Tom Does Things and Likes Things

(some might be good. The good ones are by Tom Weiser)

[catchymemes]

[aeliad]

HI LET’S SHARE NICOLE’S WORDS ON THE SUBJECT! 

It has been literal years but every time I see Martin’s tweets posted somewhere and his word is shared as truth while her post is not shared it sort of reiterates the fact that we trust men to speak about feminism more than we believe women who experience it. 

Interesting, innit? https://medium.com/@nickyknacks/working-while-female-59a5de3ad266

[wiseacrewhimsy]

Reading her account of how their boss treated her blows me away. Men are so emboldened that they will literally admit to illegal discrimination casually and face no consequences.

[the-geek-cornucopia]

In all the years of seeing this post I’ve never seen a link to her side. Didn’t even know she’d written one.

[pluts04]

Adding screenshots of her post. His whole post is there without needing a link. Hers should be, too.

Also, she posted this is 2017! It’s fucking 2020 and I’ve seen his side of this for years, but it took 3 years for her side to make its way to my dash…

[thou-creature-of-the-deep]

I’ve reblogged his story at least twice; it’s time for Nicole’s.

[petalsbleedingbeak]

NICOLE’S TIME

[boomslank]

We’re running a contest with Crunchyroll! Top 9 contestants will win awesome stuff!

https://boomslank.com/pages/crunchyroll-x-boomslank-contest

[henryscrapeteria]

Sexy Court ep. 7

Read all episodes

[razzledazzy]

Okay I’m only gonna say this once and preface this with the fact that I am Eyak and I probably do not want to hear your opinion on the Pharah skins Raindancer/Thunderbird. This is a really soul baring post so I’m not so sure about people reblogging it, if you do just try to be respective and remember this isn’t a go-ahead to go and appropriate all native cultures. 

They’re pretty damn clearly based on Pacific Northwest tribal cultures. The ones I can pick out being Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian, but we often get grouped together so that doesn’t surprise me. There are many more, but I don’t claim familiarity with all tribes and I can’t say if their art styles and myths were used.

For your comparison a little sample of the tribe’s artistic styles just to get the point across:

And I really have to get something off my chest people. I don’t have a problem with these skins, in fact I adore them. Please just chill with me for a second while I explain.

The biggest issue I see here is people (who usually arn’t ndn, let alone from pac nw tribes) yelling about cultural appropriation. Which good! I’m glad people are on guard for it! But it’s entirely possible that Pharah’s father was Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian or from another closely related Pacific Northwest tribe, so we can’t really call that yet. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was.

Most importantly, speaking as an Eyak. Which is all I can do despite Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian being so closely related, our tribe’s relationship with cultural appropriation is uh, not exactly the norm.

The last Eyak fluent speaker died in 2008, her name was Chief Marie Smith Jones and she was also the last full-blooded Eyak on Earth. The very last. Please appropriate Eyak culture. It’s the only way it’s going to survive. There’s less than 500 of us remaining, and we’re scattered more and more every year. Families I grew up with in Alaska converted to Catholicism. The military took my family across the globe and left us an entire continent away. The language I learned at the dinner table in 1998 now almost exclusively exists on those cassette tapes my white father recorded that night and in reconstructive attempts from a French academic that studied our language from halfway across the globe.

It sucks shit guys, it really does. 

When I first saw the Thunderbird skin I cried, I cried for an hour. Because Overwatch is huge. It will live on for years if not decades. And there’s Pharah with her hair in braids I haven’t seen my mother wear in over a decade. Wearing the colors that remind me of a home I no longer have. Embodying a mythic figure that I trusted to protect me during Y2K and sought out constellations in the sky for. 

So before you spew vitriol about how racist it is that they did that. Just kind of chill out and think about different perspectives for a moment. If you really want to help us? Consider taking a poke about http://www.eyakpeople.com/ and taking a look at our language revitalization project! It’s pretty fun and you could even learn a language out of it. 

AwA’ahdah (Thank You)

[blackbookalpha]

Preserving culture through video games.

Its easy to call something lazy and insulting at first glance, until you see it from the perspective of another person.

[anna-cattish]

‘Into the Virt’ is a short film I had a chance to contribute to in collaboration with a great team of Russian artist and animators: Sasha Chernogorov, Ilya Shekiladze, Denis Pisarev, Ivan Korolev, Vlad Gusev, Vladimir Gerasimov, Aleksey Bovkun. Sound by Sasha DZA 

Some of you might have already seen these characters. Unfortunately the animated short starring them was leaked unfinished a few weeks ago. Today the team has officially released the new enchanced and extended version. We hope you’ll enjoy it. Please help us share the official release. Yay! Thank you! ★

Some of my designs

[swanjolras-blog-archive-deactiv]

Sis I need you to spread some of your wisdom and write another "you have to vote for Hillary/dem nominee" truth post because fuck am I worried. Like before the hate on here for HRC was bad but now it's like too far gone and I can't survive a Trump presidency. George Bush was meant to be the "compassionate conservative" and look what he did.

okay my boss made a pot of coffee for the office and i drank that pot of coffee plus some espresso so i’m in exactly the right place to write this post.

hillary clinton is the democratic party’s nominee for president! donald trump is the republican party’s nominee for president! soon they will choose vice presidents! the general election Has Begun! we have exactly 152 more days of hell to live through and every moment of that hell is gonna be GREAT

your options are:

vote for trump

vote for clinton

vote for a third party candidate (jill stein, gary johnson, etc.)

it’s generally understood that no third party candidate has a legitimate chance of winning. wikipedia has a helpful list of high-profile third party candidates over the past 184 years of american history; they do not win elections unless america is divided enough that, say, half of it secedes. america is very polarized right now, but the level of civil violence we’ve been experiencing recently doesn’t point to a secessionary atmosphere. i wouldn’t be surprised if both stein and johnson got higher vote counts than normal this year, but neither will get actual electoral votes.

so a vote for a third-party candidate only makes sense as an act of protest, and stein and johnson will definitely get plenty of those protest votes.

ithe usual reason for protest votes from leftists is that the democratic party and the gop are too alike; people tend to say that “hillary is just as bad as the gop, so it doesn’t really matter which one of them gets into power, they’re all the same anyway.”

i disagree. here are the reasons why i disagree:

donald trump would like to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the united states and build a wall along the american-mexican border. hillary clinton does not plan to deport these immigrants, and wants to give “dreamers” a path to united states citizenship.

donald trump plans to create specific legal hurdles to muslim people immigrating to the united states. hillary clinton does not plan to do this.

donald trump wants to expand concealed-carry permits. hillary clinton wants to increase background checks, ban assault weapons, and have the cdc study gun violence more.

donald trump does not support same-sex marriage, and thinks transgender bathroom laws should be left to individual states. hillary clinton supports same-sex marriage, and wants all transgender people to be able to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender.

donald trump thinks abortion laws should be left to individual states, and plans to put anti-abortion justices on the supreme court. hillary clinton supports abortion’s legality.

donald trump denies the existence of climate change, and plans to exit the paris agreement. hillary clinton acknowledges the existence of climate change, and plans to stay in the paris agreement.

donald trump supports offshore drilling and the keystone xl pipeline. hillary clinton does not support offshore drilling, and thinks keystone xl construction should not continue.

donald trump does not think the minimum wage should be raised. hillary clinton wants to raise the minimum wage.

donald trump wants to end obamacare. hillary clinton wants to continue obamacare and expand medicaid.

donald trump wants to privatize prisons. hillary clinton wants to limit use of the death penalty and allow felons to vote.

donald trump does not think police should wear body cameras. hillary clinton thinks they should.

were this any other election, this post would end here. unfortunately, donald trump’s disqualifications go above and beyond his conservative views.

he has threatened reporters, protesters, and others who disagree with him with legal reprisals only because they disagree with him.

he has encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies.

his candidacy has resulted in demonstrable and proved rises in anti-mexican and anti-muslim sentiment and violence, especially bullying of schoolchildren.

his platform operates on the basic assumption that legal discrimination against certain minority groups– specifically mexicans and muslims– would improve america’s economy and society.

he would need far more power than the presidential office currently has in order to implement his racist, islamophobic policies. it is unlikely that he would hesitate in doing his best to seize this power.

it’s understandable to me that far-leftists dislike voting for a candidate with more moderate views than theirs. and, again, were this any other election, i would sympathize to some extent with a protest vote against clinton.

however, donald trump is a fascist.

i do not say “fascist” as a more exaggerated way of saying “bad person”. it is a specific term with a specific definition. ted cruz is not a fascist. marco rubio is not a fascist. ronald reagan was not a fascist.

donald trump is an authoritarian, rising to power on a wave of racism, bigotry, fear, and hate. he has deliberately created a cult of personality around himself and his name. he encourages his followers to use violence against his enemies, and intends to level police violence against his political enemies and certain minority groups.

i am a jew.

i want to make it clear: i am not personally afraid of donald trump. while many of his followers, like david duke, are virulently antisemitic, his platforms do not focus on my people as america’s enemies. i will be affected by his homophobia and his sexism, but not by his anti-mexican or anti-muslim sentiment.

but while i am not personally threatened, i am personally involved. there is a fascist running for president of my country; i am a jew. this fight is my fight. this man is my responsibility. no fascist will ever come to power again.

historically speaking, the far left’s choices in these fights are crucial. whether they choose to focus their attentions on moderate leftist democrats or on far-right fascists determines which of these groups will be defeated and which will be able to rise to power.

i genuinely like hillary clinton; her policies aren’t radical or revolutionary, but many of them are steps in positive directions for america. she’s practical, experienced, and intelligent. she isn’t a charismatic preacher; i’m fine with that. eight years of government by someone who ran as a charismatic preacher have made me a little more jaded, a little more aware of the importance of effectiveness over inspiration. i encourage people to like her as a candidate for her own sake.

if you don’t like her as a candidate, that’s all right. i don’t need you to.

i do need you to be aware of the consequences of allowing trump to come to power. i do need you to be aware of the promise the entire western world made my people seventy years ago. i do need you to understand your personal responsibility in fulfilling that promise.

that’s why i think you should vote for hillary clinton in november.

[rnn-draws]

I don’t like reblogging this kind of content here, but I’ll make a special exception this once. Please read it and please vote (and register if you haven’t already) in November.

[blackbookalpha]

@fumeknlght Healing rain

[allisonmckenzieart]

ART THEFT via Lotus Leggings

Do NOT buy these or any leggings from Lotus Leggings. If they’ve made merchandise using my art without my expressed approval, then there is a good chance they are stealing all the artwork and patterns for their products and not compensating the creators. This is wrong. This hurts my business and the companies I collaborate on merchandise with. 

Please reblog and search their site for any artists work you may recognize and help alert the creators.

Thank you!

[tsulala]

soldier 76 is a cutie patootie.

[nesskain]

Just can’t wait for the game to be released !

[kyletwebster]

What is the true cost of piracy to an independent creator?

I just saw a torrent site that had more than a thousand illegal downloads of my Photoshop Megapack … in 24 hours. Seriously, how many people use Photoshop out there?! I mean, of course I’m upset, but I’m equally baffled by this number - I didn’t realize that many people had an interest in making digital art. It’s nuts.

Artists stealing from artists. I can’t understand it.

And I am always afraid to raise my already insultingly low prices BECAUSE I am afraid of more piracy. So, what am I supposed to do here? 

The sad truth is that I either DO need to raise prices to make up for the gross number of thefts and keep my income stream from diminishing (which would, of course, make them less affordable for students and young pros), or I need to completely change the business model somehow to somehow fight piracy. I don’t know how to change it, exactly, but since piracy of my products has been steadily increasing every year since I started, I need to figure something out.

Final thought: If just 5% of those people had bought legally, I’d have made $750 today. Okay, okay - that thought will definitely not improve my mood.

If you are a victim of piracy of your creative products, and you have some thoughts on this topic, I welcome them in comment form. Also, if you agree that this behavior is disgusting, and that we artists should be supporting one another, rather than acting like cannibals, then PLEASE REBLOG. Perhaps, if we make a little noise, it will at least make people reconsider using torrent sites when they realize that working artists are behind all of the creative products they love: music, art, film - all of it.

Thanks for reading. - Kyle

[vanessagillings]

I agree with this. What artist here hasn’t had their work stolen?

All of us work hard, let’s support each other and pay for each other’s work! :)

[jothezette]

Kyle T. Webster’s brushes are amazing, and a terrific bargain at twice the price.  This is a case where piracy is DIRECTLY hurting someone: an individual who’s productivity benefits all of us artists, and who deserves to earn a living from doing so.  Check out his brushes if you haven’t already, and if you have downloaded his brushes without paying- c’mon.  Its the price of a couple cups of coffee. 

[joethejohnston]

Animation is in a really fantastic place right now isn’t it!

Shows like Steven Universe and Wander over Yonder are creator driven and given ample support from their parent studios to help them be as successful as they can be. While Steven Universe may seem trapped in an endless hiatus while Teen Titans Go airs non-stop, the Steven bombs are planned and promoted events that the studio counts on to be successful because they trust the show.

‘Adult’ animation has become the home for some of the best jokes with the age of Mcfarlen-style humor on the decline and the rise of great shows like Rick and Morty, Bob’s Burger and Archer. With “Sausage Party” we’re getting our first rated R mainstream feature animated film. Critique it all you want but this is opening the gates to more adult oriented animated content which is great because animation is not a genre, its a medium.

Established properties like Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack are being given a new treatment with a new generation of talented artists. People who love the old shows and are excited about continuing them and trying something new with them. 

Shows like Spongebob and Fairly Odd Parents soldier on and continue to be popular well beyond their expected lifetime. Established long running properties bring home the bacon for a studio and help to pay for those shows that the studio is willing to take a chance risk like Avatar the last Airbender. There are shows that are made with an ending in mind like Gravity Falls that are given the creative freedom to tell the story they want to tell.

Storytelling is healthier now than it ever has been. It is becoming the selling point as series like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead continue to out perform traditional television. New and exciting opportunities for cross platform storytelling are coming with shows like OK KO which started as a show and became an awesome game! The people making animated content now grew up with great shows like Batman, Gargoyles, X-Men, The Simpsons, the list goes on and on!

It feels like everyone is just sort of…getting started :)

I’m an animation professional and I get frustrated when I see stuff like this.

[taijuey]

So I watched the latest Civil War trailer, and I couldn’t unsee FLCL during Antman and Hawkeye’s sequence….

[techbromancer]

Petition to put Ant-Man in a Bunny Suit...

[techbromancer]

Was doodling my FFXIV character Varterynn yesterday during render times... my poor Roegadyn didn’t know there was so much reading/writing in becoming a WHM / Scholar...

[askagamedev]

Hi. I more or less have a pretty proportionate interest in the game industry and was wondering. If I cannot draw, program, or really anything except have the ideas and write what would I be able to do? I've seen Hideo Kojima and it seems like he directs and writes so would I be able to do that? More or Less similar to Hideo? Minus all the fame of course.

No. You would not be able to do that. Hideo Kojima has been working on video games for over 30 years. He did not start off by directing and writing games, or giving orders, or doing what he wants. He started as a designer and planner working on games for the MSX system, an 8-bit home computer system, and has steadily worked, delivered, and learned over three decades. When you look at Kojima, you see this dude:

What you’re seeing when you look at Kojima is the final mega-evolution. He’s been put through the ringer, worked his ass off, learned a lot, and been in the right place at the right time. Most developers don’t get the opportunity to head their own studios and call the shots even after 30 years. Kojima started working on games like When Kojima writes stories and makes decisions, he’s basing them on many years of experience of actually making games. He understands what it is like to work with engineering, and what sort of constraints one must adhere to when designing systems or content.

This is how he started. Before all of the evolutions, skills, levels, and power, he started out of school with ambition and ideas and worked for decades to get to where he is today. This is you right now. You don’t know what it takes to engineer a game. You don’t know what it takes to produce art assets for a game. You don’t know how hard it can be to design a level, or engaging game systems, or to keep a team tasked out and working towards shipping a project. You don’t have the benefit of years of experience. There’s no reason that anyone would have to listen to you, especially when everyone else you’d be working with on the team would all have the very experience in making games that you lack.

If you want to work on games, you need to bring some kind of tangible contribution to the team. Ideas are not enough - literally everyone, from the studio executive all the way down to the freshly hired QA tester, has game ideas. In order to convince others that your ideas are worth the effort of implementation, you need to be able to do something to make those ideas actually come to life. Just because you can’t do any of those things now doesn’t mean that you can’t work on games. But the important thing to realize is that the operative word is working. Game development requires a lot of hard work, and simply making up ideas for other people to implement won’t cut it. If you want to work, then learn to code, learn to art, learn to schedule, or learn to use some editors and start creating content. Download a toolset or write some mods. Maybe you could try retexturing a model, or animating something new. There are always openings for skilled developers, but there’s no job openings in the industry for “idea men” unless you’ve got thirty years of development experience shipping world-renowned AAA titles. 

[techbromancer]

Going to try and push my witchsona piece further later this week...

[techbromancer]

Drawing myself for WitchsonaWeek.... I like to think I’d have a giant Canada goose...