Okay so! I just got back from seeing 'Cars 2' with Kia, since I had been mad curious after hearing reviews and meaning to go. Was it a fun movie? Oh yeah, sure. There were many moments where I laughed, lots of times where it was exciting, and as always with Pixar movies the production values were sky-high. Was it Pixar's best? Er, no. I'd probably say it was their worst. Was it a bad movie? No, not at all. Pixar's worst is still pretty good. It was fun to watch. But...

( Here's the rest...beware of spoilers )

New Lunargyros page is up; give it a look-see
Speaking of, there's a new page of it up; you can read it here.

Internship had more to do today: did a run (uuuugh LA traffic), talked to cool concept artist dude more, and even helped with an actual project (even if it was just uploading files. It was A THING.) All in all it's still been pretty slow, though. Guess we just hit it at the opposite of peak season.

Went and saw Kung-Fu Panda 2 tonight with my family! (Holy crap, the first time we've actually had the whole family together in...almost a year, I think?) And I enjoyed it! Beautiful animation, the fight scenes were SOOO much fun to watch, and there was more of the 2D animation! Especially the opening sequence, aaaaaah I looooove unique art styles applied to animation like that. SO pretty. As for the story and just the movie overall, I dunno if it was any better or worse than the original...they felt about equal to me. I thought this movie was actually a bit darker than the first; there were a few times where I teared up. (Of course, that could just be me getting old and sentimental.) It was nice that they let this movie be its own story with its own lesson, instead of an attempt to rehash the first or stuff it full of even more pop culture in-jokes. (If any, I think there may have been less this time.)

Also, Gary Oldman as Shen, the peacock villain, was a LOT of fun. He was a bit hammy (no more so than Tai Lun in the first one, though), but DANG he looked so awesome in the fight scenes. I want to go back and watch all those fight scenes with Shen in slow-motion, because there's such great MOVEMENT in seeing a peacock do kung-fu, as if he was using his whole body as a fan to fight with. So yeah...overall, I enjoyed it! Definitely stood on its own and didn't fall into the same sequel traps that DW has fallen into with the Shrek or Madagascar franchises.

Speaking of cool animation: Pixar, I am disappoint. You've made all these great movies and we know you can do it, so how about letting a woman at the helm for once? You had one on board for Brave, and then dropped her? Now DW has beaten you to the punch! (Pun not intended!) I know there are many female (and otherwise) storytellers like me who would, y'know, really appreciate it if you acknowledged our existence and gave us a chance for once. :/


Here's more waking-up drawings...been having a lot of weird or frightening dreams lately (probably related to this potential job stress), so a bunch of images are me trying to get down stuff from dreams...

( Under-covers drawings 68-69 )


Drawing: Mostly LG ATM, but I really need to move into some other things, too

Writing: Buncha tags and a lot of transcribing

There's a new Lunargyros page, you can read it right here.

So I was killing time on Tropes late last night, particularly on WMG for Pixar. And then I just randomly started expanding on the biggest WMG theory to include everything I could think of, including movies and shorts:

( This got a little long )

SO YEAH. There is really no point to this other than I'm a colossal nerd and it's fun. I suppose now I should actually go get that cleaning done.

Drawing: Sketches and lotta LG

Writing: Miiiight be doing some fic thing...

Days until BBS release: 55

So yeah, I saw Toy Story 3 last night with yamikonumber7. Saw it in iMax format and 3D, which really was a nice little gravy but didn't really make or break my opinion of the movie...like with Up, after awhile I totally forgot that the 3D was there.

( Just a few spoilers inside )

So yeah, definitely go see this one...3D or 2D, either's fine. I'd go see it again. XD

Drawing: Still the same

Writing: Not much

Days until BBS release: 78

First off, I've got a birthday present for fellow McFate Sister ghettopeach!

( Birthday present under here )

Not sure how I feel about the three new Pokemon starters for Pokemon Black/White. The fire pig and the water otter are very cute, to be sure. But how come the grass starter is always a reptile? C'mon, make the grass starter a mammal or a bird or something for once! Shaymin proves it can be done! Also, a part of me was secretly hoping they'd do something other than fire/water/grass for starters (maybe fighting/psychic/dark?) but I guess it shouldn't surprise me that they did the usual.

And I'm really not sure how to feel about the fact that Pixar canceled Newt...and apparently in favor of making sure Cars 2 came out on time, or because they're instead putting effort into a Monsters Inc. 2. Not that I would mind an MI2 since Monsters Inc. is one of my favorite Pixar movies, and not that I didn't already know about Cars 2, but I was really looking forward to Newt! It seemed like such a cute, funny, original idea. (And it was going to be directed by the guy who directed Lifted, which was a hilarious short!) I know they focus on good storytelling, but at this point, their upcoming sequels outnumber their upcoming original films, and that worries me. I know Cars is one of Lasseter's pet projects, but it probably was one of their weaker ones story-wise, and it's really hard to ignore the fact that Cars is their most lucrative cash cow of all time.

Pixar, I've championed you for over 15 years, since I first saw Toy Story in the theaters as a wee bitty. Please don't let me down now. :(

Drawing: More storyboards for Scratch, some gift arts, some fanart, more LG

Writing: More on the chapter

Consecutive Days Gone Spoiler-Free: 74

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.

I had totally forgotten about it until, uh, I walked outside and saw all the people outside, but we had another Pixar event at school yesterday! /o/ David Munier, who was the set director for WALL-E, came and gave a presentation about building and dressing the sets for the movie, and asdkjsdksja I could barely wrap my head around it. o_o I have no clue how these artists and TDs are smart enough to do this, but they somehow manage to write displacement shaders that a) simulate tons of small collected trash, b) add in larger bits of poking-out trash, c) compact the trash down so that it looks worn, d) add age to the trash so that it looks like it's been there for hundreds of years, e) blend the trash into normal dirt, and f) randomize the effect so that it looks natural and not like a texture. And that's just the work that goes into ONE GROUND SHADER. And in his presentation, he managed to make it funny, too. XD

He talked about the trash-covered earth for awhile before moving to showing the scale and layers that went into creating the Axiom. Aside from the exterior (which they color-coded multiple times to demonstrate age, shininess, etc.) they also showed how they had to create dozens and dozens of animated moving billboards for the interior of the ship, and then animate THOSE so that they looked like they were holographs that had been running for hundreds of years. Perhaps most amusing was when they decided to integrate Massive for all the crowd scenes inside the Axion (Massive being the software they use for AI crowd control; think Happy Feet and the armies of LOTR), only to have the director go "Let's have all of the hoverchairs and robots move about the ship on FLOOR LINES!" Which is...exactly what Massive is NOT meant to do. XD;

Every time they do these presentations, even though it's often the technical supervisors talking tons of CG jargon, I'm always amazed at the time and effort they put into all the little details of the movie in order to tell the story best. None of the people there, from artists to TDs to effects people, really don't skimp on any part of their job...and the sad thing is, because they're doing their job so well you never even notice it! And David seemed really excited talking all this techie jargon on how they problem-solved these ridiculous sets. Work flies when you're having fun. :O

And it just made me wanna see Wall-E again. EEEEEE-VAH!


Drawing: New LG page; almost done with boards. Not a drawing, but I'm almost done with Brawl!Phoenix, too. :3

Writing: Not much.

OMG YOU GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYSSSS

GO SEE WALL-E

GO SEE IT

I am still so tired since I didn't get home until 3:00 in the morning after the midnight showing and now I'm up early again for school, BUT IT WAS WORTH IT. I could gush for awhile about the movie, but just go see it! Such a great testament to what you can actually do with animation, and what you can do when you don't bother trying to find this magic movie formula and just TELL the STORY. Wall-E was such a lovable, endearing character, and it was great seeing EVE grow as a character throughout the movie. Uh, I won't spoil anything, but yeah I never would've imagined that there could be a worse fate for a robot than getting crunched up or destroyed, and then I was proved wrong and it totally got you right in the heart. (No, it doesn't end on that "worst fate.") Just NNNNNNGH, such love!

Also, if nothing else it's worth going to go see "Presto" before the start of the movie. The entire audience was rolling in the aisles with laughter.

Maybe I'll write something more detailed after seeing it again. I certainly wouldn't be adverse to seeing it again! *hinthintwinkwink*

Drawing: Even more LG

Writing: Bits of RP

I'm really curious to know what people think about the lineup of new Disney and Pixar films through 2012. Man, there's a bunch of them! (A few of these I hadn't even heard of.) And I don't really care about the Tinker Bell direct to DVD stuff; obvious marketing ploy is obvious.
- I'm dying to see "WALL*E." It just looks unique and amazing. The fact that some people are saying that audiences might be turned off by some of the ideas and themes it presents (that in the future, humans have left earth a wasteland and have evolved to become so large that they can't move on their own) just makes me want to see it even more.
- Well, nobody was expecting "Toy Story 2" to be any good, and then it was, so I'll hold out on my opinion for "Toy Story 3." But...why a "Cars" sequel? Aside from the obvious tie-in with the land that's opening in California Adventure, AKA PIXARLAND If a Pixar movie was gonna get a sequel, I would've felt "Monsters Inc." deserved it. :/
- "UP" and "newt" both look ridiculously fun. It'll be interesting to see how they pull off "The Bear and the Bow," since it's the least 'unique' of the Pixar ones. Still, set in Scotland, can't go wrong there.
- What happened to the "John Carter of Mars" series? Is it because that'll likely be live action?
- Why isn't "King of the Elves" going to be in 2D? It looks like "Princess and the Frog" is the only one on that roster that's 2D, even after just visiting the studio and them saying WE'RE DOING MOAR 2D YAY. Maybe they just won't be completed until 2013 and onward? That said, I think I actually saw concept art for "King of the Elves" there a year or two ago...or something like it.

So yeah...what do dudes think? :O

P.S. Is it just me, or has wtf_nature been kind of sucking hardcore lately?

Drawing: Lots more today, too. Digital painting and character design homework, plus that independent storyboard/layout project. ;_;

Writing: Just RPing. Ohgod, I love Wolf.

Even though I'm supertired, posting this while I'm still thinking about it...

So I went to the various presentations they were doing at school today! First up was Blizzard, which kind of had a con-feel to it in that it was mostly a school representative talking about how they were recruiting talent. Apparently they're starting an internship program next summer, but I think it's only open to select schools. They talked a bit about the company history, what they're doing in the future (MOAR WoW DURR...oh, and Starcraft, too) and what they want from submissions.

I've started thinking about it, and I'm wondering if I should try and go for one of those internships. They're paid, and only 40 hours a week (although the commute would be killer.) I could try for the 2D Illustration one, since I think if I actually worked at it, I'd have a chance of getting in. The question is...should I make the effort to try for it or not? They pretty much said they want art submissions in their company style, so I'd have to look up WoW and Starcraft art and try to imitate it with whatever I did. On the offchance I submitted and got in, It'd also be an entire summer off from school; I'd be out of schedule-whack with my friends. Should I actually make the effort to draw some WoW-style stuff and submit, and would I enjoy doing that kind of thing? Argh, I don't know! Stupid decisions!

Otherwise...they also handed out free stuff, so I got a Blizzard keychain, a pack of cards, and a shirt I won with their raffle. My rankings of black-shirt-with-digital-production-company-logo-on-them grow larger! Soon, they will be big enough to make me look as badly-dressed nerdy as most of the guys here take over the world!

Hung around school and finished off the basic animation for my Animation final before the second presentation got kicked off. A ton of people showed up to the Pixar event (including some people from Blizzard, LOL) and there was such a big group that they had to hold it in the greenscreen sound stage instead of the normal auditorium. There was also pizza and sodas! No cheese pizza, WTF.

The presentation was by Apurva Shah, and wasn't a "come work for us!"-geared presentation as much as a step-by-step on their problem-solving for certain aspects of Ratatouille. Since he was an effects guy, it was all geared on how the effects department handled challenges: how they added effects into cutting up a vegetable, or creating dough that behaved like real dough, or how they worked the timing of sauce and how you went about texturing various kinds of soups. At least for the effects department, it was actually a lot like working on a live action film: it's too expensive and time-consuming to go back and forth with animation if there's a problem. Since it's the animator's job to get the best performance they can from the characters, it's then the effects peoples' job to work with what animation gives to them. Like, with the scene where Linguini accidentally knocks over the pot of soup and then tries (and fails) to fix it, the pot actually falls faster and at a steeper angle than a pot would actually fall with normal physics, so the liquid simulation program for the soup inside wouldn't follow with the pot: it'd either be left behind, or explode all over the place. So effects-dudes had to find a way to make it work with the animation, since the animation was more interesting "believable" than it was "100% realistic."

I thought it was really interesting how even the effects guys would get to work in with the story: for example, in the part where they introduce all of the different cooks in the kitchen, the effects people would match the steam and smoke of what they were cooking with the personalities of the cooks making them. Also, Shah described how all of the departments were involved in ensuring continuity: even they would look at storyboards and have objective people scan scenes to make sure that if a shirt was wet in one shot, it stayed wet three shots later. Just goes to show you how much that attention to detail and continuity really pays off in the final product! :D

It was all quite informative, and left me both excited to draw more and kind of intimidated at matching that kind of quality. @_@ But for now, I really need sleeps...

Drawing: Hooomework. About done sketching the environments I need, yay?!

Writing: Nothing new.

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...