Easter Dragon!

So what I was going to post the other day before I got distracted by crazy AmazonFail nonsense (of which I'm still rather annoyed at the lack of response from Amazon, but I digress) is the rather adorable Easter dragon that I sketched with my sibling in mind. It was another fun bit I made with my sexy tablet toy and although I didn't spend a heck of a lot of time fussing out the detail on it, I'm quite pleased with the way it came out.

It also got me thinking that I don't do near as much art as I'd like and that perhaps I ought to try to do at least one post-able sketch thing a week in order to keep my hand in and practice a bit. I've so many other crazy craft things I've been doing of late that the art has sort of fallen by the wayside.

Anyhow, here's the crazy Easter Dragon, guarding his brightly colored egg from any wayward bunnies that may hop along to steal it!

Amazon Rank

I have just learned of this unfathomably stupid move by Amazon.com involving the removal of GLBT themed and straight erotica novels from their ranking system and also their search feature of their site. What the hell Amazon? The folks at Smart Bitches Trashy Books have created a new, more accurate definition of Amazon Rank and have asked bloggers to get the word out. Their definition is now the first result when googling Amazon Rank which makes me rather pleased.

There is also a hashtag on twitter for this ridiculousness #amazonfail. I sincerely hope all this negative attention will get the folks at Amazon to reconsider their recent actions. They claim to be protecting the public from things they may not wish to see, but completely eliminating the existence of an entire subset of genres from the largest online book marketplace is not the way to do it. Particularly since they've only eliminated erotic books from their searchable products. There are plenty of other erotic items for sale that can be searched for.

I'm not sure that putting some kind of warning or marker on erotic novels is a wholly bad thing, however, removing them entirely from the searchable database is completely ridiculous.

Anyway, that is my own two cents.

New Tablet!

I got this fantastic Bamboo Fun tablet from Wacom for Christmas and I just set it up. I thought it would be cool but I had no idea *how* cool. Holy crap! How did I live without one for all this time?

It came bundled with Corel Painter Essentials and after watching the video tutorials that came with registering I started sketching. Here are the first two things I drew.



These are by no means finished sketches but I was just messing around. I still can't quite grasp how easy they were to do though. This first one was sketched with pencil and then filled in and colored with the watercolor brush. So fun!



This one was drawn with pencil and colored in with crayon because I could. I know these are both really rough but compared to things I've attempted to draw with a mouse, they are almost exactly what my hands were trying to do. I'm an impatient sketcher as it is, even with real paper so to be able to get my ideas down digitally so quickly is just awesome.

I probably should stop bubbling with effusive praise before I really learn the ins and outs of both the tablet itself and the nifty software that came with it but really, this is just too fun to keep to myself. I'm going to go draw some more now!

sad pumpkin in snow

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the sad pumpkin got snowed on today. poor punkin.

Venting.

I really should finish my commentary on Otakon before changing topics but I've already put comments on my pictures at picasaweb and I just don't have much more to say beyond "I had a great time, and cosplay is addictive!" Besides, right now, what I really need to do is vent.

I love my job. I've said it before and I'll say it again. This really is the best job ever. I really enjoy seeing and talking to a very diverse cross section of the people who both live in this country and just come to visit. I have always tried my best not to judge people by their ethnicity or background. I try not to be prejudiced because people who are disgust me.

That said, I have come to realize that I get angry with people who so thoroughly live up to the negative stereotypes of their particular group that, for a brief moment, I can understand where such prejudice and hatred come from. I get angry with the individuals and not the group because I know that the majority are not like that. The individuals are just perpetuating the stereotype. Yet I still get angry because I can see that those others around me, who are, perhaps, not so accepting of differences in others, are filing these individuals away in their minds as further proof that their general hatred and prejudice are valid and that all x people are really like that.

It is frustrating to me because I generally try to be a nice person and such people make me want to be very terse and rude in order to get them to leave more quickly. I can recognize this and then I get mad at myself for wanting to be rude to them. I have to make a conscious effort to remain polite.

As is easily inferred by the fact that I'm posting this now, I had such an experience today. In fact, the people are still here, still living up to every negative stereotype I've ever heard of, and still making me angry with myself for wanting to be rude to them. I just want to go home now.

Sometimes I just want to shake people and say "this is why so many people dislike your people!" *sigh*

Update: As I was writing this, another group of people (of the same ethnicity as the annoying ones) came in and were the sweetest, nicest people. They noticed how annoying the first group was and gave them an exasperated look. Just that look has made my day suck a little less. I have ten minutes more left in my work day. I think I can stop looking at the clock now.