Visit the kelpforest....

I found these at Deviant Art - this pencil artist is simply amazing. He's done Vash, Legato and Wolfwood in a realistic style, in pencil - the coloring was done in PhotoShop. These are so detailed, they almost look like photographs. I thought I should be able to feel the wrinkles in Wolfwood's jacket (although he looks much younger than I would have imagined him). Even if you're not a Trigun fan, have a look. Go comment and tell him what wonderful work he's doing.

(Each DA page has a link to colored or non-colored version.)

Vash the Stampede

Legato Bluesummers

Nicolas D. Wolfwood

I love all kinds of animation, and I obviously love anime, or I wouldn't be wasting so much of my time on it. I do have some little annoyances with it though. Please note that I am in no way trained in doing any kind of animation, aside from a flipbook or two I doodled in school notebooks when the lectures were boring. My art experience is limited to a handful of drawing classes in high school and junior college, eons ago.

One of the reasons I like Cowboy Bebop and others like it so much is the animation is fairly sophisticated and realistic-looking. There is very little use of what I'll call "shorthand" - the stylized sweat-dropping, veins-popping, chibi-appearing, fangs-growing, kitty-faces, expression of emotion. We get what the characters are feeling without being beat over the head with it. I think Faye gets googly-eyes for exactly one frame, when she surprises (or rather, is surprised by) Gren in the shower. I really didn't care for Tenchi in Tokyo (Shin Tenchi, I think?) just because that kind of shorthand seemed really over used. It was annoying. For some reason, this doesn't bother me so much in Fullmetal Alchemist - maybe because without it, it would be hard to tell what Al was feeling at all, since he spends most of his appearance in the show as a big metal suit of armor. So I can put up with a little "shorthand," as long as it fits the context, and isn't overdone.

What does bug me, even in a fairly high quality shows like CB or Trigun is this. Note the following graphic, which someone sent me in an email.

( walking... )

( Noses... )

All ranting aside, I really have very little to complain about. For the most part, in the face of so much network programming in the form of "reality" shows, I'm grateful for a form of entertainment that's given me so many hours of pleasure, and that it's become so much more available, even in the few years I've been watching it.

( An aside - Google oddities... )

(crossposted to anime and otaku_over_30)

Here's Wolfwood from that Bush spot. I managed to get a screen cap, although it's pretty low-resolution.

( click... )

And why, exactly, is Nicholas J. Wolfwood, late of Trigun (oops, no pun intended), in political ad for the Shrub?

I really didn't get the feeling he was a Republican.