My interview with Touhou Tuesday aired last Tuesday, April 17.
The show has been archived here so you can listen to it.
Like I said in the show, I’ll be at SP13 in the exhibition hall at Sakura-Con with my publisher, Doujin Press.
Thanks to Scott (@TouhouTuesday) for having me on the show.
Sometimes it’s hard to find the Toho equivalent of a given Magic character. And sometimes there’s Karametra, God of Harvests.
Motomachitencho, who has been kind enough to translate my Toho comics into Japanese, asked me to write a message for all of my Japanese readers.
If you have followed me on pixiv, or bookmarked, rated, linked to, or commented on any of my works on pixiv, thank you. I am honored to receive your feedback.
Often I visit the pixiv page of a person who bookmarks me, to see what interests they have that line up with my work. Once, my book Autumn Children, starring Lunasa and Shizuha, was bookmarked by an artist named Harusame. When I visited his page, I saw that he had drawn over 300 pictures of Lunasa. It was easy to conclude that he had bookmarked Autumn Children because of his love for Lunasa. I am proud to be bookmarked by a super-fan like him.
Sometimes I know the name of someone who follows me. For example, I once saw that I had been followed by Gensoukoumuten, who Western Toho fans consider one of Gensokyo’s master storytellers. I am flattered that he would find something to like in my stories. I am proud to be followed by a highly regarded creator like him.
Most of the Twitter tweets that link to my work on pixiv are in Japanese, and I can’t read them. But I am proud even of tweets that I can’t understand. It means that my work made a strong enough impression on someone that they want to share that work with their friends.
On the English forums where I’ve shown my work, many of my mistakes have been pointed out. The flow of the dialogue is weak, and the characters don’t differentiate themselves by their way of speaking. I’m not good at drawing character expressions, and often the faces of different characters look the same. My line art is sloppy, and I seldom use screen tones. Whenever I get a low rating on pixiv, I wonder if it’s because of one of my known weaknesses, or of some other fault I’m not yet aware of. But even a low rating is an honor to me. It shows that a user cared enough to tell me to do better next time.
Again, thank you for everything. Thank you for the comments, the bookmarks, the follows, the links, and the ratings, high and low.
I put a lot of effort into my works. I try to make each new work better than the previous one, by overcoming my weaknesses as an artist and a writer. And I do this because people like you are waiting to see what my next work will be.
Adrian Ferrer (Sixten)
Seattle, Washington, USA
PS. Once again, thanks to Motomachitencho, who translated Fairy Ring, Autumn Children, and Use Your Illusion into Japanese. I wouldn’t be getting all this feedback from Japanese readers on pixiv if he hadn’t made it possible for them to read my work.
“Love didn’t just happen to us. We built it slowly over the years, stone by stone, for you, for your brothers and sisters, for all of us. It’s not as exciting as secret passion in the woods, but it is stronger. It lasts longer.”
- Lady Stark, Game of Thrones season 2, ep. 10
I used to work a part-time job along with a lady who was a foreigner like myself. Also like myself, this lady was an art school graduate who intended to become a permanent resident and citizen of the United States.
Some foreigners in my art school class had the skills to obtain visas to work as professional artists in the United States. My art skills were not (and are still not) at that level, and so I had to use my web programming and database skills to get a job as a Systems Analyst and earn my visa.
The lady from my part-time job had no job skills that were in high enough demand, and her art skills were on a lower level than mine. So what did she do? She married a man who was an American citizen, stayed with him for a few years until she obtained a permanent resident visa, then divorced him and moved to the east coast.
Afterward, I spoke to the man she had left behind. “She got what she wanted and left,” he said. “All I can do is be happy for her.”
There was some love between the two, but not enough that they would want to have children, and not enough to keep them together through the disagreements that arose after the lady had obtained her visa.
The religious person I used to be would say that in the absence of crimes, abuse, or infidelity, people who are married should make every effort to stay together, because the bond of marriage comes from the gods and should be stronger than earthly differences. The person I am now knows that people don’t necessarily see it that way.
The gods of this world, if they exist, tend to remain quiet when people get married for the wrong reasons.
The gods of Gensokyo are not nearly as quiet.
Those of you who know where the title comes from might have guessed that this is Part 1 of 2. And you would be right. Part 2 will appear at the end of January 2014.
Drawings will continue at the rate of 10 hours a week, but there will be no new blog posts until Sunday, October 27, 2013. On that day the complete first chapter of Use Your Illusion will appear.
illustration: HAL
Twitter will continue to have updates, but they will probably be mostly about food and sports.
“What would I give if I could live out of these waters?
What would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand?”
How about a $50 mythic deer?
While I did go 2-2 at Friday Night Magic with my HAIL HYDRA deck, and while I did actually live the dream (once) by hitting with a 64/64 Hydra, I owed my match wins as much to the absurd power of Voice of Resurgence.
The most obnoxious Kalonian Hydra deck I could think of for this summer’s Standard. Probably not worth taking to a Constructed GP, but the Magical Christmasland scenarios of this deck are without equal.
The objective is to stall the game until you can untap with Hydra, swing, and copy the doubling trigger with Resonator. While waiting for the Hydra to land, Strionic Resonator turns Elvish Visionary into a Mulldrifter, Borderland Ranger into a Power Ranger, and gives kicker to every spell you cast when Primeval Bounty is out.
To be fair, what will probably happen is that Hydra dies to Doom Blade and the whole plan goes up in flames. But I’m taking this to Friday Night Magic just to go 1 win / 3 losses and see the face of the “1″ guy.
Kids: This deck is expensive but you can easily swap out the money mythics with cheaper cards. See below in the comments.
CREATURE (24)
4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Borderland Ranger
4 Kalonian Hydra
OTHER (12)
4 Strionic Resonator
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Primeval Bounty
LAND (24)
8 Forest
4 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Sunpetal Grove
2 Selesnya Guildgate
2 Gavony Township
Emmara Tandris, the champion of the Selesnya guild in Magic the Gathering, was originally slated to be the superstar card of the Dragon’s Maze expansion. During the set design and development, Emmara was supposed to have the extremely powerful ability to summon elementals that got stronger the more creatures you summoned, and official art of her was created with those elementals in the background.
But for some reason, there was a change of plans.
When the Dragon’s Maze expansion was released, the superstar elemental-summoning card was a glowing mythic deer called the Voice of Resurgence.
Voice of Resurgence is evil.
(Disclaimer: Despite the whole evil thing going on with green mythics, I own four copies each of Lotus Cobra, Primeval Titan, Vengevine, Voice of Resurgence, and Primeval Bounty.)
