screwed up everything lol.

Thankfully I know enough about computers not to freak out completely... And I wasn't about to pay some guy $75 to look at my computer only to tell me exactly what I already knew.

So...

Yeah. All of today I'm basically fixing my computer by reformatting it and reinstalling EVERYTHING all over again... So it may be a while before I do much of anything...

I'm so dumb sometimes lol... But I deserved it and I knew exactly how it happened. I still feel incredibly stupid for falling for something so... obvious. But oh well.

Compy is all better now. :hugs it:


As for other things, I finally saw Avatar while I was in Colorado. Beautiful movie! I could watch it a hundred times and not get bored with it. xD I am soooo so buying it once it is out on DVD! Other than the movies... my Christmas turned out pretty enjoyable. No drama, thank god. So I'm in pretty good spirits lately. I'm just annoyed that I had to reformat my computer and everything. lol... oh well.