So I just went and saw 'Up' with my parents, since they both took the day off.

( Spoilers and thoughts! )

The bottom line: GO SEE THIS MOVIE. I'm gonna go see it again at the El Capitan with friends, easy. I've been having a really crappy week and seeing this movie just helped get out a good chunk of the tears and make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Last night my mom and I both needed a fluff break, so we went to go see 'Night at the Museum'. Or the sequel NATM, rather. It was cute, it was fluffy, but it the first movie was much better. Whereas NATM had a neat idea with a steady, coherent plot, the Battle for the Smithsonian was basically:

HEY KIDS GO VISIT THE MUSEUM + lol history crossover jokes + neat museum tricks + Ben Stiller in: Meet The Parents Part 3466 + lololol tacked-on Ben Stiller/Amelia Earhart romance = MOVIE, only this was a salad where any one of these would happen at any given point in the movie quite suddenly.

I mean, the movie was cute Amy Adams was adorable as Amelia, which is why they probably put her in so much stuff, and Hank Azaria was great, which is why they probably put him in even more, but it could've been a lot more cohesive.

Tomorrow I plan to go to the LA Zoo and spend my all-day drawing day there. I would go to the San Diego zoo, but that means I'd have to be getting up at 5 AM to get there and that's not an appealing thought when traveling alone. So, I'll try the closer one. Hopefully I'll get some good sketches and such. I really do love the zoo.

Also going to a play on Thursday evening with ghettopeach. I um...forgot what it was. But I have tickets so I'm going. Also, ghettopeach: I need to ask you what your schedule is like for late June?

Friday morning I am completely intending to go see 'Up,' because aaaah I've sooo been looking forward to this movie. I think I definitely need me some Pixar sweetness, too. Probably no one will go with me since it's in the morning, but I want to see it ASAP and I'm working that evening. Unless anyone is free for movies Friday morning?

Oooootherwise I've been trying to level my Pokemon team for the Elite Four in Platinum. This is proving to be rather time-consuming. 8|

Drawing: Stuff...

Writing: Tags

Photoshop: obtained!
Tablet driver: updated!
Scanner: obtained!

The scanner doesn't have a lot of the same settings as my old one, such as the ability to scan bitmap (as far as I can see) so I'm going to have to get used to some new processes. But it's still good to be able to draw and paint on the comp again.

Because of this, after a three-week wait, there's finally a new Lunargyros update right here. Let's see if I can actually stay on track...

Last night I went with cool dudes Rei, Em, Jess and Neko to go see Star Trek!

( Very mild spoilers )

So yeah. Lots of fun watching this movie! I'd definitely recommend it, whether or not you're a Trekkie.

Drawing: Back at LG pages, plus I'm doing more of that Calnavory painting.

Writing: Tags tags tags

So yesterday yamikonumber7 and I took a quick trip over to see Monsters Vs. Aliens! I'd been looking forward to this flick for awhile.

( Spoilers under the cut )

Drawing: Worked some more on Calnavory redoings today. Holy cow, I am LOVING Sketchbook Pro. The urge to buy the full copy is continuously growing stronger.

Writing: Na' much.

I hope that everyone had a fantastically fun Christmas on Thursday! :D Was gone through most all of yesterday and Christmas Day, so I couldn't internets. But I still offer HUGS TO YOU AAAALL! I've gotten so many nice cards and other awesome gifts from you guys...you're the absolute best! And I apologize for my fail on the gifts front this year, I'll try hard to make it up with art! ><;

My list of Very Fine Things Acquired this year: ( under the cut )

For the monies, I acquired $50 in Best Buy dollars, and $50 in normal dollars. However, I am not quite certain what to do with them! I at least need to spend the Best Buy dollars as those will be useless any place except Best Buy. :| So please help me out, kind flist! What should this combination of Best Buy dollars and normal dollars be spent on? Apparently basic accounts cannot do actual polls so just PRETEND IT'S A REAL POLL and answer in comments or...something. >>

( Fake Poll )

After presents we had delicious breakfast (pancakes with holiday shapes, fruit, bacon and eggs!) then packed up and headed to grandparents' place. We brought a 1000-piece puzzle, which I spent most of my time working on, though everyone else pitched in to help at some points. Doing that puzzle's made me wonder just how my brain works...because if someone hands me a puzzle, I get intensely obsessive over it, working on it for hours at a time. I did the same thing when I was really little, too: I would have a small ten-piece puzzle for toddlers and I would put it together and take it apart and put it together again, over and over for hours without stopping. The only reason I don't do so now as often is because I have less time and puzzles are expensive/space-consuming. Is it some kind of relaxant for an artist brain to do a very left-brained activity? Is it just a sign of an obsessive nature? o_o I wish I could figure it out.

After said puzzle was completed, the 'rents wanted to go see Marley and Me, but the very LAST thing I wanted to do the day after Christmas was see a movie about a lovable yellow lab that dies at the end. 8| (Turns out the movie was sold out anyway.) So my brother and I went to see 'The Tale of Despereaux' instead.

( Thoughts on the movie )

And nooow, I'm back home, with the new year coming up fast! 'Twas a very good holiday with family, all things considered. Now it's time to go catch up on DC. @_@

Once again: I love you all, and I hope you had a terrific holiday! ♥

Drawing: New LG pages

Writing: All that

Friday I headed in to school to finally catch up on the scripting class, which I reeeeeally don't care much about. ...And then I get to school, and class was canceled. Again. Considering we've missed three and a half out of FIVE classes at this point because of the teacher being gone, I'm kind of wondering the point of even having it. -_- But whatever, I'm not in charge of that.

So I pretty much ditched that mess, and yamikonumber7 and I went to go see a late showing of Bolt! :D

We get to the theater, and there's this uber-long line. What's it for? Twilight, of course! Meanwhile, Kia and I walk in to go see Bolt and the theater's empty! So while everyone else is standing in line in the cold for some sparkly marbley vampires wangsting, we get prime seating for cute dogs blowing up helicopters!

LYNX AND KIA: 1
FANDOM: 0

( Thoughts on Bolt; includes some spoilers! )

Oof, I won't be around until late this evening. This next week is supposed to week off, yet it looks to be just as busy as ever. @_@

Drawing: Still just pages here and there.

Writing: RP, cards, and sheesh I need to make a Christmas list. >

Soooo I finally saw TDK last night with the 'rents down at the Malibu theater! Tickets are half-price if you get them at school, and saves on gas, weeee!

( It's mah opinions, run awaaaaay )

But yay, I am finally caught up with the times and I have seen it!

Also, completely unrelated: YAY, pictures of Aqua in scans finally released, and pics of the full trio! It's making me want to fanart again. :3 It's been awhile since I've done any KH fanarts.

And finally: I've joined LinkedIn! (Our teacher actually insisted that we did. XD) If you're a professional/student in the animation or related industries, wanna link with me? :D


Drawing: Probably just more textures, sigh. And some thumbnails.

Writing: Little.

Chapter four of Lunargyros started this last Tuesday! Bit of a two-month jump between the previous chapter and this one, but there's a reason for that. The reason being that the November and December months would've just been filler, and who wants that? :P

While I didn't get much done yesterday, I did go see the NEEEW X-FILES MOVIE with Rei and Em! And, well...well yeah. If you haven't known me longer than a year or two, ( there's a few important things you should know )

That said?

( Here's what I thought of it )

Guesssss I'm off to school now to work on Digital Sets homework. 8/ I still haven't seen TDK.

Drawing: Not nearly enough.

Writing: RP

Hey guess what, mistressnashya? XD About two minutes after you signed off AIM, my mom calls from downstairs "HEY YOU HAVE A PACKAGE HERE FROM MINNESOTA."

So in other words, the silver PSP ARRIIIIVED! :D Along with Crisis Core and the Daxter game (and I guess that Family Guy mini-disc thingy?) Thanks sooooo much, once again! I'm charging my lasers the PSP right now, so it should be ready for playage tomorrow!

Because it's been absolutely blistering hot here and I am likely to be cooked alive by morning, ghettopeach and I tried to escape the heat and went to see Kung Fu Panda today as well. And it was such fun! :D Gorgeous artwork and animation, fun characters, nice tight story and tons of laughs without really dated humor. Go see it dudes, it's totally cute! Also, PROTIP Dreamworks: Learn how to market your movies so that they don't look intensely STUPID, especially if the movie itself isn't actually stupid!

Drawing: Not much, just LG stuff.

Writing: Same.

Good things!

- OMG, our kitchen is pretty much done! Or at least, we now have a sink, an oven, a microwave and everything! No more eating out of plastic dishware...we can actually do things like MAKE RAMEN YAY. Dudes who live should come over and see it; it actually looks really nice now. :O
- So on Friday I went to hang at the Ranch and it was funtimes! Hugs for all there! Also played a bunch of Brawl with chobit001, both versus each other and in co-op battles. (We attempted the boss battle run, but died, le sigh.) Aside from my usual of arsekicking as Yoshi (he's improved in Brawl, yaaay!) I've discovered I'm moderately decent at Lucario.
- Then afterwards, lady_entropy17 and I went to a late-night showing of Iron Man! :D I won't do a full-on review or anything, but I will say that it was awesome! Snappy dialogue, great characters, an "awww" romance that didn't feel forced or overdone, droolworthy special effects and badass action scenes. Definitely worth the arm and a leg ticket price that SoCal theaters charge! (And yes, I stayed through the credits. ;D)

Bad things!

- Uuugh, getting so frustrated with Matchmoving and Dynamics. (And Lighting a little, but not quite as frustrated as those other two). It seems like even just small little preset things will trip me up on an easy assignment, and then I just get fed up with fighting Maya and want to leave my homeworks crappy and unpolished. I really don't want to go mess with Boujou again with our re-imported footage. X(
EDIT: Apparently Boujou doesn't want to mess with ME, either, as there is a big **LICENSING ERROR** on every computer I've tried! :Db
- My right hand has seriously been getting a bunch of CTS pain lately. D: Coldness and pain in my knuckles, which is never a good sign. I think I need to try putting the brace back on, and also take a day off as another NO COMPUTER DAY. Probably will make it a Disneyland trip with buddies.
- And yet, I've got a ton of art I've promised people that I need to do... ;_;

Drawing: Whole crapload, as usual. But I'll be getting another round of character design homeworks today, soooo...

Writing: Just some RPness. (Wolf, srsly, stop being ADORABLE.)

So I just got back from seeing "Cloverfield" with yamikonumber7!

( Cloverfield SPOILERS LEIKWOAH )

So, my bottom line: If you a) Like monster movies, b) don't mind staring at peoples' feet walking through rubble for about a third of the movie, and c) don't mind scary stuff/blood/explosions, go see it! It's a unique moviegoing experience. :3 And Yamiko was clinging to me a lot of the time, LOL.

Aside from that? I have bravely been pressing onward with Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations! I am currently on the third case! And since I was chatting with ggmoonycrisco yesterday as I was playing the game, here's some snippets of my reactions to the case:

( Phoenix Wright 3-3 spoilers )

BTW, I have correctly guessed who Godot really is, OHYEAH. And now I'm gonna go play more of that case... /o/

Since so many people posted so in journals, I say back to you: HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I hope your days were all relaxing and fun! :D

Aaaand we're back from Thanksgiving with the family! We went up to my grandparents' new house, which was closer to the church, in a nicer neighborhood, and quite a bit bigger. Also, two bathrooms instead of one FTW. It was a little weird since I'm so used to visiting them in their old house, but I am glad they got this new one.

Dinner was the usual of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad and fruit salad, green bean caserole, etc. Plus pie and ice cream for dessert! Yummmmm. Also, this was the first year in which there was actually room enough for all the "kids" to sit at the adult table, lawl. (Our youngest "kid" is in high school now, so...yeah.) I'm still very thankful that I get along with my extended family pretty well; I've never gotten into a nasty conversation with them during get-togethers. Then again, we don't talk politics too much, and if anyone does it's usually in such a tone that no one can take anything seriously. :P

Otherwise, I pretty much spent the time drawing/inking, and playing "Settlers of Catan" with my siblings/cousins about twenty times over. And I only won once. D: Fail. If you've never played it and like board games, pick it up: it's addicting, and the design of it is such that the board is radically different every game.

Also today, I suggested to the family that we go see Enchanted, and they all agreed, even one of my guy cousins! Go me! What's more: everyone really enjoyed it, even the high-school-guys that went with me. XD

My short thoughts:
It was very cute and entertaining! I was laughing out loud through good chunks of it, awwwing at other parts, and the animation fan in me went all happy at the lovely return to 2D. I'd definitely recommend people go see it in theaters, it's worth the money, if for nothing else than the musical number involving hundreds of people just hanging around in Central Park. XD

My much longer thoughts:
( Some spoilers, but also digging into some deeper issues I've had with the Disney animation franchise in general. )

If you don't want to deal with all that TL;DR, here's just one more thought having to do with animation and innovation:
I'm really glad we went to see Enchanted instead of Beowulf.

OKAY OFF TO BED NOW. @_@

Drawing: So many comic things! TLS comics done, YAY!

Writing: Notes and scripts.

Last night I hung at the ranch, where ghettopeach and I went to go see the Simpsons Movie, since I'd heard it was much lawl. And it was! We had many hearty laughs thoughout the whole thing. Although I guess the whole thing felt like one very long, extended episode? (Which, heh, kind of makes Homer's joke at the start of the movie all the more true.) Because of that, while the gags were set up great, it felt like there was no real character development, particularly on Homer's part. In a series, this works fine, because what makes the characters consistently funny in a sitcom is that they don't learn from their mistakes. But in a movie? You're expecting a story arc with definite beginning and ending, and when the character bounces into development only to bounce back again, it's not nearly as gratifying. :/

Still, I got many good laughs out of it. Worth getting on DVD, if you don't see it in the theater!

Also, ghettopeach and I were sharing school woes with each other (of different kinds, natch!) and she brought up a point that I think really helps explain my artistic issues lately:

( Ramble damble )

And speaking of school, I am trying to install Maya on my mac so that I can actually do homework at home (le gasp!) but I'm already running into roadblocks for that, UGH. Need to ask for more help...at least ZBrush works fine. I need to learn that program ASAP. :P

Drawing: ADJASKDJA. Did more concept art work today; worked on my poly model for class, and now I either need to work on animation homework or other stuff.

Writing: Not too much.

There's a new Lunargyros page from Tuesday, it's here!

Also, I finally saw 'Transformers' on Monday night with cool dudes sir_snarksalot and xanmuse. I never watched the TV shows when I was little, so the most I knew of it was a few names here and there. That said, I thought it was terrific fun and everyone should go see it. :D I was glad they kept the dialogue cheesy and appropriate to the characters...none of this GIANT TRANSFORMING ALIEN ROBOTS ARE SRS BZNS junk to muck up a good summer movie. I ♥'d just about everything Bumblebee did (stop torturing him, noooo!) and the transformations were just hella awesome every time they did them. Definitely no skimping on those. My heart goes out to those effects animators.

Speaking of, here's another homework dump, of 3D stuff that is most likely not nearly as cool as Optimus Prime:

( Various renders be here )

Finally, everyone who's going to Comic Con: HAVE FUN Y'HEAR?

Drawing: Worked on next LG page; loooots and lots to do tomorrow.

Writing: Nothing spectacular at the moment.

Aside from going nuts with classes, I've been seeing movies! :D On the whole, I left much more satisfied with them than, say, Spiderman 3 or Shrek 3.

Anywhos, I saw Ratatouille and just today, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!

( Spoilers for Ratatouille )

So today, I also went with my buddies ghettopeach and sir_snarksalot to see the next Harry Potter movie! And I can't believe I paid four bucks for a thing of candy...but I was hungry!

( Spoilers for Harry Potter )

Aaand that's about it. Also, tomorrow we are leaving at Early O'Clock to drive up to Tahoe for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary/big family reunion. It's going to be an eight-hour drive there (oyyyy) so I will be bringing fanfic to write, comics to work on, and HBP to re-read in preparation for book 7. As such, I will be lacking the internets until, like, Monday night maybe. Otherwise not until Tuesday. So nothing important better happen until I get back! XO

Randomly: wyna_hiros, are you feeling free at all? I was thinking it might be kinda cool to collaborate on some artwork again. Maybe even try with the 3D stuff? :D

Drawing: Finished the next LG page; home to work on comics muchly over the weekend.

Writing: Will write on MWWBK up there as well...

Saw Pirates last night at the El Capitan, hells yes. :D It's so worth paying quadruple the price for the tickets there, because the seats were really good, we got free snacks, and all the cosplayers and decorations and the organ player were just awesome. :D Wish I could've won one of the prizes, though. I really could've used that Nintendo DS Lite. And the theater wasn't far from my school, so I totally found the freeway again with little hassle. Go me!

And now, my SPOILERY THOUGHTS.

( In no real SPOILERY order )

Drawing: Next doujin page, ahoy!

Writing: Waiting on the rest for my group project.

Well, after three hours of lab, I'm feeling a lot better than I did yesterday. Yesterday I was just feeling frustrated and hopeless, but today I came in and just worked and, knowing some of the stuff that had to be pointed out to me yesterday, I got a lot done on the two pieces for my model. They still look like crud compared to most everyone elses' amazingly-textured works of art, but at least now there's textures on them!

Here's the pyramid portion of it:

( Under here )

I got my schedule for the next term on Monday...ewww, it's a rather sucky schedule! D: Probably suckier for others, but still kinda blehh:

Monday - (OFF)
Tuesday - Lab from 1:00-4:00, Texture Mapping II from 4:00-7:00, and Poly Modeling I from 7:00-10:00. Yes, that is a solid nine hours. D:
Wednesday - Lab from 1:00-4:00, Surface Modeling from 4:00-7:00
Thursday - (OFF)
Friday - (OFF)
Saturday - Creating 2D Textures from 9:00-12:00, History and Principles of Animation from 1:00-4:00
Sunday - Production Design I from 9:00-12:00.

....So that's early morning classes on both Saturday AND Sunday. 8D;; Ohhh joy!

After feeling blargs yesterday, gaelic_bohemian offered for us to go see Shrek 3 together, and so we did! ♥ I don't have any huge spoiler-ific thoughts on the movie...it was enjoyable and fun to watch; and naturally funny in all kinds of places. It kinda left me with the same feeling as Spiderman 3: fun, but not as talk-about-it-for-hours-afterwards-exciting as the first Shrek or first Spiderman was. Seeing Shrek 3 did make me want to go back and rewatch the first one, though. And those dragonkeys were so cute; I want a plushie of one.

Huh, while watching Shrek, it occured to me that the way Dreamworks and Pixar do their CG animation is quite different. Dreamworks characters tend to move like rubber bands: pull back for a long pause, then snapping into the action really fast. And Pixar characters move more like a slinky: a bit of a smoother motion from one place to another, but slower. Funny how I never noticed that before.

Drawing: Gonna tone the next LG page now. :3

Writing: More on that group project.

So! Along with internetly things, ghettopeach, sir_snarksalot, hystericblue42, caedhe and Jessica and I went to go see Spiderman 3 in ye olde AMC 16!

And since I'm not going to do a puppet show on this movie or any of the other appropriate movies coming out soon (sorry...DX) here's my thoughts and random musings on the movie, in no real organized format:

( Movie spoilers under here )

In completely unrelated news, The Sora Song now has 3000 comments. akdjaskldjsaldl*splode*

And verdamnt, now I need to head to school early to work on some assignments before class. I'm no longer able to get everything done during the lab times... XP *runs off*

Drawing: Finished the comic pages I needed to. I 'spose there will be more storyboarding today!

Writing: I started work back on MWWBK! *celebrates*

Everyone else went to the Ren Faire today, but since I have to go to class in about an hour and a half, I couldn't accompany them. Feh! So yeah, I mentioned I saw the movie on Thursday, but just now get to talk about it!

( Kinda-sorta spoilery for Meet the Robinsons )

( And kinda-sorta spoilery for FFXII )

I bought Roadsong 2 (FINALLY) a week back, and have been slowly working through it. It's fun so far!

I still don't know if I can go to Comic Con yet, arrrgh. DX I need to find this out ASAP.

I just realized: my brothers should be home by now! Or at least getting home really soon. I wonder if they'll give me a call.

EDIT: Fixed a bad tag, gah.

Drawing: Finished a doujin page yesterday, am about halfway done coloring the cast pic, need to color commishes, and finish the primitives homework 'cause I got sick of it fast. D:

Writing: FINISHED that OT3 pr0n, phew! And a third of the way through sporking!