Finally got to doing another sketch at the Idaho Museum of Natural History. Here's their oviraptorosaur mount from a different angle because ovis just have the most lovely profiles.

(Also because - to my deepest shame - I only recently learned that scleral rings are actually located inside the eyball, not outside of it, and thus most of the eyes on my life restorations are actually too small. My hunger for scientific accuracy compels me to therefore re-draw every fossil mount with correctly proportioned eyes. Alas, this is the sort of thing that happens when one majored in animation in college instead of paleontology.)

You may notice that I don't usually restore a dinosaur the same way twice. That's because I don't really have a "headcanon" for how any particular dinosaur ought to look, outside of what's been confirmed by fossil evidence (for example, Borealopelta was reddish-brown with a lighter underside, Microraptor was extensively feathered, etc.). So I enjoy experimenting with different looks, including feathering extent/patterns, pupil shape, and the like. Honestly that's one of the fun parts about paleoart for me, is that there's a considerable amount of creative wiggle room.

 

I'm so glad the first two Golden Sun games were put on Nintendo Switch, because I've been playing the life out of them. I hadn't played them since they first came out, and now I'm falling in love with them all over again--the gameplay is well-thought-out and satisfying, and the plot and lore are great.

I just wish there was more Golden Sun for us to enjoy! Another game in the series is way overdue, and honestly, I'd love a Golden Sun MMORPG. You could pick your Adept element and then wander the wide world of Weyard, having adventures with friends or on your own, finding Djinn, learning summons... I'd sink so many hours into that.

Anyway, here's a random character design just because.

As a side note, I have no idea how I ever finished the first Golden Sun game without a walkthrough the first time around (that was in the Dark Ages before readily accessible online walkthroughs). I actually didn't get very far into The Lost Age because I reached a point where I just had no idea what to do. So it's been super fun to actually get further in the game this time and realize just how much I missed out on. I have no idea how they managed to pack that much RPG into one GBA cartridge, and I'm not complaining.

Hollyweird must go

Much of this blog post is based on an op-ed letter I sent to a newspaper, which didn't get published, and I'm not really surprised because I'm kind of a maverick. But it's mavericks who get stuff done. And I felt that the message was important enough that I can at least share it on my blog.

I write this with the full knowledge that it will shock and offend people. And I don't mean the kind of offensive that's morally repugnant. I mean offending people who have gone along with society's status quo and lulled themselves into believing they don't have to make an effort. Who prioritize money and comfort over integrity. They won't like what I'm about to say, because as a Christian, I follow a divine Master who is inviting humanity to rise from the slums of mediocrity and minimal effort and discover the joy, fulfilment, and potential of walking a higher path and not settling for the devil's destructive lies.

Christian leader Jeffrey R. Holland put it masterfully in this talk about what it means to truly be a disciple of Christ. It's not the easy or popular thing to do, but history has shown that what is easy and popular is never what is truly worthwhile. 

To accomplish anything with real meaning and impact, people have to stretch themselves, think for themselves, and stand their moral ground, and a prime example of where this isn't happening is the entertainment and media industry. And not just the creators and executives--I'm also calling out audiences for letting things slide.

Real talk: Hollywood is crumbling, and it's time for a revolution on both fronts.

The tired myth of the "Mary Sue"

Today, I'd like to discuss a notion that's been on my mind for a while now: the concept of the "Mary Sue" and why writers need to just let it go. I'd been trying to wait for a good opportunity to appropriately soapbox, but then I figured, there's no better place to soapbox than one's own blog. And yes, I look at the visitor statistics, so I know people are seeing this. Time for another essayrant (new portmanteau I just invented).

As someone who regrettably grew up doing a lot of writing networking over the Internet (I feel like no one should ever spend their youth doing any sort of networking over the Internet), I was quickly exposed to the world of fanfiction, and the world of people who read and discuss fanfiction. Both are equally terrifying in their own ways.

Fanfiction is exactly what it claims to be: original fiction pieces written by fans of a fictional work, purely for fun (or sometimes more for social clout in the fan community). There is no quality control much like independent publishing. I have read some very, very good fanfiction by talented writers that could easily be turned into licensed novels. I have also read some fanfiction that would only make the publishing cut with a lot of editing and much more skill development on the part of the writer.

But you know what? In fanfiction, an amateur labor of love for something you're emotionally invested in, writing skill doesn't actually matter all that much, in my opinion. What I really think is a bigger problem is when other fans read said fanfiction and proceed to critically tear it apart unsolicited--or worse, publicly denounce it and make fun of it. And nowhere have I seen more of this than attacks on what are perceived as "Mary Sues"--or, to put the issue in its real light, character shaming.

The first 35 minutes of the Thunder Girl audiobook are now available to listen to for free on YouTube! Now you can preview the book before committing to it. I love Benjamin Fife's performance here and I think he had a lot of fun working on this project.

As an aside, I'm still putting together plans for a sequel. I've been waylaid a bit by other stuff, but I have another fun story I want to tell about Cat and her motley crew, an eccentric Scottish vampire (I guess all vampires are a little eccentric), a reawakened Egyptian mummy, and Australian Pleistocene megafauna. You'll see how I tie all that together. :)

More old art. I was so worried I'd lost these, so I'm really glad I found them floating around my hard drive.

These are portraits I did for Blynn, Hyren, and Suhel (I guess that's obvious) for some profiles I did of them. I still like these pics despite their age, and now I can link to them in Neopets stories that I put here on the blog.

I just wanted to do a sketch of Financier Cookie and Clotted Cream Cookie from the Crème Republic storyline in Cookie Run: Kingdom, which was awesome. Financier rocks.

This picture is actually based off of this illustration which was posted on the official CRK Twitter account.

When the Crème Republic storyline first started, I was absolutely certain Clotted Cream Cookie was the bad guy. With that smug smirk and charismatic demeanor and super fancy clothes, I just knew he was hiding something. 

Okay, that's not the first or last time I've been wrong about someone being the villain. Maybe I have trust issues.