netherworld project

oh mariooooooo :(


did I mention? I lost the contest I entered. right in the first round! talk about humiliating..I think I blew up any respect I might've earned from winning the last one :>

now I'm sorta working with some dude from Australia who is making a sidescrolling RPG, and was asking around on game dev forums for a character concept guy. I volunteered cause it would be good practice, and if the game gets made that's something to tell potential employers(even if it's a freeware game)

even though it's gonna be 2D sidescrolling, he's making polygonal characters for some reason. guess it'd be easier than drawing every frame of animation. as soon as he finishes the test character I'll post a picture of the 3D model and my reference pics for him! can't wait to see something I drew in 3D motion.

AAAAAAGH

she's not usually that scary lookin, but I'm trying to make my monster characters more "monstery".

did I mention? I won the tournament! my last opponent could have done so much better but he phoned it in for some reason..I was disappointed. oh well, it's nice to win something(all I won was a sketch and a print, but I mean the fact that I won is nice)

of course halfway through that contest I made a commitment to join another friend's tournament(similar to the first, but with an emphasis on the mechanics of drawing comics rather than just killing people) I'm exhausted on drawing, but I promised.. and if it's taught me one thing, it's how to make myself draw even when I don't want to.

that's my new character Paradolia. isn't she a sweetie?

my ass is getting down to its ideal weight by the end of the summer
and you can take that to the LAKE

OH SHI--

well, somehow I won the semifinals against that annoying guy. this is the last round!

LAST ROUND! I've almost made it all the way. this is unprecedented! I've never gotten first place before! :0

this last opponent is gonna be hard to beat though..my comics are definitely more polished, but I kinda work by a set of rules as to what my character can and can't do, whereas his character can do literally anything. he's more creative than me too, so I can only hope to outdo him in violence and awesome fight..ness.


in other news, there is no other news. I'm tryin to sign up for the Summer semester to get all my political science requirements out of the way. I'm playing Super Paper Mario and it's fun. Armored Core 4 is also fun but hard as damn.

last night I dreamed that Gackt and me were hanging out at his house, and it was really big and kind of resembled a highschool since we were sitting at desks. there were some other people there too and I think one of em was another jrock star. anyway Gackt said that he had a song on his computer and I had been wanting it so I asked him if I could upload it to my site or something so I could download it at home.

well, we went downstairs and I was trying to upload it but I couldn't figure out his computer or the connection was timing out or somethin, and I felt really embarrassed because I could tell Gackt was getting impatient even though he was being polite. eventually I said nevermind and then I woke up.
WTF

this was going to be the arena for round three of the tournament.


hey! I won my second fight in the original character battle. my opponent this time was a mime that could make items appear by pantomiming them. fun character, and it was cool to draw him. you can see the round 2 entry here. **

**EDIT: well, its too big for photobucket and I don't have my webspace login info right now, so I can't show you :C it's on my deviantart gallery but you have to be a member because it has a mature content tag.

in round 3, there were an odd number of contestants due to some of them forfeiting. thus, we had to do somethin a little unusual.. instead of a one on one fight, I'm in a three person free-for-all :O it's going to be a huge challenge. that pic up there was going to be where I had the next fight, but there's no way I can manage three people in such a small area. I have no idea where the fight will be now. any ideas? we've already done a ruined city and a forest.

muscadine and turnbuckle look for the next opponent

well, I'm working on principle photography for the next round in the tournament, just frames that will work no matter who I'm up against. actually they haven't judged round one yet :o but if I lose then this'll make an OK picture anyway.

you can see the comic I did for round one here. this bitch took me a week to do so I'm tryin to get it out as much as possible >:|

I am havin a hell of a time with this contest, and not in the good way.

If I haven't mentioned it yet I'm doing an original character tournament on deviantart where you're matched up with another person's character and you draw your character beating their ass. I decided to go with a short comic and not only is it incredibly time consuming(there has to be a shortcut, I need to be able to do less detail while still suggesting detail if you know what I mean) I can't figure out how to suggest motion.

you can see that she's blocking a punch, but there's no OOMPH. I know all about motion lines from looking at comics, but I can't figure out how to do em :< looked at Blade of the Immortal and the motion in that is amazing, but the lines are everywhere and I can't figure out how to do it like the artist. is there a tutorial for somethin like this that gives good results? just drawing lines coming out of the person's fist looks like crap.

PS: I got second place in that Peach contest from the previous entry. I managed to predict who would get first place, too. but the background that everyone loved in her entry was made with a pattern brush so I can't respect that :/

princess peach contest

that's a link to the entries for the Peach Club's valentines contest that ran all through february. unfortunately, I don't have an icecube's chance in hell of winning because instead of having a panel of judges vote on the winners(like I hoped it would) they're letting everyone vote D:/

the problem is that most of the contestants draw Mario stuff all the time, and since fanartists attract lots of people they have lots of friends to come in and vote for em, whereas I'm lucky if four devwatchers even comment on somethin I draw, let alone go vote for me somewheres.

eh :/ there was no way to write that without it sounding bitchy but I'm just stating the facts here. kind've disappointing but oh well!

oh yeah, on that sorta subject I entered a new contest today, where you submit one of your original characters and they're matched up with another person's OC, and then you each draw them fighting. whoever draws the best/most creative/brutal beatdown goes on to the next round. there are over a hundred people entering so it's pretty big. I'm entering Muscadine. the prizes are lame but it's mostly for fun since there are alot of very talented artists in the runnings too. my goal is to survive to round 3 at least. I'll update again with my first round drawing when I do it.

ribbon black.com

ok ok, it's still not up yet, but I overhauled everything that was done so far and it's looking pretty nice considerin who made it. so far, only the original and netherworld galleries are filled up, I haven't started on the fanart gallery and the other sections are still placeholders :/ this is tedious work.

decided to lose the scary bleeding girl splash page and go with somethin friendlier.. it looks better anyway. the only thing I'm not happy about is the quality of the pictures on the site; it seems like everyone else who took the time to make a site of their own have really fantastic, flawless(for their style) pictures. they're comfortable with how they draw and it shows, whereas I can sit and struggle for an hour trying to get a simple figure/proportion/hand right.

hope I can improve some, but at least I was discriminating with what went on there...there are gonna be about 50 pics overall, less than a fourth of what I have on my computer(and I have about 160 on deviantart) still, I need to get my ass in gear and come up with some stuff that'll be website worthy. PEACE

I saw Bridge to Terabithia today, and I thought it was great..but I predict a public outcry. the commercials show it as a lighthearted kind of Narnia thing, and if you haven't read the book(I didn't) then you'll be surprised to see that the fantasy scenes take up like 30 seconds of the movie and the rest is mostly real world drama about two unpopular kids who imagine a place to get away from their problems.

plus, the BIG THING that I won't spoil was COMPLETELY unexpected and like a punch in the stomach to me and the hapless audience. I know I'm a pansy, but I had to bite my lip to keep from crying. people are probably gonna be pissed at the difference between the trailer and the actual movie but in a way I think it's pretty incredible..I mean, they totally got us, that was brutal :D of course it was falsely advertised just as a way to get more viewers and not as some kind of hilariously cruel joke on the audience, so I'm giving em too much credit. it's still a very good movie, check it out :0

you wanna know how pathetic I am? I tried to go running today. .15 miles, (that's decimal point one five miles) this is apparently the limit--after that it's 15 minutes on the bathroom floor trying not to lose my orange soda.

still, even the horrible mess that is my body isn't enough to keep me down today.. if I was willing to exercise at all I must've been in a good mood. I think it's because I scored the whole Pillows discography on mp3, including the tribute album Synchronized Rockers which just blew my ass sideways. Mr. Children covers Strange Chameleon?? Going Under Ground does Little Busters? ELLEGARDEN sings Funny Bunny??? :D my life didn't begin until I got this album.

website is almost done, I guess..it'll be really simple because I realize how little patience people have with wading through interfaces. I'm tryin to take a cue from some of the japanese artist sites. now I just need to come up with about 10 ill new pictures for the official grand opening! :>

from a painfully corny pic for a mario bros valentines contest

I have a strange painful pressure going on way inside my right ear and it's alarming me. my hearing doesn't seem to be any worse, but it hurts..hopefully it goes away on its own soon :( I'd say it was an old ear infection coming back again, but the infection was in my left ear so who knows what's going on.

click the picture to see why black cat is sad. how depressing!

it's kawaru's birthday. happy birthday Craig! :0

it seemed impossible but I'm actually getting better with the Heelys. I can roll forward a ways and kind of turn, but mostly to the right and not always when I want to. it's still not much, but when I started I couldn't use the wheels at all so I know it'spossible and that's encouraging. I made a couple new icons since my last post, too. animated gifs are fun as long as you can get an idea for what to do.

I came up with some neat new user icons. check em out here mothafackos. I'm really really really happy with the default one!

http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=copper_bell

I swear Super Castlevania IV is the most bullshit game ever. the deathtraps in there are just sadistic. at least the bosses aren't bad so far, as long as you get the first hit in you can usually beat them in a slugfest without dodging much.

anyway, I've obviously been on a big CV thing since getting Portrait of Ruin, and I've been juggling that(playing as Richter, who is a grate character and all but he's practically a God here), Rondo of Blood(I'm at a part where you can go up a stairway, or you can go to the right where there's an elevator taking rocks up the screen, but going down it seems to be a dead end) and Super CV4. it got me wanting to do some Simon Belmont fanart, but as you can see I quickly gave up. Kojima's redesign of Simon is better than the original but drawing his outfit is just more trouble than it's worth. happy new year everybody.

Merry Christmas! oh shi--

better late than never. I got a pair of Heelys and Red Steel for christmas. I can barely move on the Heelys though D|< maybe if I practice everyday for a few more weeks I'll be able to roll forward instead of vertically. Red Steel is underrated and not as bad as people say it is.

best yet, I got two really nice things from kawaru and nyami! it's a great feeling when people do you favors without being asked. kawaru gave me a bunch of Ellegarden songs cause I couldn't find any, and they've been extremely helpful inspiration-like for drawing.. I've gotten at least 3 or 4 pics out of em.

nyami uploaded Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and a PCE emulator! I've been trying to play this game for years and I finally can now. it really is the best of the old style CVs from what I've seen. the werewolf on stage 2 kept sweating me until I figured out to use the backflip for dodging his attacks. need to get a pc gamepad because using the keyboard is too hard for me :/ thanks guys.

wanna hear a terrific song?

"Ellegarden - I Hate It"

just download it. his english is a little shaky(at the beginning of the song he says he's "harf awake") but overall very good and it's just a pretty song. it's a shame that Ellegarden's mp3s are so hard to come by(for me at least). ..I need their cds.

annnd there goes the Wii. the power went out for a second(a transformer nearby must have blown) and everything else in my room came back on except the Wii. the power light doesn't light up and it doesn't work. this is the shittiest fucking day.

edit: okay, crisis averted :\ it apparently just needed a while to think about what it did and now it's powering on again. I'm still pissed about the picture.