Artist Profile Zelda Wang (Zelda994612)

Previous Artist: Dan Goodsell (Mr. Toast) 

Today's artist is Zelda wang, who has her own portfolio...

Along with a deviantart if you prefer that

Today I’m talking about an artist I found while attending Anime Expo this year, Zelda Wang, who caught my attention by having a booth exhibiting manga-fied versions of the Greek gods. Having just finished an art history course, and doing my major project on Greece, my first thought was AWESOME!

After getting back from the convention and collapsing, I did some research on this mysterious artist. Here’s a little timeline on her work…

Of course, the first thing that caught my mind was her work illustrating Greek myths. After a little bit more research, I discovered she’s done some short comics on Greek myths. Here’s the cover to one of her books “My Seasons” about how Hades met Persephone (well, her version of it)

While it should be noted that this cannot be an accurate representation of how the Greek gods looked, because they were all 100% manly men with no girly traits whatsoever, except for the women. I am willing to forgive this because Zelda does not give us the candy coated versions of Greek myths where Hades is bad and Zeus is good, but the more diverse pantheon of characters that act very human.

Outside of the Myth story, Zelda has also written a comic known as “Rain of Flowers,” which appears to be a fantasy tale involving wizards.

Upon further research, I have learned that Zelda was the person who created the anime expo mascots back in 2006, back when it was in Anaheim

Overall, Zelda has a nicely rounded portfolio, and manges to do a lot of nice stuff. Not to mention, people versed in Greek mythology are usually cooler than people who aren’t. I am partially tempted to ask her to do a commission of Orpheus and Eurydice, but alas, I’m quite broke right now. I may wind up reviewing some of her individual works later, because those happen to be long enough to warrant their own reviews.

Next artist: dunno. Got some contacts at Expo

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Artist Profile: Dan Goodsell (Mr. Toast)

 Previous Artist: Andrew Dickman

Today's artist is Dan Goodsell, creator of Mr. Toast

While I was Anime Expo I saw a booth for the most obvious artist that I never posted about: Dan Goodsell, creator of the Mr. Toast. This is silly, because I’ve had his plushies on my shelf and a mountain of his comics saved onto my hard drive.

I originally discovered this artist back in 2008 before I actually took the blog seriously, so I guess it makes sense how it never occurred to me to write about him. I’ll start with the website logo

This features an image of Mr. Toast, the walking, talking slice of toast, and his friend Joe the egg, an equally walking, talking egg. These two go on cute yet interesting adventures with such friends as Shaky Bacon, who always appears to be suffering withdrawal symptoms, and Lemonhead, a moronic Lemon.

We also get schenanigans with Mope the Onion, who always seems to get the short end of the stick.

It should be noted that Dan Goodsell does a lot of visual puns on his website, such as this one of a “Rolling Stone

Dan has a large variety of comics on his site, most of which are adorable and give out a giggle. It should be noted that most of his stuff is entirely G-rated, making his stuff entirely safe for work while somehow appealing. Kind of like Domo.

It should also be noted that Dan sells plushies of a good portion of his characters. I myself purchased a Mr. Toast plushie at Anime Expo 2009, and have it on display in my room. While his comics do seem to lack bite, they are pretty safe, and have a certain appeal to them. I’ve found that it’s definitely worth the time to check out.

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Next Artist: Probably some person from Expo, or a Person I found in Mr. Toast’s myspace friends. He has a lot of good ones.


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Artist Profile: AndrewDickman

Previous Artist: ArionHawk

Today's Artist is Andrew Dickman from DeviantArt

I found today’s artist while I was loitering around on Deviant art, when I saw a comic by him that I felt compelled to read. Upon looking at this person’s site, I realized it made logical sense for me to do a feature on them, mostly because I like the work he’s done.

I suppose the logical course of action would be to start with the comic that originally caught my attention here…

It’s a little thing about the Marvel/Disney buyout. He was trying to make a comparison and demonstrate that DC was fine after Warner Bros. bought them, and that fans really don’t need to worry so much about Marcel being bought by Disney.

However, that wasn’t what kept me on his page. Along with that little comic, he has a large variety of American style comics, such as people’s avatars, and some interpretations of classic characters, such as Mario here:

Also, here’s an alternate universe Mario and Luigi…

The only thing that would make it better is if one ot them had an EVIL Goatee.

It should be noted that Andrew is capable of doing more serious stuff as well, such as this picture of Samus from the Metroid series….

His caption said he was trying to capture her loneliness, and why she winds up talking about as much as Link from Legend of Zelda.

Overall, Andrew is quite good at what he does, and appears to consistently do this work. If you go farther back on his deviant art, you can see he has been improving by producing more art consistently.

Hm, I’m thinking for my next artist I’m going to report on a musician I met at work who likes working on underground stuff. Should be interesting.

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Artist Profile: ArionHawk

Today’s artist is ArionHawk, on DeviantArt

Previous Profile: Shira Oka: Second Chances

Well, now that I started advertising with project wonderful, I get full and complete dictatorship over a couple adslots on my site. Furthermore, I can go investigate the people that advertise me with no chance of retribution from google, leading to a much better connection with the community and type of people who sponsor the site.

Upon realizing that I now can research my ads entirely, I occasionally use this ability, ESPECIALLY since webcomics and such are actually quite ripe for making posts about here. This lead me to discover ArionHawk, the perfect person for a new artist profile segment.

ArionHawk is an artist who mainly works with pencils and photoshop, but also does some CGI stuff. While he has some interesting shots, there is a small lack in quantity. Fortunately, I believe there to be enough to write about. Let’s start with his most recent picture….

Looks quite nice, good choice to be placed first on his ad on this site.

Second shot is definitely my favorite picture he did,

Because I think platemail is awesome, and Legend of Zelda is awesome, so the obvious combo makes its appearance. It should be noted that Link wear chain mail under the tunic, so this outfit would probably be VERY difficult to put on/take off.

Finally, I’m going to exhibit one of his CGI pieces of a dining room

Looks really nice.

It should be noted that ArionHawk DOES do commissions, and would probably do one for you if you went and requested on his page.

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Coming soon: I’m thinking of this one artist I met on Digg.

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Project profile: Shira Oka: Second Chances

<-Previous Artist: Tsuranga

Today’s project is Shira Oka: Second Chances by Okashi studios

Demo is available now HERE  review HERE

With the school semester being out for summer, I’ve been finding it much harder to network with artists in the area. Fortunately while I was cleaning out my email box, I ran across a studio that was working a project that has not been released yet, hence making them the perfect subject for my next project to feature.

Okashi Studios is a small group of programmers and weeaboos based in San Fransisco working on a big beefy dating sim project named “Shira Oka: Second Chances” They have going at it for a few years, ever since I first ran into their booth at AX 2006 (four years now? Yeesh) Anyways, Shira Oka is a dating sim about a failure of a person who gets a chance to relive high school. While that tells little about the actual scenarios that will be encountered, it lays the basis for the games attitude. The most important thing about a dating sim is the characters and scenarios that run it, and I’m here to talk about the previews that have been released.

To start, we have the preview that was shown at previous conventions

This shows a bit of the characters and the plot, but little on the scenarios presented.

Now then, because I don’t feel like writing about everybody I’m going to write which characters appeal to which of my fetishes and why.

Alright, after watching disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, shy moe- blobs managed to appeal to me again. Let’s not forget that scarves make everybody, male or female, obviously much more attractive. Never underestimate how much sexier a scarf can make a person.

Next we have the Genji girl

Everybody who doesn’t like Genji girls has never talked to a real girl. Easily exited people actually do things, making them more interesting, leading to better dates. Also, this person appears at the town introduction here

After this we have the mechanic, Innou Suzu

Wasn’t very interesting until I read the word Motorcycle. Motorcycles make everybody sexier by about 50% I certainly hope we get to see her on a Motorcycle, mmmhmm.

Now then, I normally don’t play dating sims, but instead prefer my dating sim along with some ass kicking, like shown in the best game ever, Persona 4. Alas, your average RPG doesn’t focus on these aspects very much, and the great Persona 4 only has it in there as an optional side thing. On another note, while many western based RPG’s such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic include some romance based side plot, but that can easily be skipped. If one wants to get some decent dating sim action, and not just a side note, they need to get a game dedicated to it.

Although I had assumed that the project was either dead or already finished, it does appear to still be in progress. Perhaps they should hire me to go down there and show my awesome C++ skillz and help them finish their project. I have been meaning to program my own dating sim, one of these days. Alas, it is actually closer to completion. Perhaps I will pay these people a visit while I’m at Anime Expo 2010, as they may have some promotional goodies.

While the characters manage to fill most of the dating sim essentials; don’t really matter for much without the scenarios. I’ll need to see that before I can give a full opinion on the project. HOWEVER, I am moderately intrigued to see how an American made dating sim placed in Japan turns out. Will it be good, or will it reek of Weeaboo? Who knows, and only one way to find out.

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Next Artist: ArionHawk

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Egg Finger comic preview

Egg Finger is still looking for your votes HERE (sign up to vote now, and vote daily)

Complete project

Well readers, I have some good news. Egg finger was able to make it to round three of the Small press idol competitions, and the article on this site boosted votes greatly. Unfortunately, Eggy was a bit late on submitting his comic for round three, and needs more votes to make it on to the final round. So here I am bringing more attention, featuring a preview of the official Egg Finger comic, if it were to win the contest.

Basic Premise: Well, Egg finger is the mascot for a soft drink corporation who has been down on his luck ever since his rival Awesome Aid man has been taking his business as the world’s largest soft drink icon. I elaborated further on the characters in my last post on Egg Finger, so you can check that out over there…

Here’s the first three pages (click to enlarge):

As predicted, it is most likely going to be a dark comedy featuring cartoon characters, which will most likely be fun to read. We’ll be seeing Eggy’s descent into darkness and him learning the various ways of the world in future installments, and hopefully get to see Awesome Aid man act like a total idiot later on. Strangely though, I’ve only seen two named humans with normal skin colors in the series, which greatly sets the tone of the series. I personally hope the project maintains the hilarity of Eggy’s facebook posts. However, for the time being, Eggy needs YOU to help him win this contest!

Vote here, and please comment and subscribe!

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Artist Profile: Tsuranga

This week’s artist is a painter known as Tsuranga.

Previous Artist: The Cure (still looking for votes in contest)

Tsuranga’s specialization appears to be painting and sketching out sci fi concepts, such as robots and spaceships. Along with that, he also does a wide variety of landscapes, which are often influenced by science fiction. The majority of his stuff is meant to look realistic, which it accomplishes, despite being of things that don’t exist… yet.I highly reccomend that you click to zoom in, because smaller shots don't really do these paintings justice.

To start, I’m going to show an image I really liked:

I really like all of the little details that he put into this one. Like the rings off of the planet, and all the stars being put in. I also really like the design on the mecha carrying the yellow sabers, and the slight distortion of space around it.

This one was put up in February, named Flight

Flight was supposed to be more abstract, which is quite noticeable, with only the core of the mecha being made in great detail. This creates a sort of reality distorting effect, that while making the image more abstract, makes it a bit more realistic in certain respects? Why you say? Adding in a blur effect in most of the image helps to demonstrate the speed at which the mech is moving, giving the viewer a better image of exactly how fast the mech is flying. Quite possibly unintentional, but I like it.

One last giant robot picture (well, focused on giant robots)

The design on this one appeals to me a lot. Once again, attention to detail is high, as shown by details on the arms, establishing a bit of how the robot operates. The lighting effects are very nice on this picture, capturing the metallic shininess the robot would have. Also, I really like the color on the mech.

To show off some of his work with scenery, we have the picture “Glacier Citadel”

This was apparently inspired by a dream about playing on bonus planets in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Kind of like that dream I had where I was playing Morrowind I guess. Anyway, it is certainly more abstract than most of his work, aside from the shading concept, which actually suits the artic climate quite well.

Last painting today is “Wasteland Sunset”

Although this one was made relatively quickly (2 hours) I still think it looks really nice. I particularly like the wreckage in the background, and the little bit of sunlight breaking through the clouds. Creates a nice effect

Overall, I would say that Tsuranga’s biggest weakness is his lack of publicity. I have seen much worse artists than him getting a LOT more pageviews. Personally, I think he would be able to make some money if he were to attempt to do a booth at Anime Expo’s artist alley. However, the most important thing is that he consistently puts out quality work, and he shows lots of improvement if you look at the stuff he’s made over the course of time, and shows great potential for improvement.

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Next Project: Shira Oka: Second chances

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Vote for The Cure in the Small Press Idol competition

Complete Project 

Previous Artist: SabreTooth Fox

I know I’m a bit late on this week’s artist profile, had final exams and a minor Pokemon addiction. Alas, I did manage to locate a pretty good pair of artists for this week’s segment. This week’s feature is on The Cure, a comic being created by Eric Lebow and R.G. Rubens, sent to me by Egg Finger.

This is the story of a post apocalyptic world, where people are forced to live in domed cities where everything they eat or drink needs to be purified. One particular dome known as Salvation canyon, is being run by Reverand John Stone, leader of a church telling people that this is the only place left in the world, while running a criminal organization. Now, one man emerges in attempt to bring this people to life. In this festering pit of disease and wretched filth, people need…. THE CURE!

Here’s a black and white cover shot, featuring The Cure and Reverand Stone.

(click to enlarge)

On another note, we have a profile of our main,

Now then, while I like the concept, (particularly the three dimensional logo on his chest)

I’m not too fond of the font used in the bio thingies. Radiation is a common source of superpowers, however, I like how the radiation has been incorporated into the actual powerset, rather than say, giving him spider powers.

And on the flipside, We have a bio of Reverend Stone, our local totalitarian dictator/ fascist priest

I particularly like the fact that his sword is all broken up. I hope they’ll explain that if the book gets released, because that has the potential to be cool. 

Now then, this project has released its first three pages, which look very nice: (probably need to click them to read)

These sort of set up the premise, and most importantly show how it will look in action if it gets done. Furthermore, it shows that the author has the potential to go through with their premise, and isn’t all talk.

Third page is available on the small press idol page. While you’re there, why not stop by and give it a vote? We must support small artists, and prevent America’s comic industry from becoming stagnant and run by two or three large companies who rarely produce new characters!

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Artist Profile: SabreTooth Fox

 Previous Artist: Egg Finger

SabreTooth Fox's Deviant Art page

This week I’ve decided to scale things back a bit, since the last couple of artists were significantly bigger than me.

Also, I’ve decided to add some variety to this section. Instead of the usual artist’s who work with drawing, paint, or photoshop. Instead, I decided to do a feature on one of the people at my college who specializes in the creation of stuffed animals. Since she has a deviant art profile, it only makes logical sense that I feature some of the stuff from her site.

Starting with a group shot:

As we can see, she does a lot of stuff varying from humanoids to chibi stuff, to downright amorphic blobs. Personally I think her chibi stuff is the best, due to the limitations of the medium. Some of her humanoid stuff starts looking like it’s intended to be used in voodoo magic, for better or for worse. This one’s pretty popular around ye local anime club…

Although I have not watched Hellsing yet *dodges gunfire* Many people like it. Certainly takes out the threatening aura Alucard usually has…

These next two are just cute…

The top one is apparently from Di Gi Charat I believe.

Lastly, we have a recent work, a scapegoat from Yu Gi Oh

This one was being passed around at the last anime club meeting.

Don’t forget, Sabertooth Fox does do commissions, so don’t be shy about requests.

NEXT ARTIST: The Cure

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Artist Profile: Egg Finger

This week’s profile From Small Press Idol

Help Egg Finger win round three of voting! Register and vote now!


Previous Artist: HakuBaikou

This week instead of an individual artist, I’ve decided to report on a project I encountered while hanging around Facebook. Noticing his frequent ramblings about slaughtering the innocent and conquering the world, I decided that striking up conversation would be fun. From this, I learned that this was actually an up and coming comic book artist that was trying to break into the industry. Hence, doing an article came naturally.

Here’s the project’s logo design. Not too bad, but could use a little more “oomph” for the final project.

Plot: Alright, this is the proposed comic about an egg person-thingie who, while he grew up as an innocent idealist became corrupted by this world and all of its materialistic pleasures.

Don't let looks fool you, he's a sick manipulative bastard. The on site-bio doesn’t tell you much, but here’s some nice quotes by him in his facebook updates:

“Just beat up Mr. Potato Head. And it felt good.”

“Eggy says "Keep the streets clean- strangle a prostitute!"

Fun Game: Dress up as a police officer, wait outside a home until you see
someone leave for work, knock on the door, and tell his wife "There's been an accident..."

So, as we can tell, this book’s going to be filled with black humor. Outside of eggy, the author is demonstrating a varied cast of characters that will be fun to watch, such as Awesome Aid Man:

This is a mascot for the soft drink Awesome Aid, who after a rough start doing several jobs he’s ashamed of, he now has a semi-flourishing career appearing at trade shows and supermarket openings. Also, he insists that his own mother refer to him as Awesome Aid man.
Along with Awesome Aid man, we have Ted:

Ted is a blob of a human who’s life just keeps getting worse. He’s addicted to just about everything a man can be addicted to, his wife left him, and I suspect his dog died too. Looks like a good target for some of Eggy’s bleak humor.

Finally, we have Deviled Eggy…

This is half of eggy’s conscience. The good half seems to have gone missing. Unfortunately, Eggy has become so unspeakable evil that even the evil half of his conscience is trying to scream out against him and stop his evil plans.

Overall, I am a bit intrigued about this project, and would like to see where its creators take it. I’m hoping for some bleak humor that can only be described as “delicious.” Doesn't look like it'll be too deep, but hopefully a fun read, like the preview. However, since the project is still not off the ground, and needs people to vote for it on small press alliance.

Want to get featured in my artist profile section? Email me at DarthSomebody@yahoo.com with a link to your online art gallery, and I may do a feature on YOU!

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Next Artist: Sabretooth Fox! 

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