I just got to the flashback of Order 66 in Jedi Fallen Order.
I cried.
#too many feels#it was sad ok young Cal looks so young
Author Archives: Sam
I’ve been thinking what to do for January’s drawing. I decided that I need more of a narrative to give energy to the piece.
The thought I have at the moment is Secret Service Agent Myka Bering comes across Warehouse Agent HG Wells bagging an artifact of some description.
Either that or Warehouse Agents Bering and Wells bagging an artifact together before something bad happens. I’m thinking Myka is yelling at HG to goo it while she’s holding back conjured bad guys.
I was wanting to do a Star Wars one but I haven’t thought of a premise for that yet. Still pondering options and of course there’s always the rest of the year!
What if Jacen Syndulla was the third member of the trio?
Don’t get me wrong I love Poe Dameron. Seriously I don’t want to imagine Star Wars without him but I was up early, 7am sunday morning doing the ironing, and into my head popped “that’s one hell of a pilot!” and suddenly it hit me.
In my Rise of Skywalker review I said I wish that the movies would make good use of existing canon rather than just inventing new stuff all the time.
Now I’m not talking about changing the plot/story arc of any of the movies even though there are some things I don’t like. I’m just talking about tweaking little details. It would have been a huge screaming moment for fans of the expanded canon and it wouldn’t have been any different really for more casual fans of the movies.
Continue readingDrawing 0: Pirates
For the Bering and Wells Exchange on tumblr (December 2019) I drew the above picture. It’s funnily enough Bering and Wells in a Pirate!AU. I used a picture of Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Carribbean for Myka as a reference and for HG somebody’s fem!Captain Hook cosplay on a mannequin.
As I said in my 2020 introspection/looking forward post I have chosen an art style to try and emulate. I didn’t quite manage it as I still have a long way to go but overall I do think this is the best drawing I have done so far, despite it having been a long time since I last did one. That’s why I have titled this ‘drawing 0’ (something I have admittedly done before) because I do consider this a new starting point.
There are two main points that I wish to learn from this drawing:
1) careful not to overblend. I don’t think I always need to soften it quite so much
2) there is no narrative
I think the overblending issue is something that I’ll only overcome with practice. The lack of narrative though is something I’ll attempt to correct with January’s drawing. I’ve complained for a while that my drawings feel lifeless/emotionless, and partly I think that is lack of facial expression, but I think the bigger issue is lack of movement. In the above drawing they are just standing there as if it was a portrait. Myka’s pose is not so bad (even if I did fail at rendering the wooden railing) but HG is just standing there. It would have been better if she had been leaning towards Myka to tell her a secret, or moving to kiss her, or moving away from her with a wicked look in her eyes. Also I could perhaps consider making better use of props, again to indicate some kind of movement and narrative.
January’s project is yet to be determined but it’s only the third so I have time 🙂
I don’t really feel like I can scream about Picard intelligently because I haven’t seen Star Trek: Nemesis – or indeed the majority of TNG – so I feel like I only have a shaky grasp of the politics of the time period.
For instance I had to check 3 things when the episode ended because I was confused.
Trust me I really want to scream about Picard because it has captivated me and I have questions! The problem is I think part of me is wondering whether I have so many questions because I’m not as familiar with Trek as I should be.
Seriously though *all the screaming* !!!
Now please excuse me while I go and watch Voyager. I’m tempted to watch TNG or to try DS9 but as I can only watch one episode at a time I figured I should just stick with one show at a time.
I just need all the Trek. Picard is making me want all the Trek.
2020 Update
Hey everyone
I know I’ve been pretty invisible for ages and I’ve pretty much dropped out of fandom. Life stuff happened but I don’t want to talk about that, I’m just doing a little update on what I’ll be doing with this blog going forward.
I started off being all Rumbelle all the time in what I produced. Now I’m not really producing much of anything and it’s not usually Rumbelle. Pre-Rumbelle I had been 10 years out of fandom. In that time I’d written stuff but it was all original – Rumbelle was my return to fanfic.
So what does this mean?
Basically I have transitioned back to just working on original stuff. Will I ever write fanfic again? Absolutely – if I am inspired enough that I just have to write it, but I won’t be going looking for fanfic prompts anymore. I have joined the WriYe writing community and that’s where my focus is going to be writing-wise.
Drawing is another matter. I have made it a goal this year to produce one drawing a month and those will almost certainly be fandom-based at least to begin with. I don’t know what fandom because it’ll be driven by whatever I’m most in love with at the time.
I don’t expect anyone is following me for original content anymore given the drought over the last couple of years anyway 😛 so moving forward expect more of the same. I’ll reblog anything I see that I like through the queue (but it will likely run out a lot) and I’ll probably ramble sometimes like I do about what I’m watching, or about how drawing frustrates me. Then at some point a drawing should drop and I hope by this time next year I’ll be able to see an improvement in my skills.
Happy D20 Year! 🙂
2020: The End of the Beginning
In three days it’s going to be not just a new year but a new decade. I’m going to be 30 next year (*shudders*), and so this New Year feels more landmark than usual, and new years always make me maudlin and retrospective.
I began the decade failing out of one university and I’ve ended it having dropped out of another. I’ve gone precisely nowhere or at least that’s how it feels. I suppose I could reframe it and say that I’ve had a few false starts which have been learning experiences. For instance I now know for certain that higher education doesn’t suit me.
The last few years broke me to be honest, My mental health was bad to begin with, I had a breakdown in 2011 and if anything got steadily worse over the next few years. Returning to uni was my desperate attempt to make a change, the old cliche “if you don’t like your life, then change it”. However, it was a bad move. My depression, anxiety and general stress levels which were already high have gone through the roof. My confidence was always very low but it’s now absolutely destroyed. I’m utterly terrified pretty much all the time.
That’s why I titled this post ‘the end of the beginning’ because if there’s rock-bottom then this is it. Yes I have a past but I really am starting again – something else which adds to the landmark feeling of this New Years. It really is the close of one chapter and I’m trying very hard to think of what’s coming next as the start of something new, hopefully something better.
Continue readingRise of Skywalker
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
Don’t think I can say that any plainer – there be spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie yet!
Continue readingI’m going to see the Rise of Skywalker this evening!
I’m excited (and a little scared) but mostly excited.
I’ve got my X-Wing t-shirt and my BB-8 sweater and I can’t wait for that jolt when the theme music starts up. Iconic.
You know what before I go see Rise of Skywalker I’m going to ramble a little more.
I don’t think it’s a secret that I wasn’t exactly The Last Jedi’s biggest fan. There was stuff I didn’t like but that’s not what this post is about – this is about what I did like.
Just off the top of my head:
– The Phantom Menace gave us Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon who I can still hear in my head and that epic duel of the fates Obi-Wan vs Maul.
– Attack of the Clones gave us Count Dooku, the arena battle and the schemes of Palpatine against Jar-Jar.
– Revenge of the Sith had the iconic “this is how liberty dies”, the amazing heroics of Bail Organa, Obi-Wan breaking hearts and that poor young Jedi who defended Bail when he went to see what was going on 🙁
– A New Hope IS the original and thus iconic in so so many ways. I could quote a lot. It’s a thing.
– Empire Strikes Back had that “No I am your father” line which is again iconic and it brought Lando.
– Return of the Jedi was “I am a Jedi like my father before me” and Lando saying something like what idiot would take on that level of danger and Han going well…
– Force Awakens gave us BB-8, Finn, Poe, Rey and General Leia. It literally brought all of that. I can’t imagine no Finn or BB-8.
– The Last Jedi hurt my heart with so many who fell in the resistance. Then there was that brilliant moment when Poe makes a suggestion and everyone turns to look at Leia, who turns to look behind her “don’t look at me, follow him”
And those are just the core movies! Rogue One gave us a bit more Bail with “I trust her with my life” and the heartbreaking heroics of the rebellion. Solo was cool, I wish they had done another so we could have seen where they were leading with Maul. Then extended universe! I adore The Clone Wars because it fleshes out so much – Maul, Mandalore, the Clones and even JarJar grew on me because of it! Then there’s Rebels which gave us Hera, Chopper, Sabine etc.
Nothing is ever perfect but I have loved a bit of everything I have listed here. That doesn’t include video games either. There’s a lot of Star Wars to love. I don’t know how George Lucas dreamed up laser swords in space but I am eternally grateful he did. So while I am nervous about what’s to come in Rise of Skywalker I also know there will be good.
Also I promise #NoSpoilers on my return 🙂 I would never do that.
I can’t believe I missed Ahsoka off that list I just made. The spaceships too: The Millenium Falcon, The Ghost (I don’t think I could pick between them). Captain Rex, although I did say about the clones development. There was Duchess Satine and Obi-Wan.
Have I mentioned how much I rate The Clone Wars?
Sorry I’m just babbling now because it’s Star Wars day. I get hyped for new things. I was massively hyped for Jedi Fallen Order last month. I can’t express it in real life because I don’t have any Star Wars fans around me so spilling out onto the tumblr 😛 as per usual 🙂
I did start off attempting to write a Bering and Wells trope-tastic christmas fic (and that still might happen) but my 444 words a day prompt (thank you 4thewords) has devolved into dissecting Myka’s character. It’s not something that will ever see the light of day because it isn’t really fiction, it’s kinda like Myka just thinking to herself about herself. I guess I’m trying to get a handle on the character.
It’s the kind of exercise that I’ve never really done before (but read about) and actually I think it’s not bad. It feels enough like writing that I feel free to do it and it’s sort of half-planning as well.
I think I might do the rest of the warehouse next (not all at the same time obviously) because I really, really, really want to write some AU fic but it’s essential to really know the characters before changing details like that. I have a lot of ideas that I want to explore!