[AND I REQUEST A REFUND]
It's official now. I'm not the biggest fan of supernatural phenomenas but now I believe in everything in this world needs to co-exist with the opposite counter part.

I am VERY lucky to be blessed and gifted with creativity and able to come up with may-be-unpractical but new ideas. Especially fictional stories. I don't think I'm the best, but I am confident I can make up pretty entertaining stories and I'm proud of it. Except everything good comes with everything bad and my "bad" payment for this is that I CAN'T CREATE ANY STORIES WITH THE MAIN CHARACTER BEING MY FAVORITE CHARACTER.

What about Verardi Famiglia you say? Well I don't DISLIKE Vincenzo Verardi the 4th... but he is definitely NOT my favorite at ALL. He's fun to draw and a cool character to lead the story with but I had to give him some time to grow on me. I used to pretty much dislike him (not as much as Val) when I first started writing VF. For me, Verardi the 3rd is HANDS DOWN my most favorite character. Other favorites are Raniero, and Cecilio... and the hacker and the chef I've never mentioned before. NONE OF THEM works as the main character nor main character worthy!

[UPDATES AND SOME MORE ANGST]
I was complaining about the whole favorite character things because of the comic I'm working on for Morning International Manga Competition. I was totally going to keep my old rough draft from a year ago but of course I just had to let my beta readers read it. The one opinion that stood out was "the main character didn't make sense". Meaning that the main character was unbelievable and unrealistic because he really didn't have much reason to believe in Doppelgängers other than peer pressure? Even then we was believed in them too much and reacted TOO extremely for his situation. I re-wrote the story like TWICE to make sure he had a reason and then I got stuck multiple times before I realized the freakin main character just didn't work! His personality, his life, and how he thinks prevents the story from being good in every sense.


Unfortunately I liked this character... a LOT. Personality wise, looks wise, pretty much everything about the original main character was likeable for me. He was definitely a cool guy to hang out and optimistic enough but not too much for him to be bubbly happy. But obviously those kind of people are VERY hard to convince that something like Doppelgängers even exist and it takes much more pages and unnecessary dialogs and monologues which makes the climax hasty and rushed.


To fix this I finally scrapped the original character idea and made a completely different guy to be in his spot... someone who can't be content with what he has already, ambitious to be accepted and succeed but in massive stress because everything he does seem to go the wrong way for him, and emotionally unstable because he's an extremist. Or putting it simply someone that I would go up to and say "get some balls" and kick him in the groins. But it ANNOYS me because he's so much more prone to cause what it should happen in the storyline, and makes so much sense for him to take extreme actions! Also because of this new character it made the story so much more creepier than it did before and rightfully placed "You're Not Alone" in the horror/mystery category like it should be. DAMN!!

I think the only story I have with the main character being my favorite character is "Absolute Eschatology" and "Acid Rain". Actually scratch out "Acid Rain" because I don't really care for the main character and she's my favorite just because there's no likeable character in the story other than her. Zii-Lei from "Absolute Eschatology" is a beautiful character though :D He is so messed up but something about him is so loveable and motivated to do things right without being arrogant or crazy LOVE that kid.

ANYWAYZ. I made sure the new character design slightly resembles the original and he appears in the comic as a cameo so hopefully in the future he can have a major role in something else. Until the time, so long!

[DEATH OF MY BEST FRIEND]
NOT a person.
It's my mechanical pencil I think I told people about... the one I used it all through high school 'til now. That pencil was amazing... STAEDTLER Professional Technical Graphing mechanical pencil 0.3mm at least 3 to 4 model generations older than what they currently make. I think I bought it RIGHT before they cancelled it too. I consider my self being pretty un-nostalgic but to think MOST of my drawings I kept and have in my portfolio were sketched/drawn with this pencil and even worse, to look back at all my original VF pages were drawn with it... I truly think it has part of my soul embedded in it.

But now it's beyond repairable since the spring that makes the lead come out is either rusted or too old and the metal clasp to hold the lead in place is so loose it either breaks the lead or slips while I'm drawing. It wouldn't be THAT much of a trouble if I use a harder 0.3 lead but since my favorite is the freakin 2B 0.3 lead any kind of mechanical flaws would snap the lead instantly. Also that thing has so much pieces missing it's funny. So it joined my other mechanical pencil I used all through middle school which I drew the oldest illustration in my portfolio with which I BIT THE HELL OUT OF and made the weight balance went totally screwy and I couldn't draw with anymore. Now I'm using a Pentel pencil, my back-up pencil until I find another one that suits me. The pentel one is the closest fit to my hands except the balance is a tad bit off and it's too light weight for my liking. Although the thickness is helping my fingers with the grip.

Since I'm working on this contest and seriously looking into being a professional comic/manga artist I guess it's a good timing for me to move on to the next step... and I'm TRYING to accept this change as a symbol for the next big challenge but it's really really REALLY hard for me to adjust the tool I've been using EVERY day for over 8 years now. I'll miss it.

[HERE'S MY ABSENCE NOTICE, TEACHER]
With forged signature and without a doctor's note.

I'm forced to stop updating until I'm done with "You're Not Alone". I'd love to keep on posting but life is already forcing me to not work on it at least 3 days every week so I really need to spend the rest in drawing the pages so I can send it off asap. I wish I don't have to... but people just can't accept me working on art and refuse to understand my passion and love to be obsessed with what I dedicate my life to.

Thinking back, my life is all about other people preventing me from drawing <__<;;;
But the stress caused by that struggle has produced MANY good stories since the stories are all my escape routes from reality so like I said earlier; everything that exists needs to have it's opposite counterpart. 
Hopefully if I succeed in my art career enough people will WANT me to draw as much as possible and that would be THE BEST thing that could happen to me. 

I'll be back around mid December so I'll see you all then!

[EVEN IF I NEVER OWNED GB ADVANCE]
I was not into games at the exact time. I have everything else even the bulky first generation GB!

Anyways after posting [THIS ARTICLE] on my two different styles and mentioning it on my [DEVIANT ART POST], I got some insightful replies and messages on it I just had to rant about it a little more. I mean, people paid MORE attention to my styles than the person who actually DRAWS them... WAY TO BE FAIL SELF!!! So to regain my rightful status of being THE artist I paid attention to the REAL differences between VF style and DM style.

First off I didn't explain clearly WHY VF style became my primary style. Answer is simple:

Because VF style is much more difficult to express expressions, it made me become more expressive when I'm in my sketching phase even if I'm drawing in DM style. Since it's what I draw initially, it just naturally became my default. Even if I've been practicing and developing DM style ever since I got interested in drawing. If the two styles were humans of the same sex... it would make one hell of a drama-tastic romance story.
Is my sketches always this colorful? YES. I usually use about minimum 3 layers of sketch before even considering inking. Because I color Vince's hair in flat black, I only need to know the general direction of the hair/air so I purposely left that out FYI.


Here's VF style Vince; all familiar and friendly(?)...



And I kid you not it's the same Vince, just in DM style. You don't see those band-aid eyebrows anywhere.

As you can see, DM style is MUCH more easier to draw facial expressions and angles just because of those stupid eye balls! Because of it I try to make everything more realistic and try to make the lines thinner accordingly. I just don't have to exaggerate features on this so the hair doesn't defy gravity (as obviously).

Now with the VF style, the lines are MUCH more bold and pronounced to fit the simplicity and lack of delicacy in the eyes. The white-out side against the black shadows needs to be placed a bit higher and curved more to express that joyful arrogance, and to really let the viewers know he's looking down at you, the lower eye lid must be drawn in or else he'll just look like he's facing straight forward. The chin/jaw line needs to be thicker for the shadow effect and eye shape needed to be modified and made larger for more impact. Without the actual eye the focal point becomes lost so I need to really make them stand out. To show he's tilting his head back a bit TO look down at the camera I ignore gravity and let the hair act like a movement/direction line. By making majority of the bangs flow towards a certain way it makes a subtle movement to the head that suggests it's titING back even if it's a still, and it naturally creates a eye flow towards the face/eye area. When really the hair SHOULD be flowing like it's in the DM style. Also the mouth is another area that needs to be exaggerated to show the EVIL in the smile. The emotions are expressed usually by the dilation of the pupil/iris and quite obviously VF style doesn't have the benefit. Facial wrinkles and creases are HIGHLY looked down upon human forms in art (the reason why I despise realistic 3D human models... unless you go Blizzard/Lucas quality you just don't have enough on faces... the one thing I absolutely DESPISED about FFVII Advent Children) but in VF style I am forced to use them for expressions and for age. In the story line of Verardi Famiglia he's mostly 21 ~ 23 range and because I make the eyes larger than it's supposed to be he looks younger automatically. To counter or buffer the effect I need to add wrinkles in places or else he'd look like late teens easily. I completely ignored this effect when I first using this style thus he looks WAY younger than he really was.

[IN THE END]
So here you are, the more OBVIOUS comparison and more in-depth description between the styles. It came out more like "how much thought and effort you need to put it when you don't have eye balls" description than anything else. When there is so much thought process involved, why haven't I noticed the pretty obvious differences you ask? Well, because I never draw a same character with different styles! Vince will stay in VF style, and other characters used in DM style, stays in DM except for maybe special occasions like these. But I do thank people who pointed out the differences for me to be curious enough to find them out my self.

Thank you for reading!

[WHAT THE HELL IS "BLACKSTARR513"]
It's a name for Sires R. Black aka Evil Apple's trademark/logo/identity/brand. Of course it's official and has an actual PAID copyright on it (OMG I DIDN'T CHEAT OUT THIS TIME?! OMG I DIDN'T!!) but not the logo. That's only trade marked because I know for sure I'll have more than the one I have at the moment so might as well not pay for ALL of the ideas I come up with you know? This is the reason why I can't have a tattoo.

Anyways PLENTY of people asked me the meaning behind this name because EVERYTHING HAS TO HAVE DOUBLE, TRIPLE, QUADRUPLE MEANINGS to everything I come up with. I'm sure that's why people even asked. It won't be me if I just said because it sounded cool.

[HISTORY BOOK PAGE #513]
Before I reveal what's behind the curtain, I thought it'll be interesting to see how much my logo changes over time:( CLICK HERE TO GO ON THE TOUR... )
[BREAKDOWN OF THE NAME]
It's easier to list the reasons than really explaining so here it is!

BLACKSTARR-

• Star that shines with light not visible to the human eye in the dark sky but the fact that it's there never changes.
• Dark colored star that can be chosen to be seen depending on if it wants to be in a dark or light environment.
• Black is my favorite color.
• Stars reminds me of throwing stars. They can be sharp and shiny. And deadly with precision.
• Extra "r" is just for show, the meaningless extra we put on ourselves to pretend you can hope to be extraordinary.
• Being superficial with the shape of the triangle/pyramid and the pentacle. Both are commonly used as balance, stability, and chaos.

513-

• 5 for the fifth day of the week, 13th, so "friday the thirteenth" for a good luck jinx.
• 1, 3, and 5 are my favorite numbers.
• Stars have 5 sides. Goes with the rest of the name.
• 5 also represents "life" in the Japanese language and it's the main focal point in my art/stories.
• 1 stands for the best, and the only one, individuality, special, and the beginning.
• 3 is just a lucky number, and reoccurs in my life constantly. I wanted to add the number 4 but decided not to just so there were only 3 digits.
• 3 is also a very important number in any math related object/theories, and the reason I chose the "star" since it contains 5 pyramids, with 1 pentagon. The star it self is the symbol of "513".
• All three or 513 it self is an odd number for "nothing is fair in this universe, but being odd is what stabilizes the world".
• 3 is a magic number in the art world.
• 5 & (1+3) = 54 and switch the two numbers to get 45. 45 degrees is the magic degree of beauty.
• 1+3 = 4. 4 is also known/read as "death" in Japan and because of that they don't have traditional holidays on April. It's also said that Buddha was born in April to become god or to save the world that even the gods abandoned... My hopes and dreams that I want to change and cherish this god-abandoned world that we live in.
• 54 also my love for irony, placing life and death right beside each other to symbolize they both need to exist to have the other.
• ALSO 5th of April is my birth day which I am absolutely in LOVE to be born on this specific day for the above reason.
• 4 is the side of the perfect square which I finally incorporated in the new logo design.
• 5+1 = 6, or the 6 sides of a dice/cube. The dice for me is the symbol of chances.
• 5+1+3 = 9. 9 is the number for "suffering" and "pain" in the japanese language and it's my determination to go through any obstacles I need to go through to do what I think is right.
• 5+3 = 8. 8 sideways is infinite, for "infinite possibilities"
• 8 is also my life number in numerology, which I don't believe in, but it's a cool thought that everything can be explained in math.
• All the numbers I mentioned are related to the Kaballah's Sephirots. I chose the ones that means to me the most, and I did so to respect the imaginations and thoughts our ancestors used to understand the world using myths, automatically symbolizing my respect towards human history and philosophy, the development of your culture and reminder to my self that we are still developing as a human, individually and as an society.

That's ALL I can remember since I came up with "BlackStarr" in middle school and "513" in high school. I know I did more in-depth research with numbers and this actually was triggered when we were learning proofs in math class. I'm sure some people would be surprised how superficial some of the description sounded like... coming out from a science loving atheist WTF?!

But atheism, is just as superficial as having an religeon. Us humans have much more to learn and I appreciate the fact that we WANT to know what's out there. The curiosity, the will to think outside the box to want to figure out how things work is what I think the most valuable trait in humans. You can't cut open a path to a certain direction unless you already have a base ground to cut the path on, which I think is what our ancestors did with myths and stories. It's our mission to prove the ground we stand on right or wrong, and pass it on to the next generation and that generation should prove us wrong or right, continue. That's what we do in the genetic level, and us humans are gifted as such things as the outer most layer of our brain to do so in the thought level. 

I want others to prove me wrong or right with my thoughts and understandings. I want others to know what I think and my valuable ideas to spread to the world and to the future. Not for the sake of my self nor others. Sorry guys but I have NO hope for humanity as it is, but there is always a possibility for everything and anything until proven otherwise. For that meaningless possibility, I want to create towards my death. Even I'm just one of the stars out there in the galaxy, and it may be too far for some of us to see, I'm still amongst the countless stars that can see me, being effected by the gravitational pulls and chemical reactions of others and never alone. To those that matters and to those that care to look, it's there and it exists. Humans are nothing different than the galaxy or the molecules. We need everything and everything to live and to die.

I condensed all those thoughts in the simplest form of "BlackStarr513".  

[MAIN TITLE IS A BIT MISLEADING]
Beware. Happy 13th!

[ORGANIZATION AND CLARIFICATION]
If anyone bothers to look on the tag list I have, I changed around things quite a bit. The reason for the sudden organizing is that I want to finally get into... routine. I think it'll help me with my future and I read a very insightful article on Behance Network about organization and how creativity driven people can use it for their benefit. I updated my profile too, for a constant notice but from now on:

"Records of World Damnation"
Sires Black's Online Journal

UPDATED EVERY TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS
with random rants, findings, essays, personal reviews, comics and pieces of her life
all while trying to take over the world!

So I made sure the tags are all understandable and useful for a long time. If you find ANYTHING you want this grammar-stupid to write about, read more of, or interesting/funny things you find online, comment or message me ANY time. Thursdays are my reply to comments and message days so if you don't get a reply real soon the chances are I read them and waiting until the last minute to reply. I love reading comments so please do so without hesitation!

[VF STYLE vs DEMO STYLE]
Yes I finally named two of my main styles. FINALLY. From now on I'll reference them as these. Since today is a GREAT day to start my articles(?) I decided to cover a pretty essential part of my art career. I think I'm one of the rare artists to have two different styles used both at the same time (not including realistic) and used very randomly so I wanted to just rant about it here.

VF STYLE is taken from the title "Verardi Famiglia" since this style was first used and only used whithin this web comic. It eventually went beyond it's borders and finally became my default style. I was going to put a better title but I found out it was too late. Heavily influenced by Jamie Hewlett's "Gorillaz" style and Tim Burton characters, the eyes are colored pitch black or white. Without the distraction of the eyes, the expressions are purely dependant on how I express the images with facial movements, angles and colors. ( continue reading... )

[THE SEPARATE ENTITIES]
My good friend mentioned a good point; why not keeping a style and sticking to one?
I've been contemplating that ever since VF style was in effective. Hell I was even planning on not using the style out side of "Verardi Famiglia". It really does make my art unstable in it's own way and I won't have a set trade mark.
But I realized, both styles represents my self. If you don't know me in person you'd be amused how much fun I have with just arguing with my self and debate about things. I have two pretty polar opposite "sides" that likes different things. So embracing both styles is like embracing my self as it is. So I have finally made the decision to trash the possibility of picking one style to stick with. Also it CAN be a benefit to have different styles. Now, it's up to me to choose wisely which to use when. The hardest part!