I posted a new image in the projects section. It was an attempt at using Color Dodge and Color Burn to do better shading. It came out reasonably well, though the inks are atrocious. Have a look.
     For those of you who don't know, the Penny Arcade reference is to this PA strip where Gabe & Tycho completely bash people who thought Crystal Chronicles was expensive. They're not really honoring the other side of the debate though. A lot of people are misinformed about the game, and many think that they have to have a GBA to play. It's not being an asshole, it's being naive. And I can totally understand their patience running out for simple naivete when people are flooding your inbox trying to defend their viewpoint. And if you're calculating costs that way, it's still expensive. 1 Game ($50) + 1 GBA ($35 off e-bay + $5 shipping) + 1 link cable ($10) = $100 for a single game. Now, that doesn't sound like a nintendo conspiracy against the gamers at large, and hopefully nobody's stupid enough to say it is. But I don't really have $100 to spend on Crystal Chronicles, especially when I have fall tuition & housing to pay and I'm starting to save for Christmas/Channuka/Birthday Season. Which sucks, because it sounds like a good game.
     I think Gabe & Tycho have lost sight of one thing: video gamers are not typically very well off. I spend a great deal of my income on video games... and I still only have a GC collection of like 10, including a demo disc and a pre-order bonus disc. And I haven't bought a new game in quite a long time. The most expensive game I've bought all summer was Lost Kingdoms, which cost me $17. And my limited spending hasn't left me with extra money to buy games either. There's a lot of belt-tightening going on, and it sucks because it's gonna make a bunch of us miss a cool-sounding game.
     At any rate, the guys at PA sound like opinionated assholes sometimes because you have to be when you're a webcomic writer/artist. One of the things that separates webcomics from syndicated comics is that you don't have to be a pussy-footed wimp when you write your comics. You can have an opinion and piss people off, and you don't have to make appologies for it. You can point out how petty it is for (most of these people) to complain about the system. There's no need to get angry at Nintendo and Square for trying something new with the prehipherals. But it still sucks that a good deal of us won't get to play it.
     Anyhow, not that I wanna sit here and cry poor. I've got a roof over my head and 2 squares a day (simply because I'm too lazy for 3 squares a day :P ). There are plenty of people who can't even claim that. With luck, when I leave school, I'll even be gainfully employed, with a drivers' liscence and a car. Hey... it's possible.