@Captain:

Ah. Well, to be honest, I'm more versed in comic book pencilling. I don't do much shading, because the pencilling I do is meant to be inked and colored over. I'm still green when it comes to adding shadows and such. Most shading I do regularly is the kind used for pseudo-color (i.e. that bad guy picture on page 1). I tend to use hatching more for shadows and such.

Ya, I do get that comics vibe from your work. (And I'm still VERY jealous of your clean lines)

Hatching…that's another thing...

With pencil, hatching is more suited for refining and detailing existing shadows. Using hatching to actually define the shadow itself is more common with pen/ink. (Though you see it in preliminary pencil sketching too.)

The edge that graphite has over pen, is that you are able to shade using a variety of tips...you can use a blunt point, chiselled point, or the side of the pencil. (Not just the tip)

I mean, if you're using pencil, I think you ought to experiment more and go all out, rather than limiting yourself to pen techniques.

@Captain:

…"Values"? I don't follow...

Yes, what King_Ty said, values = shades

But to elaborate, because Freeza has only two different values per body part, he looks rather flat. Take his tail for example…I only see two shades. The shadow on his tail, is very close to the other value. Even though there are strokes to indicate some sort of round wormlike quality, the mind still registers it as flat because the values look too similar.

All in all, try darkening the shadows and sticking in 1 or 2 midtone values in there.

There's a lot more that can be said on the subject of shading, but there are plenty of books that explain it better than I can.

As a general tip, after you feel that you're done with a drawing, prop it up against a wall, and view it from...around 15 ft back (drag an unsuspecting bystander with you if you like). If you or your bystander can't differentiate background from foreground, character from character, then you aren't really done. :P

Detailing is excellent…I'm also amazed at the lack of smudging...

But seeing as you're using graphite...why not try using more values?

Bwahaha, my life is one fourth complete now!

I went to his Friday panel, but skipped the Saturday one so I could line up early for the autographs. As a result, I missed the Sogeking song but yeah,
Whoooooooo

His "What's up doc?" line was pretty memorable too! XD

@Eggy:

shaved ice

Cute!

Though what's the purple topping supposed to be? Taro?

@e1n:

i'm sure there are people like that too. i've come across yaoi pairings from house or grey's anatomy. but from what i've seen around y!gallery, there are more people who restrict their yaoi fondness within the two-dimensional realm (that's why i said about 60-70%).

Yeah, I did take that into consideration. I thought it was interesting that your statistic is basically opposite of what I see IRL(tri-state area) and online. 60-70% like Yaoi and slashing other fiction works while 30-40% only limit themselves in the realm of manga/anime.

@e1n:

another argument against that theory is that if you ask any random yaoi fangirl, 60-70% of the time, they'll say that they like yaoi ONLY in the realm of manga/anime. in other words, if you show them a clip of real gay porn (with real men and not anime men), most likely they'll go EWWW THAT'S GROSS.

For some reason I find this odd. I don't know if its just in your area but over here, the majority of Yaoi fangirls don't limit themselves to manga/anime but a lot other fiction in a variety of media. Harry Potter and LOTR for one are popular slash material that aren't manga/anime. Then theres the videogames and the TV shows…..It just doesn't stop.

…even straight guys have started going into the yaoi business to make money.

Can ya list any besides yourself? XD

@Cyringohn:

-Eye Roll-

No, Greg. Have not put the game into a console and cut it on. However, watching people play entire campaigns with multiple characters is more than enough.

Moreover, this isn't even an issue of how fun it is to play [never said it didn't look fun and enjoyable]. It's an issue that about half the cast are literal clones of one another, and 6-7 of the 19 maps are also clones of other maps. You don't have to play the game to realize how pathetic that is, especially when it's obvious that Koei only did it to whore out an Xtreme Legends expansion pack.

Maybe some of the characters look cloned…because well...some of them are relatives to each other? I mean there's Sun Ce, Sun Quan, Sun Jian, and Sun Shang Xiang for one. And then there's a whole bunch from the Cao family too.

Gorilla Panda Ftw

Oh hell, I'm always up for a random trip to the city. I don't want to go to work so Saturday's fine.

@jadiesama:

but yeah, anyway…
anybody have any suggestions for where we should go this year?

How about St. Mark's place?