I'm not entirely sure why I even feel compelled to post a blog about this, but it's one of those split second random moments where afterward you just stand there and think "what the fuck just happened?" to yourself. THIS IS MY STORY.
So I was sitting here chillin' listening to some music and perusing the internets like usual when I suddenly think to myself "gee I could really go for a peanut butter and jam sandwich right now", otherwise known as IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLYTIME, hellz yeah.
Hence this hungry man trudges down the stairs into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. This task is completed, and said individual begins to trudge back up the staircase into his domain, uninhabitable by any other living life form. Upon the pushing open of the door, said individual feels an odd sensation on his right wrist, which also happens to be connected to the hand carrying the plate with the delicious sustenance located upon it. This tingling sensation appeared to have been caused by some unidentifiable disturbing-looking bug that caused said individual to simultaneously utter "what the fuck is that" while slapping said bug off said wrist, while also throwing said plate and sandwich across the room where said sandwich lands onto the floor and spreads it's jammy goodness all over the place.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go make another peanut butter and jam sandwich.
It's been a while since I've talked about much of anything so GET READY FOR EXTREME WALL OF TEXT ABOUT RANDOM CRAP FUCK YEAH.
GAMES
Superior to Call of Duty.Lately I've been playing a lot of Day of Defeat: Source. I'm kind of late to the party since Day of Defeat: Source was originally released in 2005. I used to play a lot of the original Day of Defeat back in the day but I just never really had a good opportunity to buy this game. See, I was originally turned off by a lot of the changes they made in this game, since it is much more than just a simple graphical upgrade like Counter-Strike: Source. Unlike CSS, DODS actually changes quite a few things in the actual game which initially pissed me off. However, this game was on sale last summer for $5 and my friend bought it for me as a gift over steam and eventually bought it himself recently. So I've been playing this game a lot more now than during the summer, since multiplayer games are way more entertaining when you play with a friend than when you just play by yourself. Regardless, this is a fun game with excellent weapons and gameplay. If you're itching to get your WWII on in a team-based multiplayer setting (this game has no single player) for the relatively low cost of $9.99, then you can't really go wrong with Day of Defeat: Source. I'll probably get bashed for saying this, but I've always thought Day of Defeat was the superior game to the Call of Duty games. The single player in Call of Duty is awesome, but the multiplayer fucking sucks. Yes I said it. I've played Call of Duty Multiplayer, Call of Duty: United Offensive Multiplayer, Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer, and Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer. They all fucking suck, with the exception of United Offensive, which IMO is the ONLY Call of Duty game with multiplayer that is not a fucking snooze-fest.
O HAI I AM SCARY GAME.F.E.A.R. is a game that I initially had the opportunity to play all the way back in 2005 when it first came out. I played it for about an hour, and then just kind of forgot about it and it eventually disappeared off my hard drive, probably due to one of the billion reformats I've done in the past 4 years since buying the computer I am currently using. Anyway, I've had this game on my computer since I think this last summer, courtesy of psychomode incessantly rambling about how awesome it is, and on Halloween I FINALLY decided to play it. This game definitely lives up to it's name. So far it hasn't really relied on the Doom 3 IN YOUR FACE scares with enemies coming out of nowhere to tear you a new one, but mostly relying on creating a freaky atmosphere to freak you the fuck out. Which is cool, but freaky at the same time. I'm kind of a big wuss when it comes to freaky games and I generally don't play them very often (being scared is a love-hate thing for me) but I think I've been somewhat desensitized after my excursion through Doom 3 on hard difficulty last summer. I'm about 2 hours or so into this game and it's pretty good so far, the action is pretty kick-ass and is kind of reminiscent of the bullet-time stuff from the Matrix movies. The AI in this game is also incredibly good... the enemy soldiers are disturbingly intelligent which has so far made up for the extremely repetitive level design. I plan to try and get this game finished by the end of this week because I will then be moving on to another game...
FAR CRY, SERIOUS BUSINESS.As you may or may not have already read on psychomode's blog, we have made an agreement that this game will be ANNIHILATED. I have literally had this game haunting my backlog since as far back as possibly late 2004 (or early 2005, I'm not sure). Regardless I have had this game for such a goddamn long time and for some reason or another have failed to defeat this game on numerous occasions. Once I complete F.E.A.R. I am going to kill that stupid scientist asshole and his retarded gorilla mutant monkey soldier things ONCE AND FOR ALL.
One of the best games ever created, go play it.I've also been dabbling in a bit of Final Fantasy X on the side... this is the first time I have played this game in over 2 years. Final Fantasy X is a personal favourite game of mine, and for a very long time was my second favourite game in the series after Final Fantasy VII... that was until I played Final Fantasy VIII which immediately challenged Final Fantasy VII for the first spot upon it's completion. I have been debating which game is better for almost a year now (FFVII vs FFVIII) and I cannot come to a conclusion. Maybe replaying FFX will once again remind me why I loved it so much in the first place. I have to admit that several years ago there was a point where I actually debated which game was superior (FFVII or FFX)... I ultimately came to the conclusion that FFVII was still my best/favourite, but FFX is really, really close. The only problem for FFX, is that FFVII does too many things perfectly. FFX doesn't really do anything wrong... but FFVII is as close to perfect as any game has ever been as far as I'm concerned.
MOVIES
Seven Samurai (1954), amazing film.On Halloween most people watch scary movies, I watched a 3 and a half hour Samurai movie from 1954 called Seven Samurai. This is a movie I had in my possession for a few days before watching it, but for some reason on Halloween night I finally decided to watch this movie. One thing I have noticed is a lot of people say old movies suck. After watching this movie I couldn't disagree more. I know there is also this big rift between people just like in music where some people say classic cinema is superior to the crap hollywood churns out these days, and people on the other side of the fence. Just like with anything, I think the best course of action is to watch the and enjoy the best from every era, so long as it interests you. I don't really care how old something is - if the plot/characters sound interesting then I will watch it. That was the case with Seven Samurai, which is also ranked at #13 on IMDB on the top 250 best movies list.
Anyway, the basic premise of this movie is about a small farming village who discovers that their town is soon to be raided by bandits after the harvest. They realize they are sick of being taken advantage of by bandits, and thus devise a plan to hire Samurai to protect them. Unfortunately for them Samurai usually have much higher aspirations than helping farmers for little to no pay and fame, so they look for "hungry" samurai. This plan eventually works and they gather up a group of samurai who are all in on the deal for their own reasons. One thing I especially liked about this movie is that during the recruiting phase each samurai is introduced with his own unique scene that explains a lot about their character. This film is more of a character study than an action movie, as the first 2 hours are all about the group and their bonding, and their experience in the town once they actually get there. The last hour of the movie is all battling though. The difference between this movie and other movies is that the action scenes are not over-glorified giant battles. They have a group of 30-some bandits against 7 samurai skilled to various degrees, and a bunch of poorly trained farmers with spears. The battles are ugly, strategic, and chaotic, much like real fights. The samurai don't just go in and kick ass like in most movies... they fight realistically which was cool. This movie makes it seem like just fighting against a group of 30 guys is extremely freaking hard, whereas other movies generally use GIANT numbers of soldiers ranking in the hundreds or thousands but they are dispatched with relative ease.
My favourite scene is near the end of the movie where they are fighting in the rain. Because this accurately displays how unheroic war is. It's dirty, and disgusting and generally just really awkward and violent. This is probably one of the most unromanticized movies I have ever seen, as it accurately portrays the living conditions of ancient times... survival isn't exactly a cake walk. But I'll stop talking about this movie now... I'd just like the say that the final thing you see on the camera is really an amazing thing. I want to show a picture here but I'll leave it out for the sake of anyone who wants to see the movie. It really moved me though, the final lines of the movie were absolutely fantastic, and really moving.
The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), I have not seen this movie yet.This is a movie I've had in the back of my mind for a few years actually. I initially became interesting in seeing this film after seeing a clip of it in V for Vendetta (2005). The Count of Monte Cristo is V's favourite film, and the scenes with this movie in V for Vendetta really intrigued me into wanting to watch this movie. After watching Seven Samurai I acquired this film, and I plan to watch it soon. I have no idea how good this movie actually is, but it's OLD AS HELL. When I watch this movie it will be the oldest movie I have ever seen. I know the story is supposedly legendary though, written by the same man who wrote The Three Musketeers. If I like this movie enough I am probably going to buy the book and read it sometime in the near future. All I know so far about this movie's plot is that a guy is betrayed by his friends and imprisoned. He then devises a plan to exact revenge on his "friends" who wronged him.
The $$60,000,000,000 Man.Another thing I plan to watch is the anime series Trigun. I don't watch a lot of anime, the last one I watched was around like a year ago or so, which was Gungrave. The general concept of Gungrave was extremely interesting to me and I decided to watch it based on the recommendation of a friend. I really liked the characters in Gungrave too. Trigun was created by the same guy who created Gungrave, which is the main reason why I have been wanting to watch it for quite some time now. A few people have told me that if I liked Gungrave I would probably really like Trigun too. The only difference is that Trigun is apparently much less dark and more humourous than Gungrave. Gungrave was a really dark story, the first episode introduces you to this really weird dark brooding character named Beyond the Grave who you later find out (in the first episode) was previously known as Brandon Heat. Brandon is killed, and eventually brought back to life. The thing I found interesting about Gungrave is that the first 75% of the series explains the story behind Brandon and his relationships, which leads to his eventual death and resurrection as an undead killing machine. Trigun is apparently about some good guy who is unable to avoid conflict, and has some BAJILLION DOLLAR bounty on his head for something he cannot remember doing. Regardless, I will be watching this soon and reporting in later on what I thought of it, and it will probably wind up being compared to Gungrave due to some similarities which will probably undoubtedly surface since they were created by the same dude.
...and thus ends this massive wall of text about random crap.
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About 2 weeks ago there was this post on Kotaku asking the readers what the worst game gift they ever got was. I stated FFX-2 as mine. It was essentially because that was the first game I got with my PlayStation 2 when I actually asked for FFX. I wasn't really mad because I was going to buy the sequel anyways, but that was before I knew what the sequel was about. The only reason it was a "bad" gift was in the sense that I didn't really enjoy the game that much since I bought FFX on boxing day of 2003... a week later I was just like WHAT THE FUCK when I put FFX-2 into my PS2.
Anyways whenever someone mentions their dislike for FFX-2 (I don't really hate the game I just kind of wish it never existed despite the fact that there are a couple decent things about it). Regardless, I wrote this reply just now to the two people saying that it's a great game and the people who dislike it are stupid basically, and I felt like I needed to share it with the world.
KnightsofRound said:
"The reason why I dislike FFX-2 is because it ruined the absolutely BRILLIANT ending of Final Fantasy X - which is arguably the best ending out of any Final Fantasy game to date.
You just don't make a "silly" sequel to a fucking absolutely amazing emotional roller coaster of a game like Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy X tears at your heart strings, Final Fantasy X-2 makes you want to facepalm and sigh to yourself while you try to gain the motivation to get up and move on with your life after experiencing such a brutal desecration to one of the most amazing games ever made."
I don't know which of you have played FFX and/or FFX-2, but if you have - especially FFX-2, then I think this is a pretty valid reason for me to say that I did not enjoy the game. Oh yeah the reason why I put silly in quotations is because one of the people claimed it was a "silly" game (FFX-2) and was always intended to be from the beginning.
I honestly stand by my opinion that FFX-2 was a fucking terrible idea. For profit/money/Yuna fanservice? Good idea. Story wise? Jesus Fucking Christ.
I've been thinking long and hard about a lot of stuff... and basically tomorrow I am going to go talk to a career adviser at my college. I have been registered there for almost 2 years but only did half of a semester before dropping out of all of my classes based on not knowing what the hell I am doing.
I don't really know what to expect. Like if I'm just supposed to say HI THIS IS MY NAME AND I LIKE PLAYING WITH CRAYONS and then they give me standard printed sheets with amazing life potential-realizing questions such as "do you like working with your hands" and instead of circling yes or no I write how the fuck can I work any type of job in existence if I don't use my hands and then I get kicked out for being a pessimistic asshole. Ok that probably won't happen but I still don't really know what's gonna happen. I figure I'm gonna go in there and they are going to ask me questions or just tell me to tell some random stranger what I like doing and I could unrelistically say I like sleeping and not getting dressed and sitting around my house in my pyjamas all day but that probably won't really help me find a career since I don't think there is a such thing as "sit around in your house all day in your pyjamas" job.
So yeah. Career adviser. This should be interesting.
So Bartz and Exdeath are finally revealed. Bartz looks pretty much exactly like I thought he would. A lot of people were arguing about whether he would have white or brown hair, or would have his Amano or in-game sprite design. What we got was the Amano design with the more indentifiable hairstyle/colour from his in-game sprite/face portrait (FFV advance) (which I think creates the best possible Bartz).
Although... I think Bartz looks a bit younger than his age of 20, but that isn't too big of a deal. Also... am I the only person who thinks he looks like a character out of Greek mythology? lol.
Exdeath... well it's freaking Exdeath! He looks like an IDENTICAL CLONE (except mirror imaged) of his original design so there isn't much to say other than he still looks like a badass Sauron wannabe/long-lost cousin or something.
Guess what? This dude is the manifestation of an evil tree. Yep, FFV's plot is pretty awesome.
It will be interesting to see what job classes Bartz can change into... or if he even changes job classes at all. Onion Knight can change into either a Ninja or a Sage when he goes into Ex-mode, so I'm assuming Bartz will function the same way, and simply start off as a freelancer as his base form.
Although he could also just be a freelancer with a bunch of uber-crazy abilities... since near the end of the game the best job class is actually no job class... once you've mastered enough jobs and revert your character to a freelancer and give them 2 sub-abilities (they gain all of the stat bonuses from every job class as a freelancer) you can basically pwn the entire game. (Freelancers can equip anything and use any combination of job abilities).
But who knows... we'll have to wait and see. I'm kind of hoping that if Bartz does change job classes at all he has the Dragoon and Monk job classes. Not sure what else... because most of the other "jobs" already seem to be present and accounted for with the other characters.
As for Exdeath, I'm not too sure what he's going to be like but if I had to guess based on the magazine scan and his basic design I'm going to say Exdeath is going to be a fairly slow moving character, but extremely sturdy and powerful. Exdeath didn't really ever use Melee attacks that much in the original game, he mostly preferred powerful magic. But seeing as there are already a lot of magic users and the fact that Exdeath uses a sword (and wields one in the game) I'm assuming he will be some sort of power mage/warrior hybrid. Exdeath was referred to as a sorcerer or something to that vein in the original game too, so it would be a bit weird if he was not also heavily magic-dependent.
So that's eight down... 2 more to go. We've already seen Sephiroth since the very beginning in CG footage, and more recently Sephiroth and Kefka in some in-game cutscene footage, but we still haven't seen their artwork either. The biggest surprise left is obviously the unveiling of Terra and Cloud. What colour hair Terra will have is still a big question mark since he official artwork she was a blonde, but she had green hair in the game. The problem in guessing what colour hair she will have is that Amano has stated on several occasions that Terra is his favourite Final Fantasy character that he created. (And he created her as a blonde) And seeing as this game is a nod to Amano in the character designs it would be a bit odd if they went with a significantly altered design of one of his characters. There is also the fact that in the 3D demo of FFVI that Square made a long time ago Terra had blonde hair in it. THAT BEING SAID, in the GBA update of FFVI Terra's character portrait had green hair. THIS IS QUITE THE CONUNDRUM. All we can do is wait and see. But either or, her alternate costume will probably have whatever hair colour she doesn't have as her main costume. (Alternate costumes have been confirmed for the uninformed).
And finally there is Cloud, well you know it's freaking Cloud. It was pretty obvious from the start they would save the unveiling of Cloud and Sephiroth for last (especially Cloud) since they pretty much have the most prominent rivalry of ANY TWO characters in the entire Final Fantasy franchise. I mean I won't go into spoilers but Sephiroth basically completely ruined Cloud's life in every way possible and stabbed him 3 times on 3 separate occasions. Did I mentioned he ruined his life? Ok anyways my prediction for Cloud is that he will have his original modified soldier outfit that he wears in the original game (this is pretty obvious, there is no way he will have his Advent Children outfit) with some beads/jewelry thrown in that Amano added in his version. Cloud's hair might be a bit different but I'm not too sure. Amano's Cloud's hair was a lot less spiky, but I dunno... we'll have to see. He'll probably have a hairstyle original to the more realistic version they gave him after they made Advent Children. I'm basically expecting Cloud to look like the picture below except with some like chain of beads/jewelry on his hip somewhere and maybe his arm/shoulder armour altered slightly.
Cloud's original design updated for FFVII's 10th anniversary.
...and thus brings my obsessing over Final Fantasy to an end... for now.
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Final Score.This blog is generally just for my own reference, but if you have any interest in sports then you might find this interesting... but probably not, because I'm fairly certain that most people tracking me on here don't watch sports/ice hockey, so... yeah.
First of all I must say that I am extremely pleased to finally see hockey on TV again, it's felt like it has been forever since I've watched a hockey game (the Canucks didn't make the playoffs last year, so the season ended in April). Right now they are just doing the pre-season games testing out a but of rookies and new guys to see who is going to make opening night's roster, and I must say I was quite pleased with what I saw tonight by several players.
The Good:
Cory Schneider/ 22/ Goalie: This guy was excellent tonight, really exceeded my expectations. He made 33 saves out of 36 shots, had a bit of a shaky start (not too bad) but he played very well for the remainder of the game, and even beat Edmonton's Mathieu Garon in the shootout, which was pretty impressive. It's good to know that if Roberto Luongo doesn't re-sign after his contract expires at the end of the 2009-2010 season, that we have a good replacement already in the system. I don't really have much else to say other than that he really proved himself tonight and made some excellent, excellent saves. If it wasn't for his stellar play in the second period the Canucks would of had no chance in hell of winning this game.
Jeff Cowan/ 31/ Left Wing: Jeff Cowan had a decent 2006-2007 season for the type of player that he is. He is essentially a grinder/plug who generally should only play on the 4th line. What I liked about Cowan in the 06-07 season was that even though he often goes up against guys that are much bigger than him, he generally sticks up for his team, and it's good to have someone to send a message like that, he even scores a few goals that year, which was a bonus. The bad thing though, is that Cowan generally had a very poor 2007-2008 campaign, and was a healthy scratch for about half the season. He got into 12 fights last season, and only won 2 of them. Yes he is sticking up for his team, but at the same time it is kind of embarassing when the only "enforcer" you have on your team can't even win a fight, plus he didn't score a single goal, and only recorded a single point.
That being said, Cowan had a relatively impressive game tonight which was surprising, and actually got the first goal of the game to tie it at 1-1, although it was not a pretty goal, it was a crash the net and pray for the best kind of goal, and for the type of player he is, those are the types of goals he should be getting when he scores. I'll be looking to see if Cowan can redeem himself and kind of justify a spot for himself on this team after a lousy previous year, and especially when there are a bunch of young eager players who are essentially fighting with players like Cowan for a job.
Kyle Wellwood/ 25/ Centre: Kyle Wellwood has been getting a lot of attention lately, and it hasn't really been the good kind either. Basically deemed a write-off by the Maple Leafs, a lot of people were and still are skeptical of Wellwood, since he has been highly injury prone, and has also been somewhat lazy when it comes to his conditioning, and apparently failed the Canucks conditioning tests the other day. That being said, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, since he did spend a large portion of the summer waiting for his broken foot to heal, and he also showed up in Vancouver relatively early in August and begain skating quite frequently.
Wellwood was called out by headcoach Alain VIgneault yesterday who basically slammed Wellwood saying he is in lousy shape and he wasn't really impressed with his training camp at all. Wellwood seems to be lacking some confidence right now, and it was kind of evident from the moment he set foot on the ice. He got out to a bit of a rough start, but started to pick up his play quite a bit as the game went on - he definitely still has a long ways to go though, and needs to get himself into the shape.
The best part of his game though, was at the end when it went into a shootout, testing him, they chose him as the first shooter (and Wellwood has been known to have great hands and playmaking ability which is the reason he got into the NHL in the first place, but failed to live up to his expectations) and he actually make an awesome deke and scored, I was very impressed. I think that this was a good move, since it helps make him feel wanted and a part of the team, he just has to work harder for his place on the team. He actually played a large role in us winning tonight, which was great.
Mattias Ohlund/ 32/ Defenceman: I'm not really surprised that the current longest-serving Canuck going into this season, as well as a candidate for the next team captain had a great game tonight. He scored a goal off a nice pass by Daniel Sedin to tie the game at 2-2 in the first period, and also played a solid defensive game. With the departure of long-time veterans Markus Naslund (signed with New York Rangers), Brendan Morrison (refused offer from Canucks and signed with Anaheim Ducks), and Trevor Linden (retired), it's good to see that an old face on the team still has his game, and will probably step up into a leadership position on the team, afterall he is entering his 10th season with the Canucks this year, and was raised as a Canuck prospect too. Ohlund definitely has a great season ahead of him if he keeps up the great play.
Jason Krog/ 32/ Centre: Jason Krog was a beast in the face-off circle tonight. I mean really, with the departure of Brendan Morrison and Trevor Linden, the Canucks are sorely lacking in the face-off department in both guys that can take face-offs, AND guys that can actually win them. Jason Krog was 17/10 in the face-off circle, which is extremely good. I think was really shocked me though was that he absolutely SNIPED a shot passed Mathieu Garon in the shoot out and the goalie didn't even flinch when he shot it, it was so goddamn fast and accurate my mouth almost hit the floor. Garon didn't even MOVE he was just like well then, I just got owned. I really was not expecting that from this guy, but if he does manage to crack the line-up look for him to centre the 4th line. Also props to him for the game-winning goal in the shoot out, definitely was a beauty.
Mason Raymond/ 23/ Left Wing: Mason Raymond really started to impress quite a few people last year in his rookie season before he was sidelined for the rest of the year by an injury. Regardless, he was an energy guy tonight and used his great speed to work some great plays. He didn't manage to score, but I definitely think Raymond is off to the right start and I am looking forward to see him develop more as a player, he definitely has great potential, but it's up to him to make something of it. He definitely made himself noticed tonight though, which is promising.
The Bad:
Daniel Sedin/ 27/ Left Wing: Daniel Sedin is a great player, so I'm not really writing this to knock him. He was responsible for setting up Mattias Ohlund for the second goal of the game, but other than that he seemed kind of non-existant in this game, and from one of the veteran players (and best players on our team) I kind of expected him to make more of a presence. Maybe it is simply the fact that he was seperated from twin brother Henrik Sedin (who he always plays with) for tonight's game... or it could be the fact that all of the rookies/ American Hockey League players (guys who haven't managed to crack the NHL full-time yet) were trying their hardest to get noticed by the suits upstairs and kind of outshined the guys who don't really need to justify their jobs. Regardless, I was a bit disappointed with Daniel's lack of a presence of the ice tonight, but I know that when the actual season comes full-circle Daniel will be one of our best players.
Matt Pettinger/ 27/Left Wing: Seriously now, we traded Matt Cooke for this guy last year? Thank god Dave Nonis got fired (the old General Manager), that was honestly a stupid and completely pointless move. I don't have anything against Matt Pettinger, but for someone who should be fighting for a spot on this team he really didn't accomplish much of anything and I barely noticed him at all when he was actually on the ice. This guy really has to pick up his game or I'm looking at him to be one of the first guys to get axed from the training camp roster.
Obviously there were some other forgettable players tonight, but some of those guys, I don't even really know of their existence anyways, so if they failed to make me really notice them then up until now they probably aren't even really worth being disappointed over, since they've probably still got a long way to go. There were a couple other players like Jason Jaffray who just seemed to be a little bit in the middle, like this is a guy who keeps talking about how you need to come into training camp with the thought that you are going to be stealing someone's job, but he just didn't really make enough of a presence for me to really have much to say about him. At the same time he didn't really do anything bad either, he was just sort of there.
Anyway, I'll be looking forward to tomorrow night's rematch in Vancouver to see the other half of the training camp roster get a chance to show themselves.
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This is really nothing more than a self-glorified "I reached 1000 points too!" blog post.
When Giant Bomb first launched I made quite a few contributions, significantly in concept art for Final Fantasy games, as well as adding relevant minor data to the main staff behind the franchise. I kind of held back on major edits because I figured there was a chance that someone could also be working on the same article and it could mess up everything.
Regardless, I had finally made a huge edit to the Laguna Loire character page, which gave me a ton of points, and I was close to 900. I had stayed at just under 900 points for quite a few weeks, and after the initial buzz, I stopped making edits, stopping just short of the 1000 points barrier.
Needless to say, yesterday I was browing some of the Final Fantasy character pages removing some irrelevant connections between characters that a lot of people have added. I mean come on, how is Bugenhagen enemies with GILGAMESH? Gilgamesh isn't even IN Final Fantasy VII.
Anyways, I noticed a factual error on the Rufus Shinra page, and what was supposed to be a simple correction turned into a massive article submission, and thus I projected myself beyond 1000 points. It's great though, because now I can finally make some significant article contributions without having to wait forever for them to get accepted.
In other completely irrelevant news, I have been working on a Mitsurugi drawing suggested to me by Dj. Progress has been slow for a while, but I think I will have made some significant headway before I go to bed tonight.
There is also a drawing contest on the Dissidia: Final Fantasy message board on GameFAQs, (there is no prize for the winners, just for fun) and I am considering making something for this just for the hell of it. I'm thinking since I've been playing Final Fantasy IV (GBA version) quite a bit for the past few days (I'm on my second playthrough of the game, after finishing it the first time just over 2 years ago) that I'm going to draw something FFIV related. My initial thought was to try and freestyle a battle between Kain and Cecil (which would basically be my first serious freestyle drawing attempt ever) but then I am not sure if that would really qualify since Kain is not in Dissidia. (Unless he somehow is in the game as a bonus character which is unlikely though). I think I may just go ahead with it anyway though since they are basically the best 2 characters from that game and 2 of my favourites from the entire series. Also since this is just for fun I don't think it really matters anyways.
Just to set things straight, no, no one has died. ...And no, a drawing did not die either.
WAY back in May 2008 I began drawing a picture that I spent probably a few hours on... when I was done, I sat back in my chair, looked at it, and thought what the HELL is this crap? I seriously hated the very site of what I had just created and promptly stashed it away never to be seen again. I had vowed to go back and fix this terrible monstrosity one day, and I basically just kind of left it to wither away in a stack of papers somewhere with other scraps.
Somewhere around a month or two ago I was looking through some of my drawings and came across this picture again and the mere site of it infuriated me to the point where I swiftly located my pencil, eraser, and sharpener and began correcting this image. I fixed quite a bit of it, and then stashed it away again.
Today my friends, is the day I have finally achieved success. I am kind of hesitant to SHOW the original picture simply because of how much I hate looking at it. I have only kept this image instead of burning it in the fires of hell simply for comparison reasons.
Anyways, I am posting a link to the original image because I do not want to corrupt my profile with it's atrocious appearance.
Alright, so that image has probably burned your retinas, I apologize, but hopefully this one makes up for it.
Much better.
That picture is actually the same one as the first one. Like, the same piece of paper and everything. I just completely annihilated the everything about the first version with an eraser.
Here is the original photo I used as a reference.
Original Image.
I know mine isn't exactly the same, but that isn't ever really my intention. I try to stay as close to the original as possible, but occasionally you'll inadvertently make a few changes where it turns out a bit different. Regardless, I am extremely satisfied with the results, and I cannot even believe I created the first image in the first place. I honestly just remember looking at it after I was done and thinking something along the lines of "How in god's name did I create this abomination?"
What I learned from this experience though, is that using 3D renders as a reference image for a drawing is a HELL of a lot harder than using 2D images. I have done drawings of both Squall Leonhart and Cloud Strife using 2D images as a reference, and neither of those were as frustrating and as difficult as this one. I do feel like I have vastly improved as a drawer after this though, and I completely blame the original abomination image on the fact that it was the first time I tried to draw something that was in 3D.
By the way, since I am feeling ridiculously ambitious at the moment, and the fact that I need an excuse to draw more often, post an image of something you want me to try and draw and I will post it here when I finish it. (No guarantees on when it will actually be done though). Everyone is limited to only one thing though. Also try not to post something that is absurdly, ridiculously impossible for me to draw. I think it will be fun though, since I need you guys to post something that will force me to draw something else other than Final Fantasy characters. Although you can post something Final Fantasy related if you want :)
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