After trying to come up with a more fitting name, I finally gave up. The editor is going to be called AniGen. After all, it does generate (i.e. create) animations. At least I made a logo.

Interface rework

I changed the interface around a bit to fit the new (nonexistent) file upload methodology. I'm mostly done and am currently adding more functionality, including:

• Version switch - gives the user an easy way to access and download any of the previous releases and see the changelog. Will probably include all versions from the first one with this capability.


• Bug report - a quick way to point out flaws within the system


• Color manipulation, proper grouping and other essentials - to provide more of the standard editor-like functionality

Fundraiser

Probably won't do one, at least not way until a beta is available and tested. I would like any general awareness of the project, but not until there is something to show.

As always, I welcome any input.

You can expect some snapshots of the current interface in the next week.

After a period of inactivity, I returned to AniGen again. There are four main things on my mind at the moment.

1: No more PHP

Today, I severed the umbilical chord, so to speak, and made the editor completely server-independent. All file uploading is made through javascript and thus, the program should work offline just as easily as from the server. It's a big step in the utility. After all, who wants their software to require an internet connection to run?

Unless you count game publishers, of course.

The current issue is that I can't really include a "recent files" column like I had before, which is a shame. I might find a workaround in the future, but it's not really a priority. It'll probably require me to create file elements, which could be a nightmare.

2: Interface re-work

The aforementioned change also makes the old file upload interface obsolete, so I decided to just include it as a standard File menu you'd find in other editors. This, in turn, makes the whole interface layout inadequate, so I'll have to change it around to remain sleek and intuitive enough.

Do you know how hard is it to make things intuitive? Just ask somebody who works in apple.

3: Name

I think the editor should be named differently. "AniGen" comes from "Animation Generator" and thus is no longer suitable - the old project was just that. Selecting few different mouth shapes and times and ending up with working SVG animations.

Basically, AniGen is now a "browser-based SVG editor with focus on the creation and editing of animations" - and I ain't calling it "BBSVGEWFOtC&EoE" or something. I need a name that's snappy, easy to remember and has a set pronunciation. I have an idea or two, but if someone wants to come up with something, be my guest.

Just don't blame me if I use it.

4: Fundraiser

*GhostWriterNext came up with the idea of a fundraiser for the project. The obvious approach would be to go on IndieGoGo. Now there are things I like and dislike about the idea and questions that should be resolved first.

Pros

• Awareness - going on IndieGoGo would definitely make other people interested in the project.


• Financial aid - while this is a passion project, it takes up a lot of my time. I could certainly use a financial boost.

Cons

• Promise - by creating a fundraiser, I basically say I'll do all in my power to finish the project. This puts a big weight on me stress-wise. I don't like being forced into things and I always want to have the opportunity to get up and leave. If I take people's money, I must make the project.


• Ethics - I am going to make the editor (or try to, at least) whether people give me money or not. So should I really ask for finances? Then again, it's not like I'm forcing people.


• Free software - the editor will be opensource and free to use and distribute (probably under GPL 3.0). This means I can't return any of the money people pledge to the project in any way. It is not investment. Basically, I have nothing to give people in return for their generosity and that bothers me a great deal.

Questions

• Do or do not? - the first obvious question would be whether to make a fundraiser at all. I will run a poll later, but right now, I'd like to hear any input on the matter.


• How much? - if I decide to go ahead and ask for money, how much money should I aim for? A standard wage would be about $1000 for every whole month of of work. Which is basically what I need to make the beta. Uninterrupted, four-and-a-half, eight-hours-a-day programming session. But it might be way too much. Okay, I could make that if every one of my watchers gave me $1.25 - the price of a burger - but I know most of them aren't in the position to do that just willy-nilly.


• When? - that's another problem. I could run the fundraiser soon and award people who gave (let's say) over $10 with an early beta-access or some honorable mention. However, this would mean I can't open the beta to everyone, which feels wrong. Also, there is nothing tangible about the editor until I'm in the beta, so all I give is promises and vague ideas. People tend not to dump money into those, I think.
  Alternatively, I could run the fundraiser when I'm in the beta. Anyone could go and see the project for himself/herself and give me money if they wanted it finished. However, the questions is why should they give me money. Beta will basically be a working editor - sure, the array of features would be very small, but it'll be capable of making an animated picture. So, if it's done, why should they give the developer any money?

These are the things that are on my mind at the moment. If anyone has an input they'd like to share, I'd love to listen.

This is the first introductory look at AniGen. For those who don't know what that's about, AniGen will be a browser-based SVG editor. Its main focus will be the creation and editing of animations.

• A - the file's title, zoom and time dilatation (which allows you to slow down all animations for the purposes of easier editing)


• B - currently selected element (in this case, an animation), as well as quick navigation to its parent, manual editing of its attributes, stop/start button and some additional information (element's type and, in this case, the specific kind of animation it represents)


• C - access to files and options (default settings, popups etc)


• D - tools. At the moment, AniGen has two - one for selecting groups and one for selecting specific objects.


• E - layers. Fully compatible with layers in inkscape. E, F and G can be hidden with the icons above, as can the whole of sidebar.


• F - a list of animations (by id) to allow for quick selection, as well as stopping/playing them


• G - the xml tree, with each node providing a convenient editing button


• H - the edited SVG.


• I - the representation of the current animation, in this case, rotation

Interface

As far as the looks go, my two main inspirations are Google docs and inkscape. Hopefully, once AniGen is complete, any user that's done some work in inkscape will be able to pick it up very easily. This should be helped by the fact that everything has some sort of popup with information. This makes the whole editor less cluttered while still allowing the user to find more info.

The final edition will include a bunch of tutorials to show the users what exactly can be done with each tool, as well as some animation tricks.

Tools

The editing options are very bare-bones so far. The release version, however, will include the standard selection-and-movement array of tools, as well as a tool to edit the different shapes the same way inkscape allows you to edit curves and so on.

Object creating tools will also be present, but they aren't the focus of the editor. Generally, anything inkscape does well enough won't be. The idea is to make a static version of the image in inkscape and add the animations in AniGen. Both editors are compatible, so the user can go back and forth at will.

Files

Every SVG inkscape will blurt out is compatible with AniGen. The editor uses some of inkscape's additional setting - like layers and so on - and saves what it can in the same ways where possible. The input file is optimized in a bunch of ways inkscape doesn't do usually, but since it understands them, you probably won't notice.

But your browser will.

So far, each file has to be uploaded first. The beta version will not include this - I want to make AniGen as stand-alone as possible. All you need is a couple of files and any of the standard web browsers to run it.

At this time, I don't really care about saving and downloading the files back, or any undo history, but that'll all be present in the beta.

Exporting

Since the resulting image is animated and SVG isn't a standard image format (because of all the people still using the ancient, ridiculous flash), you might have to do some creative exporting to post any animations on dA. It is my hope that in the future, AniGen will include a way to export the animation as a GIF or APNG with user-friendly interface, but it's not the main focus. Don't expect that in the beta.

Compatibility

All development is done as close to W3C standards as possible, using Google Chrome as the browser of choice. Some technicalities (like event handling) are different on the other browsers and some optimization will have to occur before AniGen can work on other browsers. However, unless I hit a major (read unsolvable) problem, the beta should be compatible with most common browsers that support SVG natively.

This basically mean that if you have IE8, you don't get AniGen. If you have IE9, you might get AniGen, but I'm not making promises. IE is notorious for completely disregarding the W3C standards, after all. Get a decent browser.

The editor probably won't run on mobile devices either. But if you want to do precise graphics editing on an iPhone, you have a problem in the mental department.

Ahem.

Versions, release, news

Currently, the editor is not fit for any release. All it can do is load up the files, provide rudimentary info about some things, allow people to edit element IDs and translation animations. I will post updates on any new major development I do.

There is a lot of things to consider. Interface, simplicity, information value and of course, my own skills as a programmer (script writer).

Public testing version (alpha, probably Chrome-centric) will be available when I implement all tool functionality I deem as essential. That means editing each kind of animation as well as creating them. The interface is almost done, I think.

I need your input on this thing.

If I post something that you don't see working in any way, don't hesitate to say it. I'm open for discussion. There are issues I might not be able to handle without input. You too can make AniGen happen.

License, cost and all that jazz

AniGen will be completely free and opensource. All major versions will be available for download with all code that doesn't compromise server security. I'm thinking GPL 3.0.

I develop AniGen alone on my free time. It's a lengthy, sometimes frustrating process.


If anyone has any inside into any information I have provided, say it.

Nothing is carved in stone and if I find an idea with merit, I'll listen to it.

If you have any knowledge of javascript, HTML and SVG coding and would like to help, sorry. I'm not looking for other programmers because I'm unable to work in a team, as well as keep any schedule or organize my work in any way.

Funny fact: There is not a single bitmap in AniGen and there never will be. All icons are created with SVG. The whole thing has 250KB so far, including some documentation.

I haven't really done any apparent work in the past who-knows-how-many weeks. I didn't do any animated images, I did no work on commissions and I haven't even created a single static picture.

Why?

I've been working on AniGen.

This project started as a simple script that took a bunch of arrays and created an animation to the users liking. I followed up with the creation of an interface that was used for lip-syncing. Simply put, you'd say how long the mouth would last in the selected shape and which shape should come afterwards.

When I finished that, I started playing with transformation animation and hit a bit of a wall.

I found out that I could easily adapt the interface to move objects around instead of changing variables. The problem was that while the user could plan the movements, export the SVG and use it in inkscape, the system had many flaws. There was no frame of reference, the animations were tied to a given group one would have to add his own items into and the creation of an animation was actually slower than doing it manually.

So naturally, I decided to make an SVG editor.

So yeah.

AniGen is going to be an animation-focused, web-based (but probably downloadable and locally available) SVG editor.

The idea is that you do all your static work in inkscape and then use AniGen to make your picture move. The editor will give you tools focused on selection and minor tweaks of groups and elements (like inkscape's F1 and F2 tools) and animation tools.
There will be a tool for rotation, translation, scaling, skewing and movement along a curve. And of course, a tool that lets you animate any attribute. But that's a bit more advanced for a beginner.

AniGen supports the standard inkscape layer structure and other features, so you can pick up where you left off.

I'm slowly implementing all the features and tackling a lot of problems along the way, but if I manage to do this, it's going to be just as easy to make a static SVG in inkscape and to make it move in AniGen.

When I decide the project is ready for public beta, I'll let you know. For now, know that I'm working on it.

This is a response to the article The Rise of the Artist. While the article itself is a pleasing ego-rubbing of underappreciated artists, it is also somewhat short-sighted in the definition of creativity itself. The author simplifies the people to two extremes - the Creative and the Logical.

The Logical people are the thinkers - the "analytical, objective people as computer programmers, engineers and lawyers." On the contrary, the Creative are the artists and idea-men.

I believe this concept is fundamentally wrong.

There is no difference between a good programmer, painter, lawyer, musician or engineer. These are all simply people who use the combination of experience, information and creative thinking to tackle a given problem.

A programmer might want to find the most effective way to solve a logical riddle. A musician wants to find the sequence of tones that convey a message. An engineer looks for a clever solution that will prevent a building from collapsing during an earthquake. A painter looks for a way to transcend the empathic barrier between different people and convey a feeling.

These are all tasks that require more than a set of triggers to solve. The real difference is that an artist can act on emotion to create a piece. This is because art is open for interpretation - in the end, an art piece is as much the creation of the artist and the consumer.

But if an artist lacks the necessary skill, he can never create art.

Grab a pencil and a paper, listen to music, close your eyes and let your hand obey your emotions.

You're probably going to end up with a tangled mess of lines. Only by knowing the context and analyzing the patterns could one consider this art, even though it is pretty much as close to true introspective as one can get.

The real problem is that the so-called "Logical people" lack the proper audience.

A program can be a great piece of art, binding creative and innovative thought patterns into an efficient way to solve a whole array of problems. But who is there to appreciate its beauty?

When was the last time you saw a web page and thought: "The person that coded this was a genius artist!" and when was the last time you thought: "The person that made this art piece was a genius!"

This is the essential issue. The real underdog - the underappreciated Creative person - is the programmer, lawyer, engineer. These are the people that not only put all their creative power, will and experience into the solution of the given task. They are also the people you never think about as "artist" because their level of creativity is not necessarily apparent to a leyman.

Yes, the "Logical people" create things that require you to have an actual knowledge to really appreciate. But isn't that true of all art?

Can you appreciate subtle nuances in a music piece that you really like?

Can you admire the precise - or imprecise and lively - nature of every single stroke on a painting you adore?

By telling us that "Instead of making a resolution to learn how to code in 2013, you might make a resolution to learn how to draw," the author says we should shut our eyes to the beauty and art that is not so readily apparent.

When you say that "Instead of encouraging your child to major in engineering, you might encourage her to study philosophy," you show your own inability to see the artistic value of natural laws, the beauty of logic, the appeal of a system. You tell us to think outside of a box and yet continue to categorize and oversimplify.

I believe we should all try to learn a wide variety of skills. Everyone should try painting, drawing, playing an instrument, but they should also try programming, solving riddles and creating mathematical models. Because only through the knowledge of a subject do we truly gain the ability to appreciate it on the level it deserves - closer to the level of its creator.

Open your eyes. There is way more creativity in the world than it seems.

The one cinemagraph slot is currently taken.

Okay. I've made some mistakes in my life and one of them was trying to please everyone. But, as MLP once said, "If you're trying to please everypony, you'll oftentimes end up pleasing nopony."

First, I'm opening one cinemagraph commission slot.

The rules are as follows:

• No alicorn OCs or characters that don't work in the show's graphic style.


• Nothing that requires gradients (due to GIF limitations) unless you want me to make you a black-and-white image.


• Only actions that can fit into a bearable (max 15 seconds) loop without looking awkward.


• No flying using wings, walking or complex movement - I don't have the wing animations set up yet.

I also need to please myself. I'm setting the price to $25 via paypal or 2500 . I'll limit the amount of characters to four unless there's a good reason for having more.

If you're interested in commissioning me, please give a short description of the cinemagraph you would like me to make and I'll tell you what I think about it. There's no clear "win-state" - I don't care who comes first. I want to do a nice cinemagraph that feels nice and rewarding to everyone.

---

Second, the last episode pleasantly surprised me.

Some spoilers follow.

When I threw my preconceptions out of the window, it was a good, simple "friendship can help you solve all kinds of problems" episode. The conclusion was done pretty well and most of all, it felt that Twilight deserved it. I wouldn't say it was the first thing that'd come to mind as far as personality growth goes, but it felt right. And that's the chief thing about any character - they have to have a plausible backstory.

Let's just hope they don't alicorn it up a bit too much.

Random things I liked:

• Tapdancing ponies.


• Spike gangam style.


• Showing just how ponies trust their cutie marks - they don't question their new destinies and even though the things they do are obviously not their special talents, they roll with them. Shows a bit about the culture.


• "Alicorn" now being a canon term.


• Spike actually asking subsequent questions for once.


• Twilight letting others solve their issues in a natural way.


• Going back to the whole "friendship is magic" idea - the fact that Starswirl might have been a brilliant mage but never took the friendship angle.


• Breaking status quo - giving the potential to show character maturity. In other terms, saying that one day, you'll need to grow up. But it doesn't matter you have to give up the good things in life - it just means there will be new challenges and rewards.

Oh, and I still think Twilight is Celestia's eugenics experiment. I mean, she had over a millennium to screw with bloodlines. What demigod wouldn't?

She is the Kwisatz Haderach.

Note that everything below is my opinion and that I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

When faced with a literally (or film) character, I categorize their degree of 'characterization' into four distinct categories;
Name, speech, understanding and weeping.

These four levels determine just how well the character is fleshed out by the closeness I feel to them.

1. Name characters are the people you remember by their name or description. These are the people you recall when someone asks you to name the story's protagonists.


2. Speech characters are the people you can tell apart just by hearing (reading) them speak, without any indication as to who it is. They are the people you are familiar enough to discern their speech patterns, opinions and mannerisms.


3. Understanding characters are the people whose opinion you may not share but can still respect. Their ideas are the ones that you can understand, knowing where the person is coming from and maybe even making you question your own morals.


4. Weeping characters are the ones that are the closest to your heart. These are the characters that cease to be just figments of fiction and instead become your companions. They are pen friends that tell you their stories. They are the real people that can change the way you look at the world. These are the literary characters whose triumphs make you cheer and whose deaths make you cry.

I believe all characters should be fleshed enough to fit into the forth category. This is what gives the reader the most emotion out of the story and makes the protagonists truly memorable. This is what makes the stories truly immortal.

Sometimes, there are bumps in the road of life. And sometimes, there's more bumps than there is road.

I feel like there's no road any more.

Sorry.

I know I haven't put out many pictures recently.

There's a reason, and hopefully, you might find out what it is in not too distant future. There's also the obvious issue - I don't want to do my own stuff when there's plenty commissions to be made, but each of those take so much time it's not even funny.

Last night, I spent five hours trying to make some realist mural art for a commission. I experimented with my tablet a lot, used brick wall textures and ended up scrapping the whole thing. I now spent more than twenty hours trying to make a fluid animation of an earth pony fencing. It still looks bad. I begun working on a trotting cycle, but I decided to do things right and ended up postponing the thing after three hours of dissection of pony anatomy, movement and muscles. I created four variants of two completely new characters that are supposed to look so specific they can't really work in real life. I still hadn't had the guts to come back to the wing flapping animation. It's a real technical challenge.

In short, I'm trying my best. I'm working on all the commissions, or at least try to. I also try to get my own life in order, work on my own project you might actually find interesting and trying to manage my money.

It's been a bit of a trying time for my sanity lately.

Sorry for the delays. I'm trying to make the best products I can and frankly, some of you don't give me much to work with.

...because that's how I'm calling it. Because it is an animation generator. It's not like I value myself on creativity or anything.

At any rate, the main bulk of the scripting is actually done.

The whole application (I'm using the term loosely) can use an internal database of symbols to create SVG animations. It includes timing with (fully interactive) splines, real-time animation preview, one click downloading (and thus about one click and one drag-and-drop inclusion in your image) and a contextual help system. I'm actually planning on creating a simple saving system based on cookies, so you don't loose your progress if you close your window.

I'm currently working on the database itself. Or, to be more specific, on the symbols themselves. This basically means re-drawing every mouth, eye, ear, hoof and god-knows-what-else shape in a specific (constraining) way so the animation is smooth enough. When I'm done with that, I'll be testing the whole thing, which will probably mean a lot of back-and-forth work and so on.

Future features will include:
a database of customizable common animations; things like blinking eyes (set the time it takes it to blink), walking legs (set the speed) and so on,
transformation animation creator; helping you make simple animations that will rotate, scale, skew and move groups,
upload system that will give you the ability to create an animation from your own sets of curves

If the whole project is successful enough, I might even do an actual voice recognition part that will make the lip-syncing for you, but I'm afraid that'd require outside funding.

Now, the bad part is that I've managed to get the thing fully functional in Chrome, Firefox and Opera, but I still haven't tested it in IE9. I'm kinda dreading that, to be frank, plus there's not much IE9 around my household. Also, there will be no support for IE8, since it doesn't support SVGs natively. Which is a bit of a problem with a web-based application that does all its graphics using SVGs.

I'm primary focusing on Chrome with the compatibility (it's my browser of choice) and Firefox (since that has the great SVG rendering addon I use on daily basis). Opera is nice, but really, who uses it. Big sorry to the IE8 crowd, but hey. Get a browser that cares about W3C recommendations.

As far as my other work goes, I'm still on hold with the commissions. I will be making the ones that I've accepted when I find the time (and want to unwind from the whole "re-drawing 200 vector assets" thing). Probably no cinemagraphs, though, for obvious reasons. I guess that's nice for people who wanted still scenes, original characters and so forth.

I might also be releasing some tertiary SVG assets I've made throughout the creation of AniGen, if you're interested.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Sorry about the lack of updates for all you commissioners, but I'm working on a really interesting project.

The idea is this: create an SVG animation generator with nice, user-friendly interface that can create interpolation animations like pony's mouth as well as the simpler transformation animations. Both from raw data (file upload with multiple curves) and from a large database with show-like assets.

Sounds good, eh?

Well, I'm like... 60% finished with the "generator" part and about 5% done with the whole gallery thingamajig. I'm afraid the whole thing won't be very portable (going to be on my server, probably). The idea is that you can select different key frames, set time they should be shown and so on. As you progress, you see the animation building before you. When you're done, you just click a button and you end up with a nice, minimal SVG file you can just drag-and-drop in your own inkscape-created image and see the magic happen.

No screwing with incomprehensive flash interface. No need to buy flash at all, actually. 100% compatible with modern browsers. Editable, customisable an quick to make.

Sounds freaking awesome. And also free.

I'm not accepting any more commissions until further notice. I want to finish the ones I have before taking on any more.

So at the moment, I have about fifteen commissions lined up, most of which are cinmeagraphs. It's a lot of work.

My computer is going through some painful trouble and I'll probably spend the next few days getting it to work, so no new things until it's fixed.

So if anyone wants to commission me, keep in mind that it might take weeks for me to chew through the stuff I have currently.

Also, I should really as for more with my cinemagraphs.

I have been idle for far too long. I've also hit some rather major bumps in the road and decided to open for commissions again.

I had to up the prices a bit, but I don't think $10 for a cinemagraph with two characters is that much... If you want to commission me, feel free to. I'll try to handle the work as quickly as I can to eliminate the need for slots.

For more information, see [link]

So yeah, I've been a bit inactive as of late. But if you're interested in my current - and upcoming - projects, read further.

Firstly, I want to release few sets of pony bases.

Those will be high-quality vectors with various poses, including action shots, about twenty different mouths (ready for SVG animation, but that's beside the point) and a thorough set of instructions on how to use them. Now, these won't come free, I'm afraid. I sank a lot of time into those and am in some financial troubles, so I get everything I can.

So far, I think the first compendium - with 15 thin poses - will be sold for 1 000 via premium content or alternatively, $10 via paypal (that's 20% that dA would take off). The second one I'm making will be some burly bodies - those will be cheaper due to the fact that there's only about six poses.


Secondly, there's the comic.

I am almost ready to put out the first chapter, around 28 pages. The whole thing will be published with one page every day.
For those who can't wait, the whole comic - including a handy comic book-style PDF with extras, as well as some more gems - will be available as a premium download (or paid via paypal, sent by email).
My idea about the price is that you can pay 500 ($5) during the first week, 400 ($4) during the second week, 300 ($3) during the third week, and 250 ($2.5) if you wait beyond that. The multitude of premium download options will also (hopefully) let people chose a pricier option as a sort of donation, should they like the product.
I think I will be able to make another chapter before I publish the whole thing, so it's possible this will be a very ongoing thing.


As always, I'd really appreciate any input on the ideas.

The third season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic aired and the pilot seems... underwhelming. Here's what I think about it.

If you want to, that is.

Location
"Crystal Kingdom" in unknown to the watcher and its quick introduction serves as an unnatural plot point. We don't fear for its inhabitants because we don't know any of them - there's just no stakes from this point of view. Moreover, the location is so remote we can't even relate to it. It is literally a long lost empire that has just popped out of thin air.
Ponies could deal without it for a millenium it seems. Now it's a big deal. Interesting.

Villain
King Sombra has no backstory or motivation to his name. His visage might be threatening, but he is not a menacing villain. We can't relate to his motives, judge him as a character or even pose questions.

Discord made us question "why" and "how." What was the reason that drove him against the sisters? Why was Celestia so powerless against him? How come he's got the voice and personality of Q?

Night Mare Moon used deception and cunning to try and hinder the ponies' progress throughout the Everfree Forest. However, being a pony based on hatred, she couldn't anticipate the friendship that would stem from the ponies scaling the obstacles relying only on their companions. This is what led to her downfall - her own ignorance.

The draconequus Discord used his wits to confuse the mane six to play his game - they were deceived so that he could separate them and break them. Which he actually did. Only chance - or Celestia's ruthless spamming - turned the tides in the end. The mane six emerged victorious against all odds.

King Sombra was an autocrat that ruled a relatively obscure city in the north some thousand years ago. He had the guts to call this city-state an empire and actively tried to make the population into his slaves. Celestia and Luna intervened and murdered him, changing him to a shadow and banishing him.

Which, as it turns out, wasn't a good idea after all. This apparently gave the mad king most of his current powers. So what does he do now that he's awake again? Does he creep into Canterlot and try to take the city from the inside? Does he whisper into the ponies ears, fill their mind with doubt?

Nope.

He bashes his head against a force field until it gives away.

Does he taunt the heroes and make us shiver with the way he can expose the mane six?

Nope.

I think he says "cryssssssssssssstals" at some point.

And all that while he looks like a second-rate original character.

Royal Sisters
Celestia's stance to the problem is one of a real test for Twilight. She obviously has much larger stake in the whole thing than the well-being of a long lost empire. The hints at Twilight going to the "next level" are obvious hints at potential ascendance (to alicornity, probably) or other godly reward. This is a good justification for the Princesses' inactivity in the matter, as far as she's concerned.

Likewise, Luna's insistence (until she's shushed by her dominant sister) on helping Twilight serves as a good insight into her own psyche - she is obviously not the one who's behind the Twilight project (whatever it might be) and she still feels sympathies to the unicorn for her acts throughout "Luna Eclipsed," as well as the first two episodes.

This is a good reason to make the sisters inactive throughout the story. Furthermore, it makes their characters more complex than before. Obviously, Celestia has a strong dark side to her and she is willing to potentially sacrifice a whole city for her experiment. Granted, she believes in Twilight, but she doesn't actually know the pony will succeed.

Unless she's omniscient, in which case she's just plain evil.

These hints are a good way to expand the character of the princess and give her some actual moral ambiguity.

Plot
The plot clearly separates Twilight (and Spike) from the rest of the team. This is because of the hints from Celestia - her pupil must travel the road alone and yadda yadda yadda. Naturally, the other ponies have their own tasks (AJ's task of lying to a whole city is very deliciously ironic) so we can still refer to them from time to time.

But this is Twilight's story.

So how does it stand on its own?

The moral is quite simple. If I were to borrow a quote, I'd use "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." While this is a good idea, the realization of this is very much rushed.

Twilight is never in mortal danger. She does not even know she's running out of time before the cursed king takes hold again. She gives up on her own hopes - however vaguely defined - so that she does the right thing for the rest. It is not Spock's sacrifice. It's just opting not to wash your hands so the other person doesn't get a jet of cold water during a shower.

The climax does feel satisfying enough in the end, but it's not because we didn't believe in Twilight or her friends - it's because we couldn't take a nobody villain like this winning.




In conclusion, the show has improved on technical side once again. The animation is smooth and the visuals are even breath-taking at times. But this does not save the badly written, one dimensional villain, the relative simplicity of the story and dubious motivation of the "good" princess.
The pilot is filled with obvious time wasters (Go down the stairs Twilight! Okay, now go UP some stairs!) and the moral - while not explored yet - should hit Twilight without a moment's hesitation.

It would be interesting if Twilight flat out refused to obey Celestia. What if she was to bring her brother alongside her? What if she tried to be honest with the people of the Crystal Empire and make them all search for the crystal heart?


I'd very much like to hear your thoughts on this one.

I would like to try a "new format" of commissions. Since I have very little time to make pictures, but still enjoy it a great deal (and like to publish new content), I've been looking for a more fair way to handle commission requests for the future.
Naturally, I found a way which is so utterly unfair and unjust it just might work. The formula is this:

Anyone can use the comments below to ask for a commission of any kind as mentioned in the FAQ. Each comment should include the commission type (like cinemagraph, still scene, character etc.) and a short description (up to 256 characters).

I will wait some time (probably a day or two) and then chose the most interesting commissions to make. It doesn't matter how quick you are, it matters how interesting the commission is. Short character biographies, background information and all that other stuff you know I enjoy will help. I might also ask some additional questions.

I'd also appreciate any thoughts on the format itself.

First of all, I know about the commissions. I will get to work on them when I have the time, but really, I didn't have it right now. I was busy the whole weekend, celebrated my birthday on Friday and so on. Plus, I'm incredibly bad at time-management. I could have done some work yesterday, but I made tumblr tutorial instead. Now, before the commissioners get mad at me, I did it for two good reasons:

1) I haven't done anything for the tumblr in more than a month and more and more people follow me,
2) I want to have a "cloud" theme for the next DPC of #MLP-SVG-Resources and I wanted to make this tutorial beforehand.

And have I mentioned the school keeps me incredibly busy? I have to juggle learning, dA, tumblr, personal stuff and most importantly, not going bloody insane. It's quite taxing.
This is why the next commission batch will only have one cinemagraph slot. I'm sorry, but I'm only one person and there are other things I need to do.

I am a day older again. Which would make me twenty-three years old. Yay me.

This might be a bit of a retrospective, an introspection and a possible spoiler for people who live backwards. Oh, and it is rather long, but then again, it's about more than a year of my life. And about the journey I've been on (and I still am on).

I've been a reasonably active deviant since the end of March 2011, when I posted Leftover Friendship.  Almost immediately, I made another pony-themed wallpaper and improved a lot - Leftover Friendship had that good thing about it - you could tell what's that thing without having to turn your monitor's brightness to maximum.

But my pony wallpapers didn't start there - the minimal wallpaper started with Wallpaper Logo and Amedo, both of which are only getting better as I go, I think. I also think I wouldn't be able to re-make Amedo again... I'm not sure how I did half of the things there are. Took about twenty hours as I recall.

Now, the "pony" part started back in November, I think. I just re-discovered 4chan and was browsing it for the usual good stuff - none of which was still there by this time. 4chan was dead, but there were these little cartoon horses. I went to a thread and lurked for a while, being amazed how this vile and unforgiving place could have allowed this group to survive. No, not only survive... flourish. I started asking question under the guise of anonymity and got a pretty good picture how it all started. Mind you, I did not see one episode of MLP back then. I was just amazed with the way trolling attempt actually backfired into genuine love for a show and consequently, an island of understanding, good manners and sometimes even interesting dialogue.

Around December, I decided to make a name. Since I didn't want to use Aibo at first, I created "Bean" - my first ponysona. There are only few things I enjoy more than allusion and that's the works of Orson Scott Card. Anyway, Bean had to have more than a name - 4chan's pony threads (and ponychan's as well) are famous for posting reaction pictures. And everybody posted reactions from the show. I mean everybody.

I decided to give Bean a face, a personality that would fit mine. To make him a mirror of myself, but a character of his own. I spent countless hours writing Bean's biography, located on now-defunct pony RP database server. Bean's official bio might be lost, but the pony lives on. Of course, I had to make a whole bunch of reactions. Disgust (4chan, duh!), questioning looks, anger, but more importantly laughter, joke faces and so on. I will say that I was one of the very few who used their own ponysona and I think I was one of about... two people who made all their pictures themselves.

Drawing ponies just kinda felt nice. I've never been very good at something that others would comment on positively. Not in the amount pony threads did. I started making pictures for others as well, one of which was a figure called Wastelander. He introduced me to the awesome comic that is Romantically Apocalyptic, where this picture took its idea from. But I put it on dA quite some time after I made it.
When people came to pony threads and wanted wallpapers - and when I posted the few I did - they seemed very interested, so it was only logical to make more. After all, I enjoyed the challenge, creation, growth and all the associated jazz.

And you know what? I did all of my work in GIMP. Bloody GIMP. I can't even look at that thing without laughing now.

Anyway, I tried more and more things - I made few pictures for my then-girlfriend. A cute little pony. A minimalistic wallpaper I love but nobody else seems to give two shits about. I did all kinds of crazy things.

Back then, I used dA as a sort of a database for my pictures. I put about one out of twenty pictures here - the others would lack the context of /b/. My rambling tendencies also got the better of me when I made my first tutorial. I must have reposted that thing a hundred times. I know, I know - it's ridiculous, full of factual mistakes and most importantly, it uses the bloody GIMP. But that's how I did things back then.

The last thing I did in GIMP was the first thing that actually got me some non-4chan, non-friends-from-real-life viewers. The Curse of Blue Blood was twisted little comic showing people what I saw in the show - that it is a canvas, a mirror we can project ourselves in. It gives characters that have the potential to be as complex, sad and pained as the rest of the world. Or as happy as you would like them to be.

The Curse actually put me on Equestria Daily for the first time. Back then, I had no idea about its existence - it was pointed out to me by... I'm not sure who. But I'd like to thank the person, whoever he was. This thing gave me quite a few watchers and I started spending more and more time on dA. I joined a few pony-related groups and that gave me more watchers. People came and said my work moved them. They said they loved it. I became a little less worthless, even though I became a comment whore.

But what was more important was that I grew. I created another tutorial, this time based around inkscape. Again, it is highly outdated, but even the then about fifty watchers made me feel responsible. I wanted to show people the most important thing:

It's not that hard to do what I do. You just need patience and a good idea.

Now of course, I had some of those. I made a spiritual sequel to the Curse, called Curse of Longevity. The pain of immortality when everyone seems to die around you is one of the things that always sat heavy on my mind. And this time, I spend more time - I made every one of those little photos and made each feel a bit different. There are old black-and-white photographs, even older, yellowed with age, and even two paintings. Naturally, what I did was just use assets from the show, but still. I put effort into my works. Each photo has a little story that I've written when I got sad, each one has hours of thought about life behind it and each photo has a small place in my heart.

The dA life was pretty active after that. The curse brought me second place in Equestria Daily and more watchers. I decided to make a bunch of pins. Believe it or not, but I sent most of them all around the world. Europe, Russia, USA and Canada, even Brasil. I still get Christmas cards from some of those people.

What I never got was the appeal of shipping. But the sheer number of fan fiction, shipping or otherwise, made me think about some of the other issues as well. While Curse of Love wasn't as big of a hit as the two about Celestia, I still think the idea is valid - mortality versus immortality. Love that was not be realized out of fear of the inevitable end. And that's the other important thing I believe:

Even though all things will end eventually, one should still experience them. You should never fear what the future holds, because then you can never really live the present.

I didn't want to be a tear-maker, however. I tried to make an upbeat comic about how the show truly is magical. How it affects people in a special way. Thus the Blessing of Creativity was born.

It was a total flop.

I guess I wasn't made to spread joy after all.

After the longest time, I decided to succumb. I read Anonthony's "Painless"... and liked it. Sure, the story is nothing special in retrospect. The ending seems forced and its not that imaginative in its narrative as one would like... but it touched me. And I rewarded that with a picture, because it was only thing I could give that had some value.

This begun - I think - the long influence of ~Wistan. That deviant basically read every story there is, at least compared to me. I've looked through a few of his comments and journals and actually read some of the fics he said were good... and they were. Still, I never understood shipping, even though Wistan loves it.

The kind of ideas I got after seeing the first two episodes of the second series are... insane. I felt what I feel about Celestia, only hundred folds. I sat down and wrote. And wrote, and wrote. I was well beyond the scope of a comic strip. I had to explain. I had to make people see, to show them what that little story arc, that thing felt like to me. I've never finished the fic, but it is still in my google docs. I add to it from time to time. My only wish is to actually start the comic.

Why make a comic that will be another Celestia X Discord fic?

Because it bloody well isn't.

I made a Celestia X Discord with my Sun's Fire. It is not technically good. The lyrics don't match. But it touched people as well. Hell, it still touches me when I read it and listen to Hellfire. The story of unfulfilled love, of insanity, of regret... of giving up when you see what you have become. That still has merit. Even though it's just a ship.

If you liked this story, know that my other story is about thousand times as complex and builds up for hundreds pages. It is a sad story filled with all the little truths in life. But it is not just sad. It is triumphant, it is light-hearted, it is mad joy, it gives you chills and it makes you go dawww a time or two, I think.

I only wish I could publish it. I've now spend about three hundred hours on the story's assets alone. I will make this happen. I must. I poured my soul into it.

I don't think being too detailed about the rest is too important. I made more tutorials which are outdated by now and I played around with SVG animation a bit. And then, a lot more. I made a comic out of frustration that got more views and faves than anything else I've done.

It makes me very sad. Sometimes, it feels like the things that are deep aren't touching people enough. Only the stuff I make between two major commissions, out of momentary spur of mind... I... I just don't know.

I created Professor as another ponysona of mine. I made several tutorials. I aimed for interesting and informative. It works, I think. But I spend so much time on these... and people... they still like the stupid Derpy comic more. Words fail me.

Another tutorial is coming, by the way. And this one is not the one I've promised to make. This one is special. You will see. I hope.

Today.

I have spend over a year working for the community and yet, I do not consider myself a brony.

No, really, I don't. I'm a technician. I'm a vectorist. I'm a mathematician, a physicist, a poet and a writer - to some degree, at least. But I am not an artist. I am stubborn, patient and I love discovering new things. And I am not a brony.

I have over five hundred watchers and I know it's very little. I am the founder of two groups, #MLP-SVG-Resources and #Pony-Commissions. I bought one of those for few hundred points and I would gladly pay it if the other would get enough spotlight. I think I'm beginning to get known for my cinemagraphs, even though Chrome always tells me it's not a real word. I get commissioned for hundreds of points that I selfishly exchange for real money. I get paid about a quarter per hour. Sue me.

I am still learning new things about everything. And that the third important thing:

There is always something new to learn.

I think you - the two of you that read this thing through - listened to my ramblings for far too long now, so I'll end this.

But first, I'd like to thank you. Each of you. People who watch me, people who comment, people who criticize, people who listen. People who care and aren't afraid to show it. Because that's what brought me to this community in the first place.

Thank you for letting me grow.
Thank you for everything.
I love you all.






tl;dr: I really like pickles.