C.E. Douglas @ce-douglas - Tumblr Blog

emmajerk-deactivated20180530

Jim Burns

How stable of a career would you say being an author is?

Try balancing a soft-boiled egg on its tip. Don’t use sand or salt, don’t crack the eggshell. Just balance it, and then take your finger away.

That stable.

missypena

!!-ILLUSTRATION GIVEAWAY TIME-!!

I have recently hit 2,000+ followers! Thank you so much!! While this may seem like a small amount to some of my peers, this is huge for me, and I want to say a huge thank you to all of my followers new and old. So I’m holding my very first illustration giveaway! Please read everything below if you want in!

DISCLAIMER: this giveaway is completely and responsibly hosted by me and is not endorsed by or affiliated with Tumblr in any way.

THE PRIZE!

A fully colored character illustration by me! Any character of your choice, existing, fan-made, or original, with up to 2 characters total. You can request a specific style, (like art nouveau or super cartoony) or I can work in mine! This is basically a $200 illustration commission from me, but free for you! All of my commission rules as to what I will and will not draw apply, (basically just keep your requests clean and tasteful).

HOW TO ENTER!

You must be 18+ years old to enter.

Have your ask box turned on.

You must be following me. The purpose of this giveaway is to thank you, my followers!

Reblog this post to your main account for +1 entry. I will not be counting likes, and will not count reblogs made to side blogs.

Reblog to your main as many times as you like for more entries, but please be courteous to your followers.

And since I am not physically mailing anything for this giveaway, it’s open to anyone internationally. As long as you can tell me what you want me to draw and have an e-mail address that can accept big files, you’re good!

You have until Thursday May 1st, 2014 at 9:00pm PST to enter! I will choose one winner at random using random.org and will immediately contact the winner through their ask box. If no response is received within 48 hours, that person automatically forfeits the prize and I will choose another winner by repeating the process.

Before I say good luck, I just want to say thank you so, so much for all your support. Thank you for every follow, for every like, for allowing me to occupy a little space on your dashboard and for spreading my work. The art road is a tough one to follow and I rely on every follower to keep plowing through the difficult days. Thanks again, and… GOOD LUCK!!

woodendreams

(by Oleg Gordienko)

exitinsistexist-deactivated2014

J. M. de Aragon, The three prediluvian monsters “Ignorance, Fanaticism and Cruelty”, Originally published in “Amazing Stories”, June 1927

hauntedunderwood

Perhaps my parents never realized the puns that would be made on my name when they christened me Richard Sharpe Shaver. Under ordinary circumstances the puns would have been of little consequence, but because of the amazing fact of my amazing memory of the life of another person, long dead, it has been incredibly hard for me to speak convincingly and to make people believe in me. Invariably I get that oh-so-funny remark, “Sharp-shaver, eh? A regular cut-up, eh, kid!” accompanied by a sly dig in the ribs and a very stupid, “Get it?” How can a man get a serious audience after that?

Richard Shaver

I Remember Lemuria

(via hauntedunderwood)

I'd be more worried about being Dick Shaver, myself.

70sscifiart

John Schoenherr

shortformblog

Each resident will be given a private sleeper car, equipped with a desk, a bed and a window to watch the American countryside roll by for inspiration. Routes will be determined based on availability.

So Amtrak actually did it; they created a writer residency program. Fans of writing inside a moving vehicle for thousands of miles, this program is for you. (via shortformblog)

Ok so, this is SUPER COOL!

(via mothia)

…This would be more attractive if the food on Amtrak wasn’t so awful. …I wonder if we could sweet-talk DB or the SBB into doing something like this…?

ETA: Oh wait. Amtrak then wants all rights to what you write on this poorly-catered jaunt? I DON’T THINK SO.

(via dduane)

With all due respect, I think you misunderstand. Amtrak's terms of service explicitly refer to the Application which is defined as whatever applicants fill out on this form. While this does include a writing sample (up to a whopping ten pages they're asking for permission to excerpt in pamphlets), this is not the writing that you produce on the trip.

disperso

Young Torless (1966)

aberrantbeauty

protectcharles

aberrantbeauty

Bart Synowiec

papagenoo

Thanks!!!

1. Take a picture of your workspace. Living and working in approx. 5m² :’)

2. Show your pencil case and what’s inside. Most of the pens are 300 years old and half eaten.

3. Show a thing you last drew, no matter how small or a “doodle” it is. Another shamefull WIP is born.

9. Favorite thing to draw? Guess.

10. Least favorite thing to draw?

12. Any weird artist behavior you admit doing? I have that “making the same expression as the one i am drawing” problem. Hand-selfies and reference posing in front of the mirror…. hitting my nose on the paper when drawing traditionally.

14. (is it the “Draw a pic of yourself like how you look just now.” question from the other Artists Asks post going around??????)

das me (its so late)

thanks for asking everyone <33

#show your work

One of the biggest internal challenges I face working day to day is the simple act of forgiving myself for not operating at peak focus at all times. I don’t unitask well, and my entire life I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that this isn’t acceptable. One must maintain laser focus on the task at hand until either the task is complete or the whistle sounds, and only then may you descend from the plateau. I operated in this mode for several years with limited success, which I attributed singularly to my failings as a human being. In the past year or so, I’ve experimented with a new way of operating...

#productivity #writing process #writing tips

animenostalgia

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of manga pioneer Toren Smith’s death (April 12, 1960 - March 4, 2013). Toren Smith was one of the first people to encourage Japanese publishers into licensing manga to North American publishers. Without him, we wouldn’t have some of those first English-translated titles from him and his studio, Studio Proteus (such as the first editions of Akira, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Appleseed, Oh My Goddess and Ghost in the Shell, just to name a few). Without these handful of successful early titles, we might not have the wide variety of manga available to us in English that we do today. He was also friends with the founders of Gainax, and was immortalized by them in their 1980 series Gunbuster when they named a character after him and had him voice a nameless bridge operator in one episode. While he may not be a household name to some, he was once (and still is) regarded by many as one of the “godfather of manga in the US”, and should never be forgotten.

thepsychobrentt

HOW CAN WE BE HAPPY ?

Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity. He started giving each one a balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

Now these delegates were let in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos.

At the end of 5 minutes no one could find their own balloon. Now each one was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.

The speaker began— exactly this is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is.

Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness. And this is the purpose of human life.

robertrites

Where Are All the Gay Video Game Protagonists?

Not a question, but rather, I want to post an excellent, mature comment made by someone in the comments section to a rather thought-provoking article on Gamasutra questioning the lack of homosexual game protagonists in mainstream gaming today:

Reading through some of the comments here has made me wonder which specific problem we’re talking about solving. The obvious one seems to be “get games to depict a more accurate sample of reality,” but that seems like a means to an end rather than an end in itself. This is just my 2 cents, but even if have a game with a realistically portrayed gay protagonist, that game won’t necessarily be inclusive to all gay people. People are so much more than a gender, a sexual preference or a nationality. As a woman, I’ve played many games with male protagonists, and I’ve identified with some of them more than I’ve identified with some female protagonists based on their values or attitudes. The point where I started to feel excluded was when a game made incorrect assumptions about my own attitude towards women. This is why I think variety alone will not solve the inclusiveness problem. We have to think bigger than that and remember that we’re all, first and foremost, people. If we reduce a character to the label “gay” of course there will be many players who think “I can’t relate to that.” That’s why we have to write characters that are deep, multi-dimensional and can be empathized with (or at least understood) on many levels. If “gay” just happens to be one of those levels, there should be plenty more to like or dislike about a that character. After all, that’s how reality works. I get the impression that when a lot of game writers try to tackle characters unlike themselves, they tend to fixate on what’s different, even though there’s a lot more that’s the same. As a result, we end up with caricatures.

I think this comment sums up perfectly the thoughts I’ve always had with self-insert demands for more diversity in gaming. I’ve always held that games need more diversity, but said diversity needs to come from a confident place. Shoehorning a gay lead into a game is not justice or representation; it’s a patronizing concession that moves the goalposts forward with all the force and bluntness of an apathetic half-shrug.

For all the laudatory comments Saints Row IV received as being an example of “progressive” representation in video games, a crucial point that I feel lots of people missed was that all of the homosexual/minority content in the game was filtered through a morass of absolute irreverence. In that particular context, this swirling orgy of references and gonzo humor made everything “okay.” This bothered me a lot, because while, yes, it’s nice to see these kinds of customization options in this kind of game, I felt people were trying to interpret some subtext hidden beneath something that had no filter to begin with.

Anecdotally, as a straight Asian male, I can name three story-driven games I’ve completed that featured Asian male protagonists: True Crime: LA, Sleeping Dogs, and recently, Shadow Warrior. Of these three, I can relate to precisely none of these male leads. That didn’t make any of these games any less fun to play, aside from the well-intentioned but clearly wrong, wrong, WRONG stereotypes that were used to further “humanize” these characters. The issue is, and has always been, good writing. I still stand by the notion that a game must be mechanically sound before anything else, but if we’re still insisting that a game’s artistic and mechanical merit is primarily defined by the content created by mo-cap actors and outsourced cinematic production houses, then we need to give developers a wide berth in creating as mature content as possible.

Diversity is good. Hackneyed, lazy writing, regardless of which way it swings on the gender/sexual preference/minority spectrum, is hackneyed, lazy writing.

discovergames-blog

There is some truth here, and I understand some of the basic ideas and motivations of the two commenters above. So I hope it’s understood that I’m not dismissing these opinions out of hand. But there are also some big, nasty assumptions on display here that aren’t necessarily reflective of reality and which bear examination. This gets a little long, so I’m going to put a page break here, and also encourage you to skip to the last paragraph for a TL; DR if you’re feeling squeamish.

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C.E. Douglas