burnt to a crisp (but still light as a hawk)

It's surprising that I can still take time out of my midterm schedule to write here. In reality, I'm being suffocated by a mountain of work that I still need to power through - it wouldn't hurt to take a breather ever once in a while. Between each project I'd sit down and watch an episode of anime or work on Griffith for an hour or two. It's perfect since I'm usually waiting for something to dry or set.

FInished priming the bastard.

Masking out the lightning bolts.

Finished painting and touching up the horse, added the tail, put Griffith on (not glued yet) just for this picture.

Home Depot was being a douchebag and wouldn't help me drill pilot holes, so I took my Dremel and did it myself. Slow and messy, but whatevs.

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Three screws about 1'' above the plaque's surface for stability. I added a bit of epoxy for good measure.

As suggested by my friend, Steve, I went to a hobby store and bought thin sheets of brass for the flag diorama.

Surprisingly, the best way to cut this stuff is by using oldschool scissors.

I'm going to paint these white and add stencil the Taka no Dan symbol onto all of them, then splay them around the base. I'll also be adding additional rocks and sprinkling the whole base with more gold paint. GET HYPE.

Anyways, back to the subject of anime, I want to point out that Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood) episode 19 was seriously one of the best episodes, both in plot and animation, that I've ever seen. They hit ALL the sweet spots and pushed ALL the buttons over and over again; they even added a major cliffhanger for good measure. After I soaked up all 24 glorious minutes, I immediately returned and began to take screenshots. I ended up with about 20 ... yea, there were that many awesome scenes. For your sanity's sake, I will only be listing about half of them :P

I ASSUME everyone has a general idea of how FMA goes, but I'll go ahead and put this disclaimer here that there might be some spoilers, though most of this is just action and me pointing out how awesome the animation is; scroll down at your own risk.

Look at how they "paint" the scenery. Rough, but extremely effective.

I never expected this. The way they animated this was beyond words, watching the pieces of Barry's armor fly towards the audience, in pieces.

Even minor details, like Hawkeye's tears, were extremely well done. Watch for the sparkle JUST as the tears begin to slide down her cheek. Details man, details.

This is probably THE badass shot of the episode. The slow-mo with the armor debris flying was extremely captivating.

Not the most awesome shot, but this shows the sheer power of Mustang's fire.

After watching this, I finally accepted Lockon Stratos' voice acting. The way he lets loose with words "kisama wa koi tana", sent chills down my spine.

Extremely voilent. Almost shocking, compared to other BONES series. But extremely well-animated, and the point of her suffocation is made extremely clear.

That perspective. Look at Mustang's pose and the downwards trajectory that we're shown. This not only displays a very unique view that is rarely seen, but demonstrate's his superiority in the situation.

Change some hues and light some bitches on fire.

Sweet ass pose, T-1000 style.

The way they do disentigration in this series must be some new technique, cause it looks fucking amazing. This is ESPECIALLY apparent when we see Lust's stone disentigrate. Do it in chunks, not linearly.

So that's my image-filled orgasm for FMA. Really though, the production this season is breathtaking. Backed by Akira Senju's score (which will probably be one of the best anime OSTs of all time, no joke) there are probably very few to no flaws.

Okay back to midterms =.= I'm about 90% done with Griffith. A lot of the stuff now is minor details, like adding the reins, the saddle strap, creating some more diorama rocks, painting those rocks, and adding the painted flags to the mix. I might also burn-engrave the Hawk symbol onto the wood, but I'll need help with that haha. Anyways, I might be going to pulsr's place this Saturday for the SBO BBQ. Let me know if you want to come. Peace.