Agent Zako

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Posts posted by Agent Zako

  1. Posted

    I think this is the innovation that could finally bring the whole world together. The end of one coca-cola era, and the start of another.

  2. Posted

    And I am back with new and newish pieces. First, a Godzilla picture I started and might never get around to finishing. I made it in a couple hours the afternoon before I went to see the new movie, which rocked by the way. Vine and compressed charcoal on watercolor paper.

    WFiDgQ5.jpg

     

    And now two of my figure drawing from the "Life Drawing" class I took this spring semester. Made these both near the end of the semester as I was continuing to experiment with different media and styles. I found I was most comfortable with charcoal and, having recently read a ton of manga as well as western comics, I wanted to try something more line-based. Also, preemptive apologies for the blurry scans.

    pBSnAn0.jpg

    TZ3kPcb.jpg

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  5. Posted · Edited by Agent Zako (see edit history)

    Wuxia movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon tend to be on the ridiculous side of things by western sensibilities and also have a lot of plot and setting details made with their native audience in mind. It takes a different mindset to get the most out of them. And yeah, House of Flying Daggers is another good example, and so is Hero.

     

    Also, the last three James Bond movies aren't really a trilogy. Quantum of Solace is direct a sequel to Casino Royale, in that it follows up on specific plot points unresolved in the previous film, which is very rare to have in James Bond movies, but Skyfall has nothing to do with the overarching storyline or themes of those two movies. Technically it's a sequel to them but calling them a trilogy assumes a bit much. James Bond is weird like that. 

     

    Oh, and I can vouch for David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being good, but I have yet to see the original Swedish movies. But I'd read the book before seeing the more recent movie so I plan on reading the other two before seeing anything else.

  6. Posted · Edited by Agent Zako (see edit history)

    You've got a fantastic selection of movies there, Pheo. Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick are two of my favorite directors, so I'm glad you plan to watch more from them. Kubrick is especially nice to watch a lot of in a short period of time since jumped genres constantly making it very hard to get tired of him. My favorite Kubrick movie is Paths of Glory, which Sahaqiel already mentioned, and my favorite Akira Kurosawa movie would probably be either The Seven Samurai, which you've seen, or Throne of Blood, which is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth but set in feudal Japan. 

     

    There have been lots of other great suggestions, but I'll also just throw out how much I absolutely adore Alfonso Cuaron's last two movies: Gravity and Children of Men. 

     

    Oh, and almost forgot to mention some classic Sci-fi you might like: The Day the Earth Stood Still (original) and Forbidden Planet.

  7. Posted

    http://wrongeverytime.com/2014/02/10/once-more-with-fury-rebuilding-evangelion/

     

    I thought this was really interesting. It definitely made me appreciate Eva 3.33 a lot more. Give it a read if your that far into Eva

     

    I'm definitely feeling much more positive about 3.33 than before, not that I disliked it much in the first place. When I saw the movie I was able to clearly say what I didn't like about it, but for the life of me I had no idea how to word what I considered the movie's positive traits, and this article does that wonderfully.

     

    All I could think about at the time was plot and character development, but not themes, which is the most important part of Eva to Anno, and basically why it exists (besides makin' dat money). Seeing how the Rebuild movies were carefully made as a response to reactions to Evangelion was eye-opening, and makes the whole Rebuild series seem more worthwhile, even if not completely excusing the incredibly poor storytelling in 3.33. I'm now looking forward to the fourth movie, and hopefully now that I've read this I'll be able to understand it when I see it, and not need it explained to me a year later.

  9. Posted

    Started Metroid Prime 2. I haven't played more than 20 or 30 minutes but I'm digging it so far. I like how the wii-mote control scheme defaulted to the fire button being the trigger, or maybe the trilogy has a feature that carries over my preferences between games. Also I dig the greater emphasis on classic sci-fi style horror so far and the obvious influence of Half-Life, which are some of my favorite games.

  10. Posted

    I bought the metroid prime trilogy so I'll be entertained for a while

    Only complaint so far is that I can't use a gcn controller, and have to use a wiimote and nunchuk

    I got the Metroid Prime trilogy not long ago. Only played the first so far but it was p. cool, even if not totally up my alley. Despite a couple minor complaints, I loved the motion controls and will definitely use them for 2 and 3, and having never had a Gamecube, I never grew to like how it's controller felt in the first place. So I guess that's a personal preference.

  13. Posted

    Interesting. I didn't know that women in Iran have been able to keep up the fight for so long and have had some minor victories. As for your actual writing, I'm in no position to comment on grammar or composition or any of that, but I was able to follow pretty well.

  16. Posted

    I'm sure constellations make it easier to remember and teach, but yeah I dunno the specifics and they probably don't matter a ton. Although, considering how much detail G.R.R.M. puts into the story he probably has super in-depth notes charting all the brightest stars in the skies of Westeros just in case some minor, one-off character ever needs to mention them.

  17. Posted

    Also, white walkers in S04E04:

     

    That one took me by surprise. As it turns out when I went back to look in the book, the whole white walkers making babies into white walkers was actually hinted at. I'm not sure how clear it was in the books that crasters sons were taken away by white walkers, but in the mutiny at craster's keep, Gilly begs Sam to take her with him, and the older women say that "Craster's sons" will be coming to get Gilly's baby. Understanding that the babies are given to white walkers, and then having the white walkers referred to as "Craster's sons" just makes it a case of putting 2 and 2 together.

     

    Don't know why they named Gilly's baby Sam in the series, but I guess it's just better television to see Gilly making that sentiment. In the books, the wildlings don't name their children until their first birthday, because they're likely to die of the cold before then. And when they do name Gilly's son, I'm pretty sure they just called him Monster for whatever reason. But it's a minor change. I liked the detail of the wildling way of not naming their children til one year after birth.

     

    Though with the seasons being a mess I have no idea what sort of system wildlings would have for deciding the year, apart from the number of days passed I guess. But even then sometimes winter is just dark for days on end, so keeping time would be a bother. I dunno. Magic.

    As for the time thing, anybody with a clear view of the sky can tell when a year's past. The stars move in a cycle that repeats every year, which is how people like the ancient Egyptians, and other cultures in and around the equator, were able to tell when a year has passed.

     

    Oh, and that thing from the end of the episode is still making my mind swirl from the implications.

     

    Also, in Game of Thrones big things are always on the horizon. Necro saying that big events are ahead, when the last season ended with a huge paradigm shift, isn't even close to spoiler territory and is, quite frankly, common sense in the context of a show that has drama that's literally entirely reactionary to previous events, going back all the way to the very first episode. Yes, people should get hyped, but not for this episode or that. That's just how you respond because it's Game of Thrones, and each episode that airs and will air up until the very end gets us closer to something cool, and that's not a spoiler, that's just a fact that comes along with being a damn fine television show.

  19. Posted

    Glad you're digging the game. You'll be pretty limited with characters if you don't play through all the story modes, but I suppose that's the only way to totally avoid spoilers. I played the game with Japanese text so I didn't stand a chance of learning any plot points, although I suppose with Jojo merely seeing what a stand can do is spoiler to some degree. Great game, though.

     

    Also, episode 4 of Stardust Crusaders continues the totally unsurprising trend of being a great adaptation, although the TV censorship got a bit distracting in a scene or two, but then again I'm not sure I want to see all the gory details in HD...

  20. Posted

    I don't have any actual shelves in my room so I have to stack my small library of books on top of my dresser. Also here is much of my anime, manga, and western comics. Also note the Master Gundam astride his faithful robot steed. Not fancy, but one day I'll have shelves... one day.

     

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  21. Posted · Edited by Agent Zako (see edit history)

    MY THREAD, I RETURN. (AND TOTALLY HAD FORGOTTEN I'D ALREADY SHOWN THIS WHEN I GOT AROUND TO THIS POST*.)

     

    Drew this two years ago in my Drawing I class at SWIC. It's made using charcoal (probably compressed), graphite (art pencils), and white acrylic paint for the stars that aren't the sun. Please excuse the watermark. :3

     

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  23. Posted

    Captain Earth has gotten off to a fun, if not unique, start. I think I'll follow it. I doubt the show is going to go full Super Robot but that's fine if it doesn't. Meanwhile, Stardust Crusaders is going to be fantastic. It just is.

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  24. Posted

    Kill la Kill 24

    Kill la Kill, in the end, had a very simple conflict with clear good guys and bad guys, and an exponentially growing scale including multiple power-ups (of course it ended up with Super-Ryuko in space, but I don't mind cause it was sweet). Overall that's classic stuff and nothing to write home about, but the show was dripping with style, enthusiasm, and character (although a lot of those characters were 2-dimensional, I wouldn't call any of them bland.) As for me, those things just made the show too fun for me to walk away from an episode feeling unfulfilled. The dudes in studio Trigger were having a blast and so I loved the ride too. The clothing vs nudity theme was used in a ton of creative ways and wasn't something I expected to ever see in a story. I am a man of simple tastes and am easily impressed by themes that are too unsubtle to go over my head. There were individual elements that didn't do much for me (i.e., life fibers being aliens) but those parts were far enough between I still liked the whole and were used to justify cool scenarios.

     

    So, I really enjoyed Kill la Kill and am glad I took the time to watch it. Also I have not seen and can't think of another "shonen"-style series where the plot is almost exclusively driven by women. So that's neat.

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