Ice Age 4: Continental Drift

Having just watched the 3rd movie of Ice Age, I know I have a lot of catching up to do. So when my friend offered a free movie as her birthday treat, I opted for Ice Age's latest one.

On the third movie, I met the saber-toothed squirrel, Scrat, and his adventure with his beloved acorn. The story seems to be almost incongrous with the rest of the plot and I really found him a peeve.

In this 4th movie though, I think the scriptwriters were able to make good use of his character. They were able to bring a message too. Scrat is just a simple squirrel who is just trying to find a place for his acorn, and by doing so accidentally caused the continental drift, unbeknownst to him. This is a message that says your actions have an effect on others, directly or indirectly, and whether you know it or not.

Different types of relationships were handled in this movie too. To name a few we have Manny's daughter Peaches. She is already a budding teenager and would surely like to hang out with cool friends. Him, being overprotective causes a friction between them. Sid's Granny was abandoned by their family, leaving her in his care. And Peaches in pursuit of cooler friends broke her bestfriend, Louis' heart.   

 Let's not forget Diego. He was the thing I'd been wanting to see since the start of the movie. Denis Leary's voice adds up to his charm. This sabertooth tiger sure is a loyal friend of Manny and Sid, imagine his patience for Sid and Granny. 

And no matter how he denies, you can confirm his soft side when you see those bunch of hyraxes all over him because of their gratitude. It makes him more adorable. I'm glad that they finally made him a pair in this movie.

This ice age is surely a treat.

Blonde girl

With the rain, there's not much to do today so might as well be productive. Thank God I was finally able coloring this drawing. 

11th Book: Erec Rex (Dragon's Eye)

It's hard to find the words so I will start with the summary.

Plot
Erec Rex is a boy with a glass eye. He grew up with enchanted objects, a strange mom, and other adopted siblings. His upbringing is as strange as the reason he doesn't know why his other eye was like that.

He's no ordinary kid. There are times when he gets this strange sensation, almost like mind control that commands him to do things he wouldn't normally do,good thing, so far they are only commands to help save people.

Erec's magical adventure began when his mother was kidnapped, and together with a girl named Bethany, the two explored the lower Earth, a world where magic is not an imagination, but a reality.

The Good: Creative
Okay, there are already tons of books concerning magic, ever since advent of the Potter series, and this book is no exception.

The good thing though, is that the author is creative enough to come up with a different story.

There are some chronicles about the game which Erec joined, and I think those are entertaining for kids, I personally like the game under the sea.

The Bad: Who is that again?
Ok, for a children's book, I think the character's names should have been reconsidered. Sure Erec Rex Bethany, Jack and Oscar are easy to remember. But then you would ask yourself twice,who that Claudius... Bartimius is, as well as other ancient names listed there.

The name might be long for some reason, like it should sound as scary and lethal, but if you are a kid, seriously, are you going remember that?

There were also some instances where the story becomes just plain confusing.

Some characters were just like bombs that comes out of nowhere, explodes, and would leave you asking, who the heck was that?

Some were underdeveloped, that would leave you little clue as to why on Earth they were even there in the first place.

What's next? That's it?!
As likely as the characters, some points of the stories didn't evolved too.

There are a number of loose ends or loose beginnings, somehow I don't feel that I would see the answer in the part 2 of the book.

Don't get me wrong, those are just some observations of a reader. This book is not that bad, as I said the ideas were quite creative, maybe it's just the way it was written.

Ran Mouri

Ran Mouri of Detective Conan is one of my favorite characters. I found this very beautiful picture of her, but the size was very small, look at how pixelated it is when resized.

I really wanted to re-draw this one, so I tried it, and with the use of my Wacom tablet I retraced the drawing. I think result is close enough. :P

Ran waiting for Conan