I didn’t know whether to flag it as a WIP or completion, but the video below documents more or less what goes on from ink to color and… oh, just watch the damn thing already.

Low bitrate is looooow. Sure, it’ll load pretty fast, but holy crap all the jitter and artifacts and ew. You can be sure I’ll crank up the capture bitrate for future streams and captures. :P
But yes, if you have ever wanted to see how Instant Ramen gets drawn and polished, look no further! This particular piece probably won’t be exported as a standalone piece, but will be included in the immediately-following wallpapers I’m drawing up for Blastoise (crouching with his spear, summoning the pressure cannons for Hydro Pump, and a third one I’ve not yet wireframed).

I would like to livestream as much Instant Ramen as possible, though in reality, odds are I’ll probably stream just the major pieces and commissions.

Semi-related: drawing this kinda makes me miss Blastoise’s PSU/PSPortable2 form. I may go pick up the latter again…

So, OMGCHAIR has been delayed for a little bit (I have fortunately located a spare dinner chair cushion to lessen the ow as a temporary measure), and instead I must attend to Yggdrasil. Awesome old man box is 2 years old, which puts him on schedule for some kind of mid-life upgrade… typically for my machines this means RAM/video card, but in Yggdrasil’s case, it means standing by with a spare replacement hard drive because the one he’s got is grinding like he’s some kind of aspiring dubstep DJ. Considering this dood is my house LAN’s media machine, having him die would be, um… no.

So, Yggdrasil will have this thing on standby, but in addition to that as a more immediate measure, and also because one can never have too much external storage, I’m also looting one of these drives. The best parts: solely powered through the USB port (yay no power brick needed) and it comes in blue. :D

—

Oh yeah, it’s, like, 2012 now. If the FX channel has any sense of humor, it will spam the everloving smoo out of the disaster flick of the same name–
…wait, it’s not, but Starz is! HAH! They should just have a freaking Roland Emmerich day and spam all his blatantly-disaster movies. :)

But yeah… if we’re going to hype this year as the end of the world, I hope to all things awesome that we get a bunch of kickass new disaster movies out of it.

Not only does Blastoise’s chair have to go, it’s probably why I haven’t been on him the past week. The seat of the chair is starting to come apart, and there’s something in the middle that’s poking me from underneath. It’s already kind of ow, and if it were to come up anymore… well, yeah, butthurt would be the LEAST of my problems.

I recall brendala mentioning possibly going to OfficeMax soon-ish. That would be nice so I wouldn’t have to wait on shipping, but if this is the case, I would hope it’s sooner rather than later. One way or another, this thing will become my new throne on Blastoise. Yeah, boo $300 but on the other hand, bad chairs suck and affect just about everything down to even the quality of Instant Ramen Sketchbook, so I’d rather shell out and get a nice chair. I would drag my freaking barrel over to Blastoise and use it as temporary seating, but it’s too low to the ground to be of much use. :(

Also, it appears normal hard drive prices are returning to normal, and the timing could not be better. Yggdrasil’s drive is starting to get all grindy, which as you know is NEVER a good sign, so I need to loot at least an internal drive… likely a WD Caviar Green (from what I hear, Caviar Black-series would be better suited for Blastoise). Wee~

So, uh, for the last few days, Disgaea 4 happened, and I mean hardcore. It used to be a little bit of a bedtime thing to fire up the PS3 and go play in Item World for a bit, but this time it was MADNESS and I’m not even halfway into the main story. What?

Also: I do not like Desco. It’s a nice idea to insert a “final boss-type” character but she sets off all the creepy alerts. Red-eye airheaded loli… buh, no. Do not want. GTFO. (Even more suck considering she has what amounts to the best Primary evility for AoE attacks…)

As usual for Disgaea and SRPGs as a whole, my generics are rolled in the likeness of Across doods (e.g. Velan is a Red Skull, Numair is a Fighter and Leslie is a Healer). Not since the PSP remake of Disgaea 1 have I been sucked into Item World and powerlevelling so much, though… I mean, sure, the PSP version has its Foresight “bug” (with the tamed level 10k+ specialists) but even without them it was stupidly easy to GRIND FOREVER. But Disgaea 4 is all WTF– it makes you wait until the 2nd chapter to let you into Item World (oh you TEASE), and it also brings in the Evil Symbols that improve levelling way, way more than you could possibly imagine.

Anywho, my generic roster:

- Numair – Warrior
Transmigrate him over and over until I unlock all the Warrior tiers and then keep transmigrating as a Battle Master. May give him a Red Skull cycle so he can fling the fire, lulz. Note that this references the Lord Knight variant, even though his hair style and bandana make him look more like the Sniper (who gets rolled as a gunner). Also, I cannot keep a straight face whenever I deploy him and he drops the “time to bust some balls~ :D” bit. WTF dood XD
- Velan – Red Skull -> Onmyo Monk
I transmigrated him too soon; I should have waited until I’d learned Tera Fire before shifting. Oh well, I can always send him back into Red Skull mode to pick up Tera Fire later on. Onmyo Monks are AWESOME for AoE damage, though. Once I crank up his upper-tier fire spells… can we say “FIRE EVERYWHERE?” >:D I will probably just continually transmigrate him over and over to unlock the other OM tiers.
- Leslie – Healer -> Archer -> Star Mage -> Acolyte
I know that levelling rules from Disgaea 2 onwards says that healing gets you EXP, but I want her to be able to blow stuff up, too. I transmigrated her as an archer to unlock other classes, then punted her over to Star Mage to get her some offensive spells before I send her back to the healer route to unlock the other tiers. When the Medic DLC hits.. ohh yeah. Until then I’ll probably just throw her into Professor after getting all the healer tiers.
- Haruko – Lady Fighter
Similar to Numair, but obviously speed-oriented.
- Defeen – Genin
NINJA. Unlocking all ninja tiers for maximum ninja action. Maybe a cycle as a Green Skull fur windy lulz? (Though all the Defeen variants I’ve had my hands on have never been able to use magic, typically because of some freak accident…)
- Kopii Numair – Gunner
Transmigrate over and over until all gunner-tiers unlocked. Link him with Hikaru as lovers via the Legendary Tree. This variant obviously references the sniper. :D
- Yoshi – Blue Mage -> Red Mage
Omnicaster mode go! Even though I have Velan, he’s there just for the “I set stuff on fire, lol” factor, and Yoshi is meant to be my true caster. Rolling through all of the lower-level mage tiers to get all their spells, and then a cycle as a Healer-type, and then unlock the last two mage tiers.
- Celina – Thief
She steals things… and not much else. Maybe I’ll throw her into the Valkyrie path so she becomes a little more combat-viable and then back into the Thief path to unlock all the tiers. Oh wait… I’ll drop her into the Kunoichi path when that DLC hits and then back into Thief. Celina Punch!
- Hecate – Green Mage
I’m thinking… cap Green Mage, spend a cycle as any Healer-type, and as soon as I unlock Dragons, send her over there.
- Ouka – Shaman
I don’t like Sorcerer-types, and I only rolled one to unlock other classes. I’ll probably toss her into either Valkyrie or Nekomata. :P

To be made:
- Hikaru
as Lady Samurai, unlock all tiers, then shift to Celestial Host when the DLC for that drops. Via Legendary Tree Evil Symbol, link her to Kopii Numair as lovers for HP regen :D
- Deeum
Star Mage, then Green Mage (or just a single Galaxy Mage cycle and only unlock Star/Wind if I’m lazy), then unlock all Magic Knight tiers and… Succubus? A nod to DM’s doodles of her Demon Sarah OC. :) Then I can have these starter prinnies that the game foists on me follow her arround as her lackeys~
- Aries
Bouncer, dood. Maybe alternate cycles as a Heavy Knight until I unlock all tiers of both?
- Dinah
Kunoichi or Android. Ultimately Android, but this IS Dinah, so she’s gotta have a little ninja in her. Nin nin nin~

Logic and reason and common sense says I should go to bed now… so, you know, that I can wake up at a reasonable time and livestream some Instant Ramen. But once I go down the hall to my bedroom, you know the PS3′s going to come on and then everything’s out the window.

It’s one thing to have Instant Ramen get run on a well-known podcast… it’s something else entirely when it gets turned into a print (via giggleloop) and sent to the freaking TWiT Brickhouse and unboxed live on the internets by the tech staff.

It’s pronounced “Aya-ronny,” by the way. POINTS FOR EFFORT THOUGH. XD

I only regret that King Leo had already left for vacation… because holy crap that would have taken the wow factor to 11. Oh well. :P