Artsy (or not) Things I Got for Christmas!

As you'll see, this also serves as kind of a "2009 wrap-up" post. Some of these will demand longer posts later on after I've watched/read/played with them:

I got the collection of Chuck Jones' "Tom and Jerry" cartoons on DVD. I know these shorts have their detractors, but I like them. I haven't watched this yet but it looks like it may be similar to the excellent "Droopy" collection they put out last year (well, LAST last year).
I also got the four-disk Blu-ray edition of "Up". "But Trish, you don't have a Blu-ray player!" You're right but Disney has decided to do something neat to wean people onto the new format: regular DVDs come packaged with the movie and not a whole lot else but the Blu-ray DVDs come with the movie (both on Blu-ray and unleaded DVD format) and a whole lot of goodies.
Wait, did I say neat? What I meant was unnecessarily confusing.
Anyway, as you know I enjoyed "Up" and the disk is very nice.

Man, I can NOT wait to plow through these! I've thumbed through these books and they all look to be amazing. The two-volume Drawn To Life books are about as daunting as the Greg S. Paul textbook I unwittingly got a while back, but I think I can take my medicine. The Goldberg and the Gurney (I have started in on the latter and it may be the best "how to paint" book I've ever read) are shorter but very nice and packed with rare artwork.

These are a little more personal/in-jokey, but I had to share how awesome my sister is. She made a lovely photo album of our family reunion. My godfather gave me the cookbook, knowing I've started getting serious about expanding beyond my "heat up a can of Cream of Mushroom soup, cook frozen spinach, mix and dump in some spaghetti" repertoire. The random loose photographs are from my participation in LAST last year's Comicazi.con. I also got a copy of Inventory (not pictured but very nice and funny as to be expected from The Onion), and Obligatory (but useful) Gift Cards to GameStop - destined to take a chunk off the cost of "Soul Silver" (if it has the more interesting version exclusives) - and to the Apple store. Hmmm... why would I need that?

For my new toy badass art-making machine, of course.
I am... REALLY excited to start playing with this. I shall gush when she's fully set up.
Here's today's Sketch of the Day (or Whatever)!

Not sure what part of the creative process this gives insight into but that rabiescorn may need to be colored in soon.
----
Oh gosh I just learned -like, literally just learned- that Arisia is this weekend! I don't know much beyond the fact that this is a huge sci-fi/fantasy convention in Cambridge, MA, they will be showing "Zombieland" and "Moon" among other films, and I missed the registration deadline. Wah. (To be fair, spring tends to be the start of convention season around here. Oh well.) Still, this may be a fun time for those of you in the general MIT vicinity.

Great day for "Up"!

You know, some day Pixar is going to make a movie that totally sucks just to see what it feels like.

Fortunately, "Up" is not that movie. I just got back from the theater (regular format because 3D makes my visual cortex cry after a while) and here are my disjointed thoughts about "Up" and the whole experience:

* - The first twenty minutes made my eyes rain. I wasn't alone. You could hear a pin drop in this matinee full of seven-year-olds and their adults.

* - Hooray for Chuck Jones' obvious influence on Pete Docter! Note the shapes of the rocks during the chase sequences, Kevin's somewhat familiar character design, and the dead-on characterization of Dug. Speaking of...

* - Dug is not only one of the best characters ever, he's a triumph of animal characterization. I kept thinking of what James Gurney talks about in this blog post: the best animal characters are the ones allowed to be themselves.

* - And as a Miyazaki fangirl, I am obliged to go "yay" at the "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" shout-outs as well. Generally speaking, animated films about things that shouldn't be able to fly but do so anyway are awesome.

* - It's a little eerie how much I related to Carl more than any other character...

* - "The Princess and the Frog" trailer got a pretty enthusiastic reaction, which is good given that the other trailers included everything from "Shorties" to "G-Force" (but not, curiously, "Toy Story 3" or "Ponyo on a Cliff".) That gets my hope up.

* - RE: "Shorties". It amuses me to no end that Robert Rodriguez can go from "Sin City" to a crazy "What If" movie for little kids.

* - RE: "G-Force". If this "Not Another Talking Rodent Movie" outgrosses "Ponyo" and "Princess", I may have to say "f*** it" and start studying to be a dentist.

* - I'm a chick, so "Partly Cloudy", which I knew nothing about going in, made me go "SQUEEE!!!" Props to Pixar for seeing the cuteness in Knifefish.

* - As I said before, I'll talk about the Pixar Needs Women debacle later.

All told, "Up" is excellent, go see it.

Also, it is hilarious that Direct-To-Video/DVD companies are still doing stuff like this.