Fanvid Friday: The Greatest Teacher, Failure Is

Last year, I shared a bit about the history of fan videos and the culture and people who make them. Today I want to share an amazing fan video from Heroes Fan Productions titled "The Greatest Teacher Failure Is" that focuses on the legacies of both Yoda and Luke Skywalker. It's a great display of masterful editing and music choice that examines the ways that Luke Skywalker and Yoda both attempted to shape new Jedi for the Jedi Order and how they both failed, and what to learn from it. It's by turns bittersweet, reflective, and uplifiting.

You can watch it here:



A tip of the keyboard to user motherboxing for cluing me in to this video's existence.

Fanart Friday #3: Danielle Sanfilippo

I met Danielle Sanfilippo this year during a fan-run Undertale tabletop-themed game at Dexcon 20 in Morristown, NJ. Aside from being a top-notch Undyne player, she also showed generous spirit when, after the game session was finished, she gifted each player a little chibi version of the character they played. That was my gateway to doing a deeper dive into her artwork and character design work.

So in the 3rd edition of Fanart Friday, I present to you a selection of the works of illustrator Danielle "Danimagining" Sanfilippo. You can find out how to follow Danimaging at the end of the post, and there's a bonus bit of silly art based on the Dexcon Undertale game session under the jump (since it's slightly spoilerish for Undertale).

First up, above is her take on Overwatch's fighter and competitive gamer, D. Va.

She also has a great take on Zootopia's Nick Wilde.

You don't often find fan art of locations in a game, and here you have a fan landscape of the Waterfall area in Undertale, complete with echo flowers.

Sanfilippo also works in traditional media. In addition to animation and character concept design work, she's also made artwork based on adventures and encounters for the Knight Realms LARP group.

You can find her work under the Danimagining name across pretty much every social media platform you can think of. Her facebook is www.facebook.com/danimagining and she's on instagram as danimagining. You can also even wear her artwork. Her fandom stuff is available at  www.teepublic.com/user/danimagining (I want that Tracer tee so badly, you have no idea) and her original artwork is up on redbubble at www.redbubble.com/people/danimagining .

Fanart Friday is an ongoing series where The Code looks to spotlight fanworks created by and for POC, LGBT artists. If you know of any work you think should be given a boost, send me an email at shawnstruck@gmail.com or comment below!

Fan Art Friday #1: Harry Potter and the Chat of Snap

Melbourne, Australia-based illustrator Sas Milledge recently did some amazing fan art for the Sparknotes tumblr that imagined what the kids of the Harry Potter-verse would have been up to had Snapchat and Instagram been around then, and it's AMAZING. Check it out just two of many creative and skillfully composed drawings from the post:







Milledge has also done some great Avatar: The Last Airbender fan art:



Check out the online folio for even more great art, still from animated shorts they done, and more!

Fanart Friday is a now-weekly tradition I'm setting up for the blog. I'm interested in spotting fanworks, of, for and by POC, LGBT artists and if you know of any work you think should begiven a boost, send me an email at shawnstruck@gmail.com or comment below!

Black Materia: Awesome Take On Final Fantasy VII's Cast

Image Description: Cloud Strife from Final
Fantasy VII drawn as a black male with
blond locs. Part of a fan art series by artist Nikolas
Draper-Ivey

Recently, comic artist and illustrator Nikolas Draper-Ivey had enough with random haters online. As he tells it:

...[S]ome people on my page had a problem with me drawing black people because I, a black man, was drawing far too many of them (and not as stereotypes or tropes) when I’m known for having diverse character designs in the first place. 

 I literally got asked, “Do you ever draw white people?” And “You only draw black guys. Why?” In the same morning and I’m like, “Oh so this is a PROBLEM now?” Anyone that has seen my work knows that I draw people from all over. 

...if me drawing people of color as characters and not stereotypes and over used tropes offends you, then get ready to hate my black ass then, because I’m not about to sit by and let us not be represented in a respectful, uplifting and positive light anymore...

Rather than letting the haters get him down, though, he used all that salt to work on some truly awesome fan art and give his take on the main cast of the Squaresoft RPG Final Fantasy VII. Why'd he chose that game? As Draper-Ivey put it, "I specifically chose FFVII because it’s already a diverse cast and to Square Enix’s credit, you could literally tell the same story with these designs."

Those designs are amazing. His work in the superhero genre was already pretty impressive, and seeing his take on a JRPG classic is awesome. He takes the source material and puts his own well-illustrated spin on it. You can see his art of Cloud Strife above, but I was also wowed by his fan art of FFVII's main villain, Sephiroth. Check it out:

You can check out his other FFVII fan art here, his fan art of FFXV's Noctis here, and feast on his deviantart gallery here.

Meow The Force Be With You: Star Wars & Cats

Chances are if you use the Internet or consume popular culture, that there are two things you can't get enough of: Star Wars and pictures of cats. Illustrators Griz and Norm Lemay have now combined those two things to bring you a series of illustrations depicting Star Wars heroines and droids with cats.

The series sort of works with the idea that owners and their pets seem to eventually resemble one another. For example, at left is an illustration of Star Wars-era Princess Leia with an adorable white Maine Coon kitten. Also featured in the series are Rey, R2-D2, Queen Amidala, and BB-8.

Also, since I have mentioned Star Wars and cats in a single post, I am pretty sure this means I am required by law to also post the following video: Cats Fighting (With Lightsabers Added In). Enjoy!

Pokemon Shaming

Image courtesy of mrpresidentlincoln.tumblr.com

 It started 2 years ago on tumblr, when one user launched the "dog shaming" blog-- in this case, a photo of a dachshund next to a chewed up pair of underwear, a sign shaming them for chewing it up, and the dog looking guilty. It caught on like wildfire, spawning other pet-shaming inspired blogs and trends-- cat shaming, lizard shaming, pet shaming, et al. It's hilarious, of course, because animals can't really feel shame, and everyone can relate to both loving their pets and feeling frustration at some of the things they do.

Keeping that in mind, it's a wonder that the latest pet shaming trend didn't appear sooner: Pokemon Shaming! About two months ago, Tumblr user and fan artist davidmakesart posted a multi-image set on his tumblr where he took the idea of pet shaming, and applied it to several of the Pokemon's signature moves:

image courtesy of davidmakesart.tumblr.com

And from there, the phenomenon has continued to grow. While you can simply peruse the "pokemon shaming" tag on tumblr, I wanted to compile and share a few of my personal favorites.

ambersdraws.tumblr.com

inktail.tumblr.com

inksword.tumblr.com

mineapple.tumblr.com

lizapproved.tumblr.com

Dungeons & Dragons Has Influenced A Generation of Writers & How It Helps Kids Today

Artwork courtesy of James Howe.

From a recent New York Times article:

For a new generation of writers, especially those raised in the 1970s and ’80s, all that time spent in basements has paid off. Dungeons and Dragons helped jump-start their creative lives. 

When he was an immigrant boy growing up in New Jersey, the writer Junot Díaz said he felt marginalized. But that feeling was dispelled somewhat in 1981 when he was in sixth grade. He and his buddies, adventuring pals with roots in distant realms — Egypt, Ireland, Cuba and the Dominican Republic — became “totally sucked in,” he said, by a “completely radical concept: role-playing,” in the form of Dungeons & Dragons.

When you think about it, it's not really too surprising. Speaking personally, while D&D offered an escape from an abusive home life, coming up with character back-stories that fit within an adventuring party was my first taste of collaborative storytelling. There are a lot of skills you can learning playing D&D-  collaborative problem solving, team building, working in groups, spatial awareness, multiplication, plus all of the creative things involved with running or taking part in a campaign, like character and world building.

And the current generation of D&D players are finding ways to use D&D to not just instill a love of the game in kids, but also teach children development skills. One author has even come up with a version for pre-preschoolers!

Laura Petelle has released a free game called Monster Dice Fight, a proto-D&D game for preschoolers that also teaches Early Learning Standards skills. As she describes it:

My husband was eager for our sons to get big enough to play D&D with him, and I suggested they were big enough now -- if we adjusted the game. I had recently been in early learning standard presentations, so that was on my mind as well... Parents can adjust the game in a variety of ways to help their children with specific developmental tasks, and can at the same time create appropriate challenges within the game for children of different ages.

If the kids are a little older and you want to introduce them to D&D, collaborative storytelling and some of the game mechanics, artist Jason Howe has you covered with "D&D For 8 Year Olds". As he explains it:

For my son's 8th birthday party he convinced me to run Dungeons and Dragons for four 2nd graders... I decided to take actual characters made in the DND Insider and simplify them us that the boys could have fun without much of a learning curve. Here are the six characters I made from scratch for the game. I am happy to report it was a huge success, each boy had a fantastic time... and so did I. I would happily do it again.

Howe didn't leave girls out, either, and created a number of boy and girl character sheets in full color, all ready to print out and personalize, which you can check out here.

Inspiration Fan Art: Fuzzface

Fuzz Face from Double Dragon Neon: "I know you can wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!"

Today's inspirational fan art comes from tumblr user chilicheesechupacabra, who gave the world the only inspirational FuzzFace fan art. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure this is the only FuzzFace fan art, period. Anyhow, there's a lot more art available at her Deviantart, and you can also wear other art via her RedBubble store.