jdscanvas

[jdscanvas]

Chatting by the Canvas --- Graphics vs Art Style? You need BOTH but....

Having detailed graphics is not bad. You're not compromising on artistry simply when you pursue Physically Based Rendering.

Sometimes you want a game to have a more grounded style for the sake of immersing the audience and catching their attention, like MK1 or Last of Us.

There's just something about this approach that I really love. And it's getting easier and easier to achieve with time. The new RE games are especially proof of this.

I don't care about how "real" it is but I absolutely love the sheer amount of detail you can inject into your assets in this day and age. It really helps with visual story telling. It's like witnessing a great athletic feat: the artist sharing their meticulous work with others.

Of course, sometimes you want to take things further.

AT THE SAME TIME. Aesthetics will ALWAYS win over fidelity. The best graphics are not substitute for a clear style and making what a player traverses fun and interesting. So many games out there still have awesome aesthetically pleasing visuals who either did not have the most powerful tech available OR were made before that tech even existed.

So ANYONE who claims either graphics are the most important thing OR that you HAVE TO compromise on having a detailed style because you don't have the budget to inject 1000 vfx simulations into your project are BOTH wrong. Audiences have more tolerance for graphical weirdness than they think. And not to mention some indie games deliberately go for a lower poly count. And there's entire fan "demakes" that remake whole games in a style that mimics limited tech. SO GO NUTS. I don't care if your art budget is $50 or $50,000. Make something COOL.

[jdscanvas]

CYBERPUNK 2077 FIRST IMPRESSIONS---WHY DID I NOT PLAY THIS SOONER?!? Almost one year after I purchased the PS5 Ultimate Edition of Cyberpunk 2077, I have finally decided to dive in. And honest to god I am quickly falling in love with the game.

First of all, yes it's unfortunate that the previous-gen console ports were so disastrous, but that wasn't the developers' faults. That sort of thing never is. Secondly, I imagine a lot of this bad rep has slowly but surely waned away not only with the superior console ports, but also the release of Edgerunners and the Phantom Liberty DLC. I don't necessarily believe this game will end up with a Fallout New Vegas level of retrospective acclaim, seeing as how the PC version on launch was already well regarded, but this is most certainly a well crafted intricate game. I hope CD Projekt Red's staff feel the 8+ years this project took (Witcher 3 and its DLCs released in that time) were worth it.

So at the moment, here are some of my thoughts on the game so far. Night City is gorgeous, as is this entire art style. It's definitely cyberpunk, but it's far from generic. They really lean into the street life/night life aesthetic while also injecting a bit of 1980s retrofuturism and some genuine Asian elements that go beyond generic vaporwave backdrops of sakura trees. Lots of personality, in both characters, environments, and weapons. Soundtrack has a lot of techno bangers too, a lot of glitch effects.

Superior gun selection, and I've only scratched the surface. Plenty of different ones to pick from, and not only are there a series of interchangeable mods, there are also one of a kind variants. In this game they're called "Iconic" weapons. It would seem the weapon mechanics found in games like Outer Worlds and Far Cry 6 are becoming standard in these types of open world games, and I am all for it. Plenty of options, customization, and the joy of the hunt that is one-of-a-kind variants. Even in a game like New Vegas that only had set mods for most of the guns that weren't interchangeable, this was something I really appreciated in that game especially compared to Fallout 3. Happy to see this is commonplace in these sorts of games.

I have similar thoughts on the clothing options. Lots to pick from. Some have their own stats, and some are one of a kind. Again pretty much what should be the standard for apparel in these games even if the player never gets to create their own custom outfits. Healthy mix of goofy and high end fashion.

Typical perk tree, most of the ones I've acquired are stat based but they try. They have conditional temp stat increases and I know there are abilities that can be acquired later in the perk trees. There are Five attributes that control character skills. (I think there's a hidden Sixth attribute but i'm not terribly far in yet). Cool is one of the more intriguing ones, controls perks related to finesse and charisma (imagine Speech in Fallout) some maneuverability perks are here, others are in the Reflexes skill tree. I recognized some of the perk images as references to other sci-fi fiction. I haven't gotten any of the super cool perks yet, but that's to be expected seeing as how I'm only maybe 10-15 hours in.

This is a pretty good story so far for what it is. I'm honest to god already resonating with the story's themes of legacy, corporate oppression, (maybe a bit of trans-humanism), and "Make it Big" dreams being challenged by harsh reality. V is much like Commander Shepherd; the happy medium between a player avatar who you shape and a character with their own history and personality. And it even pulled the "first few hours are a prologue" card. And I was fine with it. I know when most people think of a prologue in an RPG, they think of Kingdom Hearts 2 (the Final Mix being my #1 favorite video game). But here it's better paced. Introduces you to V (and the backstory you chose for him/her) and lets you get to know some characters just enough that you feel bad when things go wrong. And in that entire time, you're enjoying some high octane action as early as the first hour. Crazy stuff happens as you learn more about Night City and its place in this world. Plus you still have the option to do some side missions if you feel like it. In other words, Keneau Johnny Silverhand doesn't show up until after these first few hours. Basically by this point, you've been introduced to every major mechanic as well as the world. You know the stakes, you know where you are, you know how to get from Point A to Point B. It does what any well designed and well paced game should.

Hacking is intuitive, quick, and of course upgradable. Distract enemies, hack computers, hack ENEMIES, etc. You have a set number of points that you spend to perform these actions, which recharge over time. Not a bad way to balance the mechanic. And you can upgrade how many max charges you have.

Naturally, with this being cyberpunk, you can unlock cybernetic upgrades. Some are stat buffs, and some are even weapons that come out of your body. I appreciate that extra mile the devs went. It is awesome in these kinds of games to get cybernetic implants, but it's interesting when they aren't relegated to just being another flavor of upgrade/perk.

You can go through video files and scan them for clues. Rewind them, pause them, etc. Very nice mechanic, it's always fun to play detective. Arkham City definitely faired well with sequences that were similar to this (even Arkham Knight, underwhelming by comparison, had some great detective sequences).

Like most Western RPGs, V has access to unique dialogue choices. They go the extra mile by having unique dialogue depending on both your attributes AND your character background. And sometimes you can just buy off certain folks. That's always nice. One time to progress a quest I even killed a Braindance dealer. Glad to have options.

User Interface has a clean aesthetic, clean enough to be readable but injected with some personality too. I love the blue and red and the font choices. They remind me of earlier cyberpunk games like System Shock 1 (which i wouldn't recommend, 2 is awesome though). It does feel like the interface is what V "sees". Somewhat diegetic, but not exactly the Dead Space UI. The menus are fine, but the inventory does this sub-menu thing that some earlier CRPGs did in the 90s and late 2000s (and hell even Outer Worlds and No Man's Sky today do this, technically) where you have a series of pictures that you "mouse over" and then you get a list of the details of each item. On one hand i appreciate how compact this is, on the other i prefer having these things set off to the side in a dedicated part of the menu. You have the standard compare and contrast feature where you compare what you have equipped to what is moused over. That's cool, but again I feel having these parameters in a dedicated area of the screen that changes values depending upon what you have selected works better personally. It works fine, I can adapt but it is not my preference. With this approach, I feel I have to commit more to active memory when scrolling and it's too busy to keep track of in the heat of the moment.

Honestly will all these intricate mechanics and how dense Night City is, it's no wonder this game went through development hell and cost so much to make. I will never condone holding every game or even most games to this ludicrous standard of 50 hour brew ha-has with a billion mechanics and super complex VFX/simulations that cost as much as a hollywood film, HOWEVER if a development studio can make it work? Can create a stunning product? I'll have nothing but respect for the folks that poured dozens of hours of their lives into it. Regardless of whether it was "worth it" for individuals involved, in regards to whatever they needed to sacrifice, I will ALWAYS treat their work with the utmost respect. I feel that way about the intriguing world of Anthem despite agreeing it was a failure of a video game. I tear up inside when I remember reading about how the developers of Cyberpunk where so happy that Edgerunners succeeded and got more people into the game that poured so much into. At the end of the day, if a team big or small comes together and creates a fantastic product, I'll either love it or respect it. I will never say they shouldn't have bothered. Luckily in this case I am absolutely loving what I am playing.

Can't wait to continue this game. In the next few months I have my eyes set on Avowed and Judas. I pray those are both great. I wish for 2025 to be a more productive/well rounded year than 2024 was for me.

[jdscanvas]

**Looking forward to New Games and Heard some Rumors!!!**

AVOWED

Obsidian, one of the greatest RPG devs around are finally releasing their Skyrim-esque game with a Resident Evil pandemic theme? Sign me up! Due in February after a few delays.

JUDAS

Due in March I believe. Ken Levine and his team are finally releasing this game 11+ years after Bioshock Infinite. I don’t know much but the concept sounds cool, I love the man’s work. Bioshock 1 is my second favorite video game. And System Shock 2 is a cult classic. I’m mostly praying Judas is not just another Bioshock. Few creators deserve to be forever tethered to one success. Guess we’ll see.

NINTENDO SWITCH 2

We don’t know what the console will actually be called, and I only have less than 20 switch games. I spent so long not collecting games, but I’ll bet Nintendo’s new console will continue their legacy. Good Lord Super Mario is Turning 40 this year……

RESIDENT EVIL RUMORS

Rumors are going around that Capcom is doing another remake. Now I’m very hit or miss with the flood of remakes in this day and age. Mostly because we need to stop thinking games are REQUIRED to be “fixed”. Modern gamers have higher tolerances for jank and outdated graphics than they think and remakes exist to complement the originals, not replace them nor act like a “free money” card for publishers. Respect original creators that take risks to deliver stellar experiences, even if they aren’t the most pretty.

WITH THAT BEING SAID, Capcom has been making fantastic remakes since Resident Evil (2002). And apparently the next remake will be ZERO. Ok if this is true I think Capcom has fulfilled fan wishes of giving less than stellar entires another go. Zero may not have a good reputation, but I think a remake would be an amazing time.

Also not much info on 9. Just rumors that it will be open world and confirmation that RE7’s director is behind it. Cool. Loved 7.

SOME RANDOM GAMERANT ARTICLE

I heard some claim Bethesda will be remaking Oblivion. The journalists over at GameRant might have confused that with Skyblivion, the long awaited FAN remake of the game in Skyrim’s engine. I would bot be surprised, GameRant has some of the worst click bait in the gaming community. Have not been following it closely, but I love the redone concepts i’ve seen. That re-design of Mankar really makes him look like a conniving cult leader.

[jdscanvas]

Believe it or not, I actually do think I have enough to say about the things I love to actually make my account a proper blog.

My inner OCD tells me I need to back up everything i’d post on personal hard drives, but regardless out of the available platforms for blogging I feel I’m most comfortable with Tumblr.

My bread and butter are everything and anything having to do with art, video games, and any intellectual or academic topic that tickles my fancy.

Because I prefer to provide low stress enthusiastic stuff to my readers, I’ll do my damndest to avoid anything overly political and what not. I always applaud the folks that are busting their asses to share important information and insightful commentary on such things. It is simply not my forte.

[jdscanvas]

SO It's 2025 now. Happy New Year, by the way. I can honestly say, years later, that most of these thoughts that I had at the time of writing I don't really commit too. Because I never was able to get past the things about that show that came off as "cringe" or contradictory to this show that i heard all these enthusiasts say was so "unique" for a girls cartoon.....I cannot say in good conscience that a fair chunk of my criticisms here hold a lot of water.

Most of this involved hyper-fixating on, admittedly beloved within the fandom, secondary characters who were never meant to be substantial to the main cast beyond expanding the show's world. It doesn't matter to the quality of Friendship is Magic that Pharynx never appeared in another episode, or that Shining Armor never became an alicorn, or that Cadence was never very well fleshed out. Sure some of these were missed opportunities, but this was a show about first and foremost the Mane Six and the supporting characters of their town obviously came first. It is what the show was about, so it was only natural everything about the main setting would take center stage. Hearing creators I deeply respect like @ponett gush about the show and what it meant to her helped me understand some nuance to the show I couldn't quite see for myself at the time. And also realize that MLP G5 doesn't seem to be interested in creating anything with nearly as much passion as G4 had (honestly even after Faust left there were still people who cared).

Izzzyzz on Youtube also had a great video talking about all the brony controversies of the show's history. Including those pertaining to the show itself. There was a time where the fandom wholeheartedly rejected Shining Armor and Cadence entirely as a soulless topical reference (marriage of Prince William in England) and proof the show had jumped the shark. Generally I agreed with her about why Twilight being an alicorn wasn't a great idea, or destroying her beloved home and giving her a crystal castle that just does not fit her character at all, or that Flurry Heart only existed for the sake of toys and not for any creative reason. Generally the fanbase warmed up to most of this stuff, but it always felt "off". And also the implications of the ending that Twilight becomes exactly like Celestia to the point she's probably a immortal/live for thousands and thousands of years demi-god was somewhat unsettling. Everything fans feared about Season 3's conclusion sort of came true. Almost. Also Spike's future design was weird. I also understand that claiming to be a "fan", while admitting to never sitting down for an entire episode, only clips here and there, is a ludicrous proposition. As I have explained, while I really gravitated towards certain concepts or characters, I clearly was not meeting the show half-way with what it set out to do. Normally, when I experience media, i have zero issue with doing that. If a creator has a story they want to tell, I won't look for missed opportunities, I'll focus on what the author is trying to accomplish. I'll criticize what an author DOES do, not what they DON'T do. Some of my criticisms were either weird hyper-fixation (neurodivergence does that to the best of us), or I was straight up projecting.

There's more I could bring up, but ultimately I'm just hear to say that MLP: FiM wasn't something I could really get into, and I spent years in denial thinking that I could. So if i ever criticized the show for something that wasn't important to its goals or that was a minor element at best, I do apologize to the fans for that. Sadly this show is on the list of "hyper-fixations I obsessed over to the point my anxiety took over and I was scared to experience them as they were". Stuff like Lion King or (to a lesser extent) the Stitch franchise. (To some extent Beastars counts, but only because it actively angered me in the final arc after I read the entire manga. So i'm probably never watching the anime because of that, but that's a long story.)

I still appreciate aspects of Friendship is Magic, and I'd like to believe it influenced me in a positive way. There were some fantastic artists both in fandom and the IDW comics I still like. And some fan fictions were interesting. I'm glad it exists, and i hope the people who worked on it, especially Lauren Faust, continue to find avenues to create.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic----It Doesn’t Deserve It’s Fanbase

I feel like based on the amount of traction that one post I made years ago about how I felt about the Changelings post-Season 6, I should finally clarify how I actually feel about the show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It’s been almost three years since the show concluded, and in that time I came to a realization…

It doesn’t deserve the community that was built around it, and I honestly feel like the fandom and even the IDW comics (of what little I know of them) took far better advantage of the world and characters.

Now I am heading into this argument on somewhat shaky legs, because I have never actually sat down and watched an entire episode of the show.

Why didn’t I? Well to tell the truth it was fear. Whenever I thought of doing it, I would start suffering serious nervousness and second-hand embarrasment. I could never figure out why. After seeing how the series finale was handled, and then seeing where Hasbro was going with G5, I have my answer: I wouldn’t be caught dead watching this Care Bears level cringe.

Most folks who love the show might say it was better than anyone expected a show attached to this toy line to be good since it was primarily targeted towards girls and yet it ended up having mass appeal. I wholeheartedly believe that Lauren Faust had a clear passionate vision for the series, but even in the beginning information came out that the final show did not always turn out how she wanted. Luna and Celestia should have been the only alicorns, Celestia was supposed to be a queen, etc. Faust claimed she wanted to create a show that challenged the perception that shows for girls tend to be low quality. One quote I remember being sourced from her was that in these shows characters could defeat villains by crying/smiling/something along these lines. The show’s solution to this? Anti-climatic friendship kamehamehas. Like almost every villain was defeated this way, even in the Seasons that Faust was directly involved in. Sometimes the journey to get to the kamehamehas was different, but literally nothing else ever worked.

Even when the Elements of Harmony aren’t directly involved, a friendship kamehameha ended up being the answer. Or, going directly against Faust’s desire for her show, beating them via emotional speeches, LIKE STARLIGHT GLIMMER. And honestly, Starlight I was always on-and-off about. On one hand she felt like a replacement for Twilight for fans who absolutely despised her alicorn princess fate, and on the other she felt like a Filmore (the disney show) style character—a former foe/deliquent who is recruited by the good guys and that which leads to their redemption. Literally all the writers had to do was have Starlight initally punished/imprisoned for the nasty stuff she did in Season 5, and then have Twilight take pity on her and take her under her wing (literally). And I would’ve had no problems with that; the concept of a character like that is really cool to me. You could’ve also taken out two birds with one stone and use Starlight as an example for kids that anyone can change as long as they want to. To some extent though, Discord technically already fulfilled that role in Seasons 3 and 4 so I guess the writers’ hands were tied here?

Twilight being an alicorn, in hindsight, was a huge mistep that I don’t believe Faust would’ve ever been OK with if she was still there to do anything about it. Twilight was a nerd, a bookworm, an aspiring master wizard. Some skeptics would argue the only reason she became an alicorn princess was because it was a show for girls and girls wanna be pretty princesses. I argue it was mostly a case of main character syndrome, and how the “nowhere-to-go-but-up” mentality can ultimately screw up a character. Like…Goku is super-powerful, to an almost ridiculous degree, but Toriyama didn’t make him the new King Kai, or the new freaking Omni-King? Luffy may eventually become the Pirate King, but he’s not going to become King of the whole damn world! Naruto always wanted to become Hokage of his village, and he did, but that doesn’t mean it would’ve made sense to make him like Grand Master of all Ninja Villages of the World??? Consequently, why in the hell did Twilight need to be turned into Chad Celestia (or Celestia 2.0)? Yeah sure she had leadership qualities but that doesn’t qualify her to be a monarch of an entire country/kingdom. Even with the exsistence of the Council of Friendship, it was so obvious at the end that she was Celestia and Luna’s replacement because hurr durr she main character. Was it because of other characters that became leaders of their “tribes” (Thorax, Ember, etc.)? Keep in mind, by the end of the series she had her own castle and school ON TOP OF CELESTIA’S CASTLE AND SCHOOL. Guys, this isn’t an Elder Scrolls game where you can just keep piling on important titles onto your protagonist. From a narrative standpoint, I guess the writers just had no other places to take Twilight. They had her achieve basically all of her dreams at once (except the Master Wizard thing, because I don’t think she was ever considered the next Starswirl, just a super powerful ball of magic), so what “shocking” developments could they have given her next? Ruling all of Equestria. Even taking into account that Faust apparently always intended Twilight to succeed Celestia in some fashion, I seriously doubt she intended to mutate her into Neo Celestia. You put her side by side by her friends, and she doesn’t even look like one of them anymore, she sticks out like a sore thumb (doubly so in the future episode).

I do believe effort was placed in some of the humor and especially some of the non main characters, but almost all the characters post….Season 2 never got enough screentime to truly take advantage of the story potential. How many fans of Shining Armor like me were praying that he at least had an episode focusing on how he felt being the only non-alicorn royalty? Wouldn’t anyone have loved an episode where Armor and Cadence got to meet the new changelings and really get to know Thorax and Pharynx and what not (or did Thorax’s debut episode count as checking that box?)? Why did the Cutie Mark Crusaders (again the mere words “cutie mark” really make it near impossible to see anything in this world as genuinely dramatic) need to have nearly identical cuite marks? Even taking into account their “destines” to help other kids find their talents, you didn’t have to make them homogenous from a design standpoint to do so. Meh, but they got more than others did. Cadence I loved more as a potential cool character, but they never developed her enough even when she had so much more screentime in later seasons. Her infant daughter who couldn’t even talk got more development. Flurry being born an alicorn felt like a kick in the gonads to fans that wanted an alicorn Shining Armor. Like wow his daughter gets to be born one, but he doesn’t even get the honor of proving himself worthy? Spike getting wings doesn’t count because he’s a dragon and that was an obvious leap in intuition. Speaking of Spike, he’s one of the more developed non-main characters (although to some he’s the Butters of this show, the unofficial extra main character) but even he got done a little dirty. I say a little because his crush on Rarity never went anywhere, it was just one-note comic relief, and they only ever talk about what it was like to grow up with Shining Armor and Twilight in the final season. That little moment where he wins the Sibling Supreme crown and they tell him he’s the little brother they’ve always had? Awesome, yes, more of that please. Also his future self looks like a freaking Chad. Like why did they give him a buff body type that wasn’t too far removed from how he fantasized about himself? I’ve heard some theories as to why but I don’t really agree with them.

Celestia is a strange case to me because I was glad to see more of her personality show in the later seasons, but you could also argue that she was made to be more like Twilight (and maybe they did that to try and convince fans that it was totally a natural evolution for Twilight to become like Celestia because they’re so alike yo!). I know Faust always intended her to be somewhat mysterious and now I can’t help but feel like the writers went against that idea. Luna was always a favorite of mine, and they handled her very well when they did focus on her, I don’t have too many complaints there. Honestly, the characters that weren’t given much development could’ve gotten plenty, because they managed to do exactly that with Sunburst in Season 6. One two part episode, and he automatically became one of the more interesting side characters. Heck, I’d even argue Maude from Season 4 gets this honor even if parts of her are the generic “stoic misfit”. Pharynx I think was handled pretty well in Season 7 as well, for someone who only ever mattered in one episode (again they could’ve done so much more with him).

I remember thinking that the movie that came out in 2017 could’ve been like The Lego Movie of little girl’s cartoons if they played their cards right, but even just based on interviews the creators clearly were not concerned about doing anything interesting.

Equestria Girls should’ve never been a thing, and kind of went against the whole point of the franchise not being so stereotypically girly girly. I mean jeez the main series still had the balls to lampoon the whole “we totally aren’t like those girly girl generic shows” on occasion (like in Rainbow Dash’s nightmare) but like….you have a concept called “cutie marks”, hearts decorate almost every piece of architecture, the main character was made a princess for no real reason, the highest authorities are princesses and not queens “because queens are evil bad guys”, your theme song is like something out of a generic Disney TV special, and your heroes never get to actually directly fight and win against the villians.

Powerpuff Girls literally did the whole “girly show that’s actually bad ass and funny” thing years before you (of which Mrs. Faust was a writer, and it’s being revived with original creator on the helm so yay!)….

I can’t help but think that the show being inherently connected to a franchise called My Little Pony, and therefore being the first part of the title, the first thing people think of when they think of this show, ruined a lot of it’s chances of being taken more seriously. You hear that title and you cannot distance it from literally the most generic girly girl stuff you can ever think of. You remember that’s the franchise this is connected to, and you think of all the attempts FiM made to be like one of the “good shows” with “actual stories worth telling” just not meshing well. Was the show Dead on Arrival? Clearly not if so many folks of all walks of life saw something in it worth salvaging.

All the other shows of FiM’s generation, even the PG ones that kids of the same age group shouldn’t techincally be watching unsupervised but many many kids did, Regular Show, Adventure Time, freaking Gumball, Steven Universe. These shows had far more intricate characters and lore, had more interesting styles, and told far more interesting stories that went beyond generic Aesops. Again, even taking into account the PG rating of most of these, GUMBALL, a show that while on occasion dabbles into the juvenile, was also still able to tell interesting stories with decent lessons behind them AND they also had more thought out humor. Even companies as conservative as Disney are willing to let Gravity Falls and Star vs the Forces of Evil get through. HELL, HASBRO THEMSELVES let at least 90% of the Transformers television shows, with their interesting stories and characters, be released.

I always believed that Friendship is Magic could’ve been a Transformers level franchise, but for mostly young girls. It could’ve had more developed characters, better action, and genuinely bad-ass moments. It could’ve been Powerpuff Girls with more story, or simply Samurai Jack for a new generation. Unfortuantely, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

It still hurts when I think of something that was born from one person’s passion become what it became and how it could’ve truly landed among the stars. I still don’t know, almost three years after the Finale, if i’m better off completely ignoring it, or simply indulging in the fan content that continues to come out to this day.

I do know, however, that G5 will not be a true successor to FiM like the fandom deserves. Literally in the very first story, the main character became an alicorn. Wait 8 more years, and they’ll make her ruler of the entire world. That’s how little faith I have in the people attached to this franchise. Hasbro even killed FiM in the IDW comics to completely focus on G5.

If you have a love for FiM despite it’s failures, I’m glad and I would never try to take that from you even if I can’t see it. I personally would love to create a show with a similar style, even though I’ve got a long way to go in the field I’m trying to get into now. The things that I appreciated about FiM, as few as they turned out to be, continue to inspire me like the many other stories I’ve come across over the years. I hope someone inspired by FiM can come along and succeed where it failed. Ultimately though, we have no choice but to wait and find out.

[jdscanvas]

$50,000 immediately dropped into my bank account wouldn't improve EVERYTHING but boy it sure would be a grand, sexy little start to a good, happy life path, don't you think

[jdscanvas]

I’m very late in re-blogging here, but despite my mixed feelings on Yardley’s art (not so much his drawing abilities, which are solid, but the way he draws Sonic characters in particular) that panel where the frozen Mobians are all looking off to the side in surprise, followed by the big panel of Eggman’s Fleet is a great piece of sequential comic art!

Again, in case there was any doubt that Enerjak!Knuckles is 100% a villain…

Knuckles is DEFINITELY not quite himself right now, but it still doesn’t feel like he’s been completely overtaken by the Enerjak persona. Knuckles was raised to believe he was the world’s savior, but a whopping 90% of all echidnas were killed by Eggman on his watch. Now he thinks he’s finally got the power to do something about this and reshape the world based on the ideology he was raised with. If his friends wanna stop him on his “righteous quest”? Well…

I’m also entertained by Sonic’s little “this isn’t you, Knuckles” bit. It feels like it’s partially written for new readers who know the version of the character from the games, where he’s a lovable meathead who punches first and asks questions later. This DEFINITELY does not feel like the character from the games. But as a culmination of how Penders had written him (and honestly, Bollers too–Return to Angel Island literally ends with Knuckles proving a religious prophecy about him being Angel Island’s savior true), this is a natural progression

(I feel like half of my commentary on this arc has been me defending this story choice even though people generally already like this arc. I dunno. It is a VERY weird thing for a Sonic comic to be doing out of context, but I wanna sell just how satisfying I think this is as a continuation of all the batshit crazy Knuckles comics I had to sit through)

[jdscanvas]

One of the biggest Sonic the Hedgehog related injustices I can think of at the moment....

Is that neither @ponett nor @drawloverlala, as far as i know, are doing any work for SEGA on either IDW or anything related to Sonic. (Especially lala.)

When will SEGA right this wrong??

Ponett has a cutesy style that works very well for the more light hearted side of Sonic, and she made SLARPG. Lots of bright colors! (She also runs a separate blog on the Archie Sonic comics.)

Her drawings of Bunnie and Rogue are all the evidence I need of her ability to draw Sonic, honestly.

Well OK, the Sonic doodle here is pretty good evidence too....

Also her fursona even CAMEOD in IDW SONIC.

Moving onto Lala, she is one of the few artists I know that can flawlessly emulate the 60-70s anime-mixed-with-rubber-hose aesthetic that Naoto Oshima perfected with Sonic, Nights, etc while ALSO giving it a bit of her own flair. Her character designs are top notch, especially re-designs of the Archie cast.

Classic or Modern, she kills it.

Now THESE are the redesigns these Sky Patrol guys should've gotten.

She even redesigned characters like Dulcy and Lupe, who for most of their runs were blatantly not styled to look anything like Sonic, in such a way that not only did they retain their major features and proportions, but also had little extra details to help them fit into a Sonic theme without gutting them of what made their designs stand out in the first place!

Hell she even made a hypothetical Princess Sally design based on the ***original scrapped concept from SatAM's pre production***.

Also she's a big Mega Man fan.

Also she can compose a great page (from her Brotherhood's Twist fan comic).

So yeah, SEGA, IDW, why are you sleeping on these gals?

I'd hire them. No Lie. Too bad I don't have any money....

Oh and ladies? If ya'll ever make a comic book, i'll buy 5.

[jdscanvas]

Ok i still don’t have final designs for any of these characters but hilariously enough I have a story concept in the works that I think the original post author would appreciate.

Skoll and Hati, twin sons of Fenrir are twenty-somethings that have the hots for Sol and Mani, the twin daughters of Mundilfari. The four of them have truly made a strong connection in spite of the numerous not-so-subtle ways Odin and the Aesir have been attempting to keep them apart. Why? The “prophecy” that a bunch of ancient Norse poems foretell about Ragnarok.

Most of the one’s involved find it superstitious nonsense; it’s merely coincidence that the twin wolves, their family, the aesirs and what not fit many of the descriptions of the key figures in these doomsday poems. Then a son of Odin dies, and then this strange ash begins to pop up all across modern day Scandinavia. The ash seems to connect to the Jotun, Surtr, some long dead cult leading doomsday prophet butt-face said to rise again and bring about the end times with his giant flaming sword.

This ash is turning people into mindless zombie drones, and forms nasty creatures. Is Surtr trying to steer things his way from beyond the grave? Is it merely his “toxic” influence seeping out at around the foretold end times? Is it both?

No one knows exactly, but most folk and especially the four young lovers are not willing to play ball and aim to eradicate this ancient giant entirely. No old as hell nihilistic boogeyman is going to burn down their homes. They travel through Scandinavia to get to the bottom of it all. The twin wolves, the “skychasers”, found undying love in the celestial twins, and no matter how far they have to “chase” one another, no matter what tries to push them apart, their love will always bring them back together.

The Aesir are being nosy asses, especially stubborn Odin. Not even the boys’ Uncle Sleipnir, the right hand man of the Allfather can sway him much. Odin’s blood-brother, their grandfather, Loki can offer help but how can he even hope to stop any of this, especially after all the seemingly “good” decisions Odin made over the years. Not even Loki’s former partners or his own wife seem to have the answers. The wolves’ father Fenrir grows ever closer to bending his bind, the ribbon Gleipnir, to his will. Naturally he’s still pissed about Odin’s worry-wart crap that lead to his humiliation and ever-lasting strain between himself and his blood-brother, Tyr. Tyr meanwhile wants to see justice done, and to see the tension between the families come to an end. He left something special for his dear friend in that dwarven dagger he was forced to put in the wolf’s mouth, something that grows stronger as it soaks in his blood. Skoll wants nothing more than Sol’s embrace and the safety of his family, but it would be ideal if he felt he could live up to his trickster grandpa’s legacy, and maybe become a respected warrior. Hati’s anxiety disorder and borderline misanthropic attitude have troubled him since childhood. Despite the undying support of his twin brother, family and girlfriend he wishes for peace, and to be worthy of the heirloom axe his father bestowed upon him. The rage that fuels Fenrir’s battles does not work for Hati, so surely there’s something in him that burns brighter?

Helena (Hel for short) is burdened by her work as a mortician and coroner as this nasty ash defiles the dead she is sworn to honor. Considering the ash corrupts all it touches, she’s especially worried for her three legged horse and Garmr, her beloved guard dog. Captain Jormungandr’s arch-rival Thor is being more aggressive and troublesome than usual for his seafaring crew and vessel. Though he is loyal to Odin, Sleipnir is Loki’s child, the same as his older half-siblings, but despite being the greatest of all horses who can freely traverse the realms, he seems to have no way out of what could spell the end for both his beloved kin and his Aesir comrades. He wants to believe he can get his mentor to see what he sees in his family, to show him that their families can cooperate if they only wanted it.

Others like the silent son of Odin, Vidarr wants to take the preemptive. He, fueled by the mystical fires of vengeance, believes Fenrir should be taken down before the “foretold” day that he slaughters Vidarr’s father. He might move on to the others from there if he were to succeed. The spirits cry out to him for retribution.

Many of the other Aesir struggle in the face of this deadly pathogenic ash. Will Surtr win? Will the families of the blood-kin Odin and Loki tears themselves apart? Skoll and Hati will not be bound by this nonsense “fated doomsday”. Luckily, Sol and Mani have got their backs.

(Yeah a lot to it, but i don’t want to give away too many details. God only knows when i’ll get around to making this or any of the other stories i want to one day tell.)

INCREDIBLY funny and possibly blasphemous idea that the only reason that Hati and Skoll chase Mani and Sol is because it’s some sort of marriage thing Mani and Sol thought up, and when they’re finally caught, they’re just gonna elope with their respective wolves and Leave

[jdscanvas]

Yet another character that was done dirty in the reboot and who @drawloverlala did a fantastic re-design of. (Seriously that woman is an international treasure and I pray she is working towards doing her own thing.)

Yep, this is the issue that reintroduces Lupe Wolf! Now with proper Mobian proportions instead of the tall, slender body SatAM gave her. I have a soft spot for her original design (particularly her cheek fur), but this one is best-suited for Sonic so she’s not always looking down on the cast, I do think it takes a little bit out of her visual appeal? She looks a little more like Sally’s redesign, which isn’t a bad thing but it makes her a little harder for new readers to differenciate her from the rest of the cast, I think?

The cover is decent and I adore Jamal Peppers art and Ben Hunzeker’s colouring, though I also gotta give props to the variant cover done by Tyson Hesse for giving Lupe and Chip more focus, even if its missing the cool “Sonic Strikes!“ tagline! Seriously, that’s genius logo design.

[jdscanvas]

@robotnik-mun

Yup. 90% of the reboot designs were VERY pedestrian. Don’t know why Evan Stanley and other such artists didn’t get to do more designs, but hey at least the IDW original characters are all very distinct (even if most of them are the standard mobian size/body.) Furthermore, @drawloverlala​ has an array of fantastic re-designs of both characters from pre-reboot AND post-reboot. Too bad she’s probably never going to work for SEGA, because holy hell could they use a designer like her. 

For those unaware of how good she is, here’s her Dulcy fan design.

Pays a lot of respect to the original character, the lips are retained, the proportions, and she even still has that mount on her back. That’s a talented artist; able to work in a set style without being strangled by it.

And here is the formal debut of Dulcy the Dragon, here established as an eastern dragon and the leader of her own band of Freedom Fighters. While I don’t hate her design by any merits and appreciate how it resembles the dragon Little Animal from Sonic Adventure 2, I will say her redesign isn’t as appealing as the comic wants me to feel.

Dulcy’s design isn’t the easiest to redesign, being the big, ditzy dragon gril she was in the original cartoon, but reimagining her as as regular Mobian-sized sometimes stoic Freedom Fighter from a different continent clearly wasn’t the best decision. I’m sure they could have kept her personality, or more dragon-like features, or hell, her large size that made her easily distinguishable from the group? Its a bit of a departure and, despite how much the editor’s note announces “Dulcy is back!”, it may as well have been a wholly original character instead of a glorified reference to an original SatAM character.

[jdscanvas]

@robotnik-mun​ These official illustrations have been a thing for years. PLEASE tell me the man the legend Yuji Uekawa has been the one drawing these. Poor guy deserves more than he gets. (I’d love to see him illustrate an entire IDW issue.)

The official Sonic Channel artwork for September 2022 features Silver the Hedgehog

[jdscanvas]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic----It Doesn’t Deserve It’s Fanbase

I feel like based on the amount of traction that one post I made years ago about how I felt about the Changelings post-Season 6, I should finally clarify how I actually feel about the show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's been almost three years since the show concluded, and in that time I came to a realization...

It doesn't deserve the community that was built around it, and I honestly feel like the fandom and even the IDW comics (of what little I know of them) took far better advantage of the world and characters.

Now I am heading into this argument on somewhat shaky legs, because I have never actually sat down and watched an entire episode of the show.

Why didn't I? Well to tell the truth it was fear. Whenever I thought of doing it, I would start suffering serious nervousness and second-hand embarrasment. I could never figure out why. After seeing how the series finale was handled, and then seeing where Hasbro was going with G5, I have my answer: I wouldn't be caught dead watching this Care Bears level cringe.

Most folks who love the show might say it was better than anyone expected a show attached to this toy line to be good since it was primarily targeted towards girls and yet it ended up having mass appeal. I wholeheartedly believe that Lauren Faust had a clear passionate vision for the series, but even in the beginning information came out that the final show did not always turn out how she wanted. Luna and Celestia should have been the only alicorns, Celestia was supposed to be a queen, etc. Faust claimed she wanted to create a show that challenged the perception that shows for girls tend to be low quality. One quote I remember being sourced from her was that in these shows characters could defeat villains by crying/smiling/something along these lines. The show's solution to this? Anti-climatic friendship kamehamehas. Like almost every villain was defeated this way, even in the Seasons that Faust was directly involved in. Sometimes the journey to get to the kamehamehas was different, but literally nothing else ever worked.

Even when the Elements of Harmony aren't directly involved, a friendship kamehameha ended up being the answer. Or, going directly against Faust's desire for her show, beating them via emotional speeches, LIKE STARLIGHT GLIMMER. And honestly, Starlight I was always on-and-off about. On one hand she felt like a replacement for Twilight for fans who absolutely despised her alicorn princess fate, and on the other she felt like a Filmore (the disney show) style character---a former foe/deliquent who is recruited by the good guys and that which leads to their redemption. Literally all the writers had to do was have Starlight initally punished/imprisoned for the nasty stuff she did in Season 5, and then have Twilight take pity on her and take her under her wing (literally). And I would've had no problems with that; the concept of a character like that is really cool to me. You could've also taken out two birds with one stone and use Starlight as an example for kids that anyone can change as long as they want to. To some extent though, Discord technically already fulfilled that role in Seasons 3 and 4 so I guess the writers' hands were tied here?

Twilight being an alicorn, in hindsight, was a huge mistep that I don't believe Faust would've ever been OK with if she was still there to do anything about it. Twilight was a nerd, a bookworm, an aspiring master wizard. Some skeptics would argue the only reason she became an alicorn princess was because it was a show for girls and girls wanna be pretty princesses. I argue it was mostly a case of main character syndrome, and how the "nowhere-to-go-but-up" mentality can ultimately screw up a character. Like...Goku is super-powerful, to an almost ridiculous degree, but Toriyama didn't make him the new King Kai, or the new freaking Omni-King? Luffy may eventually become the Pirate King, but he's not going to become King of the whole damn world! Naruto always wanted to become Hokage of his village, and he did, but that doesn't mean it would've made sense to make him like Grand Master of all Ninja Villages of the World??? Consequently, why in the hell did Twilight need to be turned into Chad Celestia (or Celestia 2.0)? Yeah sure she had leadership qualities but that doesn't qualify her to be a monarch of an entire country/kingdom. Even with the exsistence of the Council of Friendship, it was so obvious at the end that she was Celestia and Luna's replacement because hurr durr she main character. Was it because of other characters that became leaders of their "tribes" (Thorax, Ember, etc.)? Keep in mind, by the end of the series she had her own castle and school ON TOP OF CELESTIA'S CASTLE AND SCHOOL. Guys, this isn't an Elder Scrolls game where you can just keep piling on important titles onto your protagonist. From a narrative standpoint, I guess the writers just had no other places to take Twilight. They had her achieve basically all of her dreams at once (except the Master Wizard thing, because I don't think she was ever considered the next Starswirl, just a super powerful ball of magic), so what "shocking" developments could they have given her next? Ruling all of Equestria. Even taking into account that Faust apparently always intended Twilight to succeed Celestia in some fashion, I seriously doubt she intended to mutate her into Neo Celestia. You put her side by side by her friends, and she doesn't even look like one of them anymore, she sticks out like a sore thumb (doubly so in the future episode).

I do believe effort was placed in some of the humor and especially some of the non main characters, but almost all the characters post....Season 2 never got enough screentime to truly take advantage of the story potential. How many fans of Shining Armor like me were praying that he at least had an episode focusing on how he felt being the only non-alicorn royalty? Wouldn't anyone have loved an episode where Armor and Cadence got to meet the new changelings and really get to know Thorax and Pharynx and what not (or did Thorax's debut episode count as checking that box?)? Why did the Cutie Mark Crusaders (again the mere words "cutie mark" really make it near impossible to see anything in this world as genuinely dramatic) need to have nearly identical cuite marks? Even taking into account their "destines" to help other kids find their talents, you didn't have to make them homogenous from a design standpoint to do so. Meh, but they got more than others did. Cadence I loved more as a potential cool character, but they never developed her enough even when she had so much more screentime in later seasons. Her infant daughter who couldn't even talk got more development. Flurry being born an alicorn felt like a kick in the gonads to fans that wanted an alicorn Shining Armor. Like wow his daughter gets to be born one, but he doesn't even get the honor of proving himself worthy? Spike getting wings doesn't count because he's a dragon and that was an obvious leap in intuition. Speaking of Spike, he's one of the more developed non-main characters (although to some he's the Butters of this show, the unofficial extra main character) but even he got done a little dirty. I say a little because his crush on Rarity never went anywhere, it was just one-note comic relief, and they only ever talk about what it was like to grow up with Shining Armor and Twilight in the final season. That little moment where he wins the Sibling Supreme crown and they tell him he's the little brother they've always had? Awesome, yes, more of that please. Also his future self looks like a freaking Chad. Like why did they give him a buff body type that wasn't too far removed from how he fantasized about himself? I've heard some theories as to why but I don't really agree with them.

Celestia is a strange case to me because I was glad to see more of her personality show in the later seasons, but you could also argue that she was made to be more like Twilight (and maybe they did that to try and convince fans that it was totally a natural evolution for Twilight to become like Celestia because they're so alike yo!). I know Faust always intended her to be somewhat mysterious and now I can't help but feel like the writers went against that idea. Luna was always a favorite of mine, and they handled her very well when they did focus on her, I don't have too many complaints there. Honestly, the characters that weren't given much development could've gotten plenty, because they managed to do exactly that with Sunburst in Season 6. One two part episode, and he automatically became one of the more interesting side characters. Heck, I'd even argue Maude from Season 4 gets this honor even if parts of her are the generic "stoic misfit". Pharynx I think was handled pretty well in Season 7 as well, for someone who only ever mattered in one episode (again they could've done so much more with him).

I remember thinking that the movie that came out in 2017 could've been like The Lego Movie of little girl's cartoons if they played their cards right, but even just based on interviews the creators clearly were not concerned about doing anything interesting.

Equestria Girls should've never been a thing, and kind of went against the whole point of the franchise not being so stereotypically girly girly. I mean jeez the main series still had the balls to lampoon the whole "we totally aren't like those girly girl generic shows" on occasion (like in Rainbow Dash's nightmare) but like....you have a concept called "cutie marks", hearts decorate almost every piece of architecture, the main character was made a princess for no real reason, the highest authorities are princesses and not queens "because queens are evil bad guys", your theme song is like something out of a generic Disney TV special, and your heroes never get to actually directly fight and win against the villians.

Powerpuff Girls literally did the whole "girly show that's actually bad ass and funny" thing years before you (of which Mrs. Faust was a writer, and it's being revived with original creator on the helm so yay!)....

I can't help but think that the show being inherently connected to a franchise called My Little Pony, and therefore being the first part of the title, the first thing people think of when they think of this show, ruined a lot of it's chances of being taken more seriously. You hear that title and you cannot distance it from literally the most generic girly girl stuff you can ever think of. You remember that's the franchise this is connected to, and you think of all the attempts FiM made to be like one of the "good shows" with "actual stories worth telling" just not meshing well. Was the show Dead on Arrival? Clearly not if so many folks of all walks of life saw something in it worth salvaging.

All the other shows of FiM's generation, even the PG ones that kids of the same age group shouldn't techincally be watching unsupervised but many many kids did, Regular Show, Adventure Time, freaking Gumball, Steven Universe. These shows had far more intricate characters and lore, had more interesting styles, and told far more interesting stories that went beyond generic Aesops. Again, even taking into account the PG rating of most of these, GUMBALL, a show that while on occasion dabbles into the juvenile, was also still able to tell interesting stories with decent lessons behind them AND they also had more thought out humor. Even companies as conservative as Disney are willing to let Gravity Falls and Star vs the Forces of Evil get through. HELL, HASBRO THEMSELVES let at least 90% of the Transformers television shows, with their interesting stories and characters, be released.

I always believed that Friendship is Magic could've been a Transformers level franchise, but for mostly young girls. It could've had more developed characters, better action, and genuinely bad-ass moments. It could've been Powerpuff Girls with more story, or simply Samurai Jack for a new generation. Unfortuantely, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

It still hurts when I think of something that was born from one person's passion become what it became and how it could've truly landed among the stars. I still don't know, almost three years after the Finale, if i'm better off completely ignoring it, or simply indulging in the fan content that continues to come out to this day.

I do know, however, that G5 will not be a true successor to FiM like the fandom deserves. Literally in the very first story, the main character became an alicorn. Wait 8 more years, and they'll make her ruler of the entire world. That's how little faith I have in the people attached to this franchise. Hasbro even killed FiM in the IDW comics to completely focus on G5.

If you have a love for FiM despite it's failures, I'm glad and I would never try to take that from you even if I can't see it. I personally would love to create a show with a similar style, even though I've got a long way to go in the field I'm trying to get into now. The things that I appreciated about FiM, as few as they turned out to be, continue to inspire me like the many other stories I've come across over the years. I hope someone inspired by FiM can come along and succeed where it failed. Ultimately though, we have no choice but to wait and find out.

[jdscanvas]

I want to make graphic novels eventually.

While I am pursuing the game industry, which I went to college for, and I am very passionate and looking forward to what comes next, I really want to tell great stories with great characters.

I'm simultaneously grateful and sad that I am not going to be a mangaka, like all the folks at Shonen Jump.

I'm grateful because the working conditions those artists and writers are subjected to are borderline inhumane, but on the other hand the passion and sheer amount of quality art and stories that come out of the best artists of that industry is something to inspire you.

It's breathtaking the kinds of epics one person is capable of telling.

One Piece is the king of this philosophy, and I also LOVE Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Plus, who among us doesn't at least enjoy Dragon Ball? It's a shonen classic.

[jdscanvas]

@robotnik-mun

Hi, it’s been a long time but I just wantes to share a relevation I had recently….

Series like Aggresive Retsuko and Yu Yu Hakusho, that (admittedly to different degrees) have “cute” art styles and feature tons of grown-up/adult themes and stories pretty much confirms to me that if the staff back in the day knew what they were doing, Archie Sonic COULD have told similar types of stories that they told so poorly before in a superior fashion especially if they kept the art consistent to the Oshima/Uekawa style the brand was so known for.

I would in the past revel in @drawloverlala’s flawless more anime-esque interpretation of Sonic style and weep when I releaized she wasn’t working on the IDW series. To be fair to IDW, that run has been going very well….

[jdscanvas]

@fini-mun Been a while. Just wanted to say I’ve in recent times played Classic Fallout and MAN do I love Fallout 2 now. I don’t even mind that i Had to load an older save that set me back about 2 hours!

[jdscanvas]

Imagine Legosi doing this with Haru.

Something interesting I’ve learned - although I don’t know if this has a name in any other language, but in Korean this position is called “manner legs”. It refers to people stretching their legs to sink down to a smaller height so people working or filming with them could either work on their hair and makeup or appear to be their same height.