EXPLORING DSNG PART 28 - DSNG BOOK 18 HAS BEEN LAUNCHED!

Last night, DSNG Book 18 was launched at Amazon, and the ebook is available right now!! Over HERE!!

Book 18 is probably the longest book that I've ever written, since its roughly 1,040 pages long, inside the Kindle App [but its about 1,056 pages in MS Word]. It's so long that Amazon offered up 124 pages free, which is roughly 12 % of the book. And you can actually read the free stuff online, when you click on the Cover Image shown over HERE.

Anyway, The storyline spans roughly 20 hours from start to finish, and that implies that the sci fi action / adventure doesn't last  up to 24 hours. But it took me a long time to present the contents, since I chose to slow down and give you details that will help you appreciate the characters.

For those fans new to DSNG Sci Fi Series, Prince Azzar Omenus is the main protagonist in the stories; he is an Alpha Senturi super-soldier and  the Senior Commanding Officer of the Centura, aka the military force of planet Avera, his home world. And all of the DSNG adventures, which unfold within the Makuran Galaxy, revolve around Azzar and his experiences, along with those that he interacts with. And his closest allies are featured, in addition to his enemies.

Yet this new ebook features more of Azzar's stepbrother, Tek-Hon, aka the Dark Swordsman. Tek-Hon is a four-armed Scalatan and he is the number-one operative in the notorious Gorilla Rebel Militia - a gang of superhuman terrorists.
There are 7 major planets and roughly 8 alien races in DSNG, having good guys and bad guys. Tek-Hon is shown on the cover of Book 18 above, and he's the ninja-guy. Behind Tek are two characters: Captain Kano [blue skin] and Zalmedah Khan [blonde chick, golden skin]. Tek was also shown on the cover of Book 9, along with a few of his allies.

Here is the Overview of the long ebook, which was posted at Amazon:
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The dynamic sci fi adventure continues with the eighteenth installment of the DSNG series! While Prince Azzar is still residing on planet Taran with his new Kataran girlfriend named Dr. Karli, a group of Kataran soldiers known as Strike Team Mortimus, who hail from Karli’s tribe, are en route to the Steampunk World, Planet Entrados.

Led by Captain Zonar Chronos, and accompanied by an expert tracker named Temfur Lurk II, the members of Strike Team Mortimus have been consigned with the difficult task of hunting down a certain four-armed killer, who was guilty of committing several homicides back on Atlantis, one of the five moons of Planoris. The bloody trail leads the Kataran Strike Team to the shores of Emerald Bay, on planet Entrados.

And once the Kataran Team arrives, they are confronted by military soldiers linked to the native land, specifically an armed troop led by two Dark Crow Captains; who are elite enforcers with psychic powers that are tied to the hordes of the Red Witch—the mysterious female dictator of the planet. Yet the two Dark Crow Captains, namely Captain Kano and Captain Cytora, appear to have two completely disparate philosophies, which complicate the entire mission for Captain Zonar and Strike Team Mortimus. And even before the Kataran Team is allowed to embark upon their mission on foreign soil, each of the two Dark Crow Captains make different decisions; critical decisions, which will affect Zonar’s naive team in ways that they never imagined.

And those critical decisions also affect the fate of an innocent Entradan woman, a special young lady named Zalmedah Khan…

[You may need to click the words "Read More" slightly below and on the right, to see the rest of this long article]

DSNG RANTS ABOUT THE SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING MOVIE! [ WHO IS MJ? ]

Get it Spidey... that’s Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, from the 2012 Amazing Spider-man Movie. And that former 2012 movie had a different cast and characters from the new 2017 Spider-man Homecoming movie, which is out in theaters now, starring Tom Holland as the friendly neighborhood Spidey.

I don’t enjoy ranting, but it’s been a while since I wrote a movie-related blog article. So here goes…. In my opinion, the new Spider-man Homecoming movie was a fun ride, with a nice twist added to the Vulture’s personal identity. But the new movie didn't handle the "MJ" issue very well… and I’ll be hanging my hat on that point for most of this discussion.

The talented Disney actress named Zendaya Coleman [who formerly stared in the Teenybopper dancing sitcom “Shake it up” from 2009-2013, and in “KC Undercover” from 2014 – present] did an excellent job, but her original MJ character [who should be “MaryJane Watson” from the comics, which have been around for over 50 years] was switched to "Michelle Jones", by the directors / writers, when they got scared of the "racial switching backlash", shortly after the casting news was made public last year... yeah, that's probably what happened.

I have no problem with Zendaya; she is very talented and she has a spark of joyful life in her, which she uniquely brings to every role that she plays. Most comic geeks know that the original MJ is a beautiful busty white chick with red hair and she’s a famous model in New York, with a down-to-earth personality [see the quintessential MJ image on the right, by artist Adam Hughes].

But Zendaya, who is also uniquely beautiful and humorously witty, was presented as a geeky classmate of Peter Parker – yet Zendaya clearly made the best out of that restricting role. And Zendaya was actually called “Michelle”, throughout the movie, until the last 5 - 10 minutes when she asks her friends to call her MJ…. And yet per the restriction of the writers, she never told her friends that her last name is “Jones”… and none of them asked her what the “J” stood for in “MJ”…. Hell, they probably could have called her “Micheal Jordan”, and they would have gotten away with it - LOL

You can tell that something wasn’t right, if you're sharp and you've read the BS that the director was saying online about MJ; he sounded like he was rather ignorant or just ambivalent to the true lore and the undeniable significance of that female character’s name, and yet he seemed to respect the legacy of other characters in the presented movieverse. In fact, the new movie didn't present her upfront as “Michelle Jones”; it was the Variety website that first broke the news about her last name... which is awkward....

[You may need to click the words "Read More" slightly below and on the right, to see the rest of this long article]

THE SECOND CUSTOM ELENA EDEN TOY / ACTION FIGURE BY DSNG!

All right guys, I've been procrastinating this post for quite a while, but a few faithful fans saw some teasers a few months ago, tied to the latest Elena Eden toy shown below. The pics of the first Elena toy model were uploaded Here.

As most of the longtime fans know, Elena Eden is one of the Original Characters that I created over 10 years ago for the DSNG Sci Fi Series. And this toy was designed to match Elena's voluptuous physique as much as possible. And if you want to see what Elena looks like, just Google "Elena Eden DSNG".

In this project that took me almost 3 months, I utilized the "Marvel Legends Captain Marvel toy" [shown over Here] as the base figure. But I had to enhance her curves with putty, before I sprayed on a layer of Tamiya Gray Primer.
And Then...................... I painted the whole toy wrong... -sigh- Well Sh#t happens LOL - so I had to strip the entire paint with rubbing alcohol and hot water, before I painted it right.

The belt, the gun holsters, and other body armor pieces in her gauntlets and her boots were all hand-sculpted, or created with rubber bands, where necessary. And the hair was borrowed from a Marvel Legends Mocking Bird toy, although I had to cut and add some putty to make it to fit my purpose. And then the hair was colored white, along with gray highlights. I actually used a sharpie pink marker to make some slightly darker shadows, over some segments of her cool pink costume. I think it made her design to "pop" more.

  

 

When it comes to making these dolls, you have to... well "doll" is the wrong word; rather it's "an articulated poseable action figure with accessories, created for manly men with hair on their chest." ;)

Anyway, the point is, you have to be patient when making these toy models. Because they can take a very long time, especially when there are tiny details to add. And as you get more experience, you will realize the difference between a truly good custom job, and one that was rushed.

For me, this is a hobby; and I've leaned that a truly dedicated hobby can be a very demanding thing, per the time, energy, money and effort that is demanded, when you want to really "tighten all the bolts" and create something that displays a high level of quality. And practice makes perfect... but before you get to perfection, you may have to learn from your mistakes - just like I had to repaint this entire toy, although you'd never know that fact unless I told you.
I started out doing Custom Transformers last year [2016], and I've definitely come a long way, per the things I've learned.

Sometimes I'd just repaint the TFs, which was very therapeutic for me. Or I'd actually break down two toys, one a TF robot and the other a regular car toy, before I'd mix them together to make a new / better good guy. You can see some of those Custom Transformers, like Turbo Blitz, over Here, and Here.

Honestly, in my opinion, customizing Transformers is much easier than customizing action figures, if you are shooting for quality. The faces of these action figure toys are the hardest things to paint, because they are so small... and some people utilize a magnifying glass and even some more acrylic paint / shoe polish / shoe wax to generate matching colored tones & shadows, upon the small faces of the 6 and 7 inch toy models. Honestly, I don't do that, not because I can't; it's just that I'm shooting for creating a "perfect full-body sample" of the character that I see in my mind. Moving an Original Character from the DSNG Sci Fi Series, like Elena Eden, from a design on paper to a tangible toy is very significant, because it literally gives her life. And one day she will be mass produced... oh it's true, it's damn true!!!! :D

Of course, I do other toy customs like Domino from Marvel, Killer Frost from DC Comics, and Ashoka from Star Wars. I even have a cool Deathstroke Custom that I haven't taken pictures of yet. So just Stay Tuned for more!!!!