Well, in part because I've kind've wanted to try this since I first saw them and also as something to hopefully turn around this year into one good for my doodling I'm going to offer up five free sketches. Only five spots simply cause knowing myself I'll probably take a while to manage even that with all the fussing and procrastinating I'll probably end up doing.

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Had a decent christmas and newyears, though I got nothing done during the whole two weeks I was home aside from blitzing William Gibson's Burning Chrome collection of short stories. As far as christmas went, I landed with a couple books, a new jacket and hat, some games for the Wii (which I'm not going to be seeing for the next four months due to it being my final term of classes and I'd really like to not fail anything due to it)

Overall I had a decent time but wish I both had gotten more done (especially in terms of drawing and writing) and gotten more rest, especially with the classes I've got this coming term (wednesdays are going to be nightmares I suspect.....10:30-6:30.....though come to think of it thats actually shorter than the hours I was working every day last term) Anyways, only four months remain and then I'll be finished!

So ~cm1greenbear talked me into doing NaNoWriMo this year. Mostly means that I'll be around even less than usual as I give novel writing a shot. Why knows, perhaps I'll actually have something worth refining once I'm dong (after the almost certain rewriting of the majority of it, but meh. Its still something!)

Also, go check out the awesome *maniaconline and ~SineSquared both did up awesome pictures of the silly little creatures of mine called the Midwyvn [link] and [link]

So as I've mentioned, I'm really not dead, I've just been really busy with classes and trying, though ultimately failing, at working on a variety of personal projects (well, alright, they haven't really failed until I give up on them, but I haven't been really getting anywhere) Hopefully I'll make some progress to show, but until then here's some of my rather jumbled thoughts about the film 9 (again, spoiler warning and also a fair bit of rambling)


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Overall rather weak, primarily due to problems with the core plot. In particular the overuse of cliche's and how the end result was the 'release' of the pieces of soul that made up 1,2,5,6 and 8. The film seemed to be suggesting earlier on that the solution was not the destruction of the Machine (leading to their release which apparently causes new life to form on the world) but instead their eventual re-integration into the single unit that was the Scientist. This would also support the idea that each of them were elements of the Scientist's personality [1 being Fear, 2 creativity & ingenuity, 3&4 knowledge and the assimilation thereof, 5 prudence, 6 wonder?, 7 willpower, 8 strength, 9 courage?] Also, if 1 knew that the end solution was reintegration it would explain why he would choose to seclude himself along with the others as it reinforces the idea that he represents fear, in this case the fear of the unknown/ loss of self. This would also explain why 9 seems to be drawn to place the 'talisman' in the Machine, as it would be furthering his mission. This also could have been furthered if there were visible changes in the Machine as it integrated new elements, sort've like how it seems to show some sort of disgust when examining the remains of the raven machine.

Other weaknesses include the voice acting (that there was voice acting at all outside of the scientist and the film reels was likely a concession to big film, as it didn't seem necessary), characterization (I'd have to say that alot of the characters seemed too similar or perhaps just generic, the major exceptions being the wonderful performances of 2 and the twins 3&4) Also the way the film seemed to end multiple times without actually ending was rather annoying. Also as a minor issue, the way the montage of clippings and film that provided background info seemed far too clean, as if it was taken from a single prepared source instead of pieced together by 3&4.

All in all, while interesting and beautifully animated (especially the opening scene, which was wonderfully done), 9 was still weak. However I have hopes that these weaknesses will inspire and spur on others to take up the flag of more mature animated feature films and succeed where 9 failed. Hopefully it will take on a place, perhaps not as a great work of film but as a turning point where western culture realizes that the stigma that animation is just for kids is not necessarily true and begins to fully realize its ability to bring even mature, provocative stories to the world.

I would also recommend watching the original short on which the movie was based, its pretty easy to find online (try youtube searching for 9 short animation and look for something about 10 minutes long)

Well, I'm not dead (really, I'm not, I just have been really really busy with university is all)

More importantly however, I shall be once again heading off to Anime North this year, so feel free to say Hi if you happen to see me. I'll definately be at the webcomics panel this year, so just look for a tall, dark and long haired fellow dragging round a courrier bag and that'll probably be me
well, see you all there!

(and perhaps afterwards I'll toss something up here, who knows?)

So I'm back from Scotland! I had a great time, went all over the place and have a ton of pictures.
While I do plan on doing a proper update, I currently have no home internet access, so I can't actually upload anything (or really take my time to do a proper writeup) so I'll do the proper update once thats been fixed.