Y’all creepy motherfuckers who tracked down the author of My Immortal down had better at least buy her books. Y’all owe her that much after hunting her down as if her life is a game to you.
And please, don’t forget to sign the petition at lakotalaw.org! State-run foster care/adoption agencies kidnap 700+ Native American children from their families every year and let strangers adopt them–all for the money. Almost none of these children are being taken out of legitimately harmful homes. (Read: Removal was warranted in less than 3% of the cases.) Trust me, I only wish I were making this up. Native families have been fighting for the return of their children for years now, but if you add your voice to the outcry, the government can’t ignore us forever.
“Your dad’s Indian. Your mom’s black. Why are you white?”
Skylar St. Clair’s been getting questions like these all his life. Skylar’s home is the Nettlebush Indian Reserve; his family, the hundreds of Plains Shoshone living there. Skylar can’t help it if he better resembles his biological mother, a woman whose untimely death left him with more secrets than memories.
Skylar’s father has been in federal prison for the past fifteen years. The summer of his release coincides with familial matters of a different nature: Skylar and his husband are trying to adopt a daughter.
Piecing together a fragmented family is no small task. All the patience in the world cannot contend with thirty-three years of reticence.
Things Nick North is supposed to be: A space pirate. An awkward teenager on the verge of adulthood, newly navigating the maze of gender and sexuality. Things Nick North is not supposed to be: A psychotherapist. Escort to a pair of alien princesses. Owner of an amusement park. Captain of the entire ship.
The Suddenly Space Pirates have an unwanted stowaway in the form of Raul Ales de Foc, genocidal destroyer of universes. How the crew reacts in his time of need will ultimately test their character–and their Patience. The question remains: Can Nick steal three new pieces of treasure and still find time to hand in his summer homework?
Matteo and his brother Kalid are night walkers, two of thousands of Ugandan children who walk away from their rural homes every night to evade captivity by the Lord’s Resistance Army. The Lord’s Resistance Army, a Christian army spanning the width of East and Central Africa, has been kidnapping children to fight its battles for over a decade. Worse still for Matteo and Kalid is that they are Muslims–the very enemy the LRA proposes to wipe off of the face of the planet. When Kalid contracts a debilitating fever, the boys’ parents urge Matteo to make the nightly walk on his own; the LRA wants healthy soldiers, they reason, not sickly children. Reluctantly, Matteo makes the trip to neighboring Luwero without his little brother. The following morning, Matteo returns to his village to find it raided by the LRA, his brother missing, his parents dead. Matteo quickly makes up his mind: He must join the LRA, find his little brother, and smuggle him to safety. What Matteo does not expect to discover on enemy soil are thirty thousand children who want to go home but have forgotten the way. Conflicted by their suffering, Matteo’s quest to find his brother spirals into a journey to unite thirty thousand boys and girls in a rebellion against the world’s largest and cruelest army, all while fighting Someone Else’s War.
Most of her books are under five dollars, and have a lot of non-white and queer representation. Please support this writer as she enters a new chapter in her career.
EDIT: i didn’t expect this post to get so many notes. for the record, these are just my personal recommendations, not a definitive list of best underrated animation. i also did not include anything made by Disney. I know that they made some movies that didn’t get as much attention as their other hits, but lists of underwatched Disney films are pretty common, so I thought I’d make one of films by studios that aren’t household names.
Angel’s Egg (1985)
This movie is a nearly silent film with painstakingly beautiful frames and environmental details. All I can say is that it is a real piece of art worth watching and can be watched on YouTube here.
Les Triplets de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville) (2005)
An incredibly quirky, strange and humorous French film, also with almost no dialogue. The colors, creative storytelling, and almost caricature-like designs make the Triplets a must-see. The setting and timeframe is left sort of abstract, but it’s a clear transition from last-century rural France to the hustle and bustle of urban America. Lots of homage is paid to cartoons from the 1920s.
Mindgame (2004)
This movie, quite like the title says, blew my mind. It’s also incredibly strange and out-there, but the awkward imagery gives way to real emotion and huge payoff by the end. The colors and animation are delightful, and always tailored to the situation. It is an amazing intersection of an altered state, a love story, a struggle to get home, an existential trip, and an unlikely group of friends. I almost always cry when I watch this. Seriously, can’t stress this enough. There is absolutely nothing like Mindgame.
Le Chat du Rabbin (The Rabbi’s Cat) (2011)
Rabbi’s Cat is a French film based on a French comic by the same name. The comic artist also directed the movie. Honestly, the dialogue in this is unmatched. Both Cat and Rabbi are witty and have the best banter. The setting is one of the most unique and real-feeling I’ve ever seen a film take place in: a Jewish community in Algeria. It’s wonderful and incredibly charming, could not recommend more.
Tekkonkinkreet (2006)
This movie hits me on a number of levels. I have so much love for the two orphans, Black and White. The story quickly becomes raw and almost difficult, as it touches on a lot of the feelings we see in things like Grave of the Fireflies, but in a much more abstract way and on a much grander scale. Also less sad, but there are very sad parts also. I guess the best way to describe this movie is intense. While there are a lot of sweet, domestic moments, none of the gruesome reality is sugercoated for you.
The visuals are all completely stunning; the art is on another level. Treasure Town is a rich, fantastical environment and the characters flow through it effortlessly, like water. You gotta see this at least once in your life.
Chico and Rita (2010)
An American/Spanish romance between an aspiring Cuban piano player and a young black singer. The film has a vibrant and unique visual style, and explores a multitude of music styles and cultural backdrops. The film is touching and sweet, but does not erase the hardships of being a black music star in America or living through the Castro regime.
Wizards (1977)
Ralph Bakshi is notorious for underappreciated gems. Wizards is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where magic is real and man has survived the radiation to evolve into fairies, elves, and dwarves. It’s a classic nature vs industry story with Bakshi’s unique spin. My favorite character is Necron 99, the assassin robot turned pacifist. I’ll warn you though, Bakshi films aren’t everyone’s taste (he’s responsible for Fritz the Cat, which against my better judgement I recommend as well).
Wizards was completed during the dark age of animation, and its fascinating to see how Bakshi gets around these limitations to produce something that grossed more than twice its budget.
Memories (1995)
Memories is a three part anthology based on three different manga short stories, Magnetic Rose, Stink Bomb, and Cannon Fodder. While the entirety of the movie is beautifully animated and worth the watch, the best of these is the first one. It is a mysterious, tragic sci-fi horror short film set in space and worked on by Satoshi Kon (so of course its amazing).
in light of recent stuff i figured i’d make a masterpost of my favorite polygon videos and plus some that are safe to enjoy and can kill that huge void now! the bolded ones are personal faves! and please feel free to add any more
Older Polygon
The Failed Names – A five year old video (and a fav) about how polygon came to be and it’s honest to god hilarious how many bad names they went through (featuring Griffin and Justin)
Press Reset: Episode Six – “Hot Scoops” – a bit of a more informative series that I watched in the background once but this was my favorite episode! The series goes into how polygon was formed and what they have to do as gaming reporters (this episode features Griffin, but in others they are not as prominent)
The Besties – Secret Santa Special – The Besties are Griffin, Justin, Russ, and and Chris and they actually also have a podcast together where they talk about games and usually their favorite games of the month. In this video they have to go holiday shopping for each other which goes as well as it should
The Besties – Scavenger Hunt – At E3 2013 they all run around like fools trying to do a scavenger hunt and it’s a classic
Griffin’s Nuzlocke Run – This is actually the first polygon thing I watched and is extremely good with all the stress of a nuzlocke and our savior Miss Beakman (Griffin)
Peacecraft – Despite all odds, Griffin never kills anything in World of Warcraft but the real best part of the series is the audience interaction (Griffin)
Making Gingerbread Houses with Charlie – Rileigh and Charlie work together (or against each other) to make a milk carton gingerbread house and is one of my favorite videos (Rileigh and Charlie)
Travis’ Periscope Account – He has a bunch of livestreams up and they’re all very good and were one of the most grounding things I watched during a bad time. He has a bunch of Q&As if you want some random facts about the Seeso show or other things and even has a baking live stream (or a couple) (Travis plus Baby Bebe/Teresa/Buttercup)
yo here’s a useful tip from your fellow art ho cynellis… use google sketchup to create a model of the room/building/town you’re trying to draw… then take a screenshot & use it as a reference! It’s simple & fun!
Sketchup is incredibly helpful. I can’t recommend it enough.
There’s a 3D model warehouse where you can download all kinds of stuff so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.
reblog to save a life
This is an incomplete tutorial, and it drives me crazy every
time I see it come around.
We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to
a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of,
but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of
using it.
Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:
How do you populate your backgrounds?
Well, here’s the answer:
If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to
that environment.
The examples above are great because they show how to use the
software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of
their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their
environment.
How do you fix this?
Well, here’s the simplest solution:
This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and
comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and
it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that
polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background
and an environment.
Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine),
people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like
there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they
currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.
Your creations live in a unique world, and it is as much a character as
any other member of the cast. Make it as believable as they are.
Great comments and tutorials!
I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!
Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!
Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)
The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this – Manga Studio, Design Doll – but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.
By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!
Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.
We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!
Proper 3d modeling software is immensely powerful, and if you wanted to, you could model a complex environment that occurs regularly in your comic or illustration work (say, a castle interior, or an outdoor forest environment) and populate the scene with as many perspective-grounded characters as you need!
reblogging to save a life
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at this amazing addition! This is fantastic!
A Tutorial for a artist learning (reblogging this for you…)
ProbablyPartyPoison 