I'm planning on going on, but I'll likely only be there Saturday (25'th).

Hoping for some business... but... I really doubt I'll come up. Don't have a table at Artists Alley, so I'll likely be in a hall or at a table with a power outlet nearby...

After a couple of discussions with some friends, and watching Pinkuh's Ustream work (much to my laptops hatered, and my royal head-desking for not trying what I saw there [outside of ridiculous resolutions].), I'm thinking of re-opening trade and request lines.

I still don't think I'm good enough for comissions... but I feel I need more experience in overall subject matter. One way I've been experimenting on is drawing unfamiliar subject matter / leaving my comfort zone (Basically... drawing more men XD).

This doesn't change the fact there are lines I will not cross, but I feel offering this will help make me a better artist, improve my self-esteem towards the unknown of art, and free exposure (which might actually get me somewhere XD).

Granted... I may take a while (I operate off of the 'when I feel like it' approach), but in my experience... when I force my own art... I hate it a lot more. If I'm inspired, not only do I enjoy drawing it, I can pick it up over and over, as well as it seeming to flow... and I love it when things flow. How many times have you done something that went so well.. that you lost track of time...

So... yeah... I'm going to re-open some Trade and Request spots. I can't say when I'll get to them, but if I do... I'll do my best to have fun and give a kick ass result :D.

~NN

Still trying to get back into the swing of drawing. I haven't been inspired to do much, whether it's the weather (I'm under a snow storm warning as it is), the planets aren't alligned, or something like that... I dunno.

One of the things that tends to really hurt my art moralle is seeing a 'Full version at [insert pay-to-view site here]'. I've eluded to this in the past a lot, but never to specificaly why (outside of an application fiasco).

Granted, seeing some part of it here is good, but seeing that one line tends to run my mind into the same loop of thoughts:

1: What does it take to get in/How do you? I've asked about this in the past, but gotten no response. I'm thinking about going to someone who is actually on one and asking what they had to do to get in, but I don't think that would be taken to well. All I've managed to piece together is it's either A: a sample-based app, or B: being approached by the person who owns the site.

3: The 'Is it for me' question. I draw cause I like doing it, and there is the natural draw to get paid for doing what you like. Sure, it would be awesome to get paid for it, but I don't want to go out of the public light at expense of privatised popularity (as much of an oxymoron as that is). Not to mention, I don't have any idea what other conditions are tied.

3: The 'Am I good enough' line. This is the biggest kicker of them all. The main reason is my artistic style. I've noticed via previews and the occasional insider link, that the way I draw characters (specificaly women), does not correlate to what has made it in, particularly on SF.

As an artist, I'm well aware of taking liberties and exagerating things, especially since the subject matter or colors may not occur in nature. However, despite working on something that is based in the realm of fantasy, it has to have some basis in reality. Even legends have a grain of truth in there.

With 2 artists I know of being exceptions, a majority of what I see going in tends to resemble the 'Ideal' woman. Large bust, large thighs, very curvy, and a thin midsection. Visualy appealing... but not plausable. I'm not saying the pictures are bad, far from it. It's more or less the 'Okay, all these bodies look the same, but have different colors' view.

There's also the fact my colorations aren't consistent with each other, as I'm still experimenting with trying to get good results.

---

The above is stacked with an overall lack of self confidence. I'm trying to get better by going into some uncharted territory, but I always lock up when I do. This results in fallback to what I normally do... which needs work...

I hate Infinite logic loops and stack overflows.

I don't like hopping on bandwagons, plus the storm has died down, but I can't help but think of 2 things right now...

1: Laughing at the influx of all these journals.
2: Imagining all of this under the effect of the 'Blame Thrower' from 'Mystery Men'.

I don't really care for it, but it's not going to be there forever. Plus, I don't pay much attention to the banner to begin with.

Kudos to anyone who gets the journal title reference.

Happy Thankgiving everyone!

I'm still here... as much as I can be I guess. I haven't bee able to finish anything as of late. Been looking for a job withour much luck, as well as the usual art block and esteem issues. I'm just... dejected at seeing 'go here to see the full version' on some images... Part of me wants to know what that's like, but most of me says it's not for me. if only cause it's an art gallery you have to pay to enter. Doesn't help that the one publication that offered me an appearence went under, as well as a couple of fiascos involving VCL.

As much as some additional finantial support would be nice... I didn't get into art for that (though it does make me feel a bit better on the rare comission occastion). It's something I like doing... and am somewhat good at. Not to mention there's room to explore and improve things.

I'm taking some steps to get better at my art. Last image I posted showed I need to work at high res, as well as take time coloring.

Things I feel need to improve on:
*Anatomy (Specificaly species specific hands and heads).
*Defining muscle structures
*Males
*Couples
*Line Density
*Backgrounds (Starting with sketched in, single props)
*Coloring (Haven't decided on smooth or cel)
*Backlighting

Experiments I may attempt
*Pseudo-Mechanical Design (IE: Cybernetics)
*Painting with no lines showing on the final product

I'm also going to get my butt in gear and sketch out the new character that is more 'me'. I've only seen 2 named characters that are the same species as him. One sketch I did recently hints to the species.

---

On a side note, A letter I wrote into a poscast I listened to got read on the show...

... I need to do less dissertation on examples ^^;.

~NN

Failure 1: Problems that happened on Sunday. I will not go into details.

Failure 2: The journal about Gamestop that happened on Monday.

Failure 3: I went to vote today... but I learned I wasn't in the computer. I was redirected to the presinct coordinator. My name wasn't on their list either. They thought since I hadn't voted in so long, I was flagged as inactive. They made a call to City Hall...

and according to City Hall... I never registered...

... yet I was required to register to vote when I applied for Selective Service during College... so I know I sent in my registration...

... *sighs* This... really blows chunks...

Well... I didn't get hired, despite the fact I worked there, was liked, did my job, and wasn't fired...

Apparently (and this is in the managers own words) "I'm done hiring. I hired a guy in a suit. He looked desperate."

-_-

Am I going to have to start pulling out the suit I use for funerals?

Pro: Graphics. I'm running the premium graphics content version... at full power. It's more than likely at its capped frame rate.

Pro: Connection. I'm looking at my router lights, and they're barley blinking. WoW, it was almost constant.

Pro: Music. It's mostly space ambience, but I do tend to enjoy ambience music. It's soothing...

Pro: Illusion of income. When you play a game that offers effectively pennies, and you shift to over 100k in 2 TRAINING missions, it makes a happy ninja.

----

Con: Interface. The actual status of your ship is all right, but the overall UI just seems clunky, not to mention it takes up a good portion of the screen (I'm looking at you... left sidebar). I've played a game with a similar interface, look up Nexus: The Jupiter Incident.

Con: Tutorial details. The tutoral always says 'push OK', but there is no OK button on the screen. Furthermore, it doesn't mention how to bring up your ships own cargo while docked.

Con: Controll for looting. There is no 'auto loot' option, and clicking on loot doesn't move it. It's drag and drop.

Edit: "You may want to have weapons equipped"

... Yeah... they're no good when you have 9 things shooting you... you can barley damage one...

... the hell is it with MMO's and mobs...

Last night was the second time in two months we lost net service. I don't know what's causing it, or if it's something I'm doing... but when Google's front page takes more than 30 minutes to respond, FA doesn't even come up, and IM's constantly cycle from connection/disconnection sprees... something is REALLY wrong.

Before anyone says anything I tried all of the following:
*Repairing my computers network connection
*Restarting my computer
*Logging into the secondary router (The one I'm connected to), and manually releasing/renewing the DCHP.
*Power cycling the secondary router.
*Logging into the primary router (The one connected to the modem), and manually releasing/renewing the DCHP.
*Power cycling the primary router.
*Power cycling the Modem itself.
*Directly connecting my laptop to the modem. No response save the above.

I'm worried I may have upset some people (Specifically on AIM, since a disconnect doesn't log you out)... despite the fact I couldn't do anything about it.

Why am I so paranoid about this all of a sudden?

My friend let me play his copy... and I only have one question....

... How can you people put up with this? It's one of the most boring games I've seen... especially since you're FORCED to play through everything the first time (save cheat codes).

Stage one: This has to be the most BORING thing I've played in a while. Not to mention it's stress inducing. I want to move out of the way of something, but It takes time to turn around, and you're slower than everything else. nearby... not to mention getting chased down by something 4x bigger and faster than you...

Stage 2: Lets rummage for 30 minutes trying to find everything before we can move on.

Stage 3: Ripoff of Age of Empires.

Stage 4: Same as above... In addition, you can beat everyone in under 30 minutes using only tanks.

Stage 5: I'm a space game fan, and it sucks beyond belief. Clunky navigation, practically impossible to make money, and to much on going on at once.

It's sad I got all the way to stage 5 without dying... and in under an hour.

Maxis went WAY to overboard on making stuff. I can handle making a city, I can handle making a ship, I can handle planet managment... but the fact the game bascially asks you to make everything, manage everything, and voids all the stuff you made and earned in the previous stages... practically contradicts itself. You can do what you want when you want... but only when the game says you can... and only in a certain stage. Not to mention everything you did before is no longer available. I want to change my peoples appearence in the spage age. You mutated in the past... why can't we mutate in the future?

The game also suffers from internet dependency. You can't see any acheviments unless you're connected to the internet... which is STUPID. That's as bad as BF2142's "You need an internet connection to use your unlocked weapons in LAN play" message. Why do I need to make an internet based account to see what I acheived offline?

Spore suffers from the same fate as Halo. It sucks majorly... but people hype it to the point they think it's good...

Just a reminder for me, and showing I'm still alive over here.

Comissions: 1 (2 parts)
Gifts: 2
Personal projects: 1
Requests: 1
Side Projects: 1 (Possible Con Book Submission)

I tried it once... and I didn't care for it for a few reasons (Main one being I'm not an MMO person). This is not the point of this entry...

One of my friends wanted to game with me in it, so I got a 'recruit a friend' message. Despite my aversions to the game, I joined in.

... I haven't even touched the game... and I want to kill it... moreso than when my friend let me borrow his account. Here's why:

1: When I receive an authentication key for a program via e-mail, I figured the key would be used on the install. Maya PLE 7 and 8 did this. I was wrong... there is no key needed to install, only to authenticate an account...

2: The way they have joining set up, Blizzard makes it look like you have to create an account before you can download the client. In reality, you can download the client at any time. I didn't know this given the process of account creation.

3: Since I created the account and was lead to the download page, I figured it wouldn't take to long to download... but the omen came in the 1.4mb client file...

I asked the friend who recruited me to tell me how big the game was...

... It was almost 4gb...

Thats right... you download a 1.4 mb file... to download a DVD...

I expected a long download (Since a demo for 'The Witcher', which is 2gb, took around 4 hours). By simple math, this would have been downloaded overnight... but...

4: The downloader is a BitTorrent client. This means my bandwith for download is cut in half. Furthermore, I've UPLOADED more than I've downloaded due to peer sharing.

5: The client it's downloading isn't even the most recent version...

---

Why the hell didn't they offer the Torrent instead? I mean... least with a torrent, I can pause and resume it when I please. With this propriatery client... I don't know what will happen if I cancel it. Does it pick up if I resume it, or do I have to start all over again?

I've been downloading this client for roughly 30 hours now... and It's only 35% finished. And... since my account is active, this means I have less play time. Sure, lets give them 10 days, and not tell them it takes 3 days to download and patch the thing.

Out of frustration, I actually ran up to a nearby Gamestop, and bought a trial DVD. Least then, I can bypass the 4gb download... save patching... which shouldn't take nearly as long.

I just now canceled what I was downloading (So there goes 30 hours down the tubes)... and it looks like it will take significantly less time (465mb as opposed to around 4gb). Outside of that... I don't know how long it will take.

I'm really tempted to complain to Blizzard about this, since not only did they make it look like you had to activate your key to download the client, but I lost a chunk of limited account time due to said download (which I ended up canceling since the DVD bypassed it). It's like getting a day pass to a theme part, but waiting in line for half the parks operating hours to get in... you feel extremely jipped.

If I do complain, I'm going to ask for either:
1: Compensation for time lost. Though my account was activated, I hadn't even INSTALLED the game til that time. I got around that by buying a trial DVD, and now I'm waiting for that to patch... so I'm still on the clock with them for all intents and purposes. They promised 10 days of play... but due to downloads and patches, you only get 7, give or take? That's not right.

2: Get rid of my account and refunfd my friends recrutment status. She wasted it on a person who very well may not have logged in at all.

If I knew then what I now know... I would have gone about this differently, but due to crappy layouts, ordering, and the users common assumption that authentication keys are put in on install...

Glad to see FA is online again...

... problem is... I don't have anything to contribute right now. I can't seem to draw much right now...

... It's... extremely demoralising to look around at times too...

I'm still here... sort of. Been going through some tough times lately.

Went to FCN with NeurosisKitten, and ran into a couple of his friends (SushiKitten and Slade). Also saw a couple of other Artists I've seen here. Didn't talk much though (since I was trying to get some comissions... no luck).

I'm thinking about going on a 'vision quest' as it were. Came to a realisation about my art... that I'm not going to get good if I'm sitting on my ass. The problem is... I just sieze in the middle of working on anything. Probably cause I know what I'm doing isn't going to work out, both coloring and anatomy wise.

I don't know whether to try the sketch a day thing other artists have done, ask for some help when sketching and coloring (since OC tends not to host correctly on my end), or look for some open model sessions from the college. All I know is once I can figure out one, The other may come easier.

I'm probably not going to post colored stuff much til I can get my anatomy and line art better (I recall one artist a while ago telling me my line art was the reason I wasn't getting anywhere). Still... My stuff looks so... childish compared to others.

The thought still lingers. Keep going, or just stop like so many other hobbies I've attempted...

If I can get some money together... I may consider going to FCN (It's actually within a manageable distance).

Problem is... I'm kind of hesitant to do so. Price is the biggest factor... and it doesn't help that I haven't been to an anthro convention before...

Well... it's official, my Desktop got hacked and trojaned last night... and I wasn't even online... only connected to a network at my friends house

Something had started to download itself onto my tower (can't remember the name of it) without me doing anything. I managed to throw my firewall into 'lockdown' before the download finished, but that didn't help with the aftermath of the problem. I saw 3 programs and 1 'service' in MSCONFIG that weren't there before, and every time I unchecked them, one would come back on.

After I started up my computer at around 4 hours ago, 2 icons popped up that I hadn't had before "Windows update" and "Windows help and support". This was already fishy, since:
A: Those are normally control panel items, not desktop.
B: I couldn't delete them (every time I did, they came back).
C: Both of them linked to a website. StorageProtector.com

Also... I kept getting odd error messages.

Yeah... It was spyware.

I didn't look up StorageProtector immediately... since I wanted to get the problem resolved. Disconnected my computer from the network at my house, and installed AVG, Adaware 2007, and ZoneAlarm (I don't like the Nvidia Firewall).

AVG blocked some programs trying to go out (one of them being an updater), as well as Zone alarm, and Adaware picked it all out. In addition... said spyware planted over 3000 temp files onto the root of my drive, and into the 'My documents' folder for every acount (In this case, mine, and the hidden administrator account in safe mode). EasyCleaner fixed that. Been fighting with it for about 3 hours, but it's running fine again from what I can tell.

Looked up StorageProtector afterwards. Has the dead giveaway for spyware (look at the way the title bar is worded).

Feel free to spam their support page with hate mail :).
http://www.storageprotector.com/

~NN

... It's not treating me to well at the moment.

Living in an area going through (basically) a one state recession sucks. I can't find a job anywhere in this area...

I'm also staring at a blank OC canvas... can't seem to draw anything right now... can't even get anything to look right...

I feel... like I can't do anything right now..

~NN

I'm still here, but not much. A lot of crap has been going on... and I won't bore you with details. The big ones are no employment, and my other comp acting up... again. Trying to art too, but it's not getting anywhere...

I just don't know...

... now my new computer (the one I built around 2 months ago...), is doing the same thing my old one did before it died...

It can be in windows, or in the middle of a program, and all of a sudden, the screen will go black, and I'll get one 3 second beep from the speaker, then another...

All signs say it's the PSU again... but that doesn't make sense... it's a new PSU, and I know it can power the computer (It's been doing so just fine for as long as I've had it).

It's been plugged into the same power strip that fed my old computer for 5 years... and that was fine til the month before it died... same problem...

I've tried to plug it into different outlets, and it still does it...

My gut says it's something with the power going to the house. It can't be the circuit, since my mom's room and my room are on the same one... and hers is about as old as my old one was...

[Edit #1]
The 12v ATX connection was loose. I plugged the connection back in all the way, and it seemed to be working.. but I tried running UT3, I got a BSOD, and it restarted, making the problem come back...

[Edit #2]
PSU can't be the problem. Reason: I had it running for 12 hours straight at a friends house. It didn't cut out at all...

It's awesome... pretty, and damn fun. Needed a game like this for a while...

However... I've already had a couple of problems with it

The first one happened while installing it. First time, it wasn't able to read the file (least... that's what I assume). Second time... it freaked my computer out and caused it to restart.

The main problem I'm having is with the campagin. Not so much that I can't get past it...

... but because the game crashes on the level I'm at (WAR-TankCrossing). It only happens on one other level (WAR-Serenity). In both cases, the runtime error reads as follows:

"This application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the applications support team for more information."

There are 2 things I can think of that may have caused this:
1: The glitches while installing messed it up initially... (this doesn't make sense, given reason 2)
2: The 1.1 patch somehow messed it up.

I'm thinking about un-installing it, then re-installing, trying the maps in question, and then trying them after the patch is applied. If it doesn't work after the patch... then I'll re-download it. If THAT doesn't work... then the patch is fubar...

Has anyone else had this problem?

It's a running joke where I work, the catch phrase "Got any Wii's." We get at least 40 calls a day asking for them.

Apparently the company worked out a deal with Nintendo for direct shipments, instead of shipments based off of allocations. So... I asked everyone who came in "Are you interested in reserving a Wii?" Even held Wii branded gift cards and a matching tin...

... only 3 people reserved one.

It's the "Give it to me... right now" mindset, least... that's what everyone came to the conclusion to. I mean... heaven forbid you have to wait to get one...

I don't have anything against it, it's just... odd...

"Does anyone have the new Creed CD?"
"I have it"
"Give it to me... right now."
"Give it to you?"
"You're not giving it to me! Give it to me faster!"

And... well... it was 75% good. Bought 2 PC games, a DVD set and a Music CD.

The bulk of it was the 2 PC games, specifically Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion GOTY and Hellgate: London.

---

I can't t really say much, since I haven't been there long, but I'm having a romp in Shivering Isles.

Everyone here looks high and/or insane, and I can't belive someone would give up their pants... for a sweetroll XD.

Sheogorath isn't Bipolar... he's infi-polar...

"I'm so happy to see you... I could rip out your intestines, and skip rope with them!"

"Cheese for everybody!"

----

Hellgate... however... I can say I'm not really fond of. It's one of those games I could recommend... but not without some kind of incentive.

The biggest pro is also its biggest con... nostalgia. While playing, it felt like an old pair of shoes. Comfortable and familiar, but at the same time... those old shoes need something new to coax me to wear them again.

There are 2 problems I've had since I've been playing it.
#1: It doesn't want to use the texture quality I set it at.

Basically, I have all my settings as high as I can get them, but everytime I play, the world texture quality is set to low... despite the game telling me it's on high.

The only conclusion I can come to... is high quality requires DirectX 10... and that's Vista only...

#2: It refuses to pick up my Processor...

Now... I've had one other game have this same error (Freenlancer). But Freelancer is old, so it's to be expected.

However... when a new title registers a processor... at 0mhz...

Uhm... I wouldn't be able to see the error message if it was at 0mhz...

Well... the rest of the major computer parts should be here tomorrow. Last I checked, they are on the way to Flint. Then again... they had to come from California... and be shipped through Ontario o.o...

But when those come in, I hope it will run. Should, but you'll never know..

Specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800
RAM: 2gb DDR Dual Channel
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 8600 GT
Hard Drive (Temporary): 120gb IDE UDMA 133
Hard Drive (Final): 500gb SATA
DVD/CD Burner (Salvaged from my old computer).

Not to much, but considering that without the Hard Drive, I've spent around $450 so far. I'm going to wait til Black Friday to get the Hard Drive (Since I may be able to get it a LOT cheaper).

----

Gotta get a couple of more CD's too. This time... Juno Reactor. Will probably special order either "Odyssey" or "Labyrinth" after the 30'th...

... I had no godly idea they were in both Animatrix and The Matrix.

... and go figure, I go to investigate after I hear them on Chanel 860 (same as XM 82). They've been under my nose the whole time...

... I'm slow on the music scene...

Well... despite some technical problems (Mainly what I want to get disappearing, and lack of hours at work), the computer is coming together. I have almost all the major parts in (The video card came in today). All I need to get are the CPU Fan, RAM, and a Hard drive.

My dad is willing to provide loaner parts for these til I get my own. Granted... one of them is coming from my old system >.>

Probably going to order the CPU fan sometime soon... RAM later (since ... for some reason, Dual Channel DDR is more expensive than DDR2 =/ ).

Hard drive will be last, and it will probably be around x-mas when I get it (The loaner is 200gb IDE, whereas mine will be a 500gb SATA). One I get it, I can drive copy and resize the 200gb to the 500gb with little problem.

And... as much as I'm going to abhor saying this... it's going to be running Vista... if only cause of the DirectX 10 support. May as well run the latest stuff, right?

***Update***
Opted to splurge. After going browsing with my dad, I ended up buying the CPU heat sink/fan (since the one I was loaned wasn't rated for my CPU), as well as the RAM (2gb DDR 400 (PC3200) Dual Channel) I had picked out for $150 combined. It's a stretch, but I can manage it (Since it's about what I expected to pay)

1gb of Dual Channel PC3200 from the stores is at least $100, and I just ordered 2gb for the same price.

Better to wait 3 days to get something that you know will work and is what you want, than instant gratification that won't work out in the long term.

Well... the motherboard came in today. But today... 3 things have gone wrong... I'm assuming it's one for each part...

1: Dad isn't feeling to good...
2: Checked out Killzone: Liberation earlier today... and it sucked.
3: Checked Killzone back in to check out Ratchet & Clank: Size matters. Problem is... the only copy they had was a demo disk...

So... I checked that back in, and checked out After Burner: Black Falcon. Fun... but my hand is hurting (Controll layout isn't to friendly...).

I guess I should break from gaming, and doodle a bit.