Friday, February 27, 2015

Deadpool Syndrome: Gwen Stacy

Peter won't be alone on DeviantArt for very long: here's Gwen to keep him company!


I think the best part of this drawing is her hair. Which was actually a pain to get right - a guy mistook her for MJ at first, because he thought her hair was darker than its usual blonde.

But hey, she's drawn up a hell of a lot more beautifully than I thought I could do. :)

Now, I promised a Spider-Gwen drawing next (that is, Peter and Gwen), but I've got a couple of Wattpad friends for whom I've decided to do fanarts instead. So the current schedule is thus: Jason from Phoenix13 (by Kewona Wolf), followed by Connor from The Night Has Teeth (by Kat Kruger), then Peter and Gwen. Hope that's good for everyone! And don't forget, requests are highly appreciated! :D

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Deadpool Syndrome: Peter Parker

This is the first in my Deadpool Syndrome fanart series. And who better to start with than everyone's favorite Ol' Webhead out of costume?


There are two things I learned from drawing this one:

1) I suck at perspective drawing.
2) While the sketch was being done, I asked someone which famous character was being represented, and she thought I was doing a self-portrait. I had such a laugh at that one...XD I guess while I certainly can't draw Peter looking as good as he does in the movies (as my best friend said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Nobody looks as good as that boy Andrew Garfield!"), I'm at least doing something right, because he looks like an actual person!

Next up, Gwen Stacy, followed by a Spider-Gwen sketch! :D

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Review: The Ruby Circle


The Ruby Circle
The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



And with that, the Vampire Academy 'verse appears to have come to an end at last. Unlike with the original series, though, I thought this one had a bit of an open ending, leaving just a little room for even more adventures. I didn't finish Last Sacrifice thinking that there was any point in having the Bloodlines series, but how wrong I was. :)

The one thing that stood out to me the most, of course, was the surprise birth of Declan, the son of two dhampirs, even though it's been repeatedly established that dhampirs can't reproduce together. Now, I hate to once again bring up my continued anger over the death of Mason, but...Ms. Mead, if you were planning to one day have two dhampirs have a child together, why couldn't they have been Rose and Mason? You wasted a perfectly good opportunity there, methinks. :(

Well, in that case, I hereby bid Bloodlines ave atque vale.



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Saturday, February 21, 2015

Review: California


California
California by Edan Lepucki

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



Blahhhhhh...I couldn't even get past the interminable first chapter. Sure, I wasn't exactly expecting a Zombieland fun-pocalypse, but the fact that I couldn't even finish it, when I read the entirety of The Road and hated that book to death...this is by far the most ridiculously overhyped apocalyptic story since The Passage.



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Friday, February 20, 2015

A Dark Fire Boy And His Dog

Presenting the first artwork of Harris McCallum and Thor from The Dark Ice Chronicles!


This has gotta be my favorite drawing so far - mostly because of all the wishes and vital stats. But I'm surprised by how well Harris turned out. Maybe it was because, even though I know he's a skinny dude, I just kept thinking he was too skinny, and so I kept fixing that repeatedly.

And besides - MOAR MINTEE MOCHAZ!!!

Review: First Flight


First Flight
First Flight by J L Pawley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Chalk up another excellent Wattpad find for the list with this one. It's a high-intensity hybrid of Max Ride and Orphan Black, told in three different voices. The action doesn't seem to ever want to stop once the story gets going - which is great because there's two more books, all fully available on Wattpad for those of you who, like me, don't spend money on ebooks.



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Thursday, February 19, 2015

Review: Reborn


Reborn
Reborn by Jennifer Rush

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is supposed to be the end of the Altered Saga? I didn't get the impression at the end that the story was quite done yet. Of course, it's repeatedly stated throughout this book that, other than a few isolated cells, the Branch is pretty much dead and groaning.

I loved Elizabeth's POV, though - way more than any other POV featured in this series. (Nick's POV was good too, but I did get tired of his near-endless drinking and self-loathing after a while.) And there just wasn't enough of our favorite funny dude Cas in this installment - but in the end, Rush delivered a fairly satisfying ending to this trilogy.



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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

"Hey, Feathers."

As promised, the first Fionna Lee artwork is here at last!


I wish I could have done her eyes more justice, but there was a point where I just said, "Enough was enough." So, here you go. And here she is, rocking the horizontal stripes just like Jay and Alex. (I have to seriously stop doing that.)

Next on the list will be Harris and Thor from The Dark Ice Chronicles. And if you'd like to give me a request, please tell me! :D

Review: The Last American Vampire


The Last American Vampire
The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I forgot just how awesome Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was. But that's okay, because this book is even awesomer. It takes more historical stuff and gives it a vampirish twist, exactly as was suggested at the end of the first book, thus continuing on Grahame-Smith's path of supreme originality.

I imagine the movie of this one may not happen anytime soon since the ALVH movie bombed at the box office (when it should have been a smash hit, let's face it.) Unless someone starts a Kickstarter to fund it...?



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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Review: Library of Souls


Library of Souls
Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I cannot wait for this one. At all. I'm rating it five stars in advance, for pretty obvious reasons.

Wait, this is gonna be the last book in the series?



Okay. In that case, I'll just hibernate till it comes out:



Update: Finally, the title is here! "Library of Souls..." sounds creepy. And oh my dear sweet baby Jesus, we has excerpt? And it's gonna come out in September? We can see all that peculiar action and more before the year is over - before the return of Sherlock, even?







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Friday, February 13, 2015

New Covers For The Red Rain Series

Having just joined a new writing site, Amazon's Write On, I have chosen to create new covers for Red Rain and Blue Monday. Having finally been reminded of the wonders of PicMonkey by my Spanish teacher, I decided to use it - and I'm very satisfied with the results, if I do say so myself.

So, here they are, the new Red Rain and Blue Monday cover arts, now on Wattpad and Write On (but only Red Rain is available on the latter for now.)



Don't hesitate to tell me what you think!

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Read It Write Now!: Welcoming Nikki

As someone who is also new to the blogging world, I think I may as well just have this as my first share. :)



Read It Write Now!: Welcoming Nikki: Hey guys! So, I have a little announcement for you :D in light of this year being much more busy than I anticipated, I decided to enlist the...

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Why I Think Marvel Should Not Recast Spider-Man

This is what I found when I woke up and went to see IMDb this morning.

And right away, my reaction was roughly this - almost the same reaction I had upon reading the end of The Evolution of Mara Dyer:

It's a Community of Guardians echoing my sentiments.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm all for Ol' Webhead getting the screentime he deserves. In a world where Fifty Shades can be made into a feature film, we need proof that the art of cinema is not dead. And in a world where we may have otherwise been sentenced to a four-year gap between TASM 2 and 3, it's a welcome sight, knowing that Marvel now intends to present the movie we're all waiting for a year earlier - and just in time for my birthday too. The last time Marvel released a movie on my birthday weekend, it was pure, unadulterated, amazeballs, awesome fun.

You said it, Rocket.
And I'm sure the new Marvel-Sony collaboration will be a cool one too. There's just one little problem - the star of the most recent reboot won't be in it.

#AwkwardPeterMoment
That, unfortunately, is what we seem to be looking at - a Spider-Man movie without Andrew Garfield.

Now, one of my best friends is a huge fan of the original Sam Raimi trilogy, the ones with Tobey Maguire as Spidey. She grew up with those movies - as did I - but she was much more profoundly affected by them than I was. She was very much dazzled by what she saw in Raimi's cool, stylish vision. And it helped that she had a crush on Tobey Maguire (still does, in fact). But she doesn't want to watch The Amazing Spider-Man, because she's afraid that by doing so, it'll interfere with her happy, nostalgic childhood memories.


This is just about how I feel, knowing that the next Spider-Man movie will be something different from the ones I fell in love with. For Raimi's trilogy, I thought of it this way: the first one was cheesy awesome.

Remixed 12 years later by Electro.
The second one, genuinely good. 

Erm...not quite.
The third...meh. It wasn't all-out bad like the world seems to think it is, but still, some of the creative directions were pretty misguided, to say the least.

Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker, flipping that emo hair since 2007.
Both Amazing Spider-Man movies, on the other hand, were my kind of movies. They struck the perfect balance between high action...

Send that Rhino back to the zoo!
...and high romance...

Facepalming with flowers.
One day, I'll be doing that for reals.
...and, of course, high humor.

"You know, you...got the mind...of a true scholar, sir.
See, see, I was goin' more for the guys who do the luge..."
(There's a reason why I've memorized that entire scene, people.) :)

That's the balance I try to reach in my own stories, because I know I'm not the only one who finds the greatest entertainment that way. And that's the reason why, if and when I publish Red Rain, there's gonna be a big long paragraph in the Acknowledgments (you should see me type that word one painful letter at a time, just trying to make sure I get it right) section offering a massive shout-out and thank you to all those who made The Amazing Spider-Man movies possible - especially the second one, because I saw it in theaters when I was first writing Red Rain and immediately sought to put in as many references to it as possible. The Amazing Spider-Man series is my perfect kind of movie, and the biggest influence on my writing by far.

And you know why it works so well for me? Because everyone involved has amazing talent for an amazing movie. Especially the cast - they all delivered excellent performances. Especially-especially Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone - the fact that they got together off-screen as well as on, that speaks volumes about their chemistry right there.

You know how the saying goes - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well, Sony and Marvel, contrary to what the general public seemed to think if the internet was anything to go by, nothing was "broke" about The Amazing Spider-Man. It was perfectly fine the way it was. Think about it - if the movie truly was as bad as the internet said, would an entire theater full of people, myself and my friend included, break out in applause for it when it ended? Would I be provided a reason to paraphrase Quentin Tarantino re: The Lone Ranger and think, "Wait, this is the movie everyone says is crap? Seriously?"

Long story short - Marvel, I trust you will do Spider-Man justice in the new movie. But for God's sake, don't change the cast. I know I'm not the only one who would be supremely unhappy if you did.

Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always.

I am now a blogger.

So...having been quite bored and with nothing else to do, I have chosen to start a blog. You can expect random posts and/or funny GIFs from me as time goes by, but no promises! :P