Hey, I won the prize at the office Halloween party, not too shabby. On the other hand, delicate costume is delicate! Three bits broke just from me standing around!

-The Gneech

Shameless plugging time! I’ve had the Button of Charisma +2 for over a year now, and some of you might be wanting an upgrade. So GnomeCo Publications proudly presents the Button of Charisma +4! Become 20% cooler in ten seconds flat! This lovely button looks snazzy, goes into the ‘body’ slot (sorcerers take note!) and is an untyped bonus, so it stacks! Click on the picture to buy, or come find me in the Furry Marketplace at Further Confusion 2012.

-The Gneech

I had a whole long post about the phrase “never complain, never explain,” but I ended up shelving it because I realized I was explaining and complaining. So instead, I will leave you with this quote, which honestly was the best thing about the whole post anyway:

I think the Internet (and the world) would be a much better place if we talked about what we liked more and what we disliked less.

@jakebe on Twitter

Keep on bein’ awesome, world.

-The Gneech

I’ve mentioned before, mostly in connection with Arclight Adventures, that I’m trying to “break out” of my established art style. My recent apparent obsession with drawing My Little Pony is the most visible part of this process, but I’ve been doing a lot of simply studying other styles and trying to break down in my mind how they work.

This morning, as I was waiting for a reboot from yet another Adobe update, I started doing some sketches of John Dunn’s redesign, and I’m trying to utilize some of the new stuff I’ve learned. I’ve never been real comfortable drawing human faces (one of the reasons I gravitated towards furry art), and honestly with a few exceptions I just don’t like them very much. But one of the things I’ve been studying is how to get past trying to realistically depict an exact human form and create a stylized form that “reads” human.

I haven’t quite gotten it yet, but I’m improving. In the case of John Dunn, tho, I’m still coming to grips with what he should look like both “realistically” and “stylistically,” which is making it a little harder. I might end up just finding pics of an actor online and using them as a springboard (but not a direct model), like I did with Verity. Character-wise he’s been revamped to something like Beast from the X-Men with just a dash of Isiah Mustafah’s “Old Spice Guy” thrown in (as opposed to the Woobie Frankenstein he was originally), so I need to find a model who’s physically imposing in a way that Isiah Mustafah isn’t, but still has a hint of wry humor about him. Maybe Michael Jai White? I’d love to hear any nominations folks might have.

Ah well, back to work for now. But come lunchtime, that sketchbook better LOOK OUT!

-The Gneech

PS: Oh yeah, I meant to mention! Arclight Adventures has a launch date now! January 9, 2012. A bit later than I anticipated, true, but given how rough my early 2011 was, I hope you’ll forgive it.

So this morning my various social media feeds are buzzing with the story of the gal who dated a geek, discovered he was a geek and went “OMG Yuck!” and then proceeded to post a ranty blog about it, only to have the rest of the internet rightly tell her what a nasty thing she’d done.

Okay. I would submit that anybody who posts to any blog anywhere has no business blasting someone for being a geek, but that just serves to underscore the ridiculousness of her tirade. But that’s not the point.

See, almost immediately after I read that, another story came up about women bloggers being systematically targeted with death threats pretty much for being women with opinions about things. That leads me to look at some of the more vicious reactions to the gal’s rant with a bit of a wince.

Having recently been blasted for stating what I thought was a perfectly reasonable opinion and having the reaction be that Diana’s pack of hounds chased me down and tore me to shreds, I find myself in the curious position of being sympathetic to Alyssa Bereznak, not for her piece (which was awful) but for waking up one morning to discover that the internet hates you.

It’s not fun.

So please internet, I ask you, exercise some restraint. Yes, her blasting of Jon Finkel was not cool, but she’s a human being too. Don’t forget that.

-The Gneech

PS: Spreading the word about this idea would be appreciated. Thanks!

So I’m downtown at [agency redacted] going through the second step of getting an official Government Identity Card from the Department of Big Brother Is Watching You Homeland Security, when the building starts going rumba-rumba-rumba-rumba and we all start giving each other quizzical looks. One guy says, “It’s the train, it runs right behind the building.”

Looking at the windows buckling in the building across the street, I say, “That’s a hell of a train!”

Fingerprint and Registration Lady says, “That’s no train, that’s an earthquake!” just as it comes to a stop. She adds, “If it had kept on going, I would have evacuated.” (The “floor warden” vest and helmet hanging in her cubicle added weight to the statement.) With perfect sitcom timing, a security guy steps in the door and says, “We’re evacuating the building. Everybody out!”

Turns out, it’s the largest earthquake ever recorded in Virginia — which is not that impressive on the global scale of earthquakes, but given that our usual amount of earthquakes is nil plus heavy traffic, it’s quite discombobulating. (Imagine southern California reacting to three feet of snow — the sheer “what do we DO with this”-ness of it makes it comparable.) Fortunately, there doesn’t appear to have been a lot of damage and I’ve heard no reports of injuries so far — the biggest problem has been dealing with people’s reactions to it.

Basically, every building over six stories or so appears to have been evacuated and everybody was either sent home or stood around the sidewalks of D.C., chuckling nervously and making jokes about whether or not the earthquake damaged the debt ceiling, har har. All of the phone services were blocked to “non-emergency” use, making Twitter the only means of communication for a while, and even that was slow, but I was grateful to have anything at that stage.

The Metrorail was closed for about twenty minutes while they checked there was no damage to the tracks, and then the trains all operated at 15 MPH (presumably to minimize the chances of a major accident due to aftershocks). This made for a long and stressful ride home for me — I cannot seem to ride the Metro without there being an annoying 6-year-old boy next to me the whole time. You’ll be happy to know that 6-year-old boys still sing “Plop-plop, fizz-fizz, oh what a relief it is,” still think it’s hilarious, and still think that nobody else has ever heard it before and therefore want to hear it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

But I digress.

The point is, we’re all home and fine now, and very grateful for the concerned texts and e-mails. This was not my first earthquake, but it was the first strong and extended one, so I can at least add that to my list of life experiences.

Unfortunately, I still don’t have the gov’t ID, so it’s back to [agency redacted] again on Thursday to try again. Watch that be the day Klaatu comes back.

-The Gneech