Let's start with the dullest news and work our way to the even more dull. Not for nothing but my life hasn't exactly been the most exciting, not for lack of want just in general. It seems all I do now is work and come home...actually that is what I do. A little background for me and this is getting a touch personal but I could careless this is my blog and I'll say...er...type what I want but I've never been one to hang out with anyone without an expressed purpose. I'm not like most people who can just show up and "hang out" whatever that means, I'm not a person who needs another person's company to be entertained. However, when I do want to hang out with someone I usually have a purpose in mind however my purpose more than likely won't be shared by others.
With that said, you know exactly where I'm going with this, that's right, Ugo's talkin' 'bout Board Games. More specifically coming this November Betrayal Legacy. Words cannot express just how excited I am to play this game but alas...I doubt anyone else is as excited as I am...save for maybe people who love the game as much as I do...which only happens to one person in our core group of friends. But that's the rub, Kim and I have so many board games and yet no one to really play them with, or at least play with on a consistent bases which Betrayal Legacy will need to be because it's a legacy game. I have a hard enough time trying to get people not to talk during the role call in One Night Ultimate Werewolf and explaining Resistance to people without them getting completely confused as to what they're doing. Oh well...time will tell if I actually do manage to play this one with a group but all signs point to no. Which is fine.
My art woes still continue as I'm struggling (struggling like a mofo) to get better at my artwork however the time to sit down and draw is non-existent. But lately I've been noticing that a lot of the artist I admire here online...aren't from The US. Jago is from Colombia, JP Cortes is from Chile and the amazing Gunship Revolution are all from the Philippines. That isn't to say that there aren't any amazing American artists, alot of them work for Magic The Gathering...and their best artist (in my opinion) Volkan Baga isn't America either. Although I hate saying this, I have to admit that my art style is geared more towards anime style (trying not to cringe) than what could be considered traditional American style. There are American artists I absolutely LOVE: J.G. Jones, Barry Kitson, Ethan Van Sciver and of course the ever amazing Bruce Timm.
It's strange but it seems like every country more or less has their own unique art style even within their own style and it's strange to me. Western style tend to either be grandiose and larger than life, clean and physically perfect (in the case of super heroes) and Eastern styles tend to be more smaller and innocent looking. Of course, Anime was influenced by Mickey Mouse, so there's that, but still I'd love to develop my own style and be as amazing as those guys, but right now I'm trying to figure out exactly what my style is and how to hone it to make it uniquely mine.
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| Still proud of this...don't care what anyone says. |
But I have to admit my style is my style and in trying to further develop my style I've run into more than a few snags. I'm struggling a lot with angles...and well...everything else I've struggled with. The
problem is...I really don't know how I learned how to draw. I mean I learned mostly from emulating my brother and I have no clue how he learned. And while I've had art classes in High school, let's be perfectly honest those classes were basically goof off classes. So a lot of the stuff your average artist knows I'm just now learning and THAT'S A HARD reality to have hit you. I've been working on doing more trace art just to emulate angles and shapes and while that's helped me draw women much better than I previously have...it's done very little in giving me the ability to fly on my own. I'll be trying to work on that.
And now it's time to talk about something I don't think I talked about much on this blog or at all and that's Magic The Gathering. So I'm currently playing Magic, mostly because I work at a game store and Magic is one of our biggest sellers, no small mystery why. My format of choice is Commander and my color of choice is Black (make your jokes) and White. But I'm not talking about Magic entirely, I'm gonna voice my frustrations with the game it's self. Here's the thing, I'm no hater, Magic is a fun game but EXTREMELY frustrating and here's the reason. You need to understand everything BEFORE you play it. What I mean is, if you're going to build a deck you can't just grab some cards and go, you have to REALLY plan out what you want your deck to do and that requires considerable foreknowledge, and because the deck is shuffled it takes some forethought on knowing what cards are in the deck and how to plan accordingly (because you're drawing cards randomly).
Ergo, likewise in Magic you can usually tell who's going to win based on who spent the most money and time played. Because there are so many cards in Magic the effects are varied to an insane degree, time played also gives you a special advantage. And while I'm no slouch when given to things like strategy, I'm at a complete lose when it comes to Magic (I have yet to win a game). My losing streak is due in part to (according to others) my deck being built wrong, and herein lies my other problem, you can't play the game without a tutor. Don't get me wrong, starter decks and commander decks are great because they're already built and ready to do...but if you don't know how to use it you're gonna lose no matter what. And I've learned a thing or two about Magic players, there are 2 kinds of Magic Teachers: ones that will actually help you learn the game and others who just wanna crush you in a match just to see how their deck works, but no matter what ALL Magic players consistently will tell you about their deck in GREAT detail and expect you to understand all of what they're saying. Or will mention a card and expect you to know what that card does.
I'm raging on the community a bit but it's all in good fun. Either way, just to establish my bonafides so that I'm not accused of talking outta my ass, my Black deck I dubbed it "The Death Dealer" because I've got a bunch of 1 to 2 drop Sorceries and Instants that "Destroy target creature" and others that give creatures negatives and I have a bunch of low drop creatures with Deathtouch or something that can give them Deathtouch. My main strategy is to frustrate my opponent and kill every large thing they come out with. While Hexproof can guard against my sorceries it can't do squat about Deathtouch (unless they have first strike) and in that case I'm kinda screwed. Likewise if they had protection from Black...I'm equally screwed.
My White deck is built around Odric The Lunarch Marshal, I've dubbed my White deck "White Privilege" (the only kinda I know exists) it's built around first strike, haste and vigilance. I'm trying to get more low drops and I need "Circle Of Protection: Black" and some Hexproof. If you know Odric, you know I can mess people up with him. But I digress. Anyways those are my frustrations with Magic. Hence why I prefer Living Cards Games, I'm getting interested in "Android: Netrunner" and "Legend Of The Five Rings" but I digress once again.
Let's change gears and talk movies, not much of a gearshift but hey...I don't know where I was going with that. Anyways, they hype machine has brought another horror movie to my attention and apparently this movie is a "landmark and unique" horror film, I'm talking about "Hereditary". The hype machine has let me down more often than it has met my expectations, "It Follows", while I found entertaining did not scare me in the slightest, while "The Babadook" scared my wife only one image remained with me and that's not enough to say that the movie scared me, the less I say about "A Cure For Wellness" the better, however that one was not given to the hype machine. The point is I'm finding it harder and harder to be scared by movies and I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by not finding a proper scary movie.
Now that isn't to say there aren't movie that scare me, there are some movies I won't even watch the trailer for, like "Martyrs" (the original not the remake), "Salo" and a few other foreign films that aren't so much scary as they are completely depressing, and as disturbing as it is to watch someone get tortured for an hour that's not my definition of scary. Personally, I think the horror genre in film is slowly dying and will be resurrected in the form of video games. Let's face it, horror needs a much more personal touch to REALLY get people invested, at least me anyway. That's an article for later.
That being said, I plan on snagging "Hereditary" the second it drops on Blu-Ray and per my usual I've done all I can to avoid spoilers and even a plot synopsis of it just because I wanna go in as fresh as possible...however...I don't know I have a keen feeling I'll be disappointed with this one as well and I'm not sure if that's a me problem or a problem with scary movies themselves. Let me back track and say that I have been scared by things before, Junji Ito's "The Enigma Of Amigara Fault" scared me, "Misery" the book scared me, "Battle Royale" the manga scared me, the 1st 7 minutes of "Dawn Of The Dead" the remake freaked me the f*ck out and "28 Days Later" was scary as balls and "The Ring" was pretty damn scary as well...but...that was then...this is now. I'm having a hard time articulating just what in a horror movie I'd find truly horrifying aside from the movies that I just won't watch.
I will say I can't bare any scene that involves anyone being buried alive and I'm not even claustrophobic, just the very idea of being trapped freaks me out and in that regard "The Vanishing" (original, not remake) always seemed like a good horror movie. I've gotten WAY off course, anyway the point is I'm really hoping "Hereditary" stays with me and messes me up in a GOOD way because otherwise I'm gonna be really disappointed. I have this bad habit of wanting to know about movies and sometimes that causes me to run into spoilers when I don't want to...but I'm almost tempted to read spoilers on "Hereditary" just so I can see whether or not I should save my money...just because I'm afraid it's gonna fall in line with "It Follows" or worse "Insidious" which SUCKS...man do those movies suck. Entertaining, well acted and they tell a coherent story but as a scary movie they fail and EVERY LEVEL...once again, different article. Moving on, the hype machine also turned me onto the John Cho lead thriller "Searching" and while I'm iffy about "Hereditary", I'm more than excited about "Searching" as I'm imagining it'll be some sort of "Gone Girl" style Father/Daughter thriller and I really love John Cho so I'm excited about this.
Finally I caved I am now financially obligated to buy a PS4, why? Because I broke down and bought "Detroit: Become Human", yeah, seems bassakwards to buy the game first before the system but hence that's where the obligation comes into play. This is how I purchased my PS3 and this will be how I purchase my PS4. That being said I'm really looking forward to playing this as well as "Dragonball Xenoverse 2" and "The Last Of Us Part 2". It'll be good to finally be in the modern era...but for however long that lasts is anyone's guess...anyways that'll do it for me. I'll catch you guys later. Peace and out. Here's a GIF of the fanciest dance moves in Mortal Kombat, why? Because I'm awaiting news on the next MK game.
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