Since I commented on , now I must do the same thing. It's easy: first ten people to comment on here will receive a free sketch. Probably I'll ink them, but no color this time. Sorry, I'm thinking about adding to commissions stuff myself these days . One condition: if you comment here, you must do this journal, so it'd be a great idea if you were an artist yourself (drawings, fanfics, digital art.. whatever you do). And no, I won't accept two requests from the same guy xD.

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I'd like to say I'm opened to lots of stuff (not bondage only); you know, fantasy, creepy creatures, comicbook characters... So, feel free to ask.

EDIT: All places are complete. Last one whishes to remains anonymous.

I'm on the mood of watching a lot of films recently. And last week was a very nice one, beginning with Pulp Fiction, and finishing with a very nice season around one of the most creepy and amazing icons of history of cinema: Nosferatu, the vampire.

First one, of course, was the original 1922 movie, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (you can find the complete movie in Youtube). Making some review, for those of you who don't know about it, Nosferatu was the unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, cause his studio couldn't achieve to buy the rights to the novel. He just changed some names and locations in order to not paying for those rights (for example, Dracula became the Count of Orlock, and the main characters didn't came from London, but in a fictional German city called Wisborg), though he couldn't prevent Stoker's widow to demand him and the studio. She won that demand, so pushed the studio to bankrupt, and demanded all the film copies to be destroyed. Fortunately, some of them could be saved, so the movie was preserved to our generations. Sometimes, it seems heirs are the true vampires (something similar happens with Picasso's hairs, but that's another story).

Well, returning to the movie, I must say is obvious, as most of the German Expressionist cinema, the true power of the film lies in the images. Orlock is maybe the first most creepy character in the story of horror films (Nosferatu was the first horror film, in fact). Each scene where he appears has a powerful magnetism. The vampire just catch everyone, characters and public, with each appearance of him. He's nothing to do with the theatrical vision we'd say ten years later from Bela Lugosi; Max Schreck made a great performance as a true blood thirsty demon, a death machine who brings plague and destruction everywere he goes. Maybe the main problem is about the rest of characters; under Nosferatu himself, there's no other emphasizing in the whole movie. Even the character of Dr. Van Helsing, the famous nemesis of Dracula, is just an anonymous doctor who speaks about vampire properties of some carnivore plants. Of course, we must be fair with the movie, bearing in mind Murnau should had some several problems to adapt the novel and avoiding rights at the same time. And no speaking about the terrible condition of the copies saved from Stoker's widow hunt, which means there's some scenes unfortunately missed forever (something very similar with Fritz Lang's Metropolis) and so unavoidable script holes.

The second one was the 1979's remake, directed by Werner Herzog. As I heard, it was acclaimed by both critics and public as a great tribut to the original Nosferatu, being able to make something original and not just a simple copy of the Murnau film. By my own opinion, is a nice film, though maybe a bit slow sometimes. It has the merit of being as a nice adaptation of Dracula (recovering the original character's names) as a tribute to Nosferatu, again locating the story in Germany (this time in the city of Wismar). The characters are better developed as well, specially Jonathan Harker, and there's a different vision of the vampire as a creature tortured by his own condition of a son of the night, eternal and unable to feel human warm again (something that maybe made an influence to Francis Ford Coppola to his own version of Dracula).

And, for finishing, I should recommend all of you one of the most interesting movies I've ever seen: Shadow of the Vampire. Is a fictional tale around the filming of Nosferatu, about what could happened in there if Max Schreck, the original actor who performed Count of Orlock, was a true vampire. The film is a very nice lesson about how films production were in 20s, and some scenes are just identical to the original movie, even in the same B&W granulated texture of old celluloid. But the best, for me, are dialogues. Murnau (performed by John Malkovich) shows himself as a true artist, a man obssessed with his proyect, and fighting against any obstacle in his way, even the dark nature of his special star. And Willen Dafoe makes a GREAT performance as the vampire, who shows his only reason to work in the movie as a way to reach the real eternity, beyond the lethal sunshine he's unable to feel anymore. Some of his reflections about the character of Dracula and how he reminds him so many sad moments of his own un-life are one of the best lines I've ever heard in a fantastic movie. Of course, I must assume not everything in the movie about Murnau's troubles in Nosferatu filming were true. It's a fictional biofilm, after all (the same with Tim Burton's Ed Wood).

So, OK people, I'm just in the Nosferatu mood actually xD. I should make a pic of him soon.

[WARNING ABOUT PROBABLE SPOILERS]

Well, well, I never believed I'd update my journal with such a miscellaneous stuff, but being noticed about how much I'm enjoying with my special DVD edition of Hellboy: The Golden Army, I suddenly feel obliged to make some kind of big comment or something. Just a stupid try to show the world what a kind of fanboy I am of Hellboy and his last film version xD.

Well, of course I must say my first encounter with Hellboy was in the original comic format, and I found it pretty badass at that precise moment. The perfect mix between folklore and myths, demonology and Lovecraftnian influences, the awesome romanesque-like graphic art, the outrageous cool characters, and that particular BPRD (another sort of mix between Ghostbusters, X Files, Men in Black) captivated me at the first moment. And then, the first movie version came out. I found it VERY accurate with the original comic (something very strange, specially when you try a live version of a non-ordinary plot like Hellboy), and a very interesting contribution to Mignola's scripts: the father-son relationship between Red and Prof. Bloom, the non-sickly sweet Hellboy&Liz relationship (with GREAT sense about the big red's fireproof nature), the new creepy version of Kroenen... Oh, yeah, I think Kroenen was the BEST of that movie, though Sammael had a great design too.

But I think the most important thing that movie gave to me was the chance to meet Guillermo del Toro, one of the best fantastic directors I've ever knew. I saw two movies of him before, as Blade II and The Devil's Backbone (El Espinazo del Diablo in its original Spanish title), but I didn't knew him very well until that. And then, he came out with the shocking but beautiful Pan's Labyrinth, showing the entire world what he understands about fantasy.

And a few years later... Hellboy: The Golden Army! Surprizingly, an original del Toro's script, but perfectly worthy of the best Hellboy comic storylines. I think for me and a lot of people, that movie was some sort of Pan's Labyrinth spiritual sequel, besides the second film adventure of the red demon. For me it's one of the best fantasy elements displays I've ever seen in cinema since Jim Henson's Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. Once I came out from the cinema, I fell in need of see more of that magical word inside del Toro's mind. Maybe I should go point by point first:

-Hellboy universe: of course, keeping the previous universe around Hellboy and the BPRD agents built in the first movie was pretty important to prevent the movie to become in a hollow visual effects display. And the great point is del Toro really achieves that, with excellent changes. Hellboy & Liz relationship becomes one of the most realistic ones I've ever seen in a film (pretty paradoxical coming from such freaks xD), with that natural arguments about living space, and Liz's worries about her pregnancy. Abe becomes more important than the first movie, and he shows us his most sensitive side. And he gives us away one of the most hilarious scenes I've ever seen, with that "I Can't Smile Without You" drunk version in unison with Hellboy. And, in the end, there's the new guy, the German ghostly medium Johan Krauss (who's not pretty known about most people who saw the movie to be an original BPRD comic character); his arguments with Hellboy and his self-satisfied talking is just hillarious.

-The Elf Kingdom: Well, since this movie I must say I REALLY trust Guillermo del Toro to be a great director of The Hobbit film version. You know, I'm completely NOT against people who loves Lord of the Ring's elves concept (in fact, I was a big follower of it myself), but after all that LOTR's obsession which enclosed the movies, I began to think that old classical fantasy concepts needed some sort of revision. You know, the classical elves are cool, but repeating once and another the same idea makes it stagnant and antiquated. And, as my old teacher of Greek said once, "you need to go to the origin if you wanna become original". And that's precisely what Guillermo del Toro made with his Hellboy elves: creating them from the VERY original Irish and Celtic foklore. I know, Tolkien did the same, but what makes del Toro's and Tolkien's elves different is the point of view. Tolkien saw them as the nearest folks to the gods, some sort of prophetic people who represent prefection itself, just cause they learned directly from that gods. Guillermo del Toro sees at his elves as survivors, very linked to woods and nature, burning inside in hard controversial feelings: keeping faithful to the old truce with humans, even if that means their own end, or rebel against that.

And that's the point when I speak about probably the most faved character of the whole movie: Prince Nuada. Yeah, fangirls, I perfectly understand what do you feel about this guy, and I must recognize you're right xD. In fact, I'd dare to say he's one of the most interesting villains I've ever seen. He's not just a puppet of evil Lovecraftnian astral gods who pursues the end of the world. He just acts moved by anger and outrage, doing what he believes in the deeper of his heart is the best for his people. He's a complex character who couldn't show us all his narration possibilities just for script needs, and I really though that was a shame he had a so predictable death . But, you know, that doesn't mind after all, cause I know he's that kind of characters who keeps alive by all that fanarts and fanfics made by people who noticed about how many different stories Prince Nuada or his own Elf kind can still give us away. As a final point, I'll say I LOVE Nuada's battle scenes (GREAT choreographies, no matter some people says del Toro doesn't know to film action moments), and his absolutely well-designed silver blade-lance (I'm the only one who thinks that weapon looks like the mythical Gae Bolga of Cu Chulainn?)

-The Magic world: I know, this is becoming too long, so I'll try to resume everything about the magic world in this single point. I'm sure the first scene coming to everyone's mind is the Troll Market. You know, I'd vote for it as one of the best film scenes ever, near to the famous Mos Eisley cantina scene at the first Star Wars movie. And THAT's precisely what I found in the Troll Market, with the nice touch of ethnical spirit: a bit of Blade Runner market, a bit of Star Wars, and a lot of a Turquish bazaar with some isolated African and East-European elements. The Guillermo del Toro special report on DVD edition lets oneself to discover a lot of that little details you'd surely overlook in a normal film watch.

Just for finishing, I'd like to mention a pair of excellent designs: Tooth Fairies and the Angel of Death. The first one are some sort of funny, cute... and devilish xD. The second one... well, is creepely awesome. A perfect mix between the Faun's wisdom and the Pale Man's horrific presence. Oh, true! I almost forget the Forest God scene. One of the most poetic deaths of a giant creature I've ever seen on the screen.

There's a lot of things I still could say about this movie, but I think this became too long for now ^^u. Just my own wish to make you know how much I enjoyed of this movie, maybe not a masterpiece for many of you, but a great enjoyable creative inteligent entertainment for me; and, of course, to show how such a fanboy I can be xD.

See ya!

Bueno, este informe llega un par de días tarde, pero como andaba medio pocho, y siempre vale más tarde que nunca... Pues eso mismo xD.

No mucho que contar, el de mi cumpleaños ha sido un día bastante agradable en general. Ya me he acostumbrado a no organizar grandes fiestas y a conformarme con pequeños detalles. Eso sí, mi familia se ha portado muy bien este año. Nada menos que una cámara digital nueva y la edición especial en DVD de Hellboy: El Ejército Dorado. Lo único que estropeó el día fue un pequeño brote de infección de garganta, pero ya he acudido al médico y me ha dicho que no es nada de lo que preocuparse. Unos días a base de antiinflamatorios y todo arreglado.

Me gustaría actualizar pronto la galería, que hace tiempo que no subo nada nuevo, así que a ver cuándo me pongo con todo el trabajo atrasado. Aparte, aún debo preparar todo el tinglado para la próxima partida de rol que voy a dirigir, que espero poder tener a mis jugadores contentos.

Hale, así de breve he sido xD.

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Ok, I know this report is two days behind schedule, but I was a bit sick, and better late than never xD... So, nothing else xD.

Nothing much to say, my birthday was a pretty nice day in general. I've got used to not celebrate big parties and not needing much to be happy. But I must confess my family gave me GREAT presents this year: a new digital camera and the special DVD edition of Hellboy: The Golden Army. The only little detail who was about to spoil the day was a throatache, but I visited the doctor this morning and he told me there's nothing to worry about. Just a few days taking anti-inflammatory and everything will be done.

I'd like to update my gallery soon, I didn't post new stuff for a long, so I hope to get soon to work with all the stuff I'm behind with. Besides I must prepare the next roleplay game I'm gonna direct, so my players can be pleased.

Nothing much to say.

A mucha gente le gusta adornar estos eventos con muchas palabras bonitas y rimbombantes, o haciendo un millón de metáforas, o tratando de ponerle forma y color a sus sentimientos y tal y cual... Yo, en cambio, prefiero ser mucho más escueto y resumirlo todo en tres palabras:

¡¡YA SOY TÍO!!

¡Sí! ¡or fin, tras nueve meses de espera, de tensiones, de nerviosismo, de soñar con lo que podría hacer con mi sobrina, por fin hoy decidió salir al mundo! No ha sido un parto sin complicaciones (han tenido que practicarle cesárea a mi hermana, tengo entendido), pero al menos todo salió bien. Acabo de ir al hospital a ver a la niña, y no hay palabras. Es enorme, casi parece que tiene dos meses en vez de ser una recién nacida. Lo que he sentido en el momento en que la vi por primera vez, no lo puedo expresar.

En fin, ahora me queda un año entero para disfrutarla, antes de que crezca del todo. Y no pienso desaprovecharlo. ^_^

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So many people likes to embellish these stories with lots of high-flown nice words, making tons of metaphors or trying to put color and forms to their feelings and all the stuff... However, I prefer to be more simple and sum everything up in just three words:

I AM UNCLE!!

Yeah! At last, since waiting nine months, having so much nerves, strain, dreaming about all the things I could do with my niece, finally she decided to come to this world! It wasn´t an easy labor, anyway (my sis had to have a cesarean), but at least everything went right. I went already to the hospital to see the baby, and no words. She´s huge, looking more like a two-months baby than a newborn one. What I felt at the moment I saw her by first time, I cannot express it.

Well, now I have a whole year to enjoy with her untill she grows up. And be sure I´ll do it. ^_^