Tim Tan Huynh

This sketch is from at least a couple of years ago. It's the last of the unscanned sketches that I have stored. I better start sketching again, I suppose. The figure itself looks burly. I might've used a photo around the time he's been shooting a Marvel movie.

Here's a sketch of Steve Buscemi. It doesn't look like him, but the pose and proportions are all right.

Here's an old sketch of the actress Gwenyth Paltrow, I think.

This sketch is also from at least a couple of years ago. It's recognizable enough that I know the figure after not looking at it for a while. The arms look a bit long.

I sketched Dua Lipa a couple of years ago. As usual, I used a magazine photo as a reference. The face somehwat resembles the real person. The upper parts of the arms look disroportionately long. I doubt that Dua Lipa has arms like that in real ife.

I've done this sketch of Kanye West, aka Yeezy, using one of the countless photos of him in magazines. I don't recall the year of this sketch, but I'm certain that he'd still been married to Kim Kardashian. The face resembles the real thing, mostly. The bagginess of his sweater comes through. I'm not going to buy any his sweater designs, though.

I've done this sketch at least a couple of years ago. I've used a photo of model Emily Ratajkowski. The photo would've been from some fashion/lifestyle magazine The raised arm looks comically longer than the other one.

I did this sketch of NFL start quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The photo is from the June 2020 issue of GQ. The only part that I don't like is the hair. It looks weird.

I did this sketch a few years ago using an isue of Self from a few years prior (March, 2015). It's the not the best that I've ever done. I can't tell whether the legs are the same size. The back one might be shorter.

I've sketched the bust of Venom Snake from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I might've done this sketch a couple of years ago. It's recognizable if you're familiar with the game. I've cheated a bit by using the Auto Contrast feature in Photoshop, to make the lines pop more.

So, what's the canonical ending? A2, 2B, and 9S are restored and are the only remaining YoRHa androids? Is there a skeleton crew of androids on the Moon? I appreciate the game's story-telling techniques, like the picutre-books and novels, but the story that it's telling is a bit of nonsense and a lot of nihilism. I'll keep playing the game to full completition because I like the aesthetic, but I'll need to read a plot synposis to make sure that I've understood everything. The story is soulful, but overall it's not as deep as I'd thought it would be.

As 9S, I've done a couple of fetch quests for Devola and Popola from the re-occupied resistance camp. I totally forgot about them. I don't remember seeing them during my earlier play-through as 9S. Anyway, they (or android models that resemble them) are apparently the cause of some cataclysmic accident. I've destroyed the reactor core or whatever in the forest, and it's obvious that 9S is hell-bent on revenge. He didn't hesitate to destroy the glowing orb that was imitating(?) a vulnerable child begging for mercy. I've realized that prejudice and ignorance are prevalent in the playable characters. It's emerged in 9s because of his anger and grief about 2B dying, whereas it's part of A2's nature (and to a lesser extent, 2B). She seems to tolerate Pascal who's been re-introduced to the story. I'm going to do some quests for the machines in 'his' village.

I like how the Commander doesn't truly turn against the protagonists like the game's intro suggests. The visual effects that simulate the virus affecting 2B's systems are effective, but they're annoying. I'm going to miss playing as the cover girl, although functionally, A2 seems to be (no pun intended) very similar. She's even sliced her locks at the apparent request of 2B. I suppose that the two mysterious young girls will reveal themselves, sooner or later, and A2 and 9S will get revenge.

I beat the first(?) campaign again. 9S hasn't told 2B the truth about the game. I almost missed the holograms of the two girls that appeared while 2B mourned the temporary loss of 9S. These girls will likely feature in the next campaign, if there is one. The post-credits preview shows glimpses of 2B donning a flight-suit of some kind, as well as glimpses of her with hardly any gear. The idea of an all-new campaign to play is exciting, but I hope that I complete, or at least re-do the sides quests, that I haven't completed. I've been using the same save-slot this entire time, so I can't revert to states that are before the game's various points-of-no-return.

I went to the Flooded City as 9S. He's out of commission, combat-wise, for a long period, but the important parts of the world's story are unveiled through his hacking. His examination of the machines' records confirms my observations and deductions. The machines, for the most part, imitated human activity and behavior without truly understanding it. Besides combat, they never learned anything at the individual and societal level. Thus, they never evolved...until Adam did. His dialogue with 9S is biting. Adam argues that by expressing their individual desires, the machines are more human (or human-like) than androids like 2B and 9S. He has a point. 9S later hacking in the androids' network led to confirmation of the thing that I'd dreaded. The Council of Humanity was fake all along: humans became extinct several millennia ago. That information wasn't suprising, but the Commander unapologetically confirming it was surprising. I like that she's not cartoonishly evil in this exchange. The purpose of the deception is understandable. I wonder if 2B discovers the truth in subsequent play-throughs.

I've done all quests that are available (for now), and the most memorable one has been locating the Lunar Tear flowers for Emil. I'd already noticed them, but I didn't know their significance unti now. As far as I can tell, Emil was a human-made machine that served as a (failed) defender of Earth against the aliens. He's apparently an important character in Nier: Replicant, which I'll have to play some day. A couple of interesting thoughts have emerged from these quests. One is the possible return of humans to Earth. How would humans and androids interact if there's no war to fight? One resistance member is eager to cook for us, but I'm sure that some humans would be distrusting. Another thought is the machines collectively showing the same spectrum of behavior and motivations as people. Some are insecure and vain like Simone, others are altruistic yet single-minded like the animal-loving machine, and so on. There's a couple of quests that have disappeared, but I think that Emil has one later.

I've spent an hour and a half doing the quest for treasure in the forest castle. The unexpected flashbacks that show the forest king, at the height of his rule, are interesting. The game's explanation of objectives and mechanics is unsatisfactory. I've had to find the steps to complete the quest on the Web, and I hate doing that. I spent half of the time trying to float to a certain ledge. This quest involved more complex jumping techniques that hadn't been explained or needed beforehand. The flashbacks and the archive show that many machines have gained self-awareness, and they have enough of it to know their limits. They can't overcome those limits, though. The forest king's followers exported his memories to the baby-shaped machine, but they expected it grow by itself. In that sense, they're like kids who play as grown-ups without understanding context and requirements. Still, it's funny to hear the 2B and 9S underestimate and dismiss the machines as being very primitive.