Zekiran_Immortal

Well I got a good number of screenies of CuppaJo while in Pocket D, so I'm sure did others. Anyone want to share theirs?

We love you Cuppa, and we'll miss you!

I just can't help but imagine what a great place this would be in the real world, if we could fly.

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OMG everything looks SO GOOD!!!! But that leggo peice... XD Zekiran, how on EARTH did you do that??? It's SO CUTE!!!

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Thanks guys. I've been doing other heroes and a hamidon slice for the Protector TDC, so I figured I should add Cuppa to the roster.

It's a regular lego figure, painted up and glossed. the gloss kinda screwed with the red in places, and it'll scratch if it gets moved much, but I don't expect it'll be played with much

It's a Viking figure by the way, they had nice basic grey and black pieces, and a draco malfoy hair piece.

And now, finally finished....

The CuppaJo Lego!

(Sorry if the pix are a bit blurry, my digital camera can't do small macro shots.)
The parts - Parts dark and Parts Brighter

The Whole - Back!
and
Front!

And the final product... CuppaJoLego!

I hope to send this out to ya, CuppaJo!

Dang, that's gorgeous! Nice work!

(ppssst - get a Photobucket .com account so your bandwidth won't die every time 2 people open your site. )

lol Yeah - I have mine all planned out, until I decide to take it in another direction, which alters the whole genetic/generation chart I make every year... SO I'm not just writing the history of my RPG world. No. I'm writing a rather flexible database while I'm at it. Flexible = scribbled on, scratched out, changed, updated.

I'm Lethe Katherine Gray there, I'll get on and look around when I've got the time, the first couple years they did it, the forums weren't up all year. That's why I haven't even bothered to look, silleh me.

Yay another Nanoite!! What's your forum name there (not that the forums are open yet)? Last year was the only year I've failed to get my 50k, but my world was falling apart so I blame reality. It's a great exersize, I try and encourage anyone who's expressed 'I write a little' to do it.

My only disagreement with the above post: the FIRST and SECOND how to draw manga books are *not manga specific* which is why I recommend them. They cover things like how to hold a pencil, pen, what kind of ink to use, when to use a ruler, etc. The other book covers figure drawing basics like proportions, poses, etc. After those, they went into very specific things which are great if you already know how to draw, but need references.

Otherwise, I heartily agree. I start with spines, because that gives me a feel for the way a body is going to flow. (... Then again I draw a LOT of dragons, long flowing things. With nothing but spine...)

I mean, I'm no genius artist. But when you feel around the 3-d aspect of the character or object it does come to life more fully.

If you can't find the first books in a local store, I'm positive that they're available online.

How to Draw Manga - NOT "manga mania" - they're very different books.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/488...e&n=283155

vol 2.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Manga...571965?ie=UTF8

There are a lot of immitators. They pretty much resoundingly suck BECAUSE they're stuck on 'just' the manga-STYLE aspect of it. The real thing are actually helpful art books in most respects. (Yes, I sold them, yes i own them, no I don't draw manga in the slightest. The book I'd worry most about ruining anyone's style is that old How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way - but that's another rant entirely.)

Meh - it happens!

May I ask what your sketch-to-finish process is? How much sketching do you do, what type of figures do you draw to put a 'skeleton' under your final work? It's possible that what you need is just to alter how you look at the 'insides' of a figure to see the outsides change.

For instance: for the longest time I only ONLY ever drew round heads (ovals). I didn't bother doing anything else, until I saw Jim Lee do it. In 2 minutes he'd drawn this beautiful full figure with a handsome face and all that jazz. And all it was: squares and triangles.

I tried it out. I went to making wedge-shapes, noses, high bald heads, etc etc. Almost literally over night. I don't necessarily *always* do it that way, but it's something to learn and keep in mind. Drawing basic figures *does* require drawing basic objects (and the hammer's pretty good, so...) - they're on in the same when you look at them in a particular way.

Do you own any of the How To Draw Manga books? Because there are 2 or 3 of them that I highly recommend (basically, the first two and one or more of the specifics later in the series) to get the essentials of drawing not just figures but scenes and objects.

But don't stop trying. I'm probably gonna challenge you to do something you've never done, when you're in the mood.

It's a cute picture! My commentary: she's a bit skinny in the arms. They don't look nearly strong enough to be holding up that hammer. What I would recommend is buying some muscle and health magazines that have both women and men in them, and looking at how muscles form on the skeleton. Her hands are different sizes, and aside from making the arms bigger around I'd choose the larger of the two hand sizes to use. The small size makes her look WAY too delicate.

Otherwise: great clothing and folds! It's a reasonably good pose, not very dynamic but also not botched in any way. Pretty good proportions, though I'd say if you wanted her to look more heroic, make her head slightly smaller or her legs slightly longer, to bring her to 7-7.5 heads high. She's a realistic 6.5 right now, which is good for regular folks. Heroes often go much taller. (and I've seen some anime/manga - 5 star stories to be precise - which the characters were actually 13 heads high. THIRTEEN>..... teeeeeny little heads, loooong bodies, but they looked so cool... anyway. um. yeah. 7.5 is heroic as a start.)

Keep it up, because this picture is quite good already. And, be prepared to continue re-drawing and drawing more and more, because that's the only way to really 'get' better at it!

Hahhh! No such luck primal.

My creativity doesn't stop, but it has kind of started to remain cycling around the same types of characters or situations...

So I build generators. Many. Generators. I'm an avid fan of Steve Savage's seventh sanctum, where I got my original code. And if you're not involved with the Sanctum you all should be. It's a load of fun

Seventh Sanctum

My Generator links (not all of them either)

I find that by mixing up what I already know, I am almost instantly able to do something new and cool with something old and stale...

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I keep offering to help him keep his pants up. Suspenders, superglue, staple-gun, nail-gun... he won't let me help! Grrr. I'm going to start dropping ice cubes down there.

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Ice cubes = do it! DOOOOO IIITTTT!

Good job everyone! I would love to see some closer up and brighter shots of the winners, I think we all would!

/e clap

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I don't see why it would be a problem entering a character on one server that "lived" on another, as long as you weren't doing the same character over and over and over again.

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I do believe that is what was going on, though. It was a cute toon, but if you didn't win on one...? I saw the thought balloon several times about not getting on in time for one, but? wouldn't you have spent more time making the 1st level toon and getting them into Pocket D than was worth it?

And ... what was UP with Hooooo Boy there?! Aieeeee!

I wasn't giving up my spotlight near Raver and Guy Who Looks Like Badge But Can't Be Badge Because Badge Is A Myth. Best lighting in the place and it's spotlighting some guy who stands there and gripes when you poke him. Not Badge. The Raver.

Here are some of mine. I don't have many from early eras because I had a way of forgetting to take screenshots...


Halloween event, Steel Canyon

Halloween event, Steel Canyon again

Herding in the Hollows with a FF Troller

Ink tablets? Never heard of them.

Do you mean computer tablets which simulate paper and pen? Or do you mean tabs of compressed ink that you would use with a real brush to ink on paper?

yup - it's very confusing, I often use one when I mean the other too.

Trademarks are only considered active for around 10 years. That's why every 8 years or so, Marvel drags out Howard the Duck, to (for some inexplicable reason) keep the trademark active on him.

A lot of tm's are "dead", either never actually put into use or expired for one reason or another. There is precident already set *in the comic industry* for 'taking over' an actual property trademark (witness what happened with Robotech? yup, that was a lost property because of inaction on Macek's part. good.) but what I gather from yours it won't matter much because you're not like, "redoing" an old character.

I had a really great time in the Protector contest!

Winter's True Spirit got to the semi finals! Total grats to Queen of the Darned for winning, she looked great.

Even though Protector often sports the 'lowest population' tag, I've never seen that many folks turn out for an official event *via the forums* - I know most of the folks there *had* to have seen it all here, that's kind of impressive.

It started very small... early in the evening.

But it started to get better...

It just grew and grew

Until...
I couldn't even get the whole line in the shots!

Judging this must have been hard

The semi-finalists and some to spare

What an excellent night, I just can't WAIT to see who all wins!!

Yup which is why I say look for the trademark. "Copyright violations" would include using a character similar enough that it MIGHT actually 'be' the older, unused character. But yes, trademark is the valid point here. If you didn't spend the $$$ to get a TM slapped on the LOGO, NAME and IMAGE of the character (which is what you'd want to do), the copyright on the final package won't mean diddly if someone else uses a name.

It's why a lot of novelists had to rethink their one-name-worlds (Pern for instance, had to become Dragonriders of Pern to be considered a single copyrighted/trademarked name.) The logo, look, and name all in one constitutes what you'd want to set up a TM. The coypright applies *only to the finished product*.

What names are you looking into and *are they actually listed as trademarks or just copyrights of old not-in-production comics*?

Little tiny black and white books that may have come out in the 80s are not likely to have people who made a shred of money off them and *could never* have afforded to trademark their characters. (It's quite expensive.) If you find someone that's got a name like your character's, look the publisher up. Find out if they're out of business, if someone owns the rights to that character, etc.

It IS up to them to pursue their copyrights. Not you. If you've made the effort and come to the conclusion that the character hasn't been in print for 40 years and *no one currently owns them*, it's a safe bet no one will *ever* know. If the *owner* comes along, and you can still prove you tried to find who held the copyright (which DOES expire.... eventually... darn Sonny Bono and Disney) maybe you might work something out either way.

Change a letter or two. Spell it differently. Take a thesaurus to heart and use foreign languages in choosing names. But try not to step on toes, still, you can find a way to get your book out there.

Pretty cool!

*that's a lot of ninjas*

See, your powers come from your red-eyeness!

And @ monkey! Cool! Cute!

Yeah it seems to do weird things at times.

We need a 'deviant artists' thread to collect our info.

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See! That's why the war walls must come down! Too hard for the ghost ships to navigate over!

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Best explanation yet!

If I wasn't already Retail Retali8r every day...

That'd have to be my Forumites Unlimited toon, my Kheldian Viridia of Zekira.

For oh so many reasons... Because for one, she's an alien life form AND IMMORTAL. And, if she existed, so many others would too.

I'm of the opinion that the moment we discover alternate worlds and dimensions *actually exist with people in them like us but not exactly us* ... Everything we've ever dreamed *exists*.

To quote Douglas Adams:
"In an infinite universe, everything - even the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - is possible."

I live by those words.