Initial Thoughts Regarding "The Muppets"

As you may or may not know, a brand new primetime series staring the Muppets made its debut last night.  I watched it, let it simmer over last night, and my initial knee-jerk reaction is that it's... it's pretty good.

The idea is classic Muppets: it's a show-within-a-show.  This time, Miss Piggy hosts her own talk show and the other Muppets scramble behind he scenes to get everything rolling.  We seem to be back in the classic "Frog; 100, Chaos: 99" formula, which is very encouraging.  There are cute subplots involving Fozzie and Scooter and a few poignant scenes as well.  the latter is especially encouraging; the old "Muppet Show' was as much about weirdly sad or genuinely touching moments as it was about explosions and anvils.  (There is also no sign of Walter in this first episode.  Interesting...)

The "roving camera" format is unusual, but seems to be working well so far (it makes a lot more sense when you realize it's just the modern version of the previous Muppet series' stationary camera capturing the activity behind the scenes).  Denise is... certainly a thing; I'm hoping she turns out to be a more interesting character.  And while this is the first episode, and I understand they're finding their footing, I'd have liked a lot more segments with the Muppets interacting with the guests.  That Imagine Dragons weren't accompanied by Muppet dragons during their end-credits number is a damn shame.

At the end of the day, we've got the Muppets on television on a regular basis again.  That is priceless.

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Sketch of the Day!



Cows!!!

Long-delayed Thoughts on Recently Experienced Media

I know, I haven't written anything in over a month and it isn't like there hasn't been a ton to write about.  Let's ignore all of that.  What have I been watching/reading/etc.?

Movies

"Jurassic World" - There really isn't much I can say about this movie that hasn't been said before, except that it exists and it's in our world and it's somehow already one of the top five movies ever (???!!!???) and there's going to be a sequel and there's nothing we can do about it.

"Inside-Out" - I'm just so *happy* that this movie exists and is amazing and being *appreciated* for how amazing it is. This movie is going to be a formative experience for a lot of kids.  I know I'd probably be in a better headspace right now if there was a sad movie for sad girls reassuring us that there is nothing wrong with being sad back in the day.

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" - (Trish just makes a long, drawn-out raspberry.)

Okay, seriously.  There is no reason at all why this inch-thick children's book had to be three bloated movies long, Wyvern!Smaug looks dumb as hell from the neck down, I cared more about what Beorn was doing during the battle than the filmmakers thought I should (and I cared several orders of magnitude less about Bard's stupid kids than they thought I should).  I could go on, but I can't wait for the reasonably-lengthed single movie fan edit, and if anyone is checking in from the timeline where Guillermo DelToro made "The Hobbit", please tell me it wasn't any better than this.  Look right into my eyes and lie.

"Into the Woods" - And meanwhile, here's a movie that had every reason in the world to be split into two movies (covering acts one and two respectively) but wasn't.  What the hell?  It wasn't that bad, but boy did it ever feel rushed.

"Jupiter Ascending" - I really wish that this was another "John Carter" situation where I could say, "Hey, remember that crazy-looking fantasy space adventure that bombed spectacularly?  It's actually really good and even better, in some respects, than a similar, far more popular movie."  And I just cannot, in good conscience, do that.  It's not even fun-stupid (ladies, let's promise that if anyone wants to make us Queen of Earth where the other option is Normal Girl - especially if we can tell the villains to sod off and leave Earth alone in either case, let's all decide to be Queen of Earth).

I did like the part at the end where Channing Tatum transformed into the humanlike version of literally every unimaginative kid's DeviantArt Original Character.

"Chappie" - Now this movie was something else.  I liked it well enough, and the robot was adorable, but... well, Matt Singer said it best:

CHAPPIE left with me one or two questions about the nature of consciousness and a million questions about Die Antwoord.

— Matt Singer (@mattsinger) March 5, 2015

"Ex Machina" - Great, great movie.  I wouldn't dare spoil it, so watch it already.


"Predestination" - Another really good science fiction Indie.  Honestly, I'm just impressed that anyone managed to adapt "All You Zombies" into a film, and an excellent one at that.

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Television/Streaming

"Bojack Horseman" - This might be the best kept secret in all of made-for-streaming television.  It's weird and hilarious and full of surprising pathos.  Lisa Hanawalt's character designs are incredible and that "Chicken for Days" episode is unreal.

"Sense8" - Get through that first episode.  Trust me, that isn't what this series is.  Like the best science fiction, it's focused more on how the fantastical element affects the characters in their everyday lives.  It's really good.

"Wet, Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp" - It doubles-down on the craziness of the movie, that's for sure.  Some folks will love that; some will hate it.  Personally, my opinion is a little mixed but I *died* during the third episode.

"Rick and Morty" - Do you miss "Futurama"?  Did you enjoy the more bonkers episodes of "Community"?  You might dig this.  It's dark, weird, and God damned awe-inspiring.

"Seigfried and Roy: Masters of the Unbelievable" - There was a rumor going around the Something Awful forums that the "We Hate Movies" podcast was going to do this as part of their Animation Damnation series.  I watched it only because I had extremely vague memories of seeing a commercial for it as a kid.  This show was either (a) a failed pilot, (b) the longest, weirdest early "Final Fantasy" cutscene ever, (c) an entire failed SERIES awkwardly mashed down to one 90 minute special, or (d) delirium tremens.  Anyway, I don't want to make the We Hate Movies crew watch the New Kids on the Block cartoon anymore.  You can watch the whole shebang here.

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Sketch of the Day

I have also been watching many Let's Plays and doodling along.

Thoughts on Recently Experienced Media

It feels like it's been a while...

Movies

"Ink" - Interesting, sometimes very clever independent dark fantasy film.  I found a lot to like in it except for the twist at the end, which prompted less of a "woah" and more of a "what?"

"Mirrormask" - Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, there is a collaboration between Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, and the Jim Henson Workshop.  And it is, sadly, not as awesome as that combination promises.  It is worth a look since the film does at least have a very unusual look and the story is almost a test-run for ideas that would be refined and far better implemented in "Coraline".  (Let's see here, girl who has some issues with her family finds her way into an alternate universe ruled over by a scary doppelganger of her mom and everything is kind of whimsical but also weird and off-putting?  Yeah.)

"Madagascar 3" - The first and certainly less mortifying of two "Why the hell was this in my queue; somebody out there in Internet-land must have convinced me it was worth watching" movies I'll be reviewing today.  I thought it was pretty bad, and there were even a few moments that were downright disturbing.  On top of that, whoever came up with the seal character hates me.  They don't even know me, yet they hate me.  ME, personally.  Ye gods...

"Sucker Punch" - The second of my two "Why the hell was this in my queue; somebody out there in Internet-land must have convinced me it was worth watching" movies and hooooooooly sh*t.  This movie.  It sure was a movie.  Still images were projected at a rate that gave the illusion of movement, and there was a soundtrack.
Seriously, though.  When "Sucker Punch" wasn't looking exactly like an adaptation of Kate Beaton's "Strong Female Characters" made by somebody who didn't get the joke at all, it reminded me uncomfortably of "Cool World" of all things, probably because it's another awkward glimpse into the creator's subconscious.  You can very definitely count me on Team "If you honestly think that this film is somehow 'empowering for women', please, just, STFU."

"Upstream Color" - Then again, neither "Sucker Punch" nor "Madagascar 3" made me literally scream and swear at the TV.  Your mileage, as they say, may vary, but you may count me on Team "This wasn't so much 'confusing' as it was 'straight-up antagonistic towards the audience'".

"A Monster in Paris" - Underrated CGI feature made in France by a former Dreamworks director.  It's slight, but very nice.  I only wish the DVD wasn't so bare-bones.  The voices picked for the dub are fine enough but shouldn't this at least have a French soundtrack?

"Peter and the Wolf" (1996) - I wanted to check this out because it's a gap in my Chuck Jones education(?), and I'm sad to report that it's entirely skippable.  You need to sit through nearly ten minutes of live-action footage of a grandpa trying to impress his very 90's grandson with the titular tale to get to the animation.  When you finally do, you learn that it's not Chuck Jones' animation at all.  It's his very Jonesy late-period character designs animated by a different team of animators who were, there is no polite way to put this, not skilled enough to handle them.  The result just looks wrong and kind of depressing.

Books

Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell - So... I recently acquired a Kindle Paperwhite and I have been consuming books like crazy.  One of the first places I descended upon was my local library's E-Library, where I found this gem from my assigned reading in high school.  I'm happy to say it still holds up.


Ready Player One, Earnest Cline - Hey, do you remember this thing that happened in the 80's?  Cause that sure was a thing that happened back in the 80's!
Okay to be perfectly fair, this book is pretty good when, you know, it's not doing that.  But the thing is, it does that a lot.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot - Haunting is the word for this true story of bizarre biology, class and racial politics, and a family's heartbreaking quest to know the truth. If you only follow one of my recommendations in this post, make it this one.

3500, Ron Miles -  The deeply strange, utterly fascinating, and ultimately incredibly heartwarming story of Ron Miles and his son, Ben is now available in its entirety in book form and is well worth a read.  You'll want to hug your children afterwards, but you'll also feel a little better about humanity.

My Beloved Brontosaurus, Brian Switek -  I would guess that anyone reading my websites already owns a copy of this book (or perhaps even two: one for yourself and one to pass around to friends so they can finally be on the same page as us when it comes to dinosaurs), so you already know how awesome it is and that it's well worth purchasing the hardcover edition for the terrific artwork.

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Sketch of the Day! Man, Pokefusion is way too much fun to play with.

Thoughts on Recently Experienced Media

Other than the Disney Sequels, obviously.

The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams - I was looking forward to reading this massive tome by the great Richard Williams.  It's very informative, filled with excellent artwork, and a good reference -- if you do not already have one that covers the same subjects.  Because unfortunately, for me, this book didn't really contain any information that was new to me (my copies of Preston Blair's instructional books for Walter Foster have long ago been loved to death.  Don't worry, I have the very nice omnibus edition as well.)  Williams also does not talk much about his experiences in the animation world, and because he has had one of the most interesting careers imaginable as an animation artist, it was a huge letdown to find the book nearly half-filled with walk-cycles instead.

Color and Light, by James Gurney - Some time ago, on his excellent blog, James Gurney wrote a long and extensive series of posts about color theory, lighting effects, and different painting media and their lightfastness and whether "Cadmium Red", for example, will be exactly the same no matter what paint brand you buy.  All of that information, ALL of it and plenty more, is collected in this book.  It is definitely worth a read for all artists, but is probably especially useful for painters.  For the rest of us, at least it is a very nice compilation of Gurney's beautiful art.

Chanticleer and the Fox, illustrated by Marc Davis - Speaking of beautiful art, this picture book is illustrated with the wonderful concept art Marc Davis created for the shelved Disney film based off the tales of Reynard the Fox and Chanticleer the Rooster.  The character designs are wonderful, even if the story is a little mediocre.  As it happens, this little book is more informative and interesting than some of the longer collections of never-produced Disney animation.  Speaking of...

Disney Lost and Found, by Charles Solomon - Full disclosure: I read this a while ago and I don't even remember if I reviewed it here.  It has, as you might expect, a lot of art in it.  It also has very little explanation as to what you are looking at.  Like, one of the particularly strange paintings in the first third of the book will simply have subtext that says, "This was going to be a scene in 'Rescuers Down Under'."  The two chapters that contain art from two features that were never made have *just* a bit more information.  "My Peoples" probably would have been charming, but "Wild Life" would have been fascinating.  Funny thing is, there's more information about one of the lost films in this incredible, and very sad, blog post then there is in the book.

"The Butterfly Ball" -  Three years ago(!?!) I wrote a post about a strange animated music video that turned out to be part of a larger concert film.  That film quickly went into my Netflix "saved" queue and now it's finally here and I have watched it. 
Welp. 
Turns out "Love is All" may be the ultimate case of "Context will not help you in any way at all, sorry."  That animated video is actually the least strange part of the show.  I'm at a loss to describe the concert film, but there's a part of me who wants to rent it again next time I have a party and have it running in the background, just to see how long it takes for guests to wonder WTF they are looking at.

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Sketch of the Day!

Hey, finally a current sketch! Here is my incredibly appropriate contribution to a stunningly significant recent historical event:

Old reviews of "Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories" and "KH2". And the awesome that is Snaiad.

But first - I was just flipping channels yesterday when OMG WTF LOONEY TUNES MARATHON!!!???!!!
Yes, I know I have the DVDs. It's not the same.
Switching from Warner Bros. to Disney, I don't think I've ever mentioned my love of "Kingdom Hearts" before on this blog, so rescuing this old review from MySpace (originally posted 9/27/07) is as decent an excuse as any.

"Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories".
Let's not EVEN compare this to the PS2 "Kingdom Hearts" (which I maintain is the best Disney movie -so to speak- in years). It's not remotely fair. I did enjoy revisiting the characters and story. The animation is gorgeous and the music is terrific.
Now for the bad news. It is very close to being too f**king hard. Hard to the point of not being fun, really. It's almost entirely the fault of the combat system, a bizarre combination of a card game and a melee "button-masher". It's hard to explain, but the best analogy I can think of is trying to play chess and as you are trying to think through your strategy, your opponent is throwing pawns at your face. In the climactic battles, this approach is downright infuriating.
That said, this game is sort of a breakthrough in interactive storytelling, as it sets up major plot points in the official "Kingdom Hearts" sequel. And the idea of finishing the game only to discover that you may now play through the story again from an entirely different character's point of view is inspired.

"Kingdom Hearts 2"
This game is *reeeeeeeally* long.
Oddly enough, it's only a few actual hours longer than the first game. But the thing is, the first game didn't feel long. It started out coasting along on the novelty of "Final Fantasy" and Disney characters mixing it up, and then you got caught up in the main story. While there were a few awkward interruptions (Gummi. Ship.) the pacing never felt off. That's not the case with "KH2".
Perhaps you have heard of the infamous five-hour-long prologue?
Seriously. It's five hours long. A five hour long Prologue. It's a hell of a lot to ask of the audience's patience. It came dangerously close to reminding me of what people who hate, hate, hate the Shire-set opening chapters of Fellowship of the Ring say reading those opening chapters is like. (NOTE: People like that exist.)
In this five-hour-long Prologue, there's no sign of the main characters from the first game. (I have a serious problem with any sequel where the main characters and/or main storyline are completely ignored for the first five hours/twenty chapters/three episodes/whatever.) Instead, you're playing as some random new character. And to top it off, this new character *disappears* at the end of the prologue. Admittedly, he does figure into the plot to a small degree; but I figured out how in the *opening credits*. (Which are absolutely the best part of the game. This has even more of a "this is less a video game and more an animated film with some interactive bits" feel than the first "KH".) However, the game itself doesn't clarify how until the very ending - which also happens to be the one other time the character appears in the story. Hilarious.
And did I mention that the nature of this aforementioned character will actually ruin other role-playing games for you? Especially if you're like me and you tend to analyze every work of fiction you consume? I'm serious. Every time you run into an enemy in an RPG, you are going to feel a twinge of guilt before bashing their skulls in for hit points.
It's Spoilertime: It's a pretty controversial example of the aforementioned What Measure is a Nonhuman Trope. In the game, we're introduced to these new enemy creatures called "Nobodies". Most of them are just mooks, like the Heartless in the original, but some of them are bosses. These boss characters are basically just normal people - but there's something different about them, so they aren't normal. Turns out most of them really want to be normal and there is a lot of poignant character development and attention paid to the Nobody characters, Roxas, Axel, and Namine. Roxas doesn't even know he's anything other than a normal person for the five hour long prologue!
And then later on, after Roxas is "dead" and Sora takes over the story, practically every mentor-type character assures him that it's okay to kill all the Nobodies, major characters and otherwise, because they "don't count" as real people. The fact that Sora does not question this and the player is basically forced to agree with him ensures that you will need lots of marshmallows if you join (or, God help you, start, as I did) any discussion about the nature of Nobodies in this game.
I'd feel less grumpy about the length and the pacing if the prologue didn't set the standard for the game as a whole. The further the story strayed from "random Disney and Final Fantasy people help a boring kid in Hammer Pants battle evil and search for his significant other", the more it tried my patience. And it strays from the main plotline quite a bit.
Think of how people who hated the second season of "Lost" felt about the second season of "Lost" and you have the idea. (NOTE: These people also exist.) Organization XIII = The Dharma Initiative.
Furthermore, if you're going to dump a vast all-reaching conspiracy and a Guild of Calamitous Intent-style organization into the mix, for crying out loud please focus on it. We barely learn what's going on until the last third of the game (really, in the end it feels more like "KH 1.5", "KH 2" and "KH 2 and 1/3").
Last night, I was at that magical point - and I'm sure every game in the role-playing genera has one towards the final chapters - where the play is just like work. I had level grinding to look forward to (fighting enough enemies so that the hero does not crap his Hammer Pants and keel over when he finally meets the final boss villains). Not to mention the final villains, and there are five of them; one for each hour of the Prologue. Two of these villains are hard, one is really annoying, and the leader, in the grand tradition of "Final Fantasy" bosses, just won't f-ing give up (actually, I think you have to battle him five times - one Epic Battle for every hour of the Prologue hahaha).
And I didn't think it was possible, but the Gummi Ship is even more annoying than it was the first time around. To the point where *part of the fight with the final boss includes a Gummi ship battle*. I sh*t you not. And whoever came up with the "Little Mermaid" *sing-along* level / "Guitar Hero" rip really needs to sit and think about what they have brought into this world.
BUT!!! (And this is plainly a big "but".)
I stuck with it until the end. Granted, I was largely curious to see how the hell they were going to wrap everything up, but I really and honestly did get really into it in the end. Also, the "Lion King" level is great fun and seeing Donald and TRON together made the 80's-era Disney fan in me go "yay".

Update: There is a new chapter in the "Kingdom Hearts" series released on the Nintendo DS. And it is AAAaaaaaalllll about Organization XIII. I can't say whether I've truly fallen out of love with this series, but I don't know if I can do this game.
That and I still haven't even finished "Platinum" yet...
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So what is Snaiad? It's a fantastic world-building project started by science fiction illustrator Nemo Ramjet (who, incidentally, has the greatest name of any sci-fi artist*). And it includes some of the most insane -yet totally believable- alien creature designs you'll ever see. It's a little overwhelming but it's definitely worth an archive binge.

* - Brynn. Terryl. Aya. Nemo. I ought to just change my name to Trych and see what happens.
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So if anybody out there saw "2012" "2112" "Roland Emmerich Destroys The First Three Cities That Everyone Can Name. Again." "Tragedy Porn", and thought "Oh noes that could really happen waaargarble!!!", please take a minute to watch this:

LIL' APOCALYPSE THAT WASN'T - watch more funny videos

Terry Gilliam's favorite fifty animated films. Maybe. It's confusing.

First off, happy National [Enter Your Favorite Funny Satirical Name for Columbus Day Here] Day!
Over the weekend, Time Out London published this feature which (internet fandoms being what they are) didn't take long to send some ripples through the animation community.
Personally, I love the hell out of Gilliam. I hope "Dr. Parnassus" miraculously out-grosses "Transformers: Michael Bay Learns How to Add and Subtract".* I adore his animation style and sense of freewheeling "What the hell" surreality.
And I like what he has to say about "Heavy Metal" in his list:

"Sadly, it's not the breast-filled bloodbath of orgiastic carnage set to the savage cacophony of Iron Maiden and Sabbath that one remembers. What we're in fact offered is a jarringly discontinuous parade of badly drawn cockamamie featuring... Stevie Nicks bleating away over an inscrutable snippet of hamstrung space opera."

"But Trish!" you ask, dear readers (both of you), "Why are you not crying foul over the fact that this is CLEARLY not a list of Gilliam's fifty favorite animated films, and is instead very obviously a list of fifty random animated features he wanted to say funny things about (although you like his 'Top Three')?!?"
Well... actually, I was just about to say that. He does have a lot of questionable entries ("Robin Hood" ranks higher than "Pinocchio"?!?) And the only reason Ralph Bakshi's version of "Lord of the Rings" makes the cut is obviously so he can rip yet another hole into it. But it's a fun read, and it will hopefully introduce people to some great works they've never heard of.
Plus he includes both "The Secret of N.I.M.H." and "The Brave Little Toaster", which is good enough for me.

* - It will never stop being funny. NEVER.
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As a fan of speculative biology and creature design, I'd like to call your attention to The Morae River. Brynn Metheney's artwork is terrific, it reminds me a great deal of Terryl Whitlatch's "Star Wars" creature designs, and I certainly hope she succeeds in publishing her world-building project.

St. Patrick's Day -and- "Wait, what did she mean, 'Poor Deadpool'?"

Happy Stereotype Enforcement Day! I can't outdo Cap'n Wacky or The Worst Cartoons Ever, though I do have relevant reviews at Nessie's Realm here and here.

Now the points I was trying to make in that rambling, incoherent Watchmen post last week were simply these:

* - Reading is really, really important to me. The film adaptations of the books (not to mention other media) I love the most have, in the past, been disappointing at best and terrible at worst. Therefore, any new adaptation of something I love I will meet with apprehension.

* - By far, the worst adaptations are the ones that fail spectacularly in understanding what I loved about the original.

That last bit is important. It's the reason why I said, "Poor Deadpool" earlier.
It's because this is happening. (Lots of swearing but you can't blame him.)
Now, having never read any comics where Deadpool is involved, I'm not so emotionally invested. But I do know that he is a popular character, he's very funny, and he is the favorite character of a significant number of people. So, simple question: Why in the world would you even bother using a fan-favorite character if you're just going to change everything about him?

Comparing the AA4A Books 4: Ellenberger

Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
An Atlas Of Animal Anatomy For Artists is made up almost entirely of anatomical diagrams and hardly any text at all, save the obligatory labels to help identify what you're looking at. There isn't much here to explain how all this anatomy works - which is where the Calderon book comes in (see previous post). Therefore, I recommend using these two books to compliment each other.
This book is fundamentally concerned with anatomical diagrams. Most of these are reprints of Ellenberger's plates. The detail is eerily photorealistic and the amount of information is nearly obsessive:

See, now you know how to draw a cow tongue. I've never seen an AA4A book that bothered to give a detailed anatomical diagram of what the insides of an animals open mouth looks like. The detail studies like this are wonderful. You'll also learn how a horseshoe fits on, how an elk's tear duct looks, and what different sized dogs' skulls look like. And, most importantly, there is a life study of each animal next to their internal anatomy studies:

In addition to the Ellenberger plates, the book includes a massive appendix including Stubbs' dissection of a horse, Straus-Durckheim's cat studies, and selected dissections of a number of species from Cuvier. In other words, you're going to get a bat muscle study. As well as a monkey, seal, hare, squirrel, and small kangaroo. While not exhaustive by any means, it makes me very curious about the complete Anatomie Comparee.
Dover has a few other AA4A books available in it's catalogue and perhaps I'll collect a few more later on. I remember the Ken Hultgren book from college but never got a copy for myself and the fact that Charles Knight wrote an AA4A book intrigues me. If anyone was ever going to cover non-mammals...
Speaking of, aside from Gregory S. Paul's Predatory Dinosaurs of the World (which I keep cheerleading for and is available at Amazon for just over a dollar so what are you waiting for) I can recommend the following online resources for people who like drawing animals other than humans / dogs / horses:
Skullsite - Page with a wide variety of avian skeletons and nearly every genus represented as a skull. It makes Goldfinger's chicken look downright embarrassing.
University of Puget Sound's Bird Wing Database - Good as a reference for color and markings, particularly the underwings (which tend to be a lot less interesting than you'd think).
Digimorph - Stupid name (it sounds like a terrible action figure line). Amazing site. Gives you the ability to look at every imaginable vertebrate skull in 3-D. There are also several whole skeletons and the site remembers that invertebrates are animals too.
Gaping Maws - This one's more just for fun, but it's a surprisingly good source for photo reference.
Whew... now what can I blog about?

Comparing the AA4A Books 3: Calderon

Part One, Part Two.
I'll try to keep this one brief, at least compared to the previous review. This one won't be as image-heavy either. Simply put, this book may be my favorite of the three although I wouldn't use it alone.
The first thing you'll probably notice is that this book has loads and loads of text. This isn't a book for people expecting big giant scientifically-minded diagrams like we saw in Goldfinger. The entire first half is almost entirely text and it's also (to be fair, this is just me skimming so I may change my opinion if I read the whole thing) essentially a soapbox.
Calderon is a painter, but he argues at length that if you want to be any kind of successful visual artist, you must have good basic drawing skills. He also goes on about how using anything other than charcoal to draw with, or anything smaller than what can fit comfortably on your basic flatbed scanner to draw on, is madness. And he seems to think erasers are for sissies and that your initial sketch must be more accurate than humanly possible.
That aside, however, I agree with him on the drawing. If you want to create appealing, convincing animals -or anything- you need to learn how to draw from observation.

The second half of the book is what I paid for.
Here Calderon discusses anatomy, and he has a distinct advantage against Goldfinger for a number of reasons. He picks a small set number of animals to focus on (no points for guessing three of them). He includes lots of comparative anatomy studies, as in the illustration above. He discusses their internal and external anatomy. That makes a big difference. And he illustrates how the bones, muscles, skin, and even the organs work together in a living animal. That makes a huge difference.

And while the illustrations are small, they are beautiful. Like I said, I haven't read all of the text but I began to suspect that the subjects were all animals Claderon knew. There's a familiarity and a love on display here. It gives the book a very personal touch.
About the only immediate downside, and the reason why I wouldn't use this book as a reference on it's own, is that there are no full-body skeletons or muscle studies. That's where the Ellenberger comes in...

I was following the pack all swallowed in their coats...

Hello, my name is Tricia and I am a recovering AOL user who has spent the past two weeks being blown away by the Awesome that is Firefox. And so...


Why don't I tie up a few loose ends while I'm here:
* - I finished "Justice League Unlimited" and it was unspeakably awesome.
* - I've watched "Escape to Witch Mountain" for the first time since elementary school. Of all the G-rated live-action 70's Disney movies, this is easily the G-rated live-action 70's Disney movie-est. I haven't got the slightest idea why this story warrants revisiting.
* - I watched the first season of "Entourage" and enjoyed it once I realized that we're not necessarily expected to like these characters.
* - I watched "Horton Hears a Who" and it was... decent. The character animation was excellent and it was the only feature-length Dr. Seuss book-based movie that didn't give me a violent reaction.
* - I watched "Hellboy 2" and just basked in the Wayne D. Barlowe-designed awesome. I am very excited to see what DelToro does with The Hobbit. (A Barlowe-Smaug would make me very happy.)
* - After reading about the Pine Siskin invasion during the Great Backyard Bird Count, I got a finch sock (King Gerald's Banquet Hall!) just to see what would show up. I haven't hung it yet but will do so soon after posting this.

I hope to start on reviewing the various Animal Anatomy for Artists (henceforth AA4A) books I've mentioned a while ago. Be prepared for some very, very long posts.
By the way, if I got Fleet Foxes stuck in your head (not that that's a bad thing), this is probably the best way to get them out.