The Official Tumblr of Polish Tamales

GUNDAM MSIA (2002) Price: $7.99 at Target If the same toy was re-released today in the American market, it would cost $39.99. Not because of inflation, but the modern toy market isn't priced to sell toys to children. It's made to target nostalgic adults with disposable incomes.

I can see action figures being a relic in a few generations since toy companies are seeking short term gains by targeting older audiences for their products, alienating children.

Just learned today that the police aren’t going to bother with a stolen 4-year-old laptop; regardless of specs. Honestly, it didn’t feel that long, but 2 years of off and on lockdowns will distort time. At least I have some files backed up.

For the old farts, you know the rules.

One bite.

Watched a father teaching his kids how to play pogs in their garage...

TWO HEADED GIANT, THE RIGHT WAY!!!

I haven’t followed along with MTG lore.

So I’m filling in the blanks on my own. 

It’s pretty wild thinking back to April of 2000. Aside from the whole R&B movement, I wasn’t really into Christina Aguilera. Britney Spears on the other hand? Yup, she was definitely my favorite damaged Mickey Mouse Club kid... maybe Shia LaBeouf? 

Anyway, I wasn’t working at Toys R Us just yet, but I did do Pokemon Leagues every weekend with my friends. Since Mewtwo was my favorite Pokemon, I tried my best to make the Base set Mewtwo work... but as we all know there was a lot of design issues with the Base set. Charizard as the prime example of play testing gone wrong. You compare Charizard to more practical cards like Hitmonchan, it really makes you think if the game was developed over a weekend with a bottle of scotch.

It wasn’t until the movie promo version of Mewtwo that made playing a deck focusing around him more practical (competitive). Ever since, the Mewtwo movie promo was in almost all my decks. From Haymaker variants to Tuff Trap builds. It was such a good rounded card at the time where you could one-shot a lot of random Pokemon, but you still had to be careful not to over rely on him. 

Once the Team Rocket expansion was released, everything changed! More specifically, Rocket’s Sneak Attack really screwed over anyone hoping to play a fair game. There weren’t a whole lot of children card games that focuses on +20~40 card advantage at the time and if you had the ability to strip your opponent’s Professor Oak and Computer Search, good luck top decking into something worth while... Sure, Lass existed, but that was generally played after molding your hand. Sneak Attack was played in-between your +6s and +1s. It was absolutely nuts. 

I would definitely start networking asap with game companies and production studios in the bay area, if not, Los Angeles. If there are cons in those area, I would rent a table and display your work and portfolio primarily. For content, I would show:

1) Subjects you’re into and your primary strengths (facial expressions, body movement, framing, etc).

2) Knowledge of framing scenes as a storyboard.

3) Provide a side-by-side example of a script with a storyboard.

3) Avoid Anime related artwork unless they’re in your art style.

4) Fan art works, but will only take you so far. Make it 10% of your portfolio at most.

Also, I would avoid drawing rule 34 related artwork and selling them (and/or offering them as Patreon rewards). Many companies do not want their IPs presented as such, much less artists profiting off of them. Unless said IP holders are adult related, avoid it whenever possible if you are seeking work with a big company (DC comics for example). Otherwise, you will be black listed… 

There are a lot of talented artists that do rule 34 stuff, but they’ll rarely ever get a serious chance to work with Marvel/DC comics since they use those company’s IPs for commissions (which become public). Unless you’re Bruce Timm, which already established himself within DC, avoid that type of fan-fare unless it’s your own.

Some companies will also offer critiques at cons/events as they are also looking for talent. Ask around, create business cards, etc. Be polite, professional, but don’t be pressured into meeting said scouts in their hotel rooms.