Idle...

Flipped trough the LotR book and tried drawing that picture of Galadriel.



Turned out bad. Overdid the face again... and the bg is just wierd and undefined, should have referred to some photos of trees. Ann was pointing to the picture in the book, saying she looks like Mother Mary... And when I was painting it, it sort of reminded me of this old picture I painted way back...



Ah well... Wrote down all that I need to do by the end of the semester... Judging from the time I have in my hands... yes, things can be done by then... but the two that pose more of a problem are none other than that sociology course and the coming art history exam.....

Xiu said she might be going for the honours in Australia... Guess it's gonna be another year to seeing her again... Nvm, gogogo! Study one more year, I get another year of bursary since you ain't working. Weeee~~ $1600! (Jia you! ;D)

...Start from 1 again

Random doodle of Deedlit after re-reading one Lodoss War book....



A portrait of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) following a Lord of The Rings book I borrowed from school. Just sketching what I see....

...And yea... sian arrh. Idea kena rejected... As usual... I dunno what really interests me... Just like to stare into blank space and look around whatever.... Beautiful cos it looks nice to me.... Argh. Why is me head so empty...

Zar shirt done!

Recieved a message from hell this morning, forwarded to my phone by Siew Khim... Chris was back for the day to review the spoon assignment... and I did nothing since the last time I consulted him 2 weeks ago. Anyways, that kind of set the tone for the day.... T_T Didn't go out with mum and the kids to buy stuff and sat at home, carving my spoons away from clay. Two hours later, the spoon snapped into two. Haiz.... went back to maple and realised it's 2x exp. Not at all in the chionging mood, but somehow, losing 6% and grinding at a low speed of 1% per 5 minutes at my level is far less torturous than facing the spoon....

Went back to reality after that and found that I should go get more clay. Travelled down to popular in Westmall and got that. In the meantime, I found a small set of fabric paints there and grabbed it off the shelf too. It's pretty cheap... but when it comes to art materials... what you give is what you get... which makes me wonder what's the level of permanance of these paints, but heck, I didn't want to invest in professional fabric paints since I don't paint shirts most of the time... It's just for fun anyway.



My messy workdesk...



The color is bright now, but I wonder if it can take the first wash...? Yea, me planning to wear it! Whahahaha..... hope the original picture is still ok... Sent the Gaurdian Angel pic to my sis a few days ago, wonder if it's on the way? Kind of worried that they'll fold the package... shoulda wrote somethign there to warn those postmen...

Oh yea, played that plane with those two kids today! It's pretty funnnn!! Me threw that plane down from the second storey and it kind of flew up a bit before it went crashing down. Somehow, it's nice to see them giggling away (especially away from the tv and computer screen), and Ting joined us with the fun. Wanted to get Dad down to the field too, but as usual, he's being a potato in front of the tv... Maybe another time...

Airplane!

2nd try on this picture by jounetsu_no_akai of mangarev. Haiz.. the first attempt failed in illustrator. The idea in my head was one of a 'rendered skintone and graphical-everything-else'. Guess photoshop is still better for this job, or maybe I haven't explored combining both and finding another alternative... Anyways, set out to search online what the flower was, and with the help of mum, managed to identify it as the Red Spider Lily, in jap, Higanbana (华语：曼珠沙华). It's quite interesting, the legend behind this flower, which kind of set the mood for this entire picture. Looked up Hokusai's Ukiyo-e for the jap style, and refered to Tsukiko Amano's 'Chou' mtv for the mood and feel. Somehow, it looked more like Jigoku Shojo... (Didn't really give the series much attention...). Thinking of changing some stuff, the most erroneous maybe... a higabana themed kimono... lol... most prob would come back to this picture after sometime.

And found something interesting after finding out that there was no art class (again) this evening!


XDXDXD Talk about a childhood deprived of these simple toys... Mum never liked us buying toys. I remember seeing other children playing those styrofoam planes with cool army designs on it and wanting to buy one for myself... T_T But when mum found out I bought stuff other than food, she would deduct my pocket moneh... So I didn't quite dare to buy last time... Now those two kids too can't buy toys. Haha, mum had her reasons, but I wondered... I'm now a biggie child, and I ain't getting pocket money from her anyways, why not just buy those cheap ones I've never played before and let those kids have a chance to play too? At least when they grow up, maybe they don't own the toy, but at the very least, they played such things before?



Haha, the design was something Ann urged me to draw. I was wondering what design for the wings, and she just say 'draw rainbow lah!' Haha, guess she really fell in love with rainbows eversince that day a double rainbow appeared pretty clearly in the evening sky. So anyhow sketched a rainbow on the wings with some clouds at the tail.... XDXDXDXDXDXD Now we just gotta wait till tomorrow and we go fly the plane in the field!!! XDXDXD (Hey, it worked at home yea! XD)

Guess I won't be updating with so much artwork these days... I realised I have yet to start on any of the final year projects and there's piles of notes waiting to be read... Omigosh... I totally flung my Understanding Sg Society paper... >_< Gotta buck up... Dun wanna suffer brain damage for another semester of random philosophy...

The Tees are Done!

Yeap, the shirts are finally done! Whew... it's been a pretty tiring 3 week period of scrubbing, washing, getting hand stained with paint and getting all panic and worry over the deadline... But hey, it's pretty fun, and it's really cool to see the shirts of everyone else all done and lined up to dry! Maybe should get my spoiled camera to work and snap them pictures the next week.


The first one that was done! Kind of like the hearts there. Though many said this was the nicest of the three... still think it doesn't look very good....



I like this one personally. Must have been the contrast... And not to mention that it's the only one that didn't suffer 'accidents'.... The rest of the shirts caught some paint in some areas.... Sad...



The white in the green part kind of spoiled it... but I didn't care much about it... cos time was running out. Thought of re-doing... but it's gonna be sooooo.... troublesome... since it's three layers, meaning that I'll have to wash and scrub the screen 2 times to do it... :/ Might as well lend the time and screen to others who have yet to finish their project.

And something extra, just to satisfy myself... XD



It was rushed out.. so didn't consider much about the design and stuff. Grabbed a picture that I like and set it to black and white, print transparency, screen it, print shirt. The shirt caught some yellow paint unfortunately... wonder if bleaching would help..? Anyways, wanna go get some fabric paints and paint it! Also, me wanna try out shoe painting that HY suggested! Would be really fun!!! XDXDXD

Drawing Mum!

Haiz... stayed up to the late night to do another new piece. This time, I revised my makeshift easel... partly cos the 'model' is in the living room, and the old angle couldn't capture much of the pose.



The new makeshift easel! Made of the wooden armchair and kitchen wood chair stacked up. I wanted to use the foldable table as the board, but mum gave a better alternative with a pretty big wooden board that was kept outside the house. To prevent sliding of the board, I clipped two bull clips onto the wooden chair, and it did the job! I could even adjust the angle of the board! XD It was far better than the taping paper to the door method. No shadows to obstruct my drawing process, and the charcoal powder doesn't end up on my face...



And the model is watching CSI.... XD Mum fell asleep halfway, but her pose was kept there even when she sleeps.



The picture came out far better than the previous one... Must have been the details of the environment.... One thing though... the variations of tones are really lacking.. Too black. Maybe something to work on for the next last two life drawing sessions in school :)

The tune that is Final Fantasy...

Saw Genzoman's newest Tifa picture and with a few links in the commentary, one of it to this video. I've never really heard the victory fanfares of the oldest games, and the newest ones too... Was really shocked with FF X-2's, it didn't sound pleasing to me as a victory fanfare... no feel of winning... but come to think about it and recalling the images I see of the game, I thought the feel it gives kind of suits the game in the end (hehe, I've never played it before anyway...) although it didn't give a 'winning' feel there. Dor told me about how bad XII's music was, but hey, the fanfare wasn't so bad. Kind of captured that XII spirit. VIII's was unique and my fingers just go tapping to the beat. VII's didn't sound very good unless one starts seeing the gil and exp numbers rolling on the screen (ahh... the feel good factor it gives). IX... feels so IX.... >_< How I miss the games.....

Uggh, The Brain.

Just something that I found while cleaning up by computer today...



I found it particularly interesting that one could see the cross section of the human brain in that picture by Michelangelo. Who would have thought of that but someone who deals with the brain all the time? Haha, come to think of it, it's the golden time of Rennaissance that we're looking at here, rite? Went on to find a bit more about the picture and dug up one interesting webbie that expanded on that discovery. The wikipedia article too talked a bit about it, and another interesting dig. Interesting interesting... Maybe I can use this for my upcoming assignment...

(midnight now...)Spent the rest of the night slaving over the drawing assignment.... Since I didn't do it on friday, I told myself that I must get it done by saturday! And yea! >_< tried to solve the easel problem, which was pretty easy when I saw the bedroom doors. They are pretty flat surfaced, and since I needed a large space, I just taped the paper to the door and draw. And yea, the makeshift easel is fixed, so I had to be pretty sure of the angle I'm drawing... Since I'm right handed.. the only door that qualifies for the task was the kids' bedroom door... (cos the sitter is in the living room...). The kids just go in and out of the room, which was pretty troublesome for them cos I need the door closed in order to draw... Yang complained to Ting that it was annoying...T_T

Wanted to draw my sister first, but she proved to be a tough model to deal with... especially being all hyped up about Liverpool winning ManU, kissing the TV and sort. I learnt my lesson not to draw people watching sports... So changed my target.

Aunty Peck was sitting there, pretty still, so yea, draw arrr! There goes 1 and half hours... Of course, didn't make her sit there for me throughout, so told her she could move around if she wants after about 20 minutes. Her actions are small, and she doesn't move around much (as compared to soccer-frenzy Ting...). And finally, manage to finish the picture! Not the best... and many errors, but the feeling of drawing something so big at home is pretty good. And messy.

Drawing people who are drawing!

Did a quick watercolor sketch of my friends in school today. They are busy drawing away, nyak nyak, and since I'm free, why not? XD Didn't manage to capture Siew Khim tho... Had some hard time figuring what colors to use too...

Went back home, hand itched to do some cg... tried to continue with a previous picture drawn by someone else, in which I tried to color pick an old master painting's colors and use it on the piece, but failed pretty badly there:



Couldn't quite get out of the problem, so closed it, and started something new. Chose a picture by Spoony of mangarev, and tried coloring it with my own colors. I was thinking about the previous cardcaptor picture I did in 2003 and used similar colors there, adding a bit of red instead. Turns out pretty well.



Thought about textures more this time... though I'm still wondering how else to use it...? Maybe I'll figure that out in the holidays when I'm free to do my own stuff... heck, I seem to be indulging in my own stuff even during school period... the schoolwork are starting to be neglected...

Twinkle twinkle little star... how much wonders you make nia...

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=57188988188

Just something cute that my sis showed me. She was laughing, but I found it really cool nia...how they manage to fit so many tunes to just a simple song. Having done a project with indian music, kind of appreciate the music more. XD Enjoy ba! (awe at it! Dun laugh ah!) And ya, only if you have a facebook account, that is...

Walking Contradiction...

Comic that I did after carving one spoon model out. (Short attention span, lol...) Had some nice time reminiscing the past, but heck, what's over is over, although must admit, some things are just not meant to be forgotten. You'll just keep going back to it, maybe cos that was something that played an important part in shaping you into the current self...? Whatever heh... that short comic wasn't finished. Inspired by my own contradictory self... talk about a firey-water horoscope... shocked me a while there, but at least I know I ain't alone XD. The style was something I wanted to try out eversince I saw Yina's concept arts for her 'Fishing' project few years back (check out the piccie here!) After sometime, I found myself staring into blank space for a couple of minutes and decided to leave the story there. A personal animation potential maybe, lol...

End up drawing this after that. Wanted to try the chinese sort of brush again, with some washes of paint after inking. Yea, anatomy problems are gonna haunt me... And when did I have a habit of putting a spot after a couple of brushstrokes? hmm.....

Oh! The miserable spoon.... XD

Random rants

"people are always running around feeling sorry for them selves boo hoo dis boo hoo that and while they are busy feeling sorry for themselves they dont see the good around them because people like you are given them suport for being miserable... in this world... the real world you have to put your happiness first... if dont you'll be miserable and make other around you miserable.. i know people that dont have nuttin to eat back in brasil.. no job no hope for the future all they have is the ability to make themselves happy... and they didnt get that way by people tellin them fairy tails their happy because they were able to see they good in a bad situation... now days kids and teen dont even have the courage to live... because they were made soft by others... if you not willin to do what it take to make youself happy why are you living at all.. what for what.. to be accepted you have to accept yourself first and make peace with youself.. if all you get is lemons make your self a nice cold lemonade"

(http://forum.psychlinks.ca/showthread.php?t=14280)

Just something I found while trying to look up on self-pity... Been pretty frustrated with this issue, and I see kids unconsciously being influenced by these thoughts of self pity... have she no idea the kids are picking up her attitudes? Or blame aside, is that signs of depression, or a failed education? Infuriating to know that one can be of a coming age and still behave like a kid. The worst is to bring it forward to the younger generation. I'm angry, yet I can't do much about it, feels as though I just hit the wall again after the struggles...

...time to think what to do.

... did I just say 'think'? -_-

Truth eh...

Didn't know what to draw for my 'daily practice', so took the original picture...



and practiced some digital painting...



Yue! XD Was surfing Deviantart and saw a picture of Yue that is painted in a semi-realistic way. Wanted to try it too, but the realism didn't stick out well. End up anyhow whack a rough painting out, a study of the lighting and a practice to get used to the digital way of painting in an hour. Looks nicer when minimized to the smallest preview on photoshop... heh. Trying to get the hang of it...

School... Haiz... the lecturer Mr Lim from Understanding Singapore module was really.... >_< philosophical. Thought it was a module of *ahem* 'understanding the sg society'... but at times, he just jumped to the most extreme randomness.

"As sociologists, we're taught to question..." and talked about the job crisis of sociologists, how hard it will be for them to survive normal jobs cos they will question the hell out of their boss during office meetings...

"If you are feeling suicidal, you gotta talk it out" (targeting the current ntu situation of suicides...) "Come talk to me. I'll tell you the many better ways of dying." (cos he and his friends had thought out a list of killing themselves in the times to come when old age illnesses sets in..)

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" and goes on proving reincarnation with some maths + physics based equation and voila! "I've lived this life before."

Some of my peers quite dislike his tone of lecture, but gotta admit that I find it really interesting going through his lectures. Certain things he mentioned were pretty true for me as a Singaporean... pragmatism, apathetic... ah well... And this time, his philosophical questions hit pretty hard. From questioning about why singaporeans work so hard, to why want success, to why want to be happy? Omg.... pull hair sia... why bother about reasoning this...(there, singaporean apathetic side coming up liao...haha)

"This is similar to that movie Matrix" the blue and red pill thing. To ignore and be happy or to find the truth, 'danger ahead' kind of thing.... I really wonder about the 'seeking truth' thing... feels as though it's on the extreme opposite of being an ignorant fool and happy. (come to think of it, if they aren't extremes but just in circles, maybe they are just side by side of each other...? nargh.. random.) Had some serious thought over there... but still decided... I haven't really lived much, haven't brought the kids to the zoo before (?), and how much time do I still have left with my parents? Ann's getting heavier everyday, how much oppurtunities do I have to carry her in my arms before she grows up? If I die not knowing the Truth, it's fine with me... maybe I'll learn it in hell, or heaven, or purgatory... or maybe I'll be back for more 'life-games'(XD), but definitely not fine if I have yet to fill my life with beuatiful moments of the people around me in this life. Even if there is reincarnation or meetings in heaven or hell, I wonder if this moment will ever be the same again? Will I still be walking the same road, meeting the same people of same roles, doing the same stuff again? Am I still me?

...whatever heck la, 'just get a life'.

Lalalalalala~

Random Chatter

Tagged along with mum and the kids to art school again. Chatted with Mr Ho regarding the current class schedules. Apparently the youth class has been changed to friday night, and they are concentrating on watercolors this time. I wanted to go back and weeks ago, but with the recent activities, I've never got to check out the Friday class. Anyways, got some tips about watercoloring from him, and I went back to test on the current color pigments I have. Yea, end up painting that tiger... Had the urge to do some detailing, hoho...

While on the way home from art school, mum was chatting to 2nd aunt about the kids. It was puzzling, how with the same 'inputs', she get different 'outputs' from us.... ah well, we three sisters all learn the same stuff: piano, art, uniform groups etc, now one is studying bones, one is taking on art and the other one is doing IT. It's amazing in a sense, cos our cousins are all doing something similar to what their siblings are doing, business, entrepreneurship etc... Haha, the good thing is, she never really forced us to continue these if we didn't like.

I had once told the piano teacher in the face that I hated piano, and the teacher gave up (never got a grade there lol)... my elder sis loved the key-banging habit so she continues, the younger one was kind of... relunctant to keep on.. the teacher was pretty harsh there I remember. Gotta admit that their commitment levels are high, one went on with Guides and the other brought the NCC group in AES to the highest point since their formation in 03... haha, I never stayed on with the Brownies group in Pri school, come to think of it, even nearing 20 years of drawing at Gradsign, I've stopped a couple of times. Dunno what I'm doing man... talk about a short attention span? (And anti-socialness....)

Ah well... I don't even know what I'm aiming for... talk about the human mind's need to identify and make sense of things... Intelligent or just trying to be intelligent... NARRRGGGGHHH.... I need to bang my head on the wall a bit.



Something old but always nice to review now and then. From Chean! XD Glory told me Chean's saving up money for the SG trip. Gotta think where to bring them before the time comes >_<

Releasing the 2009 Batch

(finally inked this... just some random picture. Guess who? XD)

NYP Fusion 09 today! So fast, it's two years since my grad show, and now I'm back to school looking at the new batch of grads. Yeap, year after year, they just get better.... the really good ones are those with great concept and technical skills. There aren't many at that level, most of them fall in the super technicals level, I feel, their handling of 3D pretty good to get them a job. Somehow, Fusion show has become a sort of wake up call for me, haha... seeing the new collegues-to-be-of-the-future's standards, I wonder where the hell do I stand? Nyp is small, adm is even smaller. I must remember to look around more...

Apart from seeing the new grads work, it's 'reunion' for the alumni. Saw many ex-dmd-ers there, heck, majority of them are from the sketch club. It's always fun to hang out with these bunch of people, talking about their current life situation. (And yea, I repeat my ntu story many times too... XD) Seems like there are some who are really gonna be in ntu the years down. After seeing the Vis comm's final project exhibition this afternoon in adm, I realised that the students in ntu are really capable of coming up with good stuff, just that they need time to get their technical skills sharpened. As for the discipline part... ah well...

Colorful Day

I realised that my hands are always stained....

lol, in a painterly way XD Today we finally printed our tees in school! Messy process, silk screen is... my hands are all paint, probably one of the most 'artistic' hands (XD). No photos though, but the tees turned out pretty cool. Seeing the designs of others really awes me. It's cool what they can come up with, and yea, it's personality written all over on those shirts XD. Too bad we couldn't finish up our project today, and I'm guessing next week, it's gonna overshoot the timing too. Hope Joyce could let us use the room longer for this shirt project. It would reap great stuff if we had more time to mess around with the equipments.

Come to think about it, so far, I've been enjoying the assignments she gave this time round. Heard from Huiying that instead of shirts, they painted shoes last year! She gave me some tips about that, maybe I'll go try it during the holidays, and yea, gonna teach her silk screen then! Deal!

After that, went all the way to buy the tix for Distant Worlds concert. >_< I wanted to wait a few days more, when the student discount of 20% comes, but seeing the tix going so fast... haiz. 10% is better than nothing I guess... XD Can't wait to see the concert, Ling told me that chances of Nobuo Uematsu coming is high, since it's the Asian Premiere of the concert. Weeeeee~ Looking forward to that!

Went for Hans Bacher's talk about composition and colors this evening, and yea, it's really interesting. Apart from all compostions of animation scenes having a meaning, his talk about color inspired me to explore more of the color palette. An old disney bg painter once told him about the color palette, that as long as the painting has red, blue and yellow, it'll look good. With that, he flashed some examples of old masters painting on the screen, followed by the color palette each painting used. And hey, there's always these three colors there, in varying degrees. The balance of triadic color scheme is really all around in the old western art. It kind of prompted me to try his method of mosiac-ing old paintings and gathering the color palette from there. Will really help when applied to my own work. Hmm.... my brain gears seem to be working now... XD (but it seems like the oil needed to move it is art-related stuff... ah well. T_T Seeing my aunt marking exam scripts of her uni students' and complaining about the standards of university students' work kind of made me wonder how the Sociology lecturer is marking my script... ...must be complaining too. >_< Either that or laughing his ass off... ah well.)

Style?

Was walking down the pathway towards the bustop one morning and saw a pot of sunflower along the way. Stopped to take a closer look! The plant kind of fascinated me, maybe cos the sunflower plant that my lecturer gave me during the Wanton Exhibition wilted even before it could flower. (T_T)

Anyways... was reading a magazine while waiting for that lecturer to 'start his classes'... The article was about the inspiration source of creative people. There's this guy who said something that kind of strikes me, that one should search out a philosophy rather than a style. Thinking about that, kind of true... Many had been talking about finding one's style, but what really 'creates' this style is the thinking behind it, the artist's belief.... I used to think if one would continue to draw in a certain way, a style will slowly emerge... but after sometime, I realised that this sort of 'style' is something that can be adopted, copied, changed if I want in time. Looking at CLAMP, their 'style' changes with every comic they draw, but there's always this feel about their artworks that is always brought forward to all their comics. Dunno how to describe... when you see a picture drawn by them, it might be in a different 'style' or medium, but you will get a feeling of 'hey, this seems familiar, now who dunnit...'. Maybe that is the real style... a philosophy. Isn't it what created the styles of different art movements?

If that is style, maybe I've somwhat found how mine is like... No wonder you have to take it slowly... lol.

Last Run of Year 1

Haven't drawn Creed in a while... I've forgotten how his costume looked like... anyhow whack. Haiz... the story is still left with many loose ends to tie... maybe look back to it someday with a fresh mind I hope.

...Goodbye hols.... T_T 4D aRrrhhhRRggghhhhh... haven't do.... if only it's as simple as writing a few random numbers....