Manoa

It seems that my Random News Story of the Day thread met a most tragic end in the last forum cleaning. I should have remembered to ask the community team to mark it safe against deletion.

But you can't stop the signal!! Post your weird, random news stories here...Manoa's Random News Story of the Day (part 2)!

The rules!

<ul type="square">[*] Since some folks have firewall restrictions at their works, please post the full body of the news article directly in your post so they don't have to wait to get home to see your cool news story.[*] Respect copyrights! Please give proper credit and include a linkie to the article in your post .[*] Any weird, random news is welcome, but please remember follow the Forum Rules and Guidelines[*] Discussion and debate is also welcome, but please keep it civil! We don't want this thread to get locked or posts to get deleted, so please do your best to avoid flame wars.[*] Have fun! [/list]

It's raining ATM...if only it were 15 degrees colder, we'd have snow.

Ah well, at least there's snow within reasonable commuting distance up in the Sierra Nevadas! Field Trip!!

I finished my last appraisal of the quarter last Wednesday afternoon and have been on vacation since then. I return back to work the week after New Years.

Hmm...snow...I may have to plan a day trip to the Sierras...

I gotta put my vote in for Picard. He and Captain Sisko are my all-time favorite Star Trek Captains.

Name: Argent Ember
Global Contact: @Manoa
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Mutant
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Master of Progress (top rank) - Scions for Tomorrow

To correct Star Strider Forces Registry records, Textilian and Bureaucrat also have the rank of Master of Progress in Scions.



Name: Morose Delectation
Global Contact: @Manoa
Level of Classification: 37
Origin: Natural
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Enlightened One (top rank) - Cabal of Enlightened Self Interest

I'd love to see Hula Girl as a day job. But I'm a tad bit biased...


(Yes, I really do dance hula and actually own that t-shirt. )

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You are correct. Ross is the Marketing guy that will be making sure the rest of the team doesn't say anything Marketing isn't ready to put public yet.

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*chuckle* Now I got this image of a guy standing next to Positron, censoring everything he says with an air horn that he should not say like the Family Guy episode where the FCC sensors everday life.

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Please don't give him any ideas! We'd all hate to miss out on all of the juicy details Castle might spill at this year's event!

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First reference I thought of when I had to rebuild my wife's computer (to shinier hardware). Thanks again Bill

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I just upgraded to new, shinier rig myself and like Obsidius, this was the first reference I thought of as I was prepping to transfer all my files over to the new system. Thanks a bunch Bill! You saved me many hours of waiting!

As a side note, I was also one of those folks who ran into the installer appending the installation location with "\city of heroes" (i.e. I selected c:\games\city of heroes" and it'd try to do a fresh install to "c:\games\city of heroes\city of heroes"). It took me a little while to figure out why the heck it was popping into a full install! I didn't realize at first that installer was adding in "\city of heroes" to the installation location until I read some of the responses in this thread and looked at my installation path more closely. Once I realized what it was doing, I just selected "c:\games" as my location instead (so the game would install to "c:\games\city of heroes" instead of "c:\games\city of heroes\city of heroes") and it worked like a charm!

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I know some of you may have more tech related questions (as to how the game runs on ATI video hardware)...

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I was thinking more like "how to run the game on ATI video hardware." The person who winds up with the machine should also be given the cell phone number for BillZBubba.

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Fix'd!

Drat! Ever so slightly belated! Well, that's certainly not going to stop me from wishing a hau`oli la hanau to one of the sweetest gals I've had the pleasure of meeting! Glad to hear your day was awesome Sassy! Here's to another year!

Thanks Niviene!

It was a little difficult for me to come-up with a concept that wasn't Barney-related. But after much thought and consideration, I present you with...

Frankenmime

(P.S. It's a little difficult to see all the greens, but I promise they're all there)

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The neck chain I like using sort of like a necklace on my characters using tights. IMO the neck line left by tights always looks unfinished.

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Methinks someone needs to sweetalk Jay into making some necklaces...

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@Manoa feel free to post it when you get back. It just won't be in time to be judged.

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I won't have access to my home computer 'till mid-week, so we'll be well into the next palette at that point. But if you don't mind critiquing long after the deadline, I'll post it when I post my entry for next week's palette.

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Star Pyre!, a fire/fire tanker:
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/StarPyre.jpg

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I love the color balance on this one! Kudos!

I finally came up with a concept for this palette. Unfortunately, I came up with said concept *just* before my buddies picked me up for our roadtrip, so now I'm on vacation with a dinosaur laptop that cannot handle COH. Drat! Ah well, there's always the next palette!

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Pinnacle

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Full of WIN!

Lovely!

Hau`oli la hanau* Niviene!




*For those unfamiliar, that's "Happy Birthday" in Hawaiian.

I think either option will work...

[u]One thread[u]

Pros - Since the topic is consolidated into one thread, less forum clutter and viewers can track participants' progression over time.

Cons - Thread may ultimately get too unwieldy. Participants may have to search for the current week's palette since it can sometimes get buried under miscellaneous discussion/entries.

[u]Different thread each week[u]

Pros - Easier organization wise since each weeks' entries will be in individual threads. Easier to track down each weeks palette since the palette will be the first post of each thread.

Cons - Viewers will be unable to track contestants' progression as easily as a consolidated thread. Multiple threads in the forum on a similar subject.


I leave the choice up to you Nazgul!

On a side note...I really need to get off my lazy bum and get an entry ready for this week. Darn work distracting me!

I love it! Though that may be my 80s roots talking...

I see what you did there Ba'alat...

My suggestion would be to focus your efforts on angles and facial expressions. These elements can help a piece become tons more dynamic by adding depth, emotion and action. The more extreme angles will help you work on body perspective and are good for practice. But keep in mind that the change in perspective doesn't have to *too* extreme...a subtle shift in perspective from front-center can do wonders.

Regarding the other choices...

[u]Animals[u]
Animals can be pretty fun 'cause they have completely different anatomies to play with and are a completely new challenge. However if your art focus is going to be more along the lines of character portraits, you don't need to focus on this one for quite some time. Though if you are thinking about integrating some of the more animalistic characters that float around these parts into your art queue (*looks at Rowr* ), you could start looking to the animal kingdom to get some ideas for fur/scale patterns, claws, etc.

[u]Hair and Females[u]
I don't think you need to really make these concentrations per se. Just keep doing what your doing and just maintain a good balance of the number of male and female works. I think the improvements on hair and the female form will follow naturally.

[u]Background[u]
I say concentrate more on your figure drawing and save the background work for later. I personally feel that when you're focusing on character portraits, your foundation is going to be the human form. Background work looks best when an artist is completely comfortable with your drawing of the human form so they can convey how that human form relates to a 3-dimensional world on a 2-dimensional surface. If you're bored of the stark white backgrounds, you can always draw in a quicky horizon line and start focusing on a little shadow work to imply that the white space is 3-dimensional space. For the shadow work, it doesn't have to be a full shadow of the body...the little shadows (say for example, the tiny shadow that a body part will cast when resting on an object) can also help add some weight to your figures and help give them a more 3-dimensional feel.

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Photo reference will help you more then you can imagine, especially ( I hate to say this) pornography ( the clean stuff)...

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There is much truth to the above statement. Playboy helped me tremendously while I was in my figure drawing classes in college.

You've made some awesome progress over the last day unstable...keep practicing and keep up the good work!

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Oooh! Maybe give her one of those small masks, and that should complete the ensemble! She could be a sidekick for "Headmistress, the crime-fighting principal".

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*snicker* You know, I can't help but think that "Headmistress" would make a good villain (too bad there isn't a "students" option for MMs ).

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Thanks, Manoa. I'm glad you find my critiques helpful. I worry that I might come across as a preachy "know-it-all" or elitist or something like that.

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I certainly don't see your critiques as "preachy." Hard to come across preachy when you include discussion on the positive aspects of the costume.

P.S. I hope I didn't come off the wrong way earlier and promise I wasn't completely offended or anything! I was just hoping for something a little more constructive is all...