JD's Speaks: A NEW PODCAST and Episode 1: 'Pilot'

INTRODUCING....JD'S SPEAKS!!!

Yes, I have finally started a podcast. Want to hear me speak about stuff as opposed to write it? Than I have the podcast for you!

Technically I can talk more about stuff when I outright speak it...

DISCLAIMERS:

*I'm sorry for some of the rrrgggghhh sound, I think I was accidentally rubbing on the mic.

*When I say Ocarina of Time is my favorite game so far, I mean when it comes to Zelda, not games as a whole.

*I might elaborate in a future episode on a few things I talked about here.

https://soundcloud.com/jds-canvas/pilot

Sonia and Manik (Mobius 25 Years Later) Redesigns. Why Did I Bother?

     Alright so does anyone reading remember the Sonic the Hedgehog Archie Comics? Okay then...does anyone remember that storyline in the pre-reboot continuity that was the epitome of fan-fiction? You know the one where we got a "glimpse into the future"? Where just about every single main character became a stupid 50s sitcom stereotype?

Except...worse than that?

     Yup, I'd say you can blame Ken Penders for that (among some other things, but I digress). Not exactly a fan-favorite story. Barely anything ever happened in it, and not even Ian Flynn's 30 Years Later story was that much better. Besides the ridiculous writing and the 100 other problems with this arc, do you want to know what really gets on my nerves?

The child characters.

Oh, but this was the Penders run of the comic, infamous for bad designs and outright clones...

So Surely Flynn's run was better right?

     Yeah, and I'm Mickey Friggin' Mouse. Clones as far as the eye can see. 

     Sure I only showed two of them, but do I have to show more? All of them except for Lara Su (who still wasn't that well designed) were like this. Their designs were horrible. Needless to say I hate that mentality of "oh a character's kids can be clones because genetics!" Genetics does not work like that at all. Kids can resemble even the grandparents and it would still make sense. Have more faith in your audience's intelligence, for God's sake. I'm not even joking when I say even the Disney Sequels had better designed child characters than this...not all the time, but they had better ones than this.

     Although the personalities are another story entirely...I'd say M:XYL screwed that up about as bad as the Disney Sequels did....but that's not what I'm focusing on.

     So anyways, I've seen quite a few artists on Tumblr redesign some of these child characters from this arc, and needless to say these guys actually had an understanding of character design. Quite a few of them are quite impressive.

    For the hell of it, I decided to do redesigns of Sonia and Manik, Sonic and Sally's kids from the future storyline.

  

     

     Huh...it's been a few days since I actually drew these..,

     Anyways, when I first started these redesigns, the first thing that I did was block out a basic shape to them. In other words, I crafted a silhouette. One of the ideal rules of character design is that you should be able to tell characters apart from purely their shadows or silhouettes. They should have their own shapes and sizes, basically. I kept certain elements of the design in my mind when painting the silhouettes, and then I made a more detailed sketch.  After that, I gave them their colors.

     For the designs, even though I know that it is discouraged by the more grown-up side of the Sonic the Hedgehog fan community, I sort of made a hybrid. Except...I actually put more thought into them and only made minor fusions of parts.

     Manik's tail highly resembles Sally's (a chipmunk mobian) but I kept him as a hedgehog just for the sake of staying "faithful". His eyes are a brighter blue than Sally's and his green fur is a similar color to Sonic's eyes. I thought that giving him black cuffs on his gloves would be a sort of homage to Tails. His shoes are his own, but I did try to make them appear more blocky and angular than Sonic's. Also, like Sally, he has tuft on his cheeks. Furthermore, his hair style is similar to Sally's. I kept in the gap in his teeth.

     In Sonia's case, I straight up gave her Sonic's eyes. She's a squirrel because her granddad (Nigel Acorn) is one. Her outfit is supposed to match her shoes, which are almost like Sonic's, except for the gold cuffs. Her fur is more reddish and darker than Sally's. I also tried to make her eyes look less...elegant than Sally's...or maybe it's more playful or round....Her hair deliberately resembles Sonic's quills. I want to say that her hair is naturally that color. I guess you could also say she dyes it...but I personally wouldn't say that. I also decided to give Sonia a scarf that matches her eyes. I was thinking of Sonic Boom to be fair, but I also thought it could be an element of her design unique to her...

So how do you like them?

I enjoyed doing these quite a bit.

RANDOM PLUG!!!

    Oh, just because I love her work, here is drawloverlala's redesign of Lara-Su.

Go check out her tumblr now, she has a bunch of other redesigns that are seriously awesome!↴

http://drawloverlala.tumblr.com/tagged/My-art

(She also has a deviantart account under the same name!)

Finished Ocarina of Time.The Water Temple Was Fine.

I HAVE FINISHED OCARINA OF TIME!!!! I LOVED IT!!!
(OKAY I ACTUALLY FINISHED IT 10 DAYS AGO...AND AM PLAYING THE 3DS REMAKE RIGHT NOW!)

     Now to elaborate...

    I finished the game 10 days ago and I am now playing Majora's Mask. I loved Ocarina of Time. I loved it more than Link to the Past, which I also loved playing. Now my ass was kicked about 100 times when I played Link to the Past, but in Ocarina of Time I think I only died 20 something times.

     Anyways, aside from a few times were I believe the game was not terribly clear, this truly was an awesome game, Beautiful music by Koji Kondo, great graphics for the time, and it was great to experience how Link to the Past's mechanics were brought into the 3D world. This game is inevitably overrated, as is everything that is popular, but this game deserved all the praise it received back in the day. It's not the greatest game ever made, no single game is, but this is certainly ONE of the best games ever made.

     The Z-Targeting system and the context sensitive buttons, among also the overall feel of the game was a huge influence on future adventure games. The dungeons were really fun, if a bit bothersome at times. My least favorite had to be the Fire Temple...at least I used to think so. I remember having a tough time...well...no just a few things bugged me. I'll elaborate later.

     Oh, and the Water Temple? It was not that bad. At all. I've heard before that most fans hate it and Miyamoto has actually outright apologized for designing it....but it was fine! I liked the encounter with Dark Link, and the Morpha boss even though it frustrated me a bit.

     The two biggest issues were only a few cramped spaces and the fact that you have to constantly pause and unpause to game to switch between your iron boots and regular boots. Also it is pretty BS that you could only fight underwater using the hookshot. If nothing else, Majora's Mask made up for that with the Zora Mask.

     Well...you could argue the rising and lowering of water levels, but trust me it's not that bad at all! I rose the water to one level, searched the rooms, and then rose or lowered it further. It was totally manageable and I enjoyed my time in that Temple. I suppose it is still a problem that it MIGHT be easy to get lost in that temple, because I'll be fair it took a bit of time for me on my first time to find the room where Ruto was.

     I appreciate that the 3DS remake mitigated these issues at the very least, but I still enjoyed the original Water Temple. (Well also there was the fact that I felt like leaving and coming back with the Zora Tunic.) I suppose people will hate me now for defending it.

     Anyways, I actually almost immediately moved onto the 3DS remake after finishing Ocarina of Time. It was actually a very smooth transition, because I started getting through the game in no time flat. I am now on the Shadow Temple and I think I even figured out some hidden detail about the fishing mini-game (my least favorite part of the game by far, Dark Chronicle is the only RPG like game I've played that actually has a fun fishing mini-game).

     When it comes to the Fire Temple, I suppose it was a combination of me not paying close enough attention and it being my first playthrough. When I played the Fire Temple on the 3DS remake, I cleared it with no troubles. That's not the entire reasoning behind my first thoughts on the Temple as a whole, but I'd say those were the biggest factors.

     So yeah, there isn't much more to say, I loved the game. I hope that I can say the same for Majora's Mask but I have yet to complete that one (and I haven't been playing it for a few days). Here's hoping that I love the other Zelda games too!

Also my favorite Temple was the Spirit Temple.