OMS Archives II

monday 24 may at 11:02am

“You’ve been hallucinating on cactus juice all day, and then you just lick something you find stuck to the wall of a cave?

saturday 22 may at 4:28pm

Omg 28 28 28.

Anyway AAAHHH I LOVE AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER. (Thanks Margaret for introducing me.)
SO GOOD.

 

Good characters, concise, good, thought-out storyline, with an attention to detail and a respect for history and tradition.

Mmm Zuko. But more than that mmm Sokka. <3

I swear I’m still trying to come up with a layout idea. It’s just um. Hard.

tuesday 18 may at 10:28pm

story of my life, as sung by cady groves in The Life of a Pirate.

 

thursday 13 may at 9:58pm

It is summer.

(Even though it POURED all day.)

And I am thinking:

LAYOUT! LAYOUT! LAYOUT!

Hmm…brainstorming time…

monday 10 may at 11:31pm

I likes the music.

I hate when I Stumble Upon little doodle sites or something, ’cause then I have to stop and draw.

Um. I leave this school forever in three days. I have two finals left (freaking art history…garrrr). I feel so many things and I can’t figure out what I’m feeling at all.

I am very sad to be leaving a number of people here, and the state of my life is going to change completely all over again. But I just need to have hope that I have learned from these experiences and that I will learn from the ones that come, and that within it all, I will never give up on my Savior, because He’s never given up on me.

I have to wait for my roommate and her friend to finish some wack scary movie before I can go to bed, but I don’t have any finals tomorrow, soo…oh well. I will keep putsing around on Dar Intarwebz.

 

tuesday 20 april at 8:45pm

This is me updating my art blog because Margaret told me to and then said even if I didn’t do it she gave me a suggestion that I could reject. So I am updating my art blog to show her that I care by doing what she told me to do. And I love her. (:

Pinkeye sucks. It makes me fear for my vision and feel like an untouchable.

But today I grew in a lot of ways, unpleasant or not.

And since I felt guilty about doing an entry without any mention of art, I doodled.

 

friday 09 april at 9:11pm

Excuse anything I say. I am drinking very sugared coffee. I am already getting a little twitchy.

I also gave some to my roommate.

And now we’re listening to He Is We and they make me happy.

ANYHOW! I have a lot of time on my hands lately. I have also gotten a revitalized interest in pastels. And I’ve been wanting to experiment a lot more. Let me just say that a combination of pastels, new ink pens from Abass as a belated birthday present, and a newfound experimental attitude have had VERY interesting results.

The first piece I did was umm. The night before last. I started it with the new ink brush. And then I wanted to color it. Turned out way better than I thought it would!

It features, if you can’t tell, Ingrid and Danyil. They’re my favorite couple to draw because there’s something mysterious about them as a pair, because neither of them are your happy-go-lucky characters. Ingrid has a dependence upon Danyil that none of my other couples compare to. I also added the magazine clippings, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I don’t think they were as dynamic as I thought they would be. But I still like them. The background also meant more to the picture than my backgrounds usually mean. So yay! Also, color theory from 2D Design has helped me out. Blue and purple are analogous, so they go together very well since they’re close on the color wheel. And yellow is complementary to purple, so it makes a big impression.

Then, today I had nothing to do and I wanted to work more with color. So I pooped this thing out:

I’m not quite sure where it came from, except that I think vulnerability is one of my bigger social-related fears. I also realized after I had put it together that I was only using primaries – red, blue and yellow. I’m not sure what effect those colors are supposed to have together, but I’ll say from the results that they sure make a bold picture. I’m experimenting with purposefully putting words into a formally arranged piece. I don’t like the white in this case, but that’s namely ’cause I ran out of room to write vulnerability, and then it gets messy. o.O; But yeah. Simple piece. I did it in like 20 minutes while talking to my roommate. Or Karen. Or both. o.O;

What else was I going to say. Well, I want to add more to Myoku’s page. But I’m not sure what else to add. o_o;

EASTER! sunday 04 april at 10:37am

Ohman. Jesus blows my mind HOLY WOW. Yeah. This is the first Easter in probably twelve years that I did not spend at my old church. It wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be. The church I’m at now is very modern, and non-denominational, which I find sometimes to be a dangerous mix. You please the people too much by being vague with your theology and pretty soon your theology isn’t what it should be. Anyway, it was a pretty phenomenal service with a Switchfoot song during the offering and quite an impressive sermon about Jesus’ true agony being when He descended into Hell – and how He came back victorious over every aspect of death that would have taken our hope, leaving us undeservedly spared. (: I tend to listen to the sermons at this church with a skeptical ear, checking to see if they really declare Jesus is Lord and fully God and fully Man. Well they don’t say it, but today’s sermon didn’t deny it, either. Therefore I had to approve of it, because there was power and victory in it.

Anyway, I wanted to say that gosh have I renamed T’Kai Said a lot. Yeah. Who’s that? Oh. Well he could be Takai Said, or he coud be Takai Sato, or maybe he’s Katsumi Sato, or, what, now he’s Adrien Evereaux? No, that doesn’t fit him, so I finally settled on Julian Evereaux. Julian. I think it fits him. I could see Dakarai calling him Jules. I like it. So yeah I was looking over RE and that made me want to journal. But I also kind of wanted to journal about something else.

So, I’m home on Easter break. I will also be going back to school for a mere month and six days. O_O;;; Anyway, Friday I suggested my parents and I go see a movie. What better to see for my interests than Dreamworks’ new “How to Train Your Dragon”? (: I was skeptical, since so many movies I’ve heard of have been FLOPS, but it’s hard to get my parents to agree to going to the theatres, so I was excited on principle.
Well
IT WAS AMAZING.
It had a very clear message of a society’s need for change, which is very relevant today, but it also didn’t debunk old traditions – only the ones that hurt.
The dragons were brilliantly done. There were a variety of species which you got to know via the “dragon-fighting training” that the young Vikings took part in (I am a Viking, by the way – that’s Bethany’s mascot, and I am also a descendant, just like pretty much every white person with European ancestry. Anyway.), but the whole…well, *SPOILER ALERT* movie was based on how the main kid, Hiccup, learned to understand what were supposed to be threats (the dragons), and thus appeared to be a “dragon-fighting champion” to his community because he learned to soothe them.
Through suspiciously cat-related methods. Including cat — I mean, dragon-nip.
And the main dragon. BAHAHAHA.
His name is Toothless and he’s a rare “Night Fury” – “no one’s ever seen one and lived to tell the tale,” say the Vikings, but Hiccup injures him and shows him mercy when he finds him, and they thus form a bond.
Anyway, my mother had to tell me to be quiet during the movie because I kept giving little girly squeals and flails becuase of Toothless. He is, essentially, a big, scaly cat with wings. I happen to have a black cat named Hoshi, so I was excited during the movie because I got to go home to my own little “Toothless.”
I have proof.
Witness Toothless’ squeal-worthy good looks:

DLAKSJFOAWNVAIOWENLAJSGZOMGCUUUUUTE. But now. I kid you not…these people who designed the dragons must’ve sat staring at cats play for HOURS. They even had this one shot of TOothless right in Hiccup’s face where they zoom in so his eyes fill the whole screen, and they even have the same thin fibers of color in his eyes that are exactly like my fat cat’s, Misty. WHEW. But Hoshi in a way has the same sort of tenacious, wild attitude as Toothless (she has super bad dandruff right now and it’s disgusting, but then she likes when I brush her since her skin’s so dry…and on the upside, she’s been sleeping behind my knees these past two nights and I love waking up with her there). Evident by the fact that the picture below depicts her sitting on the little table that we had the Nativity set up on during Christmas. She also decapitated a shepherd during another instance when there was a tablecloth draped over the table, and she ran under the table and jerked the tablecloth. Poor, poor shepherd. And yeah Toothless looks like a big black cat. Like Hoshi.

SEE? Even the splayed ears. xD And the shape of his shoulders. Ha. Cuh-raaazy.
So I would definitely recommend “How to Train Your Dragon.” America Ferrera is the love interest/lady Viking, and Gerard Butler play’s Hiccup’s father. The characters are all quirky and important to the story, which itself is well put-together and succinct. I thought that the script was fresh and convincing – it’s like the scriptwriters were experiencing the story themselves. A recurring theme is when a Viking or two would tell Hiccup, who causes trouble without meaning to, that he needs to have less of “that.” Then Hiccup frowns and says “you just gestured to all of me.” And at the end, after he reshapes everything (and Toothless shows up in his room and does this adorable stunt in the rafters), his dad tells him that it’s all thanks to “that.” Hiccup says a little happier, “you just…gestured to all of me…” (: There’s also this line at the climax (which was surprisingly effective) where the girl goes “So, what are you gonna do now?” and Hiccup goes, “Eh…probably something stupid.” And she, “Well…you’ve already done that.” And he, “And maybe something crazy.” And she, “Ah…now that’s more like it. (:”
Oh! And one of my favorites, “Thank you for that, you useless reptile.”
Hahaha. So, sorry to ramble like that. But it definitely wins my approval, and it’s one I’ll get on DVD instantly. It might have even been good in 3D; there were definitely some moments where I would have freaked out if things were popping out of the screen (think gigantic lightning-fast dragons and great balls of fire (hahaha great balls of fire)).

I’ve been doing a lot of RE sketches lately, since I still don’t really have anything else I’m committed to working on. But RE sketches are always fun. I did a page full of scenes from RE that I personally “interrupted,” like when Sotoka-Khepri’s sucking on Micah’s mutilated arm. I step in and I’m like “No, Sotoka. Not like that.” and Sotoka’s like “):” and Micah’s checking out his arm and he’s like “ew.”
…It was funny in my head. >_>

Happy Easter! He is risen (you say: “He is risen, indeed!”)!

thursday 18 march at 9:22pm

Hooolyyyyyy craaaap.

 

Stippling. STIPPLING. STIIIIPPLIIIINNGGG.
Is the most worthwhile, time-consuming technique I have yet delved into.
I don’t think I’m finished (I just won’t have my scanner this weekend), but it’s certainly coming along. I started it during 2D Design Tuesday, so that was 2-1/2 solid hours of working on it. I probably spent another hour or two later on yesterday working on it, and today after my prof (Andy; he’s epic) demonstrated how dark we can actually go with it (It was pretty flat because I was aiming to not overlap any dots…yeah I was wrong about that ha) I probably spent another hour and a half on it, and then I worked on it during a concert tonight (shh) for another 45 minutes…so…little bits of time have accumulated to A LOT OF DOTS. Haha.
It’s Katy Perry as seen in Nylon magazine, and it was perfect because of the drastic light-and-dark contrasts.
It’s been fun doing this, but yes, definitely frustrating at times.

Then last night, I spontaneously picked up the drawn version of RE again, and I produced a surprisingly pleasing page. o.o; Check it:

Yup I don’t know. Sotoka-Khepri looks straight out of a pro manga (to some nominal degree); I like his usage of “femme fatale” (it’s still evident Asrael from Rebels was sort of like a less damaged SK). And Ingrid drop-kicking that dog…xD Enough said.

Anyway, I’ve had a nice lazy week. Which has helped me stay on top of homework, get into some much-needed reading for pleasure, and produce a few pieces of interesting art. 😀

monday 15 march at 11:03pm

Yaaay; cleaning up this front page is always gratifying.
Oh, I’m 19 today. 😀 I should probably go change that on my about me page ;D. Okay so the advantage to social networking is that I’ve gotten like 60 happy birthday’s on Facebook, in addition to some cute in-person well wishes.

Holy crap this sketchbook paper I’ve been doodling on is graiiinnyyy. Check it.

 

This is one of those pictures I was inspired for in like 30 seconds flat. It’s nothing special. But lately I’ve adopted the attitude that I should draw even if I don’t think I have anything good to draw. I find that helps unlock my creativity a little more, or at least it assures me I’m still trying.

I just spent 3 hours reminiscing on my old roleplaying days with one of my bffs Jen. 😀 It was a nice birthday treat.

I think that’s all. Peace!

saturday 06 march at 9:16pm

Well I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts today and had a great time. Seeing so many original pieces by artists I’ve spent seven weeks getting intimate with was mind-blowing. Maurina and I were geeking out when we got to the Fauvists and the Impressionists because they were such a big part of the modern art movements we’ve been studying.

Also, I wanted to share this article with you all because when I found it, it totally changed my opinion of a popular star whom I had been in general very annoyed and unimpressed with up until this point. Here’s an excerpt from it that really sold me:
“I worry his head is going to explode. He answers questions with questions.”
Yeah, yeah, okay. Guessing games off. It’s an article about Rob Pattinson, famous for being everyone’s most glamorous unrealistic sparkling vampire.
But this article made him into a brooding intellect with a twisted sense of humor and I think I like him now. So! 🙂
The site/magazine the interview’s from, Details, seems like that perfect mix of popular media and getting under its skin to the real people.

I think that’s all I had to say…I’ve been working on a half-assed story that’s a mesh of all my dfferent stories and that’s about all.

tuesday 02 march at 8:12pm

I am watching Ponyo, Miyazaki’s latest film! So far I am awestruck and I’m a mere 10 minutes in!
Liam Neeson’s character is very interesting.
…And I have no idea how this kid could think that freaky human headed fish thing could be a goldfish. xD (To be fair, later in the film the old lady that looks like Sophie looks at Ponyo and goes “AAAH, that thing has a face like a human!” … and then starts rambling about tsunamis.)
This is how I’m spending my evening, as opposed to studying for the 3 midterm/tests that I have tomorrow HAHAHA. Priorrrrrrrrrrrities.

(later at 11:00pm)

I would have to say that Ponyo is Miyazaki’s best yet. As my web manager Margaret pointed out, “That man is like cheese.” To which I replied “…Delicious?” And she said “He gets better with time.”
Ponyo is obviously a Miyazaki film. It has environmentalist undertones, love without romance, flying machines, and crazy gravity-defying hair that stands upright when excited. I swear that in the form of two old ladies were diluted versions of Sophie and the Witch of the Waste from “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and Howl himself showed in traces of the main adult man, Fujimoto (played by Liam Neeson mmm) in that he is a sorcerer and a bit of a spaz.
But maybe that’s just me.

Yes, Ponyo is easily a kid’s movie. It focuses on the adventures of Ponyo and Sosuke. But unlike, say, My Neighbor Totoro, I found that the adults in the film contributed more to the story and had more developed personalities of their own. Sosuke’s mother was nothing like the childish dense gluttonous idiots that are Chihiro’s parents in Spirited Away.
And I would say most importantly, the images and animation in Ponyo far, far surpassed anything Miyazaki has produced (except maybe parts of Princess Mononoke). I was awestruck by it; he seemed to find the same fascination with a world underwater that I always sort of have. And even if Sosuke and Ponyo were five-year-olds, they were charming and realistic, and Ponyo was delightfully spastic. I like the way that the story played out even though it might have been slightly artificial.
So I’m really glad I went out and bought it and I encourage everyone else to, too. 😀

Anyways, did you know that, despite how original Pablo Picasso’s work seems to be, it was actually based on a combination of the works of artists such as the realist Courbet, symbolist Paul Gauguin and post-impressionist Paul Cezanne (wtf’s with all the freaking Pauls), Fauvism (stupid stupid Matisse) and Symbolism, where art is based on the principles AND the meaning?
Or that Edvard Munch’s famous image, “The Scream,” was his rather emotionally unstable response to “the scream of nature” and he admitted himself that it was a work only a madman could produce?

He also made many, many versions of it, done with pastel, tempura and acrylic. Just like one of his first famous images depicting the death of his sister was done and redone 6 times. The public in 1896 hated it.

I also like this piece, which is part of the European response to Picasso’s crazy Cubism, by Marc Chagall. The Eiffell Tower was used in pieces like this to represent the individual, and industrial strength. …Allow me to also point out that there is an upside-down train to the left of the cat with the human face, which sort of crowns this with awesomeness.

 

That’s what I SHOULD be looking at more. The movements and their definitions of art.
The good news is, I’m doing well in my 2D Design class and am also beginning to get the hang of *gag* Adobe Illustrator.
I also go on spring break on Thursday. 😀
I’m going to the Minneapolis Institute of Art on Saturday (hopefully) and am also gonna visit my high school to see some teachers and an old friend.
…All this gives me very, very low motivation. >_>

Oh! Here’s a background I made for Ponyo (google “ponyo” and it’s somewhere on the first page) while I should have been studying. xD

monday 15 february at 7:03pm

I was going to say “Oh, yay! For once I didn’t journal exactly a week after the last one.” But instead I journaled almost down to the same minute of the hour of the day as last time. Ah, woe is me and my consistency (AWESOME RHYME.)

Anyhow, today while I was at home I had the sudden urge to draw something. And I’ve been bored of simple ink or pencil drawings, and so I did a quick sketch and then pulled out my pastels. What resulted is this somewhat handsome picture of Myoku:

 

And I was kind of excited about it. I think the rough sketchiness of both the lines and the pastel is in this case appealing. I’m happy with the way the colors blended and that I actually added background – even if it’s just pigment. xD

And HOLY CRAP HIS HAIR IS YELLOW O.o; I mean that’s okay and everything, but it’s by far the purest color – aside from, maybe, the blue – in the whole thing and so it’s like WHOAAA O___O;

I haven’t had much interest in RE the manga, so I haven’t produced all that much lately aside from this and this perspective piece I’m halfheartedly putsing away at.

I’ve decided that I love being in art classes and I’m really glad I’m majoring in studio arts (and psych.)

Except that I seem to be a little bit sick right now and THAT SUCKS T_T; It’s not easy for me to get sick.

sunday 07 feburary at 7:05pm

I have just discovered a technical rationale for my distaste for digital artwork and solely digitial artists. 😀
And I reached this epiphany staring at Vincent Van Gogh (poor guy)’s “Starry Night over the Rhone” (1889).

 

You really have to see a larger size of it to really know what I’m talking about when I say that half the magic I see in this piece comes from how every thick, painty brush stroke he made is starkly visible on the canvas. It’s like, then, his hands have really been in the painting. There’s humanity in its perfect imperfection that, when artists can press CTRL+Z or erase complete strokes on a computer, is totally lost in digital pieces. A digital piece is simply pretty; I have a hard time imagining the likelihood that a digital artist’s heart can be particularly visible in their piece.

So, in the name of all that is Expressionist, and in memoriam of Vincent Van Gogh, traditional art, LIVE ON!

sunday 31 january at 11:08pm

Highlight of my day. Downloaded the IR Fanbase‘s scanlations of the next volume of IR and have been voraciously reading it (whilst pacing myself so as to draw it out) all day.

Anything else…no…just life problems.

saturday 23 january at 11:11!pm

All right. I probably need this right now. In the in-progress (completely for my own amusement) manga adaptation of RE, one of the main reasons I kept being motivated to do it was in order to draw the reunion of Ingrid and Danyil after they haven’t seen each other for two years. Because I love the latest manga version of Danyil (simply being capable of drawing him the way I’ve pictured him is epic), and as I’ve said on numerous occasions, Danyil is a BEAST and very hot with any girl, particularly Ingrid.
The main discrepancy I’ve come across between the novel (the real deal) and the manga (my indulgences) is that whereas Danny and Ingrid’s relationship was more understated and subtle in the novel, it seems to be much more of a tender thing, and definitely more reliant on the physical since manga is visual. I feel like I do betray a bit of the quality of their relationship of the novel, but then again, the manga version betrays a lot of the nuances of the novel. Hence why the manga is just for pleasure. Sort of to keep me sane, because so far, this semester is sort of maddening. Anyway, I wanted to show (and probablyl rant about) a few of my favorite shots from this scene. I also changed the style that I’m inking it in. I didn’t like how stark the simple pen pages were, but when I switched to pencil for a few pages, it was way too crude for me to be happy with. So I compromised by doing pencil shading and detail but penned lines. I like it except that my shading is still a little rushed in places and thus I come back to the same sloppy problem I’ve had in my art since, essentially, day one.

 

And so, here’s the image which I held my breath for, and I suppose it came out just as I hoped it would. Which, all in all, is a victory.

<
So I love the tenderness in Danyil’s eyes and the elation in Ingrid’s face, hands and the tension of her body. It’s the perfect example of your hero arriving just in the knick of time. And even if it represents idolatry, Ingrid’s adoration of Danyil is reminiscent of a Christian’s utter devotion and reliance upon Jesus and His saving grace.
And then I love Danny’s face again in this shot later on the page (I didn’t feel like doing the whole page…just…’cause that’s boring…)
(I also don’t feel like centering it…I think it might be getting late or something…)

The file is named “Tee Hee Delight” because that’s what they’re experiencing. And I’d betcha Danny WAS laughing like ‘tee hee.’ He is a TRUE man.
I totally wrote “Mei” instead of “Ingrid” on one of these pages and then I got mad.

So let’s see. I feel like that wasn’t the end. But now I have to go create the page for that random Ingrid page that I decided to give its own page (because it would be too big to be 100% on here but I didn’t want to scale it down at all, because that would be…smaller…)
So off I go to do that. We’ll see what pleasantries I come up with at 11:55 at night.

aww, i deleted the timestamp for this entry…but it was, like, the 15th of january or something, at, like, 10am…

Browsing purevolume yesterday, I came across a band called ‘Young the Giant’ and I had heard and liked their first song and they had the rest up for download. There was one called ‘Schizophrenia’ and I was curious, because, like, Staind did a song called “Schizophrenic Conversations” which was more like Dissociative Identity Disorder than Schizophrenia. Well this one starts playing and it’s creeeepy. And like. This morning I looked up the lyrics.
AND THEY’RE AWESOME.
In a grotesque sort of way.
‘Cause it actually indicates a grasp on schizophrenia, where it’s commonly misunderstood and confused like Staind did. Not only are the lyrics in tune to a Formal Thought Disorder, but the whole tone — kind of paranoid and aggressive, suits schizophrenia too.
And so I’m pretty sure this song has become Sotoka-Khepri’s song. Anyway it’s fascinated me. Check it out.

And now the shades are drawn
This dark infesting shadows cross the hall and now they’re gone
I see this old arcade
And rain comes down the gutters to the wood this liquid dawn

So my heart races now
These palpitations bust the seams off my laced sequin dress — ya, wut?
I see you standing there
With rosy fingers, damn this life a godless existence

This schizophrenia is taking over me
And we don’t need this now do we!

It never was like this
But still I could not be trusted with your love no not once
We danced the meringue
Those golden footsteps signs of our fate in redundancy

But now the past is gone
And now I’m messed up beyond any thought or small belief
This fate is choking me
Like icy water from the depths of that barrier reef

This schizophrenia is taking over me
And we don’t need this now do we!

This schizophrenia is taking over me
And we don’t need this now do we!

LOOK AT THESE LINES BELOW. o____o

Talk to the light, you’ll be colored so bright
Behind the wheel, they stalk over the drill sirens
Open your mouth behind shades of…
Waking in fire and dreaming in…
Holding the night behind straight corn and papyrus
Holding by luscious…
Stares that you gave us
Waiting for strength behind locks in the fire
Wait for the love that you said would inspire

Wait for the times that you
Said you would cherish
Wait for the love that you
Said that would make it!

This schizophrenia is taking over me
And we don’t need this now do we!

This schizophrenia is taking over me
And we don’t need this now do we!

So yeah go to Young the Giant’s Purevolume page and listen to that song ’cause it’s creepy and fascinating.

In other news, umm…I’m still sort of working on the manga version of RE but without much vigor. The pictures just don’t look the way I want them to. I don’t know if it’s the rigidity of ink that does it, or if I’m just unpracticed with manga. Or if it’s that I’m just extremely overwhelmed with my 19 credits worth of core classes and so very few things can leave me feeling accomplished. =/
I need a spa day…
Even though it’s not that bad…
Bah…

thursday 07 january 2010 at 10:55am

This song is sort of my anthem right now. 🙂 I love the way it approaches oen’s relationship with Christ. It’s very eloquent and artistic.
And the guy’s voice is really sexy. I might have to download this version. ;D

And so yesterday I decided I needed to draw all my girls (characters) together (since a majority of mine are guys *&guys are better*, it’ll be a small picture). And so here’s the pencil sketch. (I actually have to scan it now…)

And Lacy in the middle looks like less of a brat than she actually is hahaha. BUt l-r we’ve got Kyasai, Shani/Sera/Lacy, Elodie (in the back), Mikara/Mei/Sophie/Ingrid (sitting), and Cirrus up on that pile of…things there. All of my stories are represented and these are the only girls who actually came to mind. xD And unfortunately, Lacy is such the perfect little brat and she represents the most stories out of all of these awesome ladies. xD I think I might color this just for the fun of it.

And so the manga version of RE that I’m putsing away on has given me a new appreciation for Ingrid because I added her kicking a little more butt. And she looks like a bamf now:

Heheh. She’s pretty smexy if I say so myself.

I’m also reading “This Side of Paradise” now, at long last, given that I have a gigantic poster of it in my room. xD
That’s all! <3

monday 04 january 2010 at 9:43pm

I could never use it in a realistic setting, but I love the name Sotoka-Khepri.
Right now, I love it because so many awesome nicknames can be derived from it.
Take these:

• Sotoka
• Tokie
• Tokie Dokie
• SK
• Sotokie
• Sotoka-K
  And, my personal favorite:
• Evil Deranged Psychopathic Nutcase from Hell

  Ahahahaha.
  That’s about all I have to say. 😀

  thursday 31 december at 12:57pm

  (And Happy New Year!)

  Well! I can’t believe 2009 is overrr. It’s been a tough year, but ended on quite a satisfactory note. I have good people in my life right now, and I’m pressing on in my walk with Jesus (whether it feels like it or not…no pietism for me)

  (now i lay me down to sleep
  i pray my heart you choose to keep
  and if i die before i wake
  all of me is yours to take)
  – he is we “light the way” 

  Look! Will Turner! I got to work with his face for a whole two days on this puzzle XDDD

  One time after I’d finished and we hadn’t put it away yet, I was emphatically petting his face, right? And my jealous kitty jumps on the table and I’m like, “Hoshi, don’t interrupt my Will Turner fondling.” And what does she do. Well I’ll tell you. She walks onto the puzzle all delicately and sits squarely down on his face. HA.

  And I am also as addicted to artsing as ever.
  Upon reading the Shinigami of the East I mentioned in the last entry, I started looking through the old inked manga version of RE I had started earlier this year. … Wait a second HAHAHAHAHAHAHA HOLD ON. I just looked in the old updates page and as it turns out, I actually started the manga version of RE A YEAR AGO. HAHAHAH. It wasn’t just, like, April or something. It was December of LAST YEAR.
  Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’s really funny! O_O;
  Aah…anyway…o_o;…
  …’Scuse me…o_o;…Gotta recover from THAT revelation…
  …Well then, seems I’m more addicted to RE than I thought. Hahaha. That means that I’ve spent this whole year with RE one way or another. Either by working on the novel version or a manga version. Goodness gracious. There’s something wrong with me. Haha.
  But the cool thing is that I’ve expanded my tools. … Except that I left my ruler at school, so all the freehand panel outlines look awful XDDD But! I also have like ten pens I’m using from four — no, five different companies. xD

   

  And…honestly, looking at the pages I just scanned, I’m kind of embarrassed at how crude they are. xD Actually, I think it’s the composition that really grosses me out. … But I suppose I’m the only one who’d notice. xDD
  All right, all right…here are two pages from it.

  
     

  So…there are those…and the rapture of doing manga again is beginning to wear into that old “I’m an inadequate fool” again HAHA…so in the meantime, here’s AN ADORABLE SHOT (another one) from Shinigami of the East:

   

  That whole story had me nearly in tears with laughter and sorrow. T_T;

  So, here’s one more picture. I think I did this right before I started RE again, so it’s been sitting on my table since then all lonesome, and I do like it so it’s a pity I forgot about it so thoroughly. xD At long last, here’s a mini vesion of it:

  
  I LOOOVE how Danyil looks in this. And I love Ingrid’s jacket and skirt but not her face. And I love Micah’s touk and the tree Danyil’s leaning against. Ha. But I don’t know if I actually want to try to color it ’cause the colors probably look better in my head than I could put them on paper.

  There! A nice, full, pictureful entry for the last day of 2009. Yay! 🙂

  friday 25 december at 8:19pm

  (Merry Christmas!)

  Okay. Way too many delightful things am I freaking out on at the moment!
  First, I’m watching PotC III and have a humongous crush on Commodore/Pirate/Admiral James Norrington. 🙂 (Will TUrner is also a nasty, sexy bastard in the third movie.) And I just got to that beautiful scene when he sacrifices himself to save Elizabeth, so I fangirled out a little about that.
  Second, my awesome fantabulous parents bought me the art book for “The Princess and the Frog” for Christmas — totally surprised me, and of course it totally rocks. And my head kind of like explodes with the ecstasy I get from the thought of thoughtful, fantastic, heartfelt, intentional traditional animation.
  Lastly, an awesome group of people dedicated to the maintenance of an awesome manga translated a prequel/side-story to the heartbreakingly discontinued, phenomenal manga by Kaori Ozaki, Immortal Rain. And I have just gotten my hands on the download of this translated side-story. And am fangirling out over it. Gah. I can’t even explain how much I admire her work. I swear, she fueled so much of my drawing over the years. So I took a shot from it that made me lol (it’s a rare breed of pure genius which can combine simple, elegant images with both a gripping, intense story with wit and playfulness).

  So!
  Let me wipe the drool off my chin and once again wish you all a Merry Christmas. But more importantly, I’d like to wish Jesus a HAPPY BIRTHDAY; He surrendered Himself to the bonds of a human body approximately this day 2006 years ago! 🙂

  sunday 20 december at 4:12pm
  OH MY GOSH THIS LAYOUT HAS BEEN SUCH A PAIN IN THE BUTT. T_T;
  First the picture had me screaming because I had an awful time with the coloring (the lines, meanwhile, were done before I’d realized I started drawing), and then I just couldn’t get utterly simple coding done without much screaming at the computer. My poor mother stopped responding to my snarling after a while. Ha.
  But! I love the way they all look in the image, which doesn’t always happen. 😀
  Now I’m watching PotC II. And. Um. Am going to go. Stop working on stupid layouts for a while (since I’m done. … Damn it, except for the pictures stylesheet. T_T)

  thursday 17 december at 9:05am

  Oh! Gravity
  Why can’t we
  Keep it together?

  Whew! It’s really hard to believe I made it through the semester. And that I only have one more semester at Bethany (but I’m still okay with that).

  So! I have a couple items of business! Some of them are relatively interesting, too. 😀 😀

  The first is that I finally took a picture of the piece from 3D Design (WHICH I ONLY GOT A B+ IN GARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR) which I’m most proud of (and has gotten a LOOOT of compliments, since it was in the art show…not that I need the ego boost e.e;).
  It’s made out of plaster, so the whole thing probably weighs about 7 or 8 pounds, and it’s sooo tangible <3

   

  The whole thing was inspired because of the first one — the one to the right of normal Hello Kitty. They were all SUPPOSED to look more like her, the normal one. But it’s really easy to mess up how full the cast is depending on how quickly the plaster is drying. So the first one had a bunch of holes in its head and I thought it was rather sinister, and I was like “Hey, it could be zombie Hello Kitty!” And I think the only reason my teacher went along with it is because I sincerely believed I could thus pull it off. xD Painted with acrylics.

  Furthermore! I sort of farted out (ew) a bunch of pictures lately and of course I’ve been focusing on Redefining Evil (when am I not?). But I also wanted to work on a new layout (it’s about that time). And after completing a decent picture or two of the RE gang, I randomly sat down and did this image of Myoku with a foreshorted finger pointing at the “camera” and then BAM this whole picture fell into place, and it’s really cool-ish and I think it’ll make a good layout. 😀

  …And I have the pencil version of it scanned in now, but I don’t think I’m gonna put it up. xD

  This’ll be fun!

  friday 04 december at 3:47pm

  I can’t believe…two months have gone by with me meaning to write in this journal. o___o;
  Seriously. I remember few days where I didn’t think to myself, “man, I really gotta get that art journal updated…”
  See, I really have few and far between to actually comment on as far as art goes, though. I’m finding (I guess) that one thing about art education is that it makes art more of an everyday aspect of life, rather than something special that you go out of your way to do and perform. Like, my 3D Design class. In ways, I’ve produced some impressive stuff in it. A clay bust (my friend thinks it looks weird…it’s because my neck broke twice, and the second time I put it back together, well, I had to…shift it a bit.) But it’s impressive in sort of a…class-oriented type way. Not so much a personal way. My teacher gives us very strict instructions on what to do with our assignments. There’s very little freedom. And…uh…if you’re the type of person (like me) who finds freedom in art…having that taken away leaves very poor tastes in your mouth.

  Anyway,
  I have a couple things I could show, but one of them isn’t quite finished, and then I’d have to scan it in. >_>;
  And I’m tired and lazy right now…
  So, here’s this thing from Wordle.net, which takes a chunk of text and breaks it down into…prettiness o.o

  
  I took the epilogue of Redefining Evil and put it in there, because I didn’t know what other chunk was neat enough to PLOP IN THERE. I wanted to see if the words I used in my story looked pretty. x]
  And did you know that Courier New, which is the font that comes up as default in Notepad, in which I am writing, makes it so that levery letter takes up the same amount of space? Yup. It’s true. And spaces take up the space of a whole letter too.

  OOOKAY.

  So this journal entry has actually taken me ALL. DAY. To write. But I’m reaching my goal! Right now I’m scanning that aforementioned picture. And I’m also starting to get my homework together. >_> And I drew a little picture for my desk. So…ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

  I blame Facebook. Usually. Other times I just stop moving and I stare off into space. Hm. Okay but the picture.

  So it’s not really…good, per se; I mean, I’ve done better. Composition-wise and humor-wise and content-wise. BUT. It…I’m easing myself back into some old ways which got lost in the wayside of my transition into school. Namely, my religious convictions (holy CRAP what a battle) and my artwork (which are always strangely interlocked).
  I’m so hung up on Redefining Evil (hmm…religious convictions + creative outlet…), and this is the first finished group picture I’ve done since I got to school. It’s hard to channel my energies to stuff like this. =/

  Anyway…Danyil duct-taped Sotoka-Khepri as the Evereauxs (new name for the Satos…they’re French now, and I’ve thus interjected a French phrase/attitude here and there, because I’m actually familiar with the culture & language (unlike my superficial familiarity with Japanese)) look on. 😀

   

  OKAY WOW I think I got to everything I wanted to. Well…except for.
  I’ve been working on this for a few weeks, and it’s sort of done — I turned my attention to that RE picture. But it’s also up on the pictures page (as a pencil drawing). So here’s the inked version. I digitally colored it but stopped halfway through, and this black and white one has more OOMPHHHH.

  
  And GOSH I love Chantal and Danyil…but more physically than anything…’cause Chantal with him is kind of annoying…and…Danyil with anyone is FLAMIN’ HOT (even my straight-laced, non-animation-oriented friends go “…he’s a beast”/”…can i have one?” when they saw this).

  Yay. 😀
  Journal entry. 😀

  It’s two weeks from the end of my first semester here — I’ve decided I’m changing schools next year, and at the moment I am intensely challenging myself to achieve a very good GPA and good grades this semester, since this whole semester I’ve complained “it’s so easy, it’s so easy” — if I don’t get good grades (History is my only main concern, and I suppose Psych and Christianity), I’ll kill myself — as in “MARY, YOU HYPOCRITICAL IDIOT, NEXT TIME BE HUMBLE.” Haha.
  Also, next weekend is the premiere of “The Princess and the Frog”, Disney’s first traditionally animated movie in many, many long movies. I’m gonna see it opening day HECK TO THE YES. 😀
  And strangely enough, I am still quite adamant on pursuing art. I had three pieces from my 3D Design class mandatory for showing in the Art Show — my bust; a snail made out of a frying pan, bike seat, flower pot, souvenir cup, salt shaker, CDs, a camping cup and two knitting needles; and a plaster cast of five molds of Hello Kitty — 4 of which are zombies attacking the 5th (that one’s my masterpiece). But surprisingly, I got a few compliments on my stupid snail. Ha.

  WOW. BIG JOURNAL ENTRY. (This is so refreshing to me!)

  Well, I’m going to go write today’s writing challenge (the prompt is “quintessence”). And then possibly revise some papers for College Composition. And then read Pyschology. It does sound good…but I’ve been quite low energy today (I hammered three fingers, ricocheted two blocks of wood off a table saw, and almost messed up a bandsaw in my attempt to be good in 3D Design today…that’s a mood killer) and have little desire to do ANYTHING. =/

  YAAAAAY I’m going to go get all these pictures & files uploaded now. And then…well I probably won’t get much done tonight — I should just accept that. >_>

  (p.s….I started this journal entry at 11:30, then came back after 3D Design…and now finally finished up at 8:13 pm)

  saturday 17 october at 9:07pm

  a spontaneous thought.

  Whenever someone is thinking about being saved, whether it be in song, art, story…
  A different tone is adopted.
  One of earnesty and urgency.

  I think it’s because no matter how much someone can make something up,
  we all really want to be saved.
  I think that’s God’s way of trying to help us towards Christ — one of the ways that everyone knows the message of the cross.

  we all want to be rescued.

  tonight i’m gonna choose to thank the One who’s rescued me.

  [[in other news: i’m revising Redefining Evil. for some reason i just can’t shake this silly project.

  also: Acalasia (the band whose song “Save Me” inspired this thought) ROCKS]]

  friday 09 october at 10:49pm

  if the definition of insanity is
  repeating the same behaviors [and expecting different results]
  then i might just be in trouble

  — emo evening. just been doodling and breaking my neck over 3D Design lately. nothing extremely artsy.

  monday 21 september at 1:36 pm

   

  …My psychology notes rock.

  sunday 20 september at 7:53 pm
  Sooo things have been crazy and only mildly artistic.
  I want to blow my clay bust up with a bazooka but it doesn’t really need my help being destroyed. This last week my hollowed out neck collapsed twice and is ruining the whole process of being FREAKING SUCCESSFUL on this stupid bust. So that SUCKS. ‘Cause I’ll be feeling good about it, and I was like detailing my hair, and my face is perfect, and then all of a sudden my chin had collapsed onto my chest and garrr. It’s really amusing if you take away the context of this though. “I broke my neck” or “my neck collapsed” or “I wanna blow my head up with a bazooka” although that last one is borderline suicidal. xD
  Anyway what else. Well, I have awesome friends here and everything, and one of them asked me to draw them, and I was like meh, and then I was like WAIT I’LL DRAW ALL OF YOU. And so for about a half hour they sat on someone’s bed and alternated between posing and laughing hysterically at their craziness. It involved hitting heads on corners of desks and my yelling when people would move when I was drawing their face/bodies. xD
  Top-Bottom;Left-Right: Rachel, Karen, Katie, Christina & Lindsay & Lydia. Mah girls.

   

  So that was fun. But beyond that I haven’t drawn much. I did a crazy wide-eyed dude last night but it was pretty half-hearted.

  Meh. I don’t know how to compose my thoughts tonight. My laptop is hot on my lap garrr.

  And I don’t want to go to class tomorrow just because I feel like such a freaking scatterbrain. Bleh.

  monday 31 august at 6:39 pm
  So the only super artsy thing I have to report is that I love college. Why does this have to do with art? It does, like, completely. xD
  Bethany is a liberal arts school to the T. Everything on campus permeates a respect and love for art. There is art all over and I have so many art friends already. It makes me squeal. And I’m in a 3D Design class and the first thing we’re doing is a self-portrait with clay. I’ve never worked with clay! It’s crazy! It’s so messy so that you feel every bit of the work you’re doing because your hands just get covered in it. Here’s my bust so far — we have to make it precisely proportional as well.

  
  As in, like, taking precise measurements of your face with calipurs and making sure they match on the bust. And I didn’t know that before you use clay you have to…m-something it, basically you have to knead it to get all the air bubbles out, otherwise it’ll explode when you fire it.
  And in general, I feel like my artisticness matters so much more. 🙂 I can say nerdy artsy things and people admire it. xD My friends LIKE hearing about my stories.
  And now my computer is gonna die so I’m gonna quick upload this.

  tuesday 25 august at 9:07 am (earlier than the previous journal entry) (and it’s early ’cause IT’S A SCHOOL DAY. … too bad there’s not more to do.)
  Soooo here I am, a college student! Everything has changed but yet everything sort of feels the same.
  I was really mad at God last night (this morning) because there was a huge storm and I’m on the 5th floor and our THREE windows were facing the direction of the wind, so it was like blasting rain against the windows and scared the shit out of me, no joke =/
  Needless to say I’m short on sleep and am now bored until 12:30 and I don’t feel like mingling with people today. =/

  That’s the thing – either you find new people to sit down and socialize with, or else you’re alone. bah.

  Nothing artsy to report ’cause I haven’t had the presence of mind to do anything.
  Including reading. =/
  I can’t even read. =/
  This is the first webdesign/art/writing related thing I’ve done since I read briefly Sunday evening.
  Blah. =/
  …
  I’m going to go journal now.

  friday 21 august at 9:35 am (earliest journal entry in a long time o.o) Okay so I’ve been hella busy preparing for college. And I leave tomorrow. Well, that’s not true…not hella busy. But all of my down time has been spent enthusiastically (no joke) revising Farewell, Fairytale.

  cause you’re all i want
  you’re all i need
  you’re everything
  everything
  and how can i stand here with you
  and not be moved by you
  would you tell me how could it be
  any better than this
  
  -lifehouse; everything
  (Excuse me. xD I’m litsening to that song and that was my favorite part; I had to transcribe it.)
  I think my mom is singing in German. o.O
  Umm anyyywaaay. Yeah my house is all abuzz. And yesterday I moved all my boxes of stuff from the spare room to the living room, closer to the door, and this is what it looked like:
   

  Yesss: Howl’s Moving Castle poster, lampposts somewhere in France poster, COW PLUSHIE up on the top there (almost didn’t bring it…couldn’t resist; it’s from Kyra <3), and a lot, a lot of pink (not evident…but just trust me.)
  So that was sort of exciting. o.o; I re-packed all the boxes after that picture and they all fit on my kitchen table; it’s not quite so chaotic then. I keep going back and forth thinking I have way too MUCH stuff to thinking I’m going to be totally sparce. o.o

  SHOOT! Oh. I’ll take a picture of him. >D
  haha, okay, so I still crave visual images even though I’m happy with the written version of Farewell, Fairytale, so here’s a drawing I did of Fyodor when he comes back to Sophie in the end in Earth clothes:

  
  Excuse the “Om Nom Nom”; I wasn’t expecting to like him myself, but with both Kyra and Mike noticing that Sophie is essentially me, Mary, it’s followed that Fyodor is the kind of guy I want in my life right now. (And now that I think about it, I think he has personality traits like my friend Mike…shh don’t tell) xD So I have a crush on him.

  And then as I was working on it last night, I had to sketch something out to try to get a handle on how it would result in the story, and here’s my awesome drawing:

  
  Hahaha. Looks like my drawing abilities have gone drastically downhill now that I’ve been writing instead. xDDDD

  Lastly, I did color the picture that was in the last entry but obviously I haven’t gotten my lazy butt around to making it into a map for the stories section (image mapping in Paint Shop Pro is SOOO tedious T_T). But here’s the colored version.
  

  I like it because it has the sun-going-down tones that I want, but otherwise I find it kind of strange, which probably hasn’t helped motivate me into making a map out of it. Sotoka-Khepri, in the black and red striped hoodie climbing the lamppost, is totally my favorite part of this. o.O; I love him. He’s so interesting. xD And those are little anchors on Myoku’s shirt front and center. … Lots of little anchors. e.e;

  Okay. Well this entry is now chock-full of pictures. :]

  Another note: I got me some purple plaid duct tape 😀 😀 😀 😀
  And went crazy:

  
  That’s my journal and the thing on top is my colored pencil case. xD I’m resisting the urge to plaid-ify more things because I don’t want to get sick of it. xDD

  Aaaaaaaaahaha I’m just so excited. And I am glad I’m majoring in Art right now, even if I go back and forth from feeling like it’s useless. It may be, but it’s sweet release for me and it’s also my great passion. That’s why I had to make Fyodor. And that’s why I have to draw out my characters like in that twilight-ish picture. Visualization of the things in my head keeps me sane. x]

  Mmkay. I think I’m gonna push the older entries back into the “Older Entries” page (WOW what logic) so that this mammoth entry doesn’t make this page horrendously mammoth. Good plan, good plan.

  I’M GOING TO BE DORMIRING IN A DORM TOMORROW NIGHT buahahaha.

  (I probably won’t feel so buahaha tomorrow night.)

  sunday 09 august at 6:29 pm

  Trying to figure out how to work on a few exciting things.
  I finally produced a good “cast” picture of the main characters from all my story – it’s not as full as the one that’s up right now, but I’ve been working on for like, a week and a half (most of that time was spent staring at it with disdain) and fianlly finished the linework today, and I just like it. However, I don’t know how I want to color it. 🙁 So I’m sort of doing digital color…but I don’t have a program to do the lineart with right now, so I’m just doing overlays, and then the lineart loses a lot of its precision. So I dunno what to do, and so I’ll sit on the lineart for a bit and see if anything brilliant comes to me. Or else I just won’t ever do anything else to it and will probably continue using the current character page. T_T;

  So here’s the picture:

  
   

  And also…bleh I want to add more pages to the characters map anyway, like one dedicated to the Myoku, Bakura & Eripmav trio (they’re totally my most consistent characters, hands down…and they’ve had such an influence on me outside of my stories) but I don’t really know how to go about doing that. The sheer immensity scares me. ‘Cause they’ve shown up in so many places, so assembling a detailed page would involve much hunting, scanning and distraction. >_>;

  Iiii feeel like a buuum.

  Also…in preparation for college (13 effing days — I got the count wrong last time I mentioned it xD), my mom and I were doing laundry downstairs and I decided to go through my MONGO UNTOUCHED HOODIE COLLECTION ranging from back when that’s all I wore (middle school) to some that I had just simply forgotten about.
  While doing so, one particular hoodie I’d simply forgotten about sent me careening back into nostalgia.

   

  BAHAH you see, I made this hoodie…with fabric paint…in, like, sixth grade, maybe…with Ana, Kyra and Marina. And somehow I managed to hang onto it all these years.
  And yeah it’s cool that it’s a design and everything…but the important thing about this, is that it’s the hoodie that Myoku first wore when his style echoed my style and I wore hoodies all the time. It says “Fyre” with a backwards E, cool right, and then on the top of the pocket it did say MyoMyo, until I ripped off the first M and laughed because then it said “Yo, Myo”.
  And on the butt it said Atem. So this was before Myoku even became a Sato in Nikkei. xDDD WOW.
  This thing is SOOOO sentimental to me. Like fer real. So I took a picture with the intention of doing a blog about it. Hehe.

  When I’m approaching change, I tend to delve back into the past, because it’s safer, and I’ve gotten through anything that’s already happened…and so this hoodie came as a real comfort to me. Blah. I’m such a wreck. :[

  saturday 08 august at 11:28 am

  
  

  thursday 06 august at 8:59 pm (sixteen days to my departure to BLC!)

  “What was it you said you were gonna do to me? Hang me from my toes on a flagpole? …Well, here’s how I feel about that.”

  wednesday 05 august at 10:12 pm

  sometimes
  i       feel like
  a very
  odd
  little girl.
  that’s all.

  monday 03 august at 10:14 pm I think “August” is my favorite month to write…too bad it’s after Cesar Agustus, who was an ass. >>;
  Sort of like Eripmav’s new character in FF, Danr…real ass. But he’s gonna get his ass whupped.
  I think 3 uses of “ass” fills my swearing quotia for the rest of August.
  I might excuse myself the day I move into college, though. >_>
  Gahhh my spacebar is sticky. D:
  Anyway, pictures:

  
   

  So the first of that first one I love. New sunglasses that I bought after having put on those green earrings this morning, so it was kind of a cute coincidence and picture-worthy. I also got really excited when I made my camera focus on the lines on the earring (using some sort of flower tool focus).
  That second one is less awesome, more of the same.
  And the third one is a mutilated picture of me wearing them. xD When I noticed my posters took up most of the picture…well, I got excited. xD

  Also note:
  I recently found out that my FAVORITE MANGA SERIES EVER, Immortal Rain,
  Is basically being discontinued in print, which basically means that the Japanese version will stay Japanese and I’ll never get to finish the series.
  I was REALLY bummed.
  I was busy today and didn’t feel like it tonight, but I’m planning on putting a few of my favorite shots from the manga in here as a little tribute.
  Really bummed. =/

  Oh, and check out the awesome desktop background I have right now (get one like it here):

   

  friday 31 july at 2:01 pm The most exciting news I have right now is that Bakura finally gets his British accent back in Farewell, Fairytale. 😀 And I was thinking earlier today about the amazing fact that Bakura has played consistently good characters (except his descent into madness as Caiaphas) ever since he left the “sadistic tomb robber” persona behind. His character in this one, Find (love that, strange or no), is a British scholar who stumbled across the discovery of Caelum, the world Fyodor’s from, and he learned how to travel to and from it (complicated and secret). His information ends up saving Dee and Soph from becoming totally helpless because of Fyodor. 😀

   

  Here’s a picture I did in the last 10 minutes…which I was too lazy to scan in, or even color properly…sooo it’s a picture I took with my phone of a lineless colored pencil drawing which I then glossed over with PSP so that it didn’t look as crappy. xDD But I love the silhouette of Find’s lizard (a krellef…yeah.). He’s supposed to be “white gold” but he turned out more…gold. xD
  Good thing I’m writing this story. xDDD
  Anyway yeah, I started writing this way earlier today and sort of thus ran myself out of steam. But I really do like Find’s character. Really a lot. gahhh Bakura makes me squeal. (And even though Chad totally fell prey to fame, he — at least vocally and…l’aire d’homme — still represents Kura.

  sunday 26 july at 8:17 pm

  Today marks 5 years since Cinnamin’s untimely death. I’m not sad, it’s just weird that 5 years have passed, since his life and death are, after all, what inspired so much about Nikkei…including that scene where he’s sleeping so soundly that Shani and Myoku do what I used to do when cinnamin did. It could practically pass for animal cruelty. xD I’d like, mess with his limbs and make up stories about what he was dreaming about and stuff. xD ‘Cause his whole body would go limp too. Hoshi doesn’t do that nearly as much as he did, and I have no idea if Misty does. xD
  But yeah…it’s just surreal. I kept meaning to make a commemorative picture for him today, of all the Nikkei characters, but I went to Valleyfair yesterday and lost all my energy so I didn’t do anything productive like that today. xD
  But r.i.p., Cinnamin [Toast Crunch]/Nikkei Kamikudaku-Sato…I’ll never forget you. 🙂

  wednesday 15 july at 6:17pm
  You’d think I’d update this MORE come summer…but I’ve been finding plenty of other, less productive (yes, less) things to do with my time…
  I’m at work on a new story. Right now it’s called either “Farewell, Fairytale” or “Farewell to the Fairytale”, preferably the first one, though I like the length of the second better.
  It’s inspired by my failures at having crushes on boys, unfortunately. xD I’ve finally convinced myself (it’s taken WAY longer than it should have) that I should learn to do without a boy — or the thought of one. I’ve become much happier in that regard since then, being able to enjoy more relationships. So this story is my working it out, with, of course, more drama, a touch more romance than I’m used to, and lots of elements from lots of different stories I’ve read before (“Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”, “The Leap”, “Chronicles of Narnia”, “A Wrinkle in Time”, and every fairytale involving a prince charming or a cursed man).
  Plus, a slew of returning characters (I took a break from reusing many characters in …Whispered the River, and I had fun with that, but I needed the familiarity of experienced characters): Myoku (well duh), Mikara, Shani, Eripmav, Bakura (a recent addition – he’ll be in the upcoming scene…as a scholarly lizard) andddd Elodie’s premiere as a mainmain character! 🙂
  So already I’ve got a lot of heart in this story, both due to subject content (Mikara’s character, Sophie, is the main character, a girl like me who has to let go of a “romance” that isn’t helping her) and of course the familiar presence of so many of my dearest characters. I feel like already it’s a much more mature story than many of my other efforts.

  As for the discarded “The Spirits and the Children” story, well, I discarded that once before, so maybe it’s not over. As I recall, I discarded it after deciding to pick up “Rebels” again (which worked out beautifully). I feel a little leery about expecting this story to stick right after expecting the Spirits story to stick, so I’ve been meaning to glance through the pages I had done of that and see if there are noticable differences between this effort and that one…but I don’t know how helpful that would actually be.

  Either way, I’m 25 pages into this story, and am still enjoying myself. Weaving plots is a little more difficult than I remember, and some of my images turn out really wonky, but it’s exciting to be working on a manga after some 6 months since I finished the (sort of) failed …Whispered the River (which I should try to start referring to as TCoaRH…but that’s soooo looonnng).

  As for the rest of my life, I keep forgetting I’m going to be studying art in school now. It’ll be interesting. I also leave for school in 38 days. 38 DAYS! That’s just over a month! It feels like I was dreaming about it as if it were a year away just yesterday. And now it’s literally just around the corner.

  Phew…I got pretty rant-y with this!
  Well, here are a few shots from FF (…not Final Fantasy e.e):