343. Team Lament cont.

Would have made much more sense to render the other two first before tackling Saga, except JESUS CHRIST IT'S FREAKING SAGA WE'RE DEALING WITH HERE HOW DID YOU EXPECT JING TO RESIST??! So now I'm too tired to start on Camus and Shura today. *facepalm*

342. Onto the next

That's all I'm churning out for tonight.

Second half of the newest MMD is awesome.The ending is possibly the best Saint-Seiya-related thing I've ever seen.

341. 年中組/Team Mid-years fin.

Running out of things I feel compulsed to fix...so for now, that means done.

These three are so called "mid-years" (bad translation for 年中) due to their comparative middle-child position in terms of age (23, 22, 23). Their portrayal in canon was not the most positive, either as a result of the middle-child syndrome or because Kurumada simply hates Cancer, Pisces, and maybe Capricorn people.

Canon: Deathmask and Aphrodite swore allegiance to Saga despite knowing outright that he was false pope, and Shura was tricked into killing Aiolos and almost Athena. The first two fought for Saga to the death during Sanctuary's civil war; the last allowed himself to be killed in battle upon realizing his earlier mistake. Aphro covers the path from his Pisces Temple to Saga's Pope Chamber with...roses...that kill intruders.

Fanon: The first three young Gold-Saints-to-be discovered and raised by Saga, saved from various shades of tragic childhoods. Specific reasons may differ, but all three developed undying (get it? GET IT?) devotion to Saga, with Aphrodite being the most extreme case. To fans who accept shipping, DM x Aphro is unequivocally fanonical. Aphro single-sidedly fawning after Saga is almost as common.

Next up is Team Lament.

340. Team Mid-years cont.

Missing highlights and effort on hands, lululul. But at least this looks like it'll be complete.

339. Team Mid-years

Quick placeholder. Aphro and Deathmask look pretty dead on even in this style; Shura needs a bit more tweaking on his right eye... Palette is missing colors and hands.

Fingers crossed that this will mark a certain debut.

338. Futureme.org

Received this in the inbox today:

And...funny feelings abound, all around. While I was aware and expecting this delivery, the details of exactly what I wrote then was unsurprisingly forgotten...so this was still a kind of shock. Especially unexpectedly touching was the reminder of exactly what else I was doing that morning, ha.

I'll write me another one for 2015 some time soon. I foresee that this will get addicting.

337. Damned learning curve

Re: animation software. I finally settled on either Vectorian Giotto or Synfig Studio, with bias for the latter since I'm interested in more than Flash.

In terms of digital drawing, back in the day I had had the the luck of baby-step transitions from MS Paint, to PaintBBS, to Shi-Painter, to failed struggles in OpenCanvas/Photoshop, until finally settling with Paint Tool SAI. But right now it seems like any animation program I pick would be the equivalent of jumping straight from zero to Photoshop.

Headaches and shitty tutorials abound.