Thanks for the supportive responses to my previous post. Sorry I didn't reply, but I have a very good reason for it. Namely, my hard drive failed me last Thursday and I couldn't use my computer for a few days.
Today, a computer guy came in, and we actually got the computer to work. The first order of business was to back up EVERYTHING. Then he ran some diagnostics which told him that my hard drive doesn't have long to live. He's coming back in a few days to replace the hard drive with a new one. Until then, my computer time might be sporadic. At least I haven't lost all my files.
I hope everybody had a happy V-Day. I was going to make an eCard to celebrate, but it's a little late for that now. Oh well. There's always next year.
UPDATE: I'm back! That is all.
Maybe the title is an exaggeration, but I'm really stressing over the Sketch Marathon. I'm currently 20 days behind schedule (21 if I don't draw today... which I might not), and I despair of ever catching up.
On top of that I'm actually really tired of sketching random anime characters. I want to color. I want to draw different subjects. I want to do some digital work. Heck, I want to take a break from art now and then.
I know I'm the host of this event, and I feel like I've let everybody down. Even if I haven't let everybody down, I've let myself down. It's hard to move forward, but I feel just as bad for giving up. This is pretty much the story of my life. I can't win with me.
Sorry for the negative post. I've just had a lousy day.
As many of you know, I'm waaaaaay behind on the Naruto Shippuden anime. While I haven't watched it in some time, I have been seeing pictures with summaries on sites like Crunchyroll. Instead of actually wrapping up the series ('cause, you know, the manga's over), they're doing yet another flashback filler arc.
The reason why I'm writing this isn't to complain. I'm actually quite intrigued about the material. It covers how Sakura and company all become chuunin. In the past my biggest question was, since the chuunin exams require teams of three at the beginning, how did Sakura pass the exam without her teammates? And then, what about Ino and Chouji? If Shikamaru was the only one on the team to pass the exams, thus leaving his teammates behind in rank, how did Ino and Chouji pass later on?
My reasoning was that Sakura teamed up with Ino and Chouji. In fact, I was planning to write this post some years ago, urging some good Naruto fan fiction writer to make a story out of this. But now, I don't have to. Why? Because this is how it's all panning out. Still, I wish I had written that post just so I could link to it for comparison's sake. It would've felt awesome to say, "I CALLED IT!!!!!!!!!!"
Warning: This might get rant-y, but if I don't get this off my chest, I might not sleep tonight, thus making me sleep in, thus making me late for work. And that wouldn't be good.
I was cruising around on Anime News Network when I saw a podcast about the two Fullmetal Alchemist series. The thing to reel in the listener was to pit one series against another. Now, I don't really listen to podcasts, but since the title was "Fullmetal ANNcast Brotherhood", I couldn't resist.
A few minutes into the hour-plus podcast, I could already tell that the victor would be the original Fullmetal Alchemist (henceforth FMA-1) over Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (henceforth FMAB). The reasoning behind this was deep psychological stuff is awesome and anything about "good vs. evil" is sucky.
Initially, what struck a chord with me was that FMAB was described as a "typical shounen" while FMA-1 was something more. Personally I'd say that neither is a "typical shounen". If you want a typical shounen, you watch Dragonball Z.
When they started singing the praises of FMA-1's Shou Tucker and totally dissing FMAB's Ling and co., I couldn't help but get irked. Yeah, yeah, FMAB is all about eastern supremacy because the easterners use alchemy for good and the westerners use it for eeeeeeevil. Podcasters, don't take this the wrong way, but you're taking this the wrong way.
To make sure that my blood pressure didn't spike to unhealthy levels, I paused the podcast 25 minutes in and walked away. Then I started thinking things like, "Why am I siding with FMAB, even though I still haven't actually seen it? Is it because of the manga? Do I really hate FMA-1 that much? No, but are these podcasters making me hate it?" Then it dawned on me: I'm not very opinionated about many things, but when I am opinionated about something, I get passionate. And I just so happen to be passionate about the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, and therefore, FMAB.
I thought about the last time I was this passionate about something, and I realized that it wasn't too different than this. I'm talking about the time between 2003 and 2005 that I wasted hours on end on an unofficial Bon Jovi message board. I could sort of liken FMA-1 to Bon Jovi's "dark" album, These Days and FMAB to anything Bon Jovi put out after that. The overwhelming opinion on this message board was that not only was These Days frickin' brilliant, but it was the last "good" album Bon Jovi ever made. The reasoning behind that was that dark, sad songs were deep and awesome and anything happy was automatically "pop" and therefore sucky. For the record, I'm in the minority in that I find These Days to be dull, mopey, and very out-of-character as far as Bon Jovi is concerned.
Maybe I'm in the minority with FMAB as well. After all, they stated in the podcast that not as many people have seen FMAB as FMA-1. Then again, I've seen anime-ranking sites where FMAB is #1 out of thousands. But then why was that podcast so one-sided in favor of FMA-1? I guess to each one's own. Still, the next time I hear a podcast pitting two things against each other, I don't want an obvious victor.
I think I'll give a little Sketch Marathon update, since I haven't actually posted my sketches. Truth is, I'm over a week behind. In addition to not catching up from my initial stumble, I'm having trouble finding full-body references for certain characters, thus impeding my progress.
If you're wondering why I don't Google pictures of characters, it's because there's so much junk that I have to wade through. I don't want to scan a sea of pixelated junk, bad fan art, porn, and stuff that has nothing to do with anything.
What are some good sites that specialize in official anime artwork? If you know of any, please list them. They can be general or series-specific.
I also noticed that some series have more official art circulating than others. I'm guessing this is because the series are more popular and/or have stood the test of time. I'd like to watch more of those types of series. So, to you, what are some series that are pretty much required viewing? List as many as you want.
