Sketchy Sunday 1
Well, here goes nothing:
I wish it was less smudgy-looking; the lines looks like they're made of tiny little dots of grit - which I suppose is what they are, anyway - but hey, there you go, my first week's worth of doodling! I think my favourite is Thursday's efforts. The woman's curly hair worked out really well and while her nose is bigger than I wanted, the face looks generally in proportion. Also, the cartoony prawn-thing on the right, which I did on a whim after finishing the woman, is weirdly adorable. Monday's mermaid also turned out better than I expected. Adding the fancy goldfish/koi carp colouring to her tail made her come to life in a way that leaving her as a pencil sketch didn't.
All in all, pretty happy. If I do this again, though, I'll use a bigger diary. I bought a slim-style one and the restricted space gets annoying.
I saw Frozen yesterday. I have... mixed feelings. There's too much singing in the first half and the songs aren't that great, the exception being Elsa's "Let It Go". Kristoff isn't a patch on Tangled's Flynn Ryder as the male "anti"-hero. HOWEVER, in Tangled the relationship between Flynn and Rapunzel is the main focus of the movie, whereas in Frozen, the romance elements are definitely B-plot, so maybe that's why Kristoff feels less charismatic. Similarly, Olaf the snowman and Sven the reindeer aren't as memorable as Pascal and Maximus. Olaf's existence is never fully explained; we're told that Elsa made him but we don't see it happening. Sure, she built an Olaf when she was a kid, but we never saw that one coming to life; I assumed that he had ended up a puddle on the palace floor once Elsa had run out with the injured Anna. If he is the same Olaf as the one from her childhood, how the heck did he survive getting out of the palace and up into the mountains when it wasn't winter? And if he isn't the same one, but was made by the older Elsa after fleeing the palace, what was her reasoning? Yes, she's letting go and enjoying her powers for the first time in a long time, but compared to that fantastic ice castle (seriously want one), Olaf seems too childish a creation for the adult Elsa. And what is with the weird way they kept pronouncing Anna's name? Yes, I know it's set in a Scandinavian-esque nation, and that's most likely the way that "Anna" is pronounced in that part of the world, but pretty much everyone talked with very American accents - EXCEPT when saying that one name.
BUT I did love the twist on the whole "true love" cliche - for once, it's not romantic love which saves the day, but the love of family - the reveal of the movie's villain was unexpected and clever, and Elsa is a fantastic character, all emotional damage and low self-esteem. As I said earlier, "Let It Go" is the best song in the show and it's also the point where I started to enjoy the movie. The animation as she makes her ice castle is beautiful; I think if I got this movie on DVD, I'd probably play that scene over and over again.
But seriously, what kind of dicks are Elsa's parents?! They're told that fear will make their daughter's power dangerous, so they decide to make her afraid of everybody?!? How is that going to help? Plus they announce this great idea of theirs in front of the trolls, who are supposed to be the kindly and wise mystics of this world - why didn't the head troll pipe up and say, "Your Majesties, that is the stupidest plan I have ever heard"? Yeah, that bit of the story was dumb.
I'm reading Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service at the moment. It's actually a lot of fun! Bond's got a little bit more of a moral core in his attitude towards women (only a little, mind) than he does in the movies; he mentally tells himself off as he seduces a woman under false pretences. My only quibble with Fleming's writing is that he overuses the exclamation mark; seriously, he must use about a dozen in each chapter.
The book does have the most horribly eighties cover, though: this big-haired blonde with black roots, in a shiny pink bomber jacket and equally shiny purple leggings, posed on top of an oversized gold handgun, ugh.
...Aaaand this has taken me absolute ages to write; I started around 4 o'clock and it's now 20 past 5 >.
I wish it was less smudgy-looking; the lines looks like they're made of tiny little dots of grit - which I suppose is what they are, anyway - but hey, there you go, my first week's worth of doodling! I think my favourite is Thursday's efforts. The woman's curly hair worked out really well and while her nose is bigger than I wanted, the face looks generally in proportion. Also, the cartoony prawn-thing on the right, which I did on a whim after finishing the woman, is weirdly adorable. Monday's mermaid also turned out better than I expected. Adding the fancy goldfish/koi carp colouring to her tail made her come to life in a way that leaving her as a pencil sketch didn't.
All in all, pretty happy. If I do this again, though, I'll use a bigger diary. I bought a slim-style one and the restricted space gets annoying.
I saw Frozen yesterday. I have... mixed feelings. There's too much singing in the first half and the songs aren't that great, the exception being Elsa's "Let It Go". Kristoff isn't a patch on Tangled's Flynn Ryder as the male "anti"-hero. HOWEVER, in Tangled the relationship between Flynn and Rapunzel is the main focus of the movie, whereas in Frozen, the romance elements are definitely B-plot, so maybe that's why Kristoff feels less charismatic. Similarly, Olaf the snowman and Sven the reindeer aren't as memorable as Pascal and Maximus. Olaf's existence is never fully explained; we're told that Elsa made him but we don't see it happening. Sure, she built an Olaf when she was a kid, but we never saw that one coming to life; I assumed that he had ended up a puddle on the palace floor once Elsa had run out with the injured Anna. If he is the same Olaf as the one from her childhood, how the heck did he survive getting out of the palace and up into the mountains when it wasn't winter? And if he isn't the same one, but was made by the older Elsa after fleeing the palace, what was her reasoning? Yes, she's letting go and enjoying her powers for the first time in a long time, but compared to that fantastic ice castle (seriously want one), Olaf seems too childish a creation for the adult Elsa. And what is with the weird way they kept pronouncing Anna's name? Yes, I know it's set in a Scandinavian-esque nation, and that's most likely the way that "Anna" is pronounced in that part of the world, but pretty much everyone talked with very American accents - EXCEPT when saying that one name.
BUT I did love the twist on the whole "true love" cliche - for once, it's not romantic love which saves the day, but the love of family - the reveal of the movie's villain was unexpected and clever, and Elsa is a fantastic character, all emotional damage and low self-esteem. As I said earlier, "Let It Go" is the best song in the show and it's also the point where I started to enjoy the movie. The animation as she makes her ice castle is beautiful; I think if I got this movie on DVD, I'd probably play that scene over and over again.
But seriously, what kind of dicks are Elsa's parents?! They're told that fear will make their daughter's power dangerous, so they decide to make her afraid of everybody?!? How is that going to help? Plus they announce this great idea of theirs in front of the trolls, who are supposed to be the kindly and wise mystics of this world - why didn't the head troll pipe up and say, "Your Majesties, that is the stupidest plan I have ever heard"? Yeah, that bit of the story was dumb.
I'm reading Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service at the moment. It's actually a lot of fun! Bond's got a little bit more of a moral core in his attitude towards women (only a little, mind) than he does in the movies; he mentally tells himself off as he seduces a woman under false pretences. My only quibble with Fleming's writing is that he overuses the exclamation mark; seriously, he must use about a dozen in each chapter.
The book does have the most horribly eighties cover, though: this big-haired blonde with black roots, in a shiny pink bomber jacket and equally shiny purple leggings, posed on top of an oversized gold handgun, ugh.
...Aaaand this has taken me absolute ages to write; I started around 4 o'clock and it's now 20 past 5 >.