I've been wanting to make this inspirational-based graphic for a while now. This volumes was released in Japan back in February of last year. The sales of this volumes shocked a lot of people. Japan has a company that tracks all media sales in country. In three days of ONE PIECE Vol. 61 release to stores. It sold over 2 millions units in only three days. That isn't counting they sales for the rest of the week or month. What may surprise many who read this is that these numbers aren't that surprising. ONE PIECE sells millions of copies in a matter of days every time a new volume is released. Every volume since Volume 61 has sold two million within a week. It's the biggest selling manga in Japan right now and blows away every other series in sales. Tell me the comic publisher that wouldn't kill for those kind of sales.

You can actually get this particular volume in U.S. stores now. I normally order these from Amazon or get in book stores.

-Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

My Psylocke Redesign

It was a couple weeks back that I was listening to the Comic Vine podcast (I'm not sure which) and the topic had turned to some of the costumes worn by many of the female characters. So many look more like swimsuits. Oddly enough, few have pants. Someone talked about all the pointless straps all over Psylocke's arms and legs, and commented they would like to see her in something with pants. The conversation inspired me to try making my own design for Psylocke.

I have nothing against the original Psylocke outfit. Back when I first started reading X-MEN comics, I remember it was Jim Lee's work that I was first exposed to. Pslocke played a noticeable role in getting me to come back. I was a preteen/pubescent boy at the time. What do you expect? Well, I grew up and became mature-------ish. I can notice how ridiculous that outfit can look.

A lot of redesigns have characters in full body suits, which is equally as impractical. In my redesign, I took a lot of inspiration from the BLEACH character Soi Fon, a little bit from the NARUTO series, and some stuff that's my own taste. I wanted her outfit to look like clothes, but I leaned more on Japanese culture to match her ethnicity.

Here is some interesting trivia. The Japanese word for "female ninja" is くノ一(kunoichi). This is actually the woman 女 (onna) kanji broken apart. Look closely at the onna kanji and you can see the three parts of kunoichi. It's even the proper writing order for writing "onna".

Gallery

Design Notes-

• Body Type: I always felt that Psylocke's body should be both petite but lean muscle tone. She's not overly muscular. She's a fighter who deals a lot with close range, hand-to-hand combat. She's a martial artist. It would make sense. I wouldn't give her the same body as Emma. I reduced her comic-stereotyped DD breasts to a C Cup.
• Hair Pins: I didn't want to cut her long purple-colored hair. A lot of people seem to love cutting hair when changing the design of female characters. I thought she could use hairpins, because having her hair loose on missions made no sense. When I go to the gym or the running track, I almost never see long-haired women with their hair free. It's always in a ponytail, braided, pinned, or something. I wanted to have charms hanging from the hair pins as a little feminine touch. I was going to draw a green leaf and Autumn leaf. I changed it to butterflies, because that's a popular theme with Psylocke.
• Hakama Pants: This is not a skirt. Hakama are a traditional style of pants that are still used during traditional martial arts, such as Kendo, Kyūdō, and Aikido. They are loose and don't restrict movement, and they can make it hard for your enemy to read your leg movements. If you ever watched samurai movies. These are the kind of pants that you see everyone wearing.
• Duel Wakizashi. I opted to change Psyocke's katana with duel wakizashi (short swords). These are basically short katanas. I thought giving her two short swords would be more effective that a larger one. She could sheath them behind her.
• Senbon Needles: As a sort of nod to all the silly straps Psylocke's normal outfit has. I gave Psylocke a holster strapped to her forearm that holds several senbon needles. These are a form of weaponized needles. They are hard to see and can be used for striking acupuncture points.
• Satchel: A touch I always liked from the NARUTO series are the rear satchels you'll often see the ninja have strapped to their backs. They are a great place for putting tools and supplies for people who need to travel light and fast. She wont even need to take it off to get what's inside.
• No Heels: As you can tell, I did not give Psylocke high heels. That's a cliche that's never made sense in people who fight. I still can't believe Nolan gave his Catwoman high-platformed heels.

I hope you enjoy my design, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

-Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

The idea to redesign the outfit for Psylocke was based upon part of a discussion from one of the Comic Vine podcasts. One person had commented on all the pointless straps Psylocke's outfit has and questioned why she only wears an outfit around that looks like a swimsuit. Then someone asked why she can't have pants. That statement got me thinking about what I would do if I was to design her. Something important I wanted to do was to give her a more practical outfit that looked less like a costume.

I'm not going to tell you all the details I have in mind in this blog since it's just a preview. Once I finish inking and add some notes. I'll make a post for the full version. These are rather large preview images. If you click on them you can see a bit more detail.

The first image is my original design sketch. I'm going over it again to digitally ink it. As you can see here, I've started with her face.

My design will have Psylocke in pants, but check the picture below if you want to see what she looks like with no pants.

Because I haven't inked them yet in this picture. What were you expecting??

I hope you enjoy this sneak peek, and I always enjoy reading comments. Just remember that this is only the in progress work. I'll be explaining more in detail about my version when I post the completed version.

-Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

Why Are Some Still Left in the Dark??

I am very happy for the Comic Vine community and staff that they are going to be taken care of during these drastic changes. I have a huge deal of adoration and respect for the staff here. That can not be properly expressed or ever questioned. It was Sara who inspired me to become more involved in the community, and Tony has always impressed me with his level of knowledge and dedication. Both Ethan and Daniel have always treated me with a great sense of respect and trust. I appreciate those both in front and behind the scenes.

I now sit back, and I watch how Comic Vine had their questions answered in that forum post, Giant Bomb has had various videos to reassure their users that everything is candy and roses, and Tested has become associated now with one of my all time favorite shows (envy abounds there). That is in stark contrast to what has been going on at Anime Vice. I can't help but be dismayed at how the community over on Anime Vice has been kept completely in the dark. Not a single staff member even thought to take five minutes to post some notice article on AV's front page saying, "Changes are coming, and we'll let you know when we can.". I would also add that the Screened users don't know too much more than the Anime Vice users. It really does feel like watching people partying and carefree as you stand out in the cold looking in.

I had to find out who bought Anime Vice through a separate website dealing in business news. Let me tell you that this felt akin to someone breaking up with you via text.

These radical changes didn't happen in the dead of night. They've been going on in the background for a while. Some level of preparation could have been made. This also feels contrary to what was said in one of the videos that they would never sell the sites to anyone who they didn't feel had their best interest in mind. Though, they could have just been referring to those parts that were sold to CBS.

Some people here may laugh at or mock the community over on Anime Vice, but I know these people. I would defend them just as passionately as I would anyone here. I've been moderating the wiki over there for a few years now, and I would put the quality of work there up against anything from any of the other sites. These past few weeks I've also seen a lot of new users getting involved. They are passionate users who care about that site and the Whiskey Family. They are good people who I think deserved a lot more than this. Many are even paid members whose money is just as good as anyone else. What are they going to be doing about the yearly subscription they paid to be a part of that site? No one in staff has told them or pointed them to where they might be able to find answers.

One thing is that I was rather surprised with all the radical changes that Anime Vice wasn't just absorbed into Comic Vine. As I've been saying recently to others. The line between comics and manga is a this one. I also thought that Comic Vine would have benefited from the tool set used to make the anime pages. There are a lot of comic based shows and cartoons that could have been added to the database.

Since no one is telling us anything, I've just been feeling frustrated and kind of sad. I care about all the different communities, and it breaks my heart to see how the AV users are being kept in the dark. I just needed to talk about this issue somewhere to vent, and where I first joined Whiskey Media seems like a good a place as any.

I recently finished a major wiki project over on Anime Vice. I often feel that female characters aren't give enough proper spotlight for series. Too often, people are either highlighting the accomplishments of the classic shonen heroes or summing up the women of manga and anime to it's basic stereotypes. I didn't originally set out to complete some sort of lofty project. It all began when I was just filling out some of the pages for my favorite women characters from the series BLEACH. For whatever reason, I choose to go through and edit all the pages for all the women characters of BLEACH.

These just aren't simple one paragraph profiles. I condensed the information for all of these characters. That includes their origin, creation, story arcs, and powers. Each character's story in the canon manga is tightly condensed to give the reader a good summary of what they do in the series. I wanted these to be able to be quick but also informative reads. One of my personal favorites in the series in Yoruichi Shihoin. Though, the picture in this blog is of Soi Fon. She's also pretty cool.

In total, I edited about 26 profiles to completion. There are more women in the series than that. The others are just minor role characters I plan to finish when I have some time.

You can read about all the character profiles I filled out at my main blog HERE

-Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

Earlier today I was reading about the "Wonder of Women Day" in the article written by Comic Vine's Babs(Sara Lima). It's all for an art auction to benefit women who are the victims of domestic violence. Certainly an all around great cause. Seeing some of the samples of all he fine art that's up for auction sort of inspired me to want to share some illustration I've made in the past of some of my favorite female characters. It seemed rude to share these in comments of Babs' article, so, I opted to just make a quick blog post.

I hope you enjoy the art.

This is an image of Kallen Kozuki from Code Geass. She is one of my favorite women form this series. This is my interpretation of a rather dramatic scene from the second season of the anime.

This is the inked version of some of the women in DC comics that I used in my Batman 4koma about the Return of Bruce Wayne. From right to left we have Wonder Woman, Batgirl (Stephanie Brown), Talia, Harley Quinn, Barbra Gordon. Selina Kyle, Cassandra Cain, and Zatanna. You can check out my Batman 4koma if you want to see why they are all staring at.

Some may recognize this as a closeup from the X-Men 4koma I originally made for Babs' birthday a few years back. Here we have Emma Frost and Psylocke.

I'm a big Emma Frost fan. This is an image I drew of her. I decided she'd like to drink a white whine to relax.

Some SIn City-esque coloring on my drawing of Emma Frost. I put a black and white filter over my drawing but left the color of her eyes.

This is a drawing I did of Cassandra Cain. I really like her, and she doesn't get near the level of respect she deserves as a character from DC. She's far more interesting than a lot of characters that DC gives entire books to. This is actually the first picture I colored using the graphic tablet I got for Christmas that year.

This is a digital painting I did a few years back of the Evangelion character Asuke Langley Soryu. I was experimenting with a coloring style. The characters were originally hand drawn, but the coloring and background was all digital painting using a mouse.

This is Rebecca Miyamoto from the anime series, Pani Poni Dash. It's a pretty funny comedy series about a child genius who becomes a teacher for a class of high school girls.

This is an image of C.C. from Code Geass. She is an immortal who was held captive by the evil Britannian Empire. This is my interpretation of her first appearance in the series where she's freed from the capsule she was being held in.

This is Martel from Fullmetal Alchemist. She's a human chimera who was altered with genes of a snake. She's such a cool character. I'm always disappointed she didn't survive longer than she did in the series. I will say that the series introduced even more incredible women in the series. Which shouldn't be surprising considering the creator, writer, and artist was one woman, Hiromu Arakawa.

Here we have Revy from Black Lagoon. She's one of the main characters. She's known as Two-Hands for her incredible skill with twin custom pistols. This is a great series is you love villains, guns, strong women, and violence.

This is Sakura Haruno from the Naruto series. She's not my favorite character, but I loved this scene from the third Naruto movie. This was inspired from a scene of that anime movie.

From the Eureka Seven anime, this is Talho. Riding Trapar waves is a big theme of the series. It's almost like surfing in the air on energy waves.

Here we have Tenten. She is one of my favorite women from the Naruto series. She's a weapons master known for always hitting her target.

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You can see more of my artwork on my devArt page: http://foxxfireart.deviantart.com/

-Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

For the benefit of any who might not know. I do bake and decorate birthday cakes for my cousin's children. His daughter has a serious peanut allergy that nearly killed her when she was one year old. Her allergy is so serous that on her second birthday they had to scrap a cake because they got it from a bakery that cooks with peanuts in the area. I felt so bad for her that I volunteered to start making the cakes for their kids' birthdays. Though, that tended to pile up through the years since my cousin and his wife have gone on to have three children. I just felt that their kids deserve to have some nice birthday cakes and their parents should know they are safe to eat.

Understand that I have absolutely no training in cake decorating. My first real attempt at cake decorating came up when their son's second birthday came. He wanted a Spider-man cake. I made two sheet cakes. One was of Spider-man's chest design on it. The second was just a red cake with a bunch of webbing on it.

Now, we jump to 2011, and my cousin's youngest son just turned 4 years old. He wanted a chocolate Spider-man cake. Through the years I've been able to develop in cake decorating to the point where I can now stack the layers and carve the cake into the shapes I need. Carving the shape of Spider-man's head was pretty easy. I just sort of laugh that I now make such elaborate cakes for toddlers who have no idea the level of work that goes into these.

Looking in these images you can see the depth put into the cake.

These cakes come at no cost to them. I get the supplies and do all the work for free. Why, you may ask. It's easy. I'm a schmuck. lol I started working on decorating this cake soon after Friday's Big Live Live Show. Because I watched that instead of decorating, I was up all night finishing this in time.

I forgot to add a ruler in the pictures to give a sense of scale. This is a three layered cake that's roughly about 11 x 9 inches.These things are pretty big.

-Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

It was on Friday September 9th that Whiskey Media celebrated two years of the site mergers and subscription benefits with it's Big Live Live Show. I wrote a blog review after the first one, and thought it would be appropriate to give it another go. The show consisted of eight full hours of live entertainment hosted by the stars of the various Whiskey brands....minus one.

First off, I really do have to express a lot of gratitude to the Whiskey Media staff for adding the stream to the front page of Anime Vice. I saw the stream up for all the sites, except Anime Vice and Tested hours before the show was to begin. One hour before the show's start, I saw the stream added to Anime Vice. I spent most of my time in the Anime Vice chat. It made for a great conversation, and I was able to suggest some anime and manga series to some new users.

The Good

Ryan's hosting was exemplary as per usual through the length of the show. Some of the couch stuff made for some of the best laughs of the show. The music was at times both engrossing and hilarious. I don't think I had ever expected to hear an eleven string bass be played together with a ukulele. We haven't seen a collaboration as unlikely as that since Aerosmith and Run DMC. The Dance Central 2 content almost seems as if it's scheduled to be released with the Live Show. It was on last year's show. Too bad it didn't get a little extra time to watch more of the staff compete in the game. That's full of entertainment potential.

Comic Vine had a nice interview with three members from the Gender Bending Justice League. That was nice, but I couldn't help thinking that they were basically what would happen if Emporio Ivankov was ever let loose in the DC Universe. Sara was being her usual charming self, and Tony really seemed to love his Batman ski mask. Whenever he wears that thing I keep thinking he's going to rob a bank. I always enjoy it when James Robinson is on the Comic Vine Podcast. Seeing him on camera for an interview was equally nice. I was rather surprised to see the people in the AV chat didn't seem to happy about him.

Anyone who was bothered by the fact the Comic Vine interview was prerecorded for the Live Show really needs to relax. I thought it was completely reasonable. Geoff Johns is kind of a busy guy at the moment. He probably really wanted to do the interview, but couldn't make time for it on Friday. They record the spot when time was convenient for the man, and they kept it until they needed it to air. Not everyone can just drop their plans for Whiskey Media.....but they should.

The Screening Room for the Screened segment was one of those films that was just so horrible that it was so much fun watching it be mocked. It really brought me back to the joys of Mystery Science Theater 3000. When I saw them giving that film away as I prize. I couldn't tell if it was a gift or a punishment.

Norm and Will from Tested were entertaining, and that surprise upset in their lock picking was a hoot. Out of those two, it doesn't matter who wins or loses. Their reactions are always fun to watch. I was sad to see that Gary Whitta never got involved in any of the on camera shenanigans. As an artist, I was really interested in Norm's interview with the guy who made replica weapons based from games. Norm also had some very nice photography tips for cosplay and conventions.

The Bad

I think this just comes to personal taste, but I very much didn't enjoy the Star Craft 2 coverage. It went on for FAR too long. I watched that, and I have no idea what the hell is going on. I'm hearing all these words that I think are being used in sentences. It has to do with economies, and that's pretty much where I zone out. If it hadn't been for the chat. I might've dozed off.

I do wish the Comic Vine staff had more segments. They have a lot of personality that I feel deserved more time. It felt a little short in that area. I could really have done with more comic talk and a lot less Star Craft.

It was just too bad that Tom Pinchuk couldn't make it for the Live Show this year. It would've been nice for him to host some segment for the Anime Vice audience. Even if it was just a short give away for a few manga volumes or DVD box set. The guy has a lot of charm and personality.

Verdict 7/10

It can't be denied that a ton of hard work was put into this year's Live Show. That should be appreciated above all else when it comes down to it. I had a lot of fun, and it was a great opportunity to chat with some of the users on Anime Vice live. I understand why the Star Craft 2 segment was in the show, but it went on far too long for my liking.

I didn't take part in any of the subscriber only features, because I'm not one. So I can't really speak to that content in this review.

I had to leave near the end of the show to meet some people for dinner. Last part I saw was Norm chopping fruit with a katana that he was wielding as if it was a baseball bat. I think that was near the finale. I hope it all worked out well for them and they got even more members. The gang at Whiskey Media worked hard and the outcome shows. Hope they got some rest during the weekend.

-Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

I've been at the top of the Anime Vice wiki editing list for some time now, but I was often curious about where I stood in ranking among all the WM editors. I put together a list of the top ten wiki editors, and I was rather surprised to see I'm the third highest submitter. The top two Screened users have a good showing, considering it's one of the youngest of the brands. Giant Bomb surprisingly only has one user in the top ten, and Comic Vine has the strongest showing with number of members.
 
Note that these numbers only reflect the points the user has one the site they rank the highest on. I don't take into account if the person has edited on any other of the sites.  don't have access to those numbers. The totals were collected on September 5th 2011 at 4PM EST. Something I noticed in this research was that the majority of these users joined during the summer months. One joined in April.

Top 10 Wiki Editors

Member Since: June 2008 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: June 2008 
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Member Since: August 2009 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: August 2009 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: August 2010 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: July 2008 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: June 2008 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: July 2009 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: June 2008 
Top Wiki Submissions:

Member Since: April 2009 
Top Wiki Submissions:

-Kristoffer Remmell ( FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek.- Follow for news updates: @ animevice / @ FoxxFireArt

Adler's Prelude - Baby Names Part 1 & 2