Finally got another idea for one of these! Mars Climate Orbiter is... a cautionary tale.

I love JPL. Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I lived about 30 minutes up the freeway from Pasadena (assuming decent traffic), and once I got to go to JPL for one of their public lectures, after the Curiosity rover landed. I was in heaven. JPL is basically Disneyland for aerospace nerds (much less expensive, too).

Return to Lynwood, Chapter 3

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

For what felt like a long while, they moved in silence. Above the cloud cover, the sun crept across the sky, and with every gust of wind, fire-coloured leaves swept through the air, catching in the Werelupes’ fur and Terra’s hair. They followed a trail that existed only in Isengrim’s mind, as he and his pack had traced this strange old forest forwards and back during the long years they lived here.

He wove his motley little party through the endless maze of trees, around briar patches and over rough shoulders of bare rock that reached out like giant stone hands trying to grab passers-by. Eventually they stopped going uphill and started going downhill, and then the sweet, clean smell of water filled Isengrim’s nose. Below them, a river snaked through the trees, cold and dark.

Although Werelupes could swim, no one wanted to get wet if they could help it, so Isengrim took them a kilometre downstream, where an ageing wooden bridge arched across the water. The road on either side had long been overgrown, but Isengrim, who had been around for quite some time himself, remembered when there had been a road here, and remembered where it led.

 

Why My Little Pony Generation 5 Failed

… Wow, I think that’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever typed on this blog. Hopefully this essay will lay to rest all doubts about my geekiness.

As I’ve been trying to get my nieces into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I’ve been thinking a lot about the MLP franchise as a whole lately, and I guess I wanted to put into words my thoughts about why Friendship is Magic has been so phenomenally successful, why the succeeding generation fizzled, and what Hasbro can learn from this about handling its franchises moving forward.

And then I’ll go outside and touch grass, promise.

 

Did more sketching!

Doodled an entelodont from memory (the head should be bigger), and tried to make it look more interesting than just being a large pig. Actually it kinda turned out looking like a spotted hyena and I'm not even mad. Entelodonts are so rad. I've been to the American Museum of Natural History and saw the real live actual type specimen (and only specimen) of Andrewsarchus, which is nowadays widely suspected to be an entelodont relative. I remember reading about it when I was younger and how it was speculated to be an absolutely massive carnivore, before further research gave it a firmer phylogenetic placement. That's one of the fun things about paleontology--our vision of the past is constantly being updated by further discoveries and research.

And then something completely different: ponies. I've been on a bit of a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic kick lately, and I've even been making plans for an entire blog post essayrant about everything Gen 5 got wrong that Gen 4 (FiM) excelled at, because I am an Ultimate Nerd. I've also been working on a fanfic that explores what Princesses Celestia and Luna might get up to after the events of FiM season 9, because I really don't think they'd be content to laze around forever after their retirement. They need adventures!

Anyway, these are two OCs of mine who I've written about in previous fics (maybe I'll put my MLP fics up on the blog once I'm done posting all my Neopets stuff). Princess Radiant Dawn is an alicorn who rules the kingdom of Daybreak, which she saved from a tyrannical lamia queen. Radiant Dawn is the Princess of Happiness, and Daybreak is home to many ponies whose special talents lie in the realm of spreading happiness. Ray is quiet and shy, but won't stand for injustice, and strongly believes that when all ponies are allowed to follow their passion and their dreams, everypony benefits. She has a real soft spot for foals, because she used to be a schoolteacher before becoming an alicorn.

Below is her husband, Prince Ironclad, the erstwhile general of a pegasus city-state. The two met when Radiant Dawn was called in to Ironclad's homeland (er, homecloud?) to help expose a government conspiracy, and although they got off to a rough start, they discovered they made a great team. Ironclad is hard-working and no-nonsense and can come across as gruff, but he shows his warmer side toward his family.

 And pony versions of Tam and Carrie from Ravenscrag. I was kind of experimenting with getting more dynamic with my pony drawing; I've been studying the artwork in the FiM comics and trying to render my ponies with more fluidity. In the past I haven't strayed far from the original look of the TV series with its fairly rigid Flash assets, but I felt like that was making my artwork too stiff. 

Okay, I'm off to do more nerdy stuff.

 Heading onto Cycling Road, where the local roughnecks gave me lots of great comic fodder. What, you thought they were saying this stuff to be mean and tough? :)

Return to Lynwood, Chapter 2

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

Isengrim led the pack as they edged around the trunk. Soon an opening came into view, revealing that time and the elements had hollowed the wreck of wood.

“Are you all right?” he called. “What’s wrong? What happened to you?”

No reply. He moved closer to the shadowed opening.

“Careful,” Suhel muttered from over his shoulder. “There are plenty of ghouls who emulate a Neopet in distress to lure in their victims.”

Isengrim nodded. “And this fae blade can dispel them,” he said, turning the claymore in his hand so the ancient runes etched in the steel caught the grey sky above. The faerie-forged sword had been a most gracious gift from Hyren, easily the best weapon in Isengrim’s collection. It certainly came in handy in times like these.

 Wrong universe, Cucco!

This poor guy just has the worst luck with his bird calls.