So last year was truly awful. Worst year of my life, and I'm not going to discuss the bad aspects of it any further than that. Instead, I'm going to grab at the positive stuff, so that I can officially put last year behind me, and move on.

This is all long, and irrelevant to you. Feel free to ignore it. I'm sorry I talk soooo much drivel on here, but this is the nearest thing I have to a diary (I've never been able to commit to a real diary for long).

Holidays :Me and my boyfriend went on our first real holiday together. We'd been out for weekends here and there in the past, but only to stay in B&B's while we frequented conventions. Last year, we went to Wales. Ok, so it's not overseas, but it's a start! At my pressing, we climbed the Great Orme, and in the most awkward way possible - a sort of zig-zaggy goat trail the was way too steep for me and Vogun, who both have a minor fear of heights XD Every now and then I had to stop and wait for the vertigo to pass, but we made it! He didn't think we could even get half way up there, so I'm pretty proud of myself for completing my self assigned challenge. We also went horse riding, visited a bunch of castles (I love ruined castles!) and other dorky stuff.

Dance that is Not Dance! : Last year was an art travesty. Drawing was a forced process, and it showed in the results. However, since I didn't draw much, I had to find something else to do. The drawing gap was filled with extreme amounts of... DDR! o_O I'm serious - hey, stop laughing at me u_u
But yah, I spend a lot of time on DDR now. It's good exercise, and can be fun. I was on 7-footers, but I stopped DDR before Christmas after a DDR induced injury *snickers* and have only just restarted playing it. I've found I'm back to struggling with six footers now. I'm buying myself a metal dance mat when I get a PS3, I think I've earned it.

Shoes : I've never really cared much about shoes. I've never understood what women are supposed to see in them. All my shoes have always been boyish, thick-soled, plain, black shoes (if not actual boys shoes >_>. In fact, despite being 25, I've worn the same pair of plain back shoes for over 10 years. That's right, only one pair of shoes since I was at high school!
But something in me snapped when I saw these : [link] which I now own, thanks to Christmas >XD True, I'm not obsessed with shoes, in the traditional manner of women and footware, but now I am starting to care. A little bit. I now have three *gasp* pairs of shoes, two of which have painfully massive platform heels. I doubt I'll be buying any more for a while, but still.

Nails :I have always, since as far back as I can remember, bitten my nails. They were disgusting. But I decided to stop biting them between October and November as a birthday present to my deceased grandparents. During their life, they always really wanted me to stop and I was never able. I managed my self imposed cease-bite, and continue it now =3

MMORPGS : Last year I played iRO, Flyff, Granado Espada and it's European equivalent, Sword of the New World. I didn't play any of them for particularly long.

-iRO, as you all know, I love unconditionally, but playing it makes me think of Fortuna, which hurts my heart, even after so long u_u I know, I'm insane, but I can't help it.

-Flyff is cute. That's it's only real appeal. The player base is mostly inane adolescents who think they are cool, the gameplay is basic and dull, and there is little for the RPer in me. However, it is adorable, and to my visually-orientated self, that was reason enough. I still play it from time to time. Infact, I've been playing it this week as I'm feeling ill which is making my art look crappier than usual and my patience short. Since I can't draw or DDR, I've seen a return to flyff.

-Granado Espada/SotNW is the most beautiful MMORPG I've ever played, and I'd recommend you try it just to look at it . Unfortunately it's mostly full of people afk levelling. I left GE due to the lack of understanding of the English language, and massive army of bots. Instead I moved to SotNW, but I forcibly left that after a prolonged period of Computer-Being-Dead. I may go back some day, but right now I'm trying to stay semi-mmorpg clean.

MMORPG's are like a drug. I become addicted, and everything else in my life falls apart while I obsess over them. That's why I'm currently playing Flyff every once in a blue moon, it's the least fun, least addictive and ergo it's easiest for me to quit and go do other things. I both long for and dread RO2 comming to our shores, I'm not sure I'll be able to resist it...

Christmas and Holly: I was very ill all though December, but that didn't stop me from going home to see my family, and attempt to fix the bonds that had been broken over the very stressful year.

It's been a long time since I had a family Christmas that didn't hurt me to the core. True, there was still a small amount of typical holiday hurt and stress, but on the whole, it was actually a nice Christmas!! Do you see that? Two exclamation marks! Punctuation abuse, and I don't care, it's worth it! I had a nice Christmas with my family!!

I put the oddly pleasant seasonal experience down to my big sister, and to my adorable niece, Holly, who I had no end of fun playing with! She's 3 now, and very much into the Disney Princesses^^ I also hit the sales at 5am with my sister, which was my first real 'January sales'. Worth the pain! I bought myself this really cool shirt from Next that makes me think of Vagary, and a bunch of other stuff. I also ran into an old mate from Hymers College! I must remember to ring her up some time.

Software : I can now tentativly add 3D modelling softwares Maya and Zbrush to my list of art tools. I'm a complete newbie to both of them, but I'm enjoying the learning process. Maya is unnatural to me and for the life of me, I can't find the ability or the patience to create UV's. I've started a few models, but never finished them. 3D is not my field >_>;; But I will persevere. Or try to. A bit. Until I tire of it. Maybe. <_<;

TV and Film :

-Lost : Is every bit as awesome as everyone else is making it out to be. Go watch it. All the characters are interestingly compelling, but my personal favourite is Sawyer. I can't wait till the next season, though I must admit, I did not enjoy the 'future' aspect with which the last season ended.
-Heroes : Is another 'hyped-up' show which, for a long time I avoided, but as it turns out, is also very good! Nathan Petrelli (mean businessmen who actually care for-the-win), his brother Peter (Who makes Godmoding look cool), and Ando and Hiro are my current favourites, but I like a lot of the characters. I've just started watching Season 2, so I'm not yet familiar with newer characters.
-Beowulf: Rocks. If it's still on at your local cinema, and you haven't see it, go now while you still can. You'll regret it if you download it. You see, I knew Beowulf was a digital 3D film, but what I did not know was it was a 3D 3D film. By which I mean you get goggles, like the kind you used to play with as a child that allow you to see some red/green drawing...things as... well, 3D.

The novelty of having everything pop out of the screen like that was an unexpected treat! 3D dragons reduce me to a state of child-like bliss! After coming out of the cinema, I was filled with the need to draw dragons.
The story itself is pretty simple, but none the less enjoyable. Even without the eye-popping 3D gimmickry, it was a good film, but it was the 3D that will make it stand out in my memory for all time. All films should be made like this.


Ghosts of Last Night :In more recent news, last night my partner was reading a particularly meaningful section of story to me, when at precisely midnight, an old musicbox of mine started playing on it's own without any cause. It's never done this before, and I got it when I was a tot! The experience was both chilling and heartwarming. A message from the afterlife, or just a strangely timed coincidence?

Urk, too long! Enough! I've typed way too much again >_>;;; Next Journal entry, I'm gonna add a list of old Fortuna friends to the footer I think. For now, I'll just add my Vogun.

Well, it's almost been exactly a year since I last posted. I seem to be making a habit of annual DA returns.
I was going to hold out a little longer until Feb 3 so as to make it precisely one year but what the heck.

My last journal entry was hyping about the still-in-the-making Dragonlance movie. On January 15th, it was released. Yesterday, I saw it. Today, I mull over my momentous disappointment.

Despite the vocal talents of Keifer Sutherland and Lucy Lawless, and the much loved storyline featured in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's best selling DragonLance novels, the film could at best be described as poor, the main reason being appalling animation.

Speaking in terms of style it looks like it was made in the late 80's. By Amateurs. Even then, the style remained inconsistent. ([link] )
Frequently the animation appears choppy, to the point we actually suspected our computer wasn't working correctly, but no, it turned out to just be the actual quality of the movie.

The film combines both 3D and 2D animation styles, but in a manner that fails to impress. The 3D draconians clash horribly with the 2D characters, and the after effects, such as fire, lens flairs and plastic-wrap are overused and appear unprofessional and cheap. If you do watch this DVD, I challenge you to a drinking game. Drink one for every lens flare and two if the lens flair appears in someones eye. You wont make it halfway through the film. Someone in the effects studio obviously thinks lens flairs are highly dramatic and cool.

As if the regular animation wasn't bad enough, they seem to have let the office junior loose on the animation process at some points, because every now and then, something utterly awful appears, like this: [link]


One good reason to watch this film is to laugh at it. I'm not kidding! There was this one point where the heros encounter a unicorn, so I should probably be filled with a sense of peace and hope? I should not, then, be literally doubled, shedding tears of laughter at the fact that one eye was vastly deformed and drawn at a very wrong angle, and that just about every time the heros spoke to the unicorn, the animators simply reused the same low-frame-rate, choppy animation by flipping it and hoping the view wouldn't notice.
So bad.


Oh, I'm not done ranting yet, there's still the acting to dissect. Not the vocal acting mind, that was for the most part good. I'm talking about the actions of the animated characters. Every time someone says 'you', it is accompanied by pointing at whomever the 'you' refers to. Example Raistlin: 'I see you're a knight now' *points at Sturm*.
Then there's the wonderfully expressive faces - often you will find yourself having to pause and rewind just to watch again and laugh at the Robot Chicken style expression animation in some of the less focal characters. But even the key shots often feature ribspittingly comical expressions. Try not to damage any internal organs while guffawing at the amusing head tosses and cape furling, it happens all too often. I particularly loved Tanis's 'because I'm worth it' shampoo endorsement style hair tossing when visiting the elves. Classic.

The story itself has been chopped and rearranged a bit, but I can forgive them that. I'm quite aware of the fact that they need to make changes in order to fit things into a movie length and format. I was more than a little disappointed with the alterations made to the Xak Tsaroth/Onyx portion of the movie, but I wasn't surprised. Apparently, Tracey Hickman argued with the screenwriter about including the whole of the first book in the movie, prefering to do just one segmant. Personally, I think Hickmen was right.

In short, there are two reasons to watch this move: 1) You're a die hard DragonLance fan, and you're not going to be offended by the poor production values.
or 2) You enjoy laughing at bad movies.

If you fit into category 1, well, I for one still managed to enjoy it, despite everything I've said. I suspect my enjoyment stems purely from my love of the novels when I was about 12 years old. Dragonlance was the first literacy trilogy I ever purchased with my own money as my own choice, and as such it holds a special, untouchable place in my fanbase-heart. If you can't look past the glaring flaws, then 'Dragonlance - Dragons Of The Autumn Twilight' will only disappoint you fans who have high expectations.

If you fit into category 2, then you'll just love this movie > My boyfriend hasn't read any of the DragonLance novels, but the production values had him laughing almsot as hard as when we watched Hot Fuzz!

If they release a sequel, I'll be buying it because I actually fall into both categories, and with luck, the preduction team will learn from these past mistakes.

Urk, I talk too much! But then DragonLance is an improtant topic to me, so the movie was something of a big deal. I have plenty of other things I would like to talk about, but I'll save it for my next journal update. Until then, I'll be gradually uploading some of the artwork I've produced during my yearlong DA absence ^^

To my friends, I extend my appologies, I make a hopeless friend. I will not be catching up with my emails and such just yet, nor will I be on MSN for a few days. I intend to catch up with my overly delayed commissions, before I sheepishly knock on a few long dusty doors of buddies to see if I'm still welcome.

For all of you who arn't familair with the Dragonlance Novels, you're missing out! For everyone else... YES! It looks like it's finally going to happen! There have been rumours and 'umm's and 'ahhhh's in the past, but this time it looks like they're actually going to go all the way through with it! That's right people, they're making a Dragonlance movie! And animated too, which came as a surprise.

All you anime fans out there can just deflate, it's not anime style u_u But still, I'm very excited about the result!

Okay, I know I'm behind on my DL news; I don't subscribe to any Dragonlance mailing lists or frequent any fan-clubs, I'm just an ordinary fan of the books. If this is old news to everyone else, my appologies, but regardless, I think I'm going to use this Journal entry to hype and generally express my glee

Phew! Glad I finally got that out of my system, my other half, Minh, hasn't read the books yet so doesn't share my enthusiam. Where would I be without DA, hmm?

Ahh, suddenly I'm filled with the urge to draw Dragonlance fanart! I haven't drawn anything DL related in years! I think what caused me to stop back then, was it felt like I was insulting the characters with my dire skills, but I've grown artistically over the years! Perhaps if I can just take my eyes off of fRO for a few days I'll be able to create something more worthy! ... but then... is it possible for me to step away from fRO? I recently bought Suikoden 5, but I can't pull away from fRO or fRO fanart to play it


Moving on!
Leaving DA for a year is a bad, bad idea. Sooooo much to sort out - my messages are a mess! I'm gradually sorting through all my notes. Sorry to everyone who's dev-watched me and had nothing for a year and are suddenly getting flooded^.^;; And sorry to everyone who awaits a response to something^.^;; I'm getting there!


And in other news:
Oh, I am working on an awesome picture right now! >XD What? I'm allowed to have an ego sometimes too you know! Ahhh, but I still have a lot of old art to upload! Guess I'd better get uploading!


Dr Pepper makes me hyper and happy! I sware, since I started drinking it, my art output has doubled! It must just be a fluke!

Bleach. What on earth are they doing? I'm currently watching what I presume is the end-side of Bounto arc and... my gods, what's wrong with them? The animation quality has plumetted, they insult the viewers by explaining everything; usually whilst in the middle of a battle, and the villain stands there and lets them explain <_< Everything, and I mean everything, has to be 'badass', thus lowering the value of said 'badass'ness. Honestly, this is going the way of Naruto.... Please, please, please, don't let Bleach suck! I love that anime, don't make it suck u_u :sob:

Firstly a message to the person who tried to commission me to do a series of piccis for a video for Boots Chemists, email me back please! I recently accidently deleted all my emails, and I can't remember the address to reply to!

Anyway, moving on!
Evidently I'm doing a poor job of returning to DA, looking at my last couple of Journal entries;
But kindly offered to buy me a subscription, and although I didn't have the heart to say yes, it motivated me into re-subscribing for three months.

I've drawn a lot since you last saw me, and I'm going to start gradually uploading it all this week. It's nearly all RO fanart though Actually, a lot of it is just lineart, so I probaly wont upload it those. Maybe I'll give them a lick of colour later ^_^

Despite my fRO love, I'm a bit mad at my server right now after I descovered something last night =/ I wont go into it because no one likes to hear a rant, and also I'm just being petty <_<;;;; But the plus side is I'm drawing more since I'm playing less. I'm working on a great picci of dark priest Belial right now XD


And before I run off and start uploading.... where the heck has 'Scraps' gone? All these changes to DA! T_T