http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:Thirdrail1&section=today deviantART RSS for by:Thirdrail1 en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:15:24 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/20499740/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/20499740/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:25:11 PDT
So I'm probably not going to be participating here at DA for a while. By which I mean a while longer. But I do still love some of you! You know who you are!

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/15532894/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/15532894/ Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:44:38 PST
I'm really a writer. Earlier this year I finished my first book, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with the thing. I'm considering putting it online to try and get some interest and perhaps find a publisher. Since I already live here at DA, this would be my first choice for a location.

So my question, which you can find and answer in the adjoining poll, is whether or not anyone actually reads anything here. It's fiction, but not fan fiction. Assuming a story had nothing to do with Naruto or the last Airbender, would anyone make it past page 3?

You can barely get any clicks for non-colour artwork, so I have my doubts about text.

Thoughts, anyone?

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/15295521/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/15295521/ Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:51:05 PDT
I know, it's disappointing. It means that one ninja turtle is totally unrealistic. Aww, man.

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/15066026/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/15066026/ Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:01:42 PDT
Last week I logged into a Xbox Live server and started playing Halo 3 and Perfect Dark online. With this silly joystick people have little reason to fear me. As much as I dislike playing shooters without a mouse a keyboard, not being able to lock down a game is far worse. Practice is in order.

And let's be fair, I never said I was a full time artist. Sadly, games aren't good enough to be a full time gamer either, so rest assured I'll be bored in a few weeks.

Xbox Live participants are welcome to contact me. I'm Thirdrail1 there too. And pretty much everywhere...

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14828186/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14828186/ Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:21:06 PDT
RULES
1.Post these rules.
2.Each person tagged must post 8 random facts about themselves.
3.Tags should be write a journal/blog of these facts.
4.At the end of the post 8 more persons are tagged and named.
5.Go to their page and leave a comment telling them they're tagged.

1 - I have an old golf bag filled with kites and ninja weapons.
2 - I like sunflowers best of all the flowers. They remind me of someone I've never met.
3 - I've been licked by a giraffe.
4 - I've been called an outlaw in jest and a scoundrel in earnest.
5 - I wear an awful lot of black.
6 - I once caught myself smoking, chewing gum, and biting my nails simultaneously. Now I only smoke.
7 - I wonder sometimes if I should have spent more time playing crane games.
8 - ONe of my favorite songs is about pronouns and a rhinocerus.

I tag the first eight people dumb enough to read this. You know who you are...

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14680338/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14680338/ Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:10:56 PDT
]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14583643/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14583643/ Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:56:19 PDT
It's the prettiest anime ever. It slides back and forth between being very cute, and drop dead gorgeous. The character design is subtle and perfect. Cityscapes have never looked better.

Very funny. It's very funny. Anytime it's not being funny, it's being painfully sad. It's a nice mix. I was never bored anywhere in the 24 episodes, and it's just as interesting to watch a second time.

It has tons of cute girls. The Kanon 2006 kawaii factor verges on overdose. Almost constantly. Aside from a guy that occasionally shows up as a servant to the imperious upperclassman, there's only one boy in the whole show. Which might be the best part of all...

Because Yuuichi is very cool. That's right, a cool guy in an anime. Let me put it this way... for every dog you've ever reached down to pet, I've watched an episode of something the Japanese have animated... and I couldn't make a top ten list of cool male characters if you put a barbeque fork to my head. Maybe eight, if you got me really drunk, and put on old Fist of the Northstar episodes...

So I say to you now, go use YouTube for something good! Stop clicking the Thai pole dancers and enrich your life with art!

Just don't blame me when you start making weird noises.

Uguu~

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14566434/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14566434/ Sun, 09 Sep 2007 18:48:50 PDT
The magnet mis-fires in our heads. It tells us not to take happy faces seriously. The ramifications are endless. It makes people seem harmless. We despise it in some imagery, but crave it others.

Policemen are trained not to smile. Girls are trained to smile endlessly.

Raw visual imperialism.

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14534867/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14534867/ Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:20:19 PDT
Every new system wants some new thing...

48x48 icons? Didn't I just go through this for 100x100 and 50x50? Dammit man.

Can't someone make a system that connects all these specialized comm hub sites? I just want to log in here at DeviantArt and have all my updates and messages brought to me. I'm sure everyone else feels that way about whichever hub they've chosen.

One of you passing internet gurus should steal this idea, make it work, and become rich. I'm fine with only being mentioned as the first beta tester.

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14493334/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14493334/ Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:10:37 PDT
It wasn't that long ago that comics were huge. The X-Men were everything. Comic shops were hubs of geek love and commerce. Time was measured with pull files.

Now comic shops barely exist. Marvel, DC, and the remnants of the Image continuum have all been relegated to graphic novels on the suicide racks at mainstream bookstores. At a glance, one might take the fall for destiny... the inevitable result of faster, flashier media taking over.

After all, how could simple comics survive in a world of Playstations and DVD bonus footage? People want better, faster, and anything that requires less attention span than the day before. One might cynically construe that sequential art never really stood a chance. Which I would probably agree with, if not for one thing...

Manga.

While American comics have drifted into spine viewed obscurity, Japanese manga have flourished. That shouldn't be possible in an environment of strict impatience and ADD driven consumers. And yet, here we all are.

Now, I will tell you what really happened. Comics didn't die of progress. They died from lack of it.

No one ever focused on the writing. The comics industry employed hundreds of amazing artists, and maybe a dozen competent writers. Storytelling was almost always secondary to "the look". The problem is, people only need to look at your pretty pictures a few times. Without a solid story arc, you're just creating a long sequence of cameos to excite your reader. It's surprising people paid for that as long as they did.

Females were ignored too long. American comics were designed by boys, for boys, and then made virtually no progress over the next fifty years of their history. Yes, minor attempts were made to cultivate wider audiences, but for the most part the big companies ignored girls completely. The problem? One, it's dumb to ignore half the populace. Two, chicas read a hell of a lot more than guys do.

Super heroes aren't everything. The insistence on using comics only for super hero stories did unbelievable amounts of damage to the industry. Marvel and DC brainwashed whole generations into thinking that if they'd seen one comic, they'd seen them all. And then they made that sentiment correct by systematically abolishing the most important thing in storytelling...

The sense of wonder. Without the sense of wonder, you've got nothing. This is especially true of super hero stories.

So you see, it was not a natural death. Nor was it a murder... American comics imploded under their own boredom.

It's important that we know this. There are a lot of talented people here. Some of us will help shape the future of sequential art. We need to be conscious of the things that caused the last collapse.

It's also important because right now, somewhere out there, Reid Ipser is probably getting drunk and making Wolverine noises at strangers. Progress since eighth grade has been THAT slow. Someone needs to do something.

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14180151/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/14180151/ Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:39:40 PDT
First mp3s replaced cds and tapes. Then Bittorrent replaced television. Word even managed to supplant most of my notebooks. No small feat. Now I've managed to replace paper with a screen.

I've switched to a tablet pc. No more sketchbooks. No more pages worn thin with eraser marks and no more messy pencil sharpener. Alright, it's not exactly a one way ticket to viva la Bladerunner, but it's a tiny step in right direction.

It's been a week or so now. The transition was surprisingly smooth. Just like the Wacom tablet, getting the right programs makes a world of difference.* I see no reason to keep my beloved pencil case in bookbag circulation. I can't speak for other realms of digital art, like 3D animation or heavy photoshop action, but for 2D drawing, the tablet borders on being a magic item. Endless brushes with infinite paper. Presented in a way that makes thing fun and accesible.

Which is how the future should be. Overwhelming in function; fun and accesible. At least until the angry cyborgs come for us.




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* Smoothdraw and Alias Sketchbook both receive the Thirdrail seal of interface approval. If you're overpowered on ram then add ArtRage to the list.

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/13931249/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/13931249/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:27:46 PDT
A trade paperback called "How to draw Manga" was thrust upon me. The sentiment was something like, "Here. Draw your own damn characters and get the hell off my back."

I believe my response was along the lines of, "Why are you talking when you could be drawing me a robot?"

A couple years later the advice sunk in, and I decided to concentrate on artwork. I started buying the How to draw Manga books. I sat around with a pencil all day at Starbucks, and gradually improved.

Now it's a couple years later again. I'm trying to make the transition from pencil and paper to the computer. I'm thinking about colouring, and still just trying to learn to draw.

]]> ~Thirdrail1 http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/13750863/ http://Thirdrail1.deviantart.com/journal/13750863/ Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:45:17 PDT
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