https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47941794

https://twitter.com/Mediaite/status.....186240/photo/1

I've never been there, but my Parents have, but I had an extensive unit in art history (Long before PC Culture)< that focused on the work, the symbology and the art of that church. Our AP Art History classes had a teacher, Mr. Buhler, who had gone there, and taken many slides of the colors flowing through the massive stained glass windows.


Apparently, the fire is being blamed on current renovation work, as fires are seem moving up the scaffolding, and engulfing the spire. A shame, really.


Here is the cathedral in better days, a Thing of beauty.
http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/

EDIT Someone on Imgur posted a thread about the history off the company doing the renovations on the Cathedral, and... well things look to be getting interesting.

The Pic of Wielder as a Lupine, kind of blew up overnight. I am not sure if it was because it was Wielder, or if it was a cute Lupine. (Probably both). But it got me to wondering If other of my characters deserve this sort of treatment and clarification? Magnus is already pretty self evidently described through his actions and all the art, as is Asheru herself, But who else are people interested on the details of? I am curious.

Artist :iconTrill_Mizzrim is having a Raffle for soem adult themed pin up art.. Take a look here if you are interested:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/30.....#cid:137246920

I had an interesting comment pop up on one of my recent art postings that brought up the question of Head hair on characters. One sees hair commonly on characters here, and I even have a few , but in general I don’t like it. Plantigrade feet and head hair for me just makes the characters stand ins for humans, with animal heads as signifiers for animal traits and personality quirks. They can be cool designs, and they serve cartoon short hand. I was asked why I don’t draw head hair on Asheru and Co. For me, Asheru and Co. are like aliens. They are close enough to humans to make either side somewhat relatable, but with differences in anatomy and capabilities to keep them different and separate . I grew up around dogs, so I was aware of their expressions and attitudes, and my very limited experience with wolves informed me that they were ere similar, but more direct and less subtle. For the Lupines I use those expressions for the face and head, and somewhat human body postures, to re-enforcie what the head is displaying. The commenter was using his characters as an idealized example of what humans could be and very relatable, where I was using my characters as a semi-attractive storytelling device. Originally, Asheru and Co were a byproduct of a Character animation project, from 1999, when polygonal character models had strict, low, face counts and texture requirements. Hair could not be in the equation until several years later. Even now, , and even with plantigrade feet, I will often eschew head hair on my designs (See: Giselle and her holiday pics). I guess fo me, head hair is a signifyer of a Human analogue, or cartoon short hand. One of the f the first deceptions is  Silverone who paints realistically, and also history’s her anatomy enough, that they still read as non human, rather than human in an animal suit. I could push Asheru an Co. more in a feral, and alien direction, but I have done that already with The Jaggiri. I think I prefer fur to scales.XD I am curious on your thoughts on this matter? Comments welcome.

Some information I am signal boosting, on the current status of Vicky Wyman's Estate. Info at the link:

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9010405/

Tril-Mizzrim is in need of some funds to feed some hungry puppies in her neighborhood. Please, take a look at this https://www.furaffinity.net/view/30.....#cid:135304683 and decide whether or not to donate. She seems very above board with this, and the pups are adorable.

You have seen qa lot of armour in my gallery, and I pay attention on how it's put together and how an individual moves while inside it. armor is protection, but it is also flexible enough to allow movment. here is how 15th centure full plate armor was put on by knight.

Tumblr announced that as of December 17th, they will no longer allow NSFW content. This is a shame, Though I never posted NSFW content (or much of any content at all), I did peruse it, and harvested it. I generally use Tumblr to collect reference images. But it does/did have one of the finest collections of well photographed and curated porn on the web. It has been noted, the Tumblr had only about 1% of it's users producing porn, but 20% reblogged those submissions, and probably about 1/3 of the users were there for the porn. It was one of the few apps you could get on an iPhone that you could get porn. So Tumblr was a useful resource for me. (porn is great anatomy reference too!) Sometime around thanksgiving, Apple removed the Tumblr App from the app store. This was on the grounds that some pornbots had uploaded child porn past the filters, and it got reported (which is good and proper). Then Tumblr announced that on December 17th they will remove NSFW content from public view. Before that, though, they implemented their algorithms, which apparently don't work well. I've kind of avoided it for a few days.

There is two things going on. 1.) Societally, the mainstream will not allow "normalizing of Pedophilia". It cannot and will not become an accepted part of the sexual spectrum. People would vote for the death penalty for Pedophiles if it is offered, as it's a direct threat to people's offspring. As such any accusation of kiddie Porn is radioactive, and finding kiddie porn is an indicator that a platform is inadequately monitored. 2.) Politically, It can be seen as progressive to ban NSFW content as exploitative, in the #me too era. This burnishes Tumblr's Socio-political credit. 3.) Quickest/Laziest solution possible is to use an algorithm to scrub the site. They don't want to hire more humans, and getting hit with a wave of Pornbots has guided them into an equally machine-like response. as CP would drop their value to the parent company Verizon.

However this may not be main reason, I found out what this is "REALLY" all about. Apparently after the Verizon Acquisition of Yahoo, Verizon wanted to put Advertising on Tumblr. but they could not run Ads alongside Porn. So it was decided to phase out NSFW content, somewhat like Imgur has done. The content that had Tumblr removed from the Apple Store, just gave a panicked acceleration to this initiative. So now we know, that porn is an anathema to online ads, and all the media corporations want to be like Google, and derive income from ad space. If the porn removal doesn't cause the exodus, the intrusive lifestyle ads embedded in posts will.

I am half tempted to post porn on my Tumblr account just as a middle finger to this, but I use my Tumbler mostly for image harvesting. Lotta nice animal and landscape photos there.

Sadly, Comic Book Raconteur, Stan Lee has passed away at the age of 95. groqinf up, I was definitely a "Make Mine marvel" comics guy (though I liked the DC War titles a lot better than Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos"), His eye for talent kept Marvel at the forefront of comics, until the independents rose in the mid 1980's Commonly seen in cameos in the MCE films, he had stepped away from comics, to get into animation, and then film. Now Marvel is a shadow of it's former self, and Stan Lee's problems with relatives and business partners have been in the news lately. At least he left an enduring legacy of entertainment, and fun. Vaya con Pistolas, Stan.

in 1998 and 1999 while I was working at The #do Company. I did a little side project that would be posted on a site called The Q2PMP (Quake 2 Personal Model project). Someone figured out the MD2 format for the game and pulished the specs, and from that the site blossomed with a variety of custom, player made, models. Inspired by the project, but also negatively inspired by a couple of REALLY BAD models I worked on, The Female Werewolf with an AK. (and continued by adding all the custom weapon replacements.). The thing about animation thought, is you have to play movements in one's head over and over to figure out what they look like, Since Action is the end product of thought and motivation, you also have to think about the character, and sometimes a character moves into your head, and invited all their friends. So from this animation work, Asheru was born. here's the video of all the movements done for the MD2 File

During a chat with a friend of a friend, about how to ink, I thought that it's Inktober second, said Tutorial might be relevant. Back in 2001, while Yerf was still a going concern, I put up a few sets of tutprials for using Photoshop, and how to do comic book inking. So for that chat I coughed up the link for the inking tutorials. being Inktober, now I thought the tutorials would be relevant so here they are.

For Inking:
http://www.rdwarf.com/users/ruggels.....ks/inks01.html

Other tutorials.
http://www.rdwarf.com/users/ruggels/

For 2001, and focused on Photoshop 4, they hold up fairly well. Hopefully they are useful for those, this month.


And finally a little piece of Electroswing, I found.

Since enough people noticed my recent activity, I might as well update the current situation. I am still on hiatus, but I am recovering from the medical issues. Recovery is slow and it may be more than a month before I return to my apartment, and some more time after that before I am active again. However I have been given a second chance, and will be taking art and productivity more seriously. The broken and disjointed sentences from the last post gave a clue on how messed up things began. This post should show my improvement since. I will still be browsing and commenting, so keep those pencils moving.

I be a bit cryptic, infortunaly. I have had a major health issue surprise me, and it impacts my ability to create art. I have/ will have informed current commissioners on more detail, Suffice to say I am closed to all future offers until I can resolve this. I may be more specific later, but at this time I will not entertain any speculation. I will still look and favorite art, but comments will be rare as I take a sabbatical from the start web, mostly. I God , the fates , or the muses allow my return to production, then I will be grateful. If I cannot retur to the type of art O enjoy doing, then so bee it, this gallery of mine will remain and I will attempt to something else that is with those limitations. As is , I will be fpcusomg on my recovery. As long as it takes. The rest of you,
Keep creating the best quality you can.

Scott A. H. Rugged
June 20, 2018

These are two commission slots for a one month or so turn around, and are available up to finished inks. Details of the TOS and prices can be seen here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2691882/

I may open ti limited color work, but no background at this time, but everything is negotiable.

1.)

2.)

Comment if you wish for a slot. I will message you for details. Payment is via PayPal.

Scott

I will be offering two commission slots at 9 am Pacific, for anyone interested. TOS can be found at the following link: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2691882/

Journals on FA now are usually just advertising, and I don't find that very interesting as I am usually broke,anyway. So, I thought I would give people something hopefully interesting to read, at least before I post my availability for commissions , again.

I don't have a cable subscription and use my TV , usually as a second monitor for my computer. What I watch is strictly internet based, as I only pay for cable internet, and no other services. I am Cheap. So there are a lot of services available through the internet, but I tend to watch YouTube and Netflix mostly. I've had a Netflix Subscription since I think the early part of 2016 and watch it fairly regularly, but I think what I will do now is just comment and/or review some recent offerings I have watched on Netflix, and let other know about what I have watched and what I have enjoyed.

Lost in Space. Netflix recently offered up a remake of the 1960's CBS Television show, staring the Robinson Family, Their pilot Don West, their Robot and their stow-away (Secretly a spy) Dr. Zachary Smith. In the remake things are updated, with the broad strokes, but the reasons for the launching a family into space remain intact. The Show updates a lot of the visuals, and the style of acting isn't nearly as stilted as it was in the 1960's, The changes however did manage to keep the show fresh, and in the same mood of seriousness that the early first season of the 1960's show managed.

In the update, each colonist group or family is assigned a "Jupiter" ship that is their landing craft, and also their home upon landing. The original plan was that a "frame ship" called the Resolute transports the people and their various Jupiters to the newly established Earth colony of Alpha Centauri. The ship is attacked and it flees into jump space, and upon emergence is damaged and boarded by a hostile alien object, which wreaks havok inside the Resolute. Survivors flee into their Jupiters, and we follow the Robinson Family as they crash land on the glaciated slopes of an alien planet.

Differences in the new show from the old are that, now, Dr. Smith is no longer a spy, but a petty criminal, Stealing her sister's Identity until she is caught by the Resolute's crew after she on camera spaces a guy who threatens to expose her fakery to the captain. Caught, she is detained until the alien attack, whereupon the steals the badge of an injured Doctor Smith, and uses it to gain entry into his Jupiter, also containing two crewmen from the Resolute looking to abandon ship due to the aliens. The Robot in the show, rather than, a piece of hardware brought with them from earth is instead found in the wreckage of an alien ship by the youngest son, Will Robinson, who manages to repair it and bring it back with him to their family's crashed Jupiter.

The "science" in this science fiction show is dodgy, but that is overshadowed for me by the quality of the acting, as the family dynamics of the Robinson family feel very authentic. Dr. Smith, played by Parker Posey has created televisions most punchable villain, in the character of Dr. Smith, which contrasts with the appeal of the rest of the Robinson family. The Visual and effects are very good individually, though occasionally there are inconsistencies like Shots of a jupiter vibrating through a dense cloud layer, where a cut away showing it in the distance flying shows a clear sky.

Each Episode is around an hour long and there are 10 of them for the first season.

One Punch Man. I watch a fair amount of Anime on Netflix, but not a lot of Japanese humor works for me. This show is one of the exceptions, with it's take on Anime, and Western superhero conventions, it is a well observed parody of most Shonen anime, as well as a meditation upon achieving ultimate power. it's short, as series go, but the parodies of various genre conventions, as well as the absolutely lush animations of the often brutally short fight scenes, keep me amused. If you are amused by Superheroes, I could recommend this as a decent watch. Each episode is a half hour and there are 10 episodes total.

Star Trek:Deep Space 9. The follow up to the successful Star Trek: The Next Generation, this show was 8 seasons focused on the comings and going of a Star base newly acquired by the Federation, from a former occupying power that has left ill feelings all around. Assigned to this command is I think my favorite Star Fleet Captain, Benjamin Sisko.

The show ran for 8 seasons, but I am just starting the 6th season at the time of writing. Like all modern Star Trek shows, it started badly with the first season being kind of tepid, and not very good, but by the third season when Ronald Moore took over the leadership of the writer's room, the show picked up, with the addition of the new ship, the Defiant in the late Second season and the addition of Commander Worf in the fourth season.

At the time of it's initial run, there were charges of plagiarism leveled against it by J. Michael Straczinski, who had pitched Babylon 5, another station based science fiction television show, with heavy doses of politics, to Paramount before DS9 aired. Back then I was a rabid fan of Babylon 5, and sort of boycotted DS9, also as I wasn't a big fan of Captain Picard, preferring character development through pugilism as illustrated by the original Captain Kirk. But watching DS9 now, other that perhaps a broad similarity of premise, the differences are quite pronounced and the show only gained it's serial story structure mostly after the 3rd season, unlike Bab 5, which was serial to begin with.

Sisko has the most resolve, and spine of any star fleet officer, so far (and I don't count Star Trek : Discovery), but the supporting characters around the station are interesting to watch. Each Episode is an hour, and the entire 8 seasons is available.

Aggretsuko. This is another animated Japanese comedy, but quite strange. Imagine a comedy about office stress starring cute Sanrio characters. The main character Retsuko is a cute little Red Panda, and office lady that works in the accounting department of a trading company, who is plagued by a shitty boss and unreliable co-workers and who's only stress relief is renting a Karaoke booth at the end of the work day, alone to belt out Toxic death metal rants about her shitty day and her shitty boss. Sometime the stress gets so bad she goes into the ladies' room with her microphone and indulges in a session of death metal before counting to 10 and recomposing herself.

My watching this show was a case of seeing the notice for it pop up on the Netflix banner and I was intrigued as the style presented wasn't Anime per Se, but was strange/ cute Sanrio characters, and a jaggy font and a bit of the write up. It's a short series of only 12 episodes, each one about 20 minutes long, but it's amusing, though the initial novelty wears off, and it becomes a bit of a soap opera as Retsuko interacts with her co-workers. An interesting look into Japanese office culture.

Wakfu. I am an animator. As an animator I tend to watch a lot of animated content, especially on Netflix. I am not a fan of the formless Tumblr-style artwork that is pervasive on cable channels in the U.S. these days. I instead gravitate these days more towards older material, and anime, as I have always been an art snob, shunning primitivism, and a lack of polish. ("punk" sensibilities are an anathema to me) While poking around YouTube looking for some animation examples for someone, I ran across clips of a French animated Television show. Some breathtaking action sequences, I became curious and started to poke around.

Wakfu is a show based on a collectible card game, the second of two made by "Ankama". From these two card games came a very extensive background and mythology, and as such the show, which starts off light and fluffy, gets deeper and darker as the show progresses. The cast of characters is fairly stable, but each character is given time to develop and learn. Relationships develop, or sour over time. The show is lushly animated in Flash according to the sources i can find, and has that smoothness found in most Flash cartoons, but with the layouts and an emphasis on rotations and a lot of "front to back" action, it seems far more cinematic. The pacing is French, which means to Americans, used to a steady increase in tension/action until the climax, will find the pacing "uneven", However it has a strong anime influence, including massive fight scenes, and extended, almost "dragon ball" style padding of dramatic events at the ends of seasons, when the stakes get to the point of "World Shattering". The displays of power also get near to the point of high end anime, especially in the later seasons.

Netflix has all three current seasons, plus the three Hour long Episodes of the OAV that should be watched between the Second and Third season. The first two seasons are 26 episodes each, the OAVs are, as said before three, one hour episodes making one long story, and the Third season which is only 12 episodes. If any of you remember the earliest day of Nickelodeon, with cartoons like The Seven Cities of Gold, the feeling of adventure is similar, The show is presented as Dubbed, with a voice cast that is not terrible, though it changes between the OAV and the third season. The Character designs run the gamut from cute to unsettling, though most are humorous, having a style somewhere between French comics and Anime, and the movement is just delicious for this animator in most aspects. A couple of the world's races could be classed as "furry", so there is that. It takes a few episodes to hit it's stride in the first season, but after that if you let it, it may drag you in.

I will post more Netflix finds as I watch other series, but I would be interested in other recommendations you might have for shows there I might be interested.Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I just watched the livestream of the Spacex Falcon Heavy test launch. I think it is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Falcon heavy launch occurred, but the coolest moment was when they did the second stage burn, and deployed the faring, and exposed the Tesla car, with the top down, and the mannequin in the designer space suit at the wheel with David Bowei coming out of the audio, with the earth rotating slowly behind him. Fucking magical.

I had to fucking cheer the audacity, the fucking ART of that move. God it was beautiful. Just seeing that driver5 in the space suit, One hand on the wheel, with the distant clouds behind him, Like earth in the rear view mirror.

God Speed, Starman.

EDIT

I am thinking about re-opening commissions. Though if I do, what sort of things would people be interested in? My usual options are seen here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2691882/
As usual, I would not be offering any originals, but I am wondering what people are interested in, from me?

Scott

I will not be attending FC this year. I do not know which con I will attend next, but Califur is likely. Have fun folks!

Enjoy this Holiday season with friends and family. I have a ot to be grateful for. The fires in Santa Rosa were threatening to family members, but thanlkfullly nolives or property were lost among my family and we are all able to gather together in good health an happiness once again. Take care all, and enjoy the season.

Saw "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" to day with  RGibson . No spoilers. We both agreed that it was pretty, and somewhat entertaining, but kind of "meh" at the same time. Wasn't sorry I saw it, but , honestly I could not recommend it.

Once again a reminder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27E.....ature=youtu.be

I will be at my mother's in Kansas for all of October. I will be away from my tablet until I return to Los Angeles. I will bring a sketchpad, though. In my kit, I usually have inking supplies, so
I could participate in Inktober. Should I? If so, a theme, or not? Curious what you all think?