I have just been so tired after the past few weeks, but it was worth it. Yet another TFCon is in the books, and it was not only the biggest yet, spanning two days with many new events, but it was also the best. I had a lot of fun taking in the show and seeing my old pals. Despite the expansion from one day to two, just about everything went smoothly, and the only major trouble was the lack of Air Conditioning during the Hasbro presentation on Saturday. It was HOT in there.

Well, there was one other thing. I missed out on the Friday events that precede the convention itself. I had to teach that day and I immediately set off via public transit as soon as I was done. I knew exactly what I was doing and where I was going, but it took so bloody long that by the time I arrived it was almost time to leave. That was the only major hiccup and I’ll never let that happen again.

We got a screening of the Transformers Animated episodes “Human Error” parts 1 and 2, and it was a total blast watching it with the other fans, especially since these episodes were full of in-jokes and references that only fans would get.

On Saturday evening there was a new event called Faction Feud, basically a cross between a Transformers trivia contest and Family Feud. I joined a team, promptly took over as leader, naming us the “Ninjamasters“, and pledged to dominate the other teams. Although my squad seemed to be comprised of jokers, causing me to know exactly what Megatron and just about every other 80’s cartoon villain felt like, we ended up winning it all, and moving on to the lightning round. The four of us had to collectively list off 20 toys with the name “Prowl“, one at a time, with only 5 seconds to answer. One wrong answer and that member of the team was eliminated. Eventually it came down to just me and I managed to pull it off in the end, claiming final victory for the Ninjamasters! I probably could have kept going and spent all night dreaming about all the different Prowls that could have also been named.

The prize for winning: Tickets to an early screening of the new Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen, in Toronto. Oh yeah.

It was an awesome, tough competition, and our team pretty much rocked. We covered each other’s knowledge bases really well. Even though we really knew our stuff, it was a grueling ordeal to win it, and it felt like winning was just as much a product of hard work and guts as it was about remembering largely unimportant factoids about Transformers.

On Sunday there was the How to Draw panel, hosted by myself and Ninjamaster-underling Guber. The room was full and everyone was super-quiet. I was slightly taken aback by the response. We went a little overtime and I had to be somewhere else, so I let Guber finish the lesson off after I left, but afterwards a lot of people told me how much they enjoyed it. I’m thinking it will happen again next year and if it does, I have a lot of new ideas on how to make it even better.

Here are a few pics.

TFCon Costumes. Sideways, Vector Prime, Sari and Unicron. Excellent! There were others besides this as well. So cool to see this many cool costumes.

Ninjatron hearts Vector Prime.

My haul. All my collection is packed up and I haven’t thought much about buying new Transformers in ages. But this was a special occasion and it was high time for some new stuff, so I went for it. Universe Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Hound, and Prowl, Japanese Henkei Hot Shot and Cheetor, and Classics Mirage. I really wanted Henkei Dinobot but it sold out pretty much immediately, so I bought one online as soon as the show finished.

All in all, a great weekend. TFCon is rightfully gaining and earning a reputation with the Transformers fan community all over the world, and I’m happy to be a part of it and proud to have contributed in some small way.

In other news, I started a new job. More on that later.

Sayonara.

I love April Fools day. I worked at my after school art program, a group of mostly second grade students, and I couldn’t just ignore this special occasion. So, I pranked my students today!

First, I handed out a piece of paper to everyone and told them that I was talking to the school principal and people at the office, and that they had expressed concern over the quality of art, so they wanted me to give the students a test. I was pretty serious about this and made sure they all wrote their names down on the paper in the top left corner. I told them that they had to stay quiet and if they had any questions they had to raise their hand, but that I could not help them answer because it was against the law. The students were confused and didn’t really know what to do, but went along with it. Some of them answered by writing “yes” or “no“, others actually did drawings. There were five questions in all, they were as follows:

1: Can you draw a face?
2: Can you draw a cowboy face?
3: Can you draw a boy-cow face?
4: What month is it right now?
5: What is another word for “trick“?

The last question they found confusing, so I said “As in, I tricked you into writing this test. April Fools.“

A stunned silence filled the class room for a brief moment, until the students finally erupted. I laughed, it was great. Some complained but I know they thought it was fun.

I remember when I was in 6th grade and the teacher handed out a math test on April 1st at the very beginning of the day. It was packed with long, nearly impossible questions. At the very bottom of the page there was some small print that said the test was fake and that we didn’t have to finish it. I remember really liking that prank and today was the opportunity to share it with my students. I got ’em good too!

Sayonara.

I keep forgetting to post this here.

ANIME JUSTICE LEAGUE RETURNS by ~ninjatron on deviantART

It’s a sequel image to my Justice League of Anime artwork, this time using my own composition. Due to popular demand, I will be doing an Injustice Gang picture like this at some point. You can read about that here and nominate the anime villains you’d like to see on that team.

Sayonara.

Look!

It’s… a box!
Ok, that isn’t very exciting in and of itself.

Perhaps if we open the box?

Hmmm… I think I see a familiar logo, but it is a bit obscured. Let’s clear that up.

OH!!!!

CINTIQ!!! YEAH!!!!!!

Yeah, that’s right. I now have a Wacom Cintiq 12WSX. I can draw directly on a screen. I am now like the God of a new world.

And here it is in action. I got a screen protector for it too, because I’m not stupid.

I have only had it for a few days and have just been toying around while I become accustomed to using it. So far, using it has been a pretty amazing feeling. This could both change my life and save my wrist. Drawing and painting with it is much more intuitive, and there is less strain on my hand. The downside is that there are is a difference between the color settings on my regular monitor as opposed to the Cintiq. This is something I will have to fix, probably with an external device. I also need a cable and adaptor to plug it into my laptop. Once all that’s taken care of, everything should be just about perfect. And all I had to do to afford it was teach drawing to some of the most ungrateful brats I’ve ever encountered. It’s been a tough year and I figured I deserved to get something I’ve wanted for a long time.

Of course, a Cintiq, like anything, is just a tool. Its not going to suddenly give me a lot of new skills or anything. So, those of you who don’t like my artwork, you’re probably still not going to like it. But I doubt that will ever change anyway, and I still consider myself the God of a new world regardless.

Perhaps if I draw something now, it will come to life?

Sayonara.

I saw Watchmen last weekend.

Ha ha.

In all seriousness, it was a good movie. I have not read the book. I meant to read it when I knew the movie was coming out, but never got around to obtaining a copy. But, the bright side is that I went into it fresh without really knowing what to expect. I understood that the ending was a little different and there were a few other minor differences, but that for the most part it was reported to be a faithful adaptation of the book.

It certainly wasn’t a rollicking adventure like an X-Men movie. It was a dark, challenging, dramatic mystery with lots of twists and turns. I quite enjoyed the historical references. It was a movie that you need to pay attention to and figure out what you were looking at and how it relates to the overall story. It was also pretty visceral and had some shocking images. This didn’t offend me but some some people seem upset by that. They should get over it.

The reviews on this movie have been pretty mixed all around. Some people found the movie confusing and say that being so faithful to the graphic novel was a bad move because only people who have read it will know what’s going on. I say those people are morons because I could follow it just fine and I haven’t read it. But, no matter what people think right now, I believe that in years to come, Watchmen will be one of the most talked about films in modern history, just as the book is in the world of comics. There’s just so much to look at, and it all has meaning. Students are going to be doing school projects about this movie some day. Plus, Rorschach is destined to go down as one of the all time greatest film characters. He’s just that awesome, and even if you hate the movie, you’ll probably like him.

Anyway, if you have not seen it, I urge you to at least give it a chance, and don’t feel bad about it if you didn’t like it at first viewing. It’s very important that movies like this become big success stories. If it just fades away over the next few weeks, the the people in Hollywood who make decisions are going to want to make changes and dumb things down to make movies more marketable, thus stripping away their artistic integrity. I, personally, want to see more intelligent movies that have the guts to be what they are without compromise, and that are accurate to their source material. That’s what Watchmen is.

So go see it. And if you already have, go see it again or something.

As for me, I should probably go buy the book some day.

Sayonara.