May 20th, 2012 Sunday, 9.24
I haven't wrote a journal on Sunday Morning in ages.
Today I'm going to be out of town for all day; we're going to Amalfi with the while family to celebrate my grandma's bithday, and I still have to wait for the other here in the house to be ready to go, so while I wait, I guess I can write a bit here.
As everyone probably noticed, DeviantArt has decided to release a weekly blog listing all updates and fixes. Weekly updates... who could have even guessed that DA evolves so quickly?
I have some comments to do about these updates, though don't worry, this won't be just another rant journal xD I'm just doing my reflections.

First, we have the DA Muro thingie that I've never seen it working personally but from what I've read it's a browser-program that allows you to draw and post directly to DA.
I personally stay away from browser powered programs but I have seen some "results" while doing my usual net surfing among the galleries and... I don't even think it's a program that was born to be used by professionals: I haven't seen a -good- drawing made with it, proof that this Muro is probably a clone of Paint and can't do more than that.
My guess? Muro was probably invented just to motivate children and non-drawing users to post visual art instead of using their account as PhotoBucket and posting motivational posters.
It's a bad idea if you ask me, this is just going to fill the servers more quickly. :/ But hey, it's their choice. xD

Another thing I've seen on DA recently is that they finally allowed people to change username on their accounts. Now that's a good thing!
Bear in mind, I will NEVER change my username, neither here in DA nor on any other site. I am now known as Valery91Thunder on the nets and I'll always be. x3 But for the people who start with a silly name and then they find a catchier one, I think it's useful. They don't have to change accounts, move their entire gallery and lose potential followers. Plus, I've had one of the people I watch change username and I got notifications about them, meaning that I won't mistake them for another person or an identity thief, and you even get the "formerly known as <oldname>" message on their accounts, so it's easier to remember who was who.
This is a clever idea, I recall SoFurry had this option too but it wasn't so well thought. My only doubt is... how many times can a person change username? Because it would beconfusing if a person could change it... daily or something like that, like on MSN. I wonder how could that work; they make you wait a year? Or maybe you can do it only once?

One last thing I discovered only yesterday (but was probably onsite since like, forever) is that "My Earnings" voie in the menu that brings to a page in which all your incomes from sold prints and products are found, and that one can easily download this earnings to their Paypals for them to use.
Honestly, are there some people who actually make money out of that? As far as I remember, even if you are a paid member you don't get such a high percentage from the sold prints (most of the income goes to DA in order to pay server and maneinance... hopefully. I don't think they are like FA...) and, with such a large community, I bet it's hard to sell prints here if you're not megafamous. I'm glad to see the "Prints" section has developped a lot since I've last seen it in 2007, but I still think I will never use it: 80% of my gallery now consists of commissions, and it would be super unfair to sell prints of pictures with other charaters in! ._. As for my personal art, I doubt it is worth a print. If I ever decide to sell my drawings printed on stuff, you're most probably going to see mee on Etsy.com . x3

Gaming wise, I've been playing A LOT of games at the same time recently. I restarted my Super Mario Bros 3, finished Conker BFD (I really wish Rare could make a decent sequel now, but I do think it's impossible :C), almost done with Ace Attorney Investigations (that is getting more and more confusing if you ask me: I didn't understood the Turnabout Reminescence plot at all!) and finally found a game called Whiplash that I really, really wanted to try out but unfortunately runs in slow motion on my computer, and it's impossible to play. I will have to borrow 's PS2 for that xDDD I fell like I've kinda lost my inspiration for my digital illustrations, and I'm trying to get as much ideas as possible from games. Hopefully you'll see me drawing some game fanart soon. I'm also experimenting some new techniques for the digital illustrations to make the backgrounds more eye appealing, because I'm really tired of my unprecise and sloppy current inking.

Speaking of art, after completing the "An Anthroid's Friend" episode for Best Thing In Town I've been seriously thinking of turning it into a real webcomic, maybe still with single strips or short episodes but well done and with a more detailed background, and for background I don't mean the drawn one but the conceptual one. I think I'm going to study in order to make RepriseVille look like a real place, decide a bit the map of the city, the locations and all, and then I will think about the plots.
I know RepriseVille is mostly based on my actual town, just a bit more fucked up than in reality, so a lot of locations will look like real life parts of my city. Yesterday, for example, I've found a perfect shop that could be turned into Jamaila's baazaar... I'll sketch some concepts out eventually, you'll see.

I think I've written a lot of this entry: one last announcement, I'm going to be off town visiting from May 25th to May 29th, so you won't see me posting stuff for those days.

See ya!