Skin & Bag Shop Closing

I have a few points to get through, but first I would like to let everyone know that the shop will be closing orders for skins and bags for the year at the end of the week. If you had your eye on something, this is your last chance to get it. The charms for this season are gone forever and will not be re-stocked next year.

Do Not Continue Without Reading This:

From this point on, I am going to assume that you read my last journal from over a month ago and are up to date on the situation. If you are not, please read it here: [link] before continuing.

As an update on that situation, while my friends have been very helpful to me on helping to get things out and sorting through a few e-mails, I have been on my own for the past month or so and have not been able to keep up with this at all. If you are waiting on an e-mail to be replied to, please do not continue to send e-mails as it will only get very confusing. Starting today I will be going through them with all my free time until they have all been dealt with and hope to have gotten back to everyone within the week.

I have also all-together stopped updating the manual e-mail/site status on the orders and haven't updated them for almost 2 months now since it is not an automatic system, so don't worry if your order is still reading as "un-shipped" on the website. Updating these is last priority for me right now since they don't actually effect anything, but I'll get to them.

Returned Packages

It is always inevitable when sending hundreds of packages that some get returned, I have sent out a few e-mails over this, however I have not gotten any replies to them. We have received some returned packages and we have not been able to get a hold of some people and/or identify others. So far we have only been able to identify order number 1278 as this order, the rest we have only addresses for, and for obvious reasons we can not publicly post these. After I am done going through our e-mails we will begin trying to sort through and match addresses to order numbers and e-mails, however this may take us a little time to do. We will be re-attempting shipment in the meantime on these orders involving charms (as we believe an error might have occurred on my part on these ones), however orders involving skins will need to be dealt with via e-mail as there seems to be no issue with them.

Black Rock Shooter/Dead Master Charms

While I am eternally grateful that some of my friends and family where willing to help me out with charms during my time of sickness, it's been reported by a few that ordered  the Dead Master charm that they where sent Black Rock Shooter. Apparently the person in charge of those charms that day was getting them confused with each other. If your Dead Master charm arrived as a BRS or as anything, or nothing else, please let me know and it'll be taken care of. They are well meaning, but unfortunately not anime fans  

That Is All

Ok! I think that's all the shop updates for now x_x. I apologize again for the inconvenience of my situation and any errors or delays it might have caused. Do not worry, we will get everything sorted out! It is very important to me to have my shop running well and this whole situation has been extremely stressful. If your order was one of the unfortunate orders to get caught up in the mix, I really do thank you for your patience.

I'll be alone for Christmas this year so I'll have plenty of time to catch up

Themes will have different prices attached to them based on the level of time and detail planned for each image. All characters are full body.

Your character as:

unpaid | paid | done

A Pokemon Trainer: $40 Taken
_{You choose one active pokemon to interact with your character. Pokemon list available here: [link] (add $10 for complex/heavy detail pokemon)}
=bergamot-dreams [link]
~Gulaghar [link]

A Legend of Zelda Race: $40 Taken
_{You choose your race. Race list is available here: [link]}
*zetallis [link]

A Final Fantasy Tactics Job Class (FFTA/A2 also allowed): $45 Taken
_{You choose your class. Class list is available here: [link]}
*JacintaMaree [link]
*clueless-nu [link]

A Fantasy Samurai Warrior. $55 Taken
_{You choose an animal represent your samurai. This animal will be worked into the design of the armor and weaponry}
*JacintaMaree [link]

We've recieved a lot of e-mails over the past few years asking us about the status of the comic, and the short answer is: it's in limbo. We have not stoped developing or working on this comic, however, it is not something we can afford to do right now. Both of the artists work 14+ hour days, 7 days a week to make ends meet and it doesn't really leave us much if any time to work on much else. We can't afford to take any time off of working for other people to do this or we won't be able to survive, we can't even afford to heat our home (which really sucks in Canada).

However, despite all of this, there is hope for us and for this comic if our friends and readers are willing to help us out. ★ Please check our kickstarter project out by clicking here for more info. ★ We are giving away lots of cool stuff and exclusive rewards to anyone who is willing to help us make this dream of ours happen.

Thank you for listening and thank you for staying with us for all this time!

We received a lot of requests to post comic updates to DA. We are not too sure why since people can easily read them on the comic's webpage or follow in Smackjeeves, but I guess for the DA junkie it is the easiest way for some people to track art. We have decided to make a new account for the comic to minimize the spamming of our watchers on our regular accounts.

If this interests you, feel free to watch the account:

~DemonRoad

Right now all we have up is the intro (drawn embarrassingly long ago when I was not very good) and a splash page, we will continue to update the account once a week with a page until we are caught up to the website. We will also be uploading additional artwork for the comic on this account as well as some sketchwork and doodles that we normally wouldn't upload anywhere else. It is a bit of a pain to manage 2 accounts on two different pages for a comic but if the account receives a decent amount of interest we will continue to update it often and perhaps make updates more frequently. Hope to see you there!

I picked up skyward sword while I was gone and have played through the first bit of it. For fans of Zelda who are wondering what this new installment plays like, it plays like "Zelda, J-RPG Edition". For a Zelda game, it's pretty shitty. I have never played a Zelda game I didn't like before so I'm not really sure what to make of it. It will likely be the fist Zelda game I don't bother finishing. If you're really into the J-RPG thing, you'll probably like it (if you can get past the fact that it's supposed to be a Zelda game).

Shitty, poorly written "oh I love her because she holds her hands to her chest, leans forward and looks dreamy at me for an awkward length of time" romances, annoying "find x number of y to upgrade" equipment systems and terrible fanfic level dialog just don't do it for me. I commend trying to make it a bit more character driven than "go here and do this because I say so" driven (as seen in games like OoT), but character based games are really only compelling if the characters are interesting. I don't know if the developers ran out of time or what, but they forgot to give their characters any sort of personality. While they where forgetting shit, they also forgot to finish the animation on link's running, climbing and picking things up movements. The framing in camera is terrible, the game lacks any sense of mood or pacing, the exposition is as smooth and well integrated as a fork up my un-lubricated ass and I can't think of anything nice to say about the cinematography of this game. If I hadn't been told otherwise, I'd think I was testing an unfinished game. There is something wrong going on when your current gen console makes the animation from the original OoT look on the ball.

Anyone who tells you that this is an origin story is lying to you. When you start this game, there is already a god/godess system set up, there is already a hero of legend, a back-story that doesn't involve you, etc etc. Link doesn't offer anything to this story other than to do shit other people tell him to. I don't know what this is an origin of, the sword exists already, the hero exists already and hyrule exists already. Everything else is just so much superficial window dressing.

For the few people who will ask, the wii motion works alright I guess. There's kind of an awkward delay between doing something and link doing it, but the monsters take a while to walk over, put on their makeup and do a few warm-up stretches before they attack so it evens itself out pretty well. I've been told that this is the best game the wii has to offer, but this is sort of like telling me that the week old moldy cake is the best thing my trash bin has to offer.

I'm all for changing and evolution and I am glad that they are moving in new directions (as you can probably tell by the events of this comic). I am however, disappointed that that direction seems to have lead them strait off a cliff. I keep reading reviews of praise about this game and I feel like I'm living in some sort of bizzaro universe where FF13 was game of the decade and twilight princess was shit.

It is a strange and terrifying universe.

I'll probably write a more in-depth review on this game when I finish it. I'm not really interested in hearing excuses that people keep making for this game. "oh it's on the wii so it has to look like shit" Bullshit, both the Zelda Game-cube titles looked better than this. "oh well zelda has never been about the characters so it's stupid to complain about them" Bullshit. This game is trying to be character driven and it's failing. Zelda has always been about good story, engaging gameplay and challenging puzzles. This game isn't about any of that. Even still, this has to have the worst writing and character dialogue I have ever seen in a zelda game, and I have seen the CD games. "They have tons more personality than before! look how happy he looks!" No, they have tons more facial expressions animated onto them, my cat can make most of these faces. If these characters didn't respond looking angry when someone told them they're going to destory the world, I would think they where psychopaths, not full of character. Their expressions say nothing about them other than the fact that they have the ability to respond appropriately (sometimes) to a situation. Every character forced upon me is cliche and tropey. It's all been done before, and better. "Oh well they're just trying something new, it doesn't need to be like zelda!" If it doesn't need to be "like zelda" then it doesn't need to be Zelda. I'm not just talking about recycling history, weapons, themes, etc. Zelda used to be about problem solving and puzzles and following a hero on his journey. So far the only puzzle to be seen in the first dungeon I have completed is "hit the thing with the other thing to make the door open" and you don't even have to figure that out, they hold your hand and point you to it. Not even different things. Crystals. The answer is always hit the crystals. And no, I don't think "flail the wiimote to confuse the eye" counts as a puzzle,  which is incidentally, how I beat every monster and boss I've come across. I handed off my controller for the first fight with the demon boss guy to a friend who has never even held a wii mote or seen this game, i gave him no instructions and he still flailed his way to victory. This is not a skill based game. I am not following a hero on his journey. I'm following some bored kid to the corner store to get milk for his mom. This is a Zelda game made by the people who have set high standards for the gaming industry in their time. I expect more from them.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, you shouldn't have to make excuses for a game. A good game speaks for itself.

But if you liked this game, more power to you, as a zelda fan I tried REALLY hard to like this game. I look forward to the flames the journal will receive. I'm probably not going to respond to many people since most of the comments will be "you are wrong because I say so" and there is no real discussion to be had in that. I'm not enjoying the game and there isn't really anything anyone can say that will make me suddenly start liking it just as I am sure (and hope) that what I have said here will not stop people who like it from doing so. Even if I probably won't reply (or read it at all) you're welcome to say it if you like just the same.

Q: How did you develop your style? What are the things an artist should focus on when trying to develop style? [link]

Q: What is your gender, exactly? [link]

Q: Do you feel that aesthetic pleasure/artistic skill or a message through the art is more important? [link]

Q: Are there some artists that inspire you particularly? [link]

Q: How did you start drawing, why did you become a professional? [link]

Q: What do you think is the best way to advertise and promote your art? Is your artmaking a primary source of your income/do you make a relatively substantial amount from doing it? [link]

Bust: 30$
Halfbody: 45$
Fullbody: 55$

Slots:
*lulles -bu
~Octothorpes -hb
~RegalMoon -hb
~suka-strife -hb
~Mayonne -bu

Sketch slots are full. Please see other commission types below for available slots

I have not been around much lately and my messages have been really piling up. `dapper-owl and I have finally moved into our new place and there is still so much work to do. Our unpacking had been put off for so long due to our moving company being absurdly late and then wrecking half our things while waiting for our apartment to get fixed up so we can move things into rooms now that we have them. We signed the lease for this place a good month before we moved in, and yet in that month the landlord still couldn't be bothered to patch the giant hole in the bedroom wall, replace the window so it doesn't fall out when you open it or fix the locks so they don't bend the keys to start with (and far from end with). In the past 5 years I have moved my home 7 times and I have never experienced such incompetence or frustration. it is like a never ending stream of boxes and bullshit. We finally have internet now, but I doubt I'll get to see much of it for a few weeks still. I have a huge pile of messages to sort through so it may take me some time to get to yours if you sent me one within the past 3 or so weeks. Please do not send me multiple messages, I will get to them.

On the plus side, Montreal is a beautiful city and despite all the shit we've had to wade through to get here, we are still happy to be here.