PaintBlog 2008-A: Chapter Five

A funny thing happened after the last update: I posted the image as a work-in-progress at another site, and someone said, “Wow, I’d buy that.” 

R-really? I thought.  I mean, the site is frequented by students and other types who typically (to judge by their complaints) have no money, but gosh–still, someone thought they might like to buy PB 2008-A?  (Yeah, if I do sell it, it’ll need a snappier title.)

The strange thing is, the consideration has made work come to a halt on that particular canvas.  I mean, I don’t want to ruin the “sale” so I’m hesitant to touch it.

Above, of course, is PB 2008-A as we last left it.   For the past several days, it has stayed that way.

Man I hate indecision like this.

Soon:  more work on Paint Blog II, believe it or not.  In fact, it turns out there’s been…rather a lot of work on Paint Blog II that I haven’t been posting here (last time I talked about it was in April of last year). 

It promises to be a big update. 

See you then, and thanks for visiting today.

And Seven Times Later…

Yes, I watched Pretear again recently, for the seventh time. And like the sixth time before that, I worried before my fingers touched the DVD case: would this be the one? Will this be the time when all the flaws and what-not come to the fore, and I get impatient or bored with the show, and put it in a box forever?

Answer: no. I still love the show, and in fact, once it started any trepidation just evaporated and I couldn’t wait to go from episode to episode. I watched the whole series over three days of exercise (six miles a day, too). I can’t believe that I’m still just as enthused about Pretear as the first time I watched it. But damn it, I am.

That’s not to say there aren’t flaws, of course, but the flaws don’t interfere with anything important. Yeah, the art is sketchy here and there, and the exposition-cramming is noticable in episode one. But the sheer joy of the show erases all that. (At least for me, I hasten to point out; I’m sure the mileage for others will vary considerably.)

If someone ever comes up to me and says, “I’m taking away all your anime DVDs, you get to keep one series,” Pretear would be the one I’d choose with absolutely no hesitation. Much as I love Noir and Divergence Eve and the others on my not-quite-ten best anime list, there’s just nothing that compares with this one for satisfaction.

Okay, sorry for raving.  Dunno if you could tell or not, but I just love this damned show.  Another paint blog update “shortly” (if “shortly” is considered in context of the age of the universe).

Thanks for visiting, and see you again soon!

An Apology to Blu-Ray

For some time now I’ve been dreading the fact that Blue-Ray, or BluRay, or Blu-Ray, is the high definition format that seems to be heading into the winner’s circle.  The reason I’ve not been too happy about that is, in all honesty, I thought the competing HD-DVD format looked much, much better.  A Blu-Ray DVD, to my admittedly aging eyes, didn’t look any better than a standard DVD.

Well, that’s changed.  It turns out it wasn’t Blu-Ray.  It was the player–in this case, a Sony PS3 or, as I like to call it, The Retard Machine.  As it happens, you don’t have to tell the PS3 what kind of television you have.

You have to tell it what kind of television you don’t have.  I have a 720p set; the PS3 assumed I have a 1080 model, and consequently tried to send a 1080 signal to my non-1080 television.  My non-1080 television reacted by saying, I suppose, “I don’t know what this is, so here’s what I can do with it.”  And I got standard DVD, I guess.

Squirreled away in one of the PS3 submenus is a list of all the television signals that the PS3 is going to send out.  By default, they’re all turned on.  You have to uncheck the ones you don’t actually have, then somehow figure out how to save that setting while resisting the urge to throw heavy objects–like, say, a PS3–out the nearest window. 

(I feel compelled to point out that the XBox 360 asked me nicely what my equipment was when I first set it up.  Nyah.) 

Once I got all that straightened out, Blu-Ray looks terrific, easily as good as HD-DVD.  So if (or when) Blu-Ray wins, I won’t be disappointed.

Sorry about that, Blu-Ray.

PaintBlog 2008-A: Chapter Four

Now is the winter of our discontent, I guess, because I did some detailing on the background for this thing.  Viz:

At the end, I remained unconvinced.  Actually, I was pretty convinced I was doing it wrong.  The background looked like an aquarium.  The more I saw, the more it resembled the background in one of those old comic book ads for sea monkeys.  Vaguely castle-y and stuff. 

I didn’t like it, so I did the only thing possible.

Yes…I started reddening the whole thing up.

More and more.

Finally, the whole thing now looks like some kind of surgery being performed in the flaming aftermath of some horrible disaster.

I think I have to admit I like it better this way.   Also, this was done to more “RahXephon,” which I’m kind of liking as well.  The show is a lot like “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” with one big difference:  the characters are actually likeable.  It’s amazing what a difference that makes.

Especially when painting.

Thanks for visiting, everyone, and see you next time.